Chapter 427 "I"

Qi Nian and a group of ghosts surrounded a tall man.

He stood quietly on the street, spread out his hands, and keys appeared.

"you made it."

Another male voice appeared at a corner of the street.

Xun Weimo walked out slowly.

He looked at this familiar yet unfamiliar former companion, and for a moment, he couldn't find any better words.

The tall man turned and looked at him, it was Bai Yanren.

Xun Weimo smiled helplessly, looked at the ghosts behind Bai Yanren, and asked, "Until now, I still don't know whether you are a human or a ghost, and what you are doing."

Bai Yanren opened his mouth slightly and whispered, "It's not important."

He seemed to feel that he couldn't be so heartless, so he added: "If you want to know, you can follow me and take a look together."

Needless to say, Xun Weimo also planned this way.

I have been living in a daze these years. The Fog Collection, the Fog Realm, and the Nine Hells, in the end, they were all nothing. Or it could be said that it was a conspiracy that was planned from beginning to end.

The source of this plan is the man in front of him——

Bai Yanren.

Xun Weimo followed him, and the two walked slowly on the streets of Yecheng.

As time passed, one or two of the ghosts surrounding Bai Yanren would occasionally burst like broken bubbles, turning into mottled fragments and sinking into the ground little by little until they disappeared.

"What do you think I am?"

Bai Yanren suddenly asked.

"you?"

Xun Weimo was stunned at first, then smiled helplessly: "This question is more like what I want to ask."

"When I say "I", I mean my thoughts."

Bai Yanren stopped, turned and faced Xun Weimo, his pupils emitting a faint white light.

In Xun Weimo's eyes, everything was turned upside down and changed. In an instant, he was brought to a "new world".

“Since the birth of life, consciousness has been in a chaotic state, and there is no consciousness of [me] being born.”

“Why does my consciousness arise? Does it emerge naturally at a certain time, or is it artificially shaped through education?”

Bai Yan waved his hand, and the vast white sky and earth were instantly covered with all kinds of reptiles, birds, flowers, plants, and trees...

“Before my consciousness was born, does it mean that I could be an insect, a bird, a plant, or any other kind of life form?”

Bai Yanren seemed to be talking to him, but also seemed to be talking to himself.

Xun Weimo was extremely shocked by his strange method. What exactly is Bai Yanren? God?
But he soon calmed down and shook his head: "Humans have done experiments a long time ago. There are only a few species that have self-awareness, and their self-awareness is far from reaching the level of humans."

"So, at least the birth of self-awareness is not exclusive to the human species, right?"

This is exactly what Bai Yanren wanted to hear.

Xun Weimo opened his mouth, but was speechless.

The standard by which humans judge whether a life has self-awareness is usually to subject it to a series of experiments, the most famous of which is the "mirror test", that is, whether they can recognize themselves in the mirror.

In this experiment, elephants, dogs, gorillas, dolphins, and even pigs, which are generally considered stupid by humans but are actually quite smart, were able to pass the mirror test and recognize themselves in the mirror.

Self-awareness, or self-cognition, is indeed not exclusive to humans.

"Then... it's impossible to be shaped by acquired education..." Bai Yanren murmured. "So, I think all species have the possibility of developing self-awareness, but... the time required for each of them is different."

Bai Yanren waved his hand, and an ant appeared out of thin air on his hand.

"Like, it."

"If it takes two to three years for humans to develop self-awareness, then they may need one year, ten years, or even a hundred years."

"That is to say, this species will never be able to open up its self-awareness until the end of its life cycle, but it is not that they are unable to do so."

Bai Yanren's expression became strange. He observed the ant in his palm and spoke in a low voice, as if he was afraid of disturbing it: "If... there was an ant that broke the lifespan limit of its species and welcomed the moment when it began to recognize itself, how would it feel?"

Xun Weimo's expression became even more complicated, he was completely puzzled.

He first looked at Bai Yanren, then at the ant in Bai Yanren's hand, and asked, "This question is meaningless. All life forms have a lifespan limit. If, as you said, this life form opens up self-awareness after the lifespan limit of the race, then it means that this race is destined not to open up self-awareness and cannot give birth to spiritual intelligence."

"Besides, breaking the lifespan limit is impossible in itself. If it breaks it, it is no longer an ant. The essence of its life has changed. Maybe... it is a god among ants?"

"Ant……"

"god……"

Xun Weimo's voice became smaller and smaller. He looked at Bai Yanren and suddenly understood something. A creepy feeling that had not appeared for a long time quickly spread from his heart to all parts of his body.

Could it be that Bai Yanren is...

Bai Yanren seemed to be thinking about something.

He waved his hand again, and the ants disappeared. The sky and earth in front of Xun Weimo became white again.

“Once upon a time, there was such a place.”

Bai Yanren said softly.

"There is life on that world, but the life system there is very strange, and it has only given birth to a few species."

Following Bai Yanren's words, Xun Weimo's eyes saw earth-shaking changes!

Clusters of gray-white grass quickly spread out on the ground. At the same time, a striking sapling stood alone on the vast and flat grassland, growing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye. Its dragon-like roots penetrated deeply into the earth, and its branches and leaves instantly covered the sky, which was unimaginable.

"It is called the Mother Tree. In the eyes of life in this world, it takes root in the earth and absorbs nutrients."

"In fact, its roots are in another world, that is, the law level of the human world. The nutrients it absorbs are also a kind of energy that is completely invisible to the life forms in the human world. Humans call it emotion."

"Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, greed, anger, ignorance, resentment..."

"The sudden increase in the number of humans has brought about an overflow of emotional energy, which manifests itself in another world as... the birth of a new life form."

"They were born from the overflowing human emotions drawn from the mother tree. They have human-like appearances, but they are also very strange, perhaps because the overflowing emotions themselves are the product of extremes."

At Bai Yanren's voice, faded and twisted human bodies appeared on the giant tree like reptiles.

Moreover, their numbers grew larger and larger, gradually occupying every spot on the mother tree, and even falling off the tree and landing on the gray-white meadow.

"I ask you."

Bai Yanren suddenly stopped talking.

He stared straight at Xun Weimo.

"These distorted humanoids have no self-awareness, and their lifespan is also very short. In human terms, they are born and die in a day."

"but……"

"What if one of them survived a full day and developed self-awareness?"

(End of this chapter)