Spiritual Body Manifestation: Shushu's Coming of Age Ceremony
The night breeze of the 1960s was filled with the scent of earth. Xiaodou lay on the roof of the production team's granary, staring at his round belly in a daze - at this moment he was in the form of a guinea pig, with his dual-space stomachs stuffed with stolen food coupons, and half a chocolate gold coin brought from the interstellar space hidden in his left stomach.
"Meow!"
A sharp meow broke the silence. Xiaodou's fur stood on end as he saw a calico cat squatting at the door of the granary. A wooden sign reading "Cat Director of the Production Team" hung around its neck. It was patting his fallen food coupons with its paws. "You spy rat who stole the food coupons! I'm going to arrest you and bring you to the captain!"
"Don't, don't come over!" Xiaodou stepped back, sweeping away a piece of tile with his tail.
Director Mao leaped onto the roof, his pupils shrinking into vertical lines in the moonlight: "You were the one who stole the eggs last time, weren't you? Today I'm going to..."
Before he could finish his words, Xiaodou suddenly felt a shift in his stomach—the chocolate coin in his left stomach had reacted with the spiritual energy of the 1960s, transforming into candy that could make people speak the truth. He opened his mouth and spit out the candy, which hit Director Mao right in the mouth.
"Meow!" Director Cat's pupils dilated. "Actually, I prefer eating dried fish to catching mice... The production team's granary has a tunnel leading to the back mountain..."
Xiaodou's eyes lit up. He pried the food coupon from between Director Mao's fingers and saw, as expected, the words "Hou Shan No. 3 Cave" printed on the coupon. Director Mao continued to ramble, "Village Beauty Xiaofang always feeds stray cats at the cave entrance... There's a strange pattern on the jade pendant in her pocket..."
"Captain! The granary is infested with rats!"
In the early morning of the production team's compound, Xiaodou crouched in the straw hat of a young educated youth, watching the team leader and the other members rush into the granary. He quietly touched the right side of his stomach—it contained the wild grass roots he'd dug from the hills behind the production team the previous night, now mixed with nutrients brought from Star Trek, fermenting in his stomach into a miraculous fertilizer that would increase production.
"It's all my fault!" The educated youth (a fusion of Ling Yuan, Bai Yan, and Lin Shen's soul fragments) suddenly stood up. "I saw the rats running towards the back mountain last night!"
Xiaodou looked up and saw that the young man was wearing round glasses and had a teardrop mole on the corner of his left eye, which looked very much like the teardrop mole on his own humanoid figure from the Demon Realm chapter. Even more amazingly, he exuded the scent of Baiyan's pine, Linshen's cedar, and Lingyuan's metallic aura.
"Follow me!" The young man winked at Xiaodou, "Let's go to the back mountain to catch spy rats!"
At the entrance to Cave No. 3 in the back mountain, Xiaodou pretended to be chased and had no choice but to jump into the cave. The young man closed the door and took out a piece of roasted sweet potato from his pocket: "Eat it, you look hungry all night."
"How do you know I am..." Xiaodou looked up while chewing on a sweet potato.
"Because there are stars in your eyes." The boy chuckled and stroked Xiaodou's ears with his fingertips, "Just like the mouse in my dream."
Xiaodou's entire body stiffened—this was Bai Yan's line, and it was also something Lin Shen and Ling Yuan had said before. He saw the watch chain peeking out from the young man's sleeve. It was Ling Yuan's tie clip from the Star Wars story, remade, and engraved with the word "dou."
From deep within the cave, the sound of running water emanated. Xiaodou used his claws to push aside the weeds and saw a jade pendant engraved with the Heaven-Swallowing Pattern on a stone platform. Suddenly, the village beauty Xiaofang emerged from the shadows, clutching a calico cat (Director Cat's previous life). "It's you, Concept Mouse."
"How do you know?" Xiaodou took a half step back, and the fertilizer in his stomach suddenly became hot.
Xiaofang lifted her collar, revealing the same fox emblem as Su Tang: "Three hundred years ago, Master Bai Yan asked me to guard the time anchor point. He said..."
"He said, 'The concept mouse will bring starlight to gnaw on the key.'" The young man took over, his eyes flashing with three different lights - Bai Yan's gentleness, Lin Shen's wisdom, and Ling Yuan's perseverance. "And I, am here to take you home."
Xiaodou then realized that the jade pendant on the stone platform was actually the fragment of Su Tang's mechanical prosthetic eye from the Star Wars story, and that the sound of running water was actually the vibration of the demon world's chains. He suddenly remembered the mechanical cat's last words: "Master Bai Yan has waited for you for three thousand years..."
"Now," the young man took out a bag of osmanthus candy, "I need you to gnaw open the time anchor point—with your tears, or..."
"Or I can use my stomach." Xiaodou puffed out his belly. "I'm a stockpiler anyway, so I can just swallow it and poop it out!"
Xiaofang's mouth twitched: "Actually, there's no need to be so direct..."
"Ding!" A mechanical voice suddenly sounded, "Detected the fusion of three soul fragments, triggering the 'Concept Rat Coming of Age Ceremony'!"
Xiaodou felt a surge of heat all over his body. The fertilizer and jade fragments in his stomach were merging, forming a glowing seed. The young man reached out to catch the seed, and it instantly grew into a towering tree. On its trunk, the ancient Chinese inscription, "Deer appear in the deep forest," appeared.
The tree's roots broke through the soil, revealing a bronze box underneath. The lid was engraved with the same chain pattern as the one found on the Monster Realm's Food Cliff. Just as Xiaodou was about to nibble at the lid, a member of the commune suddenly shouted from the cave entrance, "Captain! There's a golden light coming from the back mountain!"
"Hide!" Xiaofang picked up Xiaodou, but at that moment, the young man's body began to fade, revealing the shadows of Bai Yan, Lin Shen, and Ling Yuan. He bent down and kissed the tip of Xiaodou's nose, and the three voices overlapped and said, "When I truly wake up, I'll take you to see the three thousand year old osmanthus forest."
Xiaodou's eyes flashed white, and when he opened them again, he was back in the interstellar medical bay, clutching a seed—the very same seed from the 1960s. Ling Yuan sat beside the bed, a piece of osmanthus cake in his hand, the deer pattern visible on his sleeve.
"Welcome back." He chuckled, his ears slightly red. "My concept rat, are you satisfied with your coming-of-age ceremony?"
Xiaodou looked at the three-colored light flowing in his eyes and suddenly understood - Bai Yan, Lin Shen and Ling Yuan had completed the initial fusion. Now he was a complete guardian with three souls in one.
A mechanical voice rang out: "Ding! The 1960s time anchor point has been activated. Received 'Hoarder's Tear' x 1!"
Ling Yuan cut open the osmanthus cake, and a small note fell out. It was written by Xiao Fang in the 1960s: "The jade pendant fragments are in Director Cat's collar. Collect three pieces to summon Bai Yan's pirate ship~"
In the back mountain in the 1960s, a real educated youth woke up rubbing his head and found a piece of ice crystal osmanthus in his pocket, which was exactly the same as the token of Ling Yuan in the Star Wars story and Lin Shen in modern times.
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