"Some people have finally survived. Throughout all these years, I've constantly been asking myself if I had finished atoning for my sins," he said. "But I still cannot face everything I did back then. I can only wait for God to judge whether I was right or wrong after I die."
Lu Feng asked, "Was it for this reason that you left the base back then?"
"Yes. I was unable to face my own heart after all and unable to approve of the Trial Court's beliefs." He looked at Lu Feng. "I can't compare to you."
"I haven't done anything," Lu Feng said.
Pauli shook his head.
A mighty spring breeze blew over the mountain peak, and the delicate fragrance of the vine's flowers dissipated in the wind.
"You all have faced everything that I could not face back then, and you've persevered the longest." He lifted his head and held Lu Feng's hand. "Humankind's interests take precedence over all else. Thank you for allowing the base and artificial magnetic pole to persevere until the end. This is the ultimate reason for humankind's victory."
Lu Feng said, "Thank you."
"I heard that they've started compiling a 'Base Chronicles.' In a hundred years, how will people judge the Trial Court?" Pauli looked toward the pale eastern sky, where the daybreak was rising, and his gaze contained a distant tranquility. "Some will criticize it, while others will eulogize it. The only sure thing is that everyone will remember it."
He continued. "And even more will remember you, child."
Lu Feng's gaze lingered on a patch of snow-white velvety petals.
The sunlight turned it into translucent golden crystal.
"There's no need." His eyes closed slightly and his voice was flat, as though all of what Pauli Jones just said had nothing to do with him.
The sun's rays also illuminated the dark silver buttons and trimmings on his black uniform. His figure was straight-backed and his attire impeccable. His nigh-perfect facial features, uncommon eye color, and impassive expression left a haunting impression on all passersby. New vines wound around the corridor that was bathed in the morning light. He stood in a patch of surging spring scenery, yet he seemed completely out of place.
In the courtyard and the corridors, many people would surreptitiously turn and examine him. As the final generation of Arbiters, he carried on his shoulders too many unsettled grudges and puzzling enigmas. Opinions in the Northern Base varied. Some said that he was assassinated, and others said that he shot himself. Only the people of the research institute knew that the Arbiter was staying here forever—although nobody knew why.
"Look at me, child." Pauli murmured.
Lu Feng looked at him.
Although those gray-blue eyes had clouded over, they were still bright with excessively clear and penetrating wisdom, benevolence, and grief. It was like they could see through all of the world's facades.
"Sometimes I feel like you've been freed, and sometimes I feel like you haven't," Pauli said. "These past three years, everything has been making a turn for the better. Are you still unable to face the past?"
"No."
The answer, however, was unexpected.
Lu Feng looked straight at him, his voice calm and devoid of any hesitation. "I have not sinned."
"There's not a single Arbiter who would say such a thing."
"Humankind's interests take precedence over all else." Lu Feng turned slightly. In the infinite morning light, he was a backlit silhouette. "My belief has never wavered."
"Yet you live in suffering."
"I used to suffer for the trials," Lu Feng said. "Now, losing him is my only suffering."
"I'd never met such a warm and quiet child before." Pauli closed his eyes, seemingly dwelling on the past. "He came from the unknown into the world, as though it were for the sake of experiencing suffering. But humanity's suffering would not harm any of his innate qualities. My days are numbered. I only wish to see him alive one more time."
In the long silence, they looked at the laboratory behind them.
In that place that was only a wall away, young assistants were busy recording data. They were even more busy than ever, as though today were some special day. Visible through the window was a transparent rectangular tank laid horizontally on the snow-white floor. It resembled a coffin of crystal. The coffin of crystal was filled with pale green nutrient solution—and within the nutrient solution, snow-white hyphae grew without restraint, intertwining with each other and forming a snow-white cocoon that was shaped vaguely like a human.
It had grown very swiftly from a spore the size of a jujube pit into a long and soft aggregate of hyphae. Just like that chick who had suddenly changed into a human infant, one day, it exhibited a human form.
On countless nights, Lu Feng had leaned down and looked at that familiar profile through layers of hyphae.
"Is that him?" he asked Pauli Jones.
"He was an asexually reproducing mushroom, with no distinction at all between his body and his spore. I can only tell you that there are no differences genetically and that the frequency has always been identical. In a biological sense, they are one and the same," Pauli murmured with a small smile. "In your ancient legends, there are stories of the phoenix being reborn amidst raging flames. In fact, with regard to those creatures with simple compositions, it is indeed so. Death means rebirth. They have many ways of continuing their lives, unlike mammals."
"… Will he remember?"
"I don't know." Pauli shook his head. "It'll depend on him. Is that a new individual or a continuation of his old life? I'm afraid that we will only know after he wakes up. This is also part of my current research; remember what I mentioned to you before? This may be a new and unique method of survival for organisms."
Lu Feng turned his gaze to the distant sky, his expression unswervingly cold and calm. "I hope he forgets everything."
"Why?"
"The human base and I have only brought him suffering," he said. "I hope he'll never experience these things."
Pauli shook his head. "And how do you know what this world was like for him?"
Lu Feng's words landed softly. "Therefore, I'll accept all outcomes."
Pauli said nothing. In the silence, the sounds of instruments beeping, laboratory staff shouting, and objects falling to the ground suddenly came from the laboratory. The sounds traveled over intermittently, allowing the people outside to know what was happening inside.
At the break of dawn, the morning light illuminated Pauli Jones's elderly body. As though the final worries on his mind had been resolved at last, he felt a sense of relief and turned his wheelchair toward the laboratory, his gaze even warmer than before.
But Lu Feng didn't turn around.
"He's woken up," Pauli Jones said. "Why won't you go see him?"
In the laboratory, there were some chaotic noises.
After a very long time, Lu Feng spoke.
"You once asked me how exactly I viewed him." His voice seemed to come from a faraway place. "I thought about it a lot."
There was another long silence. Golden sunlight flooded the chain of mountains in the east, and a red sun sprang up from the horizon.
In the wind, he closed his eyes. The sculptures of the ones waiting, the portraits of those who went on pilgrimages, every one of them resembled him. Every person had once shown this expression, on the night before judgment arrived.
He said calmly, "He is the one who judges me."
There came the sound of a door, and light footsteps stopped not far away.
On the mountain peak, within the morning sunlight, the mist, and the gentle breeze, a clear, soft voice spoke.
"Lu Feng?"
✦ ✦ ✦
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