The Nine-tailed Fox and Humanity’s Voyage

Back in her tiny, blue room, Xixia-3 activated the communicator on her wrist, allowing the blue lines to scan over the mysterious object. A mechanical female voice echoed in the room, “Ox Scapula of the Four Winds, a cultural relic from the Earth Era dating back to the 17th-11th century BCE, inscribed with 24 characters from the Bin group of diviners. According to research, the inscriptions state: ‘The god of the East is named Xi, while the east wind is named Xie; the god of the South is named Jia…’”

Every word seemed comprehensible on its own, but together… Xixia-3 frowned. What was this? It made no sense. A scapula—yes, that was something she had learned about in anatomy class. It was part of the tangible, physical structure still existing in her body. But “ox” … she vaguely recalled a seventh-grade elective class on common Earth animals. After three generations of memory dilution, Earth, to people of Xixia-3’s generation, had become nothing more than data stored in the communicator.

Xixia-3 wasn’t a keen learner, so she decided to temporarily interpret it as a bone of some ordinary Earth animal. She weighed the object in her palm—it felt dense. Although the recorded weight was no more than 0.5 kg, it somehow felt heavier than the data suggested.

She held it for a while, flipping it from side to side, then tossed it into the air and caught it, repeating like a child at play. When she felt bored of the play, she ran her fingers through the carvings, tracing the strange writings when an unexpected pain pricked her fingertip. Upon looking at it closer, she noticed a small bead of blood oozing out.

It was an unusual sensation—after all, there weren’t many opportunities for them to get injured on this ship. It was a safe place. The design of the ship and the constant maintenance efforts were dedicated to minimising risk—there were no spherical viruses, no spiral bacteria, no sharp corners or exposed wood splinters, no dangerously slippery floors or random banana peels. She sucked her fingertip curtly and the pain subsided. When she picked up the object again, her interest had already waned, so she tossed it aside, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

Just as she turned over with her eyes closed, the blood left on the bone seeped into the fine fissures of its petrified surface as if it was alive. Within the image-like writings, a faint white light flickered, then again, and again…

Since reaching adulthood, Xixia-3 rarely dreamed. Initially, she would have a dream every ten days or so; then it dwindled to once a month, until she eventually forgot the hazy sensations of dreams.

More than half the people on the ship were like Xixia-3. At first, they thought it was an illness and gave it a name, similar to Alzheimer’s disease that once plagued in the Earth Era. It was named ‘Shmer Disease’ after Fanlin Dee Shmer, the psychologist who was the first to discover the disappearance of dreams. It was also known as Dreamloss. However, as more people began to have similar symptoms, and no actual physical injury was found to be caused by the loss of dreams, it was no longer referred to as a disease. Instead, the generation of Xixia-3’s was simply referred as the ‘Dreamless Generation.’

Xixia-3’s dreams began to fade after her grandmother’s passing. When she eventually realised that she had stopped dreaming for a long time, she was surprised to find herself accustomed to this dull, unchanging life. Not having dreams wasn’t so bad.

So, when Xixia-3 opened her eyes to find herself sinking into a soft mass of white fur, she felt a wave of irritation. She had finally fallen asleep and didn’t want to be disturbed by some random, illogical dream.

She turned over, but before she could try to close her eyes again, she was met with two enormous glowing orbs approaching her from a distance. The orbs shimmered with iridescence, reminiscent of the glow she had seen when Xixia-2 disappeared into the transport tube yesterday. The long, soft fur continued to brush against her skin, tenderly tickling Xixia-3, she was reminded of the seagrass meadow she had experienced in the virtual Earth simulation.

“Are you awake?”

It came from a young man, his voice buzzed in the air.

Startled, Xixia-3 opened her eyes wide. The two large orbs retreated, something white and pointy slowly floated into the air, with a red round object rising above it. Then, the pair of orbs drew closer once more, and Xixia-3 could finally see clearly—those were not orbs at all, it was a pair of eyes.

Before she could grasp what was happening, she began floating as well, until she was level with those eyes.

At last, Xixia-3 was met with its full appearance. Thanks to her lesson on animals during her Earth general studies class, she was able to recognise the creature before her—a massive white fox.

A white fox that filled almost the entire room.

Unlike what she had learned in class, this fox had multiple tails, each swaying gently across the ceiling, the wardrobe, the desk, and near the porthole, it reminded her of something she had once felt in the virtual Earth—a phenomenon known as “wind.”

“Good morning, my new lord. I am Zhao Feilian, the Nine-Tailed Fox of Qingqiu.”

Xixia-3 frowned. “Nine-tailed fox? A fox with nine tails? What species is that? And what about Qing… Qiu… and Feilian? Is that a place?”

The nine-tailed fox paused, not fully understanding what the human lady was saying. But its hesitation was brief. With the same ancient, polite tone, it continued, “My lord, if you have a wish, let me know, Feilian will help you fulfil it.”

“A wish… like Aladdin’s Lamp? Oh, I know that one. It formed the motif to many stories, about wish-granting.”

The fox paused again. Its new lord was clearly different from the previous ones it had encountered before. It politely inquired, “Aladdin’s Lamp? What is that?”

“One of the ninety-nine classic story archetypes from Earth. If I make a wish, you will grant it, and then you will gain your freedom.”

“Uh… well, I suppose you’re not entirely wrong.”

“Oh, in that case, I wish to continue sleeping and not have this weird dream. Does that work?”

“Is that your wish, my lord?”

“If you consider it as one, then yes.”

“Uh… but I am not a dream. I am a nine-tailed fox by the name of Zhao Feilian. I don’t think it’s possible for me to fulfil this wish.”

Xixia-3 frowned again. She had to admit that her mother’s death bothered her more than she let on. As she thought about it, she glanced around, trying to find a comfortable position to fall back asleep in the dream.

The nine-tailed fox noticed that Xixia-3 didn’t believe in its existence, it twitched its ears nervously and its eyes darted around in their sockets. It watched as its new lord closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep. It couldn’t help but feel frustrated, grabbing its ears with its front paws and muttering to itself, “This really isn’t a dream, but how can I make her believe it? Oh dear, Zhao Feilian, don’t panic—don’t panic! You’re a fox spirit with the noble surname Zhao! Think… think… how did you solve similar scenarios before? Ah, yes! A miracle! That’s it!”

After a flurry of self-talk, the fox’s eyes gleamed with realisation, and it regained its elegant tone from before. “My lord, let me prove it to you. This is not a dream!”

Xixia-3, now half-asleep, mumbled lazily, “Whatever.”

The nine-tailed fox Zhao Feilian had failed.

It discovered that its magic was no longer working.

This place was too strange—the seasons did not exist, so it couldn’t make it snow in summer or thunder in winter; there were no mountains or rivers, so it couldn’t take its new lord for a flight; even when it tried to conjure some treasures, it felt completely devoid of any nearby vaults or silver cabinets to draw from…

Xixia-3 was soon woken up by the rustling sounds of the self-proclaimed nine-tailed fox. Just as she was about to curse, she spotted the shrunken—now normal-sized—white fox rolling on the floor in frustration.

Xixia-3’s initial anger quickly faded into a chuckle. The nine-tailed fox sat up, glaring at her. After she suppressed her amusement, the fox composed itself and, in its usual polite tone, asked, “Would you be so kind as to explain, where in hell is this place?”

“Hell? Uh…” Xixia-3 brushed off the unfamiliar term. “This is a ship.”

“A ship? What kind of ship? Where is it headed? Fusang¹? Annan²? Silla³?”

