[The reaper cannot boast that you drift in his shadow,]
[for you dwell in my immortal poem, as long as time.]
[—Shakespeare's Sonnet 16]
...
At the moment the final cipher arrived, the Deity was imprisoned as an electronic spirit and dragged into an invisible space.
When the imprisonment formed, Su Ming'an followed the Deity into it.
He wanted to have a final conversation with the Deity.
White data flickered around him, and everything in the shackled space was imagined by the imprisoned, like the dream of the imprisoned.
The Deity's dream was a vast field.
Under the distant sunlight, the Deity stood there, beside an old, broken piano, playing discordant notes automatically. He appeared like an exile, far from home, standing alone, with black hair fluttering in the wind.
"Su Ming'an."
As Su Ming'an approached the Deity, the Deity spoke softly:
"You've won."
Su Ming'an's footsteps paused, and he said:
"It's the billions of people of the Ruined World who won."
