He remembers me? Lin Yuan realized this.
No one remembers what happened last night, but Xunhua remembers. He remembers himself and he also remembers yesterday, and he used the word "again".
Lin Yuan repeated what he did yesterday, twisted the man onto the bed, and treated his wounds.
Xunhua was too thin, with protruding bones on his back and thin skin covering the bones, crisscrossed with various scars of malicious abuse.
In the moonlight, it looked so pale that it almost looked like a dead body.
Lin Yuan thought that such a smelly place should not exist.
If yesterday, Lin Yuan just casually lent a hand, today, the same wound, the same bony back, made her feel even more uncomfortable.
There will be a deepening of emotion, perhaps because he becomes an acquaintance.
Seeing an acquaintance I had only spent one night with being treated like this, I felt angry and sad.
It turns out that the emotions between people change slowly as they get along with each other.
Sometimes it gets better, sometimes it gets worse, and sometimes it becomes deeper and easier to understand each other.
Lin Yuan looked at those strange wounds and couldn't understand why humans could have such great malice towards their own kind.
She treated the wounds carefully.
Xunhua lay there with his eyes open, not caring what Lin Yuan did to him.
His hands were tied tightly with a rope, the rough rope almost embedded in his flesh, and when Lin Yuan's dagger squeezed between his skin and the rope and cut the rope, he didn't even move his eyes. He didn't care whether the sharp knife would pierce into the rope or into his flesh.
Only when Lin Yuan covered him with the quilt for the second time, a pale hand reached out and grasped the edge of the quilt, as if that thin quilt could protect him.
Xunhua is still alive, has body temperature, and can move.
But Lin Yuan also felt that he might have died, like a withered tree, empty and numb inside, and the tentacles could hardly capture his emotions.
Lin Yuan went into the bathroom and washed the blood off his hands under the faucet.
The cold water flowed over the skin on the back of my hand, and the bright red blood was carried away by the water.
This is a weird world, but sometimes it feels so real.
The dead Windsor and the living Windsor in front of him. The living Xunhua and the Xunhua who seemed to be dead. Lin Yuan felt a little confused.
She heard Windsor's voice outside, "Xiaoxun, be obedient... It's rare to have such a gentle guest..."
Lin Yuan wiped his hands and walked out, hoping that Windsor would stay with him.
Windsor seemed very happy.
"Of course, I'd love to keep a beautiful guest like you company."
She sat down next to Lin Yuan, sitting very low, leaning against Lin Yuan's feet, looking up at Lin Yuan with her face raised, her eyes full of smiles. She held Lin Yuan's hands with both hands and put them on her cheeks.
She seemed very humble, as if Lin Yuan could do anything to her. But she also gave Lin Yuan an unusually strong feeling, as if this soft body could endure great suffering.
Windsor's hands were actually very rough, full of calluses and dead skin, but his cheeks were plump, rosy, youthful, and full of living warmth.
Lin Yuan found it hard to connect this face with the gray and lifeless corpse sitting by the window with its head drooping.
After gently touching the warm cheek, Lin Yuan withdrew his hand.
"I want to hear you sing."
Windsor began to sing. Her voice was gentle and had a quiet power. In the brightly lit night, it could soothe the pain in people's hearts and bring them peace.
The silver head on the bed moved very slightly and fell asleep in the moonlight.
During this time, a steward knocked on the door and said, "Windsor, the work is not finished yet, don't hide in there and be lazy."
Lin Yuan opened the door and saw a translucent creature like a slime, piled up on the ground in layers.
The monster had two cloudy eyes and spoke in a rough male accent, "Windsor, what are you doing in Room 8 again? Don't disturb the guests. Get out and work now, or I'll beat you to death."
Windsor seemed to be very afraid of him. He hid behind Lin Yuan, biting his lips, his face pale with fear.
Lin Yuan sprinkled a handful of imperial coins on the ground, "I want to keep her with me."
The monster's eyes lit up, and it squirmed its sticky body, picked up the coins on the floor, and swallowed them one by one into its stomach.
"Bring me the best wine and food." Lin Yuan said.
"Okay, okay. I'll do whatever you say." The monster agreed repeatedly, greedily licking up every coin that fell on the floor. Finally, it crawled downstairs, leaving a long trail of water behind it.
The door of the room was closed and the table was piled with endless delicious food.
From time to time, the dark silhouettes of guests passing by outside the house flashed on the yellow paper pasted on the window panes near the door. The shadows of those people were stretched out very long by the light, like twisted monsters.