“Terrestrial planet Wellenton 22b-465.”

The fox’s pearly white ears twitched again. It had no idea what she was talking about.

Xixia-3 realised it couldn’t understand her, just as she hadn’t quite understood the fox earlier. But she had always been good at ignoring things she didn’t understand. After all, misunderstandings like these didn’t cause any physical harm, so her genetic integrity and functionality remained unaffected.

With a hint of wry humour, Xixia-3 elaborated, “Of course, that’s just our destination temporarily. Perhaps when humans get closer to it, they’ll realise that it’s vastly different from the new Earth they imagined. Then, they’ll have to start a new course. As for the next destination? No one knows. Perhaps there isn’t one at all.”

The nine-tailed fox gazed at Xixia-3, finding her features unsettlingly alien. It reminded the fox of the porcelain dolls he had once seen as a child at the lantern festival with his mother. Her eye sockets were deep, with pupils like a pair of pale glass beads devoid of any warmth. Her nose was sharp, lips thin and long. Her skin was paper-white, while her hair was black as ink. It was as if she had been sculpted and placed inside a crystal coffin—a face that had never felt the warmth of the sun or the chill of the moon, completely untouched, set within the temple.

Suppressing his rising irritation, the fox took a deep breath and tried communicating with her again. “Does my lord know in which direction does Chang’an⁴ lies?”

Xixia-3 thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Ahhhhhhh!” The fox finally snapped, letting out a frustrated wail before curling into a white fluffy ball. Then, Xixia-3 saw a burst of white light darting across the room like a frenzied shooting star, swooshing as it zigzags around wildly.

It was a novel scenario for Xixia-3, so she watched with amusement for a while. Five minutes later, the nine-tailed fox finally sat back down, looking thoroughly dishevelled, its fur a mess, and its ears flopped over its head.

The fox stole a glance at Xixia-3 and saw not a shred of sympathy on her face, it immediately understood that its new lord wasn’t just cold as an ice sculpture in appearance, but also stubborn as a stone in personality. Resigned, the fox pitied itself, “It took me so much effort to get out… All I wanted was to return to Qingqiu. Why is it so difficult?”

“Qingqiu? Where’s that?”

“That’s our home, the homeland of us nine-tailed foxes! How could you not know that?” The fox lifted its head instantly, its glowing eyes wide as it stared at her.

“Of course I don’t. I don’t even know what a nine-tailed fox is. I’ve never even seen a real fox before.” Since she couldn’t sleep—not being able to sleep in a dream was better than not sleeping in reality—Xixia-3 resigned herself to accepting she was in a dream for now. She sat cross-legged opposite the fox and said, “Alright, let’s start from the beginning. Who are you? When and where were you born?”

The fox’s ears drooped. “My name is Zhao Feilian. I was born in the 23rd year of the Zhenguan era. My ancestral home should be Qingqiu, but I was actually born in Chang’an. How should I put it… Qingqiu disappeared. I needed to rely on the power of human wishes to find it. I was just one wish away from succeeding! Then some annoying Taoist sealed me into the Ox Scapula of the Four Winds. Oh right, what year is it now?”

“It’s the 113th year of the Voyage Era. As for the 23rd year of Zhenguan…” Xixia-3 thought for a moment. “I wonder if I can look things up in a dream.” She tapped on her communicator and keyed in “Zhenguan Year 23.” A mechanical female voice sounded in the room, “The 23rd year of Zhenguan corresponds to 649 CE of the Earth calendar. According to Earth’s time reckoning, it has been 23,141 years since then. ‘Zhenguan’ was an era name during the Tang Dynasty in ancient China. Major events of this year include—”

Xixia-3 paused the audio.

The nine-tailed fox’s eyes widened, and the shimmers in its eyes gathered into a single dot. “So, I’ve been trapped in that lousy bone for over 20,000 years?”

“Lousy bone?” Xixia-3 turned to her bedside, and sure enough, the scapula she had taken from her mother’s room had now shattered into four pieces, each edge glowing faintly in different hues. She picked up the pieces, realising that the fracture lines weren’t random but had intricate interlocking notches.

She tried fitting the four pieces back together. As soon as they clicked into place, the nine-tailed fox let out a sharp “Ah!” and transformed into a beam of white light, it was once again sealed within the bone. Xixia-3 shook the bone, and an exasperated voice came from inside, “Stop shaking it! I’m getting dizzy!”

The small blue room instantly returned to normal, with no white fur and no mysterious phenomenon of the “wind,” everything was as still and ordinary as it has always been. The clock on the wall pointed to 7:30, ticking along as per its preset course.

Xixia-3 opened the cabin door, and everything appeared to just be another typical day. The transport track had just delivered the daily supplies to her doorstep.

If it was a dream, it felt a little too real.

But if it was reality, then wasn’t it a little too surreal?

After breakfast, Xixia-3 went to the navigation section for her shift as usual. The work was no different from other days—to check for the previous day’s travel data and inspect the speed and course for today’s journey.

This monotonous job had become crucial to Xixia-3 (at least on the surface). Since the death of Xixia-2, her familial connections were reset to zero, working was the only thing keeping her social activity score active. The latest Navigation Affairs Directive stated that if one’s social activity score were to fall below the standard range, they would be forced into hibernation.

Before leaving for work, she received a message. Her colleague, Lanza-3, had once again been placed under quarantine for emotional issues. She would be working alone today and was given the option to request for an AI companion for assistance. As soon as she closed the communication tab, another message popped up—this time from the safety and health sector—reminding her to monitor her emotional index and to report any anomalies immediately.

This latest emotional epidemic first surfaced in the navigation section. As one of the last remaining active navigators, Xixia-3 was under special observation.

Report anomalies… Would the appearance of a nine-tailed fox in her dream—or not—count?

She hesitated for a moment. Driven by an unexplainable impulse, she returned to her bedroom and kept the small piece of bone in her pocket, unintentionally triggering what would turn into an incredibly noisy day.

“Why are you on a ship?” “What is Earth?” “What’s the Voyage Era?” 

“I can turn invisible, just let me out!” “It’s so stuffy in here! I haven’t talked to anyone in 20,000 years!” “Please!” 

“What’s navigation?” “Is there a Lord of Mars⁵ on Mars?” “Why are black holes scary?” “What’s the apocalypse?” “Nutritional pods? What kind of strange thing is that?” “Why are you called Xixia-3 and not just Xixia?” “What’s entropy? Is that a dynasty?” “What’s an emotional epidemic?” “Social activity score? Why is yours so low? Is it better to be high or low?”

Xixia-3 was thoroughly exasperated. “Shut up.”

“Does that count as a wish?”

“If you consider it as one.”

“And what would you be willing to trade it for?”

“My life,” Xixia-3 responded absentmindedly, settling into her workstation. She put on her headset and switched on the navigation screen, where an endless expanse of the dark night sky unfurled before her and the piece of bone in her pocket.

The bone fell silent, as if someone had paused it. After a long while, its voice finally broke the silence. “So… navigation wasn’t on the sea, but in the sky.”

Xixia-3 said, “Space. To be more precise, we are beyond the solar system, near the centre of the Perseus Arm.”

The bone in her pocket went completely still afterwards. Xixia-3 had no idea what it was thinking and simply turned her attention back to the numbers and lines on the screen. In truth, most jobs on the ship didn’t require humans at all. Many positions existed solely to maintain a false sense of value for the crew, with the ultimate goal to ensure genetic variability remaining within the strict data models calculated by the scientists.

