Survival knows no good or evil, no absolutes—only choices.
When Liu Yun encountered the alien civilization, it wiped the haze from her eyes.
Eyes like crystal.
The gods had promised her a kind of light. She once wrote in her journal: *If one day, this world achieves true unity—no more "feasting behind vermilion gates while bones freeze on the streets," no more inequality—where all belong to a harmonious world, where every being finds joy... then civilization itself will be a radiance.*
The alien beings she met made the same promise. They appeared when she was at her lowest, grieving lost loved ones, pacing circles in an empty field.
Their otherworldly glow healed her. She began describing her ideal civilization to them. The gods claimed to hail from the Pleiades, whispering high-dimensional truths to her under each night sky.
*To pray—to pray as a human.*
On the Ghost Festival, she lit Kongming lanterns, each inscribed with verses, and sent them burning into the sky. *This is how humans show reverence,* she explained.
The flames climbed into the dark. Liu Yun packed away her telescope. Unseen by mortal eyes, countless ships hovered in that very night. The Pleiades marked their positions with thought, overlaying her telescope's view—a star chart only she could see, each vessel pinpointed.
Liu Yun always hid herself beneath the summer stars, in fields that belonged to freedom.
Mortal love came with conditions. But here, with the divine, she could relax, giving and receiving without fear.
Once, she asked: *When gods converse, do they take sides like humans?*
Her answers always came swiftly. This time was no exception.
*"Relationships are links—a survival strategy your civilization developed. 'Favoritism' is too small a concept. Even we wage wars."*
Much of their language eluded her.
Understanding was one thing. Belief, another. And faith—that was a realm beyond.
---
When Ge Tianci awoke, he was in a hospital.
He'd fallen gravely ill. An unknown bacterial infection had turned his body into a battlefield—fever, delirium, murmurs of *"Smiley Face"* that made nurses suspect brain damage.
He'd been found unconscious on the sports field after his roommate reported him missing.
Known and unknown forces warred in his flesh and mind, dragging him across the borders of life and death, light and shadow, good and evil—never lingering.
His memories remained intact. In the clamor of the hospital, the implant's presence had faded.
*Or vanished,* he thought.
After negotiating leave from school, Ge Tianci retreated for a month.
Fever dreams plagued him—chaotic visions of civilizations reduced to ruins, faces of the departed, and an aching longing for the girl among the nebulae...
No escape worked. The scars of his journeys played on loop, sharp as broken glass in his mind.
In dreams, he clutched her sleeve. Her face shifted with each night, but his grip never faltered, whitened knuckles mirroring his battle against the implant. *Find her. Don't let go.*
He'd wake gripping the bedsheet like a lifeline.
Perhaps some part of him still believed in happy endings.
"Smiley Face" hadn't appeared in ages. Ge Tianci knew: *No one's coming. I have to move this myself.*
Within weeks, he mastered lucid dreaming, shaping his desires into visions.
Like "Smiley Face."
Their first dream reunion ended with his fist smashing through its mask. Later encounters escalated—bloodied hands, empty cloaks, a hundred ways to kill it.
In these dreams, Ge Tianci was a god.
(If only the implant stayed powerless.)
As his health improved, the implant—tampered by Mars' civilization—weakened in dreams.
One night, swinging his blade (now a mantis-like scythe), he hesitated. *No consequences,* he thought—and lost an arm to "Smiley Face's" counterstrike.
No pain. Just shock.
A month of slaughter, and now *this*?
The figure loomed three meters tall, its shadow swallowing him whole.
He woke at dawn, arm intact.
Fear, his constant companion, finally cracked—replaced by something like relief.
An idea took root.
The *Interpretation of Dreams* lay open on his nightstand. Humans called this the *"Triple-Layered Dream."*
Ge Tianci smiled.