Chapter 9 Chapter nine

Arthur felt a little bewildered.The entire universe was right in front of him, and he didn't know if it would be too awkward for him to complain.But he just felt that two things were missing: the world he was born in and the woman he loved. God damn it.He thought so, and felt that he needed a little guidance and advice.He took it out.He found the "Guide", which said "See Advice".He found "advice" and it said "see directions".It's been coming in this way a lot lately, and Arthur figured maybe that's about it. He went to the outer east of the galaxy, because it was said that wisdom and truth could be found there.Especially on a planet called Havelius, which is full of oracles, prophets, seers, and pizzerias—you know, the vast majority of people in this business can't cook.

However, this planet seems to have encountered some misfortune.Arriving at the most famous concentration of prophets, Arthur wandered the streets of the village, only to detect an air of despondency. He saw a prophet closing his shop and was very depressed, so he went up to ask why. "No one comes to us any more," the man replied gruffly.He took a plank across the window of the hut and began to drive nails into it. "Oh why?" "Hold that end, and I'll show you." Arthur held on to the unfinished end of the board, and the old prophet hurried into his dark hut, and after a while he took out his sub-ether radio.He turned on the radio, tuned the channel, and placed the thing on the little wooden stool where he usually prophesied.Then he took his own plank and started tapping again.

Arthur sat down and listened. "... has been confirmed," said the radio. "Tomorrow," it continued, "Penfora Vigus' vice-president, Rupi Jay Stipe, will announce his intention to run for president. In a speech tomorrow, he will..." "...declined to comment," the radio said. "Next week, the total number of unemployed people in Zebusch," it went on, "will reach the highest level on record. A report due next month states ..." "Change again!" The Prophet roared arrogantly.Arthur hit the reset button again. "…To be completely denied," said the radio. "Next month, Prince Zid of the Suflin Dynasty will marry Princess Huli of Rauli Alpha. This royal wedding will be the most spectacular ever in the territory of Ben Gazi The prosperity of the world. Our reporter Cui Lien Xingxiang came to the scene to report back for everyone.”

Arthur blinked. The cheers of the crowd and the loud noise of the marching band burst from the radio.A very familiar voice said, "Okay Clart, this scene in the middle of next month is unbelievable. Princess Hu Li is gorgeous, she is wearing a..." With a wave of the Prophet's hand, the radio fell from the small stool into the dusty floor.It went on croaking like a duckling with a bad throat. "See? Our competitor," whined the Prophet. "Here, take this. Not that, this. No, not that. This way up, the other side you fool." "I'm listening," grumbled Arthur, wrestling helplessly with the Prophet's hammer.

"Everyone's listening. That's why there's not even a ghost in this place." He spit into the dust. "No, I mean, it sounds like someone I know." "Princess Huli? If I meet a guy who knows Princess Huli, I'll say hello. Now I have to change my lungs." "Not the princess," said Arthur, "the reporter. Her name is Trillian, but I don't know where 'Stars' got it from. She's from the same planet as me. I wonder where she goes. " "Oh, she's everywhere in The Continuum these days. Of course we don't get 3D TV here, thanks to the great green monster Acresel. But there's always news on the radio, she's in space/ Wandering around the world in time. She wants to settle down and find a stable time for herself to live in, this young lady. It must end in tears in the end. It may have ended like this." The prophet swung the hammer , Hit my thumb with a lot of force, so I scolded my mother endlessly.

The envoy's village wasn't much better. People told him that to find the top ones, ask the other oracles who they consult with.But that one has also closed down.There is a sign at the entrance that says: I don't know anything anymore.Try next door →, of course this is just a suggestion, not an oracle. "Next door" was a hole a few hundred yards away, and Arthur walked toward it.There was rising smoke and steam--smoke from a small fire, steam from a battered tin kettle on the fire, and a rather nasty smell from the kettle--at least Arthur thought it was out of the jug.Draped on a rope were distended bladders that belonged to a local goat-like animal; the bladders were drying in the sun, and the smell might have been their work.Not far away—worrisomely close, in fact—was a pile of remains of local goats, and that smell might have come from there, too.

