"Animal World" and the "Bible"

Golden Gallon Port. A drizzling downpour had washed the dust from the streets. Wisps of thin mist rose from dark red flagstones, shrouding the port in a hazy veil before the morning sun could fully bathe it in light. Aboard cargo ships moored along the docks, sailors scrubbed the decks, while merchants clad in silk robes checked manifests with port officials for goods being transferred to the warehouses. After a brief vacuum of authority, order had returned to the port—or at least to the harbor district. Institutions including the police department, fire station, port authority, clinics, and courts were back at work under the "Iron Men's" firm mix of carrots and sticks. After all, having a job to do and a paycheck to collect was far more comfortable than squatting in a bedless warehouse. The nuclear submarine Dolphin had docked at the pier once more, bringing not only supplies shipped from Port French Fries, but also researchers from the Scientific Expedition. The Burning Corps players had previously seized a large cache of relics from the Era of Prosperity at the Governor's Mansion that needed appraisal. The Scientific Expedition was the only organization interested in these "holy relics" and legally authorized to purchase them from players. At times, Fang Chang couldn't help cynically wondering if these folks might abuse their exclusive franchise to deliberately drive down prices. Not that he could do anything about it if they did. These spoils were turned in as quest items, not commodities traded on an open market. Even if they lowballed him, he would just have to take it. Yet the offer made by this broad-minded female researcher did not disappoint him in the slightest. In fact, it was surprisingly generous. "...A total of 9.17 million silver coins." Having finally finished photographing and cataloging the last piece of loot, the researcher tapped twice on the expanded holographic screen with her index finger, archiving the collected data. "Hiss..." Standing nearby, Fang Chang couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath of humid air. The researcher happened to hear him and cast an inquiring glance his way. "What's wrong?" Hiding his inner delight, Fang Chang spouted nonsense with a completely straight face. "Nothing... I just mean, isn't that a bit low? We went through a ton of trouble to get our hands on all this. Can't you bump it up a little?" The researcher teased, "We have strict calculation formulas and auditing procedures for unplanned recovery projects. No matter how much sweat you put into it, that won't change their added value. I advise you to give up." "Alright." Fang Chang gave up without hesitation. Her name was Han Mingyue, a "little popsicle" recovered from the ruins of the Great Desert by the Thorns Corps stationed around Pioneer City. The label "little popsicle" had nothing to do with her age; rather, the timer on her hibernation pod had read eighty-one years—not even a full century. Her background file on the official website spanned five whole pages, edited mainly by players active around Pioneer City. Fang Chang had skimmed it earlier, distilling the key information down to three bullet points: She was formerly a resident of the abandoned Shelter 288. Her specialty was data restoration and archival management. Likely influenced by Rama, the commander of the Thorns Corps, she currently focused on sociological research concerning Bolo Province. Both "Bolo Province" and "sociology" were relatively niche subjects within the Scientific Expedition. Precisely because of that, as one of the few qualified talents in the field, Yin Fang had assigned her here despite her junior standing. Turning her attention back to the spoils that filled half the warehouse, Han Mingyue reached out with a gloved right hand and picked up a silver-gray memory card from a shelf. It was only the size of a thumb. A gleam of keen interest sparkled in her eyes. "...Though to be honest, I never expected you to find something like this." Fang Chang glanced at her fingertips. The object looked like a memory card, nestled alongside game cartridges with flashy, colorful covers. "Is there something special about it?" "Special doesn't begin to cover it!" Han Mingyue said cheerfully. "Put it this way—my current research project was missing just this one puzzle piece... regarding the origin of the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods." The origin of the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods?! A look of intense curiosity instantly surfaced in Fang Chang's eyes, and he said at once, "Do tell." Without a word, Han Mingyue pulled out a holographic computer pen, plugged in an expansion adapter, and inserted the aged memory card into it. Gazing expectantly at the pale blue holographic beam, Fang Chang thought he was about to witness something earth-shattering. Instead, what appeared before his eyes was a burly yak. The yak was galloping, its powerful muscles pulsing with vigorous life amidst billowing