His hair was beautifully coiffed, from afar, it looked like a giant black rose blooming in the darkness of the night.
The bearded man laughed for a while before he put away his laughter. “Well, you look only 21 or 22 years old. I have been here for 200 years, and the game lobby is only 10 years old. I did not see such a character when I was in the game lobby at the time, and if I spent almost 10 years in the game lobby before entering the time cage.”
“10 years plus the 50 years of living here, then add your original 20 years, that makes almost 80 years, how can there be nearly 10,000 years?”
“It’s not a coincidence.” Bai Lixin didn’t explain anything; he just threw out this nonsensical sentence.
The bearded man froze for a moment and asked, “What?”
Bai Lixin propped himself against the tree trunk and adjusted his sitting position. He picked up the branch with one hand and casually grabbed his long hair with the other; the branch tapped twice at a certain point on the ground gently. “That sound can’t be crustal activity on Diamond Mountain, nor is it a coincidence.”
“It appears once a year, at a very specific time, always on that day.”
“I’ve been waiting and listening for fifty years, and guess what I found out?”
The bearded man’s eyes followed Bai Lixin’s line of sight down to the ground. He thought Bai Lixin was just scribbling on the ground, but he wasn’t.
He had drawn a map of Diamond Mountain.
A small circle in the middle was their survival zone, and a line was attached to the edge of the survival zone, which was the rope that led to the top.
At the end of the rope was a huge, jagged circle, a circle that wrapped around the middle circle like a giant, without a single gap.
The branch in Bai Lixin’s hand nudged somewhere on the diamond mountain.
The bearded man wondered, “What did you find?”
“After fifty years,” Bai Lixin moved his hand, and the fixed point of the branch moved forward by some distance, “I found that the sound was getting closer and closer. It started from here to there.”
The bearded man’s expression froze as he stared at Bai Lixin’s wrist blankly, “You mean… ”
Bai Lixin: “Eternal Diamond Mountain, you should have heard of that fable, right?”
The bearded man nodded and said, “The system gave an introduction before entering the time cage.”
Bai Lixin asked, “How many seconds are there in eternity?”
“There is a diamond mountain in the fable, and every hundred years, a bird flies in and pecks the mountain with its beak, and when the whole mountain is pecked off, the first second of eternity ends.”
“In the story, there is a bird pecking at the mountain….”
The bearded man’s gaze remained somewhat dull, but it had a kind of excitement that could not be clearly interpreted: “Is that sound actually the bird that flies in every other year to peck the Diamond Mountain?!”
“But how is that possible?” The bearded man became excited but quickly regained his composure. “How could the system be so good as to put us in a cage and then put a big bird that specializes in breaking the Diamond Mountain?”
Bai Lixin’s eyes drifted a little. “That’s what I’m wondering, perhaps the system can’t stop this big bird from appearing.”
“The system can’t even establish a connection to communicate with us, so sending us into this copy must be the best it can do. What could it possibly do under such circumstances?”
The bearded man’s eyes lit up, and he heard Bai Lixin continue, “I started chiseling the mountain in the opposite direction from the point where that sound emanated fifty years ago.”
The bearded man: “What was the result?”
Bai Lixin: “In fifty years, over eighteen thousand two hundred days, I have chiseled a depth the size of two fists.”
“Two fists ……” The bearded man held up his own fist and gestured, then looked at Bai Lixin in shock. “You chiseled away such a depth? How did you do that?”
Bai Lixin raised his eyebrows and suddenly showed an arrogant expression: “I am Bai Lixin; who do you think I am?”
“It’s not just about brute strength, it’s also about skill.”
“Diamonds are said to be made up of tightly connected carbon atoms hand in hand, and since they are interconnected, there are vulnerable areas.”
It was the first time in 50 years that the bearded man had listened to Bai Lixin seriously, and he was stunned. It was like listening to a science-fiction story.
Hand in hand carbon atoms? Vulnerable areas?
He was saying he’d found the joints between the carbon atoms and knocked them open from there.
How the fuck was that possible? That was too magical!
Seeing the bearded man’s eyes widen and showing an expression of obvious disbelief, Bai Lixin didn’t say anything more, but yawned, “I’m a bit sleepy, I’ll go to bed first, I still have to get up early tomorrow.”
The bearded man looked at Bai Lixin’s figure as he stood up and leaped up in the tree, then he looked at the last horizontal line drawn on the ground. He thought for a few seconds, and as if he had made some heavy decision, he looked up at Bai Lixin’s back and said, “Bai Lixin, I’ll go with you tomorrow!”
He hadn’t left the survival zone for over a hundred years after 20 years of chiseling and failing to find his way out.
