Chapter 73: The Stone Will Not Be Returned to Us
As soon as the sun rose, my brother dug the stars out of the quilt.
After putting the quilt on the hay and the things in the house back into place, the two children were in trouble before getting ready to go out.
It's such a cold day, and it started snowing today. If they don't wear something thicker, they can only continue to wear the tattered linen clothes that can't even cover their bodies. But if they wear nice clothes... the styles of clothes in the starry space are completely different from those of clothes in this era. It's okay in the dilapidated temple, but if they go to the city and are seen by others, it might cause some trouble.
Finally, Xiaowu gritted his teeth and was about to tell his brother to wear linen clothes into the city and then look for beggars outside, especially Qi Laosan, to see if he could get a set of clothes for Xingxing to wear to keep warm. At this time, Xingxing seemed to know what he was going to say in advance, and put his finger to his mouth to signal his brother to be quiet and not speak.
After Xingxing closed the door, blocking out the wind and snow outside as well as the vague sight, two sets of winter clothes, one large and one small, appeared out of thin air in his hands.
And the shoes and socks are a set.
Facing her brother's surprised gaze, Xingxing curved her eyes and whispered, "Brother, try it on quickly."
The stars were not wearing any.
Instead, she stared at her brother as he clumsily put on his clothes.
Stars can’t wear clothes from this world, so the brother is the model, and he looks at them very seriously.
As a result, Xiaowu himself was also dressed in a mess, and it took him a long time to get dressed while panting.
The small pair of scissors that she took out last night was aside. Xingxing asked her brother to sit on the doorstep. Then, under the various surprised and suspicious gazes outside, she held the scissors herself and clumsily cut her brother's hair carefully according to Qiuqiu's instructions.
Actually, I should have cut my hair when I took a shower yesterday, but Xingxing fell asleep.
When he woke up, it was already night. My brother told me that it is not good to cut hair at night.
To be precise, in this era, cutting your hair at any time is considered unlucky.
But this has nothing to do with the two little beggars. They have nothing to clean their hair, and long hair is easily dirty and tangled. Xingxing doesn't know how to comb it, and Xiaowu is not much better.
So the two brothers took turns helping to cut each other's hair, leaving only a short section. It looked weird, but because their eyes were particularly bright and lively, the weirdness was suppressed a lot by their spirit, making them look just a little thinner and more lonely.
Xingxing had only been in this body for less than three days. In just three days, even though the spiritual spring water was a treasure in the world of immortal cultivation, it was unable to instantly restore the fair and rosy complexion of the two children who had suffered since childhood.
After her hair was cut short, Xingxing slowly put on the strange and complicated clothes with the help of her brother. Then the two brothers walked out hand in hand, taking one step forward and one step back.
No one dared to step forward to question the two children whose behavior was becoming increasingly strange.
Just looking at the two children who were in rags and almost frozen to death or starved to death the day before yesterday, and who were wearing two sets of exceptionally thick, clean and decent winter clothes out of nowhere, the thoughts about ghosts and gods in their minds couldn't help but become heavier.
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Xingxing refused her brother's suggestion to carry her on his back.
Xiaowu could only hold his brother's hand and walk slowly in the thick snow.
This road can be said to be extremely desolate.
It was clearly near the capital of the Li Kingdom, but as Xingxing walked towards the city, he found that the further out he went, the less people there were, and many houses had collapsed under the weight of the heavy snow.
They spent so much time in the dilapidated temple before setting off, but they hardly heard a single rooster or dog barking on the road. There was not even a wisp of smoke from the kitchen cooking for breakfast. It looked like an empty and desolate world of ice and snow.
But this feeling became weaker as we got closer to the capital.
There were more and more people passing by, and the noise became louder and louder.
but……
Xingxing tilted her head to look at the people or corpses leaning on wooden sticks or lying in the snow at the foot of the city wall, and then at the people who were queuing to enter the city with goods on their shoulders but with numb and silent expressions. Suddenly, she had the illusion that they were even worse than the beggars in the dilapidated temple.
Xingxing didn't care about the group of beggars in the dilapidated temple. He just gave them one last order before leaving.
Let them forever forget Xiaowu and Xingxing who appeared in their memories.
As for whether they eat humans or not? How many people have they eaten?
The stars don't care.
Xingxing himself is a zombie. It is normal for zombies to eat humans. Zombies also eat their own kind, just like big fish eat small fish and small fish eat shrimps. This behavior is extremely normal in Xingxing's eyes.
Xingxing didn't want to kill them all. Although they followed Xingxing and Xiaowu all the way and were always greedy for their bodies, my brother said that they had an agreement and these people did not violate the agreement. They waited until they thought Xiaowu was dead before coming to "collect the body". They didn't expect that the person was not dead and they would still hit a wall.
