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Chapter 949: Eyes
Chapter 949: Eyes
"That's it," Dr. Jia declared. "That's the entire exploration of the Mist."
"Isn't that a little anti-climactic?" War Tiger dropped back, propping his crossed legs on the tea table.
Dr. Jia bristled. "What else do you want? Entering the Mist at all is revolutionary!"
"He's right." Nine Frost nodded. "Now that we've glimpsed inside the Mist, fully understanding it isn't impossible. It's another path forward—if only we had more time."
Gao Yang sat in contemplative silence.
When the room grew quiet, he looked up at Dr. Jia. "Your hypothesis?"
Dr. Jia's face lit up with self-satisfaction. He'd been waiting for this question. Tapping his temple, he said, "Though the Heavenly Way erased all traces of the desert, it couldn't erase my memories."
"That oasis Qing Ling and Nainai found? I've been there. Beautiful lake. Tourists would ride camels around it for photos. Quite the attraction."
“I actually considered building my laboratory near the oasis, but the place saw too many visitors and was too close to the border of the Mist. The chance of it being swallowed by the Mist was too great. Therefore, I ended up building the lab ten kilometers away. And the area of the desert did turn out to be swallowed. I was right to be cautious.”
Gao Yang said without missing a beat, “You’re saying that the area Qing Ling and Nainai explored was that part of the desert before it was swallowed.”
"Given our current knowledge, yes." Dr. Jia shrugged.
"But wait." Gao Yang's brow furrowed. "If that's all there is to it, why did the cameras fail?"
"Ah, this is why I love talking to smart people!" Dr. Jia beamed. "I have two theories."
Everyone straightened, their attention locked on him.
"First, the Dispersing Theory."
Silent glances passed between the others.
"Put simply, the Mist is exactly that: a mist obscuring our vision. My mist-dispersing light allowed Qing Ling and Nainai to pierce through it, revealing the territory the Heavenly Way had lost."
Dr. Jia’s gaze shifted to Nainai.
Nainai paused and said weakly, “How dare you! This Empress is omniscient and omnipotent! An ant like you are not to question me!”
"Alright, moving on."
The moment Dr. Jia looked away, Nainai whipped out her phone, frantically searching for an explanation.
"I'll make it simple. I believe the places the Mist has devoured no longer exist."
"Huh?!" War Tiger recoiled. That wasn’t easy to understand by any measure.
The others exchanged bewildered looks.
Nainai, having just grasped why Schrödinger would theoretically torture a cat, slumped in confusion when Dr. Jia declared there wasn't even a cat to begin with. She settled into her seat with a manufactured look of haughty indifference, determined to weather the rest of this philosophical storm with dignity.
"Don't worry." Dr. Jia chuckled. "When I say it no longer exists, I mean in the narrowest sense—it no longer exists in our dimension according to our world's rules."
"From our perspective, the devoured desert simply isn't there. Consider it a void. A void is a state of being, but one we cannot sense."
"Questions so far?"
Met with silence, he continued, "Now, Qing Ling and Nainai entered this void with an entrance ticket and observed it."
"But they couldn't perceive the void since it was nonexistent to them. Their observation became a disturbance carrying information, which filled the void for them. That's why they saw the desert as it was before the Mist devoured it."
"So the desert was just their imagination?" War Tiger frowned. "There wasn't actually anything there? Wouldn't that make it an illusion?"
"No, no." Dr. Jia wagged his finger. "Not an illusion, but an existence created by the act of observation itself. And Qing Ling and Nainai were merely a point of view—a line of sight. They weren't positioned to be the actual observer."
"Simple?!" War Tiger clutched his head. "You fucking called that simple?"
"Ah." Gao Yang's expression cleared as understanding dawned. "We are the Heavenly Way's pawns as well as its eyes."