radicalducati Chapter 1089 A Feeling of Fear Upon Returning Home
Chapter 1089 A Feeling of Fear Upon Returning Home
Fog emerged from the cracks in that thing, carrying its thoughts.
Its thoughts can sneak into your mind, steal the appearance of people you know, and then use those appearances to deceive you.
What you fear most is what you become.
The more you want to see someone, the more they become that person.
Su Wanwan remained silent.
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She recalled what she had seen when she last entered the inner tomb—those shadows flickering in the mist, those faces that seemed familiar yet she couldn't quite place.
She thought it was her hallucination at the time, but now Bai tide is telling her that those were the thoughts of that thing.
"If it becomes someone I care about, will I be able to recognize them?" Su Wanwan asked.
Bai tide glanced at her.
The sight was long; the pipe in her hand emitted thin wisps of smoke, a small clump of ash had accumulated, and instead of being flicked off, it just hung there, growing longer and longer until it finally broke off and fell onto her knees, which she didn't flick away.
"Yes," Bai tide said, "because it can't generate temperature."
When someone you care about touches you, it's warm.
It turned cold.
The fish soup is ready.
Bai tide took the pot off the stove, ladled out two bowls, one for herself and one for Su Wanwan.
The soup was milky white with a few specks of oil floating on top. The flavor of the ginger slices and the sweetness of the dried fruit mixed together, completely masking the fishy smell.
Su Wanwan held the bowl, scooped up a spoonful of soup, blew on it, and drank it.
It was piping hot, fresh, and slightly sweet. That sweetness wasn't from sugar; it was the subtle sweetness that seeped out from the stewed dried fruit, like the sweetness of autumn persimmons.
The white wolf squatted at her feet, looked up at her, and licked around its mouth with its tongue.
Su Wanwan scooped a small piece of fish from the bowl, blew on it to cool it down, placed it in her palm, and handed it to the white wolf.
The white wolf lowered his head, rolled the piece of fish into his mouth with his tongue, swallowed it without chewing, and then continued to look up at her, licking it again with his tongue.
"This wolf is following you and eating better than I am," Bai tide said, her tone devoid of blame, merely stating a fact.
Su Wanwan smiled and scooped up another piece of fish for the white wolf.
Bai tide watched them, finished the fish soup in her bowl, and there was still a piece of fish left at the bottom of the bowl. She scooped it out and threw it to Bai Lang.
The white wolf caught it in mid-air, swallowed it, then looked at Bai tide and slowly wagged its tail three times behind it.
Bai tide snorted and stood up to wash the dishes.
When night fell, the moon rose.
The moon over Qiyue Ridge is always exceptionally bright, so bright that it casts a clear shadow on the ground. Su Wanwan's shadow trails the outline of five tails on the ground. The five tails are stretched long by the moonlight and sway slightly on the rammed earth ground, like five silver snakes.
Bai tide took out the second dried flower from the jar, put it in a bowl, and rinsed it with boiling water.
The petals unfolded in the hot water, this time faster than yesterday, as if the entire process of a flower from bud to full bloom had been compressed into three breaths.
Pale purple petals floated in the bowl, the hooks on the five petal tips sticking up as if grasping at something unseen in the air.
Su Wanwan picked up the bowl, took a deep breath, and drank it all in one gulp.
The bitterness was even stronger than yesterday, so strong that her lips trembled involuntarily when they touched the rim of the bowl.
She gritted her teeth and finished drinking, then placed the bowl on the table, gripping the edge of the table tightly with both hands, waiting for the moonlight to arrive.
coming.
Faster and more powerful than yesterday.
The ball of hot wax in his dantian melted into molten iron within three breaths, rushing out of his dantian and flowing into his bones.
She felt the molten iron filling the gaps in her left leg, her right arm, and her spine, and then it began to surge into other gaps—those that hadn't yet opened.
She felt something blocking the deepest part of her ribs, the bottom of her pelvis, and every bone in her fingers, and the molten iron was frantically pounding against those things, making her bones emit a roar that only she could hear.
Her hand slid down the edge of the table, and she slid off the chair to the ground, curling up into a ball and lying on her side on the rammed earth floor, her legs curled up to her chest, her five tails tightly wrapped around her.
Her body was trembling violently, and the sound of her teeth chattering was like hail hitting the eaves, dense, fragmented, and incessant.
Sweat poured from every pore of hers, soaking a large patch of ground. The wet patch slowly spread out from her, like a dark circle that was growing larger.
