“An offering,” he murmured. “Then I am an offering for God?”
“An offering for the Son of God,” Moran corrected. “The ties between you and Heishi are made up of unseen connections. It was because of you that he awoke, and likewise—”
Heishi interrupted Moran’s words. “That’s enough, Pontiff.”
Moran smiled.
A-Ka, however, wanted to know what Moran was going to say next. “Let him finish!”
Heishi’s hand that was wrapped around A-Ka’s own tightened a little, and he felt Heishi’s gaze grow reproachful. A-Ka could only remain silent.
“I’ll tell you later, A-Ka,” Moran said. “Right now, let us go take a look at the Wish of the Tides. I trust that you’ll be able to figure out its intended purpose.”
Suddenly, Moran stopped in his tracks. They had arrived at the center of the laser array, and as they crossed an unseen perimeter, all the stars in the sky instantly winked out, revealing the walls around them, which began to shine with a pure white light. The ceiling and floor also began to glow with a milky light. They illuminated a white room devoid of any decorations. The light surrounded them from every side, enveloping their bodies.
In the middle of the room was an advanced cryosleep chamber that looked brand-new.
“This is the same chamber that Heishi was in when he arrived on the beach!” A-Ka exclaimed.
“Yes,” Moran said. “But if you take a closer look, is it exactly the same?”
A-Ka bent over to inspect the chamber, and he saw that on its outside was a shining plaque that held the words Heishi Z9925.
“I can confirm that it’s exactly the same,” A-Ka said, pressing his hand on the lid of the chamber. “Heishi. His name is right here.”
“But I originally had no name,” Heishi said. “It was A-Ka who gave me a name like humans have based on the writing on the chamber.”
A-Ka focused his gaze on the interior of the chamber, and in an instant, the structure of the chamber appeared in front of him: the oxygen supply, the sleeping system, the internal circuitry. This cryosleep chamber was powered by a matter-and-antimatter energy supply that humans had no way to use, and it was enough to supply the chamber with the power needed to sustain life for a hundred thousand years. It was a pity, then, that its energy supply had already been drained, and there was no way to get it working again.
“The first pontiff left the Primeval Heart inside this chamber. It escaped from a lava passageway underneath the ground, passing through the deep sea and the seafloor of the Western and Eastern Mainlands before finally being brought to the shore.”
Moran pressed the five-pointed star necklace on the outer lid of the chamber, and the chamber lid slowly opened, revealing the young boy sleeping soundly inside.
A-Ka shifted backward in surprise.
Heishi also sounded a little taken aback as he asked, “He’s really the…?”
“Yes,” Moran replied. “This is His Excellency, the first pontiff. He passed away many years ago.”
The little boy’s features were still as vivid as if he were alive, and clutched in his hand was a ring-shaped object. Moran first knelt down on one knee in front of the chamber, quietly saying a prayer, before plucking that ring from his hand and closing the chamber.
Moran handed the ring to A-Ka, who took it and held it up to the light to observe it. It had a complicated internal structure, and for the first time in his life, A-Ka felt dizzy and befuddled as he studied an object. The power circulating within the ring depended on the strange, flickering particle of light locked in the microcosmic world of the gem inset into the ring.
“It’s like it’s alive,” A-Ka murmured.
“Indeed.” Moran nodded approvingly. “Within it exists a city.”
Heishi frowned, while A-Ka exclaimed, “No wonder! How can so many lives exist in this single gemstone?”
“They are a kind of life-form completely different from us humans,” Moran said as he took off his five-pointed star necklace. “Or perhaps the Creator made the world within the gem and left it on this land. This gemstone contains many mysteries that we are unable to discern.”
“In this gemstone,” A-Ka said, “there is a kind of…a single…” He stared at the bright red gem. There seemed to be a crack in the middle. When he looked closely, however, he found that it was a strange structure.
“An emitter,” A-Ka murmured. “A particle emitter.”
Moran smiled and nodded.
A-Ka returned the ring to him. “A kind of helical particle emitter, which can cause particles to generate their own spin as they circle around the tower, allowing the user to jump through space.”
