Silent Ark

Chapter 39: The Mysterious Taxi

After the change was completed, the person sitting in the driver's seat was no longer a middle-aged taxi driver.

He is a young man.

She looked to be in her early twenties.

Black hair.

Green eyes.

There's a captivating charm in his smile that makes you unable to trust him—not an evil charm, but the kind of charm that makes you want to see what he's going to do next, even though you know he's lying to you.

"My name is Loki," he said. "The future king of Asgard... well, you can call me diplomat."

Yao Chong stared at him for two seconds.

"A diplomat?" he repeated. "Have you ever seen a diplomat who drives a taxi?"

"That's a disguise," Loki said. "Asgardian diplomacy doesn't need embassies; what we need is—contact."

"Is the way you make contact through soliciting work?"

"You're up here, aren't you?"

Yao Chong's heart rate reached 110.

"You're gambling," Yao Chong said.

"Who told you that?"

“Nobody told me,” Yao Chong said. “But you just said ‘you have no allies’—how do you know we have no allies?”

"Unless you've been observing all along, and the person who's been observing is either a participant in the betting or the house. Obviously, you're not the house; the house won't come to drive a taxi themselves."

Loki stared at Yao Chong for three seconds.

Then he laughed.

It's not the charming smile of the past—it's a genuine smile that comes from a kind of joyful emotion.

"Interesting," Loki said. "Father has chosen a fine prospect."

"Odin chose me too?"

"Of course, the one-eyed old man is best at judging people. He's interested in you not because you're strong—maybe you have some talent, but you're not really strong, at least not right now. He's interested in you because your probability cloud is off."

"What do you mean?"

"The existence of a normal person collapses upon observation—whether they are alive or dead is certain. Yours does not; your probability cloud will unfold again after it collapses."

Loki tilted his head, as if observing an interesting experimental phenomenon.

"Like Schrödinger's cat—but that cat died and came back to life, died and came back to life, and it didn't even know it."

"It means—"

Loki's body suddenly froze.

It wasn't a voluntary freeze.

It is held in place by some external force.

Like an insect sealed in resin—it can still breathe and think, but it is completely unable to move.

Outside the car window, a crack appeared in the gray sky.

It's not a crack in the physical sense—it's a crack in color.

A line of gold appeared amidst the gray and white.

It's not the gold of the sun, but an older, purer gold, like the gold of a concept before flame was defined as "flame".

A voice came from the crack.

It's not a sound.

It's a vibration.

The energy traveled up from the car chassis, through the seats, through Yao Chong's spine, and resonated within his skull.

"Let go."

Two words.

But the weight of those two words caused the entire car—including the Rocky, Yao Chong, seats, steering wheel, and dashboard—to sink three centimeters.

Loki's vertical pupils contracted into a line.

"...Wukong." He whispered, but Yao Chong didn't hear him.

The mischievous pleasure in the voice disappeared.

Instead, a complex emotion arose—not fear, not anger, but a kind of helplessness that "you've ruined it again."

The roof of the car was ripped off.

It wasn't opened—it was lifted up.

Like opening a can.

The entire roof, along with the frame, was torn off from above by a hand—a hairy, golden giant hand with fingers thicker than Yao Chong's thigh.

Sunlight streamed in.

It's not normal sunlight.

It's the kind of sunlight that makes even the gray sky retreat, sunlight that carries warmth and weight.

A monkey is standing above a hole in the roof of the car.

It is not a "monkey-like creature".

It's a monkey.

Golden fur.

Amber eyes.

Wearing something on his head—no, he wasn't wearing anything on his head at all.

But Yao Chong could sense that there should have been something there before—the golden hoop hadn't disappeared.

It no longer needs to be seen. If this golden monkey is indeed Sun Wukong from mythology, the physical golden headband was removed after he became the Victorious Fighting Buddha.

But once it joins the Western Paradise system, its rules are also an invisible golden hoop, which has become one with the existence of this monkey, like the relationship between bones and muscles—you can't see the bones alone, but you know they are there.

"Didn't you hear me, Old Sun, say let go?" the monkey said.

His voice wasn't loud.

But each word is like a small sun, leaving a brief, scorching echo in the air.

Loki's finger twitched.

Then there's the wrist.

Then the whole arm—like river water slowly thawing beneath the ice.

He moved his neck, making a crisp sound.

"You shouldn't have meddled; you weren't in the game," Loki said.

"I don't need to be in the gambling game." The monkey squatted on the edge of the hole in the roof of the car, tilting his head to look at Loki—at that angle, his fiery eyes reflected seven colors in the sunlight. "Gambling games are for you idle beings; I can't be bothered to gamble."

"Not gambling? Then what are you doing here?"

"Come and take the person," said the monkey.

His gaze shifted from Loki to Yao Chong.

Yao Chong stared at those fiery eyes for 0.3 seconds.

0.3 seconds.

In those 0.3 seconds, Yao Chong saw it—it wasn't a hallucination.

It's not a superpower.

It's not visual pollution.

It's a feeling of being completely seen through.

It's not about being analyzed, dissected, or evaluated—it's about being seen.

To be seen completely, without any prejudice, as naturally as looking at a flower.

That feeling made Yao Chong's eyes sting.

It was because it was the first time he had felt safe—after experiencing the Eye of the Abyss, the Decameron, and the death of Chen Dunli.

"Hey kid, come with me," the monkey said.

"Where to?"

"Go where you're supposed to go," said the golden monkey. "Not Asgard, not Olympus, not anywhere marked on your human maps. Go to... well, how should I put it."

He scratched his head.

"Go to a place where the laws of physics still apply."

"I don't need it—"

"You need it," the monkey said.

His tone suddenly became serious—not just serious, but earnest.

It's like an adult telling a child, "It's raining outside, take an umbrella."

"You have something from Chen Dunli on you. That thing is still quite unstable. You need to stay in a place with a strong foundation of physical laws until it stabilizes."

"Chen Dunli's things?"

Yao Chong's voice changed.

It wasn't fear—it was the pain of having something he thought he had dealt with suddenly torn open again.

"You think it's over just because he's dead?" The monkey jumped down from the hole in the roof of the car and landed next to Yao Chong.

When it landed, the ground cracked around its edge—not from violence, but because the ground made way for it, like a crowd giving way to someone it respects.

"Eden absorbed the old man's consciousness. But Eden couldn't fully digest him—his code is still in the core registry, like a thorn stuck in a corner of the system, occasionally leaking a little bit out. And what leaked out just happened to land on you."