Chapter 1279: Mythology

They quickly reached the top of the tower. The black tower was growing taller as more and more black creatures climbed over the corpses of their kind before becoming one with the tower. At the moment, it was the tallest tower in the forest of black towers.

Zhang Wei felt conflicted. “Now I get it. All the towers here are results of them stacking up.”

Liao Liao had to look away. “They are building towers with their lives.”

“But why do they need to build so many?” Chen Ying asked.

“They...may not be building towers,” White Dew speculated. “They simply want to climb up. The towers are the byproduct rather than the goal.”

“I agree.” Vermilion Bird nodded. “The towers started out neither big nor tall enough. They toppled halfway. These creatures repeat the same process again and again, resulting in the many towers.”

“How high are they trying to reach?” Adept Horse asked.

Zhang Wei shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps high enough to reach heaven...”

Suddenly, the giant black tower broke and slowly leaned to one side. It looked like God had accidentally tipped the blocks They had taken a long time stacking. The broken part fell toward them like a plunging space carrier.

Vermilion Bird activated Unreacheable on everyone.

The fallen tower quickly crumbled into the broken bodies of countless black creatures. They howled in frustration and soon exploded into black dust, raining down like a downpour of despair.

At that moment, they finally understood what the feeling they sensed when they touched the black tower was: the internal cries of the tens of thousands of black creatures.

“Really?” Even Zhang Wei couldn’t help but feel bad for them. “Fail again?”

“They will never succeed,” Qing Ling said with certainty.

“Why?” Zhang Wei looked at her curiously.

Qing Ling didn’t respond.

“Did you discover something?” Liao Liao asked.

Qing Ling nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Gao Yang knew that Qing Ling wanted to talk to him in private.

“A moment,” she said.

He glanced at Qing Ling. She summoned two blades over, and they rode the blades away from the black downpour, stopping on the other side of the tower. They quietly watched the black, broken tower protruding from the sea of mist.

A breeze made Qing Ling’s longer hair flutter against her fair, aloof face. She finally said, “The black towers remind me of the Tower of Babel.”

Gao Yang quietly waited.

“My sister told me about the myth. Once, humans tried to work together to build a tower leading to heaven. To stop humans from doing so, God divided their language, and they failed from being unable to communicate.”

She narrowed her eyes and continued, “My sister doesn’t think the story makes sense. She believes that even when humans were using the same language, they would fail in the end.”

“I asked her why, and she said that language is never enough to express oneself fully. Is my red your red? Is my love your love? And humans lie, cheat, and speak disingenuously. Language isn’t reliable at all.”

“She said that, compared to language, the better medium is the voice of the heart. Like she and I. We understood each other without speaking.”

The wind stopped. Qing Ling looked up and said, “That’s it.”

“Okay.”

Gao Yang looked at the broken tower.

A few seconds later, he took Qing Ling’s hand and closed his eyes. She paused, but also tipped her head up and closed her eyes.

Another wind visited, rustling Qing Ling’s hair and counting Gao Yang’s eyelashes.

“The wind rises. We must try to live.”

A familiar voice spoke from the heart.

Gao Yang let go of her hand.

“Let’s go.”

“Yeah.”

...

“You lost, Nainai,” Liao Liao said proudly, pitching her voice low since it was inappropriate to gossip about office romance in this situation.

“This Empress hasn’t lost,” Nainai said defiantly in a quiet voice.

“You haven’t lost?” Liao Liao put an arm around her shoulder and snickered. “They held hands and whispered sweet nothings into each other’s ears. You’ve lost even your underwear to me.”

“Blah, blah, blah...” Nainai covered her ears and shook her head in agitation.

Liao Liao swallowed her words and suppressed her smile. Gao Yang and Qing Ling were back.

“So?” Dr. Jia was probably the only one on this team who didn’t care about gossip.

“The black towers remind Qing Ling of the Tower of Babel in mythology,” Gao Yang said simply.

“Ah!” Gregor shouted. “How did I not realize it when it’s right before us?!”

“Hm.” Dr. Jia nodded. “It fits.”

Wang Zikai looked dumbfounded. He had never heard of the tower. He immediately shot Zhang Wei a look, who raised his hand and said, “Teachers, what is the Tower of Babel? Would you explain to us?”

Liao Liao gave a simple explanation. Zhang Wei came to a realization. “Holy! No wonder those things feel familiar to me. They are letters from different languages.”

“That’ll explain a lot.” Liao Liao smiled. “Captain, Mr. G, would you allow me to do the reading comprehension this time?”

Gao Yang nodded.

Gregor lit a new cigarette. “I’m all ears.”