The gray land was burning, the deep blue ocean was burning, and the endless sky was burning. Everything in the world seemed to be enveloped by those intensely hot flames, desperately squeezing out every bit of fuel from within to add to this magnificent blaze.

Volcanoes erupted, and scalding red lava plunged into the sea, creating endless mist and causing ocean currents to generate gigantic waves, one after another, relentlessly pounding the land that had long been melted into bizarre shapes. The world was filled with terrifying light and heat, permeated with the scent of destruction.

The animals on land ran about, wailing, their fur rotting away, revealing their bones. It seemed as though those rays, those vibrations, those flames were soul-devouring fires from the underworld, impossible to escape. No matter how far they fled from the burning forests, no matter how deep they burrowed into the earth beneath the grasslands, they could not evade the annihilation that would doom all living things.

The animals in the ocean also swam restlessly, desperately avoiding the heat and toxic gases that gushed from the deep-sea trenches. Those mammals accustomed to swimming freely in the cold waters despairingly poked their heads above the surface, only to breathe in scorching air and dust laden with deadly toxins.

The birds in the sky were still struggling to fly, avoiding the blinding light in the firmament, desperately fleeing towards the ends of the earth. Their natural sensitivity to life told them that only in those remote, uninhabited places could they find a final sanctuary. It was a migration utterly out of sync with the seasons, and in this migration, the majority of the birds still died en route, falling onto the parched land. Very few birds were able to escape those scorching rays and black dust.

The light in the sky gradually dimmed, but the air was filled with dust and dark clouds, ruthlessly obscuring the round sun overhead. The entire verdant grassland had changed color. The animals that had survived the catastrophe gathered around a small pool of water, desperately vying for the only source of clean water. Thirty or so large crocodiles lay submerged in the depths of the pool. Countless animals gathered around, digging small puddles, while some bold, strong carnivores bravely began to attack the crocodiles' territory.

No birds could be seen in the sky anymore. The fish in the sea had long been frightened into the deep-sea coral reefs, too afraid to come out. Sharks swam around, bewildered, their large eyes wide, not knowing what had happened to the world, to their home. And on the surface of the sea, a dozen giant sperm whales floated wearily, occasionally flicking their tails weakly. Further away, around a small island, sea lions howled at the sky in despair and rage, venting their deep-seated fear by cruelly tearing at each other.

The animals gathered around the pool gradually died, some from mutual slaughter, some from inhaling the black dust in the air, some from hunger, some from thirst, and many more from drinking the water in the pool.

The air was dry, and only countless pale bones remained around the pool, large and small, curled up or lying prostrate in terror. The fur and flesh on their bodies had long been returned to the earth, leaving only these white bones scattered around, accompanying the strongest reptiles in the pool, creatures that had survived for tens of millions of years.

After some more days passed, the pool dried up. The large crocodiles, weighing hundreds of pounds, resigned themselves to their fate, lying on the mud, allowing the not-so-scorching sun to bake the red mud on their backs, gradually dying, gradually withering, gradually rotting, gradually turning into horrifying white bones.

In fact, these powerful reptiles were ultimately mummified.

The air remained deathly silent, except for the rolling black clouds pressing down on the earth. There were no signs of any living creatures. The scene on the sea was even more brutal. In the once-warm sea pastures where the warm and cold currents of the northern gulf met, countless large marine mammals either floated or sank near the islands, their corpses rotting, polluting the entire sea, turning the entire gulf into a slaughterhouse filled with a foul stench.

The scavenging animals eked out a longer existence because of these massive corpses. They keenly sensed that the closer to the land, the more the air was filled with the scent of death, so they ate very cautiously.

Finally, one day, rain fell on the dry, dark, hellish world. The raindrops struck the few remaining leaves on the edge of the grassland, also awakening the insects hiding in the holes. Round water droplets rolled on the muddy ground, and a beetle happily washed its face. The raindrops gradually gathered together, following the ancient waterways, heading deep into the grassland, unknowingly awakening countless creatures using sleep to avoid destruction.

