Chapter 43
After inspecting the RV and putting the pulled-out coils and other items back in place, Wang Le scoffed, "He's clever, but unfortunately he's not on the right path."
With less than two hours until dawn, just as he had told the eldest princess, he didn't plan to go back to his room. He decided to rest in the car instead, so he locked the car door, opened a small window, lay down on the lower bunk and pretended to sleep, while keeping his mind alert.
Perhaps it was because the notebook stirred up thoughts and memories that I had bizarre dreams in my light sleep.
In his dream, he was perfectly lucid, aware that he was dreaming, and even consciously cut off several less pleasant beginnings.
The dream kept switching between different scenarios. Maybe an hour had passed, maybe just a second, and suddenly my consciousness plummeted.
He opened his eyes "consciously," as if he possessed omniscient and omnipotent eyes.
He saw that he was wearing a familiar wingsuit, with no signs of damage or repair, and a parachute on his back, which also looked like it had never been opened.
He stretched out his arms and body, gliding down from the sky.
This used to be my favorite extreme sport.
It was described as flying, but he was actually falling, and the speed was so fast that his vision stretched further and further away, and the sky was so vast that his figure quickly became as small as a sesame seed.
If you can't see clearly, get closer.
Thinking this, he returned to his body, his mouth tightly shut, but his face was still slightly distorted by the strong wind. Through his goggles, he could still see the endless sea of trees beneath his feet.
The weather on the day we chose was really nice; the sky was cloudless, and everything was clearly visible.
His eyesight was excellent; he could see birds of prey flying about as small as black dots below and beasts sprinting and hunting.
My mood suddenly improved, and I felt like laughing out loud.
Why?
Oh, I remember now, because I finally left that road that seemed to never end.
After so many years of travel, his companions along the way had scattered or gone mad, leaving him all alone. That's why he dared to make the decision to take a gamble and try a jump from a height he had never been to before—over 5,000 meters.
The actual number should be much higher than that; 5,000 meters is just the highest measurement value of the sports altimeter.
It had been so long since he'd jumped. His movements went from clumsy at first to skillful later on, and he let out a joyful shout high in the air: "Aha—"
However, because the wind was too strong and cold, making him uncomfortable, he had to close his mouth again with difficulty.
The speed of the fall increased until it reached a certain level and then stopped accelerating.
I don't know when, but my goggles were covered with a thick layer of white fog, blurring my vision. All the scenery gradually turned into bizarre and colorful patches until the colors of the sky and the sea of trees were mixed together.
The feeling of weightlessness during the descent continued, stretched out, and seemed endless.
He lost his sense of time and altitude.
Subconsciously, I was convinced that I was still very, very far from the ground.
But after blinking repeatedly, he still couldn't determine whether it was true or false.
Is it because of the goggles?
He wiped the lenses, but it didn't help. He pushed the goggles down his nose, but his vision was still blurry.
I tried to distinguish the sky and the sea of trees by the blurry patches of color, but they seemed to have become indistinguishable.
He couldn't even tell if he was upside down or not.
No, he needs to see it; he must see it clearly.
Thinking this way, my perspective instantly shifted to a higher level.
He saw himself flying like a bat, and he also saw the display on the menu: the altimeter remained at five thousand meters without changing.
How could that be?
It's either still at an altitude of over 5,000 meters, or there's a problem with the function menu.
He instinctively leaned towards the latter.
I can't wait any longer; the sea of trees seems to have been brought closer.
He returned to his body, pulled the pull rope, and with a "bang," the guide parachute was released.
But the next second, the main parachute failed to open successfully.
Grass (a type of plant)!
In a second, countless comments flashed through my mind, such as "This highway is too high for science", "How can it be so high and still have normal seasons", "Baby is confused", "Landed and eliminated", "Mom, I can't go back", "Dad, I'm sorry", "Brothers reunited".
He stretched out his body as much as possible, and the wingsuit also helped to increase the contact area.
Ten minutes later, the numbers on the altimeter finally changed. He waited patiently until the number approached 4,000 before bouncing back down.
The menu is indeed broken.
This is the last chance; if it doesn't work...
He tried to banish the bad thoughts, took a breath, and pulled the rope again.
Luckily, my body was suddenly lifted upwards by a tremendous force, and the backup parachute opened successfully.
His heart was pounding as he gripped the parachute lines tightly, savoring the tranquility that followed the thrill of extreme skydiving.
We'll be on the ground soon.
Then I can go home.
It might get caught in a tree.
So many branches, they'll ruin your face!
That's alright. He's long complained that he's not tough enough, so maybe this time he'll get his wish.
What if there's still no signal down there? What if you encounter a wild animal?
What if we weren't in the real world?
...
A jumble of thoughts kept flooding my mind, and my body was trembling slightly.
