Chapter 1: The Young Man Who Was Dropped into the Lake

  The vast universe is infinitely mysterious to everyone. The reason for the mystery lies in its inexplicability. Because we cannot reach, and even observe anything billions of light-years away from us in the universe. And the distance of billions of light-years is so small compared to the infinite universe, it's just a line between two points.

  No one knows that billions of years ago, hundreds of billions of light-years away from Earth, there was a world where artistic civilization had reached its peak. In this world, even an old farmer who tilled the land could be crowned as a great artist if he were to travel to Earth. Their technological research and development mainly focused on how to best preserve their artistic achievements for future generations. They even invented something called "art genes" to help their descendants avoid detours in the pursuit of art, which they injected into every newborn's brain. The art genes carried various artistic knowledge accumulated by people from generation to generation in this world.

  In this world, there is no war and competition between countries mainly manifests in an annual art achievement contest.

  But such a peaceful and serene planet was facing extinction due to a large celestial body fragment that was directly colliding with it. When the people of this world learned that their world would be destroyed, what they thought of first was not how to save themselves, but how to continue passing on their artistic achievements. So in the last period of time before the world's destruction, the people of this world joined forces to create countless biological gene boxes for passing on their artistic achievements. Countless gene boxes contained almost all the artistic heritage of this world: music, fine arts, literature, thought, philosophy and so on.

  At the last moment when this world is about to be destroyed, people who regard art as life have launched these boxes that inherited their artistic genes into the universe from all directions of the planet. Their final luxury is that in the infinite universe, there will be intelligent lives similar to them that can continue their art.

  Billions of years passed, countless small boxes were damaged in the universe by various unexpected accidents. However, one of them inherited the world music cell and luckily escaped countless catastrophes, after traveling for hundreds of billions of light-years, it came to the vicinity of the Earth, closely followed by being attracted by the Earth's gravity, drifting towards the Earth.

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  Chen Chufan was walking dejectedly on the cement path along the southern lake in the school, where a row of willows were planted along the lakeside. It was early March, and the tender shoots on the willow branches had already burst forth with yellowish-green buds, each one looking like a chick's beak. The gloomy weather suddenly turned rainy, and the willow branches swayed gently in the wind and rain, as if a slender girl was dancing with her delicate arms. From time to time, some of the buds would fall off, clicking against Chen Chufan's hair as they floated down softly.

  Chen Chufan, however, was completely unaware of this. He had already walked back and forth along this small road three times. Because it was raining, the couples who usually met in the grass by the side of the road were nowhere to be seen. Only occasionally would students hastily passing by on this road cast a glance of surprise at this boy walking in the rain without an umbrella, before brushing past him and paying no further attention.

  "Another poor kid who's been dumped!" Almost every classmate who crossed paths with Chen Chufan thought so. It was already the year 2000, and dating had become a required course for university students. So, the various strange behaviors of students after a breakup had also become a beautiful landscape on campus. Compared to other weird behaviors after a breakup, what's the big deal about getting rained on by the lake?

  Chen Chufan indeed had a breakup, just half an hour ago

  Today is the girl's birthday, Chen Chufan gritted his teeth and spent 50 yuan to buy a bouquet of roses, and then spent another 10 yuan to buy two tickets for the school's internal cinema. He rushed excitedly to the girl's school, wanting to give her a surprise.

  For a poor student, this is the ultimate that Chen Chufan can do. Chen Chufan's parents gave him a fairly handsome appearance and a healthy physique, but they couldn't give him a rich family. In fact, in the 1980s, Chen Chufan's home environment was quite superior, his parents were ordinary employees of an enterprise. At that time, families with two working parents were envied by many families. People's thinking was still very simple and didn't think that one day state-owned enterprises would go bankrupt and workers would be laid off. So Chen Chufan's parents never stinted on food to ensure his healthy growth.

  When Chen Chu Fan was a child, he especially liked to eat meat. His parents would think of ways to cook chicken, duck, pork and beef for him every day. In that era of material poverty, it was really not easy to do this, and Chen Chu Fan was also raised strong by his loving parents.

  But the good times did not last long. In the mid-1990s, the sudden reform of state-owned enterprises led to his mother's layoff. The family began to rely on his father's meager salary to make ends meet. Previously, in order to ensure Chen Chu Fan's healthy growth, the family had spent a lot on living expenses, so they did not have much savings. After Chen Chu Fan was admitted to university, the family had no money left after paying his tuition fees. Chen Chu Fan's monthly living allowance was only 300 yuan, which was squeezed out of his father's meager salary of over 1,300 yuan per month. After all, the family still needed to save up for next year's tuition fees.

  Chen Chufan excitedly dialed the phone number of the girl's dormitory from a small shop downstairs.

  "Wang Linlin, I'm downstairs in your dorm building."

  "You're here? Why didn't you tell me in advance?"

  "Today is your birthday, want to give you a surprise! Come down quickly, I have gifts for you!"

  "Hmm... Alright, I also have something to say to you!"

  Chen Chufan, who was excited, did not notice the girl's hesitant tone on the phone. He was still thinking about how to give her a simple and romantic birthday gift.

  "Here, I give it to you!" When the girl appeared on the small street under the dormitory, Chen Chufan took out the rose that had been hidden behind his back and prepared to present it to the girl. However, what made Chen Chufan unexpected was that the girl did not receive his rose with surprise as he had imagined, nor did she say to him in a passionate tone as before: "Chufan, you're so good, I love you to death."

  On the contrary, the girl did not accept his rose and instead looked a bit embarrassed.

