Chapter 767 - When Myth Walks Among Us, the Wheel Turns Again; A Lone Boat Sets Sail for the Vast Sea - Part 1

Inside the hotel, Li Yuan and Xue Ning tilted their heads in unison, watching the TV.

Onscreen, the lead archaeologist was still explaining.

It’s the character Yuan, as in the first year of an era, or a one-yuan coin.

The reporter, clearly intrigued, smiled warmly.

Professor Zhao, I always thought that ancient script, especially ones resembling oracle bone inscriptions, could only express really basic ideas. But this

Yuan

seems anything but simple. Why would such a complex character exist back then? Could you explain it to our viewers?

The archaeologist chuckled and nodded.

Of course.

He shifted slightly and pointed to the base of a bronze idol.

Take a look. In this ancient script,

Yuan

seems to depict a round meditation mat at the top, with a horizontal stroke in the middle resembling a cloud in the sky, and at the bottom, it almost looks like a person walking.

“In the context of these ancient characters, yuan symbolizes something supreme, divine even.

The reporter’s eyes lit up. She clasped her hands together and grinned, her white teeth flashing.

Wow, then this

Yuan

must be some kind of celestial being! But isn’t this supposed to be the Yellow Emperor’s tomb? Why is there a bronze statue like this? Does that mean there really was a god named

Yuan

, and that the ancients worshipped this deity?

The archaeologist smiled again.

According to myth, when the Yellow Emperor battled Chiyou and couldn’t win, he prayed to the Heavens for help. I believe this

heavenly power

may be connected to what we’re seeing here. In any case, this discovery is incredibly meaningful. Not only does it let us examine a previously unknown era, it also allows us to test the authenticity of some fascinating myths.

The reporter’s mouth opened wide.

Wow! So, Professor Zhao, do you think this god might have truly existed?

The archaeologist shook his head slowly.

Perhaps not a god, but maybe a ruler even mightier than the Yellow Emperor himself.

The interview continued, but then the footage on screen suddenly shifted. A massive, intricately forged axe was being carefully lifted out of the excavation pit.

Gasps of astonishment echoed from the scene.

Hearing the commotion, the archaeologist instinctively turned around and froze.

The reporter was stunned too. She walked over, stared at the axe for a while, and finally blurted.

Professor Zhao...this axe... it doesn’t look like bronze.

The archaeologist locked eyes on the weapon, then asked sharply.

Xiao Wang, did this really come out of that pit?”

“Sure did! Freshly unearthed. What do you think, Professor Zhao? Shocking enough for you?

A sharp-eyed young man in black beamed with excitement. Discovering something like this? It was the kind of high that made his blood sing.

He grinned from ear to ear, like a kid who had just unwrapped the best present ever.

For archaeologists, nothing compares to the joy of digging up the unknown, reaching deep into the blank spaces of history, and pulling out a piece of the mystery with their own two hands.

Professor Zhao, this axe clearly isn’t bronze, not even close. The material and craftsmanship are...honestly, beyond anything we’ve ever imagined. Maybe...maybe it’s the weapon the Celestial Maiden of the Ninth Heaven gifted to the Yellow Emperor?

Xue Ning suddenly giggled. “Look at that bronze statue of

Yuan

, the one with the word carved on it. Doesn’t the face look a bit like yours?”

Li Yuan gave his cheek a light pat. “If only.”

It was just a fleeting moment of amusement.

Soon, the two slipped into casual conversation, drifting from daily habits and personal preferences to the latest advancements in the nation’s deep space mech program, eventually veering into talk of its plans to land on the moon.

They marveled at the dizzying pace of technological progress.

Eventually, Li Yuan fell in love with the girl beside him.

A year later, Li Yuan and Xue Ning moved in together.

Their home was filled with warmth, laughter, and quiet affection. Marriage followed naturally.

After tying the knot, there were arguments, as in any marriage, but love always won out.

Later, they had a son.

Li Yuan let Xue Ning choose his name.

“I don’t care about wealth or status,” she said. “I just want him to be safe and sound. Let’s call him Ping’an.”

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye.

After cremation, there was no tombstone, no grave.

Li Yuan and Xue Ning lived on only in the memories of their children.

𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

And in the centuries that followed, even those memories faded away completely.

Li Yuan had lived an ordinary life. But after death, his soul moved through cycle after cycle of reincarnation.

Meanwhile, human civilization advanced by leaps and bounds. Moon landings via mech suits, the construction of Dyson spheres, these had become almost routine.

