Chapter 1

A hollow rumble suddenly echoed, and the screen before him went black. In the next second, Zhou Ming felt all sounds receding—the computer's fan quieted, the hum of the refrigerator in the distance gradually faded, and the entire room fell into an eerie silence. The atmosphere around him... was changing.

All of this happened after he typed "Reverse Singularity" into the search bar.

He blinked, pushed back his chair, and stood up from the desk.

The chair slid back silently, and his movement made no sound. A pen on the desk was knocked to the floor, landing without a sound.

For a few brief seconds, Zhou Ming thought he had lost his hearing.

Then he realized the problem was with the environment—the room was darkening.

The lights were fading, and everything in the room was gradually being covered by a chaotic shadow. All the colors were draining away in the increasingly dim environment. The patterned curtains were the first to become a gray-white patch, followed by his desk, chairs, and bed. One by one, the objects within sight turned gray-white, and then were gradually swallowed by the rising darkness...

It was like the individual units of a vast system were shutting down one by one. In a matter of seconds, the "room" in Zhou Ming's eyes became a chaotic, dim space. And when the surrounding walls disappeared as well, true darkness filled his vision.

Zhou Ming stood in place, looking around. In this suddenly descending darkness, he felt a strange... familiarity, and an odd sense of peace.

After a while, his "vision" seemed to adjust to the dim environment. In the depths of the chaos, some vague outlines caught his attention.

Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment, then immediately connected those outlines' positions and distances to something, and strode towards them.

In the depths of the dark chaos, some things came into his view—several lifelike "models" were floating where the end of the room should have been.

The Vanishing Ship, the White Oak, the Prand, Frost...

And the "World Tree," Xilantis, was spinning slowly in mid-air.

They floated in this dark, endless space, as if all things had perished, becoming the only objects left in this "world."

Zhou Ming stared blankly at these "collectibles" floating around him, his mind racing, countless questions and guesses surfacing.

Why? What does this mean? What is this trying to tell me?

Xilantis, like a floating bonsai, spun in the darkness, drifting seemingly unintentionally towards him. Some of her branches slowly unfolded in the void, as if sensing the surrounding environment, or perhaps simply growing unconsciously. Zhou Ming looked at this small "World Tree," hesitated, and reached out his finger.

The instant he reached out, he noticed that his body had changed somehow—starlight replaced flesh and blood, dense galaxies and brilliant nebulae filled his body like a misty haze. And this constellation of stars stagnated within him, just like... the ancient starry sky phantom above the abyssal deep sea dome.

But there seemed to be a difference between the two.

Zhou Ming looked at his arm in surprise, but before he could think any further, his finger had touched a branch extending from the World Tree.

In an instant, information so vast that it could not be comprehended by human intelligence flooded his "mind." In the storm of information fragments, he felt as if he had blinked and traveled through endless, long ages, an endless, long journey—primitive gods, the first creatures, giant trees, forests, rivers, mountains, civilizations, memories...

Zhou Ming took a half-step back abruptly, and the storm of information suddenly receded. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw Xilantis still spinning freely in place, the branches extending from the edge of her canopy occasionally striking the White Oak, occasionally striking the Prand, occasionally striking Frost...

Zhou Ming was stunned for several seconds before he came back to his senses. He looked at the scene before him and muttered in a strange tone, "Xilantis, don't bully your roommates."

Then he raised his head and looked at the boundless darkness before him.

Before the "room" disappeared, this should have been the wall where the shelves were, the end of his studio apartment, the barrier that confined him here—the shell of the "cocoon."

But now the entire room had disappeared, and the darkness here seemed boundless.

Zhou Ming hesitated for a while, then slowly got up and walked towards the darkness, reaching out to grope in the darkness ahead—he walked very cautiously, as if afraid of bumping into the wall in his memory.

Fortunately, he was walking cautiously.

Because almost instantly, he encountered an invisible barrier—something hard and cold in the darkness blocked his way. He felt his arm hit the barrier, then he pushed again, and found that the barrier did not move.

The room had disappeared, but the shell of the "cocoon" still existed, and he still couldn't leave here—the seemingly boundless darkness was just part of the hard shell.

