[Dimensional Coordinates: Primordial Wilderness · Collapsed Zone]
[Current Threat Level: EX (Unpredictable)]
[Observer Status: Descended]
...In that gray-white world stripped of its color, leaving only rough lines, Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen were like two stubborn drops of oil paint, clinging tightly to the center of the canvas.
The crimson lotus between Seventeen's brows pulsed at a visible frequency. Each pulse released a ripple of red light, pushing back the gray-white lines that tried to engulf them by half an inch.
"They've come." Shen Qingqiu raised his head, his gaze piercing through the layers of jumbled clouds.
There was no earth-shattering entrance.
Just a beam of light.
A pure, temperatureless, shadowless vertical beam of white light fell from the jagged crack in the sky.
From within the beam of light, three figures slowly descended.
Or rather, they were three **"geometric shapes"**.
They had no facial features, no limbs, only countless glowing, ever-changing geometric facets. Sometimes they were regular tetrahedrons, sometimes Möbius strips, sometimes incomprehensible Klein bottles.
They hovered in mid-air, observing the two ants below from above.
"The Cleaners." A-Ling's voice trembled in Seventeen's mind, an instinctive fear of facing a high-level administrator.
"They are… the system's antivirus software. No physical form, immune to physical attacks, immune to magical damage." One of the blue-glowing geometric shapes emitted a piercing electronic sound, the sound directly rubbing against Shen Qingqiu's scalp:
[Abnormal data source detected: ID 1307 (Seventeen), ID Unknown (Shen Qingqiu).]
[Judgment: High-risk Bug.]
[Execution Plan: Complete erasure.]
"Bug?" Seventeen snorted coldly.
His body, reshaped by the Crimson Lotus Karmic Fire, was currently at its peak.
He released Shen Qingqiu's hand, and the lines beneath his feet instantly shattered.
"I am her husband."
"Not your bug."
Boom!
Seventeen transformed into a streak of red and black light, soaring into the sky.
The **[Slaying Evil]** blade in his hand, carrying terrifying kinetic energy capable of slicing through a black hole, cleaved down towards the blue geometric object.
This strike concentrated all his computational power and rage.
In the primordial world, this strike could slay a saint.
However.
Whoosh— The blade passed through the geometric object without any resistance.
As if passing through a holographic projection.
There was no sensation, no damage.
The blue geometric object continued to spin, without even changing its rotation speed.
It emitted a cold, emotionless mockery:
[Low-dimensional attack ineffective.]
[Attempting to modify physical parameters...]
[Gravity: 0. Friction: 0.]] Whoosh!
Seventeen suddenly felt his body lighten.
He lost his sense of gravity, floating in mid-air like a balloon, unable to find any support. Then, a beam of light extended from the geometric shape, sweeping across Seventeen's left shoulder like an eraser.
Silently.
The divine golden armor, flesh, and even bone on Seventeen's left shoulder vanished instantly.
Leaving behind a smooth, mirror-like cut.
No blood flowed, because even the concept of "bleeding" had been erased.
"Seventeen!!" Shen Qingqiu exclaimed.
[Suggestion: Give up resistance.]
Another golden geometric shape slowly descended, approaching Shen Qingqiu.
[You are merely an NPC who developed self-awareness due to data overflow. Your memories are false, your emotions are simulated. Accept formatting and return to nothingness.]
It extended a ribbon of light, attempting to wrap around Shen Qingqiu's neck.
"Fake?" Shen Qingqiu stood there, looking at the man in mid-air, who had lost his sense of gravity and was struggling to adjust his posture.
Looking at his eyes, still fixed on him even with a missing shoulder, trying to rush towards him. The anxiety, fear, and love in her eyes.
Was it fake?
Shen Qingqiu smiled.
Her smile was extremely soft, yet extremely cold.
She slowly raised her hand, her fingertips lightly touching the air.
"You pathetic worms who only know how to pile up data."
"Do you even know what…artistic conception is?"
She closed her eyes.
The vast **[Library of Civilization]** in her mind suddenly opened.
Countless brilliant characters flowed out like a galaxy.
It was the ultimate romance, the grandest imagination of five thousand years of human civilization.
[Concept Overwriting · Artistic Conception Materialization]
[Carrier: Tang Poetry.]
"In this world, you dictate the rules of physics."
"But…" Shen Qingqiu suddenly opened her eyes, a blue flame burning in her golden pupils.
"Aesthetics, I decide!"
She raised her delicate hand, facing the gray, lifeless world, and uttered a timeless verse:
"Desert—"
Rumble—!!!
As these two words left her lips,
the world changed color.
The previously gray and white lines of the earth suddenly surged.
Countless golden grains of sand appeared out of thin air. It was truly scorching, coarse yellow sand, carrying the heat of the blazing sun, instantly filling the entire field of vision.
The geometric shapes froze.
Their data streams became chaotic.
[Warning! Abnormal environmental parameters! Unknown terrain coverage detected!]
"Lone Smoke—"
Shen Qingqiu uttered two more words.
