whale? stranded? The body of an astronaut? What are you talking about?
Yan Jingxing looked confused.
"What's the meaning?"
"To be honest, I'm just as confused as you are."
Xie Yuzhi shook her head, and then she suggested:
"I want to go to the scene now to see the situation. Do you want to come with me?"
"certainly."
He nodded quickly.
…
After that, they dragged Ji Chunzao out of the room, who was still in a daze, and the three of them got into the black private car again.
"Go to Stone Harbor Village."
Liu Tie arrived early after receiving the news. He had been waiting in the driver's seat for more than ten minutes. However, before starting the car engine, he still hesitated and asked:
"Miss, today is a school day, what are your plans..."
"After going to Shigang Village, we will go back to school. We have already asked for leave from the teacher."
"What if your father asks?"
"Just say it. If there are any problems, I will communicate with him."
Xie Yuzhi put her hands on her knees and sat upright in the back seat of the car.
"Okay, I understand."
As the vehicle started, Yan Jingxing secretly looked at her profile.
Her skin is flawless, her facial features are slightly childish, and she has a youthful beauty unique to her age.
Xie Yuzhi's expression was calm and calm. No matter how he spoke or acted, or when communicating with adults, he didn't look like a middle school student of the same age group as him.
Sounds solid. But because of this, sometimes people can't figure out what she is thinking about.
The girl noticed someone's eyes and turned her sharp gaze to his face.
"What's up?"
"nothing!"
Yan Jingxing coughed dryly and turned his head pretending to look at the scenery passing by outside the car window.
There are three people sitting in the back seat of the car. Although the interior of the car is quite spacious, it is inevitable that arms will touch arms and thighs will touch thighs when encountering bumps on the road.
The faint fragrance that made him uneasy during the conversation last night lingered on the tip of his nose again.
Yan Jingxing, who was sitting next to Miss Xie, pressed his face against the window. Ji Chunzao, who was sitting on the other side of her, looked drowsy; while the girl sitting in the middle had an expressionless face.
"Aha--"
Ji Chunzao yawned again, her body began to sway as she was not full of sleep, her eyelashes trembled and slowly closed.
She leaned toward the car door; after a while, she leaned against Xie Yuzhi with the shaking of the vehicle.
Feeling the sudden weight, Miss Xie frowned subconsciously, but when she saw Ji Chunzao's sleeping face, her frowned eyebrows slowly relaxed.
Xie Yuzhi stretched out her hand to comb Ji Chunzao's hair hanging around her ears, and carefully arranged her unrolled collar.
After a while, Xie Yuzhi's eyelids began to droop unconsciously, as if affected by the sound of the sleeping girl's breathing next to her;
After that, her body also began to sway with the bumps of the vehicle;
Finally, Xie Yuzhi fell to the side.
"ah……?"
Yan Jingxing, who was concentrating on looking at the scenery, felt that his shoulders suddenly became heavier.
He turned his head and found that the two girls were leaning against each other, like bowling balls that had been knocked down. They were both fast asleep. While surprised, their bodies suddenly froze and they dared not move.
Didn't you sleep well last night? It's no wonder, after all, so much has happened.
In fact, he tends to feel sleepy after getting up early; but now he was not sleepy at all.
Ji Chunzao fell on Xie Yuzhi, and Xie Yuzhi fell on him. In other words, he was now bearing the weight of both of them.
"Fine."
He muttered, feeling uneasy all over.
At this time, Yan Jingxing noticed that the driver, Uncle Liu, was looking through the rearview mirror and looking at the situation behind him strangely. He felt even more uncomfortable.
He began to imagine himself as a statue carved out of stone, remaining motionless in its original posture.
*
"We're almost there."
Xie Yuzhi's eyelashes trembled slightly and she opened her eyes.
The car slowed down and she heard Liu Tie reminding them. After realizing her current situation, she couldn't help but widen her eyes in shock.
I just... fell asleep on a boy's shoulder? !