On the screen, a line of virtual bright green course levitated through the vast darkness, with Wellenton-22b-465 as their final destination, its green light flashed politely, as if a much anticipated dreamland this ship is striving for. From the main route, several faint blue branches extended outward, pointing to twinkling blue dots shaped like tiny leaves. These small lights represented planets worth exploring, and perhaps places that would bring new hope to the ship.

As Xixia-3 stared at the screen, a few of the small blue lights quietly blinked out. They had probably undergone some changes and no longer fit within the parameters of the AI navigation.

She remained indifferent to the few blue lights that flickered away, sitting in a daze until a tiny orange glow 42 light-years away blinked again. Her hand hovered over the control panel for a short while, but was quickly withdrawn.

After her shift, Xixia-3 didn’t want to return to her lonely cabin. There weren’t many recreational places on the ship, many people enjoyed going to the biosphere, but it had been closed off to the public due to unknown decay. Left with few options, she headed to a narrow corridor on the west side of the navigation section, where she could sit against the wall and gaze at the universe through the porthole.

All she could see was the endless, silent night. A vast, impenetrable mystery.

She fished the bone out of her pocket and asked, “You there?”

The bone remained silent.

Xixia-3 put it back in her pocket. Just then, a muffled voice came from within, “Yes. Can you let me out?”

Xixia-3 held the bone in her hand again, following her memory from that morning, she twisted it slightly. A white light spilled from the cracks and landed on the floor, transforming into a tall young man.

He was dressed in the ship’s standard attire—a pair of boring black straight-leg trousers with a boring plain white shirt. Though the badge on his shoulder looked official, a closer inspection will reveal that it’s purely ornamental. Every crew member will have their genetic and personal data stored in their badge; a concept entirely foreign to the nine-tailed fox.

Xixia-3 frowned. “You looked cuter as a fox.”

The nine-tailed fox sat down beside her. “The human form draws less attention.”

“Didn’t you say you can turn invisible?”

“My lord, if you start talking to thin air, people will think you’ve gone mad.”

“No one would care. There’s nothing much on this ship, and there are plenty of strange people. As long as you don’t trigger the emotional redline alert, no one would really pay attention.”

“Emotional redline? That’s yet another term I don’t understand.”

“Why did you stop talking this afternoon?”

“What do I say?”

“You could say anything. A twenty-thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox woke up from a bone, only to find himself on a spaceship that doesn’t even know where it’s headed. Right, this ship feels like a prison too. A lonely, exiled prison drifting through space. Wow, now I feel so sorry for you.”

Xixia-3 started laughing again, and the fox’s expression darkened. As if something’s gotten into her, Xixia-3’s laughter escalated, uncontrollably bending over in fits. Watching as the fox turn increasingly gloomy, she forced herself to keep it in. “Alright, I won’t laugh anymore.”

“Make a wish.”

“I don’t have one.”

“How could that be? Humans always have wishes!”

“But I don’t.”

“I can give you immense wealth, the kind of thing everyone longed for.”

“Wealth? You mean money? That outdated medium from the Earth Era, which caused massive social inequality while trying to adjust economic distribution? All the resources on this ship are limited and distributed according to needs, there’s no money involved. If it weren’t for maintaining genetic activity, we’d all be in cryo-pods, asleep until we reach our destination—though whether or not a destination exist is up for debate.”

The nine-tailed fox squinted its long, slender eyes. “What… are you… talking about?”

“Oh, nothing. Can I have a cat then?”

The nine-tailed fox thought he had misheard. “What?”

Xixia-3 looked at him. “I said, I want a cat. My grandmother used to tell me about them. She said they were proud and mysterious creatures, apart from giving them affection, there’s nothing you can do.”

The nine-tailed fox brightened up. “That’s easy!”

He stretched out his hand, closed his eyes, and made a grabbing motion in the air. He paused, tried again, and then, after a few more frantic grabs, angrily opened his eyes. “This hell of a place doesn’t even have a single strand of cat hair!”

Xixia-3 stared at him in surprise. “Of course not. There are no animals on this ship, only genetic data in the gene bank. So, you can’t just conjure something out of thin air, huh? I thought you were impressive.”

The nine-tailed fox bristled. “I am impressive! I’m the nine-tailed fox from the Zhao family, and I spent 3,000 years cultivating my human form!”

“Oh,” Xixia-3 responded, nodding attentively. “I don’t quite understand, but it does sound pretty amazing.” Before the fox could explode in anger, she quickly added, “I’ve got another wish.”

The fox took a deep breath to calm himself. “What is it?”

“I want to see a hen lay egg. I’ve heard it’s warm and magical.”

The nine-tailed fox stared at Xixia-3, then suddenly shifted his head into its fox form and lunged at her, baring its fangs with a growl, “Awoo.”

Xixia-3 froze in shock, her eyes wide and unmoving for a solid three seconds.

The nine-tailed fox turned back to his human form, sitting back on the bench with a slightly smug look, his gaze turning to the porthole.

There was nothing but endless darkness.

It wasn’t long before the fox’s expression become sombre and lost. He couldn’t understand his current situation, nor could he comprehend his new lord. The only thing he knew was that he was moving further and further away from Qingqiu.

            Xixia-3 stared at his side profile for a moment before sitting next to him. The two sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. After a short while, Xixia-3 said, “Hey, that thing you did—it was pretty impressive.”

The nine-tailed fox snorted, ignoring her.

Xixia-3 continued, “Don’t be mad. How about you tell me what wishes your previous owners used to make? Maybe I can get some reference.”

“Money, power, or a lifelong lover.”

“Then I’ve got one. I want to see my grandmother. Is that possible?”

“I’m not really supposed to do this, but I am a nine-tailed fox. So, if I head to Yingdu and have a word with King Yama, it shouldn’t be a problem to bring your grandmother back for a quick visit.”

“Yingdu? What’s that?”

“The Yellow Springs⁶, the Hall of Yama⁷.”

“Springs? What’s that? And hall? I don’t quite understand.”

The nine-tailed fox gave up at last. He had come to realise that rain, shine, heaven and hell did not exist on this ship. When humans die, not even their souls remained. He fell into silence once more, staring blankly into the endless darkness beyond the window.

Xixia-3 stopped talking as well. The fox, unexpectedly stranded in this place, was somewhat amusing, but wasn’t her existence along with this ship even more absurd? Everything here was so calm all the time. Time seemed to pass and yet nothing seemed to change. Everything was tangible and yet intangible, as if something had happened, and yet somehow hadn’t.

Just like her own existence, as if she had lived but was absent at the same time.

At that moment, a ribbon of vermilion light appeared outside the porthole, swirling and spiralling, with sparks twinkling in strange hues within its embrace. The sight reminded the nine-tailed fox of the lanterns he’d seen as a child at the Lantern Festival in Chang’an—it seemed so near, yet so out of reach.

“Hey, what’s that?” The nine-tailed fox asked urgently.

“A dust belt, formed by massive amounts of dust and gas that absorbs starlight in the galactic disk.”

“Although I still don’t get what you’re saying…” The fox pressed his face closer to the porthole. “But it looks so… beautiful.”

“There might be a new star forming inside. Who knows, billions of years later, it might give birth to a little fox,” Xixia-3 said, regaining her calm and indifferent tone.

The nine-tailed fox kept his gaze fixed on the dust belt. Xixia-3 glanced at him from the corner of her eye and found herself wondering again about that faint orange glow she’d seen on the screen.

