The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH66

Chapter 66: The 66th Day of Livestream Selling

Belgi was Miye’s neighbor, a very magical planet.

Mr. Dandelion would always remember the sound of that planet. Whenever sunset came, a brief sound would ring across the entire world, like countless glass wind chimes resonating beneath the eaves.

At that time, Mr. Dandelion was still pale gold. It had only just begun its travels not long before. It wandered aimlessly, carrying nothing and leaving nothing behind. Wherever the wind blew it, it would go take a look. That day, the wind on Belgi was not very steady, and it swept Mr. Dandelion to the edge of a city, before a tea-colored glass window.

Most of the glass it had seen before was transparent and bright. This was the first time it had seen something like this. There was even a railing outside.

The glass was very thick and heavy, filtering out most of the light. Mr. Dandelion had to press tightly against it, flattening even the golden fluff it was so proud of, before it could barely see the little boy sitting alone on the bed inside.

The child was probably only a few years old. Like a frozen black-and-white photograph, he sat expressionlessly in an empty room that contained nothing but a bed and a set of table and chairs.

He was just sitting there.

When Belgi’s sun, the star it shared with Miye, was about to set, the boy would angrily use his thin hands to cover his ears tightly in advance. When the guardian outside the door asked him, “Kai, what are you doing?”, he would always bare his teeth and claws as he answered, “Making that sound shut up. I hate it.”

But from Kai’s unspoken meaning, Mr. Dandelion heard a clumsy kind of ferocity.

As though only this could protect him.

Mr. Dandelion slid a little lower against the glass and finally saw clearly that on the wrist of the hand Kai was using to cover his ear, there was a silver-gray bracelet. A thin ring, with a row of indicator lights on it that flashed green every three seconds. Mr. Dandelion had seen something similar before, on endangered wild animals being tracked.

Was Kai some kind of creature that needed to be tracked?

Mr. Dandelion did not know. It was only a dandelion. Wherever the wind blew it, that was where it stopped.

For the next few days, Mr. Dandelion remained outside that isolated window. It was not that it did not want to leave. It was just that the wind had not come yet.

Kai’s life was a precise schedule. Wake up at seven. Breakfast at seven-thirty. Sit in a daze from eight to eleven. Lunch at eleven-thirty. In the afternoon, visitors would come—people in white coats, people carrying all kinds of instruments, and occasionally a man and woman with exhausted, ugly expressions.

But no matter how many people came, they almost never spoke to Kai. At most, they spoke to one another, treating the young, silent Kai as though he did not exist, even while the needle they took out was still piercing Kai’s skin.

Of course, Kai also almost never spoke to them. He was like a little mute.

Until one day, he suddenly asked the guardian, “What’s outside the window?”

Mr. Dandelion had already forgotten how the other person answered. It only remembered that person’s cold attitude and their rather unfriendly scolding. It did not understand. Were humans not supposed to protect their young? Even it knew that when seeds had just sprouted and grown into seedlings, they needed careful care to possibly grow into beautiful flowers.

At that time, Mr. Dandelion was actually still not used to speaking either. After all, on its planet, in Miye, it had never needed to say a single word. Their hearts and minds were connected, and they would never hurt one another.

The first language Mr. Dandelion learned was Belgian.

It could not understand. Since humans had invented language and chattered almost every day, why did they not use it with this child?

Mr. Dandelion felt an emotion it had never felt before. It had no way to describe it. After all, dandelions had no hearts.

It only knew that the wind came that day.

But it did not leave.

It only thought of every possible way to squeeze the prettiest tuft of its fluff, little by little, through the gap between the window frame and the wall. It wanted to tell that boy that outside the window, there was sunset, there was a city, and there was me. A golden dandelion unlike any other on Belgi. Of course, if you do not like pale gold, I can also become pale green, pale blue, or any other color.

Kai discovered that strand of fluff.

It was too small, so small the surveillance could not capture it clearly, so small the guardian would never notice it. Only Kai, who sat expressionlessly on the bed all day, carefully picked it up from the floor and looked at it in his small palm for a very, very long time.

After that, Mr. Dandelion began tirelessly stuffing things through that crack day and night.

Sometimes it was a little white sand that hurt the feet, sometimes it was a handful of fresh green grass, and sometimes it was a leaf that had been sun-dried until it became half-transparent. They were useless, worthless, and not even especially beautiful. Mr. Dandelion simply felt that Kai’s room had nothing in it, like a universe living in a vacuum, where aside from darkness, there was only loneliness.

It wanted to put something into that universe.

Kai picked them up every time. He would carefully press the leaf into his only children’s picture book, just as he had carefully stored away the fluff before. He would also put the white grains of sand into an old medicine bottle and fold the emerald-green grass into the shape of a grasshopper. He never said thank you, nor did he ask who had put them there. But Mr. Dandelion could see that he arranged all those things into a small row, neatly placing them at the head of his bed, treasuring them deeply.

Until one day, Kai suddenly said to the empty window, “You’re annoying.”

Mr. Dandelion did not answer, because it was only a dandelion.

But Kai continued, “I can’t go outside anyway. What’s the point of bringing these things here?”