Xie Yuzhi straightened up quickly and saw Yan Jingxing holding his chin in one hand and staring intently out of the window, as if he hadn't noticed anything...
No, it’s impossible not to notice it! She just leaned forward with her whole body!
The girl felt her face getting hot.
This wasn't over yet. What was even worse was that she sharply saw traces of saliva on Yan Jingxing's shirt...
Me, am I actually drooling?
It was all because she slept too late yesterday. She tossed and turned in bed thinking about the problem. Her emotions of anxiety and excitement were tangled into a mess. Her long-term living habits were suddenly disrupted, so——
No, don't make excuses at times like this.
Even Xie Yuzhi would inevitably feel flustered when encountering this kind of thing. He took several deep breaths before he managed to calm down.
She couldn't help but raise her head again, secretly observing Yan Jingxing's expression, but the other person didn't even turn around. It seemed that he was planning to pretend to be stupid for her.
"Ugh...what's wrong?"
At this time, Xie Yuzhi felt movement coming from her shoulder. When she looked, she found that it was Ji Chunzao who was lying on her body and opening her eyes in a daze.
After seeing her face, Miss Xie unconsciously relaxed a little.
Because Ji Chunzao's current sleeping state... was worse than his own.
The girl's hands were still on her arms, causing wrinkles on her dress; and as expected, there were also traces of saliva on her body.
Alas, it seems that drooling is inevitable when you doze off in an awkward position in the car. Xie Yuzhi thought to herself that this was not her problem alone, and she received psychological comfort from this.
"Wake up, we're here."
Xie Yuzhi took two fingers and pulled the corners of the curly-haired girl's mouth hard.
"Huh?...Oh."
Ji Chunzao's big sleepy eyes finally opened slowly, and she covered her mouth and yawned.
"I didn't sleep well last night. I just fell asleep. I'm sorry... Hey, what's wrong with you two?"
Yan Jingxing still maintained the posture of holding his chin and looking out the window, while Xie Yuzhi was arranging her hair with a faint blush on her face.
…
Cars are parked on the side of the road.
Ji Chunzao was the first to open the door and jump out.
Xie Yuzhi, who was sitting in the middle, hesitated for a moment, although it was also a way to pretend that nothing happened, and judging from what Yan Jingxing meant, that was indeed what he meant.
but……
"etc."
She stopped Yan Jingxing before he got off the car.
"I fell asleep just now, sorry."
Xie Yuzhi took out a handkerchief and wiped his saliva marks carefully.
Yan Jingxing looked surprised, but he smiled and said, "It doesn't matter."
*
Under the leadership of Liu Tie, several junior high school students looked left and right curiously, walking on the wet streets and passing by the bustling crowds of people passing by.
Shigang Village used to be the largest fishing village near Baiyue Town. Fishermen went out to sea to fish and salvage. It has been a tradition for hundreds of years. However, in recent years, with the rise of offshore aquaculture, its status has gradually declined.
The village is very close to the natural deep-water port that is famous on the southeastern coast, so as long as you stand on the mountain at the head of the village, you can often see huge freighters gliding on the sea accompanied by groups of white gulls.
There are also several specialized markets in the village that sell the freshest fish, shrimps and crabs. The air is filled with the fishy smell of seafood. Every morning, vendors from nearby vegetable markets, as well as people who open restaurants and hotels, come to buy goods.
Liu Tie led them to an old fisherman with leaky teeth. He was said to be the man who discovered the stranded whale.
"Come this way."
The other party grinned, revealing a set of yellowed teeth.
Everyone followed him to a houseboat. The door and ceiling looked a little dilapidated, like an abandoned house. A fishing boat tied to a wooden piling was bobbing on the water.
"This morning, my brother-in-law and I planned to go out to sea, and we saw a whale on the beach. We called and originally said that we would use a boat to tow it into the sea, but by the time the fishery ship came over, the whale was already dead. ”
"We saw a huge crack in the belly of the dead whale, and the thing was pulled out of the crack..."
