NOVPUB775: Chapter 8: Father-Son Dialogue After 13 Years_2
775 -8: Father-Son Dialogue After 13 Years_2
“At least it’s an elite level, and it belongs to the boss-type creatures.
Judging from the olfactory feedback, there are probably tens of thousands of them.
Although I don’t know what they are, they have no intent to attack.
For now, let’s leave them be; they don’t look appetizing anyway.”
Tang Xian mused about some random thoughts internally.
These strange creatures seemed to float freely in the air, as if not bound by gravity.
Tang Xian paid them no attention.
He walked forward with Tang at his side.
The orange moss appeared to have its own thoughts, dimming where Tang Xian stepped and brightening where he stayed.
The tiny creatures at the deepest part of this world all seemed quite friendly.
What lay before Tang Xian was like a gigantic passageway, indeed enormous.
The diameter of the passageway was over twenty meters, making Tang Xian feel as though he was walking through the blood vessel of some creature.
He thought about it.
Perhaps even the giant Sea God wouldn’t have such large blood vessels, but for a Sea Demon beast… that might be too small.
After walking for some time, Tang Xian noticed that the moss was thinning out, and the shy creatures were no longer to be seen.
Tang Xian halted, the scenery ahead didn’t resemble a mining area; it was more like the ruins of a civilization that had once existed.
The color of the passageway shifted from orange to dark blue; in the distance, there seemed to be many steles.
The overly mysterious sight left Tang Xian unsure whether to continue forward.
“Those strange little creatures said earlier… that they are humans, that it’s been a long time since they’ve seen humans.
Does that mean they’ve encountered other humans?”
The creatures on the southern islands had never seen humans before, so how could there be humans here deep under the sea?
Not to mention the earlier terrifying lava zone capable of melting everything, just the deep sea outside the Dragon Palace was no place any human could survive.
Unless…
Tang Xian thought of a possibility and, to verify it, he kept walking forward.
After about a few hundred meters, the orange glow had completely vanished, as if he had traveled from ancient times to the modern day.
The dark blue light gave the surroundings a futuristic sense.
Tang Xian and Tang finally arrived at the stele.
Originally, Tang Xian had not held much hope for these steles, since he couldn’t understand the inscriptions.
But when his gaze fell upon them and he saw those symbols, his entire being was shocked.
“How can this be possible?”
Tang Xian recognized the content on the stele; in fact, among the living humans, Tang Xian might be the only one who recognized it.
It was Ayapeco language.
A prophecy system from the ancient regions of Mexico.
It’s one of the most niche languages in the world… so niche that at one point, linguists feared this language would lose its lineage, and they made great efforts to find people who could speak it.
The final result was somewhat laughable—globally, only two people were fluent in this language, and they didn’t get along and refused to communicate with each other.
However, the language, the script, was nonetheless preserved in text form.
Even though nobody really wanted to study it.
After humans entered the Pyramid civilization, many heritages were lost one after another.
Even a studious person like Tang Xian couldn’t find any materials related to the Ayapeco language, not even having heard of it.
His first exposure to this language came from his father, Tang Wen.
“Codes are too complex.
Take Morse Code, for instance; it still can’t express much.
Today I’m going to teach you a language.
As long as you don’t teach it to anyone else, only the two of us will know it.
If one day dad is gone, you can then teach it to someone else, and then only the two of you will know it.”
Tang Wen’s words at that time were still remembered by Tang Xian; that was when he was five years old.
Despite being precocious, there remained a hint of childlike curiosity within him, prompting the desire to learn obscure knowledge.
For instance, communicating with his father in a way that his mother couldn’t understand could be quite amusing.
In a world with fewer coincidences, Tang Xian quickly realized—the humans spoken about by those small creatures were none other than his own father, Tang Wen.
This message was beyond Tang Xian’s imagination.
How had he arrived here?
How had he crossed the deep-sea zone and the lava zone?
As the Order’s Child of the previous generation, what were his father’s abilities?
His mother had been to the ruins of Eden, and she even saved Bai Shuang there.
His father had been to the Sea God’s furnace, leaving a message within this stele.
What exactly had they done?
People tend to see themselves as the protagonists, yet in every generation, there’s always one or two extraordinary geniuses.
Tang Xian was indeed the most rebellious among the Children of Order, but if someone were omniscient in history, they might rate Tang Wen and Zhong Yao even higher.
The significance of such an assessment lay not in talent, but in meaning.
Tang Xian shook his head, casting aside these distractions, and began to interpret the stele, hoping his father might have left some clues.
But as he read on, Tang Xian fell silent, and Tang watched his silhouette from behind, sensing an indescribable loneliness in Tang Xian at that moment, like a child who had lost its way.
“As the Children of Order, A Yao and I also lacked emotional depth, but as she became a mother, her understanding of love gradually deepened.”
“I don’t like my child, he isn’t truly mine, for the sake of this world, A Yao and I owe Xiuxiu a lot, I don’t know how to be a good father, but I do know that if I feel distress, it must mean that I have done something wrong.
I am pained, I really want to see her.”
“A Yao always treated Tang Xian as her own flesh and blood, and for a long time, I couldn’t convince myself.
He is just a weapon, a tool meant to help humanity overcome adversity.”
“In those years, I tried to persuade myself to treat him like any other father would, plainly.
I guess he doesn’t have feelings for me, right?
After all, the way A Yao and I feel about him is worlds apart.”
“But I eventually realized I was wrong, when I told him that one day, dad and mom would go to a faraway place, that child—who I thought was utterly incapable of feeling—showed signs of reluctance and loneliness.”
“That must be loneliness, right?
Like when I was a child, locked in a container, unable to hear A Yao’s voice, unable to help wondering if I would ever see her again.
His expression was just like mine back then.
I recognize that look.
At that moment, I suddenly felt like I hadn’t been good enough to this child.
Perhaps…
he could be redeemed.”
“What are people like if they live as machines?
Would they resemble those Judgment Knights we perceive?
If a machine lives like a human, should we treat it as one?
Such questions often trouble me.
A secret my wife didn’t notice, I had indeed discovered.”
“She always thought that this child was the one with the most human emotions, assuming it was his lack of divine qualities and being too emotional that made him a target of bullying.
But that’s not the case…
This child wasn’t the one who was bullied.”
“When Constantine stepped forward to stop us, his demands were so strange, it didn’t seem like he meant to bully him but rather to entrust us with his care.”
“Many times, I felt that perhaps the one we brought with us was not the least talented, but on the contrary, he was the smartest one.
That’s why I always treated him with wariness and caution.”
“But A Yao was right, he can be redeemed, regardless of whether he is a calculating monster or a bullied wastrel.
He has his own emotions, and if I had more time, maybe I could…
learn how to be a good father, and there might be an additional upright leader for humanity.”
“Unfortunately…
my time is really running out.”
“The only ones who can recognize these inscriptions are A Yao and my child.
And A Yao is not here, her mission differing from mine.”
“So the only one who can read these inscriptions is you, my child.”
As if traversing through time, speaking across generations with someone, Tang Xian smiled silently, tenderly touching the stele.
This was the first stele, and nearly thirteen years later, it was his second conversation with his father.