Zhou Ming stopped in front of the invisible shell. After hitting it a few times in vain, he gave up and turned around to look where he had come from.

All the furnishings in the room had disappeared, including the computer. Only a door still stood quietly in the depths of the darkness, the only "exit" from this space.

"Can someone explain this?" After an unknown period of silence, Zhou Ming suddenly spoke. He asked the darkness, and although he knew this "talking to himself" might seem a little silly, he said with great seriousness, "Is this some kind of 'answer'?"

No one in the darkness responded to his voice.

After a while, he spoke again: "Is this an explanation for the keyword 'Reverse Singularity'? Or is this just some kind of incomprehensible 'demonstration' to help me understand my nature or what I can do?"

The darkness remained silent.

"Can anyone tell me in detail—what exactly is the point of sending a 0.002-second slice of the universe along the timeline? Where can I find my instruction manual?"

"Don't you guys have after-sales service? You've developed to the end of time as a civilization, and you don't even leave a user guide? Hello? Hello—"

"Is there anyone here?"

No one. He was the only one in the darkness.

In the long nothingness after his home universe was torn apart by the Great Annihilation, the only remaining mind continued to run blankly in this hard, black "cocoon." And the only difference from the long years past was that this mind was first aware of how vast the nothingness around "itself" was.

An unknown amount of time passed. Zhou Ming felt as if he might have been standing pointlessly in this darkness for an entire century before he finally sighed softly.

"There's nothing here..."

He muttered, somewhat self-deprecatingly, then sat down in place in the darkness, preparing to rest—although this incredible body of his, filled with starlight, didn't seem to feel fatigue.

And at that moment, just as he was about to sit down, Zhou Ming suddenly caught sight of something in the corner of his eye—he saw a very, very thin "bright edge," almost imperceptible to the naked eye, flash past the edge of his vision in the darkness.

His eyes widened slightly.

It was a thread.

In the next second, he had unhesitatingly grabbed the thread. The slight sense of stagnation in his hand told him that the thread was real... not an illusion!

Zhou Ming instantly raised his hand and carefully examined the thread before his eyes. Then, after a while, he began to try to find the source of the thread.

The thread came from outside the invisible barrier... outside the "cocoon."

Zhou Ming slowly stood up, holding the thread tightly in his hand. He saw that the thread, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, seemed to pass through the "invisible barrier" that he could not break through no matter what, and floated lightly in the endless darkness outside. The other end of the thread disappeared into the depths of the void. He couldn't see where it led or what it was connected to.

Zhou Ming pulled the thread towards him several times, only feeling that the thread seemed to never end. The slight resistance from the other side made him afraid to continue to exert force, fearing that he would break the only "connection" with the outside world.

After a while, after some hesitation and thought, he finally made up his mind. He slowly raised his finger and summoned a small ball of ghostly green flame, carefully bringing the flame close to the thread.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the small flame seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, and all of it plunged into the depths of the thread.

Then, his connection with the flame was severed.

Zhou Ming blinked. This unprecedented situation left him somewhat stunned for a moment.

His connection with the flame was severed! Completely, thoroughly, without a trace!

And before today, even in the Abyssal Deep Sea, separated by a dimension, his connection with the flame had never been completely severed!

Was it the problem with this thread? Or was it because of the barrier of that invisible barrier?

Zhou Ming couldn't help but think, but he only thought for a few seconds before he suddenly felt his hand empty—the thread had disappeared.

Then, before he could react, a low hum rang from all directions, and then, all the light and color suddenly returned to his eyes—as if the individual units of a briefly shut-down system were coming back online. Accompanied by dazzling light and shadow, the walls, windows, roof, floor, and all the furnishings of the room reappeared with a bang!

Zhou Ming was a little confused by the sudden change. He subconsciously took two steps back and grabbed the shelf next to him—Xilantis's branches drooped down, brushing against his arm.

"No warning at all... This is still my 'home' after all..."

Zhou Ming couldn't help but mutter, shaking his head as he looked around, confirming the changes in the room. Then he seemed to sense something and suddenly looked up into the distance.

Almost at the same time as he looked up, a sound rang out, echoing in the quiet studio apartment—

"Knock, knock, knock..."

Someone was knocking on the door.

(End of this chapter)