But Bai Lixin’s words today had suddenly rekindled his desire to leave this place.
There was nothing to lose by going to have a look, was there?
Seeing is believing, and hearing is believing.
This young man spoke mysteriously and often said amazing things, making it unclear which were true and which were not.
If what he said was true, he could help with the chiseling; one more person meant faster progress toward leaving.
If what he said was false, he would dispel all the unrealistic illusions left and finally return to reality.
Bai Lixin had already burrowed into the wooden hut on the tree trunk, and at the bearded man’s words, he poked his head out of the small doorway and said, “Okay, we’ll leave at first light. Good night.”
The four-meter-long black hair immediately fell in a cascade, swirling around the trunk like a naughty vine hanging from a branch.
The bearded man stared at Bai Lixin’s hair for a moment. “Isn’t it time to cut it? It’s so long, isn’t it heavy? Doesn’t it make you feel like you’re going to fall over?”
Bai Lixin pulled his hair up and said, “Not yet, I have a use for it.”
The bearded man: “……”
What’s the point of keeping it?
To learn from Rapunzel and let your hair down for your husband to climb?
Tsk, tsk, tsk—so weird.
_______________________________
The next day at dawn, the bearded man was woken up by a forceful poke.
He opened his eyes in a daze, only to find Bai Lixin, who was already packed up, standing in front of him.
The young man wore a pure black outfit; the linen cloth was wrapped around his waist, and his long hair was securely coiled on top of his head.
The diamond refracted the light of the sun, and the colorful light shone in the eyes of the youth; the youth’s already radiant eyes instantly became a sky full of stars.
The bearded man was stunned for a moment.
Bai Lixin threw some fruit to the bearded man, and said condescendingly, “I still have some fruit in the cabin. You can come to the rope after eating this. You haven’t been to the rope for so long, I’m afraid you won’t be able to keep up. I’ll start first, and you can catch up at your pace.”
The bearded man came back to his senses, and only then did he remember his brave words before going to sleep last night. He hurriedly got up from the ground, picked up the fruit, and took a bite, “Okay, you go first; I’ll follow.”
Without staying to wait for the bearded man, Bai Lixin turned and ran towards the wrist-thick rope.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped onto the rope like a nimble black panther, and it didn’t take long before he was a small black dot, quickly blending into the still somewhat dark clouds.
The bell made a crisp ringing sound, and the sound faded away with the youth’s departure.
The bearded man quickly ate the fruit, then came to the rope.
He looked at the thin, narrow rope, and then at the bottomless abyss below, and a wave of fear suddenly welled up in his heart.
The feeling of dread struck him, and he froze.
When he first came to this time cage more than two hundred years ago, he ran to the end of the rope every day and had never once been afraid.
But now that he was looking at this rope, he was actually reacting in this way.
The bearded man suddenly let out a bitter laugh and raised his heavy hand to slap his face as hard as he could.
He slapped himself so loudly that even those who were caught up in the idle movements looked at him suspiciously.
Don’t be afraid!
The bearded man gave himself a pep talk.
He had been a guild leader back then! He was also a famous figure in the rankings!
He used to be someone that others were afraid of; when did he ever get scared?
You can do it! Chi Yan!
I’m the best! I’m the best! Let’s do it!
Chi Yan took a deep breath, and his eyes gradually became more and more determined.
Then, he stumbled and took his first step.
In the distance, the men who had been up all night spinning in circles stopped in their tracks, their eyes staring blankly at Chi Yan’s movements, wondering if he was doing something interesting.
All things are hard at the beginning.
With a beginning, everything is much better.
He was originally powerful, but his abilities had regressed after long-term inertia. He was now gaining his abilities all over again, but he was much faster than a beginner.
The first thing Chi Yan did was to get a feel for it, and when he did, he exhaled heavily and began to dart forward like Bai Lixin.
His posture was a bit awkward at first, and he even wobbled a few times, nearly falling off the rope.
The bell seemed to have sensed the man’s panic, and it emitted a jumbled ringing sound in a frenzy.
It was a nerve-wracking sound that made the man’s already tense nerves even tenser.
The more he was on the brink of death, the more persistent and calmer he became.
The desire to fight and the passion that he had once abandoned were, like his name, all rekindled at this moment like a flame!
As if inspired by something, the men below began to move towards the position of the ropes. Chi Yan’s running posture grew more stable, and when he started running, he opened his arms wide and laughed.
The wanton, arrogant laughter, and movement were like that of an untamed eagle in the sky.
Among the numbed crowd, the dull eyes of one of the men suddenly flickered.