However, it could just as well have come from the old woman who was chasing flies at the wreckage.It was a hopeless mission, since each fly was the size of a bottle cap with wings, and her weapon was little more than a ping pong paddle.Besides, she seemed to be going blind.Anyway, the swatter was flying about in the sky, and if it happened to come into contact with some fly, there was only a thick and sweet "clang", and then the fly would cut through the air and fall on the rocks a few yards from her hole. There was a click, and the belly was ripped open. Judging by her expression, you have to admit that this is probably the moment that brings meaning to her life.

Arthur stood at a polite distance, watched the exotic performance for a while, and finally coughed softly, trying to attract the attention of the other party.This soft cough was originally a matter of etiquette, but it unfortunately involved the respiratory system first-he swallowed a long section of local atmosphere than he had inhaled so far, causing a sudden outbreak of a hoarse and horrible cough , So he collapsed on the stone, with tears streaming from his eyes, almost suffocating.He tried to breathe, but every mouthful made the situation worse; he vomited and nearly choked; Panting and crawling into the slightly fresher air.

"Excuse me," he finally breathed a little easier, "I'm so sorry really. I feel like a fool and..." He pointed helplessly at the small pile of vomit. "What can I say?" he said, "What else can I say?" This at least got her attention.She glanced in his direction suspiciously, but with her eyesight, she might have trouble finding him among the blurry pile of stones. Arthur waved a helpful hand. "Hello!" he shouted. She finally found him, then hummed to herself, turned around and continued to swatt the flies. Now things are very clear, judging from the flow of flies when she swats them, she is undoubtedly the main source of that strange smell.Bladders exposed to the sun, festering corpses, and rotten broth may all contribute to the air quality, but the main olfactory impact is the woman herself.

She delivered another beautiful blow.The fly slapped flat against the stone.Its entrails were dripping all over the place, and that look would have pleased her - as long as she could see that far. Arthur staggered to his feet and pulled a handful of hay to wipe his clothes.He didn't know how else he could attract the other's attention.He really wanted to simply wander off and forget about it, but he felt a little embarrassed to pat his ass and leave after throwing up at the door of someone's house.He pondered for a long time what to do next.He saw hay growing here and there here and there, and went over to gather them.But he was still a little worried - if he got closer to the things he spit out, he might not only be unable to clean them up, but would increase their number instead.He began to discuss his next course of action with himself, only to realize that the other party had finally started talking to him.