She pointed to the blue geometric shape.
Whoosh—
A jet-black, straight column of smoke, like a beacon of smoke, rose from the desert.
That wasn't ordinary smoke.
It was a collection of concepts called **"loneliness" and "desolation"**.
The column of smoke instantly pierced through the blue geometric shape.
*Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!*
The geometric shape, which had been immune to all physical attacks just moments before, was now firmly "nailed" to mid-air by this column of smoke.
[Error! Unable to move! Locked to the Z-axis!]
"Straight." Shen Qingqiu pressed his finger down hard.
The smoke column solidified, transforming into an unshakeable cage.
"The Long River—" A roaring, surging Yellow River rushed in from the horizon.
It washed over the white, blank areas, dyeing them a thick, earthy yellow.
The river churned up countless waves, engulfing the golden geometric shape within them.
"Sunset—" A huge, blood-red sunset slowly sank below the horizon.
That wasn't a star.
It was a massive data black hole, radiating a despairing gravitational pull.
"Circle." *Clang!*
As the last word fell,
the entire world changed completely.
It was no longer that rough, line-drawn world.
It was no longer that cold, impersonal data space.
Here lay a vast, boundless golden desert.
A long river surged, the setting sun molten gold.
A lone wisp of smoke rose straight to the heavens, imprisoning the three arrogant high-dimensional cleaners within this breathtaking panorama.
This was the **"Poetic Realm"**.
Using words as code, imagination as the rendering engine.
It forcibly superseded reality on a logical level.
[Warning! Dimensional Fall!]
[Current Environment: Tang Poetry · Frontier Ballad Dimension.]
[Rule Rewriting: Aestheticism First.]
The three geometric shapes struggled frantically in the desert.
They tried to delete sand, tried to modify the river.
But they couldn't.
Because this was a poem.
As long as the poem's imagery remained intact, they could never escape this logical loop called "Lone Smoke in the Desert."
...
"Hoo..." Seventeen finally regained gravity.
He fell from mid-air, kneeling on one knee on the soft, scorching sand dune.
He clutched his missing left shoulder; it was a real wound, but under A-Ling's emergency repair, the data was filling in, and new flesh was slowly growing.
He looked up, utterly stunned by the scene before him.
This was no longer a battlefield.
This was a painting.
A magnificent, desolate, and grand depiction of the Tang Dynasty's frontier.
And Shen Qingqiu stood before that enormous, blood-red setting sun.
Her purple dress transformed into the flowing sleeves of a Hanfu, and the peach wood hairpin in her hair held back the swirling sand.
She was like a goddess of this desert, or a poet who had taken up his brush to paint.
"Is this… your power?" Seventeen murmured to himself.
He had always thought power was nuclear explosions, slashes, and destruction.
But he never imagined.
Power could also be… this line of poetry.
Shen Qingqiu turned and extended her hand to him.
In the afterglow of the setting sun, her shadow was stretched long and thin.
"Seventeen, come here."
Her voice was weary, yet held a tenderness he had never felt before.
Seventeen stood up and stumbled towards her.
The sand beneath his feet rustled, a sound so real it made him want to cry.
He reached her and took her hand.
Cold, yet strong.
"Are they…dead?"
Seventeen looked at the three geometric shapes trapped by the lone smoke and the long river. They were still flickering, like flawed dots dancing on this ancient painting.
"Not dead."
Shen Qingqiu shook his head.
"They are high-dimensional data, unkillable."
"I just used this poem to create a…maze with no exit for them."
"Until they decipher the meaning of every grain of sand in this poem…"
"They can't get out."
And for machines devoid of emotion and aesthetic understanding.
To decipher the aesthetics of **"The lone smoke rises straight in the vast desert"**, so full of sensibility and blank space. "It will probably take... tens of thousands of years."
"Let's go." Shen Qingqiu pulled him, heading deeper into the desert.
There, a camel, which had appeared out of nowhere, was ringing its bell, waiting for them.
"Where to?" Seventeen asked.
He glanced back at the sealed battlefield, still filled with a sense of unreality.
"To the end of this painting." Shen Qingqiu pointed to the setting sun.
"Ah Ling said, on the other side of the sunset, there's a... system backdoor."
The two mounted the camel.
The melodious bell echoed through this artificial desert.
Seventeen hugged Shen Qingqiu from behind.
He rested his chin on her shoulder, looking at the breathtaking scenery around them.
"Qingqiu."
"Hmm?"
"If one day, I also become like that data..."
"Would you write me in a poem?"
Shen Qingqiu smiled.
She reached back and touched the red lotus between his brows.
"Fool."
"You don't need to enter the poem."
"Because you..."
She turned her head, and in the blood-red sunset, kissed his lips.
"You are my... most beautiful love poem." Imprisoned in the desert, locked away by gods.
In the first clash of this cold dimensional war.
Shen Qingqiu, with the poetry belonging to human civilization, slapped those high and mighty data beings hard across the face.
Telling them:
Some things can never be calculated by computing power.
Like poetry.
Like... love.