Chapter 76#
The People in the Story (Part 13)#
“I… go kiss the giant?” Su Wanluo was just an ordinary person. Since coming to this underground world, she had been either running around or fleeing for her life. When she said this, the girl’s already pale face became even more fragile. Her scarred fingers covered her constantly bleeding shoulder. It wasn’t fear, but surprise—surprise that the key to getting out was actually her?
Ye Sheng said lightly, “Yes, you just need to do the last step.”
Su Jiande, who had become a B-grade Heresy, had completely lost his mind and would not show mercy to his own daughter. To ensure Su Wanluo’s safety, they had to bind the giant first to avoid all dangers.
“…Okay.”
Su Wanluo nodded slowly.
The fierce wind rolled up the snow and howled, and the ice prisms on the ground grew section by section.
“Can you come over? Do you want me to pull you?” Luo Xingyan turned his head and looked at the thin girl in front of him.
Su Wanluo shook her head, a few strands of hair brushing against her pale cheeks, and whispered, “No need, thank you.”
She had already troubled them with many things.
Although the ice prisms were sharp, they could be avoided. Resisting the cold wind, the three of them walked step by step to the room in the center of this bloody garden.
Back then, the underground space of the old gymnasium was not built, and all the rooms were bare concrete structures. The supervisor’s office was the same, with unpainted walls. The black concrete walls were reflected with a faint red by the world condensed of ice and blood. When touching it, Ye Sheng always felt a warmth coming from his fingertips.
Ye Sheng lowered his eyes, thoughtful. People in extremely cold environments would have the illusion of heat, and he couldn’t tell if it was real or fake for a moment.
Luo Xingyan kicked the room open, and dust rushed to his face, choking his nose.
“So much dust, how many years has this room not been used!” He raised his hand, pinched his nose, and said with disgust.
After Ye Sheng walked in, he looked ahead and was completely stunned.
The door was closed, and the wind, snow, and cold were all shut out.
In the center of the bloody world, it was not a cold and simple office, but a dilapidated yet warm “home.”
This home was old, and the wall skin showed signs of peeling off, covered by newspapers. The sofa was washed until it almost faded, and dust particles floated in the air. On the table by the window, there was a half-damaged electric fan with iron blades that were a bit rusty. Beside the table, books were piled messily, various magazines, textbooks, and storybooks. Many childhood toys, bamboo copters, colorful shuttlecocks, and animation cards were also scattered on top.
Luo Xingyan opened the drawer, looked down at the various colorful string ropes and hair clips inside, and said in disbelief, “These things, could they also be created by the Story King?”
Ye Sheng shook his head: “No.” He looked at the pile of books, his voice cold and certain: “Here, it is no longer the Story King’s past.”
The Story King was just a continuator.
The Human Wall world ultimately belonged to Su Jiande.
—Besides, how could the Seventh Sector Lord reveal his belongings from when he was alive to them so easily?
Luo Xingyan: “Then where is the giant? Where is the giant?”
Yes, where is the giant?
Ye Sheng also wanted to ask this question.
Crossing the wind and snow to the end of the fairy tale world, why didn’t they see the giant?
Su Wanluo’s face was as pale as paper, and she stood there as if nailed to the spot.
She raised her head, staring blankly at a doodle hanging on the wall.
There were many stickers on the wall: watermelons, candied haws, cats. In the center was a child’s drawing, with colorful crayons depicting mountains, blue sky, and forests. Below the forest was a family of three holding hands. The mother wore lipstick, and the daughter had a pink bow drawn on her head.
Su Wanluo’s lips trembled as she walked over step by step. Her fingers touched the yellowed and curled edge of the drawing paper, and she said palely, “Here, is my home, my past.”
Luo Xingyan was stunned, turned around abruptly to look at her, his tone almost questioning: “Your past?!”
“Yes.” Su Wanluo nodded with no expression on her face.
“This is my former home in Lianggang County. I moved to Huai City when I was in the second grade of primary school. Before that, I lived in this house.”
Her face was numb now, as if all emotions had been withdrawn.
“This drawing, this wallpaper, and this electric fan, I remember them all.”
“I drew the picture in my first-grade art class, drawing a family of three; the wall was covered with newspapers because my home was on the second floor deep in an alley, and it would be very damp during the humid season; and this fan, it has been there every summer since I can remember.”