That group of beggars were the most hostile people towards Xingxing since he came to this world. They were also the lowest group of people in this era.
But now, seeing these people with withered and lifeless faces who are still mechanically and numbly moving forward to make a living, Xingxing suddenly realized: It turns out that there is more than one kind of lower-class people in this era.
Qiuqiu said that this was because it was the end of the dynasty and a sign of troubled times.
But Xingxing shook his head, feeling that what Qiuqiu said was not quite right.
The end of the world is even more chaotic. The end of the world is not the end of a dynasty, but the end of the entire world's humanity.
But even so, those people did not live like this.
Although people in the doomsday are fearful and uneasy, unable to sleep at night and facing crises at any time, they are alive and noisy in the eyes of the stars, and there is always light in their eyes. They will also joke that if one day they really want to give up and don't want to live, they will cut their fingers, put some zombies' saliva or blood on them, and have a slow and painless mutation.
But the people here are different.
Their expressions were empty and numb, their backs were bent and hunched, and they lined up at the gate of this prosperous capital, like lifeless logs that were sawed off piece by piece and cut into desired shapes, just like the bones pulled out of their bodies, piled together one by one, and finally built into this seemingly prosperous capital, and this country that was about to collapse.
The wind and snow howled and angrily hit them. Some shivered timidly, some gathered together for warmth, and some wore warm winter clothes and breathed out a breath of white air comfortably...
Xingxing turned her head and looked at her brother who was holding her hand and standing at the end of the team.
My brother said that he wanted to be a general who killed countless enemies.
But Xingxing thinks that’s not possible.
Because in the eyes of the stars, those people queuing in front are no longer living humans, but numb and hunched corpses.
When my brother was the general, he was not protecting these corpses, but the "king" who sat high above the corpses.
Xingxing couldn't explain what was going on in his mind, but he understood what Qiuqiu said: "When a dynasty rises and falls, the people suffer."
Standing in front of the two brothers was an old lady with gray hair.
Qiuqiu secretly scanned her body and her bone age showed that she was 37 years old.
But she looked really old. She couldn't even straighten her back. She held a wooden stick in her hand and occasionally made a few muffled coughs from her chest.
The stars were staring at her back.
Xiaowu discovered it, and Qiuqiu also discovered it.
Both asked the stars what they were looking at at the same time.
Xingxing shook her head, a little speechless.
He just held his brother's hand carefully, and never took his eyes off the old woman.
He is listening to his heart.
I heard the other person lamenting in his heart why he had to get up before dawn today but still had to wait in such a long line.
I heard her worrying about whether her son who worked in the city would be scolded by his employer again, and that her daughter, although only twelve or thirteen years old, could not wait to get married, otherwise there would be no surplus food at home and it would be difficult to feed an extra mouth.
I used the rest of my thoughts to think about when my grandson's illness would get better, and whether I could ask the doctor in the city today to prescribe a cheap and effective cold-relieving medicine.
Apart from that, the little room in her mind was filled with trivial matters at home and abroad.
But in the ears of Xingxing, all these thoughts finally became the same: How can I survive?
My son was scolded while working in the city, but he endured it in order to survive.
Daughters are married off when they are only twelve or thirteen years old so that they can have enough food to survive.
When my grandson is sick, I have to get up at night and queue up to go to the city to get medicine. This is also for the sake of survival...
And she herself, who worries about all these things, also wants to survive.
It wasn't just this old woman. The people in front, those people who looked numb and empty as if they had been tortured to the point of having lost their souls, all had similar feelings after listening to what she said.
Xingxing never used to understand the complexity of human beings. He never expected that in this world, in this era, all the voices he heard would actually be unified into the same question: How can one survive?
But the world seen by the protagonist of this world, Koi kid, is not like this.
The plot is full of descriptions of gorgeous clothes, and about the struggle between officials and imperial power. It is about the high position in the temple, noble status, and good fortune. With him around, people can rest assured that the world will be at peace, and he will be respected by all the people and worshipped by every family.
"Ball."
Xingxing suddenly called out to Qiuqiu, who was squatting above his head recording ancient scenes. Then, after Qiuqiu responded, he followed his brother and slowly moved forward, asking softly:
"Koi hero, can you keep these people well fed and clothed?"
Xingxing didn't have much sympathy, but when he looked at these humans who had lost their souls and were living numbly, he always felt a little uncomfortable.
It’s like... it’s like seeing zombies of the same kind as myself.
The zombies who have not yet regained consciousness are living in a daze, but the zombies are all threatening, while these humans seem to have no need to exist at all.
That indescribable strange feeling made Xingxing's whole face wrinkle.
After hearing Xingxing's messy description, Qiuqiu was stunned for three full seconds, and then answered loudly: "No, kid! Novels have endings, but the small world formed by novels has no ending! Li Jinyuan's koi luck is not the luck that is truly favored by heaven and earth!"