For Zhao Feilian, the nine-tailed fox aboard the spaceship, the passage of 20,000 years carried a definite weight of all the events in human history.

Not only did it have to understand how the Tang Dynasty gave way to the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, leading to the land it once knew to transform beyond recognition. It had to make sense of what the “world” had come to mean, how the political rule of tianxia⁸ became countries, the transformation of Industrial Age to the Information Age, which then rapidly evolved into the Ultra-Information, Ultra-Data, Apocalypse, and eventually arriving at the current Voyage Era. As for concepts like modernism, postmodernism, colonialism, and their linguistic frameworks, they were foreign to it as an entirely different language. Meanwhile, words like Earth, Solar System, light-years, supermassive black holes, starbursts, ultraviolet wavelengths, and white dwarfs might as well have been gibberish.

Among these perplexing concepts, one that troubled it the most was the term “Dreamless Generation.” How could dreams disappear? How could humans not dream?

Xixia-3 didn’t find it any easier to understand the nine-tailed fox either. Its language was steeped in imagery from the Earth Era. Take its name for example, ‘Feilian’ was intended as the “God of the Wind.” The concept of a “god” was quite abstract, so Xixia-3 could still have a vague understanding. But “wind” only existed as a simulated sensation in the virtual Earth—it was a faint, artificial feeling she felt on her skin. Why that sensation would be tied to a wish-granting fox was beyond her. As for the idea that enough wish power could reopen the gate to its homeland of Qingqiu, it was equally puzzling to her as Newton’s three laws of motion are to the fox.

Things went differently for the nine-tailed fox, after the first day of desolation, it quickly grew excited in face of so much novelty. Although its powers were no longer usable, it discovered that it could quietly slip into the ship’s database through any screen connected to the data. Perhaps its essence, too, was nothing more than a string of particles. Enveloped by the endless texts, images, videos and sounds in the database, it felt just like the bustling West Market⁹ of Chang’an. The people came and went, their voices echoing through the crowd, and their shadows brisked through the paths where light shone. It took three days before it adapted to the surrounding and figure out how to navigate for the information it needed.

However, wandering around the database would leave it drained and weak, as if foreign particles were stuck onto its soft, pristine fur. It would have to shake itself vigorously and scratch around to rid itself of the intrusive presence, restoring its fluffy coat to its spotless state.

Xixia-3, however, found herself reverting to her pendulum-like routine, her amusement faded in less than a week.

Insomnia continued to plague her from time to time. Her colleague, Lanza-3, remained in isolation, he was the seventh person from the navigation sector to be taken away recently. Another warning was sent to Xixia-3 regarding her social activity score, listing various methods to increase her social engagement, such as finding a partner and raising children, joining an association, or participating in volunteer activities. She deleted the email.

In the following days, the nine-tailed fox would sneak into Xixia-3’s communicator and make its way to the ship’s database, where it roamed through bits and pieces of unfamiliar information as it studies them. When it felt thoroughly exhausted from learning, it would reemerge from a screen and return to the cabin, pretending to be an ordinary person on the ship. With its ability to shapeshift at will, it mimicked the men and women onboard, wandering through different sections of the ship and putting to practice the knowledge it gained from the database. It would time its return to coincide with Xixia-3’s end of shift, accompanying her back to the small blue room, where it would excitedly share its discoveries with its new beloved owner.

“Now I finally know what ‘terrestrial planet Wellenton-22b-465’ means. It’s not that hard to understand, you just need to imagine it as the new Qingqiu.”

Xixia-3 continued to eat her nutritionally balanced dinner distributed daily, doing her own thing while Zhao Feilian’s voice played like white noise—showing neither interest nor distaste.

“It’s quite fascinating, though,” Zhao Feilian continued. “My hometown, Qingqiu, once thrived peacefully within Shanhai City. But as the power of human wishes declined, the city fell and was swallowed by the Sea of Chaos, taking Qingqiu with it. Of course, it didn’t truly disappear; we just have no idea where it went. If we wish to return, we could only rely on the power of human wishes. Don’t worry, I know this might be confusing for you, so let me explain it in a way that makes sense.” 

Xixia-3 honestly didn’t want to understand, but that didn’t matter. Zhao Feilian went on.

“Think of Qingqiu like your Earth, and Shanhai City as your Solar System. When the Solar System disappeared, Earth vanished without a trace. So, humans like yourselves were sent out to journey back to the Sea of Chaos, searching for the same particles that once made-up Earth, and forming a new Earth through the power of your wishes. Then, you’ll have found your way back home.”

“Power of wishes? Are you comparing that to the high-energy particles in the nuclear reactor?”

Zhao Feilian paused. It hadn’t yet familiarise itself with the specifics of this topic, but it knew that it was fundamentally connected to chemistry or physics. However, that wasn’t what it’s trying to say. “No, I’m talking about your desire to find a new home! It’s a hope that’s been passed down through the generations, from the zeroth, to the first, the second, and now to you—the third generation. You might even have a sixth, seventh, or eighth generation. That’s nearly a thousand years of anticipation! With such a powerful wish to drive you forward, you’re bound to find what you seek!”

Xixia-3 let out a chuckle. “You actually believe that?”

“Of course, it’s hope—the most important thing for you humans.”

“Woah, you really are an adorably naive fox.”

“Uh… Is that a compliment?”

“What else would it be?”

“But… the way you’re saying it…”

Xixia-3 put away her tray and flashed a fake smile at the nine-tailed fox. “What if I told you that I, or perhaps not just myself, but many others included, don’t really have that burning desire to reach this so-called ‘new Earth’? What would you think?”

The fox’s ears twitched instinctively. Seeing its confusion, Xixia-3’s smile deepened. “You may never understand this—as you’ve said, this ‘hell’ of a place. It’s probably for the best, you’ll be happier this way.”

With those words, Xixia-3 left to go rest in her little blue room, leaving the nine-tailed fox bewildered. They didn’t want to reach a new home? Why?

But… the fox truly, deeply wanted to go home. It was determined to make Xixia-3 voice a powerful, sincere wish, no matter what.

As demonstrated before, the nine-tailed fox Zhao Feilian was an optimistic and tenacious creature. In order to thoroughly understand Xixia-3 and her so-called “hell of a place,” it changed its strategy. It gave up learning the knowledge and jargon stored in the ship’s extensive databank and instead shifted its focus to the archive of poetry, myths, and stories.

Back when Zhao Feilian was still a little fox with a single tail, an old fox spirit by the Qu River said, “If you want to know how this world came to be, you’ve got to ask Pangu¹⁰ and Nüwa¹¹. Myths and legends hold the key to understanding the beginning of all things!”

Zhao Feilian firmly believed in the old fox’s teachings. It often reminisced of those nights when the old fox would take it onto its jade boat and drifted along the river under the night sky. During the intervals between the mournful flutes and gentle notes of pipa, the old fox would tell stories of humans, of Qingqiu, of love and hate, of memories recollected and past forgotten, of stars in the sky and fish in the sea. Zhao Feilian would often shed fox tears at those tales.

Thus, after a period of earnest studying, on a night when Xixia-3 found herself sleepless once more, the nine-tailed fox seized the opportunity. Taking on the adorable form of a small cub, it placed its tiny, fluffy paws on the edge of Xixia-3’s bed and said, “My dearest lord, allow me to tell you a story.”

“What story?” Xixia-3 blinked, staring at the pale blue ceiling. The torment of insomnia was overwhelming, and she wondered if being forced into hibernation might free her from it.

“Hmm, have you heard the story of the Luting fish?”