The speed decreased, but the vision did not recover.
He tried to take off his goggles, only to find they had already been removed and were hanging around his neck.
No wonder my neck felt uncomfortable from being strangled, and my eyes felt very uncomfortable after being exposed to the wind for so long, as if something had covered them up.
It seems it wasn't because I didn't sleep all night, but because the wind got into my eyes.
He just didn't know that when the wind gets in his eyes, his brain can also experience hallucinations.
Even though I couldn't see clearly, my brain seemed to receive images of the aurora, the starry sky, the ocean, glaciers, deserts, primeval forests... countless images flashed by like slides.
Even though he wasn't "seeing" with his eyes, he didn't seem to sense anything strange in the dream.
My mood suddenly turned sad, sorrowful, and hopeless.
He thought he heard someone crying.
Only when I tasted salt did I realize that I was the one crying like a baby.
My eyes can see again without me noticing.
He saw the heavens and earth change, the stars fall, he saw his mother, on her sixtieth birthday, wail and weep in front of relatives and friends, losing all her elegance, he saw his father, who had quit smoking, spend the whole night in his study with cigarette butts scattered all over the floor, he saw his cronies burning game discs for him, he even saw his parachute hanging on a bridge pier, soaked to the bone by the torrential rain, and finally, he heard that sound—
"I'll save you right away! Wait! Hold on!"
He looked up, met the sunlight, and squinted to see a familiar face.
"Awake? If you're awake, go have breakfast." Fang Xiaoyu pretended not to see him crying in his sleep, woke him up, threw a hot towel on his face, and got out of the car.
Wang Le's eyes were a little swollen and painful. The warm towel made him feel a little better. As he gradually regained his senses, he realized something was wrong and sure enough, he found that half of his pillow was wet.
He got out of bed without changing his expression, wiped his face with a towel, and stuffed it into the washing machine along with the pillow for washing and drying.
He quite likes this pillow and won't change it for now.
Fang Xiaoyu noticed that Wang Le had suddenly changed.
He stopped insisting that she not touch the parachute and flight suit, and even helped her collect related materials and accompanied her to make toy umbrellas without key parts.
Fang Xiaoyu was happy to learn more, but she still had doubts: "Why did you suddenly change your mind?"
Wang Le looked on with a reminiscing expression, then smiled and said, "I was too worried before, afraid that you would be too impulsive and reckless. Now that I think about it, I should have trusted you more, and knowing more would also give me more options."
Fang Xiaoyu patted his shoulder: "It's good that you've figured it out! It's good that you've figured it out! I'm not a reckless person, don't worry."
The two made many toy umbrellas, and after climbing the stone steps, they had a new source of fun: watching the various toy umbrellas, each carrying a bottle with a distress note, drift away into the distance, rising and falling in the air, getting farther and farther away.
"It's strange, I've never seen such thick fog in all this time." Looking at the small umbrella drifting away, Fang Xiaoyu said, "On the first day I came here, the fog was so thick that I couldn't see if there were any cars around, or if everyone was still there."
“It’s probably too high,” Wang Le said. “Occasionally, during seasonal changes, you can see fog hidden in the sea of trees.”
“Really? Then I’ll pay more attention in the future,” she said. “When I first came here, I thought the reason was because of the fog. I was waiting for the fog to come along the way, thinking that maybe if I drove in the fog for a while, I would hear the familiar car horns and see the traffic jams again.”
"It seems that everyone had similar thoughts before."
"Right? How about we try creating fog next time?"
"……OK."
Fog isn't so easy to create, especially for two complete novices who have forgotten all their chemistry and physics knowledge as soon as they leave school. It's already quite impressive if they can remember how saltpeter makes ice and dry ice creates fog.
Moreover, the service areas on the highway don't have any direct materials related to creating fog, nor do they have any finished products like parachutes. It seems that anything that can get you out of there is prohibited.
Even so, they still managed to find the raw materials and repair the damaged parachutes.
Given time, if a chemical expert were to come along, perhaps even dense fog could be artificially created.
Unable to create a dense fog effect for the time being, and not content with just making toy umbrellas, Fang Xiaoyu and Wang Le researched the most crucial core component: the mechanism that releases a small umbrella when a string is pulled, followed by the release of a large umbrella.
The two didn't dare to actually disassemble the object, so they could only shine lights on it, trying to find out its secrets.
But they didn't have X-ray vision; they were just guessing and ended up actually creating a similar mechanism.
However, because it is not forged from a single piece but rather pieced together, its safety cannot be guaranteed.
Even so, it made the two of them happy for a long time. The eldest princess even ate big chicken legs for several days in a row.
Time always flies when you're busy, and the wind started to get cold and biting. Autumn passed in the blink of an eye.
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