Gano watched as Xi Yujin wrote down Jung on the form. He observed Xi Yujin's expression and found nothing unusual. Mentally, he revised a piece of knowledge, from "Blue Planet humans with split personalities undergo drastic personality changes" to "Yujinno can freely control personality switching."

When they returned to Tidal Peace, Xi Yujin suddenly asked, "Are you curious about my personalities? Which one do you think is the best?"

Gano didn't quite understand, but he followed his heart. "The one who spends time with me."

He thought about it, but still couldn't picture how personality switching worked for Blue Planet humans. His capacity for abstract reasoning was limited. Noticing that Yujinno kept watching him, he grew inexplicably anxious and could only describe it in simple terms: "I think Yujinno's other personalities are like online friends to me. I can understand the meaning of our conversations, but they're only one facet of a person. Yujinno is different. You're someone I actually spend time with, someone who makes different choices as circumstances change... a real person. Yujinno?"

He saw Xi Yujin smile.

Gano couldn't subjectively distinguish others' emotions, but he could precisely detect every shift in body language. He would then cross-reference the Zerg data archive to assess the likelihood of deception. He knew that Yujinno sometimes wore a kind but false smile. Smiles were powerful tools for masking emotion, but the data now indicated that Yujinno was... genuinely happy.

His heartbeat raced because of this.

"Jung is a serious and conscientious woman," Xi Yujin introduced his new persona. "She passed a large-scale civil service examination and now works in Blue Planet's Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

He had chosen this name because it sounded related to "Jung's Sixteen Types Test" and "personality assessment forms." This persona's role was to deal with data organization and spreadsheets all day.

"I have many split personalities, but I only let them out when I'm alone. Otherwise, I might suddenly lose control and hurt bystanders for no reason."

Xi Yujin blinked, feeling that his public image was becoming more frightening each day. But that didn't matter. What mattered was:

"The one who's been with you has always been me."

Gano nodded thoughtfully.

Outside the window, the sounds of passing alien creatures echoed now and then. Inside Tidal Peace, two beings sat shoulder to shoulder as Xi Yujin shared his new persona's work with his companion: Travelling with Ctulrt.

It was a collection of short stories set during the era of first contact between civilizations, totaling just over 200,000 characters. Xi Yujin had four asteroid Typing Machines, so he finished it quickly. Gano handled bilingual translation and proofreading with the help of his armor that carried millions of years' worth of Zerg archives, which was more than sufficient for the task.

In Travelling with Ctulrt, Earth's technology had grown increasingly advanced, yet many phenomena still contradicted classical physics. Individuals from various fields, through twists of fate, found themselves investigating inexplicable phenomena or strange tales. They discovered that behind everything lurked traces of Gods, which were beings from the depths of the universe who had existed longer than Earth itself.

Unpredictable. Incomprehensible. Unlike the Gods of mythology, they possessed no human emotions. They have merely passed through humanity’s fleeting span of time.

Some ignorant humans tried to pry into these Gods, producing endless tomes of research and performing sacrificial rituals, muttering piously day after day. But the Gods showed no mercy to their believers. They regarded them as insects that could be casually crushed underfoot.

Some rational people attempted to study the Gods, only to be increasingly aware of the vast gulf between humanity and these beings. This awakened primal biological fear, and the knowledge beyond the limits of the human mind shattered their sanity.

Those who had gone completely mad were confined in asylums, endlessly muttering: "Don't look at It! Don't look at It! Ctulrt is coming!"

From beginning to end, the Ctulrt never fully manifested in physical form.

What people glimpsed were only clusters of iridescent eyes, featherless wings shaped from mud, and slick, massive tentacles that induced a strange drowsiness.

Xi Yujin emphasized the concept of the investigator throughout the book, laying the groundwork for future creations.

After finishing and proofreading the manuscript several times, Xi Yujin began producing the physical book. A book meant for diplomacy couldn't just be sent as an electronic file. It needed to be a printed copy.

"Could I chip a little diamond off myself?"

Xi Yujin stared at the mineral cutting machine as he let his thoughts wander again.

"If I cut off a piece of myself, theoretically, the star would fill the gap with other elements. Then I'd become... an impure diamond man!"

His imagination spiraled wilder and wilder as he gazed thoughtfully at the cutting machine.

Gano happened to pass by and overheard Xi Yujin's muttering and finally believed the rumor that Xi Yujin would go mad when alone.

A little... worried...

Gano promptly fetched the premium stardust ore that the Flash Empire had gifted them. It was only the size of a briefcase, but it was enough to dissuade Xi Yujin from cutting himself.

