Chapter 206 Meow Meow
What does it feel like to die?
When Jian Yunlan was still a toddler, he had thought about this question countless times.
He has been without parents since he was a child. Other children in the orphanage said that their fathers and mothers were all "dead".
What is death like?
Is it being burned by the blazing fire of pain, without a single moment of rest? Is it the pain of being run over by wheels, with all the bones and flesh shattered into pieces? Is it the biting cold that freezes three feet thick?
But at that time, Jian Yunlan never thought that death would be like this...
peaceful.
Jian Yunlan held hands with the person next to her, and they walked slowly together in the dark tunnel.
I can't see the way I came, but I can see a faint light of the exit in the distance. The tunnel was very humid. I could smell the rain at the tip of my nose, but I couldn't hear the sound of the heavy rain.
The only sound in the entire empty tunnel was the echo of their footsteps, each of which creaked as if they were stepping on the snow in winter, but waiting for them not far away was a sunny spring morning.
For some reason, he was able to be so confident, and therefore felt at ease in the empty darkness.
Who is the person holding his hand beside him? This doubt suddenly popped up in my mind again.
The man was very tall, with distinct joints on his fingers and dry and warm palms. He had a faint scent of sandalwood on him, and his soft hair brushed against his ears, sparkling silver light like stars in the darkness.
However, no matter how hard he tried to open his eyes wide, he could not see the other person's face, nor could he remember the other person's name. He only remembered that the other person was a very important person.
Who is he himself?
The young man stood there in a daze, thinking about this question.
There were many noisy and unclear voices coming from the distance, shouting something, as if calling him, shouting and praying for something very anxiously, calling him to go back word by word.
But those sounds were too far away, as if separated by a thick layer of glass. All the sounds were blurry. He tried hard to listen but couldn't hear clearly.
...It doesn't matter anymore.
The young man thought.
He just wanted to move forward quickly with the people around him, into the light of the exit, into the green spring.
So the young man held the hand of the person next to him and wanted to speed up his pace.
But the people around him stopped.
No matter how the young man urged him, he remained motionless.
After a long while, their interlocked hands gradually loosened.
The warmth in my palms faded away bit by bit, and the presence of the people around me gradually became weak and seemed to be disappearing.
The young man panicked: "Where are you going? Don't leave me alone."
The person next to me whispered something, with helplessness and a smile in his voice.
The young man tried hard to listen, but he couldn't hear clearly no matter what. Only the dissipated temperature remained in the palm of his hand. However, the person who had just stood beside him left like a gust of wind.
"...Where are you going?" the young man asked anxiously.
This time, the wind whispered a reply, lazily:
"I'll wait for you at the beginning."
Where does it all begin? Where is that?
For no apparent reason, the young man suddenly had the answer in his mind.
The young man stood there blankly, looked at the spring at the exit in the distance, and without any hesitation, turned around and left, walking in the opposite direction of the exit.
The road became darker and darker, and it became pitch darker and pitch darker. The only sound in the empty tunnel was his footsteps, like the ticking of a pendulum.
When he reached the end, the young man missed a step and fell down, into the wet and muddy soil in the heavy rain.
Fell into an old dream.
.
That was a story from a long, long time ago. After so many years of word of mouth, it seems to have been far from the truth, but we can still grasp some outlines of the old days through those few words.
The young man in the story is called Jian Shiyilang.
Jian Shiyilang from Taohuapo is the youngest son of the Jian family. He fled from the south with his parents and brothers and settled down in Taohuapo.
The world was not peaceful during those years. First there was war, the court recruited hard labor, and then there were several years of famine. Several older brothers in the Jian family were forced to serve in the army, their parents starved to death in the famine, and in the end, somehow, Jian Shiyilang was left alone.
Everyone in the village sighed.
Jian Shiyilang was very smart since childhood. After eavesdropping outside the private school window for three days, he could speak poetry and prose fluently. If he was born in an ordinary family in a peaceful and prosperous era, he might have passed the imperial examination and made great achievements.
But there are no ifs. Life in this world is just difficult. In order to support himself, Jian Shiyilang, who was smart since childhood, took up a load of goods and became a peddler walking around the streets.
Jian Shiyilang traveled back and forth with a load of goods on his shoulders. In his load were needles and thread, bronze mirrors, wooden combs, rouge and powder that women loved, as well as dried fruits and cakes that children coveted. There was always a bell hanging on his load, so whenever people heard the crisp sound of the bell, they knew that Jian Shiyilang was coming, and they would always go out happily to greet him.
Later, at people's request, Jian Shiyilang gradually started to make some food himself and sell it. It wasn't that delicious, but the price was cheap, so it sold quite well.
Jian Shiyilang had a handsome face and was always smiling and enthusiastically attracting customers. When the weather was fine and people were not busy with farming, he did a good business in Taohuapo.
But sometimes there are days like this.
Jian Shiyilang was purchasing goods from Lihuazhuang on the opposite side of the mountain. When he was climbing over the top of the mountain and heading for Taohuapo, there was a sudden loud rumble in the sky halfway up the mountain and heavy rain began to fall.
