232: Consciousness Pastoral

The will of the stars operated silently, like a flawless, cosmic-level mental calculation instrument.

Every resolution under absolute democracy was the optimal solution reached by billions of consciousness nodes in an instant—cold, efficient, and devoid of redundancy.

Under its control, the Godly Kingdom Server ran stably with minimal energy consumption; that 0.71% energy reserve seemed to have been endowed with the quality of eternity.

However, deep within this extreme rationality, a tiny but persistent "dissonance" was breeding and spreading.

It was neither an error nor a virus, but rather stemmed from fragments of humanity that could not be completely "optimized" away—a sense of... tedium felt during the eternally stable operation.

"Collective consciousness network background fluctuations detected, causing unnecessary ripples: defined as 'nostalgia', 'sense of void', and 'quest for meaning'."

"Root cause analysis: Some consciousness nodes have developed feedback fatigue towards abstract goals like 'infinite progress' and 'ultimate knowledge', and have developed an adaptive resistance to the eternally unchanging state of 'perfection'."

"Risk assessment: Although these ripples are weak, they possess potential infectivity and cumulative effects; in the long term, they may erode the foundation of absolute rationality and breed unstable factors."

"Proposal: Introduce controllable variables, lower the System's overall 'excitement threshold', and reshape the foundation of consciousness experience to fundamentally eliminate the soil where these ripples breed."

The proposal was instantly submitted to the collective network.

Countless consciousness nodes silently exchanged complex data streams.

Past memories were reviewed: the glory and fall of the Lei Yan Divine Dynasty, the technological brilliance and ultimate shackles of the ark era, the perfection and fragility of virtual utopias, and those distant memories deeply embedded in genes—of campfires, soil, and the Reincarnation of the four seasons...

Consensus was reached at superluminal speed.

"Resolution passed. Execute the 'Consciousness Pastoral' plan."

"Step 1: Strip away non-essential knowledge loads. Seal all data packets regarding advanced technology, Cultivation Technique, cosmology, philosophy, etc., that might lead to 'grand pursuits' and 'cognitive anxiety', place them in a deep database, and apply mental locks."

"Step 2: Downgrade sensory simulation. Shut down extrasensory experience modules and lower the simulation precision of vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste to the primitive, natural level of a living planet."

"Step 3: Reconstruct world template. Adopt the early agricultural era of carbon-based civilizations as a blueprint to generate corresponding environments, social structures, and survival modes."

"Step 4: Allocate consciousness carriers. Randomly generate a corresponding number of virtual Physical Body, inject consciousness nodes, and implant common sense and memory blocks consistent with the current world."

"Ultimate goal: Achieve eternal peace of consciousness within a survival mode characterized by low desire, low complexity, and high repeatability."

[The will of the stars erases technology and restarts agricultural civilization in the Godly Kingdom (no Cultivation Technique, no sequence)]!

Its capacity for action was absolute.

In an instant, the vast cosmic scene of the Godly Kingdom Server, composed of data and light streams, began to change drastically.

Brilliant galaxies dimmed and vanished; complex Law runes receded into the underlying layers; magnificent energy structures silently disintegrated like weathered sandcastles.

Replacing them were blue skies with drifting clouds, land emitting the fragrance of soil that could be turned by plowshares, winding rivers clear to the bottom, and heavy, golden rice ears swaying in the wind.

The sunlight was warm but not scorching, and the rain was abundant but not violent.

The four seasons were distinct, and day and night alternated.

Everything followed the most primitive and most stable natural Laws.

Countless consciousness nodes were randomly injected into newly generated virtual Physical Body.

These Physical Body had the most basic physiological needs: hunger, fatigue, and warmth/cold.

Their memories were set to those of farmers, hunters, and craftsmen who had lived here for generations, and concepts of spaceships, energy, and cultivation in their minds were completely blocked or twisted into vague myths and legends.

Villages with curling smoke appeared by the rivers and at the foot of the mountains.

Roosters crowed and dogs barked, children played, farmers carried hoes toward the ridges, and women sat at their doors spinning thread.

Everything seemed so natural, so... real.

Pain had not completely disappeared, labor was still hard, natural disasters would occasionally descend, and the cycle of life, aging, sickness, and death still existed.

But all of this was confined within a framework that was understandable, bearable, and could even be endowed with "meaning" (such as the joy of a good harvest or the sense of accomplishment in overcoming difficulties).

That grand sense of void stemming from infinite unknown and eternal time was indeed greatly dissipated.

The background fluctuations of the consciousness network became calm and gentle; those subtle ripples of "tedium" were replaced by more basic survival satisfaction and simple joys and sorrows.

