Chapter 23 Tide Proverbs (Part 5) The world is in a blue slump of consciousness...
The bell rang.
The world is in a state of blue consciousness desolation.
A moment when it's hard to tell whether it's night or day.
The sea was calm as silk, without any ripples or waves. The sky was like the sea's reflection, mirroring its color, state, and everything else.
The bells rang at that moment.
Xia Zhu struggled to get up. At this time when she should have been sound asleep, something unusual made her immediately awake after sitting up. The entire space was enveloped in a beautiful light.
It's unusually quiet tonight.
It seemed like the fifth day hadn't even arrived yet. She held her breath and heard the sound of a door opening in the hallway; someone was walking outside. She quickly got out of bed and cautiously opened the door a crack.
The outside was also bathed in the same radiance, flowing like water. The remaining five rooms on this floor were opened, and all the people inside came out, facing her direction, but then turned around at the stairwell and went downstairs one by one.
Including Feng Feng's room.
She opened the door at almost the same time as Xia Zhu, but did not notice Xia Zhu's gaze.
Watching her figure disappear around the corner, Xia Zhu opened the door and chased after her, grabbing Feng Feng's wrist.
"Xiao Feng!"
She saw Feng Feng turn around, and the color of his hair appeared even redder under the strong blue filter, like a bonfire burning brightly on the beach at dawn. The wind pulled the ends of their hair together.
Her eyes looked as if she had just woken from a dream, but her voice was clear and firm.
"There's something wrong with this bell; I was just about to go and check it out."
"Let's go together." Xia Zhu didn't say anything more, but she didn't let go of his hand.
The two of them followed behind the crowd, and as more people gathered from the second floor, they found Feng Mian, who was also among them, and they looked at each other silently from a distance.
No one spoke; even their breathing became lighter. A fascinated smile graced everyone's faces. Their features were blurred, but the intoxication seemed to overflow their bodies. The group left the building and entered the courtyard, finally bathed in the light. The man playing the teacher was already waiting at the gate, wearing the same smile.
Still without saying a word, he led the way at the front of the line, leaving the school for the first time.
The sky, the earth, and the sea were all a misty blue, as if night had fallen or the sun had risen. The surroundings should have been dark and blurry, but a layer of radiance guided the way, illuminating everyone's faces.
It wasn't until he stepped onto the long embankment that Xia Zhu learned the source of the radiance.
A huge full moon lay on the horizon at the end of the road; she had never seen a moon like it before.
Vast and pure, yet with an inexplicable eeriness.
If you stare at it, it will keep magnifying in front of you, and the silvery-white disc with deep scars opens its huge mouth.
Xia Zhu held Feng Feng's hand tightly. Her body temperature was a little low in the morning breeze. The two walked at the back of the group, Feng Mian's figure appearing and disappearing ahead. The bank on the left was about three meters above the water, while on the right was a not-too-high but steep cliff. The path ahead was getting narrower and narrower, almost reaching its end, and the crowd began to huddle together. Xia Zhu suddenly noticed what seemed to be a black shadow on the cliff above her head, but when she focused her gaze and tried to look closer, it vanished. She wondered if she had been staring at the moon for too long and had developed freckles.
Everyone stopped on the pile of rocks at the end of the embankment.
A gentle sea breeze blew from afar, while the sea remained calm and still. A sense of peace rose from within Xia Zhu, and she found herself unable to resist smiling.
Whether in reality or in dreams, nature is not always so perfect; it has the power to purify the soul.
But then she froze. Everything in the dream world was fake; everything was created with a purpose. Her left eye began to twitch incessantly. The people in front of her still wore those mesmerized expressions. No one spoke; instead, they all tilted their faces slightly upwards, staring at a certain spot.
They were all gazing at the sea where the moon had set.
Suddenly, everything turned into some kind of eerie ritual, and for the first time, she felt afraid of her own absent-mindedness and of being in it.
The stare lasted a long time, the world seemed to freeze in death, until the distant bells rang again, and everyone awoke as if from a dream, their stiff smiles fading, and the man led them back to the school.
He ordered everyone to return to their rooms and wait until dawn, when a new day would begin.
The atmosphere among the three was somewhat strange. They didn't talk much. The two parted ways at the door. She told Feng Feng to be careful and to just make a sound no matter what happened, as she was next door.
Back in her room, Xia Zhu realized for the first time how terrifying this dream was: it subtly merged with and devoured everything. It made you believe in everything, create a natural sense of belonging, strive to live a normal school life, complete the tasks assigned by teachers, and then slowly forget that a real world existed beyond time.
She couldn't fall asleep again in the middle of the night.
Stare at a point in the darkness.
Until the fourth chime of the clock marking the start of a new day
The fifth day of the dream.
They guessed correctly; the course runs in a three-day cycle.
Today was another biology class in the classroom on the third floor.
The only difference from the beginning is the books that were delivered to my hands.
