Xing Bi's warning was very untimely, but its accuracy was 100%.
When they had just passed about halfway across the river, their flight altitude had obviously begun to drop and the wind on the water was unstable, so Qiu Shi gave up the idea of struggling to pull the plane higher.
He really had to find the right angle to enter the water. At the current speed, if he didn't find the right angle, he would crash into the water and die.
About ten seconds later, he was close to the water surface. He took a deep breath, retracted his outstretched arms and hugged his head, trying to dive into the water in a streamlined cannonball posture.
Less than two seconds after he hugged his head, he felt the splash on his face, followed by overwhelming water and huge resistance.
He bounced up again from the water.
Then fall again.
Twice in total.
Qiu Shi felt like a pebble thrown into the water.
When the brothers went to the hot springs behind the mountain to take a bath, they would always play in the largest pool for a while. He liked to skip stones there...
The memories were forcibly interrupted.
Before he fell into the water, he only heard Xing Bi say, "Don't panic."
His ears and nose were instantly filled with cold river water, and even his eyes were filled with it. Then he could feel the water pouring in through the collar and trouser legs, enveloping his entire body.
It was pitch black all around. All I could see was the splashing water in front of me, and all I could hear was the muffled sound of water.
For Qiu Shi, who was just going to take a bath in the hot spring and leave, all he could do now was to hold his breath and wait for Xing Bi to come and rescue him.
But until he fell into the water, he didn't see Xing Bi.
If Xing Bi surpassed him by too much, he might have drowned before he could turn around to save him.
Qiu Shi opened his arms and tried to move upwards.
But it was pitch black all around, and he couldn't even tell up, down, left, and right. The bat suit he was wearing was now like a big bag filled with water, and his hands and feet were wrapped so tightly that he couldn't move at all.
Don't panic.
I wasn't too panicked.
It is still possible to pretend to be calm.
When he finally felt that he was sinking, the water around him began to fluctuate irregularly.
Xing Bi grabbed his clothes from behind, and then tore the bat suit open from the collar.
Qiu Shi quickly threw the thing away.
Then the bag on his back was also pulled off by Xing Bi.
But what impressed him was that Xing Bi did not throw the bag away, but stuffed it into his hand from the front.
He, a landlubber who was about to drown, actually took the bag steadily.
The forced calmness gradually turned into real calmness because of Xing Bi's appearance.
Xing Bi held up the clothes on his back and began to swim upwards. The process felt a bit long since he had been holding his breath since before entering the water.
Not knowing how long it would take to reach the surface to catch his breath, Qiu Shi began to try to kick the water, holding the backpack in one hand and paddling in the water with the other.
After punching Xing Bi twice in a row, Xing Bi stopped holding his clothes and instead grabbed his waist from behind, significantly speeding up his upward movement.
After paddling upwards for a period of time that should have lasted no more than thirty seconds in reality but psychologically lasted at least several minutes, Qiu Shi was finally pushed out of the water by Xing Bi.
"Fuck!" he cursed, "Ah-"
"Catch your breath first, then curse." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi took two deep breaths, coughed for a long time, and grabbed Xing Bi's arm: "Whose estimation is inaccurate?"
"No." Xing Bi stepped on the water, "Bring out the life jackets."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything.
Xing Bi looked at him.
"Throw it on the top of the mountain," Qiu Shi said. A gust of wind blew across the water, and he felt a little pain on his face from the cold, as if it was pierced by needles. "Out of trust in the first-level submersible guard, I think we can fly to the other side under his accurate visual observation."
"I'll pull you over," Xing Bi didn't bother with the life jacket. He just held his waist and gently pulled him to the side. "Don't move. You don't need to help."
"Well," Qiu Shi was led by him to lie face up on the water, and suddenly he became a little nervous, "Wait wait... water will get into my ears."
"Are you breathing through your ears?" Xing Bi didn't wait, but pulled him sideways and began to swim to the other side. "Relax, just keep your nose above the water."
"In this situation, only the biochemical body can relax." Qiu Shi tried hard to relax.
Xing Bi was still swimming very fast, and he could feel his body constantly breaking through the water under Xing Bi's guidance.
"Your injury," Qiu Shi said, "did it have any effect if it was soaked in water?"
"No impact." Xing Bi said.
"Is the direction right?" Qiu Shi said. A splash of water hit his face and filled his mouth with water. "How far is it?"
Xing Bi didn't answer.
Qiu Shi coughed twice and didn't ask any more questions.
