The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1071: Poem

One Stone immediately announced that Gao Yang had brought Vermilion Bird back. As most of them were out on missions, they could only message the “Awakeners Fam❤︎❤︎❤︎” chatgroup to express their joy and congratulations.

On assignment in the West Nation, War Tiger booked a return ticket immediately, though he wouldn't arrive at Li City airport until early the next morning.

Gao Yang apologized to Wang Zikai, explaining he couldn't go home to play games now. Wang Zikai understood. He was happy about Vermilion Bird's return too, and offered a quick greeting before taking his leave.

Gao Yang walked him to the edge of Walled City of Ten Dragons, watching his race car disappear around the street corner. Guilt gnawed at him. By all rights, Wang Zikai's contributions should have earned him a place as a core member of the Nine Scions and recognition as the awakeners' savior. Yet Gao Yang had only ever allowed him to participate in fights, never meetings.

His reason was simple and selfish: he could not allow Wang Zikai’s monsterhood to awaken.

Gao Yang wasn't certain his friend could keep it dormant after learning everything Gao Yang knew. Besides, Wang Zikai had never shown interest in their meetings. Still, Gao Yang remained vigilant. He couldn't—wouldn't—lose his best friend.

Vermilion Bird's recovery proved remarkably swift after regaining consciousness. Having received half of Gao Yang's lifespan, combined with her level 8 Equivalent Exchange, her impressive recovery made sense. Within a single morning, she was eating, drinking, and moving about like any healthy person.

When she reached for a cigarette, Gao Yang intervened. “I gave you my life. I have only one request: quit smoking. You have to do it.”

Vermilion Bird had no choice but to accept—what else could she do when she literally owed him her life?

Later, Ke Yo ordered milk tea for everyone. The five of them gathered in the meeting room, each with a cup in hand as they discussed business. They began by updating Vermilion Bird on everything that had transpired during her unconsciousness. She sipped her tea quietly at first, but her expression grew increasingly grave. Once fully informed, she sighed and glanced at Gao Yang with a bitter smile.

“Just one cigarette?”

Gao Yang understood, but no smoking.

After further discussion, One Stone, Ke Yo, and Raven Shark departed for their unfinished work, leaving Gao Yang and Vermilion Bird alone in the meeting room.

Vermilion Bird stood and approached the floor-to-ceiling window. She stared at the gray cityscape stretching beneath the vast blue sky, her mind clearly elsewhere. Her eyes began to prickle and redden.

Turning quickly away, she wiped them with the back of her hand. “I know Qilin deserves his ending," she muttered awkwardly, "but strangely, I still feel a little bit sad.”

“A little?” Gao Yang asked.

“Alright,” she admitted. “I’m really sad.”

Gao Yang hated Qilin, but he understood. He lowered his head for a silent moment before saying calmly, “I had thought he spared you because he was worried someone else would comprehend Equivalent Exchange, but then I realized that it was because he saw you as a real companion.”

Vermilion Bird stared at him.

“Qilin used Brain Fibrosis on you rather than Brain Formatting because he wanted to retain your consciousness. Then once he completed the Spinning Top Plan, your consciousness would go to the eternal homeland as well.”

“Yet he wouldn’t be going.”

“Yeah.” Gao Yang nodded. “He had always known that he would give his life for the plan.”

Vermilion Bird was silent for a few seconds. “Dr. Su was a lonely man.”

“He was.” Gao Yang then added, “Whether in reality or in a dream.”

Vermilion Bird’s eyes glinted.

Noticing her reaction, Gao Yang asked, “What is it?”

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She hesitated before saying, “While I was out of it, I didn’t experience blankness, but had been having a hazy, seemingly endless dream.”

Gao Yang started, a possibility occurring to him. “What dream?”

She waved a hand and said, “It was quite strange. A bit sci-fi? You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Was there a Moon City?” Gao Yang’s eyes lit up.

Vermilion Bird straightened. “You had the same dream?”

