"Drink it up," said the black cat.
It circled around the table, and finally returned to the exaggeratedly large wine basin, pushing sideways against the wall of the basin. At this time, there was still two-thirds of the sweet wine inside, and it was so heavy that it couldn't move.
Luo Binhan helped it pull the wine basin over, looked down at the surface of the wine, and his own surprised expression was reflected on it.
"You want me to drink this?"
"Yes. Drink the rest."
Luo Binhan didn't think this was a good idea. Even if it was a basin of water, the amount was enough to damage his bladder, not to mention the alcohol was still high in alcohol content. He glanced at the black cat's flat belly and refused: "You can't be so frugal, right?"
"If you want to see that kid's father, then do as I say."
Black Cat's tone was strong. Luo Binhan couldn't help but suspect that it had hidden evil intentions, but the opportunity to watch the future interstellar leader sounded too tempting. In the end, he grabbed the wine basin without hesitation and drank heavily. The black cat was supervising on the table, and if he tried to put down the wine basin, he would be scratched unceremoniously.
He drank the wine with difficulty, slumped in his chair and burped. Black Cat observed him and asked: "How do you feel?"
"Dizzy." Luo Binhan said. He shook his head, trying to figure out whether there were really three cats squatting on the table.
"Almost." Black Cat said. It jumped onto Luo Binhan's lap, deftly took out his wallet from his coat, and then called the bartender to pay the bill. Luo Binhan listened to all this happening in a daze, until the black cat jumped up from his lap, punched him on the bridge of the nose with a cat claw, then turned over and fell to the ground.
"Follow me." Luo Binhan heard it say.
He stood up and staggered out of the store. The streets outside have become twisted and twisted, like gummy worms that have been elongated and dried. Luo Binhan's steps were sloppy and his eyes were dim. He could only barely make out a dark shadow at the end of the street. He chased after him, and the black shadow immediately ran into the side road.
The sky was so bright that it turned white, but Luo Binhan could not find the shadow of the sun. He felt that his eyes were so dazzled that the shapes and colors of the world began to simplify. The buildings on both sides of the road only have faint gray and white outlines, and the scenery in the distance also shows an empty yellow-green color.
The black cat was still running in front of him, keeping just the right distance from him. Luo Binhan tried to catch up several times, but the road seemed to be lengthening. When he slowed down, the illusion disappeared immediately.
He followed the black cat and ran around, completely losing his sense of direction while drunk. Sugar Land seemed to expand into an infinite maze, or maybe they just circled around the same intersection over and over again. After an unknown amount of time, he finally began to feel tired.
Sweat wet his back, exuding a biting coldness. When he accidentally spilled a drop of sweat on the street, he realized that the isolation layer on his body had disappeared at some point. The drop of sweat hit the snow-white ground and melted into small deep holes.
Luo Binhan was a little at a loss. He vaguely remembered Blue Magpie's warning and knew that splashing water in Sugar Land was dangerous. But now his feelings about everything are blurred. High-carbon sugar, hydrolysis, safety...these concepts were far away from him. He also noticed that he was wearing a dark black sleeveless sweater with a white shirt. It looked like the uniform of the private high school he used to attend, but that suit had long been chewed by dogs and there was no way he would take it with him. Go aboard the Silence.
He stopped in confusion and wanted to ask the black cat to explain to him. But when he opened his mouth to call, what came out was a meow that was obviously different from his usual voice.
Luo Binhan was shocked and quickly touched his throat. Nothing grew there, and nothing was missing. But when he tried to speak the simplest sentence, what came out of his throat was a series of vague voiced sounds.
"Don't yell."
The black cat jumped down from the street lamp next to him, its eyes emitting an unusually bright blue-blue light like a light bulb. It pronounced a few syllables to Luo Binhan, and then said: "You are in my dream. You have to adapt to the cat's speaking habits. This is the rule here. But you don't need to bark or meow. Cats can pronounce the syllables." It’s enough for you.”
It guided Luo Binhan to pronounce a few sounds, such as "". When Luo Binhan successfully pronounced them with difficulty, he seemed to have finally grasped some feeling.
"Here, you, dream?" he asked stammering.
"I've already told you." Black Cat said impatiently, "This is my dream, but it is also the edge of the moon. So from now on you have to keep quiet to avoid attracting some annoying spirits."
It turned and walked forward, this time at a moderate speed, just enough for Luo Binhan to keep up. At this time, Luo Binhan had completely sobered up from his drunkenness and found that he was covered in sweat and shivering with cold, as if he had just crawled out of deep water. His vision became clearer little by little.