His hair was beautifully coiffed, from afar, it looked like a giant black rose blooming in the darkness of the night.
The bearded man laughed for a while before he put away his laughter. “Well, you look only 21 or 22 years old. I have been here for 200 years, and the game lobby is only 10 years old. I did not see such a character when I was in the game lobby at the time, and if I spent almost 10 years in the game lobby before entering the time cage.”
“10 years plus the 50 years of living here, then add your original 20 years, that makes almost 80 years, how can there be nearly 10,000 years?”
“It’s not a coincidence.” Bai Lixin didn’t explain anything; he just threw out this nonsensical sentence.
The bearded man froze for a moment and asked, “What?”
Bai Lixin propped himself against the tree trunk and adjusted his sitting position. He picked up the branch with one hand and casually grabbed his long hair with the other; the branch tapped twice at a certain point on the ground gently. “That sound can’t be crustal activity on Diamond Mountain, nor is it a coincidence.”
“It appears once a year, at a very specific time, always on that day.”
“I’ve been waiting and listening for fifty years, and guess what I found out?”
The bearded man’s eyes followed Bai Lixin’s line of sight down to the ground. He thought Bai Lixin was just scribbling on the ground, but he wasn’t.
He had drawn a map of Diamond Mountain.
A small circle in the middle was their survival zone, and a line was attached to the edge of the survival zone, which was the rope that led to the top.
At the end of the rope was a huge, jagged circle, a circle that wrapped around the middle circle like a giant, without a single gap.
The branch in Bai Lixin’s hand nudged somewhere on the diamond mountain.
The bearded man wondered, “What did you find?”
“After fifty years,” Bai Lixin moved his hand, and the fixed point of the branch moved forward by some distance, “I found that the sound was getting closer and closer. It started from here to there.”
The bearded man’s expression froze as he stared at Bai Lixin’s wrist blankly, “You mean… ”
Bai Lixin: “Eternal Diamond Mountain, you should have heard of that fable, right?”
The bearded man nodded and said, “The system gave an introduction before entering the time cage.”
Bai Lixin asked, “How many seconds are there in eternity?”
“There is a diamond mountain in the fable, and every hundred years, a bird flies in and pecks the mountain with its beak, and when the whole mountain is pecked off, the first second of eternity ends.”
“In the story, there is a bird pecking at the mountain….”
The bearded man’s gaze remained somewhat dull, but it had a kind of excitement that could not be clearly interpreted: “Is that sound actually the bird that flies in every other year to peck the Diamond Mountain?!”
“But how is that possible?” The bearded man became excited but quickly regained his composure. “How could the system be so good as to put us in a cage and then put a big bird that specializes in breaking the Diamond Mountain?”
Bai Lixin’s eyes drifted a little. “That’s what I’m wondering, perhaps the system can’t stop this big bird from appearing.”
“The system can’t even establish a connection to communicate with us, so sending us into this copy must be the best it can do. What could it possibly do under such circumstances?”
The bearded man’s eyes lit up, and he heard Bai Lixin continue, “I started chiseling the mountain in the opposite direction from the point where that sound emanated fifty years ago.”
The bearded man: “What was the result?”
Bai Lixin: “In fifty years, over eighteen thousand two hundred days, I have chiseled a depth the size of two fists.”
“Two fists ……” The bearded man held up his own fist and gestured, then looked at Bai Lixin in shock. “You chiseled away such a depth? How did you do that?”
Bai Lixin raised his eyebrows and suddenly showed an arrogant expression: “I am Bai Lixin; who do you think I am?”
“It’s not just about brute strength, it’s also about skill.”
“Diamonds are said to be made up of tightly connected carbon atoms hand in hand, and since they are interconnected, there are vulnerable areas.”
It was the first time in 50 years that the bearded man had listened to Bai Lixin seriously, and he was stunned. It was like listening to a science-fiction story.
Hand in hand carbon atoms? Vulnerable areas?
He was saying he’d found the joints between the carbon atoms and knocked them open from there.
How the fuck was that possible? That was too magical!
Seeing the bearded man’s eyes widen and showing an expression of obvious disbelief, Bai Lixin didn’t say anything more, but yawned, “I’m a bit sleepy, I’ll go to bed first, I still have to get up early tomorrow.”
The bearded man looked at Bai Lixin’s figure as he stood up and leaped up in the tree, then he looked at the last horizontal line drawn on the ground. He thought for a few seconds, and as if he had made some heavy decision, he looked up at Bai Lixin’s back and said, “Bai Lixin, I’ll go with you tomorrow!”
He hadn’t left the survival zone for over a hundred years after 20 years of chiseling and failing to find his way out.
