Wanquan raised an eyebrow.
"I can teach you, but it's too early." He waved a hand. "From what I see, you'll get it soon——there's honestly not much to learn. Just use your divine body a lot, and it'll merge faster. We'll talk once it's stable."
Shanjue was a little disappointed, but couldn't help pressing: "Then what were you doing just now? Why did you leave your body?"
Wanquan gave him a look: "Why so many questions? Grown-up business. Kids shouldn't pry."
"What did you actually come here for?"
"We wanted someone to talk to, and to learn a few things."
"Go away, go away," Wanquan said, waving. "I'm busy. Find someone else."
"We don't know a single person out there," Shanjue said. "And Dad told us to come find you."
Wanquan paused.
"Come in, come in," he said, suddenly breaking into a smile. "Let's talk as much as you like! Whatever you want to talk about."
The siblings were stunned: "Weren't you busy?"
Wanquan sighed: "Ugh, it's all trivial stuff lately, gives me a headache just thinking about it. I'll hand it to my people——if it comes to a fight, nobody can beat them anyway."
——
"What does leaving your body feel like?"
"Nothing special," Wanquan shrugged. "You could say it feels like nothing at all. If I had to describe it, you'd probably hear a 'pop,' like cracking your knuckles."
He demonstrated.
"Divine bodies don't need to breathe in the first place. What you have to do is switch off the sense of breathing the divine body simulates——so the soul stops thinking of itself as flesh."
"That sounds intense!" Shanjue said.
"It's not that bad," Wanquan said. "The point is, once the soul leaves the body, everything it does burns compute. Right now you've got more compute available than ordinary people, and your heads will be clearer than before too."
Shanjue looked at him.
"So when I couldn't remember things before, it wasn't necessarily because I wasn't trying?"
"Not necessarily. When compute runs low, thinking, focus, memory, all of it suffers. Even within standard range, there's a difference."
Qianhui asked: "And if even the standard can't be maintained?"
"In serious cases, even climate, immune systems, and whether newborns survive are affected."
The room went quiet for a moment.
"That's not just giving people a bit less pocket money," Qianhui said.
"No."
"And what if a soul burns through all its compute?" Qianhui asked.
"If it burns out, even its memory data can't be read," Wanquan said. "At that point, as far as the world's concerned, it's as if it disappeared."
He added:
"But don't worry. Top up the compute afterward, and it can still be restored."
Qianhui nodded.
"So...a soul is memory plus compute?"
"Exactly," Wanquan said. "Memory is data too, you know."
Shanjue said quietly: "That's deep."
Then Wanquan suddenly lowered his voice, as if sharing a secret.
"Bet you didn't know: Heaven is the operating system, the Mortal Realm is user space, and Hell is the recycle bin. Ordinary people have to go through dedicated channels, and whether it's Heaven to Hell or Hell to Heaven, they have to pass through the Mortal Realm. But with our divine bodies, we can cross realms directly, no channel needed."
Shanjue asked: "So when people die, do they get thrown into the recycle bin too?"
"Not people," Wanquan said. "Negative energy, corrupted data. A soul is still a soul."
"Pretty impressive, right?"
The siblings nodded hard.
At one point, Shunyi came in.
He set down a cup of milk tea and a plate of snacks, took away Wanquan's cold coffee, and left again.
No one had called him.
And so they talked for a very, very long time.
——
After the siblings left, Pangu came.
He didn't knock.
Wanquan sat up from the bed. The coffee on the table was still steaming. Shunyi had just replaced it.
——
"They told me about the Mortal Realm today," Pangu said.
"I know."
"Is it true?"
"In some places, yes."
——
Pangu sat down in a chair.
"And the places I went?"
Wanquan paused.
"The places you went really were the way you saw them."
——
Pangu looked at him.
For a long time.
"Wanquan."
"Of what I saw, how much was real?"
Wanquan was about to speak when Pangu stood up.
"Don't tell me."
"...Not yet."
He left.
——
Wanquan sat on the edge of the bed.
The music was still playing.
He turned it off.