The wind became louder, and fine particles of frost kept hitting his face.
Luo Binhan woke up from the severe cold and found himself on a hard and vast ice bank. The faint blue liquid hydrocarbon lake was five meters away from him, and the ice leading to the lake was stained with blood.
He raised his head slightly and saw a short-haired girl wearing a red coat standing on the lake. She put her hands in her pockets and walked slowly towards Luo Binhan on the water.
Li Li walked up to him, his hair covered with frost.
"Once again we are reduced to this, sir." She lowered her head and said to Luo Binhan, "Why do you always put yourself in desperate situations?"
Luo Binhan didn't have the strength to answer, but he vaguely understood why Li Li appeared here.
"Let's clarify some basic situations first." Li Li said, "An unidentified killer can imitate the image of others and can also manipulate some kind of shadow. This person is very similar to the 'dwarf star demon' you encountered in the past. We We might as well assume that they are accomplices. She attacked you, but I'm afraid this is just the beginning of a series of actions. She once wanted to take away the apprenticeship agreement in your hand and awaken a White Tower apprentice - what does she need from that apprentice? We can't say that for now. Yes, but you should realize that she did not take away the spoils after her overwhelming victory over you...Why is this, sir?"
She knelt down in front of Luo Binhan and helped him wipe off the red frost condensed from blood on his face. This seemed to make Luo Binhan's thoughts clearer. He moved his gaze and saw several gray worms flipping over not far away.
Li Li looked there with him.
"She's avoiding the swarm. We don't know why yet, but it doesn't matter. The point is, when she thinks the swarm has eaten you, this person may come back, so we have to race against time - and you There is not much time left. Look at yourself, sir. You have a penetrating injury to your abdomen, damage to your organs and lumbar spine. This will cause complete paralysis of your lower body, and your left hand and ribs will be damaged when you fall. Broken. If you were still mortal, we would no longer have the opportunity to discuss this."
Luo Binhan reluctantly bent his neck and looked at his abdomen. He saw the horrible cavity of frost, blood, and intestines. The edges of the fracture are so neat, like tofu cut by a blade.
This is undoubtedly an injury that is enough to kill an ordinary person, and the extreme cold accelerates the pace of death. He also couldn't figure out how he could continue to dream.
Li Li sat down next to him and looked up at the sky. The dim sky is getting darker, and the lead clouds are as black as iron, as if a heavy rain is brewing.
"Now is different from last time, sir." Li Li said calmly, "We can't see any improvement from the outside world here, and you don't have time to wait. We can only weigh the pros and cons among a few options and choose The one you want most. You must understand that there is no right way to do this, and it is up to you to sacrifice whatever you want."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a device that looked like a pepper shaker pistol.
"The first option is, let us seek reinforcements like last time. You take out the jade and try to smash it, and we will have a great hope of getting out of danger. But you should note that this is not easy - look The size of your wound, sir, is too close to the pocket where your gravity device is. This means that the gravity device may have been damaged, and your blood has solidified the tear in the antifreeze suit to the skin. If you want to obtain gravity from the damage device, that means there's a high chance that you're going to tear your stomach open. Even then, you might just get a damaged device. We can't predict whether it's still going to work."
Li Li let go and the device in her hand fell to the ground, breaking into countless splashing water droplets. At the same time, there was thunder in the sky and dark clouds were restless.
"Our second option." Li Li continued, "Have you seen the lake in front, sir? If it is composed of liquid hydrocarbons, then its temperature will be at least one hundred degrees below zero, which will be greatly Decreasing your body's activity, perhaps putting you into hibernation, sustaining you until others come to rescue - however, we face risks from both the technology and the situation. We lack life-sustaining equipment and cryoprotectants, and we do not have sufficient information to determine whether you are here Wait for the possibility of surviving in an extremely cold and hypoxic environment. At the same time, please remember that the murderer may come back at any time. Even if you leave the apprenticeship agreement on the shore, she can still know from the disappearing anti-freeze suit that you have not died. She Maybe they will continue to look for you, or they may launch another attack before anyone else notices."