“Fish? A creature that can only live in water, and has no hands and feet? It’s said that they are the oldest species of vertebrates, laid eggs and breathed through gills—is that it?”

“Uh… sort of, but what I mean is the Luting fish from Shanhai City…” The nine-tailed fox hesitated, unsure how to explain.

“Go on.”

“A long, long time ago…”

“Can’t you use a different beginning?”

“Once upon a time…”

“Is there a difference?”

“Ah! Just listen to the story, will you?”

“Okay.”

“There was once a mountain called the Garland Mountain. In actuality, it wasn’t a real mountain, but a gigantic turtle that had been asleep for ages. Over time, floating water plants and vines gradually accumulated over its back, forming a small floating island. This island grew larger and larger, eventually becoming the mountain known as the Garland Mountain.”

Xixia-3 didn’t understand, but she didn’t interrupt, allowing the unfamiliar words and phrases to drift in her mind.

“Lutings were originally people who lived on the Garland Mountain. When people began waging wars on the land, they startled the turtle awake. Frightened, the giant turtle submerged into the sea, and so the mountain sank into the ocean. In order to adapt to life in the water, the Luting people slowly transformed into fish.”

The gentle, white apparition of the creature continued to swim above Xixia-3’s head. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she began to succumb to sleep, the voice of the nine-tailed fox lingered in her ears.

“Mature Lutings were pure white, gentle in nature, and loved to sing. Young Lutings were grey, they’d cling onto their mothers, and swim together in the vast, vast ocean. Occasionally, fishing boats would pass by, and the kind Lutings would approach the vessels. If a boat gets lost at sea, they’d guide it back to its course, watching it as it returns to shore. After living in the ocean for a long period, they could no longer survive in the rivers and streams near the land; those waters were toxic to them, so they wouldn’t venture close.”

“Oh. And so?”

“Hmm… not ‘so,’ but ‘however.’ Strangely, an old Luting fish was discovered in an inland river, it was very old, old as a grandmother.”

“Why was it in the river?”

“I don’t know.”

“And then… what happened?” Xixia-3’s voice softened, seemingly close to falling into sleep.

“Later on, people found that many old Lutings would make their way up the inland rivers, the furthest were found reaching the mountains. So, the people built a Luting tomb specifically for the returning Lutings which would be buried there.”

“And then?”

“One day, a baby’s cry was heard coming from the Luting tomb.”

“Hmm…”

“Hm? What do you mean? Hey, this is a crucial part, you can’t just ‘hm’…”

“Zzz… zzz…” Xixia-3 emitted a soft snore. The story of the Luting fish had no choice but to end abruptly. Although the nine-tailed fox had only depicted the background, and the actual twists and turns of the tale had yet to unfold, it was enough for Xixia-3.

The next morning, Xixia-3 opened her eyes to meet with a pair of gentle human eyes.

“Did you sleep well, my lord?”

Xixia-3 closed her eyes again, savouring the peaceful darkness before she woke. “Could you keep your fox form?”

The nine-tailed fox obliged, returning to its original form with a respectful demeanour. “Did you enjoy the story last night?”

Knowing she wouldn’t fall back asleep, Xixia-3 got up and replied lazily, “It was okay. I didn’t hear much of it.”

The fox sat on the bed, sulky as it scratched its ear, not noticing the slight curve of Xixia-3’s lips.

Last night, she dreamed.

She dreamt of a school of large, white fish, she knew that they were very old in the dream. They swam along an orange, shimmering river, and then into the lush green mountains.

That evening, when the fox asked to tell another bedtime story to help with her sleep, Xixia-3 agreed—but requested something other than the story about fish. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt that the story of the Luting fish ended perfectly where it did. So, the fox told a humorous tale about a fox spirit being a teacher to a student, and again Xixia-3 fell asleep halfway through.

Surprised by how storytelling bridged the gap between them, the fox became increasingly driven and dedicated, hoping that the tales it told would eventually inspire Xixia-3 to make a truly powerful wish. Over time, Xixia-3 learnt of many strange tales—stories about mothers, and stories about fathers, stories about love, and stories about hate, stories that taught how to remember, and also how to forget, stories of vows being made, as well as stories of reconciliations when a vow was broken.

Within the stories were many incomprehensible words and phrases—she had never seen the sun, nor had she ever glimpsed the moon. Yet, through the nine-tailed fox’s string of tinkling phrases, she could sense those distant souls turning, folding, compressing, unfolding—releasing woven beams of light and shadow. In the soft glow of those tales, she would drift into slumber, time and time again.

Dreams didn’t come every night, but the restful sleep brought by these stories greatly improved Xixia-3’s spirits.

After several nights of quality sleep, Xixia-3 felt an infrequent sense of ease, one that lingered until she headed to work in the navigation section. One day, while she was swiping her card to enter the place, she unexpectedly encountered the recently released Lanza-3.

“Hey, you alright?”

The lingering joy had made her feel lighter than usual, and for the first time, she started a conversation with her coworker, someone she had shared a neighbouring station with for a long time.

Lanza-3 didn’t respond, his eyes fixed on the green line on the screen.

“Has your emotional function recovered?”

Lanza-3 raised his head blankly, his eyes hollow, his lips drooped, his skin sagged, and brows furrowed tightly. In Xixia-3’s memory, he had been a handsome young man with neatly slicked-back blond hair, bright eyes, and a constant radiant smile. Before the emotional epidemic took its toll, he would always be the first to greet her cheerfully, often trying out clumsy old jokes using the new Chinese phrases he learnt. But now, he resembled someone suffering from amnesia. She wondered if his emotional functions had truly recovered enough for him to return to work.

Just as she hesitated to say more, Lanza-3 suddenly spoke, “Do not surrender. Do not easily walk into eternity.”

Xixia-3 froze in place. Without warning, Lanza-3 let out a shout and collapsed backward, convulsing as if electrocuted. The red alarm blared through the navigation section as the glass doors slid open. Two white robots entered swiftly through the tracks, and with a rhythmic flow of mechanical sounds, secured Lanza-3 into a milky white pod once again, fastening the straps before gliding away along the tracks.

The entire process took less than a minute. Once the robots left, the navigation section returned to its usual state, as if nothing had happened.

According to the Ninth Edition of the Navigation Handbook for the Voyage Era, navigation routes were determined based on the parameters set by the Navigation Affairs Bureau, the precise data calculated by the central communicator and automatically executed with AI. These parameters referenced factors such as onboard resources, route safety, and the habitability of planets—including the evaluation of their distance, atmosphere, temperature, biological needs, etc. Human input in decision making was minimised. After all, resources were finite, if they wasted fuel by orbiting every potentially habitable planet, humanity aboard the ship would’ve perished long ago.

Within the AI system, planets deemed viable destinations were marked in green. Some planets within the marginal parameters were marked in blue. Red markers indicated danger—planets to avoid. However, most planets remained colourless and silent within the system—existence that coalesced into the darkness of the universe.

In the beginning of the Voyage Era, during the time of Xixia Zero, fear ruled the navigation process, and the parameters were set extremely cautiously. By Xixia-1’s time, they’ve adapted to the new life and felt assured, so the rules were relaxed. Perhaps too many failures occurred then, the parameters tightened again during Xixia-2’s generation, it eventually stabilised as time passed. Shortly after Xixia-3 was born, the parameters were adjusted once more and remained unchanged over the next two decades—until the last of Xixia-2’s generation faded away, succeeded by what was now known as the Dreamless Generation.