The buildings on both sides of the street still maintain the general appearance of Sugar Land, but the texture has become very different, like a fake city made of old plastic. The air was filled with cold blue light. Orange-red, pink-purple, bright yellow...these warm colors that can be seen everywhere in Sugar Land have disappeared, replaced by rust-like gray and black in different shades. He skirted moldy street lamps covered with bacterial plaque, passed thick and turbid tar fountains, and almost cut his hand among the thorn bushes in the flower bed. The biscuit walls smelled like burnt wood, and the hard candy windows turned into black and yellow ice crystals. What makes Luo Binhan most uneasy are the jelly soft chairs placed on both sides of the road. They are now piled softly on the ground, like large pieces of fat after the blood foam has been removed.
Luo Binhan walked anxiously and couldn't help but rub the black cat's tail with his toes.
Black Cat glanced back at him.
"Why are you dreaming about this?" Luo Binhan asked with difficulty, "Is it a cat from the underworld?"
"Will gave me this dream."
"What?"
"One of his nightmares." Black Cat said coldly, "When his throat was cut by an enemy one time, the horror of being unable to cast a spell forced him to have this dream. He kept it until he later used it with a The gold coins were exchanged for me - I can see what you want to ask, and my answer is: shut your mouth and stay out of things you can't control."
It suddenly quickened its pace and led Luo Binhan towards the white tower on the edge of "Sugar City". When they got closer, Luo Binhan saw clearly that it was not the familiar Snowflake and Rock Candy Tower at all, but a cold and towering bone tower. The long bones of giant beasts were piled up to form the pilasters, and the upward tusks formed the corners of the eaves. White streamers fluttered where sugar wadding ribbons once hung, and the windows inlaid with gemstones were sealed by moss-covered tombstones.
Facing this unfamiliar Tower of Bones, Luo Binhan was inevitably afraid. But the black cat urged him to get into the tower together, groping and climbing among the dark corridors and stairs. During this period, Luo Binhan seemed to hear many strange sounds, such as people sighing, crying, and chewing sounds of breaking hard objects. But when he held his breath and listened carefully, the surroundings were quiet and he could hear pindrops.
They climbed to the top of the tower and emerged from the skull of a giant bird. All that was left of it was its bony sharp beak pointing high into the sky like a sword and halberd, forming an extremely steep spire. Luo Binhan couldn't stand on it at all, so he could only step on its nostrils to maintain balance.
The black cat jumped to the top of the tower and looked up at the sky. Luo Binhan also looked along its line of sight, only to find that the dome was pale and dazzling, echoing with the hollow sound of wind. Countless fine pieces of white snow fell from the sky, gradually covering the top of the bone tower. When a bit of snow powder fell on Luo Binhan's lips, he licked it subconsciously and tasted a faint bitter and salty taste - it was not snowflakes, but salt grains.
A hanging basket large enough to accommodate an adult swayed down in the salty snow and landed in front of Luo Binhan. A shimmering silver thread is tied to the handle of the basket, leading to an unreachable height. Luo Binhan craned his neck and looked around, trying his best to figure out where the other end of the string led, but he only saw a hazy, phantom-like round silver spot in the sky. It was so dim that Luo Binhan couldn't tell whether it was the sun, the full moon, or a saucer-shaped spaceship.
"Basket?" he asked the black cat.
Black Cat snorted coldly: "You'd better be content, because some people were hung up with their necks tied."
It forcefully asked Luo Binhan to sit in the basket, and then he jumped onto Luo Binhan's lap and scratched the handle of the basket with his claws. The silver wire that tied the hanging basket suddenly tightened, pulling the hanging basket up with surprising force. Luo Binhan, who was sitting in the basket, waited in fear. It was not until the falling salt particles submerged his heels that the source of the silver thread appeared in front of him.
A silvery full moon is as clear as the surface of an ancient well. It emits wisps of light behind the cold clouds and salty snow, and each ray of light is intertwined into a silver thread that penetrates into the endless void. Only the silver thread wrapped around the hanging basket kept shortening, pulling Luo Binhan and the black cat towards the empty moon phase like a white hole. Finally, the pale and huge "hole" finally landed on Luo Binhan's head, so close that he could touch it.
Luo Binhan raised his head and stared blankly at the phantom of the moon, which was as flat as water. He could see the reflections of himself and the black cat through the layer of white light, but behind the reflections there were even more peculiar things: the outlines of mountains and rivers, the shadows of cows, horses and farmers, running hounds and gardens of exotic flowers and rocks. ... Various ancient illusions are changing on the moon, and Luo Binhan doesn't know what the connection is between them.
"Get to know the hometown of Will's biological father." The black cat said on his knee, "Kemidalubun, the Eastern Kingdom of the Sea - or you call it Chixian China. This is how it used to be, but now it has changed. Not big."
It jumped up suddenly, bit the hanging handle of the hanging basket, and shook it hard. The entire hanging basket immediately turned over. At that moment, Luo Binhan felt that the world was upside down and he slipped out of the basket involuntarily. He only had time to let out a short scream, and then he fell together with the black cat that jumped on his face, falling into the cold and biting moon.
