DipNovel Chapter 55 The God in the Mirror
Chapter 55 The God in the Mirror
September of the year 5914 in the Blue Star calendar, the sixty-third day since the arrival of alien creatures.
When the last stone wall emerged from the water, Lu Cheng was squatting in the kitchen of the government building, helping Jia Li with her work.
Carrie was cooking soup, and Lu Cheng was chopping scallions.
The soup made from the bones of the Water Dragon Beast, served with scallions grown in the fields turned over by the Water Dragon Beast, is a unique set meal found nowhere else on the entire Blue Star.
As they were cutting the third scallion, a muffled, earth-shaking thud echoed across the square, followed by the sound of geologists scrambling and stumbling.
"Governor! We've hit it! 120 meters! The entire rock face!"
Lu Cheng put down the kitchen knife and wiped his hands.
Carrie took the soup pot off the stove and placed it on the counter, then served him a bowl.
"Finish your drink first, then go."
Lu Cheng picked up the bowl, blew on it, and took a sip.
The soup still tastes the same, but it tastes a little different today.
One hundred and twenty meters, the ancient civilization buried the last stone wall one hundred and twenty meters underground.
The water dragon beast dug for more than ten days, bypassing the obsidian layer and the underground river, breaking off half of its large fang, and finally found it.
He finished his soup and handed the bowl to Carrie.
"Let's go see what last words the previous civilization left behind."
At the bottom of the cave, 120 meters deep, the light from a kerosene lamp illuminated the entire stone wall.
The stone wall is about three meters high and five meters wide, and its surface has been scratched by the digging claws of the water dragon beast.
When it dug this far, it couldn't stop its claws and left a signature on the lower left corner of the rock wall.
The water dragon squatted to the side, licking its broken fang with its tongue, looking aggrieved.
Lu Cheng patted its head, and it whimpered and continued licking its teeth.
The stone wall is covered with inscriptions.
It wasn't the scattered carvings of before; instead, the entire stone wall was covered with dense narrative reliefs and text, from top to bottom and from left to right, like an open stone book.
The first image is in the upper left corner—a human and a hominid standing face to face, with a circle drawn in the middle and the words "Encounter" engraved inside the circle.
It is exactly the same as the first relief on the 94-meter-long wall.
The second image is in the upper right corner—humans and upright apes are building something together, each holding a tool, with the word "cooperation" inscribed below the image.
The third image is in the middle left—people are sitting around a fire, food is roasting on the fire, humans are eating human food, and upright apes are eating upright ape food. The fire is shared, but the food is separate.
The inscription below reads "Same fire, different food".
The fourth image is in the middle right—a human and an upright ape stand back to back, each holding a weapon, facing a blurry, huge black shadow.
The shadowy figure has seven fingers.
The word "Kyoto" is engraved below.
The fifth image is in the lower left corner—a human and an erect ape standing face to face, with a crack running from the lower left corner to the upper right corner, splitting the entire image.
The word "Cracked" is engraved below.
The sixth image is in the bottom right corner.
The sixth panel of the previous 94-meter relief was only half-carved before it was stopped, but the sixth panel here is complete.
Humans and upright apes stood on opposite sides of the rift, their weapons pointing at each other.
It doesn't point to the cracks, it points to each other.
In the background of the image, the seven-fingered black shadow stands directly above the crack, looking down on both sides.
The words "war" are engraved below.
The six images are arranged in a circle, with the core part of the stone wall in the center.
The entire surface is covered with dense text, with ancient Blue Star language and upright ape symbols interspersed, like two languages conversing.
Lu Cheng squatted down and began reading from the top left corner.
"We tried to coexist, for three thousand years. From the day we met, we knew our blood was different. Their blood was black, our blood was red. Food they touched would give us rashes, water we touched would make them vomit. This wasn't hatred, it was physiological. We thought we could overcome it. If sharing a table didn't work, we'd share a house. If sharing a house didn't work, we'd share a city. If sharing a city didn't work, we'd share a piece of land. We retreated step by step, and they retreated step by step too. Both sides thought that if we retreated far enough, we could live in peace, but we forgot that the planet is round. The furthest we retreated was face to face."
"The seven fingers appeared in the third thousand years. They didn't come from outside; they came from a mirror. The first upright ape to look in a mirror found that its reflection showed an extra finger on its hand. Thinking it was mistaken, it looked again and saw two more. It called its companions, and they, too, saw two extra fingers in their reflections. They panicked and came to us. When we looked in the mirror, we found that our hands were missing a finger. It wasn't that they were actually missing a finger; it was that the reflection in the mirror was one finger shorter than our real hands."
"We studied the error of mirrors with them for a long time, and finally discovered that it wasn't a problem with the mirrors, but with the eyes. When Homo erectus looks at their own hands, their brains automatically fill in two fingers that aren't there. When humans look at their own hands, their brains automatically erase two fingers that are there. This error exists in the visual systems of both species; it's a physiological characteristic etched into their respective evolutionary paths. The way we and they see the world is fundamentally different."
"The seven fingers exploit this error; they appear in the mirror because they are the error itself. When upright apes look in the mirror, their brains automatically add two fingers, which is the gateway for the seven fingers to enter this world. When humans look in the mirror, our brains automatically erase two fingers, which are the anchors for the seven fingers to take root in our world. It doesn't invade from the outside; it grows from the gaze we exchange with them. When we look at them, we always feel they have two more fingers than they actually are—more dangerous, more intelligent, more incomprehensible. When they look at us, they always feel we have two fewer fingers than we actually are—weaker, more sluggish, less worthy of serious attention. This error grows larger and larger, to the point that both sides feel the other is no longer the same species they have coexisted with for three thousand years."
"War is not our choice, nor theirs; it is error that chooses it for us. When we raise our weapons, we think we are fighting them. When they raise their weapons, they think they are fighting us. But the one who truly raises the weapons is that error—the seven fingers. It is in the mirror, in the gazes we exchange, in the gaps between every misunderstanding and fear. It doesn't need to intervene directly; it only needs to make both sides feel that the other is no longer the same person."
"We discovered this, and so did they. By the time they discovered it, the war had been raging for a long time. We sat down, facing them, with a mirror between us. In the mirror, their hands had two extra fingers, and our hands were missing two. They were reflected on the left, we on the right, and in the middle was something with seven fingers. It stood between us, smiling. It wasn't there to mediate, but to confirm. It confirmed that the error was too great to be bridged, that both sides had accepted it as a real third party, and that the war would continue until the very last moment."
"We asked it why it did this. It answered with its reflection in the mirror: I am not doing, I am being done. Every time you misunderstand them, I grow a bone. Every time they fear you, I grow a muscle. I am not created by you, but the gap between you and them. The bigger the gap, the more real I am. When the gap becomes so big that neither side can cross it, I am no longer an error, I become the only truth."