Chapter 174: Chaos in Xiaocheng (Part 14) [Seeking Monthly Tickets]
After the prefect was trampled to death, Qi Shan remained silent for a long time.
Shen Tang squatted by the stream, washing her feet and shoes.
Listening to the babbling brook, she suddenly broke the silence: "Yuanliang, what kind of person is your friend?"
Qi Shan said, "He's a very good person, kind-hearted and easily influenced. Because he often helps others, he ends up living in poverty... There are few people in this world who are better than him, but alas, good people often die young..."
In a daze, it seemed as if the boy's voice was still echoing in my ears, gentle and smiling, clear and crisp, unlike the hoarse and weak voice I had heard after several days of starvation and thirst in the "Book Mountain" secret place.
There is good and evil in the world, but ultimately good outweighs evil. If we turn a blind eye to the suffering of good people because of a few evil people, how are we any different from the evil ones? Helping others is only to have a clear conscience, not to seek their gratitude. Because of a choking incident, one will refuse to eat any more grains.
【Ah Qu, your idea is not advisable.】
What normal person would be as stupid as him? He was bitten by ungrateful bastards several times but never learned his lesson. Then he met Yan Cheng and lost his life.
He didn't use flowery words to describe how wonderful his dear friend was; in his memory, the friend was just a young man with a youthful face, only four years older than the young man beside him. But in his memory, he was like a brother, a father, a teacher, and a friend…
He was his benefactor throughout his life.
Qi Shan looked at the stream and sighed deeply.
"Because of this problem, I often advised him when he was young not to worry about so many things, and repeatedly told him not to trust others easily! And not to reach out to help anyone who looks pitiful... Who knows if you're helping a real person or a ghost in human skin! But he wouldn't listen, not even once." Not only would he not listen, but he would also use his two months of age to suppress him, and Qi Shan would always have a dark face.
He said similar things countless times, always agreeing verbally but then turning around and going about his business. If someone came to him for help, he didn't even know how to refuse. His family was so poor that all they had was a room full of books, and the rice jar was so clean that even mice wouldn't bother with it.
Actually, Qi Shan has no right to give such advice.
After all, he himself was one of those who were rescued.
In terms of background, this close friend was not bad off; it was just that his family was poor. If he wanted, his ancestors' noble reputation and his mother's family's support could have given him unimaginable wealth. But he preferred to maintain the status quo, so poor that he had to write folk tales anonymously.
Shen Tang: "Street tales? What's the content?"
Qi Shan remained silent for a moment.
Emmm——
Seven out of ten books are unspeakable.
Qi Shan changed to a more elegant way of saying it: "Enlightenment..."
Shen Tang: "Enlightenment?"
Qi Shan's lips twitched: "The boudoir... enlightenment..."
A close friend provides materials, inspiration, and content, while Qi Shan, a skilled artist, is responsible for selling the artwork. Together, they create a storyline with twists and turns, scenes, and action that are exciting and thrilling.
Those fantastical scenes and imaginative descriptions, along with their magnificent depictions and landscapes, provided endless possibilities for the imaginations of those outwardly aloof and respectable scions of noble families and renowned figures who, in secret, harbored restless ambitions. This work once became a major source of income for the family.
This also made it impossible for Qi Shan to look directly at her best friend...
How could a boy who has never set foot in a brothel come up with so many tricks from his imagination? When asked, he was told, "There are beauties in books"... Would a beauty like that teach these things?
Shen Tang: "..."
Good heavens! This fair-skinned, black-eyed, red-lipped, and white-toothed young scholar's mind is not only brimming with knowledge, but also overflowing with knowledge.
Based on Qi Shan's brief description, an image of a kind-hearted, gentle, stubborn, and simple-minded boy with a number of strange and wonderful skills gradually emerged in his mind. He was indeed a very interesting person, and it was precisely because of this that he was so regrettable.
“There is one thing—Yan Cheng might not be wrong.”
Qi Shan suddenly spoke.
"What?"
"In terms of sheer despicableness, I'm no different from him." Qi Shan forced a smile that was more like a grimace and asked, "Do you know how I survived?"
Shen Tang: "..."
Emotionally, she didn't want to know; this was Qi Shan's wound, and reopening it would only bring excruciating pain. But reason told her that knowing was better than not knowing. Covering the wound would only cause it to fester and grow deeper.
Shen Tang asked softly, "How did you survive?"
Perhaps it was because she had finally avenged her great grudge, but Qi Shan felt a rare urge to confide in him, and she forced herself to recall the past as if in self-torture.
"That secret place hides a military formation built of rock. There are eight gates and eight formations around it, with the main formation in the center, and a total of nine main formations. Under each formation are sixty-four smaller formations. The large formations contain the smaller formations, and the formations are interlocked and interconnected, making it a place fraught with danger. Once you enter the formation, it is a nine-out-of-ten chance of death..."
It's likely that some predecessor took a portion of the remnant formation with them, which fell into the hands of the Ten Crows. They then devised a particularly unethical method to break the stone formation using wicked and unorthodox methods. By sacrificing one person to secure the position of the Death Gate, another person could then exit through the Life Gate.
Neither he nor "Qishan" knew this. They wandered around the secret stone formation for several days, experiencing countless illusions—giant waves, landslides, or mountains of knives and seas of fire... They seemed fake, but when they touched them, they were real. It was impossible to distinguish between the real and the fake.
Exhausted from the struggle to survive, they still had to rack their brains to figure out how to break through the formation and escape. Without food or water, even in the "sacred land of mountains and seas" where the energy of heaven and earth was abundant, the two of them could not last long, until they were starving and thirsty to the extreme, creating mirage-like illusions that led them to kill each other.
Qi Shan said, "The one who should have died... was me... because of his scholarly ways, the stone formation he suffered was much smaller than mine..."
His friend regained consciousness before him.
Even if Qishan died at that time, she would be unaware of it.
"I'd rather he feast on my corpse, gnawing on my flesh and drinking my blood..."
But he survived.
When he weakly awoke, his mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood, and the blood at the corner of his mouth had dried. The illusion around him transformed into a snow-capped mountain peak swept by a blizzard. His friend's clothes were all draped over him, and he was held in someone's arms, warmed by their faint body heat.
All that remained was a twisted suicide note, scrawled with blood by frozen fingers. Qi Shan clenched her hands resting on her knees: "It's called a suicide note, but it's really just half a sentence... but I know what he wanted to say."
The two had traveled together.
On one occasion, when danger struck, the young boy, though young, possessed an unyielding stubbornness that was truly astonishing. He declared resolutely: "No elder brother would let his younger brother die before his eyes. Even if death is inevitable, it should be me who goes to the underworld to pave the way for you! Otherwise, what kind of elder brother am I!"
Shen Tang didn't know how to comfort Qi Shan.
"So how did you break through the formation and get out?"
Qi Shan's expression was blank: "The formation hasn't been broken..."
"No?"
How did they survive?
That stone formation was fraught with danger. If the two of them were already suffering so much, imagine how badly Qi Shan, exhausted and barely breathing, would be. Qi Shan smiled bitterly: "Because in six or seven hours, when the raging snowstorm ends, 'Book Mountain' will close!"
He survived only because of this.
As he awaited his death, he watched helplessly as the body of his only friend in his life—not a brother but closer than a blood brother—went from still being warm to completely stiff and cold like an ice sculpture… forever left behind on the “mountain of books.”
|ω)
(End of this chapter)
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