Mr. Dandelion’s fluff drooped slightly. But the next day, when it appeared just a tiny bit later than usual, Kai had already been standing rigidly by the window for who knew how long. His hands were clenched tightly, as though he was upset about something, or perhaps nervous. Only when he saw Mr. Dandelion pass another piece of paper through the crack did he finally let out a secret sigh of relief.

On the paper was a smiley face drawn in crayon.

For the first time, the expressionless Kai showed an expression other than anger. The corners of his lips lifted, and his eyes were bright. But what he said was still, “Your drawing is really ugly.”

Mr. Dandelion, however, felt that it had finally understood this boy who was fierce on the outside but weak inside.

He kicked over the meal tray the guardian brought not because it tasted bad, but because the person delivering the meal had changed that day. The auntie who occasionally secretly slipped him a piece of candy had been discovered, and after that, she never appeared again.

He tore out the third page of the children’s picture book not because he was angry, but because that page was about migratory birds. Migratory birds could fly anywhere, but he could not.

He said “Don’t come again” to the man and woman who came to visit him, even though his hand had been clutching the corner of his clothes reluctantly the whole time, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

He was awkward. He was sharp. He bit all kindness between his teeth, then swallowed it down together with blood.

He had never hurt anyone.

Mr. Dandelion thought: On what basis do they say he is a humanoid Heavenly Disaster?

It did not know what prophecy was. It was just that on the day it arrived here, it heard those white coats discussing that this child would bring destruction to the world in the future. But no matter how much those people said, Mr. Dandelion could not understand, because plants did not have prophecies. They only existed.

It discovered that humans really liked labeling everything.

Kai was prophesied at the age of seven to destroy the world.

From then on, he became a living humanoid disaster, and he never walked out through that iron door again. If killing him had not immediately released the violent and unsolvable power inside his body, he probably would not even have been allowed to live.

The dandelion could not understand, because planet Belgi itself was slowly dying. It had seen it. Starting from deep inside the crust, the planet was constantly being devoured and destroyed by the power they praised as a miracle. Its structure was disintegrating, and its core was destabilizing. Every sound at sunset was a sign of mechanical collapse.

What did any of that have to do with Kai?

Mr. Dandelion thought of every way possible to squeeze itself through the gap in the window frame, just like many years later, today, it and its plane merchant friend Lin Zhao squeezed into that airtight starship fortress.

The entire starship was extremely quiet, nothing like the atmosphere a warship invading another planet should have had.

They saw no soldiers commanded as easily as limbs, nor any team of advisers constantly offering strategies to the commander. It was as though there was only Kai alone in the entire starship.

Mr. Dandelion and the others’ infiltration went very smoothly. Back then, however, it had been painful. Who knew how much of its beautiful fluff had been scraped off?

But it did not regret it.

Lin Zhao could not help but whisper, “Since you liked him, why did you leave him?” He was now beginning to suspect whether the reason Kai invaded Miye was really to seize resources, or whether he had gone dark after gaining something and then losing it again.

Mr. Dandelion turned back in surprise. “Why would I leave the cub I raised? Of course I’ve been with Kai all along.”

Lin Zhao: ? What did you say?

But Mr. Dandelion no longer had a chance to answer him, because they drifted along, as though guided by fate—or perhaps because Kai had deliberately set a trap and was waiting for them. In any case, they appeared before Kai once again.

The expressionless boy from Mr. Dandelion’s story had become a sharp, expressionless man. There was still no one beside him, only the empty bridge and himself, sitting there alone. With those distinct black-and-white eyes, he stared unblinkingly at it, just as he had looked at it when it landed on his pillow all those years ago.

Only, back then, the little Kai had said, “You’ve been outside my window this whole time. I saw you. They said I’ll do very bad things.” His voice was flat and plain, as though he was reporting today’s weather. “Even I don’t know what I’ll do in the future. Maybe one day I’ll suddenly go insane, become a humanoid disaster, and bring misfortune to everyone. Aren’t you afraid?”

The pale-gold Mr. Dandelion only rolled half a circle forward and touched the other party’s trembling fingertip.

Its admission was that the wind had not blown it there. It had decided to fly there on its own, after seeing him as helpless as a trapped young beast.

The little humanoid Heavenly Disaster froze. After who knew how long, he finally cupped that unbelievably light dandelion in his hands, as though he were cupping a cluster of first snow that had not yet had time to melt.

“…Why are you so stupid?” he said.

Mr. Dandelion did not refute him.

After all, it was only a dandelion.

And now, Kai, who had grown up for who knew how many years but still maintained the appearance of his prime, raised his hand with an oppressive aura. As he prepared to use the violent power in his body to shatter the annoying dandelion before him and Lin Zhao’s screen, what he said was, “Do the Miye people who betrayed it think that by turning into its appearance, we can have a proper talk?”

“What right do you have to hand its home over to others?”

“You all deserve to die!”

Mr. Dandelion still could not grasp the main point. It said, “I’m not a person. I’m a plant.”

Lin Zhao: Bro, do you want to listen to what you’re saying?

At the critical moment, it still had to be… 1114. Before Lin Zhao even had time to speak, 1114 had already opened its mouth. To prevent things from turning into another fight the moment they disagreed, it said the most crucial sentence:

“Miye has a hive-cluster consciousness. All things are one, and one is all things.”

Kai’s fingers had already begun brewing an ominous-looking power, but they abruptly stopped.

He said, “What did you say?”

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