This book is clearly no longer about primates, and it's even debatable whether it can even be called an animal. The first two pages are relatively normal, moving from land to sea, first introducing arthropods, crabs, and shrimp. Then it moves on to chordates such as whales and seahorses.
The subsequent visuals outweighed the text, becoming bizarre and absurd.
For example, a pair of seahorses mating are displaying disgusting human organs, and a male seahorse that has completed its gestation period and begun to give birth is squeezing its muscles to eject tens of thousands of seahorse calves with the faces of middle-aged men out of its brood pouch.
An ordinary fish with three pairs of fleshy fins growing from its sides looks like a plucked chicken. The picture is accompanied by a helpful explanation, calling this fish a six-winged angel. Its characteristic is that it can glide on the surface of the sea. Its disadvantage is that it usually lives in the deep sea. If it wants to flap its wings and fly, the air pressure at the surface of the water will instantly burst its internal organs.
Flying only happens once in a lifetime; the mission of every flying fish is to swim out of the water and show its ugliness to the air.
Of course, even so, the six-winged angel will not die. It will simply drag its exposed organs back to the seabed. However, the smell of blood will attract a parasite that swarms under the flying fish's burst scales, sucking blood and flesh until the host dies and becomes a pile of rotten flesh. Only then will the parasite begin its life journey.
The parasites will control this decaying body, allowing it to roam freely in the deep sea. They have lifespans of tens of thousands of years. In a way, the six-winged angels should thank the parasites for granting them physical immortality.
The book also includes illustrations for each stage of the flying fish's life cycle, providing detailed explanations for each stage with exquisite detail. Even the mouthparts of the parasites, which are as small as micrometers, are drawn with great care.
The octopus's brain resembled a plump, intact pig's brain, encased only in a thin membrane. Its tentacles were like strips of fresh pig intestines on a chopping board, glistening with oil and shimmering with blood. The giant turtle with its grotesque head had its shell and flesh swapped in texture.
The visual impact was so strong that Xia Zhu felt dizzy and lightheaded, perhaps due to an overload of color processing, and her brain was unable to process the information in a short time.
Her reaction was relatively mild, but the boy sitting next to her vomited.
The classroom was filled with the smell of a whole fish meal from the cafeteria. His digestive system seemed to have no function, and his vomit was still in its original form.
The wind, rain, thunder, and lightning created the atmosphere for this drama; the once calm sea suddenly surged with huge waves, and the classroom went completely dark.
The man, who was originally standing on the podium, moved swiftly and ghost-like in front of a student who vomited, and grabbed the student's chin.
"What are you doing...? This is...disrespectful to life..." The boy still had vomit dripping from the corner of his mouth, which had already flowed onto the teacher's hand, but he didn't care at all. His eyes were wide open, and he looked extremely excited. He held the other person tightly with his hand, making it impossible for him to close his mouth.
“Bad students…must be punished!” He pulled out a pair of hemostats from somewhere and, in a tone that resembled a scream, shoved the sharp end into the boy’s soft gums. With a forceful pry, a blood-stained tooth, still dangling from a nerve, flew out, hit Xia Zhu’s table leg, and bounced back to the ground.
The man withdrew his hand with satisfaction, picked up the tooth from the ground, and held it up to his eyes as if admiring a work of art, repeatedly examining it in the lightning.
The boy, who had lost a molar, collapsed to the ground in agony, his whole body convulsing like a maggot scalded by boiling water. He couldn't even scream; only a whimpering sound came from his throat. Saliva, blood, and residual vomit smeared all over his chin and neck.
Xia Zhu noticed that Feng Feng was frowning and staring at the person without moving. She seemed to be just a little shocked, but if you looked closely, you would find that her jaw muscles were also trembling.
No one intended to discipline the students on the ground. The teacher walked back to the podium, put the teeth into his shirt pocket, and then picked up the book again to start reading aloud.
Fortunately, the place was well-ventilated, and the stench of blood quickly dissipated. The rain started again, and a few drops landed on Feng Feng's book as he sat by the window, giving off a unique scent that belonged to books.
After three arduous hours, the person on the ground had fainted, and the teacher assigned two students to carry him back to his room.
"Next student, remember to clean the sink..."
"Students...you all need to go to the cafeteria...for lunch..."
What do you eat in the cafeteria?
Of course.
Fish soup, fish paste, braised fish head.
A round table by the window.
Feng Feng gripped the stainless steel spoon, scraping it against the edge of the bowl, making an unpleasant noise. Her anxiety was obvious; she feared that in math class the day after tomorrow, she would be the one to lose a molar.
"This matter isn't that complicated, is it? If it really comes to that, we'll just fight back, destroy this dream, and force out the demon. Feng Feng, your teeth will only stay in your mouth."
That was all she could say to comfort him, but Feng Feng managed a forced smile.
Feng Mian tried to strike up a conversation with the other students while standing at the back of the food line, but his dejected return showed that he had made no progress.
He placed the food on the table, reached out and ruffled Feng Feng's hair, then sat down next to Xia Zhu.
She smelled a strong soapy odor on Feng Mian.
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