Chapter One: Gazing at the Ruined Mountains from Afar
They called them mountains.
Looking from afar, I found the blue-gray silhouettes so orderly, like the deliberately arched spine of some gargantuan beast.
Only upon drawing closer did I realize it was indeed the backbone of a civilization-but one that had snapped. The ship bridges had become precipices; portholes had turned into grottoes; rust crawled across steel surfaces like moss. Was this a mountain, or the remains of a starship? Time had long ago eroded the boundary between the two.
The wind whistled through hollow pipes like the wailing of a flute. Severed cables hung like vines, through which flowed silence itself.
At the highest point, the cockpit reflected the setting sun. For a flickering moment, shadows seemed to move-was some frail figure still operating the instruments? A bird swept past the summit.
Deep within countless honeycomb-like chambers, faint glimmers of light remained. Whether they were survivors, new arrivals, or automated programs no longer mattered: civilization and mountain ranges shall eventually return to the same silence.
There are no true ruins, only layers of time compressed at different velocities.
Chapter Two: The Ladder in the Ruins
The cockpit hung at the highest point, like a forgotten crown.
An escalator dangled from the base of the hull, a broken spine.
The ladder connected chambers of varying functions: the doors of data-hives stood ajar, where coral-like crystals were depositing; the glass dome of the observatory had shattered into a spiderweb, allowing slanted sunlight to illuminate a rotating celestial map. Tangled mycelium spread across the consoles, scavenging whatever residual energy remained.
He was descending along the ladder.
"We are always descending," he thought, "but where is the ultimate destination?" Above the ladder lay the cockpits of ancestors, now encrusted with crystal clusters; below was a vast void, where stubborn steel was escaping into history, shifting toward geological epochs.
An idling gear echoed with a syllable or two.
Chapter Three: The Dome of Boundaries
This was the junction of the ruined mountains and the river, where half a dome pierced through the earth.
Towering, empty colonnades stood around, where half-reclining icons had been bolted down time and again, gazing eternally toward the river.
He stepped into this once-sacred place along the long flight of stairs.
The lights were out; the exchange of prayers and oracles had ceased. Yet the antennas were still at work; in the air thick with the scent of rust, some frequency seemed to persist. He adjusted the receiver in his backpack; the signal was intermittent: "O Creator... what phantasm are you conjuring?"
This questioning reached into the depths of the blank river surface. He gazed intently toward the boundary; amidst the dense mist, the silhouettes of a few wintry trees loomed.
Chapter Four: Wintry Trees and the Hidden Hut
On this bank of the river stood several trees; autumn had grown deep.
As I approached, I beheld an entirely different colony of life: the deciduous hardwoods were nearly naked, and the few remaining clusters of leaves were, in fact, turtles with rugged shells. Their bodies and limbs had been welded into the desiccated trunks, shimmering with a faint, metallic luster. On the neighboring tree, the giant birds no longer took flight; instead, they donned armor of long thorns, becoming steel-gray needles. The giant tree in the center was the most spirited: its upturned aerial roots coiled into trunk-like shapes, their ends fluffy like the snouts of anteaters, gently brushing the eaves of the thatched hut below. What appeared to be fur were actually dense aerial roots, absorbing metallic dust drifting in the air, glowing blue-violet in the sunset.
The hut was half-hidden in the tree shadows. At first glance, it seemed made of ordinary thatch and bamboo; only up close could one see cooling pipes running through the bamboo joints, weaving filaments of light. The figure sitting inside was lean and ethereal; beneath the shadow of his white robe, hidden cables merged quietly into the soil, connecting to the earth like roots. His breathing caused the faint light in the filaments to flicker, synchronizing with the breath of the phantom beasts in the canopy.
This was an autumn scenery I had never experienced. Outside whose experience did it lie, and within whose consciousness was it born?
Chapter Five: Discourse of the Forest
In the twilight, the pale canopy resembled a glowing web of tentacles, its soft branches unfurling in layers, their tips seemingly striving to probe the unknown. The creatures perched on the dark canopy nearby took the form of fish-bird hybrids; their bodies, a weave of scales and feathers, were covered in gray plates. Collectively, they lifted their heads, revealing the whites of their eyes as if staring into the nothingness across the river.
"What are you searching for?" the fish-bird creature asked.
"The eyes that observe us," the web of tentacles swayed gently.
"You have no eyes; how can you find them?" the fish-bird laughed. "Let me tell you, the world outside is empty."
The web of tentacles did not answer but pointed a finger toward the hut on the right.
My heart seemed to skip a beat. This search from the internal to the external was exactly like those stairs ascending step by step.
Chapter Six: The One in Sitting Oblivion
Those ascending stairs lead directly to the deepest secret.
He had closed his eyes for too long-so long that his breathing rhythm had synchronized with the ebb and flow of the river. The floating patterns on his forehead were the projection of the ruins on the opposite bank, the pulsation of the wintry trees and phantom beasts.
Occasionally, an arc-like halo swept across his face-the intersection of two worlds within his will.
"O Creator... what phantasm are you conjuring?"
The lingering question from the vaulted ruins now found its answer between his brows. When a leaf of tortoise-shell fell through the roof of the hut onto his knees, he suddenly understood: even he himself was but a speck of dust within the thoughts of a far greater Meditator.
He opened his eyes abruptly.
He saw the pipes of the hut sprouting branches; he saw the light-conducting filaments blooming with tiny flowers. On the porthole of the cockpit atop the distant ruins, a fresh drop of dew had condensed at some unknown moment.
"So that is how it is."
The entire scroll softened-the starship ruins began to bud, the wintry phantom beasts turned back into leaves, the river reflected a sea of stars, and the hut finally shed all artificial traces, returning to a simple structure of grass and wood.
The hermit stood up, his form fading into the moonlight.
The Transformation sings:
