Eternal snowstorm

The time​​‌⁠‍​‍‍‍​‌​‍‌​‌​⁠‌‌‌‌​‌ in the Winter Solstice of 2138 was too far back, so he looked further forward.

When he opened his eyes again, An Yu was hit by a harsh glare from the sun overhead.

A narrow, cramped courtyard, filled with the stench of rot. Even the bright sunlight overhead carried an air of being half-dead.

The strange yet familiar slums.

His arm was suddenly bumped into. He snapped out of it and realized Ling Qiu was sitting beside him behind the railing.

“What are you dazing for? Didn’t you just wake up? Sleepy again?” Ling Qiu gripped a piece of bread, tore off a chunk with his teeth, and chewed vigorously. “The way you looked the day before yesterday, I thought you wouldn’t wake up for ten days or half a month. I didn’t expect you’d wake up after two days. Oh, look at you now, you wouldn’t just be awake for a short while, would you? Hungry? Want some?”

An Yu was still in a stupor, looking at the messy, gnawed piece of bread held to his mouth.

In a daze, he followed suit and took a bite.

Ling Qiu burst out laughing; the sunlight pooled in his amber eyes so brightly it seemed it might flow out.

An Yu looked blankly at that smile so close at hand.

“Hey, no way? Why do I feel like you’re about to cry?” Ling Qiu was startled. “I’m just going to the Main City; it’s not like I’m never coming back. Going to the Military won’t be as free as it is now, but there are holidays every year. I’ll write to you often and send back bread from the Main City.”

An Yu froze for a long time, then suddenly lowered his eyes and chuckled.

“Sourdough bread?” he whispered.

“What-dough?” Ling Qiu was stunned. “What are you talking about? Speak up.”

“It’s nothing.” An Yu shook his head, raised his hand to brush away the moisture at the corner of his eyes, and lay down on the dirty ground behind him as carelessly as he used to. “The sun is so strong, I’m sweating.”

“Sweating my foot. I think you just want to sleep again and are starting to lay the groundwork with me.” Ling Qiu laughed in exasperation and jumped up, propping his hands on the ground. “I have to go ask if my admission notice has arrived. If you’re sleepy, go back and keep sleeping.”

“Okay.” An Yu nodded.

He watched Ling Qiu’s back, then suddenly spoke up: “Gege… Ling Qiu-gege!”

“Huh?” Ling Qiu turned back from a distance. “What is it?”

“The Military—” An Yu stood up and chased a few steps toward him, coming up to him. “The Military is very far, isn’t it…”

“Of course, that’s Humanity’s Main City.” Ling Qiu punched the wall with high spirits. “We won’t be able to see each other for a long time. Oh, right, next time we meet, remember to remind me.”

“Remind you of what?” An Yu asked.

“Hmm… let me think.” Ling Qiu licked his sun-cracked lips. “Oh, I heard the Main City is full of material desires and it’s easy for people to lose themselves. If we don’t see each other for a long time, remind me to never forget my original heart when we meet again.”

“You won’t forget,” An Yu said softly.

“Just give me a reminder!” Ling Qiu clicked his tongue. “In case I do get lost.”

“Okay.” An Yu nodded.

Ling Qiu turned to go downstairs. Reaching the corner of the staircase, he turned back again and asked with a smile, “Is there anything you need me to remind you of? Bread expiration dates? Low-income grain distribution days? Or the script for begging the Resource Manager for food?”

“I remember all of those. I rarely forget things.” An Yu paused as he spoke.

A shiver suddenly bloomed in his heart. He looked at those bright, smiling eyes, the scorching sun baking the back of his neck.

They were as brilliant as the person looking at him.

“Those who bet on the last chance of survival won’t lose.” An Yu said, as if involuntarily.

“What’s that?” Ling Qiu was taken aback. “Where did you see that toxic positivity quote?”

“From…” An Yu was tongue-tied. “From…”

“Agh, fine, got it!” Ling Qiu was in a hurry to get his notice. As he hurried downstairs, he grumbled, “Never even went to school, yet you can dream up toxic quotes. I really have to hand it to you.”

An Yu turned back to the railing, watching that figure appear downstairs and run out frantically until it vanished into a tiny dot.

“Thank you,” An Yu said softly, staring in the direction the figure had disappeared.

