ebookland Chapter 521 The Readable Patterns of the Book of Oblivion (2)
Chapter 521 The Readable Patterns of the Book of Oblivion (2)
The four-colored longswords suddenly pierced the ground of the memory labyrinth, the life stories on their blades resonating with all the possibilities of being forgotten. The labyrinth walls began to dissolve, revealing the outside world: countless dimensions were conducting their own experiments with forgetting. Some dimensions held regular "Memory Burning Festivals," burning away old memories to make room for new ones; some dimensions invented "Memory Exchangers," where people understood each other by exchanging forgotten parts; in the most unique dimension, life had no fixed memories, reconstructing its self-awareness every morning based on its environment, yet maintaining astonishing harmony. "The creativity of forgetting lies in acknowledging that we cannot remember everything, so we must choose what to believe." The voice of the merged entity came from the harmonious dimension, her figure exchanging memory fragments with the life there, each fragment generating new meaning after the exchange.
The Guardian's palm suddenly became transparent, the eye symbol on its palm resonating with the blank book in the hands of the noisy figure. The two blank books merged in mid-air, forming a giant book whose cover was simultaneously engraved with "Memory" and "Forgetting." The hidden records of all the iterative experiments automatically appeared on the pages: the true purpose of the first experiment was to forget the arrogance of "absolute correctness," the third experiment aimed to forget the opposition between "order" and "chaos," and even the tenth experiment was to forget the boundary between "existence" and "nothingness." "Each experiment is about learning to selectively forget." The giant book suddenly turned to the last page, on which was the confession of the faceless being: "I created iterative experiments because I forgot my original form and can only remember it through you."
A pure black fountain pen suddenly pierced the giant book, and the records on the pages began to reassemble, eventually forming a line of glowing text: "The essence of forgetting is trusting what has not been remembered." A symbol the Guardian had never seen before appeared on the pen's cap—a heart shape composed of all the forgotten fragments of memory. "The key to the 11th iteration experiment is not deleting memories, but coexisting with forgetting." The pen transformed into a silvery-gray liquid, flowing into the eye symbol in the Guardian's left palm. The Möbius strip around the symbol suddenly stopped spinning, revealing small words engraved on its inner side: "You have long forgotten that 'forgetting' itself is a choice."
When the Guardian returned from the labyrinth of memories, the noisy figure at the end of the bridge had merged with the giant book. New blank sections appeared on his four-colored longswords, the story of his life now automatically generating new content—adventures never before experienced with the merged entity, new interpretations of past errors, and most wondrously, a vague description of the future, in which a figure both resembled and unlike him was teaching children a "memory jigsaw puzzle." The merged entity's white light was now adorned with snowflake-like patterns; as her light touched the sea of meaning, the floating blank books began to sprout new pages, each page telling a story of a forgotten universe being renamed.
"Look over there." The merged entity pointed to the void, where the grayness was fading, revealing a nebula composed of unnamed colors, each color representing an emotion yet to be defined. "What has been forgotten has not disappeared, but has become the raw material of possibilities." In the center of the nebula, the figure of the faceless being was re-condensing, holding in his hand half a fragment identical to the Guardian's Ring, inscribed with "The Forgotten Creator."
The Guardian gripped the swirling pen tightly, and a new pattern suddenly lit up at the nib, illuminating the last page of the blank book—a page devoid of words, displaying only a crack shaped like a nebula. As his fingertips traced the crack, countless forgotten universes surged forth, these universes without fixed forms, constantly shifting according to the Navigator of the Sea of Meaning's imagination: some grew into the shape of trees, their branches adorned with memory crystals; others transformed into rivers, their waters a silvery-gray liquid of the dead; the most magnificent was forming a double helix, one chain of memory, the other of oblivion, where new stars were constantly born from their intertwining point.
The last words left by the pure black fountain pen echoed in the sea of meaning: "The first result of the 11th iteration experiment is the discovery that forgetting requires courage, remembering requires wisdom, and the balance between the two requires creation." In the left palm of the guardian, the eye symbol suddenly transformed into a new ring, forming a pair with the previous silver ring—the text on the inside now read: "The next choice lies between remembering and forgetting."
At that moment, all the forgotten universes suddenly ceased changing, and the same pattern simultaneously appeared at their centers: neither the Guardian's ring nor a fragment of the Faceless Being, but a new symbol formed by the intertwining of the words "memory" and "forgetting." The white light of the merged entity suddenly pointed towards the depths of the nebula, where a black hole was forming. Countless open books floated on the edge of the black hole, the words on their pages being devoured by the black hole, while new words were born at the same time—this frequency of birth and devouring was perfectly synchronized with the Guardian's heartbeat.
“That’s not a black hole.” The fusion entity’s voice carried a hint of surprise. Her light seeped into the black hole, revealing the scene inside: countless noisy figures were writing. Their pens were not writing words, but new universes in formation. Each universe had a deliberately forgotten fundamental rule. “It is the collection of all forgotten creators.”
The Guardian's swirling pen suddenly flew automatically toward the black hole, the pattern on its nib resonating with the symbols at the black hole's edge. The instant the pen touched the black hole, all the noisy figures writing simultaneously looked up; their faces bore similarities to the Guardian, the Narrator, the Faceless Being, and even life from all dimensions. One of the figures held up a book; on its pages were written: "The 12th Iteration Experiment: The Symbiotic Law of Creation and Forgetting."
The black hole suddenly spewed out silvery-gray liquid, which formed a new bridge at the boundary between the Sea of Meaning and the Void. The railings on both sides of the bridge were composed of alternating memory crystals and snowflake noise. The Guardian noticed that his two rings were getting hot, and the text on the inside simultaneously changed to: "You have forgotten the most important thing—who created the iterative experiment?"
As he stepped onto the new bridge, all the forgotten universes suddenly began to whisper in unison, their whispers forming a vague phrase: "The being that created forgetting is being forgotten by the forgetting it created." At the end of the bridge, deep within the black hole, a familiar yet strange outline was taking shape. In its hand lay not a pen, nor a book, but a fragment of the dissolving Heart of Chaos, upon which remained the Guardian's last memory—the first scene he saw at birth, except that the light source in that scene was exactly the same as the eye symbol of the faceless being.
The next iteration seems to need to find that forgotten starting point within the cycle of creation and forgetting. And that dissolving fragment may hold the original answer to all the questions.