Zhou Ming opened the door and quickly walked into his apartnt cottage, looking up at the window directly opposite the front door the mont he entered.
Outside the window still lurked an eternal grayish-white fog, while the pounding sound knocked against the glass out of thin air like patient raindrops. Even though no one could be seen outside, the knocking itself affird that the visitor was standing at the window.
The mont Zhou Ming entered the room, he clearly sensed the presence of soone at the window—it seed that the connection from last ti made this presence especially distinct.
Could it be that when soone visits here, I can directly sense them from "the other side"?
With this thought in mind, Zhou Ming quickly walked toward the window, and almost at the sa ti he reached it, Lei Nora’s familiar face appeared outside the window, with the sa familiar, classical and gorgeous bedroom behind her.
Frost Queen was still patiently knocking on the glass, her slightly hollow eyes reflecting twinkling stars—Zhou Ming imdiately opened the window and greeted this only visitor who would co here: "I’m happy to see you back."
"Please let in..." Lei Nora paused, her eyes taking a long ti to properly focus on Zhou Ming, then she spoke in a sowhat weak tone.
Zhou Ming instantly sensed sothing was wrong with her condition, quickly stepped aside to make way, and reached out to help the Frost Queen.
The next mont, as Lei Nora slightly shifted her body, he finally noticed her empty left arm—not just the left arm, but also part of her shoulder, chest, and abdon, nearly a third of her upper body had vanished as if it had been neatly devoured!
What was even more eerie was that there was no blood flowing from where her body was severed, only a fuzzy layer of "light mbrane" covering the mutilated breaks, and not sure if it was an illusion... Duncan felt that the "light mbrane" was even slowly expanding and extending...
It was further devouring the remaining parts of the Frost Queen’s body!
Seeing Lei Nora straining to climb over the window sill, Zhou Ming snapped out of his shock and hurriedly stepped forward to support her intact half of her body, carefully brought her inside—he felt her body temperature was very low, like that of an ice-cold ghost.
"We haven’t seen each other for a while," Lei Nora lifted her head and revealed a smile to the amiable "Ancient God" in front of her, "After a breathtaking journey, seeing your ’palace’ again really brings an incredible sense of comfort..."
"Don’t talk about that now," Zhou Ming interrupted quickly, supporting her towards the living room sofa and quickly asked, "What happened to your arm?"
"Don’t worry about , my arm... it’s still there," Lei Nora sat down on the sofa, breathing sowhat weakly, and placed her remaining right hand on the position of her left shoulder—pressing on the empty "air," "I’m holding sothing in my hand that makes my body ’disappear’, but I dare not let go, it dissipates once I release it, I’ve tried many tis like this, so I’ve been holding it tightly all this while... It seems I might have held it for too long."
"Holding sothing... in your hand?" Hearing her words, Zhou Ming was slightly stunned, subconsciously looking at her empty left side, "What do you have in your hand?"
"I will now try to transfer it to your hands," Lei Nora took a deep breath, appearing to regain so strength, she sat up, as if lifting her right arm, and passed over so invisible object, "I don’t know what will happen once it reaches your hands, maybe it will still dissipate, or it might transform into sothing else... I have no way..."
Her consciousness seed to be affected by "sothing," her words becoming unclear, but she still firmly handed the object over, Zhou Ming couldn’t see it, but raised his hand to catch it—he felt he touched the Frost Queen’s icy fingers, and then sothing equally cold and soft, loose in texture, landed in his palm.
Lei Nora really passed so invisible thing over, sothing that exists in reality but cannot be observed with eyes.
The next second, Zhou Ming noticed that Lei Nora’s missing body parts began to rapidly recover—her shoulders, chest, and abdon reappeared, followed by her entire arm.
And he still felt that cold, loose object in the palm of his hand.
"...It’s still here," Zhou Ming looked down at his palm, his tone imbued with amazent, "What exactly...?"
He suddenly stopped, his eyes widening in astonishnt—as he watched, sothing that appeared to be a nearly transparent shadow erged slowly in his empty palm, then the shadow began to take on solidity, turning into a clump of dust-pinched, blurry-edged gray matter.
The clump of gray matter quietly lay in Zhou Ming’s palm, its interior seemingly undergoing incomprehensible transformations; its core appeared to be wriggling and trembling, with sinister contours erging. Its edges were covered with a layer of vision-distorting fog, staring at it for a mont caused dizziness and vertigo.