Only at this moment did he realize what kind of brotherly indulgence Ling Qiu had given him.

Even though from beginning to end, Ling Qiu thought it was just a quote heard from somewhere, at the last moment of his life, he still stubbornly reminded him of it.

Perhaps not to fulfill a promise, but just to make him a little more relaxed.

Regrettably, he never had the chance to tell Ling Qiu.

—This sentence accompanied me for a long time in your place, and saved me from death many times.

So, Gege, thank you.

After losing his way in who-knows-how-many spacetimes, An Yu finally saw the familiar buildings. The spacetime of the orphanage was gradually being repaired in the snowstorm. The small squad on the ground that had just finished the battle was still resting.

He hovered in the high sky, watching the first mirror fragment slowly disappear.

If he didn’t act, the second mirror fragment would also vanish spontaneously as spacetime was repaired, and Qin Zhilu’s sealed 1% would never be traceable.

An Yu looked at the fragment lying on the ground. The moment he obtained it through spatial folding, he turned and hid his tracks.

Almost at that same instant, the familiar figure on the ground turned around, looking in the direction where he had just been.

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“That gust of wind just now…” Qin Zhilu paused for a moment before eating the biscuit. “It felt like a very familiar aura passed by. I haven’t had a mental power alert in many years; I’m probably having some hallucinations.”

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He finished all this decisively and suddenly felt his consciousness vibrate, as if something were about to wake up completely.

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In the early morning at the Spire, just before the chaos triggered by Molly descended.

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“Mhm.” An Yu paused. “I was afraid you wouldn’t find the page Grape tore out, so I came to check on you. Did you find it?”

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“Keep it where?” At this, Codex got even angrier. “Once it’s torn, it won’t grow back. I can only tuck it back into the book, and I’m worried it might get lost…”

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An Yu nodded. “Don’t tell Grape. He’s responsible for protecting and overseeing the museum. Let him guard your page without knowing it. Then you two will be even.”

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He was careful when leaving the museum, ensuring that Tang Feng and Zhu Tao, who were leaning together flipping through a plant manual, didn’t spot him.

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The day he finally confessed to the Commander.

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Perhaps because He possessed a higher-dimensional perspective.

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Then, those dark eyes flickered for a moment, as if remembering something, or perhaps finding it hard to believe. An emotion that could no longer be hidden spread across those eyes.

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It was a snowstorm he had summoned for the Commander, a vow made unknown even to himself as far back as when Qin Zhilu was sixteen and at his darkest, most desperate moment.

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Spacetime passed like shifting sands. The colossal entity became complete in an instant. From the depths of the consciousness it had inhabited, it cast a casual glance toward the strange, tiny world.

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“Commander,” An Yu said in a hoarse voice. “Did you know?”

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The absurdity and the romance.

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And every seemingly ordinary snowstorm.

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When the yellow sand shrouding the wasteland receded, the gullies on the ground also vanished without a trace. The earth was flat and solid, as if nothing eerie had ever occurred.

The snowstorm across the world ceased at this moment. The Black Tower once again received reports of “no anomalies” from every region.

Tang Feng, who was about to board the plane, suddenly felt a lightness on his back. With a thud, Zhu Tao, who had been sleeping on his back, fell to the ground and woke up.

Zhu Tao looked at him with a shocked and hurt expression. “Commander, what do you mean by this?”

Tang Feng was also stunned. To free his hands to open the cabin door, he had originally used Zhu Tao’s messy grapevines to tie him to his body.

But those vines had retracted on their own.

Zhu Tao checked his vines suspiciously. He stared at his fingers for a long while, but not a single leaf emerged from his body.

“Wait…” Zhu Tao looked bewildered. “Commander… I think I’m broken.”

“I can’t sense the ‘grape’ part of me anymore.”

Tang Feng was worried sick. He didn’t even have time to check if he himself was abnormal; he immediately took Zhu Tao onto the plane and flew toward the Main City.

As the plane gained altitude, he suddenly saw a small speck on the wasteland from high above. It seemed to be two figures embracing each other.

Zhu Tao, sitting in the co-pilot seat, also looked down. “There are two more terra-cotta figures there… The wasteland is so dangerous. Are we really not waiting for An Yu?”

Just as he finished speaking, his terminal received a message.

