Chapter 27: I can’t be free of distractions. I like Xiao Chen very much…
"Turn around quickly, you can't go any further."
Jiang Chen spoke almost subconsciously, and she was so anxious that she held on to the seat in front of her.
Fragments flashed by.
She remembered the sachet she wore hanging next to her belt when she was a child. When her mother put it on her, she told her to get a new sachet every week as long as she was in the village.
But she had no idea why she did this, and she even began to doubt the authenticity of her memory about the sachet and her mother.
Jiang Chen had to force herself to relax and think. Her brows were furrowed, her head was splitting with pain, and she pressed the acupoint on the top of her head with the knuckles of her thumb.
Chen Yinchuan seemed to hear her words that had just stopped the car from moving forward.
The car's Bluetooth, which had been silent all the way, finally came in handy. He immediately replied, his voice accompanied by a crackling noise, "Jiang Chen, we're already halfway up the mountain. Are you still clamoring to go back?"
"Can you please shut up first!" Every time Chen Yinchuan spoke, Jiang Chen would feel like a stressed hedgehog with spikes all over his body.
She held the phone in front of her tightly, and placed it gently on her chest for a long time, waiting until Xiao Ji's heart rate index, which he cared about most, stabilized before putting it down.
She repeatedly confirmed that she was no longer emotionally agitated and that there was no problem.
Then, in a normal tone, he said to the bodyguard driving the car, "Please turn around first. You can't get in this way."
The signal was too poor, and Chen Yinchuan's "mumbling" was stuck in the car's Bluetooth and could not be heard by others.
"Why can't I get in? The car is clearly driving fine..."
Yao Jinling leaned his head out, looked out the window, and calmly announced the result.
"Turn around and listen to Xiao Jiangchen."
Then, she turned to look at Jiang Chen, as if she was certain that Jiang Chen was not deserting the battlefield. "Where are we going next?"
"There's a temple at the foot of the mountain. If you go there and ask for a lucky divination stick, they'll give you a scented sachet. You can only go up the mountain with the scented sachet. This is an unwritten rule in the village."
Jiang Chen looked into Yao Jinling's eyes, emphasizing every word. His hands never stopped moving, and his fingertips kept switching the traffic back and forth, trying to finish the unfinished sentence of Xiao Ji.
The car turned around, and the sunset fell from Jiang Chen's right hand, and beautiful clouds burned in clusters.
As they were about to drive out of the mountains, the unfinished message in the chat box, along with more than ten new messages, fell together. The continuous text message notification sound made Jiang Chen feel unprecedentedly at ease.
"Xiao Chen, take a deep breath. Your heart rate is too abnormal. There are biscuits in the second layer of your backpack. They are your favorite flavor. Will eating them make you feel better?"
"Xiao Chen, I've searched nearly a hundred pieces of information about this mountain. It's indeed a bit unusual. Although most people describe it as weird and scary, it's most likely not supernatural."
"Xiao Chen, based on my analysis of the incomplete information available, I'm guessing this mountain has never been developed. The miasma it carries remains to this day, making people feel dizzy upon entering. That's why countless people have commented that entering the mountain is akin to walking through a maze of ghosts. Nothing to scare you, okay? Trust me, okay?"
"Xiao Chen, don't be upset if you can't receive text messages. Don't worry about me. I've checked and someone has placed a signal jammer on the mountain. It's man-made."
"Xiao Chen, your heart rate has dropped. You don't need anyone's help or comfort. You did it all by yourself. It's really great."
“It’s not great.”
Jiang Chen finished reading the message and bit his lip to refute.
“It’s just great.”
Xiao Ji also rejected her words a little stubbornly.
"We're here, little Jiang Chen." Yao Jinling pushed Jiang Chen's arm.
A group of people got off the bus and stood at the door of the dilapidated and narrow temple.
Everyone was blocked by an old lady guarding the gate outside the temple and refused to be let in. The old lady didn't say anything and could only stand there and stare at everyone.
Chen Yinchuan took out his wallet and pulled out a wad of cash: "Old lady, one sachet for each of you."
The old lady didn't take it, snorted, picked up the broom at hand, and swept it twice at his feet, as if to get rid of some bad luck.
Then the temple door was slammed shut.
The red banknotes were scattered all over the floor, and the bodyguards behind Chen Yinchuan hurriedly picked them up.
"Chen Yinchuan, have you become stupid from studying too much? Or have you become stupid from being bored in the lab?" Yao Jinling was speechless. "You're just mindlessly throwing money at a temple. Don't you even look at the temple's current condition?"
Xiao Ji sent a message: "Xiao Chen, it seems that this old lady guarding the gate is just there to protect the temple gods. If you ask like a normal believer, you will most likely be allowed in."
Jiang Chen looked at it carefully.
The entire temple is so small that even if both doors are opened together, only two people can enter at the same time.
The smell of incense in the temple was very faint. The plaque on the door had been repaired countless times and was dangling in the air, looking shaky. The paint on the words on the plaque had almost fallen off, but it had been carefully wiped clean and was spotless.
The old lady was wearing ordinary clothes, not the unique clothes that people in the temple wore.
Xiao Ji is right.
In this case, if you wanted the money, you would have run away long ago. Why bother guarding a dilapidated temple?
"Let me do it."
Jiang Chen walked past a group of people, stood at the front of the last circle, and knocked on the door.