"...What on earth is this thing?" Zhou Ming finally couldn’t help but murmur softly, then suddenly looked up at the Frost Queen beside him, "Where did you find this? Is it from the ’beyond the border’ you ntioned before?"
After getting rid of that "formless matter," Lei Nora’s body and spirit began to recover rapidly, and her complexion had already normalized quite a bit. Upon hearing Zhou Ming’s question, she imdiately nodded gently.
"At the end of this gray-white mist, beyond the ’boundary’ I ntioned last ti, these things are all over the place... their entire ’world’ is even composed of them," she recalled as she spoke, "After our conversation last ti, I began to perceive and see them, but I still can’t figure out what they exactly are. Most unbelievably, this stuff can be ’brought’ back. I brought so back to see if you had any thoughts on it."
Zhou Ming’s eyebrows furrowed gradually. After confirming that this matter really ca from beyond the end of the world, it seed as if nurous thoughts and speculations suddenly sprang up, and with the ergence of countless ideas, he faintly felt...
Sothing in his "essence" had loosened.
His "Transformation" accelerated once again.
The surrounding starlight buzzed and trembled, echoing with countless low murmurs that were difficult to understand. Lei Nora cautiously glanced around, then expertly suppressed her mind, trying not to pay attention to those voices echoing among the stars.
This wasn’t her first ti here, and she wouldn’t be as startled as last ti.
Ancient gods, thinking probably stirs up this much commotion.
Just then, Zhou Ming finally let out a sigh; he guessed what Lei Nora had brought back. Now, only verifying his speculation remained.
He raised his hand, his fingertips flickering with a dim green fla. He tried to intentionally interfere with the fla, recalling the sensation during his "Transformation"— under his gaze, the green of the fla gradually faded, and the faint starlight began to appear within the leaping flas.
He slowly clenched his hand, using the starlight to gradually imrse the cold, shapeless gray matter. He clenched his fist, and the gray lump slowly lted in the starlight.
Lei Nora’s eyes widened, watching the scene in astonishnt and curiosity.
"Have you... figured out what this is?" she couldn’t help but ask curiously.
The giant, filled with starlight, turned its head, speaking to her in a warm and joyful voice—
"It’s a raw material."
"Raw material?" Lei Nora listened perplexedly, not understanding, "What kind of raw material?"
"The raw material of a new world, the basic unit of information—as I had previously speculated!" Zhou Ming looked into Lei Nora’s eyes, slowly opening his hand; the gray-white lump had completely dissolved in the starlight, dissolving into his body, and he fully understood the nature of this "matter," "Information is indestructible, information only transforms, the theory of Pioneer II is correct, information is the cornerstone of everything—everything is a representation of information, even the Great Annihilation itself is so!"
Lei Nora listened in confusion, while Zhou Ming had already gotten up from the couch, unable to contain his excited and joyful mood, unconsciously walking circles around the couch, thinking rapidly and occasionally stopping abruptly to organize his complex thoughts.
"The world is composed of information, the essence of everything in the earthly realm is the representation of information and the process of their interconnection and transformation," he stopped in front of Lei Nora, explaining rapidly to this Frost Queen, "You can see the entire world as an imnsely huge, encompassing all paraters, self-consistent ’mathematical machine,’ and all earthly things are data produced during the operation of this machine, and everything that happens in this world are ’solutions’ of this mathematical machine..."
Lei Nora struggled to follow Zhou Ming’s train of thought, and at this mont, she couldn’t help but ask, "Do you an that our world is an illusion?"
"No, it’s real—because we ourselves are also part of this mathematical machine; we ourselves are also constructions of myriad pieces of information," Zhou Ming quickly waved his hand, continuing, "If everything is information, then there is no ’reality’ outside of information in the world, and this exactly explains the nature of the Great Annihilation... but this part of the explanation takes a long ti, I believe you can think it through yourself. What I need to say is crucial... information itself does not disappear, its ’basic units’ only transition from one state to another..."
Zhou Ming suddenly stopped talking, thinking as hard as he could, then waved his arm forcefully.
"Because the ’mathematical machine’ has always existed, its operation should encompass all ’solutions,’ the ’paraters’ that make it up will neither stop nor disappear, they just... transform, transform into so state that cannot be addressed and read—For the mathematical machine itself, this still forms part of the ’solution,’ while for us creatures who rely on the mathematical machine to understand the world, this process... is called ’the end of the world.’"
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