"Hongye, do you know what this is?"
Without looking back, Zhou Yu could roughly imagine Hongye's expression at this moment. Ever since they met each other, the feeling of worry and depression has been lingering on Hongye.
"I'm not sure, but I've heard of similar situations."
Hongye walked next to him, easily inserted his hand into the wall, and grabbed a handful of soil that glowed red.
"...Sure enough. This is Sang Lian's 'method'."
“Will it turn cement into dirt?”
"Well, as long as it is a conceptual object related to land, it will become the soil that is most in line with the widespread understanding. However, this is not the ultimate goal."
As Zhou Yu watched, she picked up a bit of soil with her fingers, put it into her mouth, and ate it with an incomprehensible expression.
"...How is it? Do you think it tastes good?"
"Honestly, it's almost the same as what you cook."
It was clear that this sentence was not a compliment to himself, so Zhou Yu simply pretended not to hear it and still stared at Hongye waiting for an explanation.
"Zhou Yu, let me tell you a story. I heard it from a friend of mine."
Hongye let go of his hand and watched the soil pouring from between his fingers bit by bit.
"There once was a... monk in a certain place at a certain time. When he was born, it was winter, but all the ice in the river melted. Overnight, the water surface was covered with white lotus flowers, and the villagers were all amazed when they saw it. When he was five years old, his conversation and knowledge were more extensive than those of adults, and his reputation as a child prodigy was known far and wide. When he was eight years old, he took the initiative to say goodbye to his parents and went to a temple on the mountain to practice. It is said that he met the elders for the first time. They questioned each other and even knocked down several senior masters. The elders were also shocked, thinking that he was a reincarnated sage, so the abbot accepted him as a disciple. Zhou Yu, this child is Sang Lian .”
Zhou Yu, who had basically anticipated the answer, nodded.
"When Sang Lian reached the age of sixteen, no one in the temple could speak to him. After his fame spread, many eminent monks who were good at debate came to visit him, and even simple debate masters came to compete with him. As a result, They were all resigned to being defeated. Seeing that his growing reputation was enough to overcome the controversy, the host actually handed over the host position directly to him.
"Is the position of hosting going to be handed over to a sixteen-year-old kid?"
"Well, maybe it wouldn't work if it were other children. Sang Lian is a special case. The reason is long. In short, Sang Lian is not a person who seeks fame and reputation, and his knowledge is indeed related to what happened during his lifetime. If this continues, he will probably He will die as an eminent monk. However, in the third year after he took over as the presiding officer, an unprecedented famine occurred in the world."
When Zhou Yu heard this, although he was used to Hongye's occasional classical words, Zhou Yu still felt a little strange. He asked: "The world?"
"Well, it's not just where Sang Lian lives. Famine has occurred all over the world, regardless of race or ethnicity, as long as there are people living there."
Zhou Yu fell into silence for a moment.
This is not to say that he had not noticed it before, but because it had nothing to do with his own affairs, he deliberately ignored the contradiction.
Whether Hongye or Osel, the stories they told did not seem to come from a foreign country, or even from a past era. They simply seemed to be telling another world.
If Auster's story can be explained by his lack of understanding of Western culture, then the incident of Mulberry that Hongye is talking about at this moment undoubtedly does not exist in the world he knows. No matter how poor his historical knowledge is, he still knows that there has never been a famine in the history of human civilization that covered the entire continent, or even the entire planet, as Hong Ye said.
"That kind of thing is impossible, right? Even if it is a famine caused by a natural disaster, it is impossible for all areas to be affected."
"Zhou Yu, no. If it is a regular disaster, such as drought or locusts, then there is still some way to do it. However, Zhou Yu, Sang Lian's time and place are completely different from yours. The things there are What we encountered was the phenomenon of "earth extinction". No matter how hard we cultivate, water, and fertilize, we can no longer cultivate new seedlings. Because the earth veins there have died, and the soil has become meaningless pure. Entity', its function as a breeding ground for life is also lost."
Zhou Yu was speechless after hearing this description. He thought for a while and then said: "Is it a change in soil quality? Like global desertification?"
"Does desertification mean that soil turns into sand? Although the consequences are somewhat similar, 'desertification' is a completely different phenomenon. The soil where desertification occurs cannot be distinguished from the outside, and the water cycle will not be affected. Rainfall Snow, frost, and fog are almost completely normal. If you want to quickly identify the soil where the 'Earth Extinction' occurs, the best way is to see if there are living earthworms under the soil. When the 'Earth Extinction' occurs, no living things can live in the soil. "
"Can't even earthworms survive? They are creatures that feed on soil, right?"
"Zhou Yu, you didn't listen carefully to what I said before. I have already said that the soil there has no other meaning besides the concept of 'entity'. In other words, except for being used for stepping, filling holes, etc. It is a simple purpose and will not have any function of cultivating living things. So you can understand it, right?"
"I understand. Is this going to exterminate the entire biological world?"
Hongye smiled bitterly.
"You are right to say that. The people who created this phenomenon did use this as their purpose."
"——Wait, are you saying that this was man-made?"
"Well... although there are also occasional naturally occurring 'Earth's End'. But the 'Earth's End' phenomenon that Sang Lian encountered, covering the entire continent, was indeed deliberately created by someone. Those people came from a place called Wuyuan Star ...There is no need to elaborate on these. In short, the great famine at that time almost wiped out the people. After eating all the other surviving animals, the remaining people were forced to drift to the sea and make a living on fish and turtles. That was impossible. For a long time, most people died of septic hemorrhage. As for areas like where Sang Lian lives, because they are deep in the mountains inland, there is no way to escape to the seaside, so they... can only wait to die. "
At the end, there was a subtle pause in Hongye's words. Although he didn't say it clearly, Zhou Yu probably knew what she had left unfinished.
Now that Luzhong has become a barren land, it is not difficult to deduce what the most accessible "food" is left.
This is the case in almost any severe famine, regardless of region or race.
"It was at this time that Sanglian asked everyone to come to the mountain where the temple was located. Because of his reputation, people in the neighborhood obeyed his words. Then, one night, the entire mountain glowed red. Sanglian claimed that the entire mountain had entered the pure dharma realm, and that the pure land in the mountain could satisfy hunger. After the believers ate it, they did not get sick due to the accumulation of soil in their stomachs. Since then, people have lived in the belly of the mountain, using caves as their homes. Earth is food...Zhou Yu, what's wrong? Do you have any questions about what I just said?"
Zhou Yu shook his head and calmed down the expression on his face.
"...It's nothing, I just suddenly felt that someone was suspicious. You can continue talking first."
"Yes. After that, the villagers lived in seclusion in the mountains. Because there was a clear spring underground for drinking, they rarely came out of their caves. After three centuries of living like this, the remaining people saw the night as day, their skin grew soft scales, and their voices were as soft as snakes Hiss. It wasn't until Sanglian in the mountain temple sent someone to report that the "end of the earth" was gone and the vegetation had sprouted again, that the cave people came out of the mountain again. The people cultivated outside the mountain for a year, and the strange scales on the body faded away and returned to normal. Years old During the autumn harvest, the red light in the mountains suddenly disappeared, and the earth was no longer edible. The villagers went up the mountain to pay their respects to the monks and mulberry lotus, only to realize that the temple had been deserted for a long time. Only the main hall sat with a dead skeleton, fangs and a snake tail, and a body as big as a snake. Rhinoceros, wearing the cassock of the host. Therefore, it is said that Sanglian is a person transformed from the mountain spirit, cutting meat to feed the people. Although the people are ignorant and fabricated rumors, it is absolutely true that Zhou Yu and Sanglian died to save lives. of."