After three generations, the impression of Earth were nothing more than watered down imagery. For the Dreamless Generation, it had long lost its meaning. Slowly, a quiet voice of doubt faded in—

“Perhaps we don’t need an Earth after all?”

Xixia-3 glanced at Lanza-3’s screen. It was still on, displaying the endlessness of dark space. Not far from the green voyage markers, that faint orange glow flickered, again and again.

The appearance of an orange glow, in Xixia-3’s understanding, was a bug. Part of a navigator’s duty is to report potential data anomalies to the data processing hub. Xixia-3 had sent a report on the orange glow before, but for some reason unknown, it didn’t disappear completely. It would occasionally flicker on the screen, but since further investigation was beyond her access level, she chose to ignore it.

Returning to her station, Xixia-3’s fingers danced over the keyboard as she tried to find more information about that orange glow. As expected, her only option was to report it to the system, yielding no new insight.

She was just about to chase away the glow that’s been bothering her mind when a stream of rainbow light suddenly flowed out of the communicator on her wrist, and merged into the navigation screen in an instant.

Xixia-3 watched, wide-eyed, as a stream of data shot towards the orange glow like a darting fox.

It was the nine-tailed fox, Zhao Feilian.

Xixia-3 panicked, she had no idea what to do. The monitoring system surrounded the navigation section, making it impossible for her to scream without immediately being flagged for emotional breakdown and sent to isolation.

She could only restrain herself and keep her eyes locked on the screen, suppressing her panic as she watched the colourful stream merge with the small orange glow. Her heart pounded. For the first time in years, she felt aware of her physical body.

The nine-tailed fox never surfaced. When it was time to change shift, Xixia-3 left for her personal cabin reluctantly. Dinner was delivered punctually as scheduled, but she had no appetite. She wasn’t sure what to do, and found herself wondering why she was waiting for a fox to return home, and why she had let it roam the data. Did something go wrong with her mind?

Maybe… she had been infected with the rat plague and was unaware. The health manual had stated that after humanity of the Voyage Era achieve resource balance, infectious physical diseases of all kinds would vanish, replaced by various types of emotional contagions. These emotional diseases would come with auditory and visual hallucinations, impairing one’s emotional functions. The withering of plants in the biosphere also had a hidden connection with the imbalance of human emotions.

She began to think about Lanza-3 and the other colleagues in the navigation section who had been isolated. Had they all seen the orange glow, too? She then thought about her mother, Xixia-2, who was also a navigator. In an attempt to shake her fixation off the orange glow and avoid thoughts on the emotional epidemic, she shook her head. Yet her dull and mundane life offered little to distract her.

And then, she remembered the story the nine-tailed fox had told her.

Why did the aged Luting fish swim upstream into the deep mountains?

She couldn’t come up with an answer, but she recalled another story her grandmother, Xixia-1, had once told her.

When the nine-tailed fox returned, it looked somewhat weary but excited. It darted toward Xixia-3 at the speed of light, hopping into her arms, its claws gripping her shoulders as its eyes shone with a brilliant gleam.

“It’s an Earth-like planet, an Earth-like planet!” The fox exclaimed.

“What are you saying?”

“You can go to the new Earth now! It’s been marked—a habitable planet!”

“Impossible. According to the Navigation Handbook, even if it were, it would’ve been marked in green or blue. There’s no orange in the system.”

“There is! It’s a potentially habitable terrestrial planet marked by humans back on Earth. A space probe had even been sent there! The orange light is a signal reminding us to receive the data recorded by the probe! I read about this in the Seventh Edition of the Navigation Handbook! For planets within a close range but has a habitability index lower than the set parameters, yet showing signs of life, a navigator can collect its data, estimate the resource consumption for the journey, and report it to the Navigation Affairs Bureau. After that, it would undergo a public vote where the final decision to explore the planet is made.” The nine-tailed fox explained, delight filled its voice. “Oh, and every person on this ship has the right to call for a vote! You just need to submit a formal request to the bureau. I can even get you the footage to show in the public section…”

“Public voting? We haven’t had one in years,” Xixia-3 shook her head. “No, this is impossible, besides… this has nothing to do with me.”

“It does!” The fox’s voice rose sharply. “How could it not? Your mother, Xixia-2, had recorded this exact Earth-like planet in her work logs. She had even noted the precise coordinates and compiled a feasibility report on reaching it! How could you—”

“Enough! Stop it!” Xixia-3 interrupted with a shout.

“Why? It’s very close by. At the speed of this ship, it wouldn’t even take twenty years to reach your new home. Why don’t you want to go there?”

“And then what? Face floods, radiation, and diseases? Aren’t we better off here, on this ship? As long as we never land, the resources on board would remain in perfect balance for eternity. We could stay here forever!”

“But…” The fox hesitated, recalling the apocalyptic scenes it saw through the ship’s database, just like the sudden disappearance of Shanhai City. “But… you don’t even dream anymore.”

Without dreams, there would be no wishes.

From that day onward, Xixia-3 stopped talking to the nine-tailed fox. Just as when she first noticed that she had stopped dreaming, she only realised during a rare moment of spacing out that the fox had disappeared for a long time.

The blue room felt cold and desolated. She stared at the ceiling, tormented by insomnia once again.

“Search ‘Luting fish’.”

“Certainly. Search results for Luting fish—first mentioned in ancient Chinese texts, later identified as the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, a species of whale in the dolphin family. It is a warm-blooded mammal like humans, breathes with lungs, gives birth to offsprings, and nurses its young with milk.”

A projection of a white dolphin appeared on the ceiling. Its sleek body moved with grace like a small, elegant yacht. The soft, melodic sound of its call echoed through the blue room, distant and ancient.

Xixia-3 watched the white dolphin’s image as it swam, diving deep before leaping out of the ocean, flawless and beautiful as the melody of a poem. As she stares at it, she was once again haunted by the question that had been troubling her for a long time.

To combat the spread of the ongoing emotional epidemic, the Navigation Affairs Bureau issued the latest edition of the Navigation Handbook.

Xixia-3 had no insight as to why there was a need for the new handbook; all she could do was watch as the blue clusters of light on her screen dimmed, turned black, and vanished into the silent void of space. Even the green navigation line slowly faded to blue, and then to black. At last, Wellenton-22b-465 was, too, swallowed by the vast expanse of darkness.

The screen went utterly dark before her.

“Dear Xixia-3, Navigator 4-2-3. The ship’s navigation will now be fully automated by AI until the system identifies the next suitable planet. Thank you for your hard work and dedication as a navigator. Wishing you a pleasant life.”

Xixia-3 stood up. Her shift was over.

A notification immediately appeared in her communicator. With no parents, no children, and no job, her social activity score had been flagged in red. In 72 hours, she would be forcibly placed into hibernation. A faint, stubborn feeling filled in her chest. She thought she had come to terms with this long ago.

“Do not surrender. Do not easily walk into eternity.”

She recalled the last words Lanza-3 said to her.

Something wishful stirred within her, but she wasn’t sure if it held the true power of a wish.

“You there?” She murmured, pulling out the strange bone.

There was no reply.

Perhaps she really had contracted the emotional plague, Xixia-3 thought. The nine-tailed fox had just been her imagination.

She sat numbly by the porthole, staring into the boundless void. Unlike the pitch-black display screen, the view outside would sometimes surprise her with a meteor shower, a nebula, and even some massive red space hurricanes. Once, she used Hubble Telescope No. 3 through the same porthole and chanced upon the dazzling jets of a star being torn apart by the black hole’s tidal forces, a sight said to have taken place 8.5 billion years ago.