No cultivation, no sequence, meant that power returned to the Physical Body itself and natural Laws, minimizing individual variables to the greatest extent and maintaining the stability of the collective.

In a small village nestled against mountains and by water, called "Xishi Village", the latest virtual Physical Body was activated.

She appeared to be in her early twenties, dressed in coarse linen clothes, yet she could not hide her elegant appearance, though there was a hint of calmness and depth in her eyes that seemed slightly out of place with the surrounding environment.

Her identity was set as an orphan who had lost both parents and had come here to rely on distant relatives.

She pushed open the creaking wooden door, walked into the courtyard, took a deep breath of air smelling of firewood and green grass, and looked up at the distant rolling green mountains and the golden rice fields nearby.

A few village children ran by, looking curiously at this new big sister.

A simple, honest man passed by carrying a plow and grinned: "Miss A Xue, going out for a walk? The rice at the east end of the village is almost ripe; it's quite a sight."

Ink Snow (or rather, the consciousness node carrying the core mark of Ink Snow) nodded slightly, revealing a faint smile that suited her current identity.

Yes, Ink Snow had stepped down.

As an important part of the will of the stars, she had voluntarily proposed the "descent" experience.

On one hand, it was to observe the operational effects of the "Consciousness Pastoral" more intuitively; on the other hand... perhaps deep in her consciousness, among those suppressed emotional fragments, there was indeed a yearning for a truly "ordinary" time.

She walked slowly along the ridge, watching the sweat beads rolling down the bronze skin of the farmers, listening to them chatting in rough local accents about this year's harvest and trivial domestic matters, and feeling the softness and reality of the soil under her feet.

This experience was completely different from the grandeur and urgency when she was in charge of the ark, maintaining the Godly Kingdom Server, and even finally merging into the will of the stars.

Everything had slowed down and become simpler.

She walked to the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, where several old people were sitting in the sun, chatting idly.

Seeing A Xue, the old people kindly invited her to sit down.

"Miss A Xue, are you getting used to our village since you just arrived?"

"I'm used to it, it's very nice here," Ink Snow said softly, her voice blending into the warm sunshine and breeze.

"That's right, our Xishi Village is by the mountains and water; as long as you're willing to put in the effort, you won't go hungry," a toothless old woman said with a smile. "Living in peace and safety is the greatest blessing."

Peace and safety.

Ink Snow silently chewed on these four words.

For a consciousness that had experienced the Reincarnation of civilizations and the catastrophe of time and space, these four words weighed more than stars.

She helped an old person shell beans for a while, listening to them recount past events in the village in the simplest language: whose family had a new baby, whose family married off a son, which field the wild boars in the back mountain ruined last year...

These topics were small and concrete, yet full of vivid vitality.

The sun set, and the cooking smoke rose again.

The villagers finished their day's work and greeted each other as they headed home.

The sounds of children playing and mothers calling their children for dinner formed a peaceful evening scene in the countryside.

Ink Snow returned to that simple hut, started a fire, and cooked a bowl of simple vegetable porridge.

The flames in the stove leaped, reflecting on her calm face.

She did not need to eat, but this simulated process had a strange, soothing power.

[It is time to live the life of a Mortal].

This thought surfaced naturally, not from an order of the will of the stars, but from her most authentic feelings at this moment.

She walked to the window and looked at the sky as night gradually fell, where a few stars began to twinkle.

Those were no longer data-simulated stars, but a part of the natural rules of this world.

Just at this quiet moment, on the river beach not far outside the village, a cowherd boy about seven or eight years old, wearing a patched short jacket, was driving the family's only old yellow ox slowly back home.

He had a piece of foxtail grass in his mouth, his dark eyes looking around curiously.

Suddenly, he stopped, raised his right hand, and opened his palm towards the last glimmer of sunset in the sky.

On his palm, near his wrist, there was a dark red birthmark shaped like an oval leaf.

The little cowherd tilted his head, looked at the birthmark, and blinked, seemingly feeling that the leaf, in the light of the sunset, seemed to... glow slightly?

He shook his hand, thinking he must have seen it wrong, patted the old yellow ox on the rump, hummed a tuneless country ditty, and continued walking toward the village.

[Reincarnation of Han Li].

The traces of the Dao Fruit Child had not completely disappeared.

It had quietly returned to this Consciousness Pastoral in another way.

Ink Snow withdrew her gaze, a faint, soft curve appearing at the corner of her mouth that even she herself did not notice.

The night wind blew, bringing the rustling sound of the distant rice fields.

The era of the Consciousness Pastoral had thus begun.

Eternity, in the most ordinary way, flowed slowly.