My friend chen sent me his literary creation. He wrote a short story for this game. This makes me very moved. Thanks for his help. Of course, I made some adjustments to its content according to the needs of the game. Some nouns and irrelevant contents have been changed. I hope you can read this novel. It’s really great, and it can bring you a lot of thoughts about human society (the pdf file of the novel has been uploaded, and you can read it later and jump to the end of this blog)

【Novel】

Goat Tower

01

About 400 kilometers southeast from the remains of the underground station of the old palace,  you will reach the center of the plains. This is the last oasis on this continent. It has lost its color, is covered by gray steel,  and occasionally is blown up by the sand. One must put on a windbreaker, scarf and goggles,  stomp and shake off a handful of sand before entering the room. In this dead city, there is a tower,  which is said to be a world-famous spring water in ancient times, and there is a lake next to it, where people travel peacefully and prosperously.

The base of the tower is very wide, and it is made of whole stones. There are eight layers, one layer after another,  and each layer is getting smaller and smaller, like a huge wedding cake. Each layer of the base is about two people high,  with the bottom layer having a hole in each of the four directions for access,  and the upper seven layers having four windows. Above the eight-story pedestal is a cylindrical tower. Seen from a distance,  with the increase of height, the middle of the tower will tighten and eventually disappearing into the clouds.

When Lei Yun arrived at the base of the tower,  it was the middle of a three volcano day – in fact most of the time here these days it is the same as a three volcano day – and he waved his hands,  took off his gloves, dumped the sand inside on the outside of the tower and walked in through an archway.

The interior of the tower is very large. There is a circular walkway hovering on the inner wall,  and there is a complete platform at the bottom of each floor. Many vendors sat by the walls and spread shabby tablecloth on the floor to sell their pr oducts. On the eighth floor, there are no more vendors and platforms, only walkways,  and occasionally steps and railings protrude from the stone walls, as if to stop people from riding upward, which is the starting point of climbing.

Unlike previous mountaineering, if you are really in danger, you can turn to the rescue team. On a tower so high that you can’t see the top,  you have to rely on yourself in any unexpected situation. That’s why when someone climbs the tower, his friends will give him a goodbye, and it may be the last time he sees them.

Lei Yun rearranged his luggage in front of the path. He brought enough food substitutes to last for three months,  a brain wave converter with human body sensor, a high-altitude respirator,  a pair of spare shoes and a temperature-controlled sleeping bag. He comes from far away,  and the food for three months is more than half of the last resources of this city. But for his trip, the residents,  whether they know Lei Yun or not, gave him their most valuable property in exchange for resources.

When he set foot on the trail, the task began.

02

Slowly, the girl opened her eyes. The ocean and the sky met in front of her. Her eyes were pale blue, reflecting the waves in front of her,  blue and white. The girl steps forward,  rustling the sand beneath her feet as the water laps at the shore before silently receding and cutting across her white ankles. She crouched down,  her left hand clasping her knee, and her right hand tilted downward. After a brief cool touch, she picked up a shell,  put it in front of her face and sniffed, and the salty feeling immediately filled her nostrils.

The girl simply lay down, her hair scattered into a big golden flower. She put the shell on her lips, laid it flat,  and looked up at the sky. Two seabirds flapped their wings and flew into the distance. Clouds slowly flowed in the sky, like fish in the sea. The sea water is coming again, tumbling on her back.

Behind the girl was a small beach, behind it is a gap in the cliff, there are obvious traces of man-made repair on the steps, and there is another one.

Neatly arranged cottages with red roofs and white walls, with the smell of fireworks in the middle of several rooms, and the smell of roast chicken wafted in.

After lying there for an unknown period of time, drowsiness rolled in with a sea of water.

Lei Yun slowly opened his eyes, the 64th time he had accessed the sensory micro-piece, which was now the only place where he could see green trees,  blue sky and, more importantly, the scarcer resource, water.

“this is an English girl named Lydia. She has an 800,000-pound artificial eye with a pair of 2 billion pixel lens, clearly captures all the information in your field of vision;  A body amplifier implanted throughout her whole body stimulates every pore of you; Plus the girl’s unique hormones,  using her recorded micro-pieces in conjunction with a brainwave transducer to better shift your brainwaves from alpha or beta waves to delta waves,  and thus to sleep. “this passage was said by the old woman who was selling the goods when Lei Yun was buying the sleeping aid micro-piece on the fourt h floor of the tower. There are actually better micro-pieces, filmed by an orientalist called Chiaki,  who people say is a yoga master and likes to record videos in places off the beaten track. He created miniature works to help people meditate,  only because the scale of production was too small, which was sold out long ago.

