A world like a fairy tale gently opened before me.
As those fluffy, round, cute little animals outside, the “Angora rabbits,” helped bite off a large piece of eggshell in front of me, after a brief daze, I began trying to explore this bright world with my own eyes.
A few wisps of white clouds drifted in the sapphire-clear sky. The occasional birds flying past trailed pink and purple starry tails behind them, like magical creatures from some fantasy novel, and also like a hope that had only ever been seen in dreams, one that never existed.
A sun with gentle light hung high in the sky like a loving goddess, bringing the breath of spring to all things in the world.
A few small wildflowers bloomed in the green grass before me. By now, several pale pink butterflies had gathered near the wildflowers. These butterflies were crystalline all over and would flash with light. It was wondrous; I did not know whether the powder on them glowed or whether they were some kind of magical creature.
Opposite the small wildflowers, a crystal-clear little stream lay playfully in the middle of the beautiful green grass. The murmuring water was so clear that the bottom could be seen. Many unknown flowers and plants grew along the bank.
Some of these little flowers looked like Chinese roses, some like roses, and some like lilies. Every flower bloomed especially perfectly. They stretched their petals toward the sunlight, and whenever a breeze passed, some sparkling starlight drifted down from the center of each pistil. It was very dreamlike.
In the distance, a small grove could be seen.
Several medium-to-large cats that looked like servals were playing around the flower thicket. An orange cat beside the flowers was attracted by a butterfly and suddenly leaped up from the grass, but missed, drawing a look of disgust from its cat companion nearby.
“…”
Unlike the eyes that had once grown slightly nearsighted from sitting in front of a computer typing on a keyboard for long hours, my eyesight now was extremely clear. Even looking very far away was no problem.
And whether or not it was an illusion, I always felt this world was quite… clean?
I was not sure whether I should use the word “clean,” but that really was the first impression it gave me.
Clean, dreamlike, pure.
Just like a fairy tale, whether it was the Angora rabbits gathered nearby around me, the flowers by the river, or the kitties near the grove, just looking at them seemed to show me the whole of this world—a world where everyone could live happily and carefreely under the same blue sky.
I noticed that every bud of the Chinese roses or roses by the river was perfect; not a single flower was damaged.
I found that the riverbed near the little stream had only some plants covered in small strawberries. Even the pebbles by the river were perfectly clean; I did not see any flies, mosquitoes, or other creatures that made one uneasy or disgusted.
The few cats beside the grove seemed to have noticed my existence as well. However, for now they only glanced this way from time to time.
Apart from slight curiosity, they showed no fear or readiness to attack, as if to them my existence was just like the flowers and grasses around them—nothing more than an ordinary part of nature.
Everyone was good friends.
“…”
Before I knew it, I felt a slight warmth at the corners of my eyes. A line of tears had already welled up uncontrollably at some point, dripping down along the tender skin of my cheeks.
Was I… crying?
At that moment, the word “home” flashed through my mind.
Home…
“Mmm…“
Then, realizing that I was still sitting in the eggshell, I hurriedly and instinctively looked around.
“Bokpudding?”
Several “Angora rabbits” with milky-white fur cast curious looks my way.
Huh?
Are you really rabbits?
Only then did I realize… these creatures, which I did not know were little rabbits or hamsters, were truly big. The largest one felt almost tall enough to reach my knees.
Or rather… was my current body just too small? After all, if this was another world, anything could happen.
“Thank you for your help. Please move aside a little…”
Speaking in a language I did not even know when I had learned, I quickly cleared away some of the fragments near the eggshell opening, pushed a few of the “Angora rabbits” that had come to join the fun to the side, and stepped out toward the outside world.
My soft, white little feet stepped onto the grass outside for the first time. A ticklish, tingly feeling kept coming from the soles of my feet.
It should be okay to stand up, right?
Thinking this, I controlled this little girl’s body that was still relatively unfamiliar, put a slight effort into the soft muscles of my calves, and stood up from the lawn.
“Mmm…“
Even though I had changed sex and my body’s center of gravity had changed, at this moment I felt extremely accustomed to this little girl’s body.
Or rather… I felt that my body “should have been like this all along.”
Apart from not clearly knowing how a girl’s body generally differed from a man’s, which caused some psychological awkwardness, at this point I seemed to have completely adapted to the new body.
Whether it was the pair of snow-white little feet buried in the grass, the changes to my body, or the long hair behind me whose weight I could clearly feel, all of it felt familiar to me, as if “it should have been this way since childhood.”
I… shouldn’t I be a nearly 30-year-old middle-aged man from Earth?
A middle-aged man turning into a little girl… that kind of thing is definitely strange!
And… and I do not have a single piece of clothing right now…
Even if the surroundings are full of cute little animals, this feeling is still too embarrassing…
With an awkward feeling, I took a deep breath in place and turned my gaze toward a patch of grass near the little stream not far away.
In the middle of that patch of grass was a large rock about 80 centimeters across. I could see quite a few eggshell fragments on it.
If I guessed correctly, that was where I had been thrown down not long ago.
Moreover, what attracted me to that area was not the rock or the eggshell fragments themselves, but a small bead floating in midair, shining with black-green light.
Based on my many years of experience living on Earth, the wild and nature generally came with cruel killing and the cycle of life.
Wild flowers, due to problems like lack of nutrients and water, and because various passing beasts might knock them off or even eat them, would not all form perfectly even if they bloomed.
There would always be damaged flowers and withered willows. The scenery beside ponds was the same. In forests, places with river water would more or less have strange little bugs nearby.
But in the world before my eyes, I had not found any “uncute” elements, except for that black-green bead.
It was like a discordant note in this beautiful world, making me feel especially out of place.