dust, though the ground beneath its hooves remained out of frame. Then the camera pulled back ahead of it, gradually revealing the herd behind it and a vast, boundless expanse of savannah. Next, a deep, resonant, and compelling narrator's voice began to ring out: "On the grasslands along the Everflowing River, the most lethal threat is neither the hyena's claws nor the lion's fangs, but the thundering stampede of cattle. Even the fiercest predators must give way before them..." Truth be told, for a documentary, those few short shots were quite breathtaking, and the voiceover came in smoothly. Especially considering that two centuries ago, such footage was likely experienced through immersive virtual reality devices, making the impact even more striking than a third-person holographic projection. Still... What did this have to do with the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods? Fang Chang was a bit baffled. Beside him, Han Mingyue stared unblinkingly at the flickering holographic light, as though gazing upon a sacred relic. "The original footage of *Mysteries of Nature: The Yak*... Although there is still some data loss, it's already the most intact memory card we've found so far. What a miracle it was preserved so well! Please try to search more places like this in the future." "I will, circumstances permitting..." Utterly flabbergasted by the documentary's title, Fang Chang couldn't help asking, "I just don't quite get it... what does *Animal World* have to do with the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods?" Han Mingyue narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled. "A herd of cattle running beneath the blazing sun... doesn't that look familiar?" Fang Chang paused for a moment before blurting out, "...The Sun-Bearing Divine Bull." Han Mingyue gave him an appreciative look. "You're very sharp." *Holy shit?!* Fang Chang was dumbfounded. "But..." Seeing him hesitate, Han Mingyue could guess what he was thinking without asking. She offered a slight smile. "You want to ask how a popular science documentary could become the origin of the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods, right?" With an odd expression, Fang Chang nodded. "Maybe my imagination is lacking, but I really can't picture how that happens..." "It's actually not that hard to grasp once you abstract 'holographic cassettes' into 'things that existing knowledge and experience cannot explain.'" Noticing the lingering confusion on Fang Chang's face, she paused for a beat before continuing. "In ancient times, a single forest fire or lightning strike was enough to turn an unusually clever or lucky ape-man into a tribe's prophet or priest. But as humanity gradually learned to make fire and lost its awe for the flames that consumed all things, those sacred roles—prophets, priests, fire-keepers, and the like—slowly retreated from center stage." Fang Chang frowned slightly, pondering for a moment. "You mean someone weaponized these science documentaries? Like blue jackets or someone similar... packaging themselves as priests or prophets to deceive the survivors of this land?" Unsurprised by his line of thought, Han Mingyue replied gently, "That's a rather utilitarian interpretation. Of course, that possibility can't be ruled out, but the current evidence points more toward a completely opposite explanation." "...What explanation?" "It wasn't the deliberate scheme of any individual, but something that arose spontaneously from the collective unconscious throughout prolonged social evolution." Fang Chang was taken aback. "Formed spontaneously?" "Exactly." Han Mingyue nodded slowly, watching the stuttering holographic playback as she continued. "A work of art can be created by one person or a handful of individuals, but a widely accepted culture generally takes shape spontaneously during social evolution. To unravel the origin of Bolo Province's Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods, we must start with the survivors who first fled to this land." Puzzled, Fang Chang asked, "Were there no native survivors in this land?" Han Mingyue paused, eyeing him strangely. "Are you joking? During the Era of Prosperity, this place was an ecological reserve... Aside from a few tourism workers and researchers, how could there be native survivors? Would you want to sleep alongside lions and wild bison?" Fang Chang: "...?" Seeing how utterly uninformed he was, Han Mingyue sighed, turned off the playing *Animal World*, and began slowly. "Looks like I need to start from the basics with you..." ... The greatest difference between the Era of Prosperity and the Old Era lay not merely in generational leaps of science and technology, but in profound, earth-shaking transformations across every facet of existence—from modes of production and daily life to ideology and culture—changes unimaginable to people of the Old Era. The most representative example was administrative zoning. Thanks to the free migration of populations, extensive development of outer space, and global