In the second half of the video,  Lei Yun clearly remembers that Lydia walked to the lake district to enjoy the Northern Lights. There are obvious cuts in the middle of the video,  interspersed with intermittent male conversations and Lydia’s own pouting, making it a little unpleasant.

Lei Yun sat up, his legs having stretched out over the walkway during his sleep, and as soon as he sat up he hung directly in mid-air,  the sensation of stepping into the air startling him for a moment. He immediately understood why there would be no one on the platform on the eighth f loor, because anyone who climbed the tower would fall off if they were not careful. Lei Yun did not dare to look down, but he knew that the abyss below was several hundred meters deep.

Lei Yun’s bag wasn’t too heavy and he was able to walk fairly easily for the first few days,  reaching a height of around 20 storeys each day. After a week later, his feet began to blister, and his climbing speed was greatly slowed down,  and every step hurt. During the rest, he sat in a relatively flat place in the walkway. Because he was travelling light,  Lei Yun didn’t have any extra-recreational equipment, so apart from watching the sensory micro-piece, he had to stare at the wall on the other side, which gave him more time to think.

He thought about all kinds of problems and logical leaps. He wants to know why Lydia had only one artificial eye with a high-pixel lens. Why does he ha ve to use a brainwave converter every night when he lies down and tosses and turns for two hours without being able to fall asleep?  Why is it that Lydia’s side of the world is still green and green, unlike his own side where the sky is grey and he has to climb a tower to get a drink of water?

He asks questions, and then tried to answer them himself. The answer may be awkward, but he can always convince himself. After all,  in such a place surrounded by walls, there is no one else to help him answer.

Lydia may think that one eye was enough, or she may have the money to install one. She probably lived hundreds of years ago, when the technology was enough to create one 2 billion pixel of eyes.

If you think about it,  this video may not be a sleep aid at all. The salty taste of sea water and the action of putting shells on the lips now all look like foreshadowing. L ater, the traces of editing and the fragments of men and women combination confirmed Lei Yun’s suspicions. In this way, the function of human body amplifier was self-evident.

Lei Yun was a little depressed at the thought of here, and turned his mind to something else.

He thought of looking for water, thought of his hometown,  and then thought of how he knew how frustrating it was that there was a window on the tower every 100 meters when he was still under the tower and loo ked at the windows all over the base. When he climbed up,  the darkness continued to devour him according to his wishes. Within the range of what he could see, there was only one square meter around him,  except for almost all darkness. He had no idea what he would encounter next, whether it would be a protruding obstacle or a recessed trap,  whether it would be thousands of metres of steps or a gentle slope that would be smooth. All he could do was to feel his way up and up again.

One day when he was resting, he counted the number of days since he had spoken to anyone,  and the old woman who sold him micro-pieces was the last person he had spoken to. Lei Yun opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t know what to say, so he was stunned.

If someone is there, he would observe his funny and awkward expression, but unfortunately there was no such person.

“ah  …

As if afraid of disturbing the others, Lei Yun made the thin, weak voice when the doctor asked for tonsil examination, then shook his head,  realized how stupid he was, and went back to think of other things to kill time.

03

At the top of the tower lives an omniscient man who has given the commandment that anyone who comes to the top of the tower will have a wish granted to them.

Rumour has it that some of those who climbed the tower returned to say that although their wish was granted, they did not see any people on the tower,  but a large empty space, except for a few intermittent sheep calls. The story spread so widely that the tower became known as the Sheep Tower.

The clear purpose of Lei Yun’s tower climbing is to represent the hopes of the whole northern China: climb to the top of the tower to find water. This  is why the entire town is willing to contribute resources to Lei Yun, who is not alone in climbing the tower.

Lei Yun has no energy to think about the meanings of abstraction at the moment. His situation in the tower is enough for a person to collapse. The endl ess darkness wrapped around him, holding him against the wall and moving his feet with him. How he would have liked to have someone to talk to,  someone who was a scholarly commentator or a writer-poet, who would have been delighted by the use of colourful rhetoric;  Someone who was a commoner, who would have been relaxed by the simplicity of his conversation; A person who would be sweetened by a disgusting drunk’s spit, the drunk pointed his nose at him and cursed him. He was a little more than that.

Finally, after tens of thousands of steps in a row, Lei Yun met a man sitting against a wall in a relatively flat place.

