Chapter 55 Su Ziqi I

　　—Chance coincidence cannot explain the meetings of life’s trajectories; everything is destined.

　　The morning sunlight filtered softly through the window and fell upon the bed.

　　Su Ziqi, still in sleep, suddenly started awake. She rolled upright from the bed, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and wished to see what time it was and whether she could still catch the morning rushhour subway.

　　Yet when Su Ziqi clearly saw the environment inside the treehouse her mind gave a start and she immediately became much clearer.

　　She smiled bitterly, walked to the window, opened it, stretched out her arms, and drew in deep breaths of the fresh morning air.

　　Opening this window of the morning was like opening the window of memory; she recalled the strange dream of the previous night.

　　This dream she had already dreamed many times. In the dream she had come to an alien world, yet whenever she awoke and recalled it she felt that that alien world differed somewhat from the Mu Star upon which she now found herself. In that world she could fly into the sky and enter the earth, kill with decisive force, come and go freely amid a rain of knives, spears and swords—seeming omnipotent, transformed into a god.

　　She was greatly puzzled: in the real world she was by no means a person who liked to brandish knives and spears—why then did she have such strange dreams of killing? Perhaps it was because her father had often told her fantastical bedtime stories when she was small that she frequently dreamed these strange dreams at night?

　　Or perhaps every one of us actually harbors a martialarts dream in the heart; unable to realize it in the real world we realize the ideal in dreams, imagining ourselves a highly skilled knighterrant who travels the world performing righteous deeds.

　　Having found a reasonable explanation for these strange dreams of hers she again recalled the bits and pieces after arriving upon Mu Star.

　　By now the several of them had already moved out of the treehollow of the pyramid sacrificial platform in the inner city.

　　They were all experts in their respective fields; having come to an alien planet they of course wished to conduct some scientific investigation. Yet living in the inner city was inconvenient for coming and going and life was not free; therefore they proposed to Gongkong that they wished to move out of the inner city and find a place to live in the outer city.

　　After Gongkong reported the matter to Great Chieftain Gongdian and obtained permission, their request was granted.

　　This great tree stood in the southwestern corner of the outer city; the diameter of the trunk was about three meters. The interior had been hollowed out into a treehouse; outside there was a spiral staircase that could reach the seventh floor directly from the ground.

　　This tree formed a system of its own, with no corridorbridges connecting it to the surrounding great trees; it was enclosed by a circle of wooden fencing, forming a private compound. Behind the great tree lay a sheer cliff.

　　The ground floor of the treehouse was the kitchen and dining hall; from the second floor upward were bedrooms. The courtyard outside the treehouse was rather far from the surrounding treehouses.

　　The owner of this privatecompound treehouse was Great Chieftain Gongdian; it was also the treehouse in which Gongkong had been raised in former years. After Gongkong moved into the inner city to live the treehouse had remained empty.

　　Because the location was quiet and private it rather suited the requirement of Su Ziqi and her companions not to be disturbed. After Gongkong brought Su Ziqi and the others to look at it they were immediately attracted by the environment of this treehouse with its courtyard and that very day took up residence inside.

　　The treehouse in which Su Ziqi lived was on the sixth floor; the window of the room faced the cliff. When the window was opened the scenery outside filled the eye.

　　This was a planet of beautiful scenery, everywhere an endless expanse of green; upon a distant mountain a waterfall hung in midair, reflecting the morning sun in sevencolored rays.

　　In early summer Wangqiu City the temperature had already risen, yet inside the treehouse it was very cool. The treehouse itself was warm in winter and cool in summer; with no high objects surrounding it to block the view, when the two opposite windows of the treehouse were opened an air current formed and it was especially cool.

　　The cool summer breeze, like a fan, blew Su Ziqi’s floating long skirt and soft, slender hair into drifting motion and also blew her thoughts into the distance…

　　In the dream of the previous night she had dreamed that she returned to her Earth home and dreamed of her father, mother and various relatives and friends. The dream was so brief and insubstantial, filled with helplessness and powerlessness. The reality was that she could never again return to the past.

　　Upon Mu Star the solar calendar was used: a month had twenty days, a year thirteen months, totaling two hundred and sixty days. One day was equivalent to two and a half Earth days and had sixty hours; day and night each had thirty hours.

　　When Su Ziqi and her companions first arrived their biological clocks were severely disrupted. The sun remained hanging in the sky; the length of a single day made them exhausted and they only wished to doze. Yet when night came the long night was even harder to bear; each time they awoke they found it was still the long night.

　　The inhabitants of Mu Star also ate three meals a day. After coming to Mu Star Su Ziqi frequently felt ravenous and was forced to eat at least twice the amount of food she had eaten upon Earth at each meal.

　　After several months they had gradually moved from the initial state of inability to adapt, logical confusion and even frenzy to the present ability to face reality, adapt to life here, and grow accustomed to the biological clock of Mu Star.

　　Professor Dong Yifeng was full of curiosity about the animals and plants of the Nanyu Forest and every day wished to go into the forest to seek new species and make specimens. For his safety the bionic robot Huamei accompanied Dong Yifeng into the forest every time.

　　Many of the trees in the Nanyu Forest also existed upon Earth. Professor Dong Yifeng discovered that sagopalm trees grew everywhere in the forest; the bark and trunk of this tree contained large amounts of starch and could produce “rice,” yet the natives of the Gongyou Clan did not know that this tree was edible.

　　When Dong Yifeng told Gongkong the method of eating this ricetree, Gongkong led the gathering party to fell large numbers of the ricetrees and bring them back, greatly relieving the food shortage of Wangqiu City in the lean season.

　　Dong Yifeng also used his knowledge to gather some edible wild grasses from the forest and plant them in the courtyard, turning the large courtyard into a vegetable garden.

