86 Ending

I've been here for a long time.

There was a knock on the door. He Lielie's college classmates had arrived one after another. She had no choice but to stuff the things into her mouth randomly, put them back under the bed in a hurry, and then got up to open the door.

The students planned to rest well at He Lielie's home on the first day, and then go up the snow mountain early the next morning.

At noon, after everyone had finished their meal, they sat in the living room of He Lielie's house to discuss what to do in the afternoon.

The squad leader looked around He Lielie's house and asked her, "Lielie, are you alone at home? Where are your parents?"

He Lielie was a little dazed at this time.

The ten-year-old bark she accidentally turned up in the morning made her uneasy all day.

I was ignorant when I was little, but looking back now, it all seems a bit weird.

How could an ordinary apricot tree drop bark with words on it?

What's even more strange is that the first piece of bark clearly only recorded history, but the ones she picked up later, big or small, all had an extra "Zhu" character, like a signature. Some were signed at the bottom of the bark, and some were interspersed in the gaps between the lines of text.

Now that I think about it, it feels like someone is trying to convey some message to her in this way.

He Lielie was immersed in memories of the past. The squad leader called her again, finally bringing her back to her senses.

She smiled sheepishly, pointed outside, and said, "See that apricot tree outside? They've been lying in it for almost twenty years."

The squad leader blushed and apologized quickly: "I'm sorry, I don't know your family situation. Don't you have any other relatives?"

"I have a brother." He Lielie said, she turned her head to look at the classmates who were still discussing what to play in the evening. Somehow, an idea suddenly popped up in her mind.

"How about I let you play the game my brother developed?" she said.

"Hey! That's a good suggestion!"

"What's the game called and how do you play it?"

He Lielie immediately opened the TV cabinet and searched for the game disc while answering the students' questions: "The game is called 'Universal History'. The gameplay is basically to find the fragments of civilization in different levels and rebuild human civilization."

The squad leader asked her, "Did your brother develop this? It's so amazing! Is he usually at home? With so many of us here, we won't disturb him, right?"

Not finding it in one cabinet, He Lielie turned around and looked in the other cabinet. She replied to the monitor, "Don't worry, he's traveling around the world now. Only..."

There was a sound of keys clashing outside the door, and everyone in the room suddenly became quiet. Before they could react, the door opened, and first a piece of luggage was carried in, followed by a man's figure. He lowered his head and walked into the room, his whole body illuminated by the light.

"...I will only come back when the apricot blossoms bloom." He Lielie continued.

She looked annoyed, wondering how she could have forgotten that it was already spring.

He Landao was stunned for a moment by the sudden appearance of more than a dozen people in the room, then raised his eyebrows: "Are they all classmates?"

He Lielie nodded.

Helan Dao calmly put away his luggage, poured himself a glass of water, and greeted the young people in the room: "Have fun, I won't disturb you." Then he leisurely left the living room.

He Lielie looked at the cabinet she had searched thoroughly but still couldn't find any game discs. She hurriedly called out to Helan, "Brother, do you remember where you put the 'Universal History' game I used to play when I was a kid?"

"Oh, that..." Helandao thought for a moment and told her, "I put it in the cabinet behind the door. You can take it yourself."

He said and went upstairs.

When the sound of a door closing was heard upstairs, the dozen or so people in the living room downstairs who were feeling suffocated started talking at once.

"I'm going to hunt. Is this your brother? He's so handsome."

He Lielie smiled but said nothing.

She finally found the game disc in the cabinet behind the door. She had played it countless times, so after taking it out, she threw it to her classmate without even looking at it to pass the time.

He Lielie thought her classmates would like this, but unexpectedly, after playing for less than two minutes, everyone questioned her: "Lielie, that's not right. Didn't you say this game is about reconstructing historical civilization? How come we haven't heard of anything in it?"

"It shouldn't be like this." He Lielie was stunned for two seconds and scratched his hair.

When she played, the levels that appeared were all historical fragments that she was familiar with since childhood, and there had never been a situation like this.

He Lielie looked up at the TV screen and saw three words in the upper right corner - Advanced Edition.

She said that she had taken the wrong version.

"Wait a moment." He Lielie stood up to look for Chujie. When she bent down to search, she suddenly stopped, turned around and looked at the content on the screen.

Why does the story here seem familiar?

He Lielie thought about it carefully and suddenly widened her eyes.

She ignored the dozen or so people in the living room waiting for her to change versions, turned around and ran, rushed upstairs, and took out the bark from under the bed in the bedroom.

She still remembered that when she was a child, when she was flipping through these tree barks, there was always a part of the content that she could not understand. She did not dare to let Helan Dao know that she was collecting these things, so she simply sealed them all in a box and never looked at them again.

It was not until just now, when she saw the content of the advanced version of "History of the Universe" game, that she finally remembered these forgotten details.

Those tree barks that she couldn't understand, those contents that she thought couldn't help her cheat, turned out not to be useless, but because she had only read the beginner's version of "A General History of the Universe".