The white wolf walked over, touched her face with its nose, and let out a low whimper.
Su Wanwan wanted to reach out and touch it, but she couldn't lift her hand. The muscles in her arm wouldn't obey her commands, as if they were filled with lead, and every muscle fiber was spasming on its own.
Bai tide sat in the chair, without moving.
She looked at Su Wanwan curled up on the ground, her face expressionless, but she put away her pipe, crossed her hands on her knees, her fingers interlocked, her knuckles white.
She just sat there, neither helping Su Wanwan nor speaking, nor even getting close.
She just stared, the turbidity in her eyes reflected in the stove fire, turning it amber, and deep within that amber light was a very, very fine glimmer.
About half an hour later, Su Wanwan's trembling stopped.
It didn't stop gradually; it stopped suddenly, like a snapped thread.
Her body relaxed from its curled-up position, her limbs spread out, and she lay on her back on the ground, her chest heaving violently, her mouth open, panting heavily.
Her face was covered in sweat, her lips were as white as paper, her eyes were sunken, and she looked like she had just been pulled out of the water.
Bai tide stood up at this moment.
She walked over to Su Wanwan, squatted down, and reached out to press her wrist. It was the same three fingers, in the same spot, exactly the same as yesterday.
This time she pressed for a long time, so long that Su Wanwan's breathing changed from heavy to even before she let go.
"It's doubled," Bai tide said.
She stood up, walked to the stove, poured a bowl of warm water, came back, lifted Su Wanwan's head, and brought the rim of the bowl to her lips.
Su Wanwan took two sips, and water spilled from the corners of her mouth, flowing down her neck and into her collar.
She drank half a bowl, shook her head, and Bai tide took the bowl away, put it on the ground, then helped her up and let her lean against the foot of the bed.
Su Wanwan sat against the foot of the bed for a while, then suddenly spoke.
The voice was very weak, like a crumpled piece of paper, squeezing out one word at a time.
"Will I die when the price quadruples on the third day?"
Bai tide squatted down in front of her, looking her in the eye.
Under the moonlight, Bai Xi's eyes were no longer cloudy, but became clear and bright, like two bronze mirrors that had been polished countless times. In the bronze mirrors was Su Wanwan's face—pale, sweaty, and weak.
"You won't die," Bai tide said. "I'm here."
Su Wanwan looked at her, at her eyes that were brightened by the moonlight, and suddenly felt a lump in her throat.
It wasn't the painful kind of soreness; it was something softer, something warmer that surged up from my chest, down to my throat, to my nose, and to my eyes.
She blinked hard to suppress the tears, but her eyes still reddened.
Bai tide noticed her reddened eyes, looked away, stood up, walked to the stove, and turned the fire in the firebox on high.
She had her back to Su Wanwan, her shoulders slightly hunched, like an old snail hiding in its shell.
Her voice came from the stove, lower and slower than usual.
"That kid named Chu Yang, hand you over to me."
You are mine.
My people cannot die.
Su Wanwan leaned against the foot of the bed, a slight smile curving her lips.
It wasn't laughter, but something lighter than laughter, like a feather falling on the water's surface, causing no ripples, yet the water knew it had been there.
The night is deep.
The mist from Qiyue Ridge surged in from the valley entrance, engulfing the entire courtyard.
The moonlight, filtering through the fog, transformed into a hazy, unreal silvery-white.
The white wolf slept at the foot of the bed, its body curled up in a ball, its tail covering its nose, and its ears occasionally twitching in its sleep.
Su Wanwan lay in bed, the blanket covering her chin. Her breathing was steady, and her brows furrowed occasionally before relaxing.
Bai tide sat in a chair with a well-worn book open in front of her.
She wasn't reading a book; she was looking out the window.
There was nothing to see outside the window, only a silvery-white mixture of fog and moonlight, like a sheet of solidified milk.
She sat there for a long time, until the fire in the stove went out, until the moon moved from one side of the window to the other, before she stood up, closed the book, and went to the bedside.
She looked down at Su Wanwan's sleeping face.
Su Wanwan looked smaller than usual when she was asleep. The traces of wind and sand on her face faded a lot in the soft moonlight. Her lips were still a little chapped, but the color was better than before she went to sleep, and they had regained a bit of their pink color.
Her five tails were spread out outside the blanket, and the white hairs at the tips of her tails glowed faintly in the moonlight, as if they were covered with a layer of silver powder.
Bai tide reached out and tucked a strand of hair stuck to Su Wanwan's forehead with sweat behind her ear.
