Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Zuo Weiyang extended an invitation to the entire Weaving Network through the central hub. It wasn't a summit, a forum, or any occasion requiring formal attire. Everyone should bring one thing—not your civilization's proudest achievement, but that seemingly insignificant yet indispensable little thing. The time: the next heartbeat of the home port. The place: the central consciousness space, beneath the Weaving Network Tree.

After the message was sent, the web fell silent for a short while. It wasn't silence; everyone was thinking the same thing: was that small matter truly small, so small that it hadn't been mentioned in any official record for billions of years? The Listener civilization was the first to reply. Their response was only a single translated non-verbal sequence, roughly meaning a membrane of light for sitting on. The Builders followed closely, sending coordinates pointing to the location of their first experimental bridge pier. The Observers remained silent, but left a uniform dark patch at the bottom of the web, like a painting yet to be decided upon.

Zuo Weiyang wrote in the Central Diary, "Today we're holding the first intergalactic civilization exchange conference. The first item on the agenda isn't a speech, it's just one person sitting down. I'm sitting under a tree. Anyone who wants to sit can sit; there's no need to follow a particular order. The ground is covered in tree shadows; just pick one."

After the heartbeat cycle of the home port, representatives of forty-seven civilizations gathered beneath the woven tree in the central consciousness space. Not all of them; some civilizations were still on their way, and others, while they didn't want to come, were delayed by other matters on their journey. The Listener Civilization was the first to arrive. They had no concept of sitting; instead, they spread a soft membrane of light beneath the tree, its color as pale as the morning mist on the coastline of Proxima Centauri. The Listener representative explained that this was their seating, made from materials used over hundreds of thousands of years, laid on the beach so that the membrane would gently sway with the tide. This wasn't a seat, but a reason for themselves to linger in one place.

The shadows of the tree moved constantly in the consciousness space, because the Weaving Tree was not static; its branches and leaves swayed slowly in the low-frequency quantum flow, as if truly being blown by the wind. Each civilization projected a different form. Some were soft halos of light, some were precise geometric lattices, and a few seemed to be nothing at all, merely leaving a small patch of air at a different temperature beneath the tree. Zuo Weiyang sat on the ground leaning against the tree trunk, without using any central authority to adjust her position or perspective. She was there, like an ordinary person entertaining a friend from afar in her own courtyard. Yu Ying watched the projection in a corner of the archives, not entering the meeting room. Zuo Cheng saw the sudden increase in Weaving Tree's activity in the porch; he didn't come over, but simply left a message on the public column of the central log: "The tree is big enough."

The conference had no agenda. Zuo Weiyang said, "Today we won't discuss technology, sign agreements, or cast any votes. We'll only do one thing: everyone will say one thing. It's about some insignificant little thing in your civilization, something that may have existed for hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years. Not because it's useful, but because someone thought it was amazing one day." After she finished speaking, the area under the tree fell silent. It wasn't that no one spoke; it was that every civilization was thinking about that most insignificant thing in its own history, wondering why it hadn't been eliminated throughout its long history, and why it had survived among all the important inventions and discoveries.

The first person to speak was still there.

He sat under the tree for a long time, his posture, as projected, appearing to be cross-legged. The branches of the Weaving Tree intertwined above him, forming a pattern. He said, "Of all my civilizations, only I remain outside the Weaving Tree. But I do one thing every week: brew a cup of tea. Long ago, when I first brewed tea, the tea leaves were the last few true leaves from my home planet. Now my tea leaves are digital copies, the taste unchanged, because there are no real tea trees left on my home planet. I do this every week not to drink tea, but to give time a fixed shape. Otherwise, in the long years, all moments would merge together, making it impossible to distinguish which segment is today and which segment is some earlier day. The seven minutes the tea steeps are the only moment I know is the present." He said he didn't remember when he started doing this, only that one time after brewing tea, he realized he couldn't remember when he had drunk the last cup, so he decided to stop forgetting and anchor time in a fixed weekly manner. This decision itself predates brewing tea, but now it's impossible to distinguish which is the cause and which is the effect.

He was quiet for a little while after he finished speaking.

Tea can't be steeped indefinitely. If you don't drink it after seven minutes, it gets cold and bitter, and it can no longer be considered the same cup of tea. So when the time is up, you have to pick it up and drink it. This in itself is a decision, a decision that draws a line between today and every day. He brews tea once a week, makes this decision once a week, washes the cup clean, puts it back in its place, and waits for the same time the following week. Over the long years, he has never missed a single decision.

Zuo Weiyang didn't speak immediately after listening. She simply sat under the tree, watching the still-present projection, appearing utterly serene in the light filtering through the branches of the Weaving Tree. His projection didn't seem lonely, not the kind of loneliness that needed comforting. His loneliness was the kind that had already been neatly organized and put away in a drawer. She later noted this in the Central Diary. The remaining thirty million years weren't endured, but rather spent drinking tea cup after cup. The seven minutes each cup of tea steeped was the boundary of his existence, a boundary within which he knew he was still here, not yet washed away by time.

The other civilizations beneath the tree did not applaud. Applause is too ambiguous in a cross-cultural context. They used the closest form of acceptance within their own civilizations. The listener's light membrane subtly changed color, from a pale mist to a warm amber hue. The Builder emitted a series of extremely short waveforms, which some civilizations recognized as some kind of ancient honorific. Several geometric lattice civilizations simultaneously lit their cores. Still silent, he picked up the cup in the virtual projection and took a sip. The tea was still warm.

Zuo Weiyang sat on the ground beneath the Weaving Tree for a long time. When the meeting ended, she didn't stand up to see the guests off. She leaned against the trunk, watching the representatives of each civilization leave one by one. Some left a small object on the ground in front of her before they departed. It wasn't data, not a gift, but a copy of the memory of the small incident they brought. She said nothing, simply letting those things pile up beside the tree roots, as naturally as fallen leaves.

She wrote the last line of the day in the central log: The First Intergalactic Civilization Exchange Conference. Day One. The first small thing. A cup of tea, brewed once a week, brewed for countless years. Not waiting for someone to come and drink it, but to let herself know that time is still flowing, and she is still within time. Tomorrow, we'll continue. The trees are still there, the wind is still blowing.