"crack?"
Xie Yuzhi noticed that the usage of this word was a bit strange.
"Is it a wound? What scratched the whale?"
The old fisherman touched his beard on his chin and showed a recalling expression.
"Actually, we don't know how the whale died. We only saw a gash on its body covered with barnacles, which didn't look like a wound."
"Where's the whale?"
"It's still on the beach. A group of people are surrounding it, saying that experts have come and are examining the cause of the whale's death."
The old fisherman pushed open the door of the boathouse, and a young fisherman whose facial profile looked somewhat similar to his was sitting on a chair, looking restless.
In the middle of the houseboat, a white "person" was lying.
"Really...astronaut."
Yan Jingxing murmured.
"Why are there astronauts in the whale's belly... No, let's put this question aside for now," Xie Yuzhi turned to the old fisherman and asked seriously, "Who is inside? The news we got is that this is A corpse'."
"Oh, that's because my uncle made a mistake. There's nothing in it. This guy has never been very reliable..."
Before the old fisherman finished speaking, the young fisherman who had been silent just now raised his head and said.
"No, I really saw the spacesuit move! That's why I said there was someone inside. I was thinking about how to rescue him, but I didn't expect that after taking off the helmet, it was empty inside."
"You must have seen it wrong." The old fisherman said nonchalantly, "Maybe there are some parasitic little crabs and fish pupae inside, so you thought someone was moving inside."
Yan Jingxing and Ji Chunzao both stared at the astronauts on the ground, falling into unspeakable surprise. Only Xie Yuzhi was still asking questions.
"Where did this space suit come from?"
"It must have been thrown away." Liu Tie replied casually. He obviously didn't understand what this spacesuit meant to young people, and he didn't understand why the eldest lady didn't even go to school when she heard the news and had to come over to join in the fun.
"Pull out a space suit from the belly of a whale" - although it is indeed a rumor that can be written in the newspapers, it is nothing more than that and not worth paying attention to.
"How could anyone lose their spacesuit?"
"It's not necessarily a real 'spacesuit'. It must have been forged by someone and used as a collection or souvenir. Later, it was discarded into the sea for unknown reasons, and then it drifted with the tide and was swallowed by a whale."
At this time, the old fisherman came over, rubbed his dirty hands and said with a smile:
"I heard that someone was already planning to buy this thing. I secretly brought this thing back before others arrived. How much do you think it can be sold for?"
Liu Tie looked at Xie Yuzhi, and when he saw her nodding towards him, the man sighed, took out his wallet and pulled out a stack of red tickets.
"As I said before, this is probably just an ordinary model, not a real spacesuit, so it won't sell for much."
"Okay, okay, you can watch..."
…
Yan Jingxing said nothing.
The sounds of people talking in the houseboat seemed to be far away from him.
He just stared blankly at the white figure lying on the ground.
No matter what others say, in his eyes, this is a corpse, belonging to an astronaut who has died long ago.
"He" was covered in muddy water and kelp, and he died in the deep sea, in the belly of a whale, and in the depths of the unknown world.
But... why?
Aren’t astronauts supposed to be floating in space? The boundless starry sky and the unknown planet, is that where "he" should go?
"Jing Xing, what's wrong with you?"
The little girl next to him noticed something strange about him, pulled his sleeve, and asked softly.
"No, it's nothing..."
Yan Jingxing held his forehead and forced a smile to Ji Chunzao.
But just then——
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the white figure lying on the ground suddenly trembling.
"Well……?"
Is this a scam?
Yan Jingxing turned his head and watched the wet astronaut slowly get up from the ground bit by bit.
The boy opened his mouth in astonishment.
The resurrected "him" walked stiffly, passed by everyone in the house as if no one else was around, opened the door of the boathouse and walked out.
Yan Jingxing took a deep breath. After he came to his senses, he immediately followed up with the astronauts.
