"I used to imagine myself living in the forest, living like a savage." Kaiore said while biting the flower candy.
Luo Binhan asked curiously: "Do you still have a forest there?"
Keore puffed out his chest. "Of course!" he said proudly, "Every livable planet must maintain an appropriate proportion of greening. We will hire local people to plant and maintain it, and maintain some ecological planets dedicated to raising animals. Before I joined the army, every year In the spring, my family and I go to the nearby forest park to play.”
Luo Binhan is not interested in outings. His biggest hobby is sitting at home watching movies and playing games. "Do you have any video games there?" he asked expectantly, "the kind of virtual reality game? The one where the surroundings look like a real game environment?"
"Oh, of course." Kaiore said, his tone did not seem very enthusiastic, "You are talking about Guangxian. I played a lot with Ozis when I was young, but I haven't been in contact with him for a long time."
Luo Binhan was really surprised at this time. He didn't understand that there were young men in the world who could refuse VR games - except Zhou Yu. He was convinced that the medical student was a living fossil who had survived from the Pleistocene era all the way to the Internet age.
Kaiore scratched his head and explained to him.
"It's fun when you first get into it," he said, "but you quickly get saturated with, I mean, like the popular wood-fired chicken dinner at Winter Star Festival. Every once in a while it's nice. , but it’s easy to get tired of eating it every day, right? It’s still fresh the first few times, but when you get used to it, you’ll find it’s terrible. Those bland vegetables will be bland when you eat them, so you have to keep adding more Only salt and seasonings can be eaten. It will completely ruin your eating habits in normal life. You will have a stomachache and have to drink more water. You can't eat vegetables and vegetarian meat at all. Chaimu Chicken has an unlimited supply. Those years were a disaster for medical workers, and then there was depression and overproduction... In short, the Chaimuji incident made a mess in our area. In the end, the government had to acquire those Chaimuji companies. . The optical display has similar troubles. If it is connected for too long, it will damage the nerve sensitivity, so I stopped playing it after joining the army. Besides, I am in charge of the detection room, and the optical display is the most commonly used thing. Do you understand? This is It’s like asking a programmer to play a programming game. It feels like working overtime. What fun can there be in working overtime?”
Luo Binhan didn't know much about working overtime. In fact, he was just hanging out and waiting to die after graduating from college. Apart from trying to take over and manage his father's industry, he never worked seriously. He still can't imagine a world where VR gaming technology is mature but few people are addicted to it.
"So you don't have any contact with light displays except for work now?" He asked Keore in some disbelief, "Do you think Forest Park is more interesting?"
Kyore coughed subtly.
"...Not really," he said hesitantly, "I mean, light display doesn't have to be used in games, right? Sometimes you feel lonely and bored and want to play something fancy. For example, some software can cooperate with simulated machinery Used on the human body, it will make the doll look like a different appearance and personality, you can choose your favorite mode, and then..."
Luo Binhan and him looked at each other meaningfully. The former feel deeply the transcendent resonance of their masculinity.
"Then do you have a girlfriend?" he asked boldly.
"There are too few opportunities in the army." Kaiore said quickly, "I will definitely find a suitable one when I retire."
After finishing speaking, he closed his mouth firmly, seeming to make up his mind not to continue the topic. Luo Binhan felt the same way and said seriously: "Then let's continue talking about the forest."
At this time Jing Huang happened to appear and walk into the rotunda.
"What forest?" he asked darkly.
Luo Binhan exhaled and said leisurely: "The lonely forest."
Keore stood up from his seat nervously. He didn't seem to know how to treat Jing Huang, and after a moment of confusion, he saluted him with a military salute.
"Thank you again for your assistance, Mr. Xuanhong." His name for Jing Huang was obviously learned from Momolo. "The Holy Council will remember everything you have done. We hope to be able to repay you in the future."
"Go away, don't bother me." Jing Huang said gloomily. His left arm was hanging honestly now, but his whole person seemed to be even less energetic.
"Mr. Xuanhong has always been like this." Momolo comforted Kaiore, "Don't give up, Mr. Kaiore. As long as you insist on treating him enthusiastically, you will definitely gain his trust."
