Bodie walked up the cold blue stone slope and stared at the rugged snow-covered mountain belt in the distance. He was still wearing his clothes that were popular in the upper world, and the complicated and grotesque honeycomb-shaped tattoo on his left shoulder was slightly red in the wind. He didn't say a word during this journey, but he was undoubtedly thinking about it all. Even when Yaleriga walked up the rocky slope, he only glanced at her head.
Yaleriga had taken off the chain, although Bodhi had not yet shown aggression towards her. She also no longer hides her horns, because the residents of Frost House have no special expression except surprise. Their population is only one-tenth that of the upper world, they do not have particularly large settlements, and they live a strange life of sparseness and indifference.
She stepped on the top of the rocky slope and smiled at Bodie. The latter returned a playful yet alert look.
"That's about lattice defects," she said.
"I don't understand the word," Bodie replied. "Maybe you missed teaching me something?"
"The rock under our feet," Yaleriga said, "has a very special structure. There will be some dislocations in all the periodically arranged particles, so that they can be excited and emit radiance when they are impacted by external energy. Light. The sound that fills this place is an effective energy for them."
"That's funny," said Purdy.
"It also has some other possibilities. If it is released at a more suitable frequency, maybe it is a very efficient energy source, but it needs some refining."
"I can see it. This is the kind of dust lamp used to maintain lighting in the base, isn't it?"
Bodie turned his head and grinned strangely.
"That's strange," he said, "but it makes me think about what kind of person you are."
"About my horn?"
"You and the other guy on the boat," said Bodie, "you're quite interested in other people's business."
"What's idle?"
"You were protecting the carver boy. You let him sit next to you on the road, not to appease him, but to prevent me from killing him."
"Do you want to do this?"
"Honestly, I don't care. You see, my brain hasn't been modified, and I understand at least as much as you do about everything that old plumber mentioned. I've seen some things too. Immortals have done it. What—if it seems to you that it’s wrong, I won’t object.”
Yaleriga stroked her horn without saying a word.
Purdy said in a declarative tone: "I don't live here. I'm not a brainless spy. Whatever they do to the wretches, it has nothing to do with me. We just look the same. Same, that doesn't mean we are special to each other. No, I am not interested in caring about their fate, nor do I intend to take care of their mood. If someone comes to me about this matter, I will always be waiting. This is our existence The way, like those words in your language, tribe - it doesn't really exist. That's just a lazy way of saying it. According to that word you taught me, we're just independent-minded animals, right?"
"You like to think more than I thought."
"You love to listen to other people talk," said Purdy. "You're good at getting people to talk in every sense of the word."
"So, tell me, do you want to avenge the Immortals? Would you try to kill the person who erased their consciousness if they were still alive?"
"The Ageless One has given me a fairly satisfactory life," Bodi said. He continued to think deeply, and Yaleriga knew that the reason he gave was only part of the reason. But when Purdy broke his silence again, he stopped answering the question.
"I guess I have no conflict with you," he said. "You had a child with that man? Did he abandon you when you had the child?"
"Now you're thinking like a nasty person again."
"I know you are asking about a child who looks similar to that person. I also happened to hear the winged one on your boat say that the child is seeking revenge."
"I never knew that person, and I didn't know the relationship between the kid and him. But I was looking for him because he committed a crime outside."
"So you're here to catch this criminal? Is this just another piece of cake?"
Bodi laughed and turned to look at Yaleriga. Suddenly his expression froze and he stared into space unnaturally. Yaleriga turned her head and looked behind her, only to see the luminous stone peaks covered with frost.
"It's nothing." Bodi said, "I'm just too nervous. So what are we going to do next? Since we can't find the child you're looking for here, I guess you want to continue going down?"
"You don't have to follow."
"Of course I have to go down. That man, he said he was dead, but I don't believe it. I want to see with my own eyes. Even if there is no body, I have to walk a long way. You don't need to worry about me, I'm in Rhythm Disease I have to be more patient than ordinary people in this matter. And if I die on the way, that's my own luck."
Although he said this, Yaleriga did not intend to ignore it. When Bodie walked down the rocky slope and went for a walk at the foot of the mountain, she returned to the remote and simple single house.
She walked across the table that once held the doctor's pile of white papers and ran her hand through the dust gathering on it. Then she went to the corner where the doctor used to sit. There is the only seat in the house. If Zha's description is true, during the years when the doctor lived in a single house, there was never a second seat in the house. Visitors, young and old, could only stand and talk to the doctor. Of course, that is not the normal way to treat guests, but most people who can walk through the door are willing to tolerate this.
Regarding this quirk, the aging Zha gave a relatively acceptable explanation to his respected elders. He believed that the doctor did this because he did not want outsiders to stay in his house for a long time. Since they had to stand and talk to him, they had no choice but to get the business done as quickly as possible, rather than ramble on and on with useless politeness.
But that's not why physicians always sit in the corner. Zha finally discovered the biggest secret in this house after the doctor pointed it out to him personally, while Yaleriga noticed it almost within the first ten minutes of entering the house.
A rather secret trapdoor, which had existed from the earliest stages of the house's construction, was located where the doctor usually sat. Behind the door is a rocky staircase that winds down, flat and spacious, almost not like a road leading to an underground studio. There will be no risk during this journey because the doctor has removed all security facilities before leaving. He also took away those things that were not suitable for viewing by others, leaving only some metal sculptures. According to the doctor's explanation, these sculptures were not made by his own hands, but were remnants of careful testing by automated tools.
He planned to destroy it, but ended up keeping part of it. He specifically reminded Zha that if a person with deformed ears and no hair appears in front of Zha one day, he should bring him here immediately. If the hairless person asks Zha a question, don't hide anything. In fact, no matter who it was, if someone asked Zha about himself, he would advise Zha to answer truthfully.
Yaleriga walked through a row of fingertip models that were micro-carved from crystal oscillators and resembled the base of the Immortal. A stone three-dimensional map of the world that can be placed on a table. Mountains, rivers, underground caves and human settlements are all clearly identifiable. A half-cut, full-scale metal mannequin showed her the unique organ shapes of the local people, especially the layered sound filter membranes in the ears. On the nearby stone slab, he used a set of chemical formulas of the Alliance to explain how this sound filter membrane gradually formed and adjusted itself in the mother's fetus, helping the fetus adapt to its birthplace.
She bypassed these horrifyingly detailed sculptures and looked at the deepest parts of the workshop. In the corner on the left are a dozen black towers of bismuth gold that glow with dim iridescence. They were uneven in height, and at most they only reached Yaleriga's chest. There are no doors or windows, and it seems to be made of countless identical small square pieces. When the doctor returned to this single house many years later, he would always stand near this area, gazing at these black towers and communicating with Zha. He seemed to become more omnipotent at that time, and sometimes he knew exactly what Zha wanted to ask before Zha could even make a gesture.
On the other side of this city of bismuth gold pagodas, a bismuth gold flower tree of the same material was pulled up from a base close to the ground. It is the largest ornament in the studio. Yaleriga needs to raise her head to see the lifelike branches, leaves and flower buds. The maker skillfully controlled the degree of oxidation, making the color of the carvings more colorful than the branches and leaves. The rough surface of the branches and the direction of each vein on the leaves are also clearly visible. At a certain location within Yaleriga's reach, a branch was clearly broken. The branch that had been lost for many years had been left in the hands of the zombie-like immortal for more than a hundred years, and now it was quietly inserted back into its original position by Yaleriga.
