Chapter 1

In the afternoon, Yishen met a friend at a teahouse.

Yishen stretched out his hand from the second floor: "Up here!"

A man in the lobby immediately saw him, smiled, and walked up.

The man with a buzz cut was a web writer and also Yishen's college classmate. This kind of person generally knows a little about everything but not in great depth, making him an ideal conversation partner for idle chatter.

Yishen enjoyed chatting with him, discussing everything from science fiction, mythology, history, geography, military affairs, and local news.

It wasn't very rigorous, just pure speculation, but it made people feel relaxed.

This time, they talked from history to mythology, then from mythology to strange tales, with Western eerie legends mixed in.

Yishen suddenly said, "Recently, every night when I fall asleep, I always feel another self suddenly crawling out of my body."

"Then, for the whole night, I just watch myself until I wake up."

"It's kind of like..."

"Western astral projection, and the soul separation in your novels."

"What do you think is going on?"

The buzz-cut man didn't laugh at the absurdity in Yishen's words but instead thought seriously for a moment, organizing his thoughts.

"First, we need to understand what a human soul is made of, if humans really have souls."

"Is it made of matter, or energy?"

Yishen thought for a moment and said uncertainly, "Neither, I guess."

The buzz-cut man continued, "Then what about memory and consciousness? Are they in the soul, or still in the brain?"

Yishen confirmed, "They are in the soul."

"I feel like my body is an anchor, anchoring the soul to this point."

"I could easily break free, but I feel that something terrifying would happen if I did."

"This feeling makes me inexplicably afraid, so I dare not continue."

Yishen suddenly laughed, "Do you think I'm about to awaken some superpower, or start cultivating immortality?"

The buzz-cut man shook his head, "Regardless of whether what you said is true, if humans really have souls, and these souls are neither matter nor energy, and can store memory and consciousness, then it's not something that can be compared to superpowers or immortality."

"Astral projection and soul separation are just ancient imaginings, and compared to this, they are like the difference between heaven and earth."

"Even the gods in historical myths, the immortals in Taoist legends, are inferior to such an existence."

"Even the creators like Pangu, the God of Creation, Brahma, Chaos, and Azathoth would have no power over you."

Yishen was stunned, how did the conversation about human souls suddenly turn to these creators and supreme deities in various myths?

"You're exaggerating, are they really that powerful?"

"According to what you're saying, if humans have souls, they would be invincible."

The buzz-cut man said seriously, "I'm not exaggerating, I have evidence."

"Because the universe is made of matter, and time is the continuous and sequential manifestation of the movement and change of matter."

"If your soul is not made of matter or energy, and consciousness is not dependent on the brain but on the soul."

"What does this mean?"

"Your soul and this universe are like two non-overlapping planes. You can transcend this universe and even be free from the constraints of time."

"Think about it, isn't that true?"

Yishen continued, "Doesn't that mean that once the soul is free from the body, it will immediately leave this universe?"

"Even the soul can transcend the flow of time, travel through space and time, and become an existence that floats above the timeline?"

"I could even travel to any era and even alter history?"

The buzz-cut man said, "Not necessarily."

Yishen asked, "Why?"

The buzz-cut man explained, "I said earlier that the soul and the universe are like two non-overlapping planes, with no point of intersection."

"If you have no connection to the universe, how can you perceive its existence?"

"If you can't even perceive the universe, how can you perceive time, and how can you travel through the timeline?"

Yishen suddenly had an answer to the source of his fear.

"So, if the soul leaves the body, it's like a ship without coordinates and direction, possibly leaving this universe and never finding its way back?"

The buzz-cut man nodded, "One possibility is that you still have a connection to the real universe, with an anchor point."

"Through this anchor point, you can observe the universe, becoming an observer outside the universe and time, as I mentioned earlier."

"If you have different anchor points at different times, you might become an existence that travels through the timeline, as you said."

At this point, the buzz-cut man's tone became somber.

"But there's another possibility."

"The moment you leave the body, you are thrown into an unknown place outside the universe."

"That place could be another universe, the source of time, another dimension, or something unimaginable to humans."

"There might be nothing there, like a prison, and your soul could be trapped there for ten million years, a hundred million years."

"Until..."

"Eternity."

The scene fell silent, and no one spoke for a long time.

At this moment, the buzz-cut man suddenly laughed and poured tea for Yishen.

"That's a good idea, quite original."

"I want to use this setting in my next book; it might become popular."

The buzz-cut man didn't take Yishen's words seriously, thinking it was just another wild imagination and free talk as usual.

However, Yishen was in a complex mood and stood up to leave.

"I'll go first!"

"If you write it or have any new ideas, let me know, and we can discuss it together."

But the buzz-cut man stopped him and took something out of his backpack.

"Yishen, don't go yet."

"Since I used your idea, I'll give you something good."

Yishen took the box the buzz-cut man gave him and opened it to find an irregular stone with a delicate insect pattern on it.

"What is this? A fossil?"

The buzz-cut man said, "It's a trilobite, a type of trilobite."

"Although this fossil isn't worth much, the idea of seeing a living creature from hundreds of millions of years ago in front of you is something money can't buy."

"Take it home and imagine the ancient Earth and the沧桑 of these ancient creatures."

Yishen thanked the buzz-cut man and walked away, looking at the gift.

However, just as he reached the lobby, a car suddenly sped in from the street at over 100 miles per hour, crashing through the glass doors and rolling over Yishen with shards of glass.

Yishen, holding the fossil, was thrown like a rag doll.

In the blood, Yishen's vision gradually blurred.

"Who's driving so recklessly, able to drive from the road all the way into the teahouse?"

When he finally saw clearly, he suddenly felt relieved.

"Oh!"

"It's a Tesla!"