After a while, Xing Bi stopped and pushed him from behind: "Stand up."
Qiu Shi stepped down quickly and his feet touched the rocks at the bottom of the river. When he turned around, he found that they had finally crossed the river and they would be able to reach the shore after walking more than ten meters.
But it was not easy to walk just ten meters. The water was flowing fast, he was wrapped in clothes, holding a bag in his hands, and the stones under his feet were a bit slippery. Qiu Shi felt that he had difficulty walking these ten meters.
He finally struggled to the shore, threw his things away, and lay down on the rocks on the shore.
"Find some wood," Xing Bi said, "and start a fire."
"I'll die for a while." Qiu Shi lay there motionless.
Xing Bi didn't urge him and walked away.
Qiu Shi lay there for less than a minute before he got up: "This is too cold."
The terrain on this side of the river is different from that on the other side. There are no mountains or trees, only some low earth slopes and bushes.
Because there was no shelter and we were by the river, the wind was much stronger than over there.
With his whole body soaked and cold, Qiu Shiduo could not utter a word. He gritted his teeth and quickly dug through the bushes, picking up a bunch of dead branches with Xing Bi.
The things in the bag were all in a waterproof bag, but after all the hassles along the way, the bag had opened a little, and although the clothes were not completely wet, they were not dry at all.
The oil used for ignition was still intact, and the several packs of cigarettes that Li Feng packed for him were also dry.
After the fire was lit, Qiu Shi poured out everything in his bag, used wood to build a rack next to the fire, and hung everything that needed to be dried on it.
The medicine box was still in the bag. Qiu Shi took out the disinfectant and looked at it: "Xing Bi."
"Hmm?" Xing Bi responded.
"Use this to disinfect your wound." said Qiu Shi.
"No need." Xing Bi said.
"I know you're awesome," Qiu Shi said, "but it's just a wound. I touched the inside of the wound and it didn't seem to be made of metal or screws. I wonder if there's any contamination in the water."
Xing Bi looked at him.
"Take it off," Qiu Shi also looked at him, "Do you still need me to avoid it?"
Xing Bi smiled and took off his shirt.
"I'll help you with the wound on your back..." Qiu Shi lowered his head and twisted the disinfectant. When he looked up, he found that Xing Bi had taken off his pants as well, leaving only his underwear. He was stunned for a moment, "You don't have to take it off like this... Are you injured on your butt or legs too?"
"No." Xing Bi sat next to him, "Let the clothes dry."
“…Oh.” Qiu Shi used a cotton ball dipped in disinfectant to wipe the wounds on his back and waist, then leaned in to stare at them, “It doesn’t look like it can heal on its own.”
"It won't heal in such a short time." Xing Bi said.
"Okay," Qiu Shi said, "If this hit me, I wouldn't even need to grow any more, I'd just die right away."
Xing Bi said nothing.
After Qiu Shi disinfected him, he took off his wet clothes. He was covered in water and almost frozen stiff.
The half-dry clothes in the bag actually needed to be dried, but he was not a biological being after all. It would be cold if he wore wet clothes, and it would also be cold if he was naked, so he put on the half-dry clothes to dry them together.
Xing Bi seemed to have no plans to put on clothes and stared at the fire in a daze.
Qiu Shi sat down, took a can and opened it. He didn't know if it was because he was not wearing any clothes, but he felt that Xing Bi's expression was very simple at the moment, and he didn't have the calmness he usually had.
He suddenly became curious: "Did you have a childhood?"
"What was your childhood like?" Xing Bi asked.
"It's just a kid," Qiu Shi said, "Xiao Xingbi."
"No." Xing Bi said, "The biochemical bodies are all adults."
Yes, there is no reason to raise the tools before using them. Qiu Shi took a bite of the canned food. He couldn't quite understand Xing Bi's feelings towards humans.
On this point, Xing Bi does have very complex emotions, even more complex than simple emotions between humans.
"What about you when you were a child?" Xing Bi asked.
"I had no fun when I was a kid," Qiu Shi finished his canned food, glanced at Xing Bi, and rubbed his hands on his trouser legs, "I was always hungry. The food provided to refugees in the outer city was not enough, so I looked for food everywhere."
"Li Feng said you are an orphan." Xing Bi said.
"Well," Qiu Shi nodded, "How many aren't? In this respect, you are infinitely close to humans."
Xing Bi smiled and said, "The kid just now shouldn't be that person."