  It was just dinner time, and the girls who had returned from class and were about to go out of their dormitory for dinner kept coming one after another. Many girls looked at what happened in front of the dormitory door with kindness, and there were occasional bursts of giggles.

  But Chen Chufan had already felt something was off, and his smiling expression began to turn uneasy.

  "What's wrong? Lin'er?" Chen Chufan asked anxiously, he began to have a bad premonition, but still wanted to seek confirmation.

  "Sorry, Chufan, I think we should break up. I don't think we're suitable for each other. You're a great person and so talented, you'll definitely find someone better than me! I should have told you this earlier, but I didn't know how to bring it up, so I'm really sorry!" The girl said softly, then turned around to leave and head back to her dorm room.

  "Wait, Lin'er, even if we are to break up, you should at least give me a reason!" Chen Chufan took an excited step forward, grabbing the girl's right arm and stopping her from directly returning to the dormitory.

  "Let go!" the girl shouted angrily.

  "Give me a reason and I'll turn around and leave!" Chen Chufan exclaimed excitedly.

  "Alright, come with me!" The girl looked at Chen Chufan's determined eyes and finally compromised. She took Chen Chufan to the small woods behind the dormitory.

  "To be honest, I have a new boyfriend." The girl's words were like a sharp knife stabbing Chen Chufan in the heart.

  "Why?" Chen Chufan asked woodenly.

  "Because what I want, you can't give me, Chufan!" The girl said in a low voice.

  "What do you want? I know you like watching movies, so I specially bought tickets today and we can go watch together!" As he spoke, Chen Chufan hastily rummaged through his pockets and pulled out the two movie tickets from within the school.

  The girl looked at Chen Chufan, who was somewhat flustered, shook her head and said: "You're too poor, Chufan! You also know our dormitory's Ma Xiaoxiao. When she had a birthday, her boyfriend invited all of us in the dormitory to eat and spent over 2000 yuan. The small lipstick he gave her was worth several hundred yuan! And you? I wanted to go to the pedestrian street to watch a movie, but you would only take me after you received your scholarship! Today is my birthday, but you can only buy two cheap movie tickets from school to fool me! I'm not worse than Ma Xiaoxiao, why can't I have what she has?" The girl's voice became somewhat intense, as if telling Chen Chufan the reason while also persuading herself: "You say I'm vain or vulgar, it's up to you, but what I want, you can't give me. So let's just part ways!" After finishing speaking, the girl turned around and left without looking back, leaving Chen Chufan standing alone in the small woods, lost and disheartened.

  After walking out of the girls' dormitory, Chen Chufan unexpectedly saw that at the entrance of the girls' dormitory, one hand of his ex-girlfriend was being held by another man, and her other hand was holding a large bunch of blue flowers. The two were talking about something. Chen Chufan stared blankly at the two people, suddenly feeling a sharp pain in his heart.

  Looking at the girl holding a large bunch of blue roses worth hundreds of yuan, Chen Chufan suddenly felt that his nine red roses were as ridiculous as an ugly duckling next to a swan.

  At this time, a group of roommates from the girl's dormitory suddenly walked out of the door of the girls' dormitory. Several people surrounded the girlfriend and that man. It seemed to be discussing something. Suddenly he saw Ma Xiaoxiao glance in his direction, then pulled his girlfriend's sleeve and said something. The crowd gathered together looked towards the direction where he was standing.

  Chen Chufan suddenly felt ashamed, he dropped the rose in his hand and quickly turned around to disappear from everyone's sight.

  Back at his own school, Chen Chufan didn't want to return to the dormitory and didn't know where else to go, so he went straight to the Nanhu lakeside where he often dated his girlfriend. It was then that the overcast sky began to rain.

  "I have a new boyfriend!" "You can't give me what I want" "You're too poor, Chufan!" The girl's words kept replaying in Chen Chufan's mind, reminding him of their past promises and how his first love had only lasted half a year before being ruthlessly abandoned by his girlfriend. Chen Chufan felt a surge of injustice rise up from his brain, making him want to lash out.

  He stopped in his tracks, walked to the lake and faced the water, letting out a loud roar, "Ah!", which was so loud that it attracted several passing classmates to turn their heads frequently.

  Suddenly, a faint light mixed with the rainwater falling from the sky, fell straight down to where Chen Chufan was standing, and the next moment it came into contact with the back of his head, then directly drilled in. And Chen Chufan, who was standing by the lake, only felt a sudden sharp pain like being pricked by needles at the back of his head, followed by a blackout, and he fell forward, headfirst into Nanhu Lake, which had no guardrail.

  "Save him, someone jumped into the lake!" Fortunately, Chen Chufan shouted loudly before falling into the lake, attracting many people's attention. His fall was seen by many. Immediately, some enthusiastic classmates rushed over to where Chen Chufan had jumped, shouting and calling for help. Some boys who were familiar with water jumped in to rescue him, while others who didn't know how to swim ran to the phone booth near the dormitory to call the teacher and 120. Meanwhile, some curious onlookers ran back to their dorms to tell their roommates to come and watch the rare event of someone jumping into the lake on campus.

  When everyone was busy pulling Chen Chufan out of the water, Chen Chufan's breathing had become very weak. Fortunately, the school teachers and 120 emergency services arrived in time. After a simple first aid by the doctor, Chen Chufan was put into an ambulance and sent to the hospital accompanied by his teacher. Nobody noticed that there was a small hole under Chen Chufan's hair at the back of his head, which was rapidly recovering.