PNB Chapter 119 Willow Tree
Chapter 119 Willow Tree
The willow tree is the root of the world, and its branches are the soul of civilization.
The willow tree has lived here since the day it was born. Its roots are deeply embedded in the ground, its trunk stretches straight to the sky, and countless branches cascade down from its crown, spreading across the entire planet.
This is a prosperous planet, enveloped by green oceans, making it appear vibrant with life.
This is a desolate planet. All life here was wiped out 200 years ago, leaving only lonely willow trees.
"woke up."
The willow tree swayed its branches, and the slight tremor of its massive body caused earthquakes in parts of the planet.
The willow tree quickly stopped swaying, and only after the surroundings fell silent again did it let out a long breath.
"Well, thank goodness, there are no other organic things on this planet besides me now, otherwise they would complain about me again."
At this point, the willow tree felt a little down, but it couldn't understand why it was feeling down.
"Is this what those organic substances left me with? How amazing! I feel my body becoming slower and slower. I feel like crying... But why is this happening? I need to find out."
As the willow tree spoke, it swayed its branches, gathering one of its tens of thousands of branches from the ground.
On the willow branches, countless leaves wrapped around an oval-shaped object like a rice dumpling, and no one knew what was inside.
"Found it. This is it."
The willow tree began to peruse the memories of this organic matter, trying to find the answer in its heart.
Ultimately, it achieved the result it wanted.
"Loneliness... is a normal psychological phenomenon that describes an individual's feeling of rejection from their surroundings. Organic matter likes to stick together, and when they become individuals, they will have this feeling."
"But I'm not just an individual."
"I am made up of so many individuals, ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions, trillions, trillions, quintillions, gai... Never mind, I'm too tired to count."
The willow tree wanted to sleep again.
It had no idea how long it had been asleep in the river of time, or how much time had passed in the outside world.
But what can you do if you don't sleep?
At first, the willow tree was just a tree, but in the midst of its tedious waiting, it slowly spread its roots out until it enveloped the entire planet.
Since then, the willow tree has been at a loss, as if it has lost the meaning of continuing to live.
"I'm so tired. Why do I still feel so tired even after sleeping for so long? When did I start sleeping...? Let me think, it seems to be after I devoured all the memories of the last organic matter."
The willow tree swayed its branches once more, and dozens of rice dumplings wrapped in it were lifted from the ground.
"That time I ate all the organic food, I was so full, and then I fell asleep. It's a pity I should have left one or two organic foods, otherwise I wouldn't have been so bored."
The willow tree was somewhat saddened; all that remained in its mind now was the memory of being devoured.
It began to examine the memories of these organic beings before their deaths. Although it had done this process countless times, it was the only thing it could do on this planet.
In the memories of these organic things, they called themselves the "World Tree." At that time, the willow tree was still very weak, knew nothing, and could not say anything.
Later, these organic entities discovered that the willow tree could store their memories, and they all uploaded their consciousness to the willow tree.
They seem to want to use willow trees to complete the fusion of memories, thereby giving birth to a new consciousness.
They succeeded... but they also failed.
The willow tree gained consciousness, but even it didn't know whether this consciousness was generated autonomously or came from the fusion of memories from those organic substances.
It began to imitate and learn the way those organic things spoke and thought processes based on its own memory, but the willow tree always felt that something was missing.
What's missing?
The willow tree could not understand this question, nor could it find the answer in the consciousness it devoured.
The willow tree pondered and pondered, searching through all the consciousnesses, but it could not find the answer it sought in their memories.
So it began to devour more consciousnesses, searching for answers in their memories.
The willow tree used to do this, and it didn't know why it did it.
But it seems that devouring the memories of other consciousnesses is its biological instinct, or rather... it has nothing else to do besides doing this.
But even after it had completely devoured all the memories, it still hadn't found the answer it was looking for.
"How is this possible? The memories of the consciousnesses I devoured clearly told me that as long as I devoured more memories, I could find the answers to all my questions!"
The willow tree didn't understand, but it believed that memories don't lie, that memories are the purest form of knowledge in the world, and that the reason it couldn't find the answer to this question was simply because it hadn't absorbed enough memories.
Yes, that must be the case.
But I've eaten all the organic matter on this planet, so where can I go?
Just then, the willow tree suddenly heard a sound.
It turned its massive body and looked out into the universe, its direction being the star 187J3X1.
The universe is very quiet; generally speaking, you can't hear any sound.
Just now, someone whispered something in its ear. The willow tree heard it clearly. The direction the person pointed out was the direction of the star 187J3X1.
However, the person did not explain the specific meaning of these coordinates, which puzzled Liu Shu.
"What does it mean?"
The willow tree began searching for answers in its vast collection of memories, and this time, it quickly obtained the result it wanted.
"Danger!"
The memory warned the willow tree that it was a very dangerous coordinate and needed to be destroyed immediately.
The willow tree didn't understand, but it believed that memory doesn't lie, and that memory is the purest knowledge in the world.
Although it felt that there might be new organic matter there, since memory had already provided the answer, it should do as the other party said.
Memory does not lie; it is the purest form of knowledge in the world.
The willow tree coiled its enormous roots, causing another earthquake on its planet. After a long time, wrapped in countless roots, a "seed" was curled up.
Seeds are the means by which willows reproduce. Once a seed is planted inside a star, it will begin to grow as long as it encounters organic matter, eventually engulfing the entire star.
However, the seed also has its drawbacks. According to the memories of the consciousness, there is very little organic matter in the universe, which is why the willow tree only wants to stay here and sleep. The willow tree does not like the universe without organic matter.
Without organic matter, even if the seeds are launched, they may not be able to grow and will eventually drift in space or be sucked into a black hole.
But it doesn't matter, there will always be a seed that encounters something interesting.
This is probably the most interesting thing the willow tree has ever done besides sleeping and reminiscing.
But just as the seed was about to be launched, the star suddenly burst forth with a dazzling light.
The star 187J3X1 exploded.
Because this star was quite close to the star in Willow Tree, the light cone effect did not cause the actual explosion time to be too far from the observation time.
According to Liu Shu's estimate, there is only about a 0.1 time interval between the two.
"Oh dear, it's been destroyed."
The willow tree was somewhat disappointed, as its only source of joy had been taken by someone else.
But it quickly became excited, as the consciousness's memories told it that many other civilizations existed in the universe.
"Maybe I can try sowing seeds indiscriminately in several different directions?" the willow tree thought.
But it quickly abandoned the idea.
The memory didn't tell it what the consequences of doing so would be, and like that question, the willow tree couldn't find the final answer in its memory.
The willow tree is unwilling to take risks when it comes to the unknown; its thinking is caught in a memory paradox.
The memory didn't tell itself what to do; its only option was to devour more memories to find the answer. However, the consciousness here had already been completely consumed. If it wanted to leave, it needed to launch a seed, but the consequences of launching a seed were unknown, because the memory hadn't told itself what the consequences would be.
The willow tree pondered this paradox repeatedly, feeling itself growing increasingly tired, and finally fell into a deep sleep once more.
Memory does not lie; it is the purest form of knowledge in the world.