Deducing Godhood from the Fetal Stage

Chapter 45 Dream of the Butterfly

A tremendous sense of absurdity and fear gripped her, and she staggered backward, her back pressed against the cold dormitory door.

"Who are you?!" she hissed.

She sighed on the bed, a sigh that sounded prematurely aged, completely out of place with her young and desperate face.

"Sigh, still too weak."

said the man.

With those words, Wang Qian's image flickered and blurred like a reflection in water, then melted away. Golden light spilled from the disintegrating figure, re-outlining and coalescing in the air.

What finally appeared beside the bed was... a baby surrounded by a swarm of golden butterflies?

Or rather, it looks more like an underdeveloped fetus, as described in biology class.

The figure was transparent and warm, radiating a faint golden glow. Its face was indistinct, with only a pair of bright, white, golden eyes. Beneath it was a hazy, pinkish-gold lotus platform.

It's more like the gods in various churches and mythologies...

"Are you... a god?"

She asked instinctively.

"god?"

The tiny figure seemed taken aback for a moment, then let out a soft laugh: "Perhaps."

Jiang Yun knew she was far from being one, but she was happy that she thought so.

He raised his hand, and the scene in the dormitory gradually cracked open, like butterflies scattering, and then new images appeared around him.

This time, it's Wang Qian's true memory.

It was still that little plastic spoon. She had turned back into a baby.

But this time, her little hands couldn't hold on properly, and the spoon kept falling onto her dirty bib, smearing rice grains everywhere.

The young woman tried several times, but finally lost patience and snatched the spoon away.

"You're so stupid! You can't even learn this!" She slammed the spoon into the bowl with a loud bang. "Go hungry! We'll talk about it when you can eat by yourself!"

She was indeed carried away from the dining table and placed on the cold floor. She cried loudly from hunger, her cries echoing in the empty room.

The door to the inner room was flung open, and the man rushed out, his eyes bloodshot, yelling at her, "Shout! Shout! What are you yelling about! I just went to bed after working overtime until the early hours of the morning! If it weren't for supporting a good-for-nothing like you, would I have to work this hard?!"

His roar mingled with her cries, making the windows rattle. The woman was smashing dishes in the kitchen.

The sunlight was gone, leaving only a cold, resentful gloom.

Then, the scene changed to butterflies fluttering away.

Five years old. She tugged at the woman's trouser leg, tilted her head back, and asked timidly, "Mommy, the teacher said we should be polite and go to the bathroom. Where's our bathroom?"

The woman froze. She looked down at her daughter, her eyes devoid of tenderness, filled only with the numbness crushed by life and a sudden outburst of resentment.

"A bathroom?" Her voice suddenly turned shrill. "Our family is so poor, where would we get a bathroom?! Just that cement pit outside! A bathroom... Do you think you're some rich princess from an imperial planet?!"

She became increasingly agitated as she spoke, her finger jabbing hard at Wang Qian's forehead: "It's all because of your dad! He made all those promises, saying he'd support me if I got pregnant, but what happened? The little money he earns, I have to shamelessly go back to my parents' house to borrow for the rent! Borrow! Do you know how humiliating I am?!"

"Bang!"

The door to the inner room was kicked open, and a man with bloodshot eyes stormed out: "Blame me?! All you ever do is blame me! I work overtime from dawn till dusk every day, and what can I do if I can't even support myself? Are you trying to drive me to my death?!"

"If you hadn't said such sweet things back then, would I have quit my job and married you?!"

"Whose fault is it that you wanted to have the child! Why didn't you say so when you were asking for the bride price!"

Curses, cries, and a physical fight ensued. A cup shattered, a chair overturned. Little Wang Qian rushed forward, crying and tugging at their clothes: "Daddy! Mommy! Stop fighting! Qianqian doesn't want the bathroom anymore! Qianqian was wrong!"

"Get out of my way!" Someone shoved her hard.