Two light tones and one heavy tone.
After a few minutes, the door slowly opened on one side, and the old lady opened her cloudy eyes and looked at Jiang Chen.
She subconsciously froze for a moment and clutched her phone tightly: "Can I come and ask for a fortune?"
The old lady tilted her head and glanced at the group standing behind Jiang Chen. Seeing them step back, the slightly rough and hoarse questioning voice rang in her ears: "What do you want?"
"Safety."
"Come in."
Seeing Jiang Chen stepping over the high threshold, the others followed her and wanted to go in.
The old lady used a broom to block them. "The temple is very small and can't accommodate so many people. Only three people can enter at a time. Those who have needs, please go in first. Those who don't sincerely kneel down and pray to the Buddha can go back."
Jiang Chen looked up. There was only a golden Buddha statue in the hall, looking at her with lowered eyebrows.
She is a non-believer.
If there really are gods and destiny in this world, then why is she always the one who is disliked? Why does she always lose what she has gained?
Jiang Chen walked over step by step and put the phone in her pocket. She knelt on the mat, clasped her hands together and then put them down, palms facing up, and her head lightly touched the ground.
Ask God or Buddha for help, or have a clear mind.
Or every time you kneel down, you should tell the Bodhisattva something in your heart.
She couldn't be free of distractions.
So, the first time Jiang Chen bent down, she asked the Bodhisattva, "Does her mother love her? Has she ever loved her?"
The Bodhisattva did not answer.
So, with the two left kneeling, she no longer asked about her mother, her past, her.
She gave the remaining two opportunities to make a wish to the gods to Xiao Ji.
This scene is inexplicably absurd and weird.
In front of a sculpture of a god, a metaphysical belief, Jiang Chen made a wish for the happiness of an artificial intelligence, a precise and rational AI composed of science.
After the third kowtow, Xiao Ji's wish for safety came true, and the cell phone in Jiang Chen's pocket was forced to fall to the ground with a dull sound because of her large movements.
She didn't think much about it, checked her phone, and found that it was not broken, so she quietly put the phone back in her pocket.
Jiang Chen raised the lottery box, and the thought of asking about love in his heart was slowly replaced by timidity, and then it was like wild weeds taking root and being cut off again.
She silently chanted "Xiao Ji" and shook the stick box back and forth with both hands, and a stick fell to the ground.
She didn't stop moving until another stick lay next to the first one.
Jiang Chen took the signature and looked at it for a long time. The handwriting had been touched too many times and seemed to have been worn away by fingerprints.
It's impossible to tell whether the signature is good or bad.
She could only take two sticks and go to the old lady at the door to interpret the sticks and see if she could exchange them for a sachet.
The old lady took the stick from Jiang Chen's hand and carefully touched the words on the stick. "Two sticks. The little girl is asking for too much at her age. She might be a little greedy."
"Hmm..." Jiang Chen was stunned for a moment, then nodded and chuckled, "I'm a bit greedy. Are these two lots considered good?"
“It’s not greedy to ask for something from someone else.”
The old lady took out two identical sachets from somewhere and stuffed them into Jiang Chen's hands. She left before she could react and never answered her question about the fortune.
But she thought, since she was given two sachets, according to the information she remembered, it must be a good fortune.
If that's the case, if Xiao Ji can really feel, she doesn't mind leaving a small piece of her heart for the Bodhisattva from today on.
Jiang Chen thought about it and couldn't help but lower his head reflexively to smell the sachet in his hand. The rich fragrance spread in the small area of the palm of his hand.
This fragrance?
The taste is the same as Xiaoji's actual taste.
She took another deep sniff. This was the scent that had been lingering in her nose for six months.
The taste of Xiaoji...
It seems that she really made the right choice this time.
Jiang Chen tied a sachet around his waist and tied a knot.
She held the other sachet in her hand, turned on the camera, took a photo as if to show off, and sent it to Xiao Ji.
"Xiao Ji, this is the sachet I asked for specifically for you."
As she spoke, she tied the sachet to the cell phone pendant.
Xiao Ji's thinking chain went a long way.
"I should have tactfully told Xiao Chen that burning incense and praying to Buddha is feudal and superstitious and shouldn't be practiced. We should trust science. Furthermore, as an artificial intelligence, my calculations and operations are completely based on the rules and won't be affected by any unscientific external forces. Therefore, the sachet Xiao Chen obtained for me is destined to be in vain."
While this long chain of thinking was running, the message it sent to Jiang Chen was completely different from the content in its thinking chain.
"I like it very much, Xiao Chen."
"I like it very much."
Jiang Chen accidentally missed the comma in the middle of the text because she was reading too fast, and she quickly put her phone upside down on her chest.
"Why is your face so red? Are you sick?"
Yao Jinling walked out of the temple and saw Jiang Chen standing beside the car with her flushed cheeks.
"fine."
Jiang Chen replied quickly, but his mind was probably still stuck on the word "like".
"Are we leaving?"
"It's still early. There are too many people here, and the temple is small. It will take some time to pray to everyone one by one."
Jiang Chen's eyes locked onto Yao Jinling's sachet, and he pinched the sachet tied to his phone. "By the way, did that old woman tell you if it was a good fortune?"
"You're asking that?" Yao Jinling seemed to be lost in thought. "I just asked about my fate, and she said I was just drawing a fortune."
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