“Wow, I didn’t expect to see a living person before I died.”

“Me …… ahem …… me too.” Lei Yun hadn’t made a sound for a long time, so he almost forgot how to speak.

In the darkness, Lei Yun could not see the man’s face, only a vague outline beckoning to Lei Yun, “Come closer child, don’t be afraid, I think you haven’t seen a living person for a long time either.”

“Yes sir.” Lei Yun didn’t let down his guard, strolling slowly along the trail: “Are you having a rest, sir?”

“I am waiting to die.” After that, seeing that Lei Yun’s pace was a little slow, the man continued, “It’s all right, kid, you’re afraid to sit there,  my foot is broken, I can’t pass you … It’s nice to have someone to talk to.” Lei Yun sat obediently where he was and did not speak, and the man went on to ask, “What did you climb the tower for?”

“look for water, sir. All the cities in the north were washed away by the wind and sand,  and there was so little water that people can’t even drink enough, let alone plant trees. Our town finally chose me to climb the tower to look for water on behalf of all the residents.”

“then there are even fewer reason for me to hurt you, because our purpose is the same. Relax, I’m a dying man,  and I break my foot in a place like this, and I can’t climb up or down. Fortunately, I met you, which can make my walk less lonely. I am only grateful to you. “

“I’m not scared, it’s just been too long since I’ve seen anyone, I’m just a bit … … A bit … …” Lei Yun rummaged in his mind, looking for a suitable word. “a little … … Surprised.”

“well, it’s good. Son, when I die,  you’ll take away all my equipment. I still have about two weeks of substitute meals here. They are delicious. As a prisoner, I haven’t had such good and convenient food for a long time.

I also have a nice pair of hiking shoes, which you can wear. “

A criminal? “

“yes, I’m a criminal. Unlike those of you who have a glorious mission, I climbed this tower to pay my debt, my debt to this city,  my debt to my wife and daughter. If I can ask for water, then the children who still live at the bottom of the tower will live better. ” He sighed,  “I’m just afraid that I won’t finish it now, so I thought if what I have can give you the help you need to find water successfully, this would be a way to make up for it.”

Lei Yun remembered that before he left, the whole town had held a great celebration in his honor,  and he was treated as a guest of every house. People not only took out their most valuable property, but also killed cows and sheep,  took out barrels of wine, invited him to eat the freshest meat and drink the most precious wine,  and his good friends also received food that they usually don’t see. The celebration lasted for two days and three nights. From the next day,  Lei Yun was already drunk. He was picked up by the residents and taken to the goat tower. When he regained consciousness, he was already standing under the tower.

Looking at this person in front of him, Lei Yun couldn’t help feeling pity.

“I will, sir, don’t worry, I will beg for water. Whether it is a goat or a sheep on top of this tower, I will ask him to lower the water! “

“It is good to have that from you. Thank you, boy.”

Lei Yun vaguely saw him in the shadows as he began to take off his shoes, his feet supposedly swollen, and he did so stiffly and laboriously,  with occasional “hissing” whimpers, as if he was hurting himself. When he took off his shoes,  he threw them at Lei Yun and smashed them on the ground with a crisp “bang bang” that echoed through the tower.

“Come on, old man I won’t keep you any longer, take my things and go.” Lei Yun picked up his boots, they weren’t his own yard,  but he took them anyway, bowed to the old man and walked around past him ready to move on up.

“Oh yes, I have a request.” The old gentleman called out to Lei Yun again, “If you do succeed and pass by the old man me on your way back,  please take my body back with you. You don’t have to bother carrying me or dragging me all the way, just push me down from here.” Lei Yun nodded, “Good.”

He walked upwards for about a few more days when suddenly a deafening thud came from the bottom of the tower.

04

When he first started to climb this tower, Lei Yun counted for several days,  but later he couldn’t count it at all. From the place where he met the old gentleman,  there were occasional bodies on the trail. Some of them are still fresh, with all kinds of supplies scattered around them, while others had no clothes on them, and they have started to stink and rot.

The two pairs of shoes Lei Yun had brought with him when he started climbing the tower were worn out,  and the old man’s gift didn’t fit him. Lei Yun took off his shoes and put the old man’s shoes aside, trying to give some comfort to the body.