A trickling stream flowed into the bone-encircled pool. Surprisingly, a lizard, deeply hidden in a crevice in the riverbed rocks, was still alive. It flicked its scarlet tongue, clumsily stepping through the shallow water, licking inside the giant white bone of the crocodile's eye socket, occasionally raising its right foreleg, declaring its ownership of the pool in a lonely and irritable manner. Anyway, there were more than a thousand white skeletons around the pool, all silent and unable to express any objection to its declaration. If those lions and baboons were still alive, the world would be a different place.

In any world, rain always represents life, and this time seemed to be no exception. The black dust that filled the air was washed away by the rain. These dust particles, which even the wind could not scatter, finally succumbed to the power of the water god. A fresh, pleasant scent reappeared in the air. Living creatures were born and gathered because of the water, beginning a joyful aftermath of the disaster, resuming their mutual hunting. Even this bloody hunting carried a delightful scent of life.

However, these creatures did not know how terrible the black dust carried by the rain from the sky was. They also did not know that rain could wash away dust, but it could never wash away those invisible lines that permeated the world, enough to kill most living things.

When it rained, the sea became much calmer, and the waves slowly pushed the corpses of dead animals onto the reefs on the shore, the putrid smell washing away a lot better.

However, the rain grew heavier and heavier, seemingly without end. The animals that drank the rainwater began to feel life slowly leaving their bodies. They did not know why. This instinctive fear made them particularly desperate. In the torrential rain, they used their last strength to carry out cruel and fierce but meaningless killings, not even sparing their own kind.

After countless floods, large and small, life on land was once again dealt a heavy blow. Besides leaving countless corpses soaked in dirty water, there were no signs of life. And the accumulated rotting corpses on the edge of the ocean were struck into disgusting foam by the countless rains, bearing no resemblance to that fairytale.

However, heaven's punishment for this world seemed not to be over. After the rain came a sudden frost. From north to south, the air throughout the land suddenly dropped by a dozen degrees. The sunless world seemed to have confused the seasons, and a deep, cold winter appeared before the already endangered life.

After the frost came snow, endless snow. The first snowflakes still carried a black-gray color, but eventually returned to pure white, looking incredibly holy, covering the sky, covering the land, covering the ocean. The whole world was shrouded in wind and snow, and severe cold descended on the earth, with ice extending into the sea.

A vast expanse of white, truly clean. Endless snow fell without stopping. No signs of any life activity could be seen on the snow-covered ground. This scene continued steadily, calmly, and cruelly, for one year, two years, ten years, a hundred years...

...

...

Fan Xian seemed to wake up from a dream. It took him a long time to pull his gaze away from the light mirror in the air. His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were slightly pale. Although everything shown in the previous scene was the result of his analysis and judgment after entering the Temple, actually watching this scene unfold before his eyes, the intense sadness and pain still made the ache in his heart even greater, because he knew that this was not some divine realm, and he could not, like the people of this world, treat these things as myths and record them on murals and in legends. He knew that all this was real, and the lives that died in the great catastrophe had all existed.

The bloodshot eyes represented fatigue and mental exhaustion. Fan Xian lowered his head and rubbed his eyes, then raised his head again, staring at the snow-covered scene in the light mirror that seemed not to change for ten thousand years. He knew that change would definitely happen, otherwise how would civilization continue to the world today? What made his heart tremble was that, even now, he still had not seen how the people of that world, those former companions, had suffered such terrible torment.

...

...

Magnificent, beautiful, exquisite, simple, quaint, crude... The architecture was utterly inconsistent with the grass huts and caves in this world. It was also the existence that suffered the heaviest blow in that great catastrophe. The people of that world had mastered some secrets of the Creator, but in the end, they threw these weapons of mass destruction on their own heads. What an absurd fact this was.

High temperatures melted cement and steel bars. The shock waves shattered all the remnants. Unseen and unknown rays killed all the people. After the drought came floods, after the frost came wind and snow. Countless years passed. Under the vast blanket of snow, the past glories had all been buried. No one knew that there had once been a race that had shone so brightly in this world.

The wind and snow blew for countless years. Finally, someone appeared again in the picture. The destruction of civilization, the instinctive survival of life, and the brutal slaughter reappeared. In the wasteland, the surviving lives could only survive by successfully showing the most unacceptable side of animality to humanity.