Using the cutting machine, they sliced the ore into thin sheets, then used other tools to polish, emboss, and color them, forging various fake Blue Planet official documents. Xi Yujin stamped each one with his mental power seal. Finally, they packaged everything in Tidal Peace's most luxurious gift box.

The hardcover edition of Travelling with Ctulrt was complete!

The cover felt like jade, while the pages had a distinctive rough texture. The title page read:

"Presented to the friendly civilization, Ctulrt.

An authorized work by Blue Planet's official novelist, Jung."

The first half of the main text was in modern Chinese characters, while the second half was the translation.

Xi Yujin admired his work for a while, then moved on to the next project.

Travelling with Ctulrt was merely an introduction. What he truly wanted was a collaborative creation with an alien species.

The book drew inspiration from Earth's Cthulhu Mythos. It wasn't the work of a single author, but rather by many enthusiasts who had contributed over time, enriching it with popular fan-created lore.

United by love for a shared worldview and guided by certain conventions, numerous enthusiasts engaged in collective creation and built a richly detailed universe together. The interplay of imaginations between people, constructing a rich and detailed worldview, was utterly captivating.

However, literary exchange with alien civilizations involves diplomacy. Since Yujin was currently banned from writing and Xi Yujin didn't want to miss the opportunity, his second diplomatic persona, Jung, was born.

After working for most of the day, Xi Yujin produced a simplified prototype of a tabletop game derived from Travelling with Ctulrt. He named it The Investigator Files.

He packaged the tabletop game with the physical book and presented it to the Ctulrt.

"The Blue Planet's official novelist writes incredibly fast! Their talent pool must be formidable. We should be more cautious in our future diplomatic policies."

Inside a disc-shaped spacecraft, several Ctulrt carefully received the package. Xi Yujin and his group had only stayed briefly before leaving to explore elsewhere, much to the Ctulrt's regret that they hadn’t offered better hospitality.

These Ctulrt were diplomatic officers of their species. They had been traveling for a long time, responsible for transmitting observations and data back to their home world to enrich their species' database.

When the topic of official novelists came up, they were all somewhat displeased. It was well known that novelists detested rigid, assigned themes, so official novelists across civilizations tended to be rather mediocre. Yet, official novelists were vital: they oversaw cultural exchanges, filtered out novels harmful to their species, organized outstanding literature, and provided psychological support to physically weaker kin. For a species to survive in this wondrous universe, it needed a literary foundation of its own.

"Our official novelist has done their best," said the leading Ctulrt. "Let us see what our Blue Planet friends have written."

They carefully lifted the cover with their tentacles and scanned the contents into their database.

Their many eyes processed the information simultaneously, creating a moment of silence.

The first story, The Superstitious Village, tells the tale of a telecommunications engineer who quit her job and returned to the countryside. Her house needed renovating, so she stayed at the village chief's home for a few days.

The chief was very hospitable, entertaining her with strange tales every day and showing her clippings of bizarre stories from various newspapers. But as days passed, peculiar things began happening in the village.

The protagonist witnessed a rooster suddenly swell up, growing as large as a table. Its feathers became sparse, revealing pink skin with visible pores. Its head was squeezed between its bloated body, and then, it exploded with a bang.

She fainted by the roadside.

When she woke, there was no rooster and nothing unusual. But unease filled her heart. She investigated everywhere and listened carefully to the village chief. He said that beings older and greater than humanity existed in this world, and they would eventually wake up.

She explored the village and discovered a group of chickens and ducks bled to death and arranged in strange poses on a circular slab, like some kind of ritual. She also heard that a villager couldn't sleep at night due to electrical sounds. Using her professional knowledge, she checked the wiring and recorded the mysterious sounds at night.

She succeeded. She heard the calls of many men, women, and children, and a single name: Ctulrt. Then she discovered that the tea the village chief's family served her every day contained sleeping pills.

She immediately fled the chief's house and went to her own house, planning to pack up and leave. But the chief realized that she escaped, so he called several villagers to block her door with stone slabs.

It turns out that the chief had long since brainwashed all the villagers. They were going to perform a dark ritual to awaken their God, and she was the sacrifice.

That night, she was hungry and thirsty, but her cries were unanswered. Then, she saw firelight outside. A cold sensation crawled over her body as she felt herself floating, then falling.

In her eyes, the villagers had become unrecognizable. Everyone's skin had turned pink, their pores enlarged and coarse, with fine dark hairs sprouting from within.

In the frenzy of the ritual, she suddenly thought of an escape plan. She triggered a dust explosion in a small space to distract the villagers, and then ran into the forest. Just when she thought she was saved, the village suddenly went silent.