The swaying lanterns, the dark shadows moving back and forth, the empty noise... were isolated outside the house by the dilapidated wooden door.
In the narrow little room, the moonlight was quiet, a patient was sleeping on the bed, and two girls were crowded around a small table eating delicious food.
I also opened a bottle of wine and drank a little.
It was really just a little bit this time.
“This sticky dumpling with sesame seeds is delicious.”
"This is called ciba, which is made by pounding glutinous rice. It takes hundreds of times."
"Really? You have so many delicious foods here."
"The guest likes sweets, so I'll make you a bowl of fermented rice balls."
"Call me Lin Yuan."
The sofa here was very worn and very small. The two girls took off their shoes and crossed their legs on it, almost filling it up.
"Miss Yuanyuan," Windsor poured wine for Lin Yuan, "you must have a lover you love very much. That's why you came here and did nothing but let me sing for you."
"Lover?" Lin Yuan held the wine glass and thought about it carefully.
She just had a few friends and was a little more like a normal person. It would probably take a long time for her to have such an intimate and complex relationship as a lover.
"What kind of person can be considered a lover?" Lin Yuan asked her.
She once had a fiancé, but she didn't seem to have experienced the kind of intimacy that everyone talked about, the mysterious love and lust that would make others excited when they mentioned it.
Windsor was stunned when he heard the question, and then he couldn't help laughing, "Oh, you are such a person."
"You really don't have a lover? Then why do you come here?" Windsor smiled with her eyebrows curved, and the sweet wine made her cheeks red.
"I'm here to find something." Lin Yuan said, and added what he was thinking, "You look so beautiful when you smile."
Windsor laughed so hard that his shoulders began to shake, with smiles in his eyes and in his heart.
"You are so good at coaxing people and so gentle. You will definitely have a very good lover in the future, Miss Yuanyuan."
Am I good at making people happy? Lin Yuan blinked. This was the first time she heard someone say this about her.
"Lover," Windsor said, holding the wine glass, his eyes sparkling, "It's like a snail crawling across the back of your hand, like a butterfly's wings gently fluttering in the palm of your hand. It's hard for you to ignore him. You will long for him, miss his fingers, ankles, skin and the way he looks at you. In short, it's a creature that makes your heart beat."
Lin Yuan took a sip of wine. Fingers, ankles, skin… This description sounded pretty good.
It seemed even more touching than the emotions that the tentacles had often seen.
I don't know why, but when I see Windsor's smile, I can't help wanting to talk to her more and listen to her singing more. Fortunately, she still remembers why she came here.
She wanted to know what kind of person Xunhua was and why he was the only one here who remembered everything.
"So, do you like Xunhua?" Lin Yuan asked, "I feel like you take good care of him."
"Do you like Xiaoxun?" Windsor's eyelashes moved and drooped slightly, "Why do you think so..."
"Yuan Yuan doesn't seem to be from our area. You don't know what a brilliant guide Xiao Xun is."
"Guide?" Lin Yuan heard something unexpected and turned to look at the man sleeping on the bed in disbelief. "Aren't guides in the capital of the empire? How come there is a guide here?"
Because the patient was injured, skinny, and had almost no emotions or outward spiritual consciousness, Lin Yuan did not even notice that this person was a guide like himself.
"This is where the criminals stay. Those who are sent here are all those who have committed crimes in military camps in various places." Windsor was very surprised by Lin Yuan's reaction. "Of course there are sentinels and guides in the military camp. The guides and sentinels are always together, so why are they all staying in Kyoto?"
Lin Yuan was dumbfounded. "The guides and sentinels have been together all this time? Fighting together?"
"Of course," Windsor said as a matter of course, as if this should be common knowledge known to everyone. "Guidelines are very powerful warriors. Although there are fewer of them, which military camp can do without guides? Without guides, how can humans fight against the monsters in the contaminated area?"
The guide is a powerful warrior
Isn't it true that guides are gentle and virtuous, and are responsible for taking good care of the lives of the sentinels? This is the common perception in Lin Yuan's world.
Lin Yuan discovered that this was a world very different from what he knew.
Compared to the pollution areas that have continued from the old days, the Golden Tree Pollution Area is a newly formed pollution area. The reason for its formation is unknown, and it is only known that it has only been formed for three or four hundred years.
But Lin Yuan felt that the world three or four hundred years ago was a completely different world from today.
Windsor told Lin Yuan a very sad story.
When Windsor was a child, his family was very poor and he had many younger brothers and sisters. His mother could not bear the burden of life and died early, leaving only a father in the family who did not care much about his children's life or death.