Her fingers were so light that Su Wanwan didn't feel a thing, and her breathing rhythm didn't change at all.
Bai tide straightened her hair, withdrew her hand, hovered it above Su Wanwan's head for a moment, then lowered it, turned around, walked back to the table, sat down in the chair, and reopened the book.
A breeze picked up in the courtyard.
The wind blew the fog into a swirling motion, causing it to roll and tumble in the courtyard like an invisible river flowing.
The leaves on the trees rustled in the wind, a faint, distant sound, like someone whispering in the distance. You couldn't make out what they were saying, you just knew they were talking.
Bai tide listened to the sounds of the wind and fog, her fingers tracing the same unchanging motion on the pages of the book—once, twice, three times.
-
Heading east from Qiyue Ridge, past that saline-alkali land and that wasteland, and continuing east for three more days, you will see a mountain.
The mountain is not high, but it is very steep. The mountain walls are full of exposed rocks, grayish-white, like some dried bones.
At the foot of the mountain, there is a narrow path that can only allow one person to pass at a time. The bushes on both sides of the path grow very densely, and their branches intertwine to form a natural archway above the path.
After passing through that archway and walking for about half an hour, the road will suddenly end at a cliff, with an even higher mountain on the other side.
Chu Yang stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down.
The cliff wasn't very high, only about ten feet high. At the bottom of the cliff was a river with a rapid current, white waves surging and splashing several feet high as it hit the rocks.
On the other side of the river is an even higher mountain, covered with lush green trees. A waterfall hangs down from the mountainside, its water cascading down and turning into a white mist in the sunlight.
Sun Wukong stood beside him, holding the golden cudgel in his hand, the cudgel planted firmly on the ground, his body weight resting on the cudgel.
His fur was a bit brighter than it had been a few days ago, but it was far from returning to its original golden color. It was a color between earthy yellow and pale gold, like autumn wheat stalks.
The golden bloodstain at the corner of his mouth had completely dried, forming a thin scab that looked like a natural scar if not carefully examined.
He looked at the mountain opposite him, and there was something in his eyes that Chu Yang had never seen before—not excitement, not exhilaration, but something deeper and more profound, like someone who had been wandering outside for half his life and had finally seen home.
"Is this the place?" Chu Yang asked.
Sun Wukong did not answer.
He pulled the golden cudgel from the ground, held it horizontally over his shoulder, placed his hands on the ends of the cudgel with his wrists hanging down. The posture was very casual, but Chu Yang sensed an indescribable tension in his casualness.
It wasn't fear, it was nervousness, the kind of nervousness that comes with being close to home.
"When I left, the trees on the mountain weren't this tall," Sun Wukong said, his voice low, as if talking to himself. "Back then, there were three rocks on the mountaintop, standing upright, like three fingers."
I often sit on the middle rock and eat peaches.
A peach pit thrown from the mountaintop will roll into the river.
Chu Yang followed his gaze and saw that there were indeed three stones on the mountaintop, standing upright like three fingers.
The middle one is the tallest, and the two on the sides are a bit shorter. Most of the three stones are blocked by trees, with only the very tops visible. The tops of the stones are covered with moss, and their original color is no longer visible.
"Let's go," said Sun Wukong.
He pushed off the edge of the cliff with his left foot, his body soaring into the air. The golden cudgel swung down from his shoulder and transformed into a cloud in mid-air—no, not a cloud, but a golden, swirling light.
The ball of light carried his body and flew towards the opposite mountain.
Chu Yang watched his departing figure, which blurred briefly in the mist of the waterfall before becoming clear again, finally landing on a flat area halfway up the mountain.
Chu Yang also jumped over.
His movements weren't as fast as Sun Wukong's somersault cloud, but his lightness skill was still quite good. He touched the edge of the cliff with his toes, his body leaped into the air, did a half-turn in mid-air, and stepped onto the water mist splashed up by the waterfall—the water mist was very dense, almost like a wall. He touched the surface of the water mist with his toes, used a little force, and then landed steadily next to Sun Wukong.
When he landed, he saw Sun Wukong standing there, motionless.
Chu Yang followed his gaze and looked ahead.
Ahead was a peach orchard.
The peach tree is very tall with a thick trunk and lush foliage, but it is not the flowering season now. There are no flowers or peaches on the tree, only dense green leaves, so green they look almost black.
Deep within the peach grove lies a stone gate, a natural formation with two large, upright rocks on either side, topped by a longer stone slab, resembling a giant door frame.