"Excuse me, what are you talking about?" he asked aloud. "I said, is there anything I can do for you?" Her voice was so thin and harsh that Arthur could barely hear it. "Um, I've come to ask for your advice," he shouted back, feeling a little silly. She turned her head and narrowed her short-sighted eyes to look at him, then turned back and swung the swatter at a fly, but missed. "About what?" she asked. "Feel sorry?" "I said, about what?" she almost screamed. "Well," said Arthur, "it's kind of general, actually. The guidebook says..." "Ha! Travel brochure!" the woman spat.Her swing now looks more or less aimless. Arthur fished the crumpled guidebook out of his pocket.He wasn't quite sure why he did it.He had already read it, and she, he guessed, had no intention of reading it.He unfolded it anyway so he could frown thoughtfully at something for a while.Pamphlets rattled endlessly on the ancient mystical arts of Havelius' seers and sages, exaggerating without restraint the hospitality of the Havelius.Arthur kept it with him, but recently he found that the entries in it were often insane, more and more esoteric, and there were many extra x, y, and z.Something was wrong, but Arthur didn't know if it was his own book or the entire Guide company; maybe something or someone wasn't quite right in the company, or maybe they were just hallucinating .But anyway, he mistrusted it even more than usual.In other words, he doesn't believe the bullshit at all now, and only eats sandwiches with it when he's sitting on a rock staring at something in a daze. The woman had turned around and was walking towards him.Arthur tried to unobtrusively judge the direction of the wind, and adjusted his position slightly as she approached. "Suggestion," she said. "Suggestion, eh?" "Um, yes," he said, "yes, I mean..." He pointed at the travel brochure and frowned again, as if he wanted to make sure that he was not mistaken, and he didn't go to the wrong planet stupidly.The manual said: "The friendly local residents will be happy to share with you the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients. Come and peep with them into the past and the dazzling mysteries of the future!" There are also several coupons attached, but Arthur is too cheeky. Thin, I didn't really cut them out or show them to others. "Suggestion, uh." The old woman said again, "the more general kind, you say. About what? How to live in the future, and that kind of thing?" "That's right," Arthur said, "that sort of thing, I think sometimes it's a problem, to be honest." He got into a somewhat desperate situation, trying to keep upwind with small, fast movements. s position.The other party suddenly turned around and walked towards his hole, Arthur was really surprised. "Then you have to help, copier," she said. "What?" Arthur asked. "The photocopier," she explained patiently, "you have to pull it out for me. It's solar powered. But I have to put it in the hole so the birds don't shit on it." "Oh," said Arthur. "If I were you, just take a few deep breaths." The old woman mumbled as she walked into the dark cave. Arthur followed her advice.In fact he was nearly hyperventilating.He felt that he was ready, so he followed with bated breath. The photocopier was a big old thing lying on a rickety cart just hidden in the dark shadows of the cave.The ground was uneven and stony, and the wheels of the carts stuck in different directions. Arthur encouraged to help, his face turned purple. "Go out for a breath," said the old woman. He nodded as if he was pardoned. Since she didn't feel embarrassed, he made up his mind not to blush himself.He came out of the hole to take a few breaths, then went back and continued to push and lift.This scene was repeated several times, and finally the photocopier was finally moved outdoors. The sun was shining hotly, and the old woman disappeared into the cave again, took out several colorful metal plates, connected them to the machine and began to collect solar energy.She squinted her eyes and glanced at the sky. The sun was bright, but the air was foggy and not refreshing. "It'll be a while," she said. Arthur replied that he would be happy to wait. The old woman shrugged her shoulders, and thumped away to the other side of the fire, where the contents of the tin pot were bubbling.She stirred with a stick. "You don't want some lunch, do you?" she asked Arthur. "I've eaten, thank you." Arthur said hastily, "I really don't have to, I've eaten." "Of course," said the old woman.She continued to stir her broth with the stick.After a few minutes she fished out something, blew a few breaths to cool it down, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully for a while. Then she limped over to the goat-long pile, spat the glob on it, and limped back to the tin pot.He tried to unhook the pot from that tripod-like thing. "Want to help?" Arthur jumped up politely and walked forward quickly. Together they untied the tin pot.From the entrance of her cave is a downhill slope with a small angle. If you go down the slope, you will see a row of short and thick trees guarding the edge of a steep but not too deep ditch.A new smell of terror was coming out of the ditch. "Ready?" asked the old woman. "Well..." Arthur replied, though he didn't know what