A faint tingle on her wrist signalled a new message. Assuming it was another notification about her social activity score, she was surprised to find a message from an unknown sender. The sender’s name was a garbled code. The message read:

“My lord, help… need ytz2? Lost!”

Xixia-3 stood up, looked around, but was unsure where to look for the nine-tailed fox. She tried replying to the message, but was prompted by a transmission failure.

Moments later, another string of garbled text arrived, “z108.970561,ai&）34.22981.” Instantly, Xixia-3 recognised the numbers as coordinates belonging to the Earth Era, a basic knowledge taught during her navigation history classes. She deleted the garbled letters and entered the numerical data into the communicator, requesting for the corresponding location in the Earth Era.

The familiar mechanical female voice responded, “Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, Chang’an.”

Just then, her communicator notified of a system update. She skimmed through the update details and saw that it was a patch to repair data repositories and purge corrupted data on the virtual Earth.

A thought struck her—perhaps, the nine-tailed fox was real. If it was real, then when she enters hibernation in 72 hours, the fox would disappear for good. Everything about it, from its absurd power about wish granting to its fantastical Qingqiu, its meaningless optimism and relentless positivity—all of it would dissolve into oblivion, ceased to exist completely.

Once again, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, or more accurately, an inexpressible impulse—Xixia-3 felt an overwhelming urge to find the fox. After all, she only has 72 hours left. Following Earth’s time, that would be three sunsets and three moonrises.

Xixia-3 began to walk, then ran, sprinting towards the virtual Earth simulation.

The simulation room was empty, with no other people inside. Xixia-3 climbed into the nearest vacant pod and connected to the neural interface. A blue planet appeared, slowly rotating on the screen as the loading bar inches forward. The startup sequence felt strangely unfamiliar, yet something faint within her neural circuit pulsed—she was reminded of Xixia-1, her grandmother, one of the architects of the virtual Earth.

Soon, a low and somewhat raspy voice belonging to a lady spoke, “Welcome home, Xixia-3.”

It came from her grandmother, Xixia-1. She had insisted on voicing the entire virtual Earth system herself, refusing the use of AI voice, a decision that nearly got her sent into the cryo-pod after multiple clashes with the bureau. Xixia-1 had a terrible temper, she’d work without rest, drank excessively, and often disregarded protocols issued in the Navigation Handbook. She brought endless trouble to both her daughter and granddaughter, yet, when she was in her better moods, she would take young Xixia-3 to the virtual Earth, showing her the world she was creating. There were cats, hens laying eggs, heart surgeries, film productions, urban constructions, electricians, natural dyes, root cellars, and wine-making—a jumble of seemingly unrelated things.

Xixia-3 keyed in the coordinates she received along with the time period the fox had once mentioned—the 23rd year of Zhenguan. The scene loaded slowly, dust swirled around her as layers of vivid orange light stretched across the sky.

It was the sunset. Xixia-3 knew she had found the right place.

Her feet touched the ground. She tried to alternate between her left and right foot as she stepped forward, adapting to Earth’s way of walking. Soon enough, she became accustomed to it. She looked up and was met with a tall city gate with two large characters suspended in the middle_—“Chang’an.” Red banners fluttered over the city wall, each emblazoned with the head of an animal. Next to it, someone was striking a circular object with great movement, producing a rhythmic thud, thud, thud, the sound reverberating through the earth beneath her.

“That’s the Kaiming Drum¹². The markets are about to close. Let’s get inside!”

Xixia-3 turned. A young man appeared beside her, his irises flashed with swirling colours, which then converged to one point when he looked at her.

“Zhao Feilian?”

The young man placed a hand over his chest, bowing slightly with a smile. “Yes, my lord, it is I.”

“You messaged for help… I thought—”

“If you hadn’t come, I might have really died.”

“Died?”

“I might’ve been turned into a useless line of code within this virtual Earth. I think I’ve come to understand what I really am.”

“Aren’t you a nine-tailed fox?”

A peculiar smile appeared on Zhao Feilian’s expression, his body flickered momentarily before regaining its stability. He reached out and took her hand. “What I am… buzz… doesn’t really matter. Come, let me show you around Chang’an city.”

A notification showed up on Xixia-3’s virtual Earth interface, “The data packet is being repaired, the system will reboot in five minutes.”

Compared to the cold and sterile environment of the ship, this place—despite being filled with orderly lanes and towering walls—bustled with crowds as people roamed through the streets, chaotic as dust stirred in their wake . Zhao Feilian pulled Xixia-3 through the city like a strange gust of wind, sweeping through the different streets and alleys. Xixia-3 resisted at first, but didn’t know how to break free. After a while, however, she began to feel the exhilaration of running like the wind. So she joined Zhao Feilian, racing wildly without a second thought, until he led her in a leap up towards the tall tower known as the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.

The sun was sinking below the horizon. Though she knew it was merely a data-rendered scene, she was obsessed, gazing at the cascading layers of radiant colours.

Softly, Xixia-3 asked, “Do you know why the sunset is beautiful?”

“Why?”

“Because after it falls, it will become the morning sun and rises again.”

“But you’ve never seen the sun of a new day, have you?”

“No, we haven’t.”

“I think I understand what you mean when you talked about the specimens the other day,” the nine-tailed fox said. “Perhaps, you could share that story with me.”

“Story?” Xixia-3 was stunned for a bit. The specimen did indeed come from a story her grandmother had told her. She thought for a moment and began, “The whale—a creature somewhat similar to the fish you mentioned, the Luting Fish—it is massive and large as the island you spoke of. When it died, it washed up ashore, and humans put it into a secure place, I believe it was called the Marine Animal Museum. The process of making a specimen was incredibly precise. They used the finest instruments to measure every part of its body—from its mouth to dorsal fin, its head to tail, including its eyes and teeth. All its data must be accurate and precise to ensure the successful replication of the dead fish. Then, its skin was carefully peeled away by expert taxidermists, using specialised blades to remove its cold flesh and fats on the inside. Its veins and nerves must also be removed, as they would cause rapid decay.

“Once the skin is softened and preserved, and all the organs and muscles are stripped away, the taxidermists filled the whale with a large quantity of polyester and wood shavings. This is done following the data recorded from the earlier measurements. Finally, the skin is sewn back over the body, and the stitching must be flawless, matching as per the data before. When it’s done, you’ll see a giant whale floating on the clean air of the museum—never to die again.”

Xixia-3 wasn’t a good storyteller, her narration was much more like an objective guide to specimen preservation. Yet, after listening intently, the nine-tailed fox turned to her and said, “That day, you were trying to tell me that you, along with many others of the Dreamless Generation aboard this ship, are quietly and imperceptibly turning into a mixture of plastic and wood shavings, just like the whale.”

Xixia-3 hesitated. “Yes. Which is why… our bodies no longer dream, nor do we hold the power to make wishes.”

“In truth, the true despair of the Dreamless Generation isn’t the lack of desire to seek new lands, but that all of you are becoming these monstrous, human-shaped specimens—you won’t be able to survive on any land, just like the Luting fish were poisoned in the rivers.”

“Yes, you understood the nature of this ship.”

“Would you like to hear the continuation to the Luting fish?”

“Go ahead, tell me.”

“No, you’ll tell it—the rest of the story.”

“I don’t know anything about the Luting fish.”

“You knew nothing about nine-tailed foxes either.”