Based on the fragmentary information I had so far, just now I had been brought to the little stream by that strange creature called a “Shadow Phantom.”
Then it let out a scream as if it had been attacked by something, and the sound gradually faded into the distance. Most likely it ran away.
Immediately after, I fell from the sky and landed on the large rock by the river.
In other words… that black-green bead was very likely also dropped by the “Shadow Phantom.”
Should I go take a look?
Under the sunlight, after a brief hesitation, I stepped toward the bead by the river.
Rustle, rustle.
The little girl’s tender little feet stepped on the soft lawn, making a clear rustling sound.
“Xiaoqing, do you know how to play Go?”
Just when I was less than 5 meters from the bead, the bead ahead suddenly emitted a faint black light.
With a “puru” sound like a soap bubble flying out of a bubble gun, a huge black bubble emerged from the bead and slowly floated up toward the sky.
“No, I do not. What is Go?”
Inside the soap bubble were black-and-white images like a revolving lantern.
Thanks to my clear eyesight, I saw two little girls appear inside the bubble, and I recognized them both.
One of the girls was my childhood friend Xinxin, who was also my lover. The other girl was Xinxin’s middle school desk mate at the time, nicknamed Xiaoqing.
“Go is a game with simple rules, but it especially tests psychological strategy. I saw someone in a book say that Go is like our whole life: Yiqi, Shoutan, Zuowang, Qingle… Does it not sound very profound? I saved money for a long time before I could buy it at the market.”
“It is quite beautiful.”
“It is not beautiful. This is a Go board, not a decoration!”
“I know. I mean… even though I do not know how to play, if I could also buy a Go board and put it at home, the room would probably have that kind of elegant atmosphere, right?”
“…”
As this bubble slowly rose, it grew fainter under the sunlight. Before long, another bubble slowly rose.
Inside the bubble was still a black-and-white tone, along with a scene of Xinxin and her desk mate talking—
“Xiaoqing, my Go set is missing. Have you seen it?”
“No, no, I did not see it.”
“That is strange. I was playing Go with that dummy yesterday, and today I cannot find it.”
“That dummy? Could he have taken it?”
“No way. Even though he is a bit dumb, he is very honest. He would never steal.”
“Oh… then I do not know. You two seem to get along very well?”
“Yeah, yeah. We are good friends.”
Then another bubble rose. Unlike the previous bubbles, the little girl inside this one had already grown up—
“Xiaoqing, Xinxin is gone.”
“Huh? Gone? Where did he go?”
“A car accident.”
“No way? Do not scare me. Is it that Xinxin from Xingxing Middle School when we were kids? Was he not about to marry that person…?”
“Yes, I went to the funeral. He cried his heart out, and several of us could not console him.”
“…”
Finally, as the rising bubbles all turned into specks of starlight and disappeared, the black-green bead floating in midair cracked with a “crack” and became one last large bubble.
In the scene inside this bubble, that middle school classmate, now a mother, seemed to have just coaxed her child to sleep.
She sat by the bed, took out her phone, and dialed my number—
“Hello, this is Xiaoqing. Do you remember me?”
“You should have adjusted your mood by now, right? I have something here I want to hand to you personally. It is… it is about Xinxin.”
“Okay, this Saturday morning, I will treat you to breakfast.”
“It is no trouble. After all…”
“This can be considered a knot in my heart, too.”
At this point, all the bubbles and the black-green bead together turned into a streak of starlight and disappeared.
The strange “discordant note” by the river also disappeared.
The world once again returned to peace.
“…”
While I was dazed, several small servals near the grove had at some point walked with elegant steps onto the lawn on the opposite side of the river.
These big cats with beautiful large ears looked me over from this side, tilted their heads, and after a while made a puzzled sound:
“Meow?“
“…”
…
[Erlinni Isha’s Notes]
Lumina’s ecological chain is very clearly different from Earth’s.
To sum it up in one sentence: “Plants absorb starstone energy and nutrients from the land, and then animals eat plants.”
All animals in Lumina, including humans, grow by eating plants.
Let me add one thing here: after most animals eat them, plants are not directly killed.
In other words, even herbivores do not completely kill the little grasses when they eat them. They leave part of the root system so the grasses can continue to grow.
Under the above premise, in existing historical records, no animal has the thought of “eating you” toward other animals.
At most, they may have minor friction over food, territory, and the like, but the probability of such friction is extremely, extremely low.
Even if they do fight, it is mostly a warning and they will not really hurt each other.
However, Lumina also has many foods whose taste and texture are very similar to Earth’s “meat.”
For example, a fungus called “Baiding mushroom” tastes exactly like chicken and can be stewed with shiitake mushrooms to make “chicken soup.”
Another plant called “brown potato” is a superior substitute for beef. After the tubers under the ground are sliced and heated, both the flavor and texture are exactly like steak.
Therefore, even if you do not eat meat in Lumina, you can still find plenty of delicious food.
Besides that, Lumina’s food storage capacity is astonishing.
Fruits and crops grow very, very quickly.
Crops like river strawberries generally take only one or two months to grow from seeds to the point of bearing strawberries.
If a wheat field spirit exists within the manor barrier, they grow even faster.
Therefore, unless it is a particularly barren place, animals will not come into conflict with one another.
They only show aggression when “magic beasts” or “monsters” appear nearby.
Miraculously, in this natural environment with absolutely abundant food, the populations of Lumina’s animals and humans have never experienced explosive growth.
For several thousand years, they have maintained a relatively balanced number, not enough to affect the environment, and there is no situation of “rare protected animals.”
Moreover, when animals die, their bodies turn into starlight energy within a few days and return to nature, so there is also no situation of meat rotting.
PS: Most animals can understand the Lumina language.