ethnic integration, people's attachment to the land was no longer as visceral as in the Old Era. Rather than identifying with their bloodlines, they identified first and foremost as "human," even debating whether the privilege of being considered "born human" should be extended to AIs possessing "social attributes." The inhabitants of this planet were fully prepared to embrace the future; all that stood between them and stepping into the stars was an FTL engine. Against this backdrop, pursuing efficiency in land-resource allocation, the Human Alliance abolished the Old Era's administrative divisions early in the Era of Prosperity, replacing them with larger macro-regions tailored to local conditions. Sunset Province, for instance, was a product of this "enclosure movement." What had once been a vast desert was transformed by seawater desalination facilities and inexhaustible energy into farmland capable of satisfying the bellies and palates of the vast majority of the world's population. Bolo Province underwent a similar process, though its designated purpose was polar opposite to that of Sunset Province, which had once been uninhabited wasteland. Back in the Old Era before the Human Alliance was founded, Bolo Province had been home to the largest slums in the world, plagued by wealth disparities unrivaled anywhere on the globe. If Sunset Province was an uncultivated wilderness, Bolo Province had been a ruined mess wrecked by its own inhabitants. Thus, when the Human Alliance was finally established after numerous twists and turns, and construction commenced on the four major industrial zones in central Mid-Continent and the space elevator project, an unprecedented, protracted wave of "great migration" swept across the region. Longing for a better life, vast hordes of paupers left their impoverished homes, crossing the Zhuobar Mountains wave after wave aboard maglev trains to reach the promised land in the continent's interior. Together with migrants from other administrative divisions, they forged a miracle in the Alliance's history—a megacity cluster built around the space elevator. Conversely, drained of its population by this siphon effect, Bolo Province underwent a massive wave of "de-urbanization." In truth, similar trends occurred elsewhere, but due to a host of historical legacies, the macro-data in Bolo Province looked all the more staggering. According to verifiable records, by the mid-Era of Prosperity, Bolo Province's population had dwindled to just 0.3 percent of what it was at the end of the Old Era, presenting a sharp contrast to the eastern and western provinces that still retained numerous "economically productive urban clusters." Considering that paying exorbitant maintenance costs for barely utilized public facilities and letting locals live in "priceless dilapidated shacks" was far worse than simply giving them a stipend and a train ticket to enjoy life in the central megacities, the Human Alliance authorities simply designated Bolo Province as an "ecological reserve." Under the banner of "We shall build not only a paradise for humans, but also a paradise for animals," administrative force fast-forwarded this unprecedented de-urbanization to its conclusion. By the mid-to-late Era of Prosperity, the de-urbanization of Bolo Province had reached an early finish under the Alliance's active intervention. Fewer than fifty thousand people remained across three million square kilometers of land, primarily tourism workers and researchers. After demolishing most obsolete urban structures and shacks, the Human Alliance returned this blessed land—spanning tropical, subtropical, and north temperate zones—back to nature, preserving only a handful of cultural sites, scenic areas, self-driving tour routes, and scientific research facilities. The maglev lines originally built for the great migration were dismantled one after another once the resettlement goals were met, leaving behind only a few underground routes that wouldn't disrupt wildlife migrations. It was essentially a massive safari park. Long before the Wasteland Era arrived, the place had already been cleared out... Having briefly summarized what transpired on this land during the Era of Prosperity, Han Mingyue paused and continued: "...You likely know what followed without me spelling it out. The Three-Year War erupted, the space elevator collapsed, and that wonderful life was shattered. The megacity clusters in central Mid-Continent became a living hell that even the Post-War Reconstruction Committee was powerless to salvage." "Vast tides of survivors poured out of the four industrial zones into neighboring administrative territories, like Sunset Province and Bolo Province... Thanks to its status as an ecological reserve, this land became the sole territory spared by the war. Even Sunset Province had a broodmother crash down into it, but across these three million square kilometers, not a single one landed." Fang Chang stared at her in surprise. "Not a single one?!" "Yes," Han Mingyue nodded. "Evidently, the