And the more crucial point is that, for example, the entry-level version of "History of the Universe" that she had played was just a game, but the core information in it was consistent with the human history of the past thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Just like what was recorded on the tree bark, it was all real history.

Then, could it be that the rest, the texts she had never seen and the contents that human civilization had not yet developed to that level, were just fabricated rumors?

If one must make a guess, He Lielie believes that it is more like history that has not yet happened.

He Lielie went downstairs quickly and put the beginner version back in the game for her classmates. Then she took the advanced and ultimate version game discs and went back upstairs alone, along with the pile of tree bark. She came to Helando's bedroom, took a deep breath, and knocked on his door.

As soon as He Landao opened it, He Lielie spread two plates in front of him and asked, "Does the content here talk about the future of mankind?"

Helan Dao's expression changed. He immediately pulled He Lielie into the house, held the door frame and looked around. Finding nothing unusual, he slammed the door shut.

He asked her seriously, "How do you know this?"

"You answer me first, right?" He Lielie said.

Helando looked at her carefully and nodded. The advanced version covered the second-level human civilization, while the ultimate version covered the civilization of his own time.

Although this is not the history of the new universe, the old universe and the new universe have the same trajectory of civilization development, so it can also be regarded as an accurate prediction of the future.

He Lielie was not surprised, after all, her father himself had a lot of strange things going on.

She finally pulled out the bark from behind her and handed it to Helan, saying, "I picked up this bark ten years ago. Turn it over, and you'll see it records the history of mankind. Most of them even have the word 'blessing' engraved on them." He Lielie said, "But after a closer look, I can only understand one-third of it. The remaining two-thirds are very similar to the stories in your advanced and ultimate versions."

"So I came to ask you, what is the relationship between the game you developed and those tree barks?" She talked incessantly, not noticing that Helan Dao's expression kept changing.

He looked at the bark in his arms, confused at first, then his expression became solemn, and then his eyes gradually became hot, and the corners of his eyes even turned slightly red.

He Lielie wanted to continue, but Helan Dao grabbed her shoulders and asked her anxiously, "Where did you pick them up?"

She was startled, her brain was confused for a moment, and after a long while she said blankly, "Under the apricot tree."

Helan Dao let go of He Lielie, turned his head to look at the bark, and murmured, "There must be nothing over there."

Otherwise, why would he use tree bark as paper and a knife as a pen to record these human civilizations?

He Lielie frowned when she heard this: "Who are you talking about?"

Helan Dao had no time to care about her problem. He rummaged through the drawers in the house and found some miscellaneous things. He put them in a bag and ran straight out.

It was a chilly spring day, but Helan Dao was standing under the apricot tree wearing only thin clothes.

"I seem to be late. I don't know if you can still receive these."

He opened the bag and took out the contents one by one.

"You probably won't have anything to eat over there, so I brought some fruits and vegetables. Here's some water too, you can drink it if you're thirsty." Helan Dao strung the food together with a rope and hung it on the treetop.

"Is there a place to sleep? I've prepared a blanket for you."

"You might not need this over there." He Landao took out an emergency medicine box, "But just in case, you should still take it."

"And there are clothes. You and I are about the same height and build, so you can just wear mine. Don't mind? Do you?" He threw all these things onto the tree.

"I came here in a hurry today and didn't prepare much. You can make do with what you have for now. I'll buy a new batch of supplies and send them to you when the time comes."

"If you can receive these, just throw something down and respond to me. Make a list of what you want and I'll buy it."

Helan Dao sat down beside the apricot tree, looked up at the trunk, and said nothing.

He is late.

Zhu Heng may no longer be at the other end of the wormhole.

Or perhaps the entrance to the wormhole on his side had also moved.

Otherwise, how could the wormhole on the top of the head never appear in hundreds of thousands of years?

The sun slowly penetrated the clouds and wrapped around Helan Dao's body. The warmth came over him, and he gently closed his eyes and couldn't help dozing off.

He Lielie and her classmates stood behind the window, curiously looking out and watching Helandao's strange behavior throughout the whole process.

"What is your brother doing?"

Of course, He Lielie couldn't tell the specific reason. She made up an excuse to get rid of her classmates, and then glanced at Helan Dao from a distance, who was sleeping in the shade of the flower branches with a peaceful look on his face.

She suddenly remembered the diary left by her parents.

The diary says that Helan Dao returns here every spring to wait for someone.

She casually picked up a piece of bark and found the word "Zhu" on it.

Really?

The person her father is waiting for is this "Zhu"?

-

In the void space.

Zhu Heng sneezed for no apparent reason.

Just as he was frowning, something suddenly hit him on the head.

A bright red fruit fell from Zhu Heng's head and rolled to his feet.

Where does the fruit come from?

Zhu Heng was stunned for a moment, looking at the apple on the ground that could never have appeared there, and was a little unable to react.

He was stunned for a long time before he remembered to bend down to pick it up, but as soon as he lowered his head, a huge blanket fell down and covered his face tightly.

Then a plastic medicine box with a handle fell from the sky and hit Zhu Heng accurately. Fortunately, he was covered with a not-too-thin blanket, so the head was not smashed.