Su Wanluo lowered her head, her scarred fingers trembling as she picked up an old calendar from the table.
The date on it was set to July 1st, 15 years ago.
The background of the calendar was a movie poster with warm, scorched yellow tones. A little boy in a white tank top, with a transparent goldfish bowl upside down on his head acting as an astronaut, looked at the world quirkily from inside the fishbowl.
“July 1st, 15 years ago, Friday. I seem to remember, I overslept playing hide-and-seek, and under the red brick wall, I saw that boy on this day too.” Su Wanluo smiled palely and said, “…No wonder I didn’t take a nap that day, it turned out to be summer vacation.”
Her fingers slowly rubbed the calendar.
“When I was young, I always felt that days passed so slowly, repeating day after day. Now I feel that time passes too fast, like a dream. So fast, I grew up in a blink of an eye.”
“I still remember, this calendar was given for free on the street when a cinema in Lianggang County opened. Dad brought it home and put it in my room. The calendar used movie posters as backgrounds. 365 days, 365 classic movies.”
She looked down at the calendar, gazing at the fishbowl kid and the words next to him that she hadn’t noticed before. July 1st, a very old movie, “Echoes of the Rainbow” (Years are Thieves).
Su Wanluo smiled dazedly after a long time, her eyes red, and whispered, “…It really is a thief of time.”
Luo Xingyan finally reacted now, his tone cold as frost: “Su Jiande is your father?”
Su Wanluo nodded, admitting with red eyes: “Yes. He is my father, missing for more than ten years, died in the gymnasium. I came here tonight to find him.”
Luo Xingyan narrowed his eyes.
Ye Sheng ignored the conversation between the two and walked forward. He looked at the messy pile of storybooks on the table, his slender fingers flipping through them hastily, and finally his pupils shrank as he pulled out a copy of “Night Navigation” from inside.
Ye Sheng asked coldly, “Su Wanluo, what is this?”
—The Bureau of Unnatural Affairs searched the entire Huai City and couldn’t find a single remaining copy of “Night Navigation,” yet Su Wanluo had one in her former home!
Su Wanluo seemed stunned too. She walked over, saw the old book in Ye Sheng’s hand, and reacted belatedly: “This book… was given to him by Dad’s friend.”
“Friend?”
Su Wanluo nodded: “Yes, I heard Dad say. Before I was born, he met a bookstore owner while working in Huai City. The owner ran a bookstore with little business.”
“That bookstore has a history of nearly a hundred years, with walls, bricks, and tiles all old and dilapidated. Once, a heavy rain in Huai City lifted most of the bookstore’s tiled roof. It was Dad who rebuilt the bookstore for free that helped the nearly bankrupt bookstore survive a disaster. Later, the owner had nothing to repay him with, so he gave him many books.”
“Most of my childhood storybooks came from there.”
Su Wanluo hesitated: “Is there… any problem with this book?”
Ye Sheng didn’t speak but asked quickly: “What is the name of that bookstore, and where is it located?”
Su Wanluo was silent for a long time and said: “The bookstore is named ‘Time,’ located in a small town called Qing’an in the suburbs of Huai City.”
Huai City, Qing’an Town, Time Bookstore.
Ye Sheng hastily flipped through this issue of Night Navigation and threw it back.
—He knew it. The Story King fulfilled Su Jiande’s wish and spent energy turning him into a B-grade Heresy. The connection between them wouldn’t be that simple!
The scope of the Story King’s main body could now be directly narrowed down to a town and a street.
The urgent task now was for them to get out of here.
To get out, they must find the giant.
Luo Xingyan considered that Su Wanluo was just an ordinary person and didn’t question her further with a tough attitude.
Ye Sheng re-examined the room and said, “The temperature in the room is a bit hot.” The three people in the room were all quick-witted and reacted quickly along with Ye Sheng.
“Yes, I felt it as soon as I came in. The temperature here should be 37 degrees.”
Ye Sheng reached out and touched the wall again. Just now, it was an illusion due to the extreme cold outside, but inside, touching the rough wall surface, he still sensed a warmth. Not only that, thump, thump, the wall seemed to be beating.
Like a beating, hot heart…
Just then, the angry curses of the three brothers came from outside.
They had caught up.
“Open the door!”
“Come out!”
“You kid hit my brother and still want to escape?!”