colonists saw no need to pay special attention to a zoo. Besides, without concrete buildings to serve as petri dishes, it wasn't an ideal environment for slime mold to rapidly multiply." She paused, then went on: "Because it wasn't targeted by broodmothers and had a pleasant climate, many survivors made this their top destination for refuge... According to my research estimates, at least nearly a hundred million people successfully fled here back then." "Naturally, a land that had completed de-urbanization could never support such a population. Food, medicine, energy, housing, and even basic security became desperately scarce. To fight for a chance at survival, people began to emulate the beasts of this land, abandoning all civil restraint in the grip of starvation." "At first it was just poaching, then armed robbery, and eventually cannibalism... I might be putting it mildly, but based on the records I gathered in the Great Desert, this land descended into a lawless wasteland even earlier than the eastern and western provinces aided by the Reconstruction Committee." Picturing that apocalyptic scene, Fang Chang swallowed involuntarily. "What about local garrisons?" Han Mingyue replied succinctly, "The Human Alliance's military was hastily cobbled together in an extremely short time. Fires were breaking out everywhere, and they had to sustain a front line five light-years away. You can imagine how few could be spared for this 'zoo'... According to my findings, a few Human Alliance units did enter the region, but the order they managed to maintain was strictly limited to a few temperate coastal pockets along Bolo Province's east and west shores." "Furthermore, cut off from command and supplies, their own survival became an issue. You couldn't expect them to hold the scales of order indefinitely. They were on the scales themselves; slowing down the collapse was the best they could do." She paused, then continued: "What the military did back then isn't the focus of my research. Returning to what I said earlier, these three million square kilometers descended into a wasteland earlier, but they also completed the evolution from lawlessness back to order earlier, giving birth to settlements of various sizes in the process. These settlements clustered as tribes along the Everflowing River and gradually expanded outward..." "Thanks to the barriers of the Zhuobar Mountains and the Bolo Sea, mutants and most alien species failed to migrate into this region, while aquatic mutants halted east of the Baiyue Strait. The local survivors mainly faced threats from wild animals and a small number of mutant creatures." "Even though civilization suffered a systemic regression, plenty of Old Era knowledge and technology survived. These survivors—illiterate yet rich in practical survival skills—expanded their territory far faster than true primitives. Before long, much like the survivors in Sunset Province, they forged feudal kingdoms large and small." "Throughout this process, not only did their numbers multiply rapidly, but they also found an anchor for their souls..." Saying this, Han Mingyue unplugged the memory card from her computer pen and waved it before Fang Chang's eyes. "Faith." "Whether worshipping an abstract deity or dogma, during the classical era before the Enlightenment, faith was virtually the only instrument capable of uniting an ignorant majority. It allowed people to temporarily cast aside contemplation of 'Who am I?', 'Where do I come from?', and 'Where am I going?', curbed primal impulses, and functioned like cogs to keep a vast system operating." Fang Chang's Adam's apple bobbed. Though he had anticipated something along those lines, hearing an expert deconstruct it layer by layer still struck him with awe. "So the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods is a lie?" Han Mingyue replied in an easy tone, "Not quite a lie—more like an accident... Many holographic projection systems were left behind here, mainly meant to introduce Bolo Province's wildlife to tourists. Powered by backup energy banks, they likely continued operating for quite a long time during the first fifty years of the Wasteland Era. It's understandable that second- and third-generation survivors—who opened their eyes to a ruined wasteland—mistook them for divine miracles. After all, their parents, who could have explained it to them over and over, had an average life expectancy of under thirty." "Try putting yourself in the shoes of a survivor back then. You've lived in a frozen world since the day you were born, clutching your father's relics, huddled by the ticket gate of some cultural pavilion to shelter from a blizzard." "Just then, the AI detects your presence. An endless, warm savannah unfurls before you, and a commanding voice begins recounting tales of old. In the past, Bolo Province was a paradise where even a rat could live delightfully..." Trying to imagine himself in the shoes of those survivors, Fang Chang pictured the scenario for a long moment but still couldn't