The food in Lei Yun’s pack was reduced and increased, and increased and decreased. With about a quarter of the bag left,  he suddenly felt shortness of breath,  and his nasal cavity no longer inhaled enough oxygen to satisfy his intake. He opened his mouth to try to increase his intake in this way,  but it was difficult to relieve him. In the dark, Lei Yun fumbled to the wall, desperately looking for his backpack. His brain was dizzy and his hands were shaking because of lack of oxygen.

Finally, he found the high-altitude respirator at the bottom of his backpack, put it on his head,  and then turned the switch to faint. The cool but pleasant air that gushed out of the respirator mask was like a liquid spray on Lei Yun’s face,  and he sucked it in, not wanting to let go of any of the fresh oxygen, and lay there for a while before recovering.

When he stood up, Lei Yun noticed that the walls along the path had become metal, which felt much smoother than the stone.

The good news is, with the challenges ahead, this means that Lei Yun has reached a certain height, probably not far from the top of the tower.

After a short rest, Lei Yun opened his backpack and continued his journey. When he came to the next window,  Lei Yun usually took a rest there and looks into the distance,  which is his only remaining happiness. But this time he didn’t. The armrest on the edge of the window became thinner due to the change in material,  and he didn’t dare to put his own weight on it. He was close to the finish line, and any small mistake could ruin all his work. This is the only chance he can lose.

When he reached the top of the mountain, he would be able to see enough, and Lei Yun comforts himself.

Gradually, there was frost on the armrest by the window,  and then there was snow on it. A large section of the path by the window became more slippery,  and even there was a thin layer of ice in some places. Lei Yun had never seen snow since he was a child,  and he has only been looking for information. When he saw flesh and blood this time, he grabbed a handful and put it in his mouth. After a taste,  he immediately calmed down, because there are more important things to do now.

There was no way to know how long the rest of the road is. When Lei Yun collected the oxygen left by other lost climbers,  he wore three or four layers of other people’s clothes, and he walked more carefully than before, and he was a little clumsy.

Stumbling and falling, he nearly slipped on several occasions and tried to hold on to the walls,  not realizing that they were more slippery than the ground, and he ended up on his back to avoid sliding down to the bottom of the tower.

This situation lasted for a period of time, and higher in the tower, Lei Yun had to crawl on the ground,  vividly reproducing the word ‘climbing “. Snowflakes kept falling from above, and a thick layer of snow accumulated on Lei Yun’s head.

Lei Yun’s head was bright, he was on his back, his back. The light is too strong, he could only squint and see nothing, but he knew in his heart that he was there!  He finally got to the top of the tower!

It had been so long since he had seen any bright light that his eyes were still a little uncomfortable,  so he simply lay on his back and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light before moving on. Despite his excitement,  he did not make a single mistake with his hands and feet, moving forward step by step, not daring to speed up even the slightest bit.

05

The platform is more than double the size of the base of the ground floor, with only a small hole in the middle connecting it to the walkway.

There is a thick layer of snow on the platform, and there was nothing but snow and clouds where the eyes could see it.

“I thought it was a reptile that came up, but it turned out to be a human.”

Lei Yun was enjoying the tranquility after the storm when he was suddenly startled by a voice. There was a rustling sound from the snow at the edge of  the platform, followed by the reveal of a man with a curled up body, who stretched himself out, twisted a few times from side to side and stood up.

It was a middle-aged man with an oriental face,  his face cleaned up and dressed in a white gym suit that almost blended in with the snow-covered ground, in stark contrast to the dusty, messy-haired Lei Yun.

“Hello, my name is Chiaki.” He politely extended his right hand as if intending to shake Lei Yun’s,  but when he saw Lei Yun sticking his frostbite-covered right hand out of the cuffs of his four-layer coat jacket, he drew it back and smiled awkwardly.

“You’re …….”

“Yes,  I am.” Lei Yun was interrupted. Chiaki gave two quick laugh. “I just sat on it and watched a few small videos. I never thought that I’d be well known  and sought after by millions of people. It’s pathetic.” Lei Yun rolled his eyes behind his back, trying to change the subject. “How long have you been doing that movement, that yoga pose.”

“oh, you mean the one-horned goat pose?  That’s my own creation, isn’t it pretty? I’ve been in that pose ever since I climbed to the top of the tower until you came up just now.” He patted himself on the head. “I was recording a new  physical video. I didn’t expect anyone else to climb it.”

Without leaving Lei Yun too much time to react, Chiaki continued to ramble on, “I know what you’re going to ask,  there’s no need to eat in here. You won’t feel the cold even though it’s covered with snow. I didn’t realize that until I came up here, either.”