“In the dream All Will Be One gave me, I was in a cyberpunk world, named Liu Li. I lived on the Darkhorse Street in District 7 of Moon City—”

Vermilion Bird interrupted excitedly, “Closure Corp! Cloudland Tech! Spiritlife Pharmaceuticals!”

“Yeah, you’re the captain of Dreamrise in the dream,” Gao Yang continued.

“Holy!” Vermilion Bird exclaimed. “Liu Li! Liu Li the Jupiter Traveler!”

Gao Yang laughed. “Vermilion Bird the Roamer of Heavenly Sea.”

Tears welled in Vermilion Bird’s eyes. “I thought it was only my dream, Gao Yang, that I’ve fabricated everyone.”

“So did I.” Gao Yang sighed. “Now it seems to be the dream of many. We simply enter it.”

“Wait, that can’t be!” She frowned. “Can, Gray Bear, and the others were dead. How did they appear in the dream? Or perhaps some of the people were real and others were fake?”

Gao Yang shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps the world we enter is the prototype of the eternal homeland Qilin wished to create. Or perhaps Qilin was capable of putting everyone’s consciousness into an eternal dream. There, reality and illusion mixed, truth and falsehood mingled. None of that mattered when everyone ‘existed’.”

“We’ll never have an answer,” said Vermilion Bird.

“Yes, Qilin’s dead. The Spinning Top Plan failed.” That was both for Vermilion Bird and for himself.

“What if Qilin was right?” Vermilion Bird put her arms around her knees. Sunlight streamed through the window and lit up her delicate nose and chin. “The thought suddenly occurred to me, and it scared me.”

Gao Yang looked down at his palms. The sunlight drowned out his palm prints and left only pale blurry lines. “Occasionally, the thought would come to haunt me these days. I would wonder if I had destroyed humanity’s only hope.”

He chuckled. “Qing Ling once told me that choices aren’t about right and wrong. A choice is just that, a choice. Qilin made his. We made ours. We won. That’s all there is to it.”

Vermilion Bird nodded thoughtfully.

They basked in the sunlight for a while. Gao Yang then broke the pensive silence. “About the dream, I woke up after Gao Xinxin showed up as a humanoid weapon. What...happened after?”

Vermilion Bird thought back to it, brows furrowed. “I was alive. I didn’t know what actually went down. When I woke up, you and the others were gone.”

“I wasn’t even sure if my body was still there. My consciousness remained floating in the Heavenly Sea. After a long, long time, a power woke me, and I opened my eyes to see you, Ke Yo, One Stone, and Raven Shark. That was when I realized that I just woke up from a long, vivid dream.”

“Ah.” Gao Yang thought for a moment. “Did anything leave a deep impression on you in the dream?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something that may have something to do with the real world.”

“Most were based on my personal experience...” She paused, thinking of something. “One thing does stand out. Have I ever told you about my old client?”

Gao Yang shook his head. “You were the one contacting him. We never bothered to ask.”

Her lips curled into a meaningful smile. “That was Elder Yan Liang.”

“Sir Jiang?” Gao Yang blurted in surprise.

“Yeah. I didn’t think of him as Sir Jiang in the dream, but I realized that now.” Vermilion Bird focused on her memory, her voice slowing and softening. “I remember being invited to have tea at his place one afternoon. He shared a poem with me then, saying it was a gift from a friend. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him I didn’t know poetry.”

Gao Yang asked, “Do you still remember it?”

“Somewhat. I’ll try to recall it...”

A few seconds later, she quietly recited:

“High wall rises...moon—no, red moon laments... Mist thickens...something like doomsday for god? No, it’s not. It’s—”

“Gods perish,” Gao Yang corrected.

“Oh, right.” Vermilion Bird blinked at him in surprise. “You know the poem?”

Gao Yang nodded, finishing the poem for her:

“The ignorant sleep upon the mist,”

“Along which the fearless ascends.”

“The lost seek wonderland eternal.”

“All fascinate. All return to void.”