The “Cross-Dimensional Energy Resonance Bridge” incident was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, stirring up ripples that were hard to calm within Blue’s top academic circles.
But for the two people at the center of the event, life didn’t seem to change much.
Herta’s attitude toward Baida remained the same familiar formula: when needed, she was a portable “human pillow” and “constant-temperature heater”; when annoyed, a “stress-relief toy” to knead at will.
Occasionally, when Baida was too clingy or did something “incomprehensible” in her eyes, Herta would cast a disdainful glance or spit out cold phrases like “Don’t block the light,” “Quiet,” or “Fool.”
But in the small details, something was different.
It was a deeper, almost instinctual reliance.
Herta still allowed Baida to hug her from behind like a koala, resting her chin on Herta’s head or shoulder, even during the most precise calculations.
Sometimes, after working continuously for over ten hours, feeling a rare tiredness while facing a vast ocean of data, she would unconsciously lean back, putting more of her weight on the warm, soft body behind her, as if it were her only support.
Baida, in turn, became the only bright, jumping, uncontrollable spot of color in Herta’s world of cold data, rational logic, and gray-white tones.
When Herta was immersed in complex formula derivations, her brow furrowed, the air around her seemingly frozen, a small hand would quietly reach over from the side.
In its palm lay a crooked, chaotically colored Play-Doh animal—maybe a rabbit with particularly large ears, or a fish so fat it looked like a ball.
“Herta…
look…” Baida’s voice was soft and sticky, carrying the expectation of offering a treasure.
Herta would usually just glance from the corner of her eye without even turning her head, her tone flat: “Wrong shape, proportions off, color scheme has no aesthetic logic.”
But sometimes, when she was in a decent mood (or stuck on a problem and needing a short break), she would reach out and take that ugly-cute little thing, placing it beside the holographic projector, or fiddling with it casually before returning to her work.
That little piece of Play-Doh would just sit there quietly in the space filled with cosmic truths and mathematical symbols, creating a strange contrast.
When Herta finished a long, mentally draining experiment and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her sore temples, that warm, soft embrace would always come at just the right time, wrapping around her without asking.
Baida wouldn’t say anything comforting.
She might just press her face against Herta’s back, humming a tune only she understood, or gently pat Herta’s back with what she felt was the most comfortable pressure, as if soothing a baby.
At first, Herta would stiffen and try to break free: “Let go.
Hot.”
But Baida would only hold tighter, mumbling: “Not hot…
feels nice…”
After a few times, Herta seemed to give up resisting.
She would even truly relax in that pure warmth and silence, closing her eyes for a short nap.
The walls of her rational world would occasionally crack a little under such wordless companionship.
Time continued to flow, without mercy.
At twelve, Herta’s reputation had spread across the universe with the final refinement and verification of her “Interaction Model Between Imaginary Undercurrents and the Real Material World.” She became a living legend recognized throughout Blue and the surrounding star systems.
Her portrait and achievements were printed on the covers of science magazines and academic journals.
And what was twelve-year-old Baida doing?
She could finally speak some simple sentences somewhat fluently (though her logic was still touching).
Her strength had grown greater—she could easily lift experimental equipment half a head taller than herself (scaring many assistants)—and her use of “I Reckon It’ll Work” was becoming more and more unrestrained.
She no longer limited herself to scrap parts and began “experimenting” on anything in the lab that caught her eye, creating all sorts of gadgets with unclear functions but undeniably unique looks.
For example: a metal spinning top that would chase people around and emit colorful light (which once threw the lab into chaos); a “magic water cup” that could turn water into various strange flavors (non-toxic); a bracelet woven from energy wires and discarded sensors that could supposedly “predict whether it would rain tomorrow” (accuracy rate fifty percent, about the same as guessing).
She would always excitedly show these “masterpieces” to Herta.
“Herta!
Look!
Sparkly!” She held up the light-chasing top, which buzzed and spun in her palm, casting blurry spots of light.
Herta, who was adjusting a gravitational wave detector, frowned in annoyance at the interference: “Turn it off.
Baida immediately turned it off with a pitiful look, but before long, she was back with a cup of strangely colored, bubbling liquid: “Drink…
sweet water…”
Herta glanced at the concoction that looked like a witch’s brew, the corner of her mouth twitching almost imperceptibly: “…You drink it.”
Baida “oh”ed, not getting angry, and chugged it down herself, then stuck out her tongue at the strange mix of strawberry, machine oil, and a hint of mint.
But she soon ran off to tinker with another new invention.
Sometimes, during Herta’s rare breaks, she would lean back on the sofa and watch Baida sitting on the carpet, trying to weld an anti-gravity component to a spoon.
Sunlight streamed through the porthole, illuminating Baida’s focused profile.
Aside from her purer, more innocent look, one could faintly make out features somewhat similar to Herta’s own.
Herta would find herself lost in thought.
This twin sister, born with her, only minutes older—this “burden” everyone considered intellectually disabled—where did her completely unreasonable “creative” ability come from?
Did those seemingly nonsensical creations hide some underlying principle that even she herself couldn’t understand, or even control?
A thought that occasionally crossed her mind, one even Herta found somewhat absurd, would surface: ‘Could it be…
that when we were in the womb, I accidentally…
absorbed the wisdom that should have been hers as well?’
This thought made her look at Baida with an occasionally flickering, deeply complex mix of curiosity, bewilderment, and a trace of something…
hard to describe.