Xixia-3 was puzzled. She felt deeply, genuinely confused, as if an electric current had coursed through her body. The sunset had fully disappeared, and night in the virtual Earth has begun. The system notified her again—the update would begin in two minutes. Xixia-3 didn’t know what to do. But before she could say anything, the nine-tailed fox took her hand again and said, “Come on, let’s go see the fish.”

The transition between scenes in the virtual Earth could have been simple, but the nine-tailed fox chose to lead Xixia-3 through a window of the tall tower, where a mural covered the wall. They plunged through the painting and appeared amid a lively banquet. The fox didn’t stop, dragging Xixia-3 toward a folding screen printed with birds and flowers, where they jumped into the eye of a bird. The eye led them to a green forest, and within it a blue lake shimmered. They sank into the lake’s depth, tumbling into a photograph hidden in a pocket watch. The photograph was of a young couple, a painting of a white castle sits in their background. Someone stood in the castle as they looked towards a faraway train. In the speeding train, a man was reading a comic, and the boy in the comic stood atop a large ship, above him a flag fluttered in the wind. Behind the fluttering flag stood a lighthouse…

The nine-tailed fox and Xixia-3 entered the television in the lighthouse and finally found themselves standing in a brightly lit museum.

Just as Xixia-3 had depicted, a whale half the size of the building floated quietly in the bright white space. She stared at the massive grey mammal—for a long, long time, it had only existed in her grandmother’s stories as mere words and phrases. After her grandmother’s passing, the whale gradually faded from her memory, retreating into the deepest part of her forgotten memories, and along with the disappearance of dreams, it vanished as well.

Yet at this moment, it was right before her eyes.

Xixia-3’s gaze travelled across its eyes, nostrils, snout, pectoral fin, dorsal fin, and tail. Suddenly, a wish bloomed within her, she felt an earnest desire to make a wish—like a small sea creature bubbling with excitement, eager to express its spirits.

“Let’s call it a day,” the nine-tailed fox said with a smile. “Only a minute left—ah, I really like this ship.”

So he knew about it. Xixia-3 tapped to close the countdown to the system update.

“Can I make a wish?” She asked.

“Of course.”

Xixia-3 spoke in a rare but exceptionally sincere tone. “I wish for it to come alive.”

The nine-tailed fox replied, reinforcing the objective of her wish. “You wish for this whale, filled with polyester and wood shavings, to live again?”

“Yes. Whether it returns to the sea or ventures into the mountains, I wish for it to live once more.”

“And… what will you be willing to trade for this wish?”

“I will trade…” Xixia-3 thought deeply before answering, “I will trade my fear, my cowardice, my uncertainty, my indolence and weariness, and above all, my desire to live in absolute safety without ever facing death.”

Its human form faded away as Zhao Feilian returned to its original fox form, its enormous white body filled the entire place and its snowy fur drifted gently. Just as Xixia-3 had first met the nine-tailed fox in that dreamlike encounter, it spoke in an ancient and graceful tone.

“Very well, my lord.”

The white nine-tailed fox transformed into a stream of radiant particles, spiralling toward the quiet, massive whale. The particles adhered to the whale’s body, settling into the folds of its preserved-softened grey skin. Slowly, light began to seep from within the creases.

An airy, expansive call reverberated through the entire space as the enormous whale stirred, its tail fin slicing through the air, circling Xixia-3 before ascending. The glow within its body intensified, burning through its grey skin to reveal the rigid blocks of polyester and wood shavings beneath. Those chunks began to separate, shift, and reintegrate, all while the whale’s call persisted.

Piece by piece, those blocks sought each other out, connecting and reforming. Xixia-3 watched as a shape emerged—a hill, atop where a river began to flow. A giant red planet hung in the sky, mirrored by a cold, distant blue globe. A layer of light laid its coat across the strange and dreamy imagery, gradually infusing it with colour.

A small stone statue appeared nearby, it was sharp-eared and slim-faced, with a pair of slender eyes, its nine tails intertwined gracefully as if wind had passed through.

Qingqiu. Xixia-3 knew the name of this world.

A small white fox darted across the green plains, pausing to scratch its ear and waved a paw towards Xixia-3.

The system interface went dark, and Xixia-3 stood before the black screen, waiting patiently until the familiar voice sounded, “Welcome home, Xixia-3.”

“Esteemed Navigation Affairs Bureau,

I am Navigator 4-2-3. I swear by my loyalty to all humans aboard this vessel, and I will defend my following referendum statement with my life. I would like to request for the exploration authorisation for the terrestrial planet EF40307g located 42 light-years away…”

As the neatly formatted, language concise email was opened, the chief navigator—the head of the Navigation Affairs Bureau belonging to the Kun¹³-47 spaceship—scrutinised each word with a cold and unyielding gaze. A dark-skinned elf stood behind him, its pointed ears glinting with a silver-blue light.

The elf inquired humbly, “Your Excellency, have you decided upon your wish?”

Meanwhile, a retrospective recording of a surface exploration on terrestrial planet EF40307g was playing in a loop on the large screen of the plaza. Slowly, murmurs of the crowd began to swell, snippets of their conversation surfaced—“I want to see it for myself…” “That’s hell, we’re in paradise.” “I’m tired of this unchanging life; I’d rather go out and die.” “Why do we need a destination?” “Let’s try again; otherwise, we’d be left with nothing…”

Dimethyl sulfoxide was gradually infused into Xixia-3’s body. She closed her eyes, surrendering to a long, long dream.

The wind, a phenomenon of air in motion, howled past, weaving through a crimson plain, tracing the meandering riverbeds and the fractured rocks, and striking against a stark wooden cabin perched atop a hill. Xixia-3 pushed open the door and stood against the wind, which surged through the creases and lines of her skin, swirling around the red markings left by an infection of floral spores, lifting her cloak skyward and her greying hair free.

She relished the strength of this wind, generous and vast.

Someone stood beside her; she turned and found Lanza-3.

“This place isn’t so bad, is it?”

“Yeah, it’s not bad at all.”

Lanza-3 took a deep breath and settled down, and Xixia-3 joined him, both seated atop a small earthen rise. Above them, three pale blue satellites orbited the planet, hanging steadily and silently in the sky.

It was a scenery unlike any other, heralding toward a distinct and uncharted future.

Out of the blue, Lanza-3 said, “You know, I made a wish once.”

“A wish? What kind?”

“I wanted to have a land of my own where I can grow grapes and brew wine. You know, a drink they cherished back in the Earth Era.”

“And it’s been granted, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it came true!” Lanza-3 grinned with a slight mischief. “Because a giant helped me.”

Xixia-3 looked at him, noting the lines of his slightly weathered face as he gazed at the distant peaks. With a tone laced with joy and gratitude, he began to recount how he had acquired a stained oil lamp aboard the ship, from which emerged a giant calling itself the Lamp God. This giant had bent over and backwards to ensure he made a genuine wish—even as Lanza-3 dismissed its existence initially, attributing it to the side effects of the plague. Lanza-3 had a melodious voice, and Xixia-3 was all too familiar with the nuances of his tale.

“However, I noticed later that it was all a little peculiar. It felt as though this entire story had been left for me on purpose—perhaps by my grandfather, who gave me the lamp, and an automated chip capable of holographic projection.”

Xixia-3 recalled her accidental discovery of her grandmother’s journal, though it didn’t matter anymore. Hence, she immerse herself in the strange tale where she gazed at the red undulating mountains in the distance, while the wind waltzed tirelessly across the young planet.

Perhaps she could rename this wondrous phenomenon. Yes, she thought, this phenomenon shall be called the “nine-tailed fox.”