Leaving (2)
By the Lost River, Al and Joe looked at Mi, who was carrying a full load of luggage. He had long since changed his black shirt and trousers into a loose top and hunting clothes that were easy to move in.
"Are you really not coming with us?" Joe asked the girl from his hometown with concern.
“No,” Mi put down her luggage and sighed, “You should be more careful.”
“Oh, oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” Joe said, touched. “Al will take good care of me.”
“I’m talking about El,” Mi sighed again, wondering why this hundred-year-old witch had such a soft-hearted nature. El stood to the side, arms crossed, laughing.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, I’ll do whatever you want to me, I’m willing.” Joe whispered, “Love arises without knowing where it comes from, and deepens with each passing moment, I am neither afraid nor regretful.”
"Okay, whatever you like." Mi slung her bag over her shoulder. "I'm off."
El pulled out a parchment book that he had made overnight and handed it to Mi: "You still don't forget to make fun of me before you leave?" He hugged Mi and said, "This is a picture of useful herbs in the Misty Forest that I drew for you using Karin's parchment. Pick some when you see them, and you can use them as money when you go to the outside world."
Mi took the booklet and flipped through it, saying, "Karin really ran into us two thieves." She shook her head, stuffed the booklet into her bag, and waved, "I'm leaving. You should go see Karin when you have time. Something's wrong with her. She's come through so much already, don't let her get hurt here."
“Understood,” El nodded. “We’ll try to persuade Karin again, so don’t worry.”
Mi looked up again. From the outside, the Witch Forest was hidden in the river, blending into the entire Misty Forest. Mi was silent for a moment before saying, "I'm leaving. The Witch Forest can't exile me for now, but I can exile myself. Farewell, El; farewell, Joe; farewell, elders; farewell, observers. I look forward to the day we meet again. What about you?" After saying this, Mi crossed the canyon and left.
Qiao watched Mi's retreating figure: "I'm a little worried about her. Are we really not going to see her off? Or should we secretly follow her and escort her for a while?"
“Even the two of us combined wouldn’t be enough to beat her,” El said, watching Mi disappear around the corner. “Your Earthly martial arts?” El paused, then thought to himself that he should worry about himself more.
“I don’t know how, but kung fu has always been passed down. A good kung fu master can kill a man from a hundred paces away and leave no trace for a thousand miles. I believe you when you say she’s a good fighter.” Qiao said self-deprecatingly, “Maybe she thinks the two of us are a burden.”
“She wouldn’t dare!” El laughed and scolded. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll just treat her like a child.”
“But she is a real woman,” Joe said nervously, “and she is more responsible than any man.”
“Joe, Jo, Jo,” Al kissed Jo gently, “I love you, simply because you are you.” Jo hugged Al and responded passionately.
Mi walked into the wider forest, constantly picking up the bundle that had slipped from her shoulder. Finally, she sighed at the large bundle filled with items. It was easy to shut down her senses, and easy to create a barrier, but there was a consequence: her clothes seemed to float in the air, and the straps of her bundle couldn't find a foothold. She could make a bundle hang in the air, but she couldn't make it move; there was no friction between the bundle and her.
Mi had to stop. She began to think of a way to create a tangible body. Everything in the forest was at her disposal, but the problem was which one to use. In the end, she chose air. Mi stretched out her witch body as much as possible, enveloping a large expanse of air, then compressing it again and again. Mi could see that small circle of air gathering tighter and tighter until it finally became a cold mass, on which her clothes could finally be hung.
Mi compressed the air again and again, until finally she had to shut down all temperature-related sensations, because the compressed air was incredibly cold. When she finally took human form, frost formed on the ground where her feet touched, and a thick layer of moisture condensed around her body. As she took another step, something went wrong; the witch's body suddenly cracked open, and a huge explosion echoed through the misty forest. El and Joe rushed over instantly. Mi's prepared package was blown to pieces, several pieces of her clothing hung in the air, and Mi was scattered in pieces, the air filled with fragments of the witch's body.
Al and Joe stared in disbelief. Joe watched as the gray clouds slowly gathered and couldn't help but ask, "What on earth did she do? Why is it so cold here?"
El saw that a large number of trees had been blown away, leaving a huge crater in the ground covered in frost. Soon, a rain of icy rain mixed with hailstones began to fall from the sky. By the time Mi finally returned to human form, the air had returned to normal. Apart from the large hole in the ground, the damaged trees, and the animal carcasses affected by the sudden explosion, all the small animals, including the ants, had moved away. The place had become a silent place, much like the Witch Forest.
"What are you two doing here?" Mi opened her eyes and saw Al and Joe. Her first words were this. Then she looked around and couldn't help but ask, "What did you do?" She saw half a piece of wrapping on the ground, with nothing inside.
Joe couldn't hold back any longer and asked worriedly, "Were you attacked?"
“Attack? No,” Mi scratched her head and recounted what she had done. El said, “You come with us out.”
It was only then that Mi realized what she had done. She followed El back to the Witch Forest with a crestfallen expression, and was then ordered to hibernate in the Hibernation Flower.
"What do we do now?" Joe looked at the tightly closed dormant flower. "She refuses to come with us."
"I don't know either." El sighed. She thought Mi had already caused enough trouble in the Witch Forest and Fallen Leaf Canyon, but she never expected that Mi would cause such a mess as soon as she entered the Misty Forest.
