Invisible Planets

Imagining that the political concerns of Chinese writers are the same as what the Western reader would like them to be is at best arrogant and at worst dangerous.

After exiting the basin, they keep on walking, wandering, seeking—finding nothing. They meet others who left the basin before them, but they also are still searching, still traveling, still baffled by the mystery of their own lives

But they remain opaque to each other, unaware that when it comes to time, every one is only measuring the universe using the ruler of their own lifespan

The reason is simple: the two species exist in different frames of time

But then they sigh and shake their heads, realizing that such tiny creatures that are born and die in a single day would be incapable of experiencing real civilization

Thus, the two intelligent species of Amiyachi remain unaware of each other. Neither knows that its civilization’s existence depends on the existence of the other—two sides of the same coin

But they have never realized that they’re both the children called forth by the gods and the gods themselves.

Pea’s real name is Meng Xian. But we all called him “Pea” because one, he was short and skinny like a pea sprout, and two, he was always joking that the friar who experimented with peas, Gregor “Meng-De-Er” Mendel, was his ancestor.

The uniqueness of each planet dis appears over time in this manner, like a fingerprint being rubbed away.

Yes, what you say sounds like Truth. But the world is full of Truths. So what if you have a Truth?