Who is so wicked?

At the other end of the wormhole, there are some angular "murder weapons" hanging.

Zhu Heng crawled out from the blanket, looked up at the treetop, and suddenly froze.

He saw that on the top of the tree, the entrance and exit of a time and space wormhole was slowly opening towards him.

Countless daily necessities are falling from the holes, in an endless stream.

Zhu Heng packed the barks he had compiled into a blanket, put it firmly on his back, then climbed up the dead tree in front of him and jumped into the wormhole.

It was pitch black inside the wormhole, but countless objects were floating in the air, sent from the world on the other side of the wormhole. They were glowing and became the only light that Zhu Heng saw in the wormhole.

Zhu Heng followed their guidance and continued forward until gravity returned to the wormhole. He saw the exit at the other end of the wormhole.

Zhu Heng fell down instantly as if he had stepped on empty air. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an apricot tree below him. The apricot flowers on the branches were in full bloom, but several branches were broken by Zhu Heng who fell down.

He finally fell into a broad embrace.

The man was sleeping under a tree, but was woken up by him. Zhu Heng didn't even have time to say sorry. Because he had not eaten, drunk or slept for a long time in the void space, his body's energy was completely consumed. His eyes went dark and he fainted completely.

It was two days later when I woke up again.

Zhu Heng was lying in bed when he was awakened by the sunlight shining through the window at noon. The smell of sunlight in the room mixed with a familiar smell, which smelled extremely comfortable.

Zhu Heng was the only one in the room. He was so thirsty that he had to lift the quilt and stagger out of bed.

He went downstairs, groped his way to the kitchen, and poured himself some water.

After taking a sip, he suddenly felt that something was wrong.

He turned around and looked behind him.

The room was completely silent.

More than a dozen young college students were sitting around on the sofa at this moment, with countless pairs of clear eyes staring at him.

Zhu Heng subconsciously lowered his head and looked at his clothes. Fortunately, it was a normal home suit, but the collar was wide open, revealing his collarbone and half of his shoulder.

Zhu Heng was silent for two seconds and pulled up his collar.

Someone in the living room coughed twice, and a girl's voice rang out: "Are you awake?"

Zhu Heng looked in the direction of the voice and saw a girl, someone he didn't recognize.

The girl had never seen Zhu Heng awake, and her mind was dazed by his eyes that were as bright as gems.

It wasn't until Zhu Heng took his eyes off her that the girl came to her senses. She raised her hand and pointed outside under the apricot tree and said to him, "My brother is over there on the bridge. Do you want to go find him?"

Zhu Heng was stunned for a moment, nodded and said okay, turned around and walked out of the house.

In fact, he had no idea who the girl's brother was, but compared to being stared at by more than a dozen strangers, going outside to find the girl's brother was obviously a wiser choice.

As soon as Zhu Heng left, the living room exploded again.

"Damn, why is there another handsome guy here?"

"Is this also Brother Lielie?"

"No, no, no, he is not. I don't know him." He Lielie quickly refuted the rumor.

"Then who is he and why is he living in your house?"

He Lielie recalled the night two days ago when everyone had fallen asleep, and her father's red eyes as he anxiously carried the sleeping Zhu Heng back to the house. He also recalled her father's meticulous care for Zhu Heng in the past two days, and how when no one was around, he would hold Zhu Heng's hand without saying a word and sit there for the entire afternoon, acting like a dog.

I will never forget it for the rest of my life.

Taking all of the above into consideration, He Lielie licked her lips and said, "He might be my sister-in-law."

-

Zhu Heng walked with one foot deep and one foot shallow on the land overgrown with wild grass. Not far away were the snow-capped mountains, the sky was blue and the clouds were light, and right in front of him, there was an apricot tree in full bloom standing alone between heaven and earth.

He recognized that this was the tree whose branches he had broken.

There was a wooden bridge under the apricot tree, and a man was standing at the end of the bridge.

I guess this person is the unlucky guy who was hit by him.

Zhu Heng approached him, intending to repeat his apology that he had not yet had time to say, when suddenly a gust of wind blew.

Amidst the sky full of apricot blossoms, Helan Dao sat leaning against the bridge and turned around to look over.

When the wind blows, petals fall from tree to tree.

He smiled and said to Zhu Heng, "I've been guarding here for a long time, and finally I've got you back."

.

- End of Text -

【Author’s words】

It's over, raise the bowl and ask for nutrient solution to feed

The next book is "Another Year of Waiting for the Soul to Return", a revenge-themed group portrait of past and present lives:

A new mysterious bookstore opened in Hangzhou. On the opening day, celebrities from all walks of life were invited to attend the celebration.

Halfway through the ceremony, the bookstore suddenly lost power.

When the call came back, a guest was found dead on the ground with 8 stab wounds.

Each of the remaining eight people present could be the murderer.

To prove their innocence, everyone must choose a book in the store.

The answer lies in these 8 books.

bibliography:

"Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", "The Peony Pavilion", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales", "The Garden of Stories", "The Book of Songs", "Chu Ci"...