She looked back and saw a mound of clay rise high, emitting a nauseating stench. The monstrous shape grew taller and taller, like a shadow from outer space, and the rustling sounds grew denser. Finally, she tumbled down the slope and fainted again.

 

[

When I woke up, the village had been destroyed by a mudslide, and a kind passerby had taken me to the hospital. Remembering that night's shadow, I shuddered involuntarily. What was that thing? Was it truly good for humanity to know of Its existence? So when someone asked how I survived, I lied and said I forgot everything. I even pretended to be mad for a while.

Later, I rushed back to the city to work. Work was repetitive, monotonous, and meaningless as always. But from this meaninglessness, I found a strange peace. Life itself has no inherent meaning. Those people clamoring about adjusting their time off have perspectives as pitifully blank as paper. They don't understand that the world needs certain bad habits to conceal certain unknowable truths.

Looking at the numb faces of workers on the assembly line, I suddenly felt they were terribly unfamiliar.

Could it be... that they had the same thoughts as I do?

 ]

 

"What an extraordinary combination!"

The Ctulrt commented.

"Setting the story during Civilization Contact and using the vast technological gap between two civilizations to portray the terror of another civilization, how unexpected!"

"Now we can truly understand how we appear to outsiders..." Another Ctulrt rubbed its tentacles together ceaselessly. "And there's no detailed description of us at all. Instead, it uses strange rituals, phenomena that defy common sense, and unsettling psychological states to build the atmosphere. That kind of half-veiled presentation keeps readers tense while stirring their curiosity; they can hardly wait to see the full picture. Yet that very impossibility of seeing the whole is the essence of it. Living beings are always driven to explore the unknown. Creations rooted in the unknown are the ones that ignite the imagination to its fullest potential."

"Blue Planet can even excavate archaeological data from the Isolated Planet era? If so, their capabilities are terrifying..."

"Wonderful! I love how the humans spin all kinds of eerie theories just from a few scattered phenomena. Human imagination is remarkable, even though other civilizations don't care in the slightest. The universe is chaotic and terrifying; their peace exists only by chance... It reminds me of our own difficult past. This official novelist is called Jung? I hope we can have a miraculous encounter with her someday!"

The diplomatic officers shared their impressions one after another.

One Ctulrt noticed that the Blue Planet included something else and curiously opened it.

This time, every one of its eyes stared without blinking.

It let out a low, complex growl of layered frequencies. "By the stars... Blue Planet has also given us something extravagant!! They've sent a high-level text derivative!!"

What it held was the tabletop game Xi Yujin had created: The Investigator Files.

Games, films, and comics certainly existed in this universe, but the mental energy they provided was inferior to that of pure text novels. Because they enhanced visual immediacy, lowered comprehension barriers, and greatly increased interactivity, they were classified as "high-level text derivatives."

The typical production method involved a novelist supplying the pure text, while non-typical text workers adapt it into derivative works. Even Universe Edge Radio was a type of derivative.

Xi Yujin, lacking common sense, had treated The Investigator Files as a bonus gift. But to the Ctulrt, this simple tabletop game was the true highlight. Among advanced civilizations, skilled novelists were few. Qualified non-typical text workers were even fewer. Moreover, those who could successfully collaborate were even rarer.

They flipped through it with curiosity. The instructions stated that this was a role-playing tabletop game based on The Superstitious Village. If the Ctulrt were interested, they could pursue detailed discussions with Blue Planet afterward.

"Of course we're interested."

The Ctulrt carefully read the rules. The Investigator Files included a die, a story map, a scenario booklet, and a rulebook.

The game required one Keeper and several Investigators.

The Keeper knew the full plot, while the Investigators only knew the background.

Before the game began, each Investigator would assign their character's attribute points, such as stamina, beauty, and intelligence, and choose a profession.

"Then I'm definitely maxing out my beauty stats," one Ctulrt declared solemnly.

Once the game began, Investigators could act however they wanted. After each action, the Keeper would describe the consequences based on their knowledge of the full plot and their own imagination. If an Investigator performed a special action, such as encountering forbidden knowledge, fighting, or fleeing, a dice check was required. Rolling above a certain number meant success; rolling below meant failure, and something bad would happen to the character.

In the end, if the Investigators uncovered the truth and survived, they won.

"This is a form of multiplayer real-time collaborative creation!" one Ctulrt exclaimed as it grasped its essence. "Look: the Investigator players create actions based on the setting, while the Keeper uses imagination to narrate the consequences. Both sides only know half the picture. Their combined imaginations construct a complete exploration narrative, and with the random element of dice, every session can turn out entirely differently."