At that time, she lived in fear every day. She was afraid that her drunk father would beat her up at any time. She was even more afraid of the look in the eyes of a neighbor who lived next door.
As he grew older, the neighbor came to her house more frequently to invite her father to drink. When he was drunk, he looked at her like a hungry wolf eyeing its meat, which made her shudder.
Windsor tried very hard to avoid this man, but he failed in the end. Once, when he was returning home from buying wine, he was dragged into the alley by the furry arm before he even entered the house.
Her mouth was covered tightly and she was slapped several times on the face. The drunken man was beating her while pulling his belt.
At that time, Windsor actually didn't believe that anyone would come to rescue her.
Her father was already drunk as a pulp, and even if he wasn't drunk, a father like that probably wouldn't have cared about her.
She couldn't even call for help, her face was swollen and her mouth was covered by that smelly hand.
She could only scream in her heart. If thoughts could be heard, then her screams would surely be heard very far away.
So far away that it was heard by the moon in the sky.
That was the first time Windsor saw Xunhua. The young officer in the guide uniform appeared in the dirty alley and just said coldly, "Get lost."
The man who was like an insurmountable mountain in Windsor's eyes covered his head and wailed, as if he was beaten in the mind. Tears and snot ran down his face, and he rolled away trembling.
"Although my life was still hard later on, I always remember the person who helped me," Windsor said to Lin Yuan.
She accidentally drank a little too much, and the water light was reflected in her eyes. "Every time I think of such people in this world, my heart becomes stronger."
"What happened next?" Lin Yuan asked her.
"Later, I actually saw Xiaoxun here." Windsor's expression became depressed, and there was no smile in his curved eyes.
"They say he is the moon that fell into the ditch, but I think the moon is still the moon no matter where it is. How can a mouse like me who originally lived in the ditch like the moon?"
"I just want to help him a little bit and repay his kindness a little bit."
"Oh, look at me." She wiped her face which was hot from the alcohol, "I'm sorry. I accidentally said too much and made you listen to such unhappy things. How about I sing another song for you? Yuanyuan, do you have any songs you like to listen to?"
"I loved the song you sang last night."
"Last night?" Windsor thought puzzledly. She remembered that this was the first time she sang for Lin Yuan.
Maybe everyone drank too much.
"The song you sang about mice last night," Lin Yuan said, "was very cheerful and made people happy. In fact, there are also cute types of mice, and they are very qualified to like the moon. I like mice very much."
"Really? I do have a song about mice. How did you know that?" Windsor laughed again. "Do you really like mice?"
"Yes, I just fell in love with them. I like mice, crabs, big snakes and birds... They are all very cute. I think they are much better than the cold moon."
Windsor began to sing a ballad again, a cheerful song she had composed herself, about mice.
Time passed, and a sound like thunder came from afar. It was like something was burning, and it was even louder and more violent than the noise last night.
Xunhua on the bed had a high fever again. His whole body was burning hot, and antipyretics and physical cooling could not reduce his high fever.
But he seemed to be awake, and his cold and numb eyes softened in the high fever. He kept looking for Windsor's figure with those eyes, as if she was the only pillar in this world.
There was a gentle knock on the door, which was the secret signal agreed upon by Ni Ji and Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan quietly poked his head out and saw Ni Ji standing outside the house.
"Someone set the tree on fire." Ni Ji whispered to her.
Perhaps inspired by Ni Ji's fighting style last night, several sentinels got together today. They collected a lot of flammable and explosive things and made long-range incendiary bombs.
They probably wanted to burn the strange tree completely and see if there was anything else under the abyss.
It was a grand event and even from here you could see the fireballs being thrown across the sky from afar.
A huge waning moon hung in the night sky, and dots of fire on the ground seemed to be burning under the moon.
"I'll go take a look." Ni Ji said, "I'll be back soon."
He glanced at the room where Lin Yuan had stayed and switched to communicating in sign language.
He was hiding not far away just now and heard a lot of the conversation inside.
These two people are indeed very special, Ni Ji said in sign language, especially the one on the bed, I feel he is a little dangerous, you...
"I'll be careful." Lin Yuan answered him and made a reassuring gesture.
Ni Ji opened his mouth before leaving, but said nothing in the end.
Fortunately, Lin Yuan was a guide and was good at capturing other people's subtle emotions. At this moment, an inspiration suddenly came to him and he added a word to the sentry who was about to leave.
"Hey, I like mice, crabs, snakes, birds, and killer whales."
[Great]
[Improvement]
[Good job]
[The mouse is really cute, and it teaches the subject so well]
(End of this chapter)