Cerulean Planet (Blue Dust Trilogy #1)

Chapter 3

"Hello."

Jiayun raised his head in shock and gawked at the monster.

"Hello," the monster spoke again. "That was a pleasant exchange."

Jiayun sprawled on the ground, heaving for breath while regaining his strength, and dug his fingers into the soft soil beneath.

"What is your name, lowly creature?"

Jiayun clenched his jaws, resisting the urge to charge at the monster and tear them to shreds. He was no match for them right now. First, he needed to figure out their weakness, then play it by ear from there. It was just as well that the monster desired to communicate with him and had no plans to assault him further.

"Or perhaps, 'lowly human' is more apt?"

The monster provoked him with their every sentence. Jiayun got up at last, trying his best to counter his opponent's attacks without antagonizing them.

"With looks like yours, I think it would be more apt to call you a lowly creature instead."

"My looks?" The monster waved their appendages about. At about a meter off the ground, their body suddenly began to warp; a face appeared. It had a nose, a mouth, eyes, and a pair of ears on each side, but the skin was still cyan in colour. Looking closely, the face was a little bit like Jiayun's.

"Are you referring to this? Do you take pride in this frail, primitive, short-lived vessel? But you alone should not bear the blame, for human history has merely existed for 10,000 Earth years. Having an absurd sense of aesthetics is rather understandable."

"Your species...." Jiayun said, giving the monster a one-over, "even with a history that spans tens of thousands of years, would still be barbaric if you can't tell beauty from ugly."

"Tens of thousands of years?" The monster's mouth cracked open and formed what appeared to be a smile. "No one knows how far back the history of our species extends, but based on the unit of time on Earth, I have been alive for more than 100 million years. Of the kin that I have encountered, the oldest of them is 700 million years old, and I have only ever met 17 of my kind in the last 100 million years of my life.

"Do you understand, lowly human? This constitutes a fundamental difference. Comparing you to me is akin to comparing an ant to yourself."

Jiayun was rendered speechless, but still felt the need to refute, "Humans wouldn't talk to ants!"

The monster smiled again. "There is just you and me on this planet, is that not so? Besides, it has been quite a long time since I have met such a primitive species. It made me want to communicate with you."

"Are you saying that your disgusting action towards me is a form of communication?! You call that sort of defilement communicating?!" Jiayun yelled.

"Do you think I consider your method of communication to be noble and respectful? Forcing me to stoop to the basest form of communication is defilement in and of itself. Not only were you unable to use more advanced forms of communication, your body even gave the most primitive responses. It is natural for every organism to take pride in their own species, but humans somehow consider themselves far above others. The sentiment is utterly ridiculous. You are base, dirty, and obscene. You use excretory organs to engage in the noble cause of reproduction and evolution while being driven by the primitive impulses of your bodies. It makes you no different than the mammals on your planet that you slaughter. At the same time, you derive pleasure through your excretory organs. You completely reject any form of psychological communication and could only respond to the most surface level stimulation through your body and pass on your genes to me that way. That was the only instant where I could sense your brainwave, a pleasure laced with gratitude."