The gray mist twisted like rows of tsunami walls, squeezing in from the sides.
A black river as thick as asphalt snakes through the narrow space.
A lone boat sailed leisurely on the Black River.
Qing Shisan stood upright at the bow of the boat, rocking the boat and sailing towards the unknown.
on board.
Zheng Xiu and Yue Linglong sat face to face, silent, neither of them spoke.
An awkward atmosphere brewed silently between the two.
This is really embarrassing.
Especially when Zheng Xiu found traces of Fengbei's past and his memory revived.
The orange cat's eyes were half-closed, and he lay lazily between the two of them, taking a nap.
Yue Linglong smartly did not ask Zheng Xiu what he was looking for in Richan Town - even if she noticed it.
Zheng Xiu sighed softly and looked at the well-behaved wife sitting opposite - it is undeniable that the warm Yue Linglong is a perfect wife that Zheng Xiu can hardly find fault with. She is gentle, kind, beautiful, considerate, sensible, obedient.
All the good qualities that Zheng Xiu could think of seemed to be attached to Yue Linglong. Since marrying into the Zheng family, she has worked hard to adapt to the customs of Daqian, honor her parents, be able to go out of the hall, enter the kitchen, and work hard. bed.
A few days ago.
Zheng Xiu entered the desert.
Following the direction in his memory, he found the remains of ancient people who had left legends of "returning to normalcy".
The ruins are still there, but there is no information left by Candle in them. It was just a place covered with wind and sand, lost in the dust of history. It was a meaningless ruin left by an unknown dynasty.
Three locations, Beiman, Richan Valley, and Jingtang Town, where Zheng Xiu was very sure that he left candle traces, found nothing. This makes Zheng Xiu almost certain that Zhu did not accidentally enter the Everlasting Darkness due to the shift of the world line, but that Zhu, the "first alien" who was once hidden in the cracks of history, has never appeared in this world. Pass.
no such person.
There would be no more things that Zheng Xiu had experienced.
Zheng Xiu moved his eyes away from Yue Linglong's calm face and lowered his head to the orange cat licking its split hair.
Today's orange cats still look like ordinary orange cats.
The foreign-style existence who called herself "Annie" seemed to have never appeared before.
Anne?
I'm still called Pide.
Zheng Xiu cursed in his heart, but had to work hard to digest all the information he got from Annie. Zheng Xiu frowned slightly and subconsciously twitched his little finger from time to time.
A faint "thin line" extended from Zheng Xiu's little finger and submerged into the end of the void. It was unknown where it led.
Annie kept trying to persuade Zheng Xiu not to look for Feng Bei again. Not only did this not dispel Zheng Xiu's desire to find Feng Bei, but it convinced Zheng Xiu that Feng Bei must still exist.
There was something called "reason" wrapped around his little finger, and for some reason, it became the only connection between him and Feng Bei.
Feng Bei sacrificed herself to save her father. At the same time, she cut off the "reason" between herself and the world, was obliterated, and disappeared in front of Zheng Xiu. It seems to be a very tragic thing, but precisely because Annie told the mechanism of "reason" in detail and Zheng Xiu's understanding of "reason", he is very sure that at the end of "reason", it is where Feng Bei is currently. place.
"She's out of 'the world'."
Zheng Xiu thought silently in his heart, clenching his fists and raising the corners of his mouth slightly.
Even though Feng Bei cut off all connections with the world, he still left a trace of clues. This made Zheng Xiu feel like a drowning man grabbing the last straw, or like someone who had been wandering in the darkness for a long time. A glimmer of light, a smile involuntarily revealed.
Annie seemed not to be able to see the "reason" connected to Feng Bei in Zheng Xiu's hand, and Zheng Xiu had no intention of telling Annie.
Zheng Xiu sensed that Annie was hiding something, and so did Zheng Xiu.
The "Jade Foot Hell" allowed Zheng Xiu to experience firsthand the "level" Anne was in. Even a startling glance was enough to make Zheng Xiu extremely fearful and vigilant. As Anne said herself, it is easier to kill herself than to crush an ant - and that "jade foot" is proof.
Give me back all the good thoughts I have about Yuzu, you bastard.
That jade foot has almost become Zheng Xiu's nightmare. As soon as Zheng Xiu closes his eyes, the "jade foot" that is bigger than the planet appears in his mind. Now Zheng Xiu can no longer face the jade foot, and has a psychological shadow.
"But what does Annie want me to do?"
Zheng Xiu was very curious.
This is something he cannot understand and understand.
Annie once called herself and Feng Bei "containers", which Zheng Xiu didn't have time to ask in detail.
container?
Stranger?
Strange thing?