He walked up to Lei Yun and reached out and gently pulled off his mask. Lei Yun just wanted to resist, so he held him down, held out his hand, and put a finger on Lei Yun’s lips.

“shh-shh-shh,” he continued. “Take a deep breath safely, and you will find that I didn’t lie to you.” Lei Yun first grabbed the breathing mask back,  then half-heartedly began to take small breaths, then kept getting bigger.

“I’ve never smelt such fresh air before, and it’s amazing that it’s not affected by air pressure at all!  It’s a thousand times more comfortable than the oxygen inside the respirator!”

“I told you so.”

“But why aren’t there any sheep here? “

“sheep?  What sheep? Look at the snow around you. Just roll on the ground twice, and you can become any sheep you want.”

“have you heard of a sheep?”

“No, but it’s possible that I was too involved in yoga and missed it.”

Lei Yun was a little lost, as if he really thought there would be a sheep at the top of the tower, and as if he had gone to the trouble of climbing to the top of the tower just to meet the sheep.

“What is your wish?” He asked Chiaki.

“I don’t have a wish. At first I only came up here to record a video,  but this place makes me feel more at ease than any other beauty I’ve ever been to, plus it doesn’t consume resources or produce rubbish,  and now I plan to live here.” He paused as if he were worried about something. “The only problem is how to transmit the videos I recorded.”

Both men were silent. Chiaki seemed to be thinking about the question he himself had just posed,  while Lei Yun was just fuming. Lei Yun had used up all his strength climbing to the top of the tower and he turned to lie down in the snow, not wanting to think about anything else for a short while.

Qianqiu stood where he was, his right hand on his cheek and his left arm in his arms, thinking for a long time, then with a dive, he jumped into the snow next to Lei Yun.

“Will you help me bring it down?” He asked Lei Yun.

Lei Yun was so tired that he didn’t even want to make an expression, his eyes were closed as if he was soon going to fall asleep, and he said,  “Don’t you feel sorry for giving up your life under the tower like that? “

“In any garden you have to have the courage to cut down the big trees to give the newly planted seeds enough room to grow.”

“Donkey’s lips.” Lei Yun replied almost in a dream.

Qian Qiu suddenly changed his tone and became very authoritative, such as questioning the trial in court, or a kind old man’s affectionate comfort. He asked, “What is your wish? The weary traveler.”

“I want water, water that can never be used up.”

As if a jade dish full of water was hanging overhead, it shattered and an endless stream of water fell in an instant, striking the top of the tower,  washing away all the snow and sweeping away Lei Yun.

Lei Yun was washed away by the water when he was going down the mountain,  and finally he got what he wanted to see. There was no shortage of water. His mouth was wide open, his eyes are wide open,  and every pore in his body absorbs water. The black and white marks on his face exposed to the sun by his goggles were washed away,  his body became translucent, and his skin was as soft as the skin of a newborn baby. When climbing the mountain,  the dust and mud that stained his clothes were washed away, and even his soles grew out, as if he had never taken a step. It seems that he didn’t take a step.

When he was immersed in the water, his mind was more open and developed than before, and his brain turned again,  just like a rusty gears had been oiled for many years, and he thought about more problems than ever before.

Was it because he expressed his wish, so it came true right away?  Would it spread to Chiaki?  Who built the tower?  It took him about six months to climb the tower, and now it takes at least ten minutes to be washed to the bottom by the flood, doesn’t it?  The current is so big that old man should be able to carry it home, right?

..  …

Finally, before his consciousness was about to dissipate, the question came to him: was the sheep at the top of the tower a lamb or a goat? Whirling around, he heard a voice.

“baa”

【Explain 】

Let me explain this novel a little bit. This story is very “stream of consciousness”. I can take the sheep tower as a symbol. It can be a religion, a government, or a society. When resources become exhausted, ordinary people want to obtain resources to survive, so they need to pay a very high price in exchange. However, for those who already lived at the top of the pyramid, it is very easy. Some of the goals we are striving for are often considered useless actions. There may be a God on the top of the tower. But his nature is not God. Just a man who happened to get there. The ending of the story is also full of absurdity. The protagonist has gone through all kinds of difficulties and reached the top of the tower. In the eyes of the people at the top of the tower, all this is nothing. After a sheep cry, the story came to a sudden stop. Are there any sheep at the top of the tower? This question will never be answered. None of this seems to matter. The protagonist has been submerged in the flood or the wind and sand of Yangta. It’s like he’s never been here.