2: Underneath A Thousand Skies

247 Transition (4)

Song Jia finally went back home.

However, before she could even take a rest and rearrange her storage space ring as usual, Song Jia saw that there was a visitor waiting for her at her doorstep.

Song Jia stopped.

It was her biological mother.

"Jia'er..."

Barely a single word had come out of the woman's mouth when Song Jia picked up the small cube and threw it into the trashcan, grounding it into pieces. The hologram of her mother then vanished.

Song Jia dusted off her hands.

"I already told them that I don't want to receive any spam mail!"

Song Jia went inside her house and walked towards the direction of her study. There was one more thing she needed to confirm before she confronted Nova.

Her study wasn't spacious. There was only enough room for a desk, a filing cabinet, and an egg pod chair. [1]

The egg pod chair was actually a device for Song Jia to log into virtual reality. She pulled the headset hanging from the side and put it on.

Song Jia's headset belonged to the second generation, which meant that it still used voice activation to log in its users. Song Jia reminded herself to buy a new headset once she confronted Nova about his corruption.

"Manzusha..." Song Jia took a deep breath, closing her eyes,"...on."

...

Manzusha.

Like Yujinxiang, it was one of the four hegemonic planetary systems in their galaxy. But unlike Yujinxiang, Manzusha was not a corporeal planetary system. It only existed in virtual reality, along with its citizens—the NPCs.

This did not mean that Manzusha was a fictional world. Rather than think of it as a planetary system that was created by virtual reality, it was better to think of Manzusha as a world that could only be accessed through virtual reality.

In their history, it was written that Manzusha appeared through virtual reality without warning, slowly invading the fictional worlds and games that they had created until only Manzusha was left. At first, players all around the galaxy thought of Manzusha as only a game, PKing [2] the NPCs for fun.

For revenge, the NPC army of Manzusha started targeting those players' avatars until their HP turned zero. It was later found out that those players had actually died in real life.

That was when the whole galaxy realized that Manzusha was a real planetary system, which might exist in a bubble universe existing in a different space-time, accessible to them only through virtual reality. The characters they thought of as NPCs were actually real people, the citizens of Manzusha, and had the power to kill them through virtual reality.

As of now, everybody in the galaxy already had a dual citizenship, for their avatars to be legally welcomed into Manzusha.

"Welcome to Fuxing, the capital planet of Manzusha. How may I help you?"

Song Jia's avatar materialized in the large city square, where bustling crowds of people wearing different kinds of clothes pushed and pulled, each hurrying to their own destination. Fuxing was the rebirth and starting point, so every player was automatically transported there.

Song Jia looked at the woman who had greeted her, whose level and stats she couldn't see. This meant that the woman was an NPC—a native Manzusha citizen.

"Good afternoon. I want to go to the city's public library," Song Jia said.

As nearly everyone in the galactic alliance had an avatar in virtual reality and was therefore a Manzusha citizen, among the four hegemonic planetary systems, Manzusha had the most complete record of their own history.

"Then, player 996, right this way."

The public library was built like a cathedral, where at the very summit of its dome was a pole that bore the Manzusha flag. With a vaulted ceiling being supported midway by an arch which sprung from the east and west walls, the stained glass windows completed its hallowed look by allowing the fading light of day into the room.

After the NPC left, Song Jia walked towards the direction of historical records. She had been here so often that she didn't need the help of the NPC librarian to find her way.

"...centuries ago, the collision of the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy gave birth to a new planet. Planet Fengfu, formerly known as Planet Earth, merged with the Yujinxiang planetary system..." [3]

Song Jia was not alone inside the public library. Two children who seemed to be studying basic history had an open book in front of them, projecting the hologram of the two galaxies merging in the night sky.

Books were no longer made of ink and paper, but digital data. One could even choose which language they would prefer the book to be, and were automatically given the options of reading it visually or listen to its recording.

Song Jia spent several hours inside the library. After confirming her suspicions, she was left more confused than ever.

"Just what is that corrupt A.I. hiding from me...?"

She felt that there were more secrets Nova had been hiding from her. The more she unraveled, the more complicated it became.

She was only a junior transmigrator who recently got her license. Her identity wasn't anything special. Song Jia didn't understand why Nova kept giving her missions that were different from everybody else.

As Song Jia exited the library, behind her, the flag of Manzusha unfurled, flapping in the wind.

At its center was a single flower, with elegantly curled petals of coral-red. It was the flower that myths and legends proclaimed to bloom in the underworld, guiding the dead through samsara, the cycle of rebirth.

The flower that meant 'pure beauty.' [4]

It was the red spider lily.

[1] Egg pod chair:

[2] Player Killing - PKing is a term used in online gaming. It is when you kill another person's character or avatar.
[3] Actually true. Andromeda is racing towards us at a speed of 250k mph. Galaxy collision isn't as destructive as it sounds; because of the immense distance between stars and planetary bodies, they won't actually smash against each other. Our solar system will be swept off the galactic core though.

[4] Chinese meaning of red spider lily. This flower has many meanings in different countries, like Japan and Korea.