An Yu was as concise as ever.

“I’ll be back a bit later. Don’t worry.”

“Alright, then we won’t wait for him.” Zhu Tao sighed. The plane’s altitude rose rapidly. Those two tiny human figures on the ground soon shrank into two small dots and then disappeared. He muttered, “I wonder if they were terra-cotta figures… they didn’t look giant. Maybe they were two living people? Just planning to go home after a hug?”

Tang Feng said casually, “Maybe. Probably like us, they were separated by the chaotic wasteland before.”

“Mhm.” Zhu Tao nodded, his head pressed against the glass porthole. Even though he could no longer see them, he kept looking down stubbornly.

For some reason, he felt those two figures were very familiar. The intimate posture of them holding each other made him feel a sense of comfort, perhaps reminding him of some similar beauty between him and his Commander.

“In this world, surviving a disaster is already rare. Being able to reunite is truly a miracle,” he lamented softly.

“The snowstorm has stopped, too.”

“What a couple of lucky guys.”

—END OF MAIN STORY—

Author’s Note:

[40 – One’s awaiting return]

In human history,

Many secrets are scribbled hastily onto the pages of books.

Forgotten in the past.

Buried in the snowstorm.

After walking through those long 28 years, the survivors gradually forgot the coldness of the snowstorm.

But I will not forget its loneliness and guardianship.

Its romance and mercy.

Every Winter Solstice, I remember many things and many people.

Oh, I am just a single page loose from an useless book; I am of little use.

My ramblings aren’t worth reading.

It’s just that every time the snowstorm fall, I will reminisce.

About those old friends who returned through the snowstorm.

That is all.

Burn after reading.

-Loose Pages from an Useless Book

The main story ends here. The endings of some characters will be supplemented in the side stories. The side stories will be updated about twice a week.

A brief explanation of the source of the mystical layer of the world-building:

The prototype for Him is Yog-Sothoth (the name Yug Snowfield also stems from this). In Lovecraftian lore, Yog-Sothoth is the all-knowing, all-powerful god, the master of time and space, and within him is hidden the soul of Azathoth (the Lord of All, the primal nuclear chaos). Yog-Sothoth has two avatars: one is ’Umr at-Tawil, who represents the “Good” and human side, a giant humanoid silhouette spanning heaven and earth (set as the Order Body, the giant golden humanoid); the second is Aforgomon, the wrathful and violent presence, a blinding light (set as the Chaos Body, the shattered red light).

Additionally, I added a “slice” setting, which is His “Omniscience”—originally a collection of billions of light spheres, which I modified into billions of eye sacs. As for the book containing the eye sacs, that was the shell originally chosen by “Omniscience”—Ms. Zhan Xue. Due to an operational error, an accidental split occurred. In other words, Codex’s existence is just an accident in spacetime, but he is also the link that allows this spacetime to obtain a turning point. I didn’t write too much interaction between him and An Yu, but you should be able to read that An Yu trusts him immensely; they had many private exchanges, and he guided An Yu step by step toward the finale.

There are also some clear mechanisms: for example, the Chaos Body and the Order Body complement and repel each other; they can merge and balance each other when they are evenly matched. But if a fragment of the Chaos Body dares to touch the complete Order Body, it will explode (An Yu’s passive ability).

The Cognitive Body (Codex/Eye) has nothing to do with Chaos/Order; it possesses nothing but the Truth. Truth can redeem humanity, but it often leads humanity into panic and pain.

M1zushi: thank you everyone for reading this incredible story with me! This is my first novel with so many dense concepts, worldbuilding and huge chapters! Even if LQ died in the first arc, he remains a ghost in the narrative, appearing even in the last chapter, he’s one of my fav secondary characters, because he shows such will and determination to save his and AY’s lives ;w;
AY and Law’s relationship was such a slow burn, yet law is so careful and kind to AY since the beginning. in my hc, law fell first AND harder yet AY would rather destroy the world than kill law ;wwwww;
lumen and flame’s was my favorite 2nd CP, chao wu and deep reverence’s sisterly bond was short but i liked them sm in the little chapters they appeared. xi de is my 2nd, secondary chapter bcs he’s also bright and cheerful (ig you can see that I like cheerful characters that have tragic pasts xd)
thank you everyone! let’s see each other in the side stories~~