relate. In the end, he shook his head. "...No matter what, I would never believe I'm the descendant of a rat." A lion or tiger, maybe. Han Mingyue teased with a laugh, "Of course human ancestors couldn't be animals, but you could easily worship it as something like the Great Horned Deer God... Don't overestimate yourself. The only reason you wouldn't do so is that you received a good education and truly understood what you learned." Inexplicable holographic projections were only the beginning. When miracles materialized into reality, they ceased to be mere miracles—they became prophecies bestowed by gods. And later, the scenes depicted in those holograms truly did come to pass. In Year 50 of the Wasteland Era, the prolonged winter came to an end, and Bolo Province's ecosystem gradually reverted to how it had looked half a century prior. To the survivors living along the Everflowing River at the time, this was indisputably proof that the totems they worshipped had manifested their divine might. Even though the end of the long winter was just a natural climate shift that had nothing to do with their prayers... "I understand," Fang Chang said with deep emotion. "Still, to think that the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods was actually an artificial division." Ultimately, two hundred years was far too short to naturally evolve a distinct race of humans. Unless it involved pure black technology like the Wilante or mutants. Without scientific intervention, they would need over a millennium of reproductive isolation for distinct physical differences to emerge between the Sun Clan and the Moon Clan. As if compelled by an obsessive-compulsive need for accuracy, Han Mingyue corrected his imprecise phrasing: "Strictly speaking, it is a localized self-identity formed under collective unconscious behavior. You'll notice their skeletal traits barely differ from those of survivors who fled to Sunset Province. Setting aside differences in nutrition, humidity, and sunlight exposure, they are essentially the same people." Fang Chang nodded thoughtfully. Forget other players—even he occasionally mapped his real-world experiences from Earth onto this world. But thinking about it carefully, reality and the game were fundamentally two different dimensions. The wasteland of Bolo Province was practically a "classic start." Namely, a textbook wasteland born purely of societal collapse, free from the interference of shelter residents, strategic superweapons, mutant slime mold broodmothers, mutants, or other transcendent forces. As for the Xilan Empire, it was merely a fleeting wave in the endless ebb and flow of history. Without external intervention, the survivors here might have carried on their traditions for centuries or millennia, until some serendipitous "Renaissance" or "Great Historical Discovery" of the past allowed them to find a new spiritual anchor, replacing the doctrine of the Thousand Clans and Thousand Gods that had grown obsolete with the development of productive forces. Yet an opposite extreme could not be ruled out either: the local survivors might fall into another spiral amidst their long cycles. Constantly drawing lessons from past iterations, they might nail shut every loophole capable of breaking the cycle with oak planks and iron nails, establishing a doctrine of rule far more enduring and logically airtight—rendering the waters of the Everflowing River stagnant forever. Which outcome was more likely remained unknowable. After all, only history that has already transpired can be deemed an inevitability. And as for what the future holds, only those living in it will ever know. At any rate, for the Scientific Expedition, they served as an excellent observation sample. Placing the memory card containing the "original scripture" into a storage case, Han Mingyue looked toward the harbor outside the warehouse door, speaking with renewed vigor: "...If I'm not mistaken, there should be remnants of early survivor settlements or shelters nearby. This might help me finish a part of my thesis I haven't tackled yet—the impact of the lingering remnants of order during the Three-Year War on the evolution of Bolo Province's wasteland society." Hearing her words, Fang Chang said instinctively, "You mean Camp Rowell?" "Wait, Camp Rowell is here?!" Han Mingyue's eyes went wide in shock, quickly giving way to delight. "Wonderful! Could you take me there to have a look?" Fang Chang nodded. "No problem." Because the second phase of the offensive had been moved up, the camp happened to be firmly under their control right now. Before the Emperor of the Xilan Empire decided to get serious, they would likely enjoy a brief window of peace. If there was any time to conduct scientific research, now was ideal. Just as Fang Chang was about to call for a vehicle to drive her over, All Good Names Taken by Dogs came striding toward them. His pace was hurried, his face taut with gravity. Before Fang Chang could ask, he spoke at rapid-fire speed: "Something happened at Camp Rowell!"