Pursuit of the Truth

Dream

There was a legend that had been around for a long time among the people in the Berserker Tribe. It was said that this legend had been circulating about since the era of the first God of Berserkers.

The legend spoke about the land of the Berserker Tribe before it was divided into five continents a long time ago. In the land far south was a butterfly called Harmonious Morus Alba1. That butterfly was not big, only the size of a palm. She had all the colors in the world and all of them were different.

She flew in the sky but could not be seen by normal people, because she belonged to the world placed even higher than the ninth heaven, a world that was filled with hurricanes.

In the legends, it was said that even though she was a butterfly and had beautiful wings, she could only flap her wings three times in her life. Besides these three times, she would otherwise float in the wind.

The first time she flapped her wings it would be to fly into the place above the ninth heaven once she was born.

The second time she would flap her wings at the peak of her life. It would be to show off those magnificent colors in search of her companions, but she would be unable to find them.

The last time she would flap her wings at the point when her life ended. To leave a mark in the world, she would use all her strength, and the moment she would finish flapping her wings, her body would turn into sparkles of light and scatter to the ground in wind like seeds. These seeds would turn into cocoons, but only one of them would turn into a butterfly.

This legend spoke of the three times the Harmonious Morus Alba flapped her wings. There were also a series of other legends attached to this. It was said that when she flapped her wings the first time, an earth shattering change would happen to the southern lands.

The second flap of her wings would cause a mass of corpses with grey eyes to appear on the eastern lands.

Her third flap would cause the snow in the northern lands to bring about a long lasting night that would last for ten years.

That was the legend.

That was a legend that Su Ming had never heard of before, but Bai Su had.

At night, the unconscious Bai Su woke up in her dreams. She looked at the unfamiliar world before her with a dazed look and stood alone, a lost expression on her face.

She knew that she was dreaming and that everything she saw was an illusion, none of this existed in reality.

Yet she could not truly wake up from the dream and make it disappear.

She could see snow on the ground and more snow falling from the dark sky. It was quiet all around her. There was only one mountain range located in one direction in the distance. Everywhere else was flatland.

That one spot with the mountain range had a mountain that could not be seen clearly because it was covered by the snowstorm. She had a feeling that she had seen that mountain somewhere before. It was a mountain that shot into the clouds like a person’s hands stretching out from the ground and wanting to lift the curtain in the sky!

”Where… is this..?” Bai Su mumbled, and she looked more lost than ever before.

In the midst of her confusion, she walked slowly forward. The snow trail under her feet seemed to be time itself, causing her to feel as if she was walking through all four seasons of the world with each step she took. As she continued walking, she arrived at a forest. She had no idea how long she had been in there, but at some point in time, she suddenly heard excited chatter by her ears.

That voice came from afar and caused Bai Su to stop. Instinctively, she moved to the direction of the voices.

Gradually, she passed through the mountain forest and saw something…

It was a large mass of land that did not have any forest. There were a lot of skin tents over there, along with many powerful Berserkers patrolling the area with aloof gazes. There were quite a number of people weaving in and out of the skin tents. That place was a small market.

There were a lot of squares like these in the Land of South Morning so that small tribes could trade with each other.

Bai Su looked at the unfamiliar faces. The chatter she heard sounded real, but when she looked at these people, they could not see her. One of the patrolling Berserkers even passed through Bai Su’s body.

”This is…”

She was even more lost.

Yet right when she started feeling lost, she suddenly shuddered. She saw two people running quickly from the forest located not too far away.

One of the two looked very strong and had an honest face. The other person running beside him was also a teenager, but he looked frail. He had a handsome face and his eyes shone with a clear light.

He wore clothes made of beast skins and his features still showed his naivety, but the moment Bai Su saw the boy, she was shaken.

”Su… Su Ming!”

Bai Su’s breathing quickened. She had never expected that she would see Su Ming in her dreams!

The Su Ming before her eyes was still a naïve boy. That frail looking person bore similarities to the Su Ming in her memories, but there were many more differences, so many that they seemed completely different people.

Yet at that moment, a delicate voice shouting in anger rang out.

”Lei Chen!”

Bai Su instinctively looked over. When she saw the young girl speaking, a roar echoed through her mind. She saw a young girl, and she was dressed in a shirt made of mink fur. Her long hair was tied up with a red string made of straw and there were small braids falling down her shoulders while glittering crystals decorating her forehead. With anger in her eyes and a frown on her face, she looked at Su Ming’s companion, who was standing by his side.

Her appearance made Bai Su fall into a trance.

That was a young girl… with the exact same appearance as Bai Su.

It was the end. The sights froze in Bai Su’s eyes and gradually disappeared. She opened her eyes swiftly and sweat beaded on her forehead. She looked around herself and found that she was back in her cave abode.

It was quiet outside. Not a hint of sound could be heard.

Bai Su stared blankly forward, her eyes unfocused. Her mind was still stuck seeing the things in her dream.

After a long while, Bai Su draped a robe over her shoulders and pushed open the door to her abode. The sky was dark, and a gust of cold wind made her feel slightly cold.

She stood outside her cave abode and looked at the dark sky. Under the moonlight, her gaze eventually fell on the ninth summit. As she looked at it, a befuddled and complicated look appeared in her eyes.