…It had been sunny for the past half month. On the day when Jian Shiyilang crossed the mountain to Lihuazhuang for the first time, he happened to encounter a leak in the sky.
“It’s so unlucky.”
Jian Shiyilang sighed and wiped the rain off his face. The load on his shoulders had been torn to pieces by the heavy rain.
The mountain road was blurred in the pouring rain. He could only vaguely follow his memory and find a cave to hide in, rest for a while, and then continue to move forward when the rain subsided.
The cave is very deep.
Jian Shiyilang had no intention of going deeper into the cave. He just wanted to take shelter at the entrance of the cave, but the rain was too heavy and the entrance was soon flooded. So he could only sigh again, take out a tinderbox, and walk deeper into the cave.
The deeper you go, the colder the surroundings become.
The faint flame flickered, and in the entire space, the only sounds I could hear were my own rapid breathing, the crackling sound of the tinder burning, and...
—The dying gasps of some stranded giant beast.
Jian Shiyilang: “?”
The flames of the folding paper suddenly flared up, and the flames illuminated a pair of dark golden eyes that were glowing with a faint light.
Those eyes were extremely large, with the vertical pupils of an animal. Shrouded by the shadow of death, they looked cloudy, but they still flashed a cold light that should not be underestimated.
“Huh…”
There was a sound like the asthma of a giant beast, like a huge broken bellows.
“…”
Jian Shiyilang's hands began to tremble. He held up the tinder with trembling hands and used the faint light of the fire to see the creature in front of him clearly.
——The giant beast was incomparably huge, blocking out the sun and the sky, like a combination of a dragon, a tiger and an ox. Its entire body was covered with green-red dragon scales, which should have been gorgeous and beautiful, but now many of the scales had been charred and peeled off. There was also a hideous wound on the belly of the giant beast. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound that almost penetrated the entire body was still shocking to see. Its wide-open mouth was full of jagged teeth, and blood was dripping down, as if it couldn't bite closed.
Its huge body, squeezed into this cave, actually seemed a bit aggrieved.
Jian Shiyilang widened his eyes, these two words flashed through his mind, and he stammered:
"Taotie, Taotie?"
The giant beast raised its eyelids and looked at him, as if mocking him, or as if extremely tired, and then closed its eyes.
Are you...sleeping?
Jian Shiyilang stole a glance at it.
Taotie closed his eyes, and the rise and fall of his chest gradually became even, but each breath still seemed extremely difficult. The sound of his breathing reminded Jian Shiyilang of the poor man in the village who swallowed a dagger and had his stomach cut open in order to commit suicide.
Taotie seemed indifferent to Jian Shiyilang's arrival.
Too.
In the eyes of the ancient ferocious beasts, humans like Jian Shiyilang are too insignificant, like ants, and cannot cause any waves.
Jian Shiyilang observed carefully for a while. After a long while, he saw that Taotie did not seem to attack or drive him away. Jian Shiyilang put down the load of goods beside him, leaned against the cave, and tried hard to avoid running into Taotie.
"Master Taotie," Jian Shiyilang whispered, "I have no ill intentions. I am just a passerby seeking shelter from the rain. I would like to borrow your precious land to rest my feet."
Taotie did not answer.
The heavy eyelids lifted, and the huge, turbid dark golden pupils glanced at him, then quickly closed again, as if it had lost all its energy.
This is... the default, right?
So, Jian Shiyilang carefully closed his eyes, leaned against the cold and damp rock wall, and fell asleep.
——Jian Shiyilang had a dream.
In the dream, he seemed to be floating in the icy cold sea water, cold from head to toe, and the place he was leaning on was also ice. In the dream, Jian Shiyilang was shivering with cold. He instinctively found the only source of heat in the sea water and moved towards it.
The heat source was like a beating heart, or a blazing stove in winter. The scales on the surface were all bumpy, but it gave people a very solid feeling, with a faint scent of sandalwood.
Jian Shiyilang gently stroked the scales, then fell asleep beside the 'stove'.
In the cave, Taotie opened his eyes at some point.
The pair of dark golden vertical pupils turned and glanced down slowly, seeing the human standing close to him.
In the dim light of the cave, Taotie's golden eyes blinked, reflecting the human's half-sleeping profile, with mud and blood stains on the snow-white cheek.
Taotie lowered his eyes and thought for a moment.
...Should we throw this overconfident human out, tear him to pieces, or eat him?
But in the end, it was too tired, hungry and bruised to do any of the above.
So, in the end, the magnanimous Lord Taotie just yawned, closed his eyes, and allowed the human to huddle next to him for warmth.
What Taotie didn't want to admit was that no matter how tired he was, as a ferocious beast from the mountains and seas, he still had the strength to crush a tiny human to death.
But it didn't do that.
What Taotie doesn't want to admit is——
In the eternal loneliness and silence, a human being who can move, laugh, and be afraid of the cold and snuggle up to me for warmth suddenly appears beside me. The other person's heart beats and the body temperature is transmitted to me little by little...
This feeling is not as bad as imagined.
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