But I couldn’t tell what kind of ball it was. It was definitely not a proper koi and it had a bit of a weirdness to it.
Xingxing: “…Yeah.”
Qiuqiu’s voice was so loud that Xingxing felt that her mind, which was in a mess just now, was now blank after being yelled at.
Qiuqiu also realized that his voice seemed a little loud and he was too emotional. He was silent for two seconds and then asked in a low voice: "Xingxing, if I answer yes, will you choose not to take back the little stone?"
Before he could finish his words, the little head he was squatting on shook its head without hesitation.
Qiuqiu: “…”
Good, very decisive.
Aren't you soft-hearted at all?
Probably guessing what it was thinking, the star said softly: "The little stone must be taken, the luck must be taken, and the soul of the little star must be reincarnated intact."
After saying that, Xingxing added seriously, "Little friend, you can't save the world."
This is what Xingxing heard Qiuqiu say to him at the end of the world after he was bound to Qiuqiu as the "salvation system".
Children cannot save the world.
Children should do what they are supposed to do, eat well, sleep well, and grow up well.
Saving the world is not the responsibility of children. When the sky falls, the first people to try to hold it up are not a group of short and stout kids.
Therefore, stars cannot save the world.
The Star of Doom is not okay.
The stars in troubled times are not allowed either.
If sacrificing a star's soul could keep everyone in the world well fed and clothed, the star would probably hesitate for a second and then refuse.
But if not, the little stone must be returned to its original owner, and the soul of luck must be completed for the little star. The star will never change its previous decision to beat the little koi until it cries!
"...That Xingxing asked so seriously just now." Qiuqiu sighed helplessly, feeling as if he had been fooled by Xingxing again.
Ever since my cub entered the body of this little star, his personality has become a little bit sinister. Sometimes Qiuqiu doesn't even know what he is thinking.
Although, I never understood it before.
Hearing its muttering, Xingxing's clear eyes curved slightly.
He didn't coax Qiuqiu, but was thinking, if being a koi fish can ensure that everyone has enough food and clothes... then let his brother be the little koi fish!
Hang the small stone on your brother's neck so that you have space and your brother can be lucky. Anyway, the little koi is a fake koi, and so is the brother. Their functions should be similar, right?
When the soles of Xiaowu and Xingxing's shoes were soaked by the snow water stepped on by people and they were too cold to stand, it was finally their turn to enter the city.
There was no need for any identity or household registration. After all, in this dynasty, countless people died every day, and countless people sought to survive. With the back and forth, the household registration had long been a mess. Many people just picked up people from corpses and used them as replacements.
In the dead of winter, the soldiers guarding the city did not have the patience to interrogate and inspect everyone one by one. They were more likely to take some bribes and then take an egg or a bundle of firewood from the pockets of the people who were carrying baskets into the city to sell. Anyway, from the moment they entered the gate, the people's goods would be exploited at every level.
And this is just the first layer.
It's like peeling off only the first layer of an onion. The rest, the further back and inward you go, the more it will hurt your eyes and make you cry.
However, no one was taking care of the two little kids, Xingxing and Xiaowu. Such children could neither cause any harm nor carry any valuable goods, so the guards let them in at will.
Xiaowu walked down the street with his brother holding his hand for the first time with his back straight, but he had no intention of enjoying the change in his status at this moment. Instead, his head was filled with the small stone that was exchanged for half a wheat cake.
"Xingxing, I asked Qi Laosan and the others yesterday." Xiaowu whispered, "That family is very rich and owns a jewelry store. We should go to their jewelry store instead of other places. We should observe first and then think of a way to get our things back. There are many people there, and if there is a commotion we won't be beaten to death by their evil servants."
Xiaowu was not stupid or impulsive. When it came to things related to the stars, he tried hard to be more careful, for fear that if he acted impulsively, his brother and himself would suffer.
But all his cleverness and caution were undone when he walked with Xingxing not far from the door of the jewelry shop and heard passers-by say that the owner of this shop was a kind-hearted and blessed man, and that the child he adopted yesterday was actually the bloodline of the Anqing Marquis' Mansion. His mind went blank due to the sudden change of reality.
After a while.
Xiaowu was in a daze and took Xingxing to sit on a slightly wet wooden stool in a remote place.
"Star……"
He turned his head to look at his brother, opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything. His eyes gradually turned red, full of guilt and regret.
That stone, it must be that stone!
The child took the stone and it was soon claimed back by the owner.
Anqing Marquis' Mansion... Xiaowu just told Xingxing the story about the three generals in the Anqing Marquis' Mansion last night...
But now, what should they do?
Just go there directly?
The star doesn't have that little stone, the child does.