”Why did I have that dream..? Are the things in the dream real… or fake..?” Bai Su mumbled.

That same night, as Su Ming repeatedly copied the Golden Roc, at one point, when he drew one particular line, his finger froze and a dreamlike scene surfaced in his mind.

It contained a land where wind and snow continuously blew. The wind was strong and snow floated in the air, obscuring his vision. He could not see too far ahead, but he could still see a young girl about seven to eight years old crying as she ran ahead.

Walking in front of the young girl was a woman who had her back turned towards the young girl and was slowly disappearing into the distance.

”Mama, don’t go… Mama, don’t you want me anymore..?”

The woman stopped for a moment, but she did not turn back, and then simply continuing walking forward at a brisk pace. Among the snow, the young girl’s crying voice was the only sound that could be heard.

When she could no longer run and fell to the ground, she still struggled to get up and tried to continue running forward with tears streaming down her face. She wanted to hold her mother’s hand. She wanted to make her mother stay.

Yet that woman continued walking away until her figure could no longer be seen in the snowstorm. The young girl continued crying until she seemed to have used up all the strength in her fragile body and fell onto the snow, unmoving.

The wind blew strongly against her body, causing the young girl to curl into herself. She closed her eyes, and while she continued calling out to her mother in faint whispers, she lost consciousness.

Her right pinky gradually became green—that was the color of flesh being frozen…

Su Ming looked at all of this and did not speak.

Eventually, a man walked out into the snowstorm. The man appeared indistinct in Su Ming’s eyes and he could not see his face clearly. He walked to the girl’s side and crouched down before gently taking her up and walking into the distance.

”Su Su, come home with papa…”

The scene froze here for Su Ming. As it gradually disappeared, his body shuddered and woke up. He looked at his right index finger which remained frozen on the drawing board. After a short period of bewilderment, he looked at a corner of the drawing board swiftly.

That was the spot Bai Su had touched.

Su Ming let his mind wander for a moment before he brushed the corner Bai Su had touched with his right hand, and a pensive look appeared in his eyes.

‘Why did that happen..? Ever since I Awakened, I never dreamed. That voice in my dreams never appeared either… But when I was copying the Golden Roc just now, I fell into a trance.’

Su Ming frowned.

‘That dream did not seem fake, and there’s no way it appeared out of nowhere. There must be a reason to this!’

Su Ming stayed silent and thought for a long time. When dawn was almost over and the first rays of sunlight started showing signs of appearing, a thought suddenly struck him like lightning.

‘Could it be… when Bai Su touched the drawing board yesterday and had that brief instant of contact with my divine sense when I was fully concentrated in my task, it also meant that our memories were connected for a short moment of time..?

‘And because of that I had that dream just now!

‘The divine sense also has the power to look into other people’s memories?’

Su Ming sucked in a deep breath. His eyes flashed, and before the sky was fully bright, he turned into a long arc and left the ninth summit. He charged to the foot of the mountain.

There were plenty of creatures who loved the cold, lurking around the endless ice outside Freezing Sky Clan. Due to the climate of the place, most of these creatures were aggressive.

Su Ming stayed in one particular ice plains for nearly two hours. The sky was already bright by that time, and eight Ice Wolf carcasses lay beside him.

Su Ming lifted his right hand and placed it on the head of one of the living Ice Wolves and closed his own eyes. After a moment, he opened them once again, and the instant he did so, that Ice Wolf shuddered, fell to the side, and died.

Su Ming’s eyes shone with curiosity. After a moment of silence, he turned into a long arc and left the place to return to the ninth summit.

Yet the moment he arrived at the ninth summit and stood on the platform outside his cave, he saw Bai Su coming once again. When he saw her, the feeling of familiarity coming from her appearance and expression surpassed that of the previous day.

The beast skin boots, black mink fur coat, straight posture, hair tied up with a red string, and the anger in her eyes along with the frown between her brows…

Under the deliberate disguise, this Bai Su had become exactly the same as the girl she had seen in her dream, no matter her clothes or her appearance!

桑相 is the legendary butterfly. 桑 (sang) is mulberry, and that’s the only name for it.

相 (xiang) has a lot of meanings:

1) Appearance

2) Bearing

3) Phase

4) Photo

5) Observe

6) Help

7) Mutual

8) Get along

9) Harmonious relationship (archaic).

After a heck load of thought, Harmonious Morus Alba was chosen, because no matter how I went with word + mulberry, it still sounded ridiculous, so I went for the Latin version of mulberry, which is morus alba, and came up with Harmonious Morus Alba. I mean, imagine Harmonious Mulberry, and then everyone freaking out about Harmonious Mulberry. I can’t take it seriously, and it’s supposed to be something that can destroy the world once it flaps its wings.

I really, really wanted to go for pinyin, but 1) I wanted to restrict it to strictly human names, 2) unless the word itself only means a surname, like Puqiang Tribe, where Qiang is a surname, 3) or the word means a province and it doesn’t make sense in English, like Han Mountain City, which would have been Province Mountain City, I wanted to keep everything in English as much as possible, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

So… Harmonious Morus Alba it is.