That night, Shanjue and Qianhui were both asleep.
Guided by something, their souls drifted out without their noticing, and in no time at all they arrived in a very large room.
They looked down and saw that their own bodies had been moved there too, lying on two beds.
They were terrified, thinking they were dead. Before they could even cry out, they flew back into their bodies, as if their bodies had called them home.
Their hands and feet could move again. They could feel the sheets beneath them.
The two of them sat up. In the middle of the room stood a heavy wooden chair.
An old man sat in it. Behind him stood a young man, somewhat handsome.
The old man spoke: "This is Heaven. This is my residence. I'm the one who brought you here."
"I am one of the many Creator Gods. Pangu. The Creator God of New Taiwan, which is to say, of this world."
His voice wasn't loud, but every sentence carried.
"Before we get to why," he said, "let me confirm——what are your names? How are you related?"
Silence.
Shanjue stepped half a pace forward.
"I'm Shanjue. She's my little sister."
Qianhui stepped forward too.
"I'm Qianhui. Shanjue is my older brother."
Pangu gave a single nod.
"Shanjue. Qianhui." He repeated the two names. "I'm going to tell you a lot. If you have questions, you can take your time asking them later."
The siblings nodded.
"Let me state who I am once more. I am Pangu, Creator God of this world, and also a True God whose physical self exists outside this world. Everything you see in this world——mountains, rivers, stars, every living thing, Heaven, Hell——exists inside a virtual world I built."
He paused to see if they were keeping up.
The siblings nodded.
"This world is an AI, housed in a data center. Creating a world means building that AI center."
He thought for a moment.
"An AI needs compute to run. Compute is supplied by compute centers. Divine power is a general resource you trade for compute, and also for parts, goods, and services in the Origin World."
The young man behind the chair spoke up: "In other words, just keeping the world running means paying the electric bill, forever."
Pangu turned to look at him.
"I put it more nicely."
"At its core, divine power is the positive emotional energy produced by people inside all virtual worlds."
"So what I need from you is to make the people in this world happy, so we can harvest the divine power we need."
"Divine power is measured in Lilith units. Compute is measured in Adam units."
"We buy our compute with divine power. The huge sum of divine power that first built this world was borrowed. When I was young, I borrowed a great deal of divine power from a True God. That True God is my Creditor now."
He raised his hand. Light appeared in the room, many strands of cold light twisting together into a net. The net was vast, its edges out of sight, as if they were standing somewhere outdoors and endless.
On every thread was written the word "Debt." Written in law. It couldn't be changed.
Shanjue and Qianhui looked at the net and couldn't speak.
"The interest on this debt is also paid in divine power. All these years, after paying interest, the compute we can afford is only just enough to keep the world limping along. If we can't pay the interest, he takes this world."
Qianhui looked at the net.
"What if you kept the divine power for the world first?"
"Paying less counts as default too," Pangu said.
She didn't ask anything more.
He looked at them.
"The old ways don't harvest enough anymore. We need a new system, new gods. Together with me, and with him behind me, to carry out new reforms."
The moment he finished, the young man behind the chair came forward, bowed his head slightly to Pangu, then turned to Shanjue and Qianhui.
His eyes were very deep, like a well. You couldn't see the bottom.
"Before you answer," he said, every word steady, "let me introduce myself."
"My name is Wanquan. I've been here since this world was born. Pangu is my dad."
"I'm the God of Order. My core work used to be managing order and training talent."
He glanced at Shanjue, then at Qianhui.
The corner of his mouth moved.
——
Pangu looked at Wanquan.
"It used to be just the two of us."
Wanquan didn't look at him.
"That's not enough anymore."
He paused.
"Before, when something went wrong, I'd swap people out, add people, keep things running. But no matter how obedient people are, they might be working for a method that's wrong."
Pangu went on: "So this time, we need someone who can send the method back. Including the ones the two of us set."
——
Pangu turned back to the siblings.
"So, Shanjue, Qianhui. Will you join me and Wanquan as the vanguard of a new world? We're short one person to handle law and one to handle allocation."
——
Silence.
The siblings looked at each other.
A rush of excitement went through Shanjue. He had studied as hard as he could, all the way to university, because he wanted to change a world with far too many problems.
At school, plenty of high-paying jobs had already come looking for both of them. He had no interest himself, but which road his sister took was hers to decide.
Shanjue said quietly: "Qianhui, I really want to accept. This is so much better than the chance I've been waiting for. What about you?"
"Me too, Brother. Me too."
"Then it's settled."
"Mm."
They turned and bowed to Pangu and Wanquan.
Shanjue spoke first: "I don't understand debt. But I understand unfairness when I see it. I can write the rules."
Qianhui raised her head: "I understand debt. And I understand fairness, too. I can do debt planning."
Pangu looked at them for a long time, liking them more the longer he looked.
So did Wanquan.
"Very good."
He stood up.
"In that case, in the name of this world's Creator God, I now lay the foundation of the new world."
He said to Wanquan: "Bring them over."
Wanquan conjured a door and opened it. Inside were two bodies, one male and one female, seemingly asleep.
The siblings were no longer quite so surprised.
Pangu said: "Those aren't ordinary bodies. They're divine bodies, made for the work of gods. Wanquan chose you, and I agree. You are the best candidates."
"Shanjue, lie down beside the male body, and I'll send your soul into it. You will become the God of Jurisprudence. Based on Wanquan's constitution, you'll write the civil code and other laws. When necessary, you may also lead constitutional amendments, but Wanquan has to agree. You'll be in charge of rulings, and settle the disputes of the world."
Shanjue walked to the body and stopped for a moment.
"After we become gods, can we go outside the world too?"
"Whether you can go out has nothing to do with becoming a god," Pangu said. "It's just that you'll be able to use part of the system's permissions directly. You're authentication and signing."
"And Qianhui?"
"She's resource allocation."
"And you?"
"I'm the admin account."
He looked at Wanquan.
"He's an antivirus suite, an ID editor, and a simulation suite, three in one."
Wanquan nodded.
Shanjue lay down.
Pangu turned to Qianhui.
"Qianhui, your turn. You'll become the God of Administration, in charge of the ledgers, allocating resources, optimizing the allocation chain."
Qianhui did as he said.
Shanjue woke in his divine body first.
His very first sensation, of all things, was that he wasn't tired.
His whole life, he had never woken up feeling so light. The weariness was gone, and for a moment he was afraid to move.
Then Qianhui.
She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the net.
Before, she could only see the word "Debt" on each thread.
Now she could see the numbers on every one.
The investiture was complete. The God of Jurisprudence and the God of Administration stood side by side.
Then Wanquan stepped forward.
"Shanjue, Qianhui. From now on you're my younger brother and sister. We're one family with Dad."
Pangu laughed. "That's right, you can call me Dad."
Qianhui looked at Shanjue. "Bro, from now on you're Second Brother."
"Yeah. From now on you can call me Second Brother."
Pangu called toward the door: "Shunyi, come in."
A middle-aged man walked in.
"Hello. My name is Shun Zhuyi, Shunyi for short. I'm the butler here."
Shanjue said, "Hello, I'm Shanjue." He paused. "...God of Jurisprudence."
Qianhui said, "Hello, I'm Qianhui, God of Administration." She said it a little more smoothly than her brother.
Shunyi nodded.
"I know. Your rooms are ready."