Fan Xian did not want to see these things, so the picture quickly rotated and moved. He was like sitting in front of a time machine, watching the fall of civilization, watching the remnants of civilization, watching the flickering flame of civilization ultimately disappear into the wilderness.

He watched the surviving high-rise buildings under the snow erode and collapse, and the weeds after the ice and snow occupied their bodies, turning them into rocks and rust with the magic of time, feng shui, and nature, no longer resembling their original appearance.

He watched people dressed in animal skins move back into caves, rebuild grass huts, pick up bone arrows again, but forget writing and language.

Buildings rose, buildings collapsed, buildings rose again. Fan Xian always thought that civilization was the most vital existence. No matter how great the blow, it could always rely on a few sparks to ignite a prairie fire again. However, watching the scenes flashing quickly on the light mirror, he realized that civilization itself was the most fragile thing in the world. When the material world on which civilization depended was lost, the spiritual aspects were always so easily forgotten.

The picture flashed by in an instant, but countless hundreds of thousands of years had passed in this world. The previous glory had not left any trace on this world, completely disappearing.

Fan Xian witnessed all this, his eyes blank and slightly red, sitting cross-legged on the ground, his fists clenched tightly. In an instant, he witnessed a thousand years, and the world passed ten thousand years beside the unchanged bluestone.

He truly saw the vicissitudes of life, the changing stars, and the changes in the earth.

He saw the bay that had become fertile soil, but he did not know whether the nutrients left behind by the corpses of countless animals had any help for this change in the world. He saw the desolate grassland after the volcanic activity had subsided rise slightly, free from the threat of floods, and a tribe of primitive people came from the northeast, starting to painstakingly drive away wild animals, slash and burn.

After an unknown amount of time, a blind man covered in black cloth broke through the ice and snow in the north and came to the tribe of ancient humans. He was later called the messenger.

The messenger came from the north, teaching the skill of netting, and the tribe's people bowed to the north, praising the divine grace.

Another messenger came from the north, teaching the method of knotting ropes to record events, and the tribe's people praised the divine kindness again.

Another messenger came from the north, teaching the matter of writing, and the tribe's people built large altars, drawing rock paintings on the mountain walls, praising the blessings of the temple.

...

...

Fan Xian buried his head deeply in his knees, his rapid breathing causing his back to rise and fall. He didn't know how long he had been silent. He finally understood most things. Since he confirmed that this was Earth, he had always had many things he didn't understand, such as why the writing used in this world happened to be the writing he knew in his previous life, and why the writing in this world didn't seem to have a complicated evolutionary process, but seemed to be this way from the beginning.

"I have a question, why is everything gone, but you... or rather, the Temple, can still be preserved?" Fan Xian's voice was very hoarse. At this time, he basically confirmed that the time of the catastrophe should have been after his death, but it would not have been too long after his death, because he was somewhat unfamiliar with the architectural craftsmanship of this Temple, but after all, in terms of technology and civilization, nothing had developed that he did not understand.

On the smooth light mirror, a scene of the tribe's people's joys and sorrows was still being staged, the bloody sacrifices when opening up the wilderness. These survivors, who had experienced hundreds of thousands of years of cold, deathly silence, had long forgotten the too-distant existence of their ancestors. However, after all, they were humans who had evolved once, and when the environment of this world allowed them to move relatively freely, the wisdom hidden deep in the collective unconsciousness finally erupted. Especially that blind man covered in black cloth, the messenger from the north, would descend on the tribe every once in a while, bringing the grace of the Temple, which greatly catalyzed the progress of human social civilization.

Like a game with a cheat code, the picture in the light mirror progressed extremely quickly. Humans did not seem to have spent hundreds of thousands of years to develop to their current state. However, from many years ago, that blind messenger covered in black cloth never appeared in the world again. Those who took on this task were handed over to the messengers who walked in the world, and the Heavenly Vein inheritors taught by those messengers.

When Fan Xian asked, the picture in the light mirror happened to stop on a solitary peak. Countless people enthusiastically and bravely took the lead in digging stone steps on the mountain, and then transported the stone and wood to the top of the mountain to build a temple there.

