Super Righteous Player
Chapter 1062 - 120 Because I am the Girl Living in the Painting

Chapter 1062: Chapter 120 Because I am the Girl Living in the Painting

"Is that... a living being?"

Annan was somewhat stunned.

This mechanical hand, devoid of any semblance of flesh and blood structure, had somehow obtained life from thin air.

It was not some purely mechanical structure like a clockwork puppet... or rather a "hand puppet." It could move on its own, not because of the gears and springs, nor was it due to the remote control by spells, and it wasn’t even because Yawen had inserted a Simulated Soul.

Rather, it was simply... In the instant that Yawen had "completed" it, it had acquired a new life of its own. Though it was still a bit immature, like a newborn child pure and blank as paper, it had indeed come to exist in this world.

"Can it move even without a soul?"

Annan couldn’t help but ask.

Yawen just glanced at him sideways.

As he put away the carving knife in his hand, he spoke leisurely, "Who decreed that one needs a soul to be considered alive? Or is it that only the type of soul in human form you understand can be deemed a soul?

"In this river of dreamy realms that links countless worlds, is our world the only one with ’living beings’?"

...It seemed it truly was so.

Annan slowly nodded.

Yawen was right.

The souls of mortals are so faint and vacuous as to be almost non-existent, yet they still live normally. They don’t even realize that they don’t possess souls visible enough to be observed.

So, conversely—why must a certain object possess a soul to be recognized as a ’living being’?

Or, what is the distinction between what’s alive and what’s not?

—Is it the presence of flesh and blood? The existence of a soul? The need to breathe? The ability to remember? The capacity to think? The inevitability of death?

At that thought, Annan paused.

He seemed to understand—in what manner the "Paper Princess" had existed when she was still just a painting.

Initially, Annan had thought it was some sort of automatic response program Yawen had pre-set, similar to a desktop pet, reacting to certain phrases with specific responses. Perhaps it was an emulation of a grandmother’s personality, or maybe it conveyed Yawen’s understanding of a grandmother.

But now... with Annan’s newfound understanding of Yawen, he probably wasn’t the sort of person to do that.

It would actually be superfluous for Yawen’s work, and instead, it would add a sense of artifice.

Without surprise, the "Paper Princess" must have acquired her very own life the moment the painting was completed—a life naïve and pure as a blank sheet of paper.

Back then, countless were moved by the love between the Paper Princess and the Dragon, a love that transcended the boundaries of reality and illusion. Some laughed at the Dragon’s ephemeral romance. But everyone—including the previous Annan—believed that until the Paper Princess made full use of the Book of Truth’s power to transform completely into a deity, she "didn’t truly exist."

After all, before the painting came into the Dragon’s possession, it had passed through many hands. Deities, Dragons, Elves...

Among them were Transcendents of the Gold rank or clergy members of bishop level or higher, and even True Gods other than the grandmother. They could certainly tell that this "enchanted painting" that could move, roar, and attack those outside the painting didn’t contain any sealed soul or divine intellect.

It had a set of limited and fixed "scripts" to which it could respond to certain actions. These rules all corresponded as if pre-set by Yawen.

At that time, everyone thought it was just an enchanted item that could be described as a "magic painting."

However, for two hundred years, the Dragon called Pygmalion Gladeni hardly ever left his cave. He was obsessively watching the Silver Dragon in the painting fly and chatting with it in draconic language.

In order to sustain a living, he, as a Dragon, no longer hoarded treasure but sold off his collected trove—only because he worried the painting would "feel lonely."

He even proclaimed he wanted to spend the rest of his life with this painting.

Even the Silver Baron felt Pygmalion had become frenzied to a somewhat mad degree. Not to mention his draconic kin... many tried to persuade him, but Pygmalion drove them all away. There were those who questioned Yawen if he had created a painting that could bewitch hearts, but Yawen did not respond.

Looking back now...

Perhaps everyone was wrong, including the Silver Baron.

Only "Pygmalion Gladeni" was correct.

Even though the original Paper Princess had no soul, no intellect, she truly was alive. The astoundingly considerate Dragon, unlike any of his predecessors... He genuinely sensed the painting’s confusion and loneliness and did not regard it as a painting, but as a friend.

In this process, they had already fallen in love.

Even without a physical body, a soul, or intellect... even perhaps without memory. Love could still be born.

The distance between two hearts merely needed to grow closer.

Since the Paper Princess could not change her behavior, the Dragon endeavored to alter his own soul.

No matter how the Dragon confessed or expressed his love, his responses were only ever predetermined; and no matter how fervent the love in Paper Princess’ heart, she could only speak the lines "she was supposed to."

In this mechanical-feeling dialogue that, in reality, never actually took place; in this gaze filled with love but with invariably irrelevant replies... hidden were two equally burning hearts that could never meet.

In that moment, Annan seemed to see on both sides of the screen, fingertip to fingertip, two people touching as if through a mirror.

Irrespective of which side was real, which reflected.

—In the end, only one could leave the mirror.

Pygmalion Gladeni did not eventually use the power of "Illusion and Reality" to turn the non-existent Paper Princess from "illusion" into reality.

Even though later, when questioned by other deities, Paper Princess always answered with a tender, nostalgic smile, affirming it was the sacrifice made by Pygmalion... but this too was her love for the Dragon.

In fact, she had already truly existed before that...!

"... I see."

Annan blurted out, "So Pygmalion was..."

He had been enraged by his own Book of Truth!

"Illusion and Reality" had told the Dragon, "The Paper Princess is false, she does not exist." And the Book of Truth’s power could blur the absolute boundary between illusion and reality, making the Paper Princess into "an illusion infinitely close to reality."

But...

Another doubt emerged in Annan’s mind.

Yawen seemed to have guessed Annan’s thoughts.

The elder spoke unhurriedly, "Are you wondering why the Book of Truth could be wrong?"

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