he was getting ready for. "One," said the old woman. "Two," she said. "Three," she said again. Arthur deciphered her intentions just in time at the last moment.Together they dumped the contents of the pot into the gutter. After an hour or two of noncommunicative silence, the old woman decided that the solar panels had absorbed enough energy to run the photocopier.She disappeared into the hole again, rummaged around and took out a few sheets of paper to feed into the machine. She handed the spit out paper to Arthur. "That's, uh, that's your suggestion, isn't it?" Arthur flipped through it hesitantly. "No," said the old woman, "this is my life's record. You see, the quality of any advice anyone gives is related to the quality of that person's actual life. Here, you read this document, you You will find that I have ticked all the major decisions that I have made so that you can see them more clearly. Everything is indexed and cross-referenced. See? My advice to you is that if you make the same decisions as I did Opposite decision, then you may not end up in..." She paused to fill her lungs with air, preparing for the emotional turmoil that followed, "...such a stinking hole!" She grabbed her ping-pong paddle, rolled up her sleeves, stomped over to the pile of goat-like things, and swatted the flies vigorously. Arthur reached his last destination and found that the village was almost full of long poles.They are so tall that it is impossible to see what is above them from the ground.Arthur tried his best to climb up and down. The first two had only platforms covered with bird droppings. He didn't find anything else until the third one. The process was quite difficult.There are short wooden stakes on the poles that spiral up slowly, and you have to step on them to climb up.Any tourist, even slightly less industrious than Arthur, would surely snap a couple of photos and flee to the nearest restaurant - where you can buy sweet, gooey chocolate cake and take it to the fakirs in front of them Have a good time eating noodles.However, this also led to a large loss of ascetics on this planet to a large extent.In fact, almost all of them moved to the wealthier worlds in the northwestern part of the galaxy, where they started lucrative rehabilitation centers.It is about seventeen hundred times easier for them to make a living now, and the taste of chocolate is really wonderful.It was later discovered that most ascetics had never tasted chocolate before they started their asceticism, while most of the clients who came to the rehabilitation center were just the opposite and knew too much about this thing. Arthur paused on top of the third pole to catch his breath.He was short of breath and extremely hot, for each pole was about fifty or sixty feet high.The whole world seemed to be spinning around him, making him dizzy, but Arthur wasn't too worried.Because he knew, logically, that he could not die until he had been to Stavro Murabetta—and he had developed an attitude from it that exulted in the face of extreme personal danger.Sitting on a fifty-foot pole is a bit of a spin, but you can get by with a sandwich.He took out the photocopy of the prophet's personal history and was about to read it, when he suddenly heard someone coughing softly behind him, and couldn't help but startled. He turned sharply, and the sandwich lost his grip; it rolled and tumbled in the air, looking very small when it finally hit the ground. There was another pole about thirty feet behind him, and it stood out among the dozen or so poles. On it sat an old man who seemed to be meditating, with a serious face. "Excuse me," said Arthur, who ignored him.Maybe I didn't hear it.The wind was blown a little wildly, and it was luck that Arthur could hear him coughing. "Hello?" cried Arthur. "Hello!" The man glanced around at last, and seemed surprised when he saw Arthur.But whether that was a surprise or a mere surprise, Arthur could not tell. "Are you open?" Arthur called. The man frowned in bewilderment.Arthur couldn't tell at all whether he didn't understand or didn't hear. "I'll be right there," said Arthur, "don't go away!" He got down from the small platform, climbed fast on the spiral pedals, and was a little dizzy when he landed. He started walking towards the pole where the old man was sitting, and then suddenly realized that he had messed up his sense of direction when he came down, and now he was not sure which one he was looking for. He looked around for something to help him orient himself, and finally found the pole. He climbed up.wrong. "Damn it," he said, "Sorry!" he called to the old man.The opponent was now about forty feet directly in front of him. "Lost. Coming soon." He climbed down again, making himself tired and annoyed. This time he hit the target, and then climbed up sweating and panting, but there was still nothing in front of him.That's when he realized, though he didn't know why, that the man was playing with himself. "What do you want?" the old man yelled at him impatiently.Arthur recognized the pole he was sitting on now - the one he had eaten the sandwich on earlier. "How did you get there?" Arthur asked in confusion. "You think I'll tell you so casually? I sat on a pole for forty springs, summers and autumns to figure it