Xingxing is a little beggar, and that child is a pampered young master.
Star……
If he hadn't taken the wheat cake that day, if he could hold on with Xingxing for a few more days... would everything be different?
What can he do now?
Marquis's Mansion... How high is the threshold and how high is the official position? Xiao Wu didn't understand, but his little heart was already filled with shock and helplessness.
Xingxing raised her hand and wiped away the tears that were unconsciously sliding down her brother's face.
The weather is so cold now. After my tears fall, my cheeks may be hurt by the cold wind.
"Star……"
Xiao Wu stared at his brother's face, and after a moment, as if he had made a decision, he suddenly held his brother's hand, wiped away his tears and said to him, "Xingxing, I will take you to Anqing Marquis' Mansion! We must make it clear to the ladies in the mansion that you are their child!"
As Xiaowu said this, he stood up, took Xingxing's hand and prepared to walk towards the center of the capital.
The closer to the center of the capital, the more homes of high-ranking officials and dignitaries there are. As a beggar who begs for food on the streets, Xiaowu naturally knows which one is the Anqing Marquis Mansion!
But he took a step forward with great momentum, and the child he was pulling behind him fell onto the thick snow pile with a thud.
Xiao Wu: “…”
The steps forward came to an abrupt halt.
He turned back blankly and met the eyes of his younger brother who was looking up at him from the snow pile.
Xiao Wu: “…”
He hurriedly pulled his brother, who seemed to be unconscious from the snow pile, brushed the snow off his body, and put him back on the wooden block upright. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.
Xingxing was pulled so suddenly that even Qiuqiu was knocked to the ground and it took him a few seconds to fly up.
The first thing he did after flying was not to ask if Xingxing was injured, but to immediately give Xiaowu a comprehensive check-up.
Finally, Qiuqiu said numbly as expected: "Boy, your brother has become stronger again, don't let him pull you like this again! What if your thin arms and legs are broken by him accidentally? "
He spoke louder and louder, as if he had already anticipated such a future and condemned it in advance.
Xingxing pursed her lips and licked some unmelted snow on her lips, which felt cool.
Xiaowu stood in front of his brother at a loss. After carefully checking his brother's body, he squatted in front of Xingxing, held Xingxing's hand and said softly: "Xingxing, did your brother hurt you when he fell just now? Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere? It's all my fault..."
He said it was all my fault, but in his heart he was blaming more than just this incident.
But before he could say it, he was interrupted by Xingxing's outstretched little hand.
There was an extremely conspicuous mark on the wrist of that little hand. Xiaowu looked down and while pouting and comforting his brother, he felt even more annoyed and blamed himself.
My younger brother was supposed to be here to enjoy life, but not only did I fail to take good care of him, I also let another kid take his ID card away, and now I’ve hurt him…
Tears welled up in Xiaowu's eyes.
Xingxing retracted her hand and said slowly to her brother who was squatting in front of her and feeling sad: "Brother, we won't go."
“…Why?!” Xiao Wu raised his eyes in surprise.
Xingxing held his hand, shook her head and said softly, "I don't have the stone. The kid won't give it back to us. It's useless to go there."
According to Qiuqiu's analysis, not only would it be useless to go there, but they might also suffer a fatal attack soon.
No matter it was the child's strange luck, or the people behind the child who hoped that he would become the young master of Anqing Marquis Mansion, including the child himself, they would definitely find a way to make the two of them disappear from this world.
It is impossible for Xingxing to control those who come to attack one by one. It would be too troublesome and would make it easier to expose his unusualness. We should not underestimate this group of people who stand at the top of an era.
In addition to the emperor, there are many, many smart people watching every event happening in and outside the imperial city.
So, it's better to be careful and not alert the enemy.
This is the advice given by Qiuqiu.
So, Xingxing stood up, and without waiting for her brother to ask more questions, she took his hand and walked out, saying as she walked: "Brother, let's do more important things."
The so-called more important things.
Two little kids walked into the pawnshop hand in hand, then took out a piece of pure gold and put it on the counter on tiptoe.
After Xingxing once again manipulated the other party and the people nearby to forget what they looked like, he took his brother to the street while his brother was in a trance and bought him a string of round candied haws wrapped in sugar.
The New Year of this dynasty is coming soon.
Before the New Year, Xingxing, under the guidance of Qiuqiu and holding his brother's hand, pawned his gold for copper coins and silver notes, and found a human trafficker to rent a house in the central part of the city.
As for why they didn’t buy a house? Because without an adult with a formal household registration, they couldn’t buy a house.
This is something that even stars with superpowers cannot solve.
The house had everything, including a tall jujube tree, a well, a kitchen and a toilet.
When they took the keys from the homeowner, the two children who should have died in the snow and ice finally had their own home in this chaotic world.
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