Exploration probes ventured ever deeper into the stars, pushing into the vast unknown.

Yet for all its endless galaxies and promising Earth-like planets, the cosmos offered not a single confirmed sign of alien life.

One scientist, perplexed and exasperated, stared up at the sky and cried out, “Where are you all hiding?!”

Despite countless calculations predicting that the universe

must

be teeming with civilizations, that it

should

be a noisy, bustling place...humanity had found nothing but silence.

Probes had now reached other star systems. Some had already touched down, collected samples, and analyzed them for traces of life.

But the more they explored, the deeper a strange and haunting loneliness crept into the hearts of humankind.

It was beginning to feel like Earth was the only cradle of life in all the Heavens.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

And then, tens of thousands more years passed.

Human civilization made another great leap forward.

One ordinary day, at the Astronomy Bureau, a technician sipped his coffee while reviewing the latest feed from a deep space probe.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted. His face went pale.

He gasped, stunned. Then roared, “Someone, anyone, get over here! QUICK!”

The urgency in his voice brought a flood of people to his station.

They all stared at the screen and froze.

Against the boundless canvas of pure black space, studded with starlight like scattered diamonds, there loomed a being so enormous it made suns look like pebbles.

Calling it a

beast

didn’t do it justice.

It had countless limbs, a multitude of eyes, too many heads to count. Even the most grotesque creature from the worst horror film couldn’t compare to what they were seeing now.

No fiction had ever come close to capturing this level of terror.

Half of its silhouette was illuminated by alien starlight from deep space, leaving it half in shadow, half in light. Yet no one could tell whether the thing was dead, alive, or merely asleep.

It drifted within a binary star system, locked in a slow, cosmic waltz with a blazing star tens of thousands of times larger than Earth's sun. Further out, a string of planets circled the twin suns in a grand orbital dance.

“An...evil god,” someone murmured.

“No... no way, this has to be fake! It

has

to be fake!” another stammered, struggling to process what they were seeing.

Others frantically reached for their phones, scrambling to report to their superiors.

The Astronomy Bureau erupted into chaos.

Days later, experts pored over the photo frame by frame, examining every last pixel with forensic precision. Only after exhaustive analysis did they, with expressions of disbelief, finally confirm: it was real. Not a trick of galactic mist or a mirage formed by swirling stardust, this was no illusion.

Then one of the researchers suddenly shouted, shocked, “Look! On the bottom right, on the creature’s limb! There’s something engraved there! Is that...a character?”

Everyone rushed over. On the enlarged image, just barely visible on one of the blurred limbs, was a strange pattern. It was unclear, yes, but unmistakably deliberate.

No one could immediately identify what it was.

“If that i

s

a character,” someone whispered, “then why would a so-called evil god carve it into itself? Unless.. it’s still alive. It

knows

we’re watching. Maybe...it’s trying to communicate.”

Fear rippled through the room.

Another voice chimed in, skeptical, “If it’s really that powerful, wouldn’t it have shown up already? Why bother communicating?”

“Then maybe it’s not a character.”

“Either way,” someone said gravely, “we need to cross-reference this. Check every record in the global archives, see if anything like this has ever appeared before.”

In an age of hyper-advanced information systems, the search didn’t take long.

Soon, relevant entries began to surface, words like

Cthulhu

,

Elder God

, and

Unnameable

.

The researcher skimmed through the results with growing urgency. Then, suddenly, his fingers froze over an old image, an archaeological photo taken tens of thousands of years ago.

Without a word, he printed it out and hurried back to the main screen.

“Compare them.”

Another expert took the photo, glanced at it, then back at the monstrous figure on the screen.

He fell silent.

A long pause followed before he finally murmured, confused, “

Yuan?

Supreme...divine...sacred? This...this doesn’t make sense...”

Just then, a deep, resonant voice broke the silence.

“If this is real, then that...thing isn’t just reminding itself of something. It’s

paying tribute

to a sage.”

Everyone turned sharply. “Sir!”

It was the deputy director of the Astronomy Bureau.

In this era, the bureau’s authority was immense, and his position came with considerable power.

He’d rushed over the moment he received the call, and now stood before the screen, gaze fixed intently on the monstrous being and the ancient bronze statue beside it.

Finally, he spoke in a low, heavy voice: “Schedule me a meeting with the Cultural Relics Bureau. I need...to pay someone a visit.”