out!" "What about winter?" "What happened to winter?" "Don't you sit on a pole in winter?" "Even if I've been sitting on a pole most of my life," said the man, "it doesn't mean I'm a fool. Go south in winter. Cottage by the sea. Sitting on a high chimney." "Can you give some advice to people traveling?" "Of course, buy a beach house." "Oh." The man gazed at the parched land covered with trees.From here Arthur could just see the old woman, though only a dot in the distance; she was still jumping up and down, swatting flies. "Did you see her?" the old man suddenly called out. "Yes," replied Arthur, "I have consulted her, as a matter of fact." "He knows the hell. I got that beach house because she wouldn't pay for it. What advice did she give you?" "Do the exact opposite of her in everything you do." "In other words, buy a beach house." "I guess so," said Arthur. "Well, maybe I'll go." "Yep." The horizon swayed in the fetid heat. "Any other suggestions?" Arthur asked, "besides something about buying a house." "A beach house isn't a property. It's a state of mind." The man turned to look at Arthur. Strangely, the man's face was now only two feet away from him.He seemed perfectly normal, but his body was sitting cross-legged on a pole forty feet away, his face was only two feet away from Arthur.He didn't seem to move his head or make any strange movements, just stood up and walked to the other pole.Either it was too hot, Arthur thought, or space must have had a different shape for him. "A beach house," he said, "doesn't even have to be on the beach, although the best ones are there. We all love that," he continued, "Parties on the edge." "Really?" Arthur asked. "Where earth meets sea. Where earth meets air. Where body meets mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side and look on the other." Arthur was thrilled.This is what was promised to him in the travel brochure.This person seems to be moving in the space of Eichel's painting, and he can express extremely profound opinions on all kinds of things. It was a bit of a nervous wreck though—the old man was now starting to walk from the pole to the ground, from the ground to the pole, from pole to pole, from the pole to the horizon and back again.Arthur's three-dimensional universe was messed up by him. "Please stop," he said suddenly. "Can't take it anymore, huh?" The old man went back to the pole forty feet away and sat down cross-legged, showing no signs of movement. "You ask me for advice, but you can't handle anything you don't understand. stuff, then I'll just tell you something you already know, but of course, to make it sound like something new, eh? Well, as usual, I'll get down to business." He sighed He took a deep breath, narrowed his eyes, and cast his sad eyes into the distance. "Where are you from, boy?" he asked. Arthur decided to be smart.Everyone he meets thinks he's a complete idiot, and he's had enough. "I say," he said, "you are not a prophet, why don't you come and tell me?" The old man sighed again. "I'm just," he put a hand behind the back of his head, "just chatting about something." He brought his arm back in front of him, with a model of the earth on one finger, between him Turn it around, you can't go wrong.He put it away.Arthur was stunned. "How could you—" "can not tell you." "Why? I came all this way." "You can't see what I see because you see what you see, and you can't know what I know because what you know is what you know. What I know and see doesn't add to what you know What you know and see, because they are completely different. It cannot replace what you know and see, because that would mean replacing you." "Wait, can I write this down?" Arthur fumbled for his pencil in his pocket, excitedly. "You can go to the airport and get a copy," the old man said, "these things are piled up there." "Oh." Arthur was very disappointed, "Well, do you have any more targeted suggestions? For me?" "Everything you can see, hear or experience is directed at you. When you perceive the universe you create a universe, so in the universe you perceive, everything is directed at you." Arthur looked at him suspiciously, "Can this be found at the airport too?" "Go and see." The old man said. "The guidebook says," Arthur took it out of his pocket again and began to read, "that I can get a special prayer, tailored exactly to me and my needs." "Oh, yes," said the old man. "Your prayer, yes. Got a pencil?" "Yes," said Arthur. "Here we go, the prayer says this: 'Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things I don't know that I could know. Protect me Don't let me know that I've decided not to know what I've decided not to know. Amen.' That's it. That's what you're praying for yourself anyway, so why don't you just say it." "Well," said Arthur, "thank you..." "There's a prayer that goes with it, very important," the old man went on, "so you'd better jot it down, just in case. Be careful.' Lord, Lord , Lord. Please protect me from my prayer just now. Amen.' That's it, all the trouble people have with their lives is basically because of omitting this last part." "Ever heard of a place called Stavromo Rabeta?" Arthur asked. "No." "Well, thanks for your help," said Arthur. "You're welcome," said the old man on the pole, and he disappeared.