"Oh no, I have to go check on Karin." El hurriedly walked out, and Joe followed behind El, looking at the tightly closed dormant flower.
Karin was looking towards the forest, holding her puppy Spot in her arms. She looked at the forest with a mixture of confusion and fear. El and Joe, disguised as herb gatherers, emerged from the misty forest, their faces covered in dust.
"Ah, it's you." Karin went up to them and invited El and Joe into her home, poured them tea, and brought them water to wash up.
After washing up, El, holding a teacup, chatted with Karin about the little things that had happened since they last met. Karin finally couldn't help but ask them, "Did you hear any noise?"
"You mean the forest? There was an earthquake there, and a huge section of the ground collapsed. You should avoid that area in the future." El pretended it wasn't a big deal and asked Karin with a smile, "Do you want to come out with us? We can take you to the Flower Kingdom."
Karin, holding Dot Dot, asked, "Has the earthquake subsided? I only heard the sound, but there was no shaking."
"The earthquake has subsided, but there might be some minor collapses nearby. It's best not to go into the forest these days." El wasn't sure if the ground would continue to subside, so she decided to stop Karin from entering the forest.
“That’s good. I’m fine here and don’t want to go out anymore.” Karin refused El again. She stood up and said, “I’ll go and prepare a room for you so you can rest.”
The next day, El and Joe bid farewell to Karin again and returned to the Witch Forest via the Misty Forest. Mi had emerged from the dormant flower; she lay on the ground, calculating something, while the ribbon wreath Joe had used to decorate the hammock was divided into different small piles.
Al and Joe crouched beside her, watching her move a wreath of flowers one moment, a wreath of grass the next, before she picked up Al's robe and threw it into the River of Lost Souls. Joe stared in disbelief as she did all this, clutching the robe Al had made for him tightly to his chest.
Mi began to ponder her body again, but El stopped her: "You've already caused a huge disturbance in the Misty Forest. I lied to Karin, telling her there was an earthquake and she shouldn't go into the forest." She paused, then continued, "The Witch Forest doesn't have the air you need. Are you planning to blow up the entire Misty Forest?"
Mi didn't speak. She jumped into the River of Lost Souls, weaving her body from air and water, and finally donning El's robe. She floated on the surface of the water, thrashing about. Joe looked at Mi in surprise: "She succeeded?"
Mi climbed up from the other side of the river, hung her wet robe on a tree branch, and then lay down to calculate something. El and Joe crossed the Misty River and watched her envelop a ball of air, then add a ball of water. The water slowly turned into mist, and then began to separate into layers: a layer of mist in the middle and a layer of water vapor on the outside, forming a body with gas in the middle and liquid on the outside. Mi put on the robe, took two flower garlands and draped them over her arms, and walked forward. This time, the garlands were fixed on her shoulders and did not slip down. Mi nodded in satisfaction and walked back to the Witch Forest.
She began preparing for her journey again. This time, she built a small base opposite Fallen Leaf Valley and started crafting bows and arrows once more. This time, she wore real clothes, not the clothes her consciousness conjured. Once she had her pack ready, El couldn't help but ask her, "What exactly did you do?"
Mi began to demonstrate her work: "You know that the higher the temperature, the faster the molecules move, right? This time, instead of compressing air, I boiled water to form steam. Inside is steam, and outside is water." Mi showed the water vapor inside a mass of consciousness. "I set the center, I see, to 300°, which is about the size of a person. Outside is water at about 30 degrees. You can see the water molecules are constantly moving, and the temperature is gradually decreasing. I have obtained a body that is almost the same size as a human."
El reached out and touched her, then asked, "Do you want to burn down the Misty Forest?"
"Don't worry, only the very center is 300°." Mi released the witch's body, which was enveloped in moisture. A cloud of mist rose and disappeared, leaving the surrounding air almost unchanged. El finally relaxed and asked her with a sigh of relief, "Why did you insist on making a body?"
"Because without a body, you can't carry things." Mi condensed her body again, and this time she carried the package on her back, striding forward without the package slipping off.
“You can come out with us.” Qiao watched as Mi struggled and finally managed to create a water body, but she couldn’t help feeling a little worried.
"And then what? I have to ask you for everything I want?" Mi looked at Al and Joe. "You guys aren't afraid of the hassle, but I find it annoying."
“Actually, everything we do when we’re out and about is a manifestation of the witch’s body,” El said, changing his appearance. “You don’t need to prepare so many things.”
“Don’t you ever interact with the locals when you travel to different worlds?” Mi raised his hand. “With just a light touch, they can tell that your clothes are fake, that you’re just a wisp of air.”
“We keep a certain distance from people,” Joe explained. “We don’t let them touch us.”
"Is this how you walk in the human world?" Mi thought hard for a moment, but she couldn't figure out how someone could understand the world without ever interacting with others.
El looked at her silently for a moment before saying, "Tell me again, how did you create this body?" El visited Karin's warehouse again, taking out coarse cloth and leather, and made several sets of clothes for the three of them. El, along with Joe and Mi, assembled the body together. The three of them often got each other soaked, and finally, they all created a body that felt slightly warm to the touch. Although it was made of water, it felt just like a human body through the clothes; flowing water replaced flowing blood vessels. The witch possessed skin as smooth as water.
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