After a few days of thinking, Zheng Xiu could only think of one possibility. In the eyes of beings at Annie's level, a strange thing is just one thing. The strange person did not gain the power of the "weird object", nor did he become a strange person because he glimpsed the door, but the strange person himself is equivalent to the "weird person". The existence of "material container".
What exactly is a monster?
This seems to be back to square one.
On the day Zheng Xiu was imprisoned and had a glimpse of the door, the huge red eyeball he saw exploded and sent out forty-nine rays of light. Those forty-nine rays of light are the true appearance of the strange thing.
Mysteries abound.
He still had to deal with Anne carefully next.
Touching his chin, Zheng Xiu looked at the little female cat that turned over on the board of the boat, with its belly turned upward, its posture gradually becoming more enchanting and a bit alluring, and nodded secretly.
He had to go back to his experience of harvesting strangers' wool and harvest something from the orange cat.
"etc."
Qing Shisan’s [Ferryman] can freely travel through his Bund.
There is a subtle difference between this and Zheng Xiu's forced opening of the Bund to enter the Bund.
The difference is that after Zheng Xiu opens the Bund, he needs [Inn] to locate, otherwise he will easily lose his way. As a "ferryman", Qing Shisan does not have such worries.
The Ferryman seems to exist just for situations like this.
"I want to go somewhere."
When leaving Richan Valley, Zheng Xiu was originally scheduled to return home. At this moment, Zheng Xiu wanted to go to Baili Village on a whim.
Qing Shisan was slightly startled when he heard this, but didn't say much. You are the young master and you have the final say. Zheng Xiu told Qing Shisan the general location of Baili Village, and Qing Shisan squatted on the bow of the boat and looked at the map for a while.
As he hummed a minor tune and rowed the boat, he suddenly realized that he was not averse to following Zheng Xiu's command. This "naturalness" seemed to be engraved in his bones. Working for Zheng Xiu made him feel happy from the bottom of his heart.
This made Qing Shisan feel a little bit puzzled.
It doesn't make sense.
While I was thinking that it didn't make sense, after a while, a branch road gradually branched out in front of the ship.
Qing Shisan drove into a fork in the road, and a crack opened out of thin air. The three of them were down to earth again and returned to the ordinary world.
Arriving at Yanzhou, the sun was clear.
Zheng Xiu looked around and recognized that this was the mountain road where he had died thousands of times.
Back then, bandits were rampant here. Zheng Xiu fought his way through the area and was very familiar with the surrounding terrain.
"It's around here."
"Meow."
With a meow, the orange cat jumped into Zheng Xiu's arms.
"Annie?"
Zheng Xiu asked quietly.
"Meow!"
The orange cat blinked and stared at Zheng Xiu with a pair of big innocent eyes.
Well, no.
Now the orange cat has become the unilateral communication intermediary between him and Annie. Only Annie takes the initiative to contact him, and Zheng Xiu cannot find Annie. This kind of "passivity" made Zheng Xiu quite aggrieved, so he secretly spanked the orange cat a few times to give him a slight punishment.
soon.
Zheng Xiu arrived at Baili Village.
In other words... the place that used to be Baili Village.
"impossible!"
Zheng Xiu looked at the "deep pit" with smooth edges in front of him in surprise, which was suddenly messy in the wind.
In front of him was a huge pit with a smooth hemispherical bottom, as if it had been dug away by a huge spoon.
Nothing is left.
"impossible!"
Zheng Xiu jumped into the pit with the orange cat in his arms and walked around the pit, but found nothing.
"What are you wondering about?"
The orange cat in her arms suddenly made Annie's voice.
"Impossible, there is no candle, no ceremony, why did Baili Village still disappear!"
Zheng Xiu suddenly had doubts about the "conclusion" he had worked out not long ago. If there were no candles, no layout of the candles, and no "ritual" that happens every hundred years, why would the tragedy in Baili Village still happen?
Annie seemed to enjoy the feeling of being in Zheng Xiu's arms.
It squeezed its furry head into Zheng Xiu's clothes.
Compared to the dirty ground, being held in the arms of a stupid container is not an unacceptable thing.
Anne understood what she said, and explained lazily: "Stupid container, don't you think that that 'phenomenon' was completely created out of thin air by a mere person?"
"……Phenomenon?"
Zheng Xiu stopped and raised Annie in front of him.
"...holding."
Annie looked unhappy and her tone suddenly turned cold.
Zheng Xiu quickly held the orange cat in his arms.
Anne's tone softened instantly: "This is just a very common phenomenon. Like sunrise, like sunset, like rain, like snow, like tide. That's all."
Anne used an ordinary tone and the most ordinary metaphor to talk about a terrible thing.