This solitary peak was located by the sea. Half of the mountain was like green jade, smooth as a mirror, facing the sunrise over the East Sea. It was Da Dong Mountain, which Fan Xian was very familiar with and had even climbed himself.

The voice of the Temple rang out again from all directions, still gentle, but still without any real emotion: "The preservation of the museum's beautiful face is entirely due to luck. In the words of the world, this is destiny."

Yes, besides destiny and luck, what else could explain why a civilization that should have been hundreds of thousands of years ago still quietly lay in the Great Snow Mountain today, calmly and gently watching every step of the world's survivors?

Perhaps only the unchanging ice and snow could withstand the power of time. The unintentional destruction of nature did not allow this Temple to disappear without a trace in the long river of time like those magnificent buildings.

The Temple used solar energy, which may also be one of the reasons. However, the ancient war clearly could not have brought about such a big change in the world. Could it be that Earth itself had also had some big problem?

Fan Xian could have thought about this issue in depth, but the emotional fluctuations in his mind were extremely strong at this time. Especially seeing that blind messenger covered in black cloth and the jade wall of Da Dong Mountain that appeared at the end of the picture made his mouth feel dry and he could not speak.

If everything in the picture was real, then what was Uncle Wu Zhu? Was he a prophet of today's human society? A teacher? The thought of living and growing up with Uncle Wu Zhu since he was a child, only to find out that he was truly living beside a legend, made Fan Xian's body tremble uncontrollably.

"But I don't believe that only you remain in this world." Fan Xian's hoarse voice trembled, sounding a bit strange. "This doesn't make sense."

"Time can prove everything. I have spent hundreds of thousands of years in this world and have not found a similar existence." The voice of the Temple rang in Fan Xian's ears, very calmly. "My ability to survive until now and continue to complete my mission of helping humanity is partly due to luck, and partly because the messengers have been constantly repairing the Temple in these hundreds of thousands of years. It is just a pity that the messengers have gradually been consumed by time."

Although the Temple's voice said it was a pity, there was no emotion in its tone. After Fan Xian closed his eyes and meditated for a long time, he pointed to Da Dong Mountain on the light mirror and the temple that was gradually being completed and said, "I have been to this place. Why do you want to transmit a divine message through the messengers to build such a temple there?"

Whenever Fan Xian passed Da Dong Mountain from the sea, he would always be shaken by the sight of that neat and tidy jade wall, as if it had been cut open by a sword from the gods. Seeing this impossible scene in the world, he always felt that this jade wall was not formed naturally. However, if it was made by human power, what kind of power would it require?

What puzzled Fan Xian the most was why Uncle Wu Zhu went to Da Dong Mountain to recuperate after being injured, and why the emperor chose Da Dong Mountain as his final battlefield?

"It is to commemorate." The Temple's voice said after a moment of silence: "That is the origin of the outbreak of the war. The weapons of human self-destruction violently exploded and conflicted there, eventually forming consequences that humans themselves could not estimate... As for the final mark, it is that neat and tidy jade wall. That city has long ceased to exist, and that mountain was half melted by the heat, eventually becoming what it is now."

Fan Xian closed his eyes tightly, his eyelashes trembling gently. Only today did he learn this secret. It turned out that Da Dong Mountain was the point of the war's outbreak. A mountain range was melted into half a solitary peak suspended on the coast, and the rock was melted into a piece of green jade by the high temperature. What kind of exaggeration and horror was this?

"So the radiation retention of Da Dong Mountain is the strongest, and it is also equal to the strongest heaven and earth essence..." Fan Xian's hoarse voice sounded, stating his inference. "If my judgment is correct, then I don't understand why murderous radiation can become the heaven and earth essence? If the world's people are truly the remnants of the previous generation of humans, why do they have meridians in their bodies?"

"Because humans are the most foolish species in the world, and also the smartest species. Most importantly, they are the species that can best adapt to the environment." The Temple's voice responded as such: "Regarding this point, I have absolute confidence."

...

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(Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!... Manic in the middle!)