　　Su Ziqi, Zheng Ya and Wang Yue were inseparable; they had already grown accustomed to the life of the clan and frequently followed the women’s gathering party to collect grains and wild fruits, experiencing and examining the way of life of the clan’s humans.

　　Gongkong came almost every day. It had already become a habit that whenever Gongkong arrived Zheng Ya and Wang Yue would find an excuse to leave of their own accord, leaving Su Ziqi and Gongkong alone together.

　　Sometimes Gongkong came alone, sometimes he brought Jiang Er; he and Jiang Er had long since become very familiar with Su Ziqi and the others.

　　Each time Gongkong came, apart from cadging a meal, he had another suitable reason: he was Su Ziqi’s teacher in learning the common language of Mu Star. While teaching Su Ziqi the language of Mu Star he was also learning Chinese from Su Ziqi.

　　Su Ziqi was a linguist, especially deeply researched in ancient Sumerian and other pictographic scripts. After thorough exchange with Gongkong on the common language of Mu Star she discovered that the language here had countless threads of connection with the languages of Earth’s ancient civilizations.

　　She discovered that the writing upon the Martian murals was almost completely identical to the writing of the common language of Mu Star; this again proved that the civilization of the Martian lava cave and the civilization of Mu Star stood in a close relationship of successive transmission.

　　The intimate relationship between Su Ziqi and Gongkong was also increasing day by day. For reasons unknown, the first time she met Gongkong in the Nanyu Forest she had felt a sudden stirring of the heart.

　　Thereafter each time she saw Gongkong her heart would beat continuously. The red phoenix jade pendant hanging about her neck seemed to have been enchanted into life and darted about within her bosom, making her feel extremely strange.

　　This morning when Gongkong arrived it was precisely breakfast time; every time he timed his arrival exactly. That morning’s breakfast was steamed maize buns.

　　The diet of the Gongyou Clan was rather simple: maize was ground into flour and either boiled into porridge or baked into maize cakes. Yet Su Ziqi and her companions preferred to make the maize flour into buns and steam them; such a novel way of eating the people of the clan had never seen.

　　When Zheng Ya saw Gongkong she said in a bad temper: “I say, Gongkong—your nose is even sharper than a dog’s; every time you arrive exactly at mealtime.”

　　Gongkong’s learning ability was very strong; in a few short months he had already basically mastered the everyday expressions of Chinese.

　　“Sister Ya, you cannot blame my nose for being sharp—who told you to be the foremost cook of our Wangqiu City?” Gongkong looked at the sternfaced Zheng Ya and still, smiling and talking, imitated Su Ziqi’s manner and called her “Sister Ya” at every turn.

　　“I say, Sister Ya—the meals you cook are far superior to those of the cooks of our inner city. Ji Mazi has gone with the Great Chieftain to the capital; otherwise I would truly have him organize the cooks to come here and learn from you.”

　　One does not strike a smiling face; hearing Gongkong’s sweet mouth Zheng Ya truly could do nothing with this ruffian and with a “puchi” laughed: “You have the poorest mouth of all. Let me ask you—why has Jiang Er not come this morning?”

　　“He has a mission today.”

　　“Ah—from ancient times to the present it has always been good to be an official. You, this chief of spies, eat the fragrant and drink the spicy every day; look at your subordinate Jiang Er—so young, yet every morning he must go out and run about gathering intelligence.”

　　“What does ‘eat the fragrant and drink the spicy’ mean?”

　　Su Ziqi picked up a bun and stuffed it into Gongkong’s mouth: “That is what it means.” Causing everyone to laugh loudly.

　　After breakfast it was the same as usual: Dong Yifeng and Huamei went into the forest to examine animals and plants; Zheng Ya and Wang Yue hurried to the assembly place of the women’s gathering party; in the courtyard only Gongkong and Su Ziqi remained.

　　The two of them spoke of the little phoenix. That little phoenix grew with the wind and had already become a large phoenix.

　　This phoenix had already built a nest upon the giant trees of the Nanyu Forest; Gongkong had already become good friends with the phoenix and could at any time call it to fly to him by intention. Yet as it continually grew larger, whenever it flew over Wangqiu City it frequently caused panic among the residents of the city.

　　In order not to disturb the people Gongkong always employed the art of aerial flight inside the forest, flying to the nest of the little phoenix to meet it.

　　“Sister Ziqi, today shall we ride the little phoenix to the seaside to swim?” Since opening the celestial eye Gongkong had already skillfully mastered the art of mindreading; he could see that Su Ziqi very much wished to go to the seaside for a stroll.

　　“Gongkong, you are too miraculous—how did you know I wished to go to the seaside? The sea of your Mu Star is truly too beautiful; last time when we rode the flying craft we looked down upon it from high in the air.”

　　Saying they would go they went. Su Ziqi returned to her own room, rummaged through her backpack, and found her swimsuit.

　　Upon Earth she had formed the habit of first going to the gym to exercise and afterward swimming. The Kuafu flying craft had a swimming pool; therefore she had packed a swimsuit in her luggage. Yet since coming to Mu Star she had not yet swum.

　　Su Ziqi shouldered her backpack and with Gongkong came to the place in the courtyard where the motorcycle flying craft was parked.

　　The motorcycle flying craft had originally been moored outside the city; after they took up residence in this courtyard outside the city Su Ziqi and her companions had parked the craft in a corner of the courtyard near the cliff.

　　The location here was excellent, blocked by the neighboring giant trees. The motorcycle flying craft possessed a small antigravity device and made not the least noise when flying; therefore whether taking off or landing it would not attract the attention of the tribal residents.

　　Su Ziqi took Gongkong aboard, piloted the motorcycle flying craft into the air, threaded among the stone pillars of the sheer cliff, and flew in the direction of the little phoenix’s nest.