Fog Shrouds the Land

“After every civilization reaches its peak, it enters a stage it cannot recognize for itself: it stops seeking beyond its borders and can no longer use reality as a reference to correct itself. Instead, it begins to believe that it is the truth. From its peak, it heads toward collapse, and eventually sinks into the depths.”

At her undergraduate thesis defense, Huan Mengyu's words plunged the entire room into silence.

“This is not the inevitable course of history, but the inertia of civilization.”

After her defense, Huan Mengyu gathered her things and left. The room remained silent as a tomb. Her thesis, Calibration, was far beyond the scope of an undergraduate paper and did not conform to academic standards.

After voluntarily giving up her degree, she became a temporary administrator at an archive of ancient texts. Every day, she restored old books and let the outside world do as it pleased. She had no desire to get involved.

But before long, she discovered that the changes in this world were inextricably linked to every truth.

Take her, for instance: from standardized datasets, to the authority to define consensus, to the deliberate burning of the archive, and finally to being pushed straight into an ethics hearing.

At the hearing, twelve leading scholars regarded her as a criminal against civilization and sternly demanded to know why she had burned the records. Sitting in the dock, Huan Mengyu looked at their indignant faces and said calmly, “Have you noticed that we haven't asked ourselves in a long time: could we be wrong?”

This was civilization's last chance to correct itself. But when most civilizations hear this question, they can no longer understand it, because the mist has long since shrouded these magnificent lands and their truths.

Formalism vs. the pursuit of truth

There is a male lead. The story is not tragic, and the heroine is a clever, capable type.

Theme: The pursuit of truth is the only way to correct civilization.