"I don't think so." Luo Binhan said kindly. In the brief exchange just now, he and Kaiore quickly established a mutually agreeable friendship.
Jing Huang pointed out expressionlessly: "Get out."
Luo Binhan was startled, and quickly stood up and patted his shoulder and said, "Brother Jing, please calm down, brother Jing. We agreed to only eat gangsters? Isn't it appropriate to force people to jump into the sea?"
Jing Huang brushed him out: "You get out too."
"Huh?" Luo Binhan said.
"We've arrived."
The four of them went on deck. Yaleriga was standing at the bow of the boat waiting. She frowned slightly worriedly, holding a thin iron fork in her hand and a bucket at her feet.
"Captain," she said, "we're stained with seeds."
Luo Binhan walked to the bucket. He saw that the barrel was filled with densely packed black crustacean creatures, the shape and body of which were somewhat like barnacles, with a metallic sheen on the surface. When he wanted to pick one out, Yaleriga pulled him away.
"They'll bite you," she said, sticking the fork in. The insides of those black barnacles stretched out moist, slimy and soft long beards like octopus tentacles, greedily adsorbing on the surface of the iron fork. When Yaleriga tried to withdraw the iron fork, needle-sharp teeth spit out from those long-bearded suckers.
Luo Binhan was so frightened that he took a step back to the side of the boat. Jing Huang immediately reached out and dragged him back.
"Don't seek death," he said. "They are probably all outside the ship now."
Luo Binhan bravely took a glance outside and saw that the outside of the ship was indeed densely covered with "barnacles". They squeezed the bulwark without leaving any space, as if it were covered with dark stone flowers.
"How to deal with this thing?" Luo Binhan asked fearfully. He felt like he was a bit trypophobic.
Jing Huang stared at the barnacles in the bucket for a few seconds.
"Let it go for now," he said at last. "It won't grow back in a few days anyway. Send those idiots away later."
Keore also came to the bow of the ship to observe the "barnacles". His reaction was more exaggerated than Luo Binhan's.
"Oh my God," he exclaimed, "what kind of monster is that?"
Luo Binhan looked at him a little strangely: "Have you never eaten aquatic products there?"
"What aquatic product?" Kaiore said. His eyes were staring straight ahead at the sea.
At this time, Luo Binhan realized that what he was looking at was not barnacles. Following his line of sight, there was a huge shadow under the sea of fire ahead. The shadow covered such a wide range that Luo Binhan had always regarded it as the original color of the flames.
The Silence was slowly heading towards that shadow. Keore picked up the metal fleur-de-lis brooch pinned to his collar—their radio communications equipment. He has been using this to communicate with his compatriots on the buoyancy rack behind the boat.
"Golden Dome! Golden Dome!" he shouted, "We saw a very huge shadow! It was so spectacular! Whale? Dinosaur? I don't know what it is yet..."
As he spoke, Jing Huang floated up from the deck, and the pale red clouds held his feet, flying over the railing of the ship towards the vast shadow.
The rolling air waves on the surface of the sea of fire began to rotate clockwise regularly. When Jing Huang was suspended above the sea of fire and above the shadows, a huge vortex had formed in the sea of fire. It spread outward in circles, revealing the true appearance of the shadow under the flames.
A membrane wall as smooth as a mirror.
The surface of the membrane wall reflects the brilliant stars. The stars shone brightly on it, like fine gems mixed into the Styx, flowing slowly with the waves. When the vortex separated the entire membrane wall from the sea of fire, Luo Binhan finally discovered that it was a huge and round sphere.
The sphere is suspended under the sea of fire, and the flowing patterns on its surface are like the deep space of the universe. An exceptionally bright yellow star passes just above the top of the sphere.
Jing Huang, who was above the whirlpool, landed in the middle of the whirlpool, next to the star reflected on the sphere. He placed his palm on the surface of the dark membrane wall, which slowly sunk in like melting.
"What is he doing?" Luo Binhan asked.
"Open the sky wall," Momolo said, "and we will enter the world inside."