But Bai Lixin’s words today had suddenly rekindled his desire to leave this place.
There was nothing to lose by going to have a look, was there?
Seeing is believing, and hearing is believing.
This young man spoke mysteriously and often said amazing things, making it unclear which were true and which were not.
If what he said was true, he could help with the chiseling; one more person meant faster progress toward leaving.
If what he said was false, he would dispel all the unrealistic illusions left and finally return to reality.
Bai Lixin had already burrowed into the wooden hut on the tree trunk, and at the bearded man’s words, he poked his head out of the small doorway and said, “Okay, we’ll leave at first light. Good night.”
The four-meter-long black hair immediately fell in a cascade, swirling around the trunk like a naughty vine hanging from a branch.
The bearded man stared at Bai Lixin’s hair for a moment. “Isn’t it time to cut it? It’s so long, isn’t it heavy? Doesn’t it make you feel like you’re going to fall over?”
Bai Lixin pulled his hair up and said, “Not yet, I have a use for it.”
The bearded man: “……”
What’s the point of keeping it?
To learn from Rapunzel and let your hair down for your husband to climb?
Tsk, tsk, tsk—so weird.
_______________________________
The next day at dawn, the bearded man was woken up by a forceful poke.
He opened his eyes in a daze, only to find Bai Lixin, who was already packed up, standing in front of him.
The young man wore a pure black outfit; the linen cloth was wrapped around his waist, and his long hair was securely coiled on top of his head.
The diamond refracted the light of the sun, and the colorful light shone in the eyes of the youth; the youth’s already radiant eyes instantly became a sky full of stars.
The bearded man was stunned for a moment.
Bai Lixin threw some fruit to the bearded man, and said condescendingly, “I still have some fruit in the cabin. You can come to the rope after eating this. You haven’t been to the rope for so long, I’m afraid you won’t be able to keep up. I’ll start first, and you can catch up at your pace.”
The bearded man came back to his senses, and only then did he remember his brave words before going to sleep last night. He hurriedly got up from the ground, picked up the fruit, and took a bite, “Okay, you go first; I’ll follow.”
Without staying to wait for the bearded man, Bai Lixin turned and ran towards the wrist-thick rope.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped onto the rope like a nimble black panther, and it didn’t take long before he was a small black dot, quickly blending into the still somewhat dark clouds.
The bell made a crisp ringing sound, and the sound faded away with the youth’s departure.
The bearded man quickly ate the fruit, then came to the rope.
He looked at the thin, narrow rope, and then at the bottomless abyss below, and a wave of fear suddenly welled up in his heart.
The feeling of dread struck him, and he froze.
When he first came to this time cage more than two hundred years ago, he ran to the end of the rope every day and had never once been afraid.
But now that he was looking at this rope, he was actually reacting in this way.
The bearded man suddenly let out a bitter laugh and raised his heavy hand to slap his face as hard as he could.
He slapped himself so loudly that even those who were caught up in the idle movements looked at him suspiciously.
Don’t be afraid!
The bearded man gave himself a pep talk.
He had been a guild leader back then! He was also a famous figure in the rankings!
He used to be someone that others were afraid of; when did he ever get scared?
You can do it! Chi Yan!
I’m the best! I’m the best! Let’s do it!
Chi Yan took a deep breath, and his eyes gradually became more and more determined.
Then, he stumbled and took his first step.
In the distance, the men who had been up all night spinning in circles stopped in their tracks, their eyes staring blankly at Chi Yan’s movements, wondering if he was doing something interesting.
All things are hard at the beginning.
With a beginning, everything is much better.
He was originally powerful, but his abilities had regressed after long-term inertia. He was now gaining his abilities all over again, but he was much faster than a beginner.
The first thing Chi Yan did was to get a feel for it, and when he did, he exhaled heavily and began to dart forward like Bai Lixin.
His posture was a bit awkward at first, and he even wobbled a few times, nearly falling off the rope.
The bell seemed to have sensed the man’s panic, and it emitted a jumbled ringing sound in a frenzy.
It was a nerve-wracking sound that made the man’s already tense nerves even tenser.
The more he was on the brink of death, the more persistent and calmer he became.
The desire to fight and the passion that he had once abandoned were, like his name, all rekindled at this moment like a flame!
As if inspired by something, the men below began to move towards the position of the ropes. Chi Yan’s running posture grew more stable, and when he started running, he opened his arms wide and laughed.
The wanton, arrogant laughter, and movement were like that of an untamed eagle in the sky.
Among the numbed crowd, the dull eyes of one of the men suddenly flickered.