She fell heavily to the ground, her head hitting the cold cement. Her vision went black, and all she could hear was her parents' sharp, hateful shouts and her own weak, helpless cries.

The concrete floor is so cold. Colder than the howling wind outside.

The image then transforms into a butterfly.

High school. Clutching the five yuan note soaked with sweat, she lingered beside her mother for a long time before finally mustering the courage to whisper, "Mom... our math teacher recommended a '53' textbook, saying it's especially good for college entrance exams... I want it, I want fifty-five yuan."

The mother's foot stopped on the sewing machine. Only the monotonous ticking of the old-fashioned wall clock remained in the room.

Her voice was hoarse: "What's the use of studying humanities?"

"It'll be useful! Mom, I'll study hard, get into a good university, and then I'll find a good job and earn lots of money! I don't want... I don't want to be like you, stuck here my whole life. I want to go to the Imperial Star, to our home planet, I want to see it..."

She panicked and abruptly said, "I don't want to be like you."

She didn't dare say what came next.

The mother remained silent for a long time. Then, without a word, she got up, went into the inner room, and began rummaging through the things.

After a while, she came out and stuffed a crumpled roll of warm coins into Wang Qian's hand.

"That's all." Her mother didn't look at her, but sat back down at the sewing machine, her voice low. "Study hard."

Tap, tap, tap... The sound of the sewing machine sounded like a heavy sigh this time.

But university wasn't as she had imagined.

At first, everything was harmonious and pleasant. But one time, Wang Qian overheard two classmates whispering about her in the bathroom: "Wang Qian's accent in the Interstellar Common Language is really rustic. Being in a group with her is really unlucky."

Pang Lele just walked in and interrupted loudly, "Can't you have some empathy? Wang Qian comes from the Northern Wilderness, where conditions are already bad."

She knew in her heart that she should be grateful, but she felt as if a thorn had been plunged into her heart, so she stayed in the bathroom until they all left before rushing out.

Gradually, Pang Lele's every action began to be interpreted by her as pity for herself.

Later, she refused Pang Lele's offer to lend her shampoo because her hair was very oily and she was late for school. The teacher said, "Why is such a nice girl so sloppy?"

There were many students in class that day, and she felt very uncomfortable, so she started to avoid that teacher's class and frequently failed the course.

She herself wanted to give up, but Pang Lele kept calling her to class. She felt that Pang Lele was treating her like a clown and a toy.

This led to this tragedy.

All the images receded like the tide.

The dormitory was clear again. Wang Qian slumped to the ground, her face cold and wet. She raised her hand to touch it; it was covered in tears.

This is her true memory, yet a god has woven a warm dream for her, a dream called the ideal life.

In the video, she hears her classmates talking about the witchcraft murder case several times while eating in the cafeteria or playing games in bed. She should have heard it, but it just didn't register.

Why?

She cried out, "I... I really didn't know there were witchcraft murders happening lately."

"It's not that you don't know about witchcraft, but that you subconsciously block it out. The human brain always prefers to accept information that interests it and rejects information that it doesn't want to hear."

"Your brain is completely absorbed by Xiao Mo. You are too focused on past pain and anxiety about your grades, so no information from the outside world is being absorbed into your mind."

"It's not that you can't resist Xiao Mo's temptation, but rather that it says what you want to hear. You just want to take revenge on everything you hate in a fantasy world without any consequences."

The golden light floated in front of her, watching her silently.

Sweet dreams.

Jiang Yun sighed softly, "Then turn yourself in, wouldn't that be better?"

His gaze was clear and penetrating, as if he could see through all the pretense she had woven with anger and jealousy, reaching right up to the little girl who was cowering on the cold cement floor, crying.

Wang Qian opened her mouth, and a sound came from her throat.

"Yes, it was me who hurt Lele..."

"This mini-program is broken."

"I'm bad too."

Scalding tears streamed down his face, washing over it that had been twisted by resentment and despair for far too long.