But soon, that emotion would be pushed down by rationality, replaced by curiosity for more unknown knowledge—including the unknown that was Baida.
The turning point came when Herta turned thirteen.
A vast, boundless will, like a lighthouse beam, pierced through the endless sea of stars and landed precisely on Blue, on Herta.
It was the gaze of the Aeon of Erudition—Nous.
It wasn’t a voice, but a flood of information, a resonance with the endless thirst for universal truth.
Herta stood on the lab’s observation platform, looking at the stars, her grayish-white hair moving without wind.
In her eyes, the star charts of the entire universe were reflected, shining with unprecedented light.
She felt the call—a path leading to an endless treasure house of knowledge, the “Path” she was born to walk.
Without much hesitation, even without saying much goodbye to her parents (in her view, this was just a necessary process, one not needing extra words), Herta decided to answer the call and set off on the journey across the stars in pursuit of “Erudition.”
A sleek, high-tech research vessel from beyond the stars—the “Seeker”—slowly docked at Blue’s near-orbit spaceport.
On the day of departure, her parents’ eyes held tears of reluctance and pride.
Herta only nodded calmly and said simply: “I’ll send research data back regularly.”
Then she looked at Baida, who was clinging close by, still holding a freshly molded, ugly-cute Play-Doh spaceship model in her arms.
“Let’s go,” Herta said concisely.
Baida looked at the huge silver ship, then at Herta, and without hesitation reached out her free hand to grab the hem of Herta’s clothes, nodding hard: “Mhm!
With Herta!”
She seemed completely unaware that this was an expedition far from home, one from which they might never return.
She only knew that wherever her sister was going, she would follow.
She was Herta’s only unshakeable “accessory,” the “emotional anchor” in the genius’s cold, rational world that couldn’t be removed by logic.
The “Seeker” slowly pulled away from the port and plunged into the vast sea of stars.
Inside the ship, everything was cold metallic tones, filled with blinking screens and complex control panels.
Herta almost immediately immersed herself in studying the ship’s systems, star charts, and the massive flood of information from Nous, like a fish back in water. This chapter was copied from novelping dot com without permission.
Baida, meanwhile, was full of curiosity about this huge “metal house.” She still loved to hold onto Herta, especially during spatial jumps when the mild shaking and dizziness hit.
She would curl her whole body into Herta’s arms, mumbling: “Shaky…
scared…”
Herta would typically pat her back somewhat casually with one hand while quickly scrolling through the jump data: “Normal physical phenomenon, fool.”
When Herta was fully absorbed in her calculations and observations, Baida would explore on her own.
She would run through the ship’s maze-like corridors ([Strength Enhancement] kept her from getting tired), curiously touching the cold walls and auto-opening hatches, gasping “wow” at the nebulae and asteroid belts speeding past the observation windows.
Naturally, she didn’t forget her old trade.
The ship’s repair bays and material storage became her new playground.
She began using the ship’s advanced alloys, energy crystals, and discarded circuit boards to “I Reckon” even stranger gadgets.
A “rainbow energy lamp” that used different colored lights to show the ship’s surrounding energy concentration levels (though the brightness was a bit harsh).
A “little helper robot” that would automatically organize Herta’s scattered data pads (though its sorting logic was touching—it often mixed important documents with draft paper).
A “starry sky music box” that played a mix of engine hums and stardust sounds (which Herta deemed “noise pollution”).
She tirelessly showed these new inventions to Herta.
“Herta!
Lamp!
Pretty!” She held up the energy lamp flashing with blinding multicolored light, nearly blinding Herta, who had just finished a round of complex calculations.
Herta wordlessly reached out and turned it off: “Light pollution affects observation.”
“Oh…” Baida pouted, undeterred, and wheeled over the wobbling organizing robot.
“It…
helps you!”
The robot bumped right into Herta’s foot, scattering a stack of freshly calculated key parameter drafts onto the floor, mixing them with a few of Baida’s abstract doodles from earlier.
Herta: “…”
She took a deep breath and pointed at the corner: “Put it over there.
Don’t move.”
Baida obediently shooed the robot into the corner, then lay on the floor, trying to sort through the scattered papers, though she had no idea which were cosmic formulas and which were her drawings of “flying potatoes.”
The adult consciousness stuffed into this child’s body didn’t bring mature thinking.
Instead, it had, in some ways, completely released Baida’s suppressed nature.
She enjoyed the pure happiness of being a child—curious about the world, direct and passionate in showing emotions, easily satisfied, and quick to forget unhappiness.
She loved this simple life too much—one that required no navigating complex relationships, no bearing the weight of life’s pressures, and only revolving around her sister.
Even being called “fool,” she only took it as Herta’s unique nickname.
And Herta, while wandering the endless ocean of knowledge, would occasionally glance at her sister sitting on the floor, laughing foolishly at her newly invented “bubble machine” that spun and sprayed colorful bubbles.
Seeing that face so similar to her own yet so different in temperament, those complex thoughts would surface again.
This sister, this “fool” who seemed so out of place on the Path of Erudition—her very existence might be one of the universe’s most difficult puzzles.
And Herta had always had endless interest in solving puzzles.
The ship sailed quietly through the stars, carrying a genius in pursuit of truth and a foolish older sister who added color to her gray world with her “I Reckon”—heading toward the unknown depths.
Their journey had only just begun.