Silent Ark

Chapter 40: The Mind and Body

Yao Chong's pulse pounded violently; he himself was unaware that he was carrying something on his body.

"Brother Monkey, how did you know?"

"Sigh, it's a blessing in disguise. I learned it when I was trapped down at the foot of the mountain," the golden monkey recalled. "Those days felt like years, long enough to observe many, many things. You might think, like others, that the Fiery Eyes can only see monsters. Although that thing is a benign aftereffect of being smoked in Laozi's furnace, in reality, the Fiery Eyes can see the boundary between truth and falsehood."

"Like what Chen Dunli left behind on you, it's neither real nor fake. It's not something conjured by the twelve power systems; it's more like something intertwined with causality. Like a demon transforming into a human, but ultimately not a human. But this thing hasn't transformed; it's inherently formless and shapeless, and now it's becoming a real fake. This kind of thing is dangerous, but also very useful."

Because he was blocked by Monkey King's golden barrier, Loki watched all this from inside the car but couldn't hear anything. He only saw the two of them gesturing wildly at the void, which made the expression on his face change from helplessness to something akin to curiosity.

"You don't belong to any faction, right? You didn't come here on behalf of the Western Paradise or the Heavenly Court?" Loki looked at the monkey.

"I speak for myself," the monkey said impatiently. He just wanted to get Yao Chong away as soon as possible and didn't want to have any more dealings with this deity whose reputation for deception spanned Eurasia.

"Then what do you want him to do?"

“I didn’t ask him to do anything,” said the golden monkey. “I just didn’t want you guys to use him as a pawn.”

"Isn't interfering in worldly affairs also a form of playing chess?"

"I don't play chess," said the monkey. "I want to overturn the chessboard."

He turned to Yao Chong.

"Are you coming or not?"

Compared to Loki, Yao Chong trusted this golden monkey, who was suspected to be the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, more.

He glanced at Loki, whose emerald eyes held no anger or frustration, only a calm that suggested "the plan has been disrupted, but there's still a backup plan."

"You will return," Loki said, his voice regaining its youthful, agile, and mischievous tone. "The gates of Asgard will always be open for you."

"He won't go," the golden monkey interrupted Loki's supposedly gentlemanly and refined words.

"I didn't say he'd go now." Loki was a little annoyed, but he was very self-controlled, and it wasn't obvious on the surface. "I just said he'd come back."

The monkey glanced at Loki but didn't say anything.

Loki was wary of the monkey and dared not do anything out of line.

That glance was brief, but Yao Chong keenly caught it—besides a hint of warning, the golden monkey's fiery eyes also flashed with an emotion he could hardly describe.

Unlike obvious emotional fluctuations such as anger, vigilance, and fear, it is more of an affirmation, an affirmation of "I know what you're planning, and I admit that your plan is not bad." This may be related to their personality; they are all gods who do not like to be bound by the system.

"Let's go," said the monkey.

Without asking any more questions, he grabbed Yao Chong's arm and jumped.

The furry hand was warmer than Yao Chong had imagined. In the monkey's giant paw, the last thing he saw was Loki sitting in a "taxi" that had transformed into a sofa, his green eyes reflecting the gray sky, and a smile on his lips that was impossible to decipher.

Then the world turned into a golden line.

He smelled something.

It wasn't that strange smell from Loki's disguised taxi, the smell of rocks split by lightning, or the smell of something burning.

It smells like earth.

Fresh, damp soil, smelling of grass roots and insects.

He hadn't smelled this scent in a long time.

Yao Chong opened his eyes.

He stood at the foot of a mountain.

Not the kind of hazy, water-stained mountains near the Ninth Science Park, always shrouded in smog, but real mountains, the kind before the collapse of physics.

There are trees, grass, and wind.

The wind blew down from the mountain ridge, carrying the scent of pine resin and decaying leaves.

The sky was grayish-white.

The sovereign entity's enormous form still floats slowly high above, and the golden surveillance grid still covers everything.

But the sky here is a bit "thinner" than in the city—the nodes of the grid are sparser here, like a net that has been stretched open at one corner.

The smell of soil comes from here.

The laws of physics are closer to normal here—not completely normal, but "thicker" than in the water-stained area, and even more perfect than before the laws of physics were out of balance.

"arrive."

Wukong stood beside him.

He carried the golden cudgel on his shoulder and scratched his ear with his other hand.

"Where is this?"

"Lingtai Fangcun Mountain Xieyue Sanxing Cave".

Yao Chong was taken aback.

It wasn't because of the name—it was because Wukong's tone changed when he said those three words.

It's not the previous kind of carefree and sharp attitude of "I don't play chess, I want to overturn the chessboard".

It's something more complex.

It's like someone standing at the door of their old home, saying "It's just a dilapidated house," but their toes pointing towards the door are more honest than their words.

"Does the Ninth Division know about this place?"

"I know. They call this 'anomaly zone α-7'. The note says 'stable physical parameters, no threat assessment, not recommended to go deeper,' but actually it's just that they can't find a way in."

"You've even seen the files of the Ninth Division?"

"I was just browsing through it when I came to pick you up," Wukong said. "Your file system password is too simple."

Yao Chong did not pursue the matter further.

He looked around.

The mountain is ordinary.

The tree is ordinary.

Even the wind was ordinary.

But air has weight—not because of humidity or air pressure, but because air itself makes us feel "solid".

It's the opposite of the lightness you feel when you walk from water into the air.

Sound doesn't travel in a straight line here.

He said "Let's go," and the echo came from all directions, with different delays in each direction.

The shadow is clear.

Yao Chong looked down at his feet.

The shadow was black, with sharp edges, and moved with him.

A normal shadow.

After leaving CERN Whale, he hadn't seen his normal self for a long time.

"Go in."

Wukong leaned against a rock at the entrance of the cave.

The golden cudgel rests horizontally on his knee.

"Aren't you going in?"

"I've been in there before, I don't need to go in a second time."

Yao Chong glanced at him.

"Stop looking, let's go inside," Wukong said. "Some doors only need to be pushed once."

……

The cave is not deep.

It doesn't look deep at all—the light from the entrance can still shine dozens of meters inside.

But with every step you take, the surroundings are changing.

It is not a mutation.

It's a gradual change.

Like tuning—it's not about suddenly going silent, but about peeling away the noise layer by layer.

For the first fifty meters, it was quiet.

It's not silent.

There was no extra sound.

The sound of the wind has disappeared, the chirping of insects has disappeared, and the sound of water in the distance has disappeared.

Only his own breathing and footsteps remained.

But the two sounds became unusually clear—he could hear the echo of his own heartbeat bouncing back from the cave wall, one beat after another.

From fifty meters to one hundred meters, the light completely changes.