Zheng Xiu wanted to say that this was a lot of human lives, but when he thought of the billions of twisted corpses trampled under that jade foot in the "Jade Foot Hell", he suddenly closed his mouth.
The levels are different.
In the eyes of such a being, human life may be more contemptible than an ant.
Zheng Xiu stared blankly at the deep pit in front of him.
He found that he had misunderstood before and had always understood one thing wrong.
It was the first place Zheng Xiu arrived after becoming a [prisoner].
Now, he finally understood why he was here and why he was there.
The massacre in Baili Village was not planned by Zhu alone. It’s a “phenomenon”!
Even without Zhu, the tragedy in Baili Village would still have happened.
"You haven't given up yet?"
the orange cat asked.
"What?"
"The container named Fengbei." It turned out that the orange cat had already seen through Zheng Xiu's little thoughts, but was too lazy to point it out. It asked strangely: "This is just the lowest reproduction method among 'their' humans, a pure instinct. You can learn to be impulsive and impulsive. Isn’t that human named Yue Linglong the same to you?"
Annie couldn't understand Zheng Xiu's persistence: "Even if the container named Fengbei is still alive, she has detached herself and left, but you can't leave. You will never see her again."
The orange cat pointed at Yue Linglong, who was running towards this place anxiously: "Look, there is nothing wrong with her. Even if I am such a noble being, even if I can't understand your trash called 'emotions' , can also tell you that she is the most suitable for you. When she is with you, she will give birth to a powerful offspring."
Zheng Xiu didn't answer and started walking again, walking casually without direction.
As they walked, Zheng Xiu started running, breathing heavily.
Yue Linglong carefully slid from the edge into the deep pit. A layer of skin was rubbed off her palms, which were bloody. She walked towards Zheng Xiu, wanting to ask her husband what he was thinking. But Zheng Xiu was already running in the pit with the kitten in his arms.
Yue Linglong looked startled and stopped involuntarily. That back view made Yue Linglong have an idea that she didn't want to accept. At this moment, Zheng Xiu's back looked very much like those children in the clan who had lost their favorite toys. They were helpless but stubbornly unwilling to seek help from adults.
Zheng Xiu ran from here to there, from there to here. After running several times, he finally stopped at the edge.
"Hey, Annie."
"You should call me Lady Anne."
The orange cat stretched out his paw and corrected him seriously.
"Okay, Annie."
"..."
"Do you remember fish cakes?"
Annie licked her lips and nodded: "I don't remember, I've never eaten it, it's not delicious."
Zheng Xiu smiled: "I asked her later how to make fried fish cakes. I thought I just chopped the fish meat into pieces, threw it in a pan and fried it, and then the fragrant fish cakes came out of the oven."
Suck slip.
Annie wiped her mouth with her paw and smacked her lips: "Sounds good."
"But it's not true. It turns out that she gets up every morning and goes to the market to buy the freshest river crucian carp. Then she cuts it out when she goes home. She carefully picks out the fine bones with chopsticks and turns them into powder with her hands. Haha, this is her natural talent. The alien technique is quite convenient." Speaking of this, Zheng Xiu smiled self-deprecatingly: "She knows that the orange cat is greedy and eats it with big mouthfuls without any points. She is always afraid that the fish bones will get stuck in the orange. She would always pick out every fish bone from a cat’s throat;”
"She would mix potato starch with fish meat, add fresh eggs and salt, and she would ask Zhizhi and the others to help them shape the fish meat balls into fish shapes. She said that this way the orange cat would have more appetite;"
Suck slip.
The orange cat wiped the corner of his mouth with his paw again, his eyes getting brighter and brighter.
Zheng Xiu had a nostalgic smile on his face, his eyes were unfocused, and a normal picture of a woman with her hair tied up, her face covered in white powder, her sleeves rolled up, busy in the kitchen, appeared in his mind.
"After shaping it into the shape of a fish, heat the oil and put it in the pan. She said to fry it until it is halfway cooked, then take it out and wait for the oil to heat up again before frying it for the second time. The fish cakes fried in this way will be crispy on the outside. It’s tender and especially delicious.”
The existence named Annie drooled and wet Zheng Xiu's clothes.
"Sounds good." Annie tried to make her expression look more majestic, and said with a straight face, "Go back and make some for me to try, stupid containers, you only have this value."
Zheng Xiu shook his head: "What I want to say is, why don't you give up? I now know how to make you understand. 'You' used to be in our Zheng family. You were a group favorite and everyone liked it."
"If it were anyone else, knowing that you like to eat fish, the most he would do is fry fish for you."
"And Feng Bei will make 'fried fish cakes' for you."
Annie was stunned.
“Fried fish and fish cakes.”
"This is the difference between Feng Bei and others."
(End of chapter)