Moran put the ring on as he brought them away from the underground chamber.
“But what use does the emitter have?” A-Ka asked, following him. “You need another one that matches it, a completely identical receiver, to communicate with the other and create the energy needed to jump. Is there another ring in this world that’s exactly the same?”
“You’re right. This ring produces energy that can only be received by an identical ring.”
Moran escorted them out of the underground chamber and closed the secret door.
“But I can’t figure out what this has to do with us obtaining that section of code that Liber has,” A-Ka said.
“It’s entirely the same thing, A-Ka,” Moran replied. “Nothing in this world is exactly the same, especially microscopically. The only thing that is completely identical in structure to it is itself.”
That’s when A-Ka understood. “You mean the chip from the past!”
“Yes.” Moran nodded. “Use its power to jump and you two can return to the past. Do you still remember the moment that we met on the boat?”
A-Ka recalled it right away. When he had first met Moran, he had been wearing this ring on his finger as well.
Moran explained, “Almost a year ago, the day I left Dragonmaw City and headed toward the Eastern Mainland, I was not comfortable leaving the sacred relic with the Curia, so I brought it with me. This ring has the power to fix its own position, so you can travel from the present to the past, find the Liber from back then, and get his section of the passcode.”
A-Ka had no way to express the shock in his heart at the absurdity of these words. He stood there for a long time, not making a single sound.
“Now, I must converse with the life-forms in the gem to confirm that they are willing to send you back,” Moran continued. “Why don’t you and the Son of God take this day we have to rest?”
“When will we begin the mission?” Heishi asked.
Moran thought for a bit. “We still have time left. After all, interacting with the flow of the past will not be recorded in the current time. You two could leave in the small hours of the last day before the invasion, but I do not recommend that you wait that long. Still, you do not need to set off today. Tonight is the Festival of Spring’s Dusk, a time to celebrate when all the beings of this world flourish and grow. I suggest that you two take a stroll around the city.”
“Tomorrow, then,” Heishi said.
Moran nodded, satisfied, before he made an imploring gesture.
A-Ka couldn’t respond—his brain was as empty as a blank sheet of paper. Not in a million years would he have guessed that Moran could solve their problem this way.
Heishi trailed behind them. After A-Ka had walked for some time, he came to a stop in the long hallway and raised his eyes to look at Heishi. As usual, Heishi maintained that cold, calm expression; no matter whom he was facing or what he heard, he always bore this poker face.
“You don’t want to go?” Heishi asked.
A-Ka fell silent, then he stepped forward and hugged Heishi, leaning on his body as if entirely unable to part with him. In that instant, the light in Heishi’s eyes changed to something unfamiliar. Complicated emotions gathered there, and he lowered his head as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
Finally, he placed his hand on A-Ka’s head, just like Feiluo did to Percy. “What happened?” he asked. “A little earlier, you seemed out of it.”
A-Ka searched his thoughts for a long time until he mustered up a weak smile and said, “No, nothing happened.”
“Are you afraid that it’ll be dangerous when we return to the past?”
“Uncle Moran said that he was afraid we would meet with hardship.”
The corner of Heishi’s mouth curved a little, and he seemed to be trying to hide something as he said, “If you’re afraid of hardships, then you shouldn’t have agreed to go at all, don’t you think?”
“Refusing isn’t going to resolve the issue in any way, all right?!” All of A-Ka’s grief at the thought of parting with Heishi evaporated.
“This isn’t like you.”
“This isn’t like me?” A-Ka didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “What am I even like, Heishi?”
Moving to A-Ka’s side, Heishi gave him a look. “Do you remember the day when you stepped out of the crowd of humans?”
A-Ka and Heishi stood face-to-face. Heishi’s gaze was as familiar as always, no different than the expression that he’d worn that day when he stood on the platform, the guns of the mechanical guards pressed against his head.
A-Ka began to smile. “I remember.”
Nonchalantly, Heishi pointed a thumb at himself, then poked at A-Ka’s shoulder with his index finger. “Believe in me, and believe in yourself.”
A-Ka’s dark mood burned away like fog under a rising sun, and his smile blossomed. “All right, Heishi.”