The three brothers made a huge racket, smashing the window with a saw, hitting the door with stones, and pounding the ground with iron rods. The banging sounds were loud enough to almost cover the entire wind and snow. As the voices of the three brothers grew louder, Ye Sheng felt the temperature on the wall changing. At the same time, the beating of the wall became violently undulating.
Something was waking up.
Ye Sheng was stunned and suddenly thought of the Story King’s first postscript.
—post scriptum: The underground space he was obsessed with during his life was ultimately not built, but it doesn’t matter, kind and hardworking people will always get their wish.
He woke up with a start, his eyes sharp: “Get out!”
Luo Xingyan was stunned: “Get out?”
Ye Sheng: “Yes.” After speaking, Ye Sheng strode forward and opened the long-sealed window.
The moment the window opened, it seemed to open a path of light between heaven and hell.
Outside the window was a bloody fairy tale; inside the window were gentle old memories.
The fourth fairy tale couldn’t reach its end at all.
No wonder they couldn’t see the giant. This entire underground space was the garden built by the “giant” with his flesh and blood body.
They had been inside the giant’s body all along, how could they possibly see the giant!
Time was tight, and Ye Sheng didn’t have time to explain to them, speaking in the briefest words.
“Get out. We are inside the giant’s body, and this is the giant’s heart—the most dangerous place!”
A second after Ye Sheng’s voice fell.
The loud-voiced three brothers finally completely woke up the owner of the body. The voice from the sky became even angrier. The giant roared and reprimanded, furious: “Who is inside! Get out! All of you get out!”
The walls began to freeze, and the temperature in the room dropped again and again.
White frost covered every inch of memory.
This house in the center of the wind and snow was the giant’s heart, and soon it would become the coldest place.
Although Su Jiande’s remaining warmth was hidden in the heart, all the frost also spread from here!
Ye Sheng gritted his teeth. He was now attracting all the anger of the three brothers and couldn’t take care of himself. He turned his head and said, “Luo Xingyan, take Su Wanluo and go.”
After speaking, Ye Sheng bent his long legs and jumped from the window to the ground.
Seeing him, the three brothers’ eyes were blood-red and crazy, screaming and rushing to kill him with weapons.
Snow particles blew across Ye Sheng’s cold face. He moved agilely, his steps quickly disappearing into the wind and snow.
“Don’t run, kid!”
“Don’t run if you have guts!”
Inside the room, Luo Xingyan cursed silently.
—Worthy of an S-grade Sector Lord’s work, he never intended to give them a way to live from the beginning.
Human Wall, Human Wall, the garden turned out to be the giant’s body.
They had been inside Su Jiande’s body all along! It would be a miracle if they could get out!
The fourth fairy tale had no solution at all!
“Go.” Luo Xingyan turned around and said quickly.
Su Wanluo knew she lacked physical strength and couldn’t get out alive alone, so she didn’t speak. After Luo Xingyan jumped onto the window, he squatted halfway holding the threshold, turned back immediately, and extended his hand to Su Wanluo.
Su Wanluo was already so cold that a layer of faint white frost formed on her hair. The short two or three steps were like walking on the tip of a knife. Her brain was very chaotic now, so chaotic that she couldn’t find any logic.
After Ye Sheng and Luo Xingyan showed abilities completely different from ordinary people, they didn’t avoid her in their conversation. So she knew about textbooks, the Story King, the Human Wall, Heresies, the Giant’s Garden… and also knew, Dad.
The giant they spoke of turned out to be Dad.
Su Wanluo’s steps stopped.
Luo Xingyan was stunned, seeing what she was thinking at a glance. His cat eyes stood erect, and he suddenly raised his voice, trying to wake her up: “Su Wanluo! Are you crazy? This is not your dad! This is a monster!”
Crazy? Don’t know. From the moment she decided to walk into this basement, her mind might not have been too clear.
The giant’s heart was freezing, freezing and destroying everything.
A layer of ice crystals also solidified under Su Wanluo’s feet. They were colder, more biting, and more painful than before.
Su Wanluo’s eyes were red. Tears were liquid, also frozen in her eye sockets. She squeezed out a smile and said.
“I know. You guys go.” She opened her mouth, her throat full of blood, and whispered, “Thank you.”
“Thank my ass!” Luo Xingyan cursed silently, damn it, not wanting to watch her die, he reached out to pull her out.
But Su Wanluo took a step back.
