It took Tirian a few seconds to notice that Duncan had mentioned a "chance meeting" with the Frost Queen, and his astonishment was evident in his words.
Duncan was not surprised by this reaction. He just shook his head slightly and said, "My meeting with her was very special. It was not in the normal timeline. You can understand it as I once intervened in the gap of history and met Lenora from the perspective of an observer. In normal history, I have no contact with the Frost Queen."
Tirian frowned, as if trying to understand the meaning of these profound words. Then his eyes flickered slightly, and he restrained all his emotions and looked up at Duncan: "Why are you interested in the Frost Queen's affairs? Is it because of that 'one encounter'? Or is it because of... this doll who calls herself 'Alice'? Did she tell you anything?"
"Alice doesn't know anything about the Frost Queen. Her memory is as pure as a blank sheet of paper," Duncan said calmly. "I'm interested in the Frost Queen because everyone says that the Frost Rebellion was caused by the conspiracy of Ray Nora colluding with the Lost Hometown. Don't you think it's normal for me to be interested after hearing this rumor?"
"... Colluding with the Lost Homeland," Tyrian's voice was low and his eyelids were drooping, making it impossible to tell what his emotions were at the moment. Yes, this is how they charged Her Majesty Lenore. "
"Judging from your reaction, this is indeed a frame-up," Duncan's voice came from the mirror, "So, the Frost Rebellion back then was just a complete conspiracy, and the charges against Lenora were completely unfounded?"
As he said this, he observed Tirian's reaction.
But Tirian did not answer him immediately. Instead, he frowned slightly and asked: "Does this truth mean anything to you?"
"Yes," Duncan said seriously, "After all, from a certain perspective, I am half a party to this matter."
Tirian was visibly stunned, seemingly unable to refute his father's answer. He then smiled helplessly, sighed, and shook his head: "This rebellion does have a conspiracy, but if I must say, the name used by the rebels is not fictitious at all..."
"Exploring the deep sea?" Lu Qiao frowned. "He means the spirit world, the abyss, and the subspace? But it must be more than just research in these areas. There should be some kind of 'taboo'. Although it is indeed very safe, the mystical research in that area has always been legally conducted in various city-states. The Academy of Truth even has a special research group..."
But beneath his fierce appearance, there were always waves of emotions in his heart.
Tirian said, shaking his head slightly.
"Oh? All the information has been destroyed?" This time he was a little surprised. He thought that this matter might be confidential, but he didn't expect it to be covered up so extreme. "Even all the people who knew about it died?"
"Back then, the rebels had prepared a series of follow-up propaganda work for the 'Abyss Project', intending to make the matter public on the premise of exposing these taboo elements, in order to completely wipe out the Frost Queen's influence in the northern waters and emphasize the justice of the rebellion. However, after the collapse of the sea cliff, those propaganda plans were immediately abolished - as you said just now, we firmly believe that the name of the 'Abyss Project' has not been tainted by the curse, so we simply destroyed all the information related to this plan, including its name.
Tirian looked up in surprise.
"oh?"
"I don't mean the 'deep sea' in the mystical sense," Tirian shook his head gently, "I mean the deep sea in the true sense, the deep sea in the natural realm - a 'deep sea' that is right in front of all of us, but everyone pretends not to see it and does not touch it, but dares to touch it.
Tirian's face was serious. He was silent for a long time before he finally spoke in a low and slow voice: "Simply put, it is an exploration plan - but unlike those explorers who explore new routes at the border of civilization, the Abyss Plan explores the deep sea."
"But Her Majesty Lenora told me that this question is very important, just as important as the secrets of the 'spiritual world', 'distant', and 'subspace'. Right under our feet, under the city-states and the sea, in our real world, there is such a vast area.
Unknown areas, and I am a person full of exploration spirit, I cannot accept that such a large area under my jurisdiction is shrouded in the unknown." "This forbidden plan is tainted with too many curses, subspace and mental pollution, so that even the rebels at that time did not dare to talk about the information they found.
"The Frost Queen has never colluded with the Lost Homeland, but I did... do some research in forbidden areas. Once these research plans are made public, even if there is no rebellion, it will be difficult for me to continue to stay in the position of ruler of the city-state."
"That's why I'm particularly curious... How did you learn about the 'Abyss Project'?"
Duncan's eyes were deep. After a few seconds of silence, he suddenly spoke: "It's called the 'Abyss Project', right?"
Tirian finally stopped avoiding the question and looked Duncan in the eye. After hearing about the plan from half a century ago, his thoughts became so mixed that he could not calm down. For a moment, he even believed that there was some kind of "collusion" between the Frost Queen and the Homelander.
"But in fact, the name of this plan was made public once, and it was the only time - it was at the final execution ground, when the rebels uttered these words in order to announce the Frost Queen's guilt. On that day, the city-state's Seaview Cliff collapsed in an unprecedented and horrific manner. The entire cliff, along with one-seventh of the city, fell into the boundless sea. All those who heard the words 'Abyss Plan' were not spared, and all turned into ghosts in the deep sea.
Han Shuang had never considered this problem because he had a preconceived set of "common sense". You take it for granted that under the city-state there must be a geological structure raised in the sea, such as a mountain range in the sea, or a raised crater, and further down, of course, there should be something like the seabed. But at this time, I carelessly recalled the various knowledge I had come into contact with after coming to this world, and found that... humans have never conducted research on the underwater world more than two hundred meters deep!
As Tirian spoke, he suddenly asked a question: "Father, have you ever thought about this question? What is it like under your city-states, under those isolated islands in the sea that carry the entire civilization today?"
"But all the information related to the Abyss Project has been destroyed, and even the female officials who revealed the plan were liquidated and executed by the rebels..." Tirian said in disbelief, "Everyone firmly believes that the name of the plan itself is still cursed, and the last person who knew about it has passed away..."
"I know much more than you think," Duncan said calmly.
"I said that I have watched some things in the cracks of history," Duncan said frankly, and asked again, so, what exactly is the Abyss Project? Why is this project so secretive and taboo that even he... seems to still have a little fear when he mentions it?"
He really hadn't thought about this issue, or rather... he had even realized that this was not an issue that needed to be considered!
In this world, people are not used to using terms such as "spiritual world", "deep sea" and "subspace" to refer to the "depth" of the world, and this structural model cannot explain the way the world works today to a certain extent. But in fact, this model is only an interpretation based on "mystical concepts". To be precise, it only describes the "dimensional" structure of this world, not the "physical structure" of the real world!
What Tirian was talking about at this moment was obviously not the dimensional model based on the concept of mysticism. He was referring to the physical concept of the water body from the sea surface down.
Duncan said nothing.
Tirian was somewhat convinced that you understood the situation better than anyone else, and naturally knew why this plan was buried, but after a moment of silence, he slowly spoke:
"Obviously, you haven't thought about that either," Tirian's voice suddenly came, interrupting Duncan's thoughts, "and after meeting the Frost Queen, you have never thought about this problem either—the endless sea covers the entire world, our city-state is an isolated island floating on the sea, the protection of the gods has laid a solid foundation for the real world, and the illumination of Vision 001 has brought us safe and stable daylight. As for what is under the water...
Why should we care? The spirit world, the abyss, the subspace... these 'dimensions'
The deep sea areas above are not enough to give us a headache.”
Corresponding to the classic model of "reality-spirit world-remoteness-subspace", the "deep sea" mentioned by Tirian is actually on the first layer of the model: the real dimension. However, the "deep sea" that is only located in the first layer seems to be a complete blank in human cognition.