Thunder is approaching. Blood overflowed from Li Li's body and spread on the surface of the ice. She turned her head 180 degrees and looked at Luo Binhan from an extremely strange angle.
"The last choice." She said in a voice as thick as the breath of an animal, "You still have a reinforcement in your hand, and you have seen it opened twice, and the password is hidden in your mind. Do you remember those three What are the apprentices' respective strengths? Two of them may be useful to you. The awakened thing is close at hand. But it is frozen in ice, and you must find a way to open it. Think of it as an icehouse, not a suicide pile. , they must be ready to be awakened... Why do they choose to sleep here? No. 104 of Lake No. 6! The answer lies in this address!"
A flash of pale lightning rent the sky, and then the world fell into darkness. Luo Binhan could no longer see his deformed companion, and could only hear her increasingly chaotic and distorted voice.
"Sleeping is not the worst thing, sir. Beyond the veil of terror, death is forgiveness. If you rest here, your soul will be liberated - and your desire will escape. Today you will have crossed the limit. Why not stop here?"
The sound finally merged with the thunder and was no longer distinguishable. In the overwhelming rainstorm, Luo Binhan relied on his chin and right arm to move towards the lakeside bit by bit. He struggled to climb to the edge of the lake and stared at the surface of the lake, seeing the faint waves of air surging in the depths. He knew that what he saw before him was just a dream, but he begged that there was truth hidden in it.
The silver snake passed through the air, and a strange and bloody figure was reflected on the lake.
"I see you have made a choice." Li Li's voice said behind him, "You will lose something if you make a wish, and there will be no forgiveness if you regret it. You must look back in time."
The piece of meat soaked in blood poured down and pushed Luo Binhan into the lake. He passed through the thin mirror, and then woke up again in the hellish cold.
There was a small pool of congealed blood on the ice, presumably from his fall. The surroundings were dark but dry, without any trace of rain—this was supposed to be a planet where it was impossible to rain.
Luo Binhan tried to move his limbs, but there was no response from his feet, and his left arm was stiff with severe pain. Only his right hand, despite being blunt and inconvenient, still responded to him faithfully.
His antifreeze suit was damaged, but the internal oxygen supply and heating system had not stopped functioning. The frozen blood tightly binds the wound and the fabric together, allowing the oxygen and heat inside the garment to be preserved. Although the severe cold was spreading through the fatal wound in his abdomen, he miraculously maintained smooth thinking.
The dream just now still remained in his mind, and Li Li's words caused some emotion to quietly emerge from his chest.
He put his hand to his abdomen, felt an insect lingering outside the wound through his gloves, caught it and crushed it to death on the ice.
The touch of broken life stirred his heart, as if he could draw his own continuation from the death of other things. The wound no longer hurts, and even the cold is driven away by the boiling bone marrow and blood.
Luo Binhan realized that something was changing. He lay on the ice, feeling that his brain was burning slowly, but he didn't care at all in his heart.
The clouds in the sky were twisting and turning, like a twisting and crawling giant snake, which made him feel the desire to tear it off. But cannot die. Can't die. If you want to achieve your mission, you must first die.
His burning body urged him to action. He used his right hand to explore the wound on his abdomen and roughly felt out the boundary between flesh and clothing. They have been frozen together by blood clots.
His hand continued to move sideways and touched the gravity device in his pocket through his clothes. It was right next to the wound, with a corner missing from its shape.
The result disgusted him, so he put his hand into the hollow of his abdomen, caught another gray worm and crushed it. He couldn't feel the frozen flesh and blood at all, but he could easily tell that the bugs were present in his body. That's not mind perception or magic eye clairvoyance, it's just a simple instinct.
Jealous of life. Exclude life. Destroy life. Fire-like impulses surged in his chest. The will of the body is angry at "someone" who has allowed himself to fall and tolerate life.
He endured the nameless anger and began to crawl towards the lake.