“Get out!”
At the same time, the giant got angry for the second time. The two windows vibrated violently, and the powerful S-grade rule force made it impossible for Luo Xingyan to stay long.
The wind and snow grew heavier, a vast expanse of whiteness. Luo Xingyan looked up, took out the chain, jumped back, and avoided the fierce attack of ice and snow.
Snap. At this moment, the window closed, and Luo Xingyan watched Su Wanluo’s body blur in the wind and snow.
*
Ye Sheng was long used to being chased.
He shook off the three brothers in a few steps.
He began to rely on memory to find the exit, to find that well.
But the well seemed to have disappeared into thin air!
He retraced his steps in the maze and saw nothing.
Ye Sheng looked cold, stopped, and began to analyze all the postscripts of the Story King about the Human Wall.
The first postscript, the Story King wrote Su Jiande after death as a strange tale, letting him use his flesh and blood body to build the basement of the old gymnasium.
The second postscript, the Story King used primary school textbooks as a blueprint to create the unkillable bird, puppet, and three brothers. At the same time, he logically turned the second underground floor into “The Giant’s Garden.”
Now they couldn’t walk out of the Giant’s Garden, and there were these fairy tale characters in the garden who became stronger with each death.
No wonder the Story King had been focusing on his own story and couldn’t be bothered to attack them.
An S-grade Sector Lord could easily trap them in a dead end and play with them in the palm of his hand.
Ye Sheng was vigilant in his heart, always feeling that the Story King should still have a third continuation. The previous ones were all foreshadowing, and the third postscript should be the time to truly close the net and reveal the murderous intent.
Ye Sheng twitched the corner of his mouth almost imperceptibly, lowered his eyes, and the hostility in his heart became heavier.
Reaching a dead end, it was a wall.
Seeing that he had nowhere to escape, the three brothers panted and said triumphantly: “Run, kid! Aren’t you good at running! Keep running!”
“You’re the arrogant one, right!” The second brother was the most ferocious among them, picking up the chainsaw, his eyes full of bloody fanaticism: “I’m going to chop you up to fill the well.”
Ye Sheng’s face and lips were pale.
The three brothers thought he was afraid and were ecstatic inside. Who knew that the next second, the young man quietly raised his head in the dim light. A pair of sharp and beautiful almond eyes harbored indescribable indifference and eeriness deep inside.
Ye Sheng said indifferently: “Fill the well? Where is the well?”
The well!
The three brothers seemed to come back to their senses.
“The well…”
“That’s right! Where is the well! Big brother!”
“Big brother, where is the well! Why is the well gone!”
The hostility in Ye Sheng’s heart grew heavier and heavier. He looked at the three brothers who were bewildered, confused, and anxious at this moment.
A demonic light danced in his eyes.
In the world of the Lord of Strange Tales, the story is far greater than everything else.
The Giant’s Garden with no way out, the unsolvable fourth fairy tale, was actually not a dead end.
—The Giant’s Garden has no exit, so he will create an exit.
…End one story with another story.
Ye Sheng’s voice was slow, cold, and calm, but like a distant enchantment.
“Back then, the Daughter of Wisdom drank three mouthfuls of well water for your health and made a ten-year agreement with you. She did not break the appointment.”
“You searched for ten years and didn’t find what happiness is because you forgot your original intention long ago; and the Daughter of Wisdom didn’t appear because you lost the well.”
“But she will bless the hardworking and kind people. If you want to see her again, it’s actually very simple.”
Ye Sheng looked at the ground.
Through the thick layer of ice, one could vaguely see the scarlet rotten flesh. But for the three brothers, this should be ordinary land, a garden in winter.
Ye Sheng said word by word: “You can, right here, dig another well.”
Digging open the Human Wall might be the way to live.
*
Ning Weichen said casually: “Won’t you invite me to appreciate your story properly?”
The pen hidden in the Story King’s hand trembled. The fear and vigilance towards the Forbidden Zone of the Gods made him hold back the slaughter in his heart and secretly erase the half-written postscript—among Sector Lords, exposing oneself is the most foolish thing.
The Story King hid all his aura in a mass of shadow. After confirming that his appearance, figure, expression, and voice were all hidden in the darkness, he spoke slowly. His tone was absurd and strange, his voice hoarse and cold, but his way of speaking was like a child.
“You saw it.”
“This story is named Time.”