"Enough talking. Why don't we just try it?"

The Ctulrt fetched non-corrosive chairs, sat in a circle, and decided to experience it firsthand.

Without exception, they all chose characters with maximum beauty, which meant very low stamina. At the start, everyone scattered impulsively: some rushed straight into the forest, others tried to swap houses with neighbors. These deviations from the original story put the Keeper in a difficult spot, but it quickly improvised consequences based on dice results. Those who entered the forest immediately discovered the dead chickens; those who tried swapping houses failed and got kicked out.

When a chase sequence began, the Investigators' low stamina ended the game prematurely. The Keeper gleefully narrated the outcome of this particular investigation:

"And thus... the three Investigators sank forever into a foreign land... Hey! This story is fantastic! It should be recorded in The Investigator Files to warn future Investigators. Now I know what these blank notebooks are for."

"My character was too beautiful, so she got poisoned and disfigured. But then she was too ugly, so the villagers couldn't find her during the chase... It makes no logical sense, but that lack of logic is part of the fun!"

"So fun! I want to make a new character next time. I hope luck would be on my side and all my rolls result in critical successes!"

The diplomatic officers played until they lost all track of time. But they didn't forget their Blue Planet's friendship. Overjoyed, they composed letters to their home world, ready to send them at the next stop.

"I have an idea..." said the Ctulrt who had acted as Keeper.

"This game is tremendously engaging, and it even helps develop writing ability. So why not add more stories set during the Civilization Contact era? The Blue Planet humans are still waiting for our reply."

The diplomatic officers recognized the potential for deeper collaboration. They switched back into work mode and began discussing how to cooperate on different stories.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. It was a member of a species on close terms with the Ctulrt. It was stationed on the Navigator Colossus for duty and often dropped by during its free time.

"Youyu, it's a pleasure to see you!" a Ctulrt greeted as it spread its tentacles. "Blue Planet gifted us a diplomatic literature and a high-level text derivative, too! You really should take a look."

"Made by an official novelist?" Youyu was also a multi-tentacled species, though less conspicuously so. As long as it kept its mouth closed, it looked like a fairly normal alien. It sounded uninterested. "Spare me. Aren't diplomatic books always more form than substance? How interesting could it possibly be?"

"This time it's really different. Just try it..."

 

—

 

Inside Tidal Peace.

Xi Yujin created a personal page for his new persona, Jung, labeled EARTH:006. He added the official blue verification badge and composed numerous reposts:

 

[

"Blue Planet's Crown District is recruiting nearly 120 talents! Helping solve university graduate employment issues."

"Chromosphere District establishes 'Decoding Texts, Reviving Ancient Words' initiative: preserving the language of history, advancing toward future civilization."

"Official Novelist Year-End Work Summary: With Dreams as Our Steeds, We Lived Up to Our Youth."

]

 

Every repost included a fabricated link. Any alien netizen who clicked it would only see: "This content is not available in your current black box service region."

"Now this looks like a proper official novelist," Xi Yujin said, very satisfied with the page.

Under personal works, he listed: "Diplomatic volume, Travelling with Ctulrt, tabletop game The Investigator Files." Any future collaborative creations would also be led by Jung.

Moreover, Jung's personality was serious and upright, so she wouldn't leave casual comments.

As for her personal relationships, he'd figure that out when creating new personas later.

Xi Yujin thought about it and decided to divide his personas into two camps: official novelists and freelance novelists. Official novelists were selected through large-scale examinations, and their creative content was restricted after selection. The two camps were subtly at odds, which saved Xi Yujin the effort of inventing detailed exchanges between them. Conveniently, Yujin himself held two real-world identities: Blue Planet diplomat and Reader's Digest editor-in-chief.

Xi Yujin continued organizing the anonymous water army* accounts he'd previously used, grouping those with similar personalities together. This way, he could directly adopt them when needed for new online personas in the future.

He immersed himself in writing, filling the pits for both personas, and lost track of time.

It wasn't until Gano came looking for him out of concern that he decided to relax and enjoy himself.

"I heard we'll be passing through a beautiful nebula. Is there a suitable sightseeing ship?" Xi Yujin asked, opened the temporary chatroom, and discovered the screen scrolling rapidly with messages:

"Where's the Ctulrt ship? Our diplomatic officers went to the Peace Hall and couldn't find them. We want to experience real-time collaborative creation too!"

"I'm telling you, playing right next to the Ctulrt gives you an incredibly immersive feel. You know what I mean..."

"Someone tell me where the Blue Planet diplomat is! This was apparently a diplomatic gift!"

"Where is Blue Planet?"