072. The Son Of Doom

Shouldn't the memories of childhood bring about a sweet taste?

The carefree running, the crying of forced grocery shopping, the anticipation of measuring your height against the wall.

If...childhood memories bring only horror, fear, sadness and anger.

Then it might be a very fortunate thing that it was left somewhere in the subconscious.

Right now, as Gu Jun looked at the enigmatic scene of this illusion, some scattered fragments of memory poured out from that dusty corner, as if a long-lost nightmare had once again invaded the dream world, disturbing the dreamer's false peace of mind.

He saw himself when he was very small, when he was still a toddler and learning to speak.

At that time, he had been undergoing some strange and inexplicable training. There were other children around him, and he and everyone else were looking at a picture of all sorts of oddly shaped trees, dense vines, twisted branches, bushy dead leaves....

These pictures planted seeds of an unknown kind into their young, empty minds.

The last thing that grew out of that seed...was it the fruit of darkness?

As they grow older, they will walk and run and talk and think....

Gu Jun suddenly realized that the surroundings had become nothing, and he was the only one still standing there, among all kinds of weird trees. He had forgotten the faces of the other children, and couldn't remember how it seemed that they had never seen each other again after the separation.

He was special.

Many eyes told him this, delighted, expectant, curious.

There was always a fervor in the formidable gaze, like looking at an amazing treasure, just as there was in his mother's fervor.

Was that woman really his mother? For the first time, Gu Jun had this suspicion, but it was only a suspicion. Because the tenderness of the woman telling him stories to lull him to sleep, the smile when she fed him, the fear when she saw him fall...all of it was also real, the feelings of a mother. He was sure of it.

But how could a mother treat her child like that?

This is the same woman who made him scrawl the names of those drawing paper patterns and write all those foreign languages.

This is the same woman who gave him that crown of a head made of twisted and braided banyan tree branches and fibrous roots, "Jun, just sit there and don't move." She said, something strained and complicated in her voice, was she hesitant, or sad?

But it was clear that in the end, it was the frenzy that prevailed, like a great experiment about to come to great fruition....

For this result, she couldn't give up.

The experiment had begun while the mother was pregnant, Gu Jun sensed that the shadowy foetal music and whispers also loomed in the depths of the hidden memory.

He was an experiment of the Afterlife Cult, as he had been since before he had yet to descend into the human world.

But the question was, what kind of creation was he?

The image of the illusion was wavering, like some blurred cracks spreading, but Gu Jun could still see the scene.

The cold voice made the dark sky seem to collapse, those black and red clothed people still kneeled down towards the banyan tree, not lifting their fading faces to look at the banyan tree hole in front of them for even a glance. It seemed that even one glance would lead to a complete loss of mind and an unending delirium.

Just like Orpheus' rescue of his wife Eurydice from the River Styx, the king of the underworld told them not to look back when they left, but before returning to the gates of the human world, Orpheus couldn't help but look back at his wife and let her stay in hell forever.

And just as Abraham and his wife were fleeing Sodom, which was destroyed by the gods, Abraham's wife looked back while instantly becoming a pillar of salt.

You must not look at what God has not told you to look at.

Thou shalt not tempt God, mortal man.

"Son of doom, true as you say." The man in red who knelt at the front of the line said in an extremely humble voice, the muddy, rotting earth reeking of stench, but the ugly face resisted not moving a muscle.

"We are a bunch of filthy, foolish, lowly worms, abandoned followers of the so-called 'Goddess of Life'..."

There was not a single sound from each of the kneeling people, only a dead silence, but above the dead silence, there was a distinctly sinister presence.

The Goddess of Life? Gu Jun had been told in the diary of Rebdi Peani that this was a god revered by that hetero-literate civilization.

Abandoned believers...were these afterlife people, speaking as hetero-literates?

Why? Where did they come from? With what knowledge?

"The old world has been destroyed, and we have come into this world, but we have lost our knowledge and our power. We, as yet, cannot recognize the words of the old world." The man in red whispered, "But we remember, the promise that the true God has given us..."

Gu Jun's heart jumped, the Afterlife Cult didn't get hold of those foreign language drawings he wrote, did they?

Did Mom and Dad hide it? Perhaps they have different plans than they would have in the afterlife....

"Low life." The child in the banyan cave makes a strange, emotionless sound of words, "The lowly wish."

There was only contempt in this response, but the members of the Afterlife did nothing. Only the voice of the red-clothed man at the head of the group was a little more subdued: "Is this body not enough to satisfy you? So he couldn't embrace the powers that belonged to the old world? Is it necessary, to perform a blood sacrifice with him?"

The child did not speak, but the absence of words might have been a response.

"This body is a sacrifice?" The man in red murmured, "Is it the beginning of doom?"

The other kneelers were still silent.

But among the dark clouds in the sky, there was lightning tearing through the silence, and thunder rumbles gradually sounded.

At this moment, Gu Jun felt his head aching and everything was in a distorted state, but he also felt a flame burning in his heart....

All the complexities of the mind gathered in one piece and poured out.

Suddenly, he opened his mouth to speak....

Is the past always real?

Why the double slit experiment in quantum mechanics shows that the future can change the past?

The dark sky finally collapsed, and torrential rain rushed down upon the earth. The voice of the child in the banyan cave became more shrill and distorted, as if two voices had been twisted together, tearing through light and darkness, maddening and trembling.

"This child has a mission." The child's strange voice resounded through the void, "I forbid thee lowly beasts to touch him for a single moment."

Still the men in black and red did not move, still they did not look up.

Nor did they see that the child's eyes had some light in them, like a flame burning in the dark abyss.

"This child will thrive and become a real man. You shall not disturb him, you shall not offend him, let him forget all this. But one day in the future, this child will stand before you again."

The child in the banyan cave spoke, twisted and natural, a conversation that had been, is, and will be the same in the past, present, and future, no more, no less.

"At that time, all debts will be settled. This is my oath to thee."

Gu Jun was saying, word for word, the last words spoken from his heart: at that time, it will be your doom.

The entire giant banyan tree fluttered in the midst of the storm, making a rustling and hissing sound.