"Is that why?" Qiu Shi turned to look at him, "You didn't kill him because those guys looked like a family?"
"No." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi waited for a while, but Xing Bi didn't explain the reason, so he had to speak up himself: "You were good at answering questions quickly, why don't you do that now?"
"Because of human nature." Xing Bi said.
"Humanity?" Qiu Shi was silent for a moment. "Whose humanity, yours or theirs?"
"They kill biochemicals," Xing Bi said, "because they think the biochemicals have betrayed them. They also kill people because someone is with the biochemicals. This is also betrayal. It's very vague and cruel."
"Well, no one knows what they've been through," Qiu Shi reached for his cigarette and took one out, "So what betrayal is, maybe they themselves can't define it, it's just to give hatred a real target."
"They believe that I will kill the child." Xing Bi said.
"Even children believe it," said Qiu Shi.
"So adults don't want to sacrifice children," Xing Bi said, "and children don't want adults to be restricted because of them."
Qiu Shi didn't say anything.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what they’re going to do,” Xing Bi said. “Every time I face a situation like this, I feel… it’s complicated.”
"You don't know how? How would biochemistry know how to do it?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Under normal circumstances, there wouldn't be such a conversation," Xing Bi said. "We would tacitly choose to give up."
Qiu Shi looked at the fire and sighed, recalling the scene during the mission when Xing Bi asked him to shoot at the hostage Xiao Jia.
"What about you?" Xing Bi asked.
"I am being forced to come out now," said Qiu Shi.
"Save yourself first and then save others," Xing Bi said, "that's what you told your brothers."
"Well," Qiu Shi nodded, "I may not be able to do it, but in this world, you can't tell who is worth saving, and you can't be sure of the consequences of saving people. The simplest thing is to save yourself first and determine the consequence of 'I won't die'."
Qiu Shi thought for a while after he finished speaking: "I've discovered that if I put this 'I' into many things, the results will become uncontrollable. In addition to the ability to enhance the biochemical body, we may also need people without this 'I'."
"Maybe." Xing Bi said.
"I haven't thought about this," Qiu Shi glanced at him, "maybe I haven't lived long enough."
Xing Bi laughed.
"What age did you set?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Twenty-eight." Xing Bi said.
"What do you look like?" Qiu Shi asked, "Your face, your... figure, etc."
He looked at Xing Bi and found that he had a pretty good figure.
"There will be an optimal reference value range," Xing Bi said, "and it will be randomly generated within this range."
"You're pretty good at random then," Qiu Shi said, "You're very good-looking."
"In this respect, they are better than humans," said Xing Bi.
"Yes, there is no limit to human ugliness, at least there is no lower limit," Qiu Shi said, "If you are not careful, you will become like Zhang Qifeng."
Xing Bi looked at him and smiled: "You have a lot of opinions about him."
"He wants to kill me all the time," Qiu Shi said. "If the lab turns out a bunch more of you, I'll run away with my brothers."
"Then you should run away now." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi turned his head and looked at him for a long time before speaking: "Why don't you put on your clothes first?"
"I'm not cold." Xing Bi said.
"Aren't you infinitely close to a human?" Qiu Shi said, "No normal person would sit naked and chat with others by the fire. I turned my head and forgot what I wanted to say." Xing Bi took the clothes and put them on. The clothes in his bag were still dry, and the waterproof bag was not damaged in the fight, which indirectly proved that the shock absorption and stability of the biochemical body were much better than those of humans.
After putting on his clothes, he sat down by the fire again, then lay down, resting his head on his arms and looking at the sky.
It looks and feels very comfortable.
Qiu Shi also lay down, resting his head on his arms and looking at the sky with him.
Now the sky is empty, there is nothing, and it seems that there is nothing to see, but this boundless emptiness will make people stare for a long time.
"When I have nothing to do, I often lie on the top of the bunker and look at the sky," said Qiu Shi.
"I haven't been like this for a long time." Xing Bi said.
"That day outside the city, did you not return to the bunker all night?" Qiu Shi asked, "You stayed at the top of the mountain the whole time?"
"Yeah." Xing Bi responded.
"If we can successfully bring Xiaoling back this time," Qiu Shi said, "will you have to go back to that cabin again?"
"Yeah." Xing Bi responded.
"If there is another biochemical body that can replace you," Qiu Shi said, "would you not have to do this? If you are no longer needed..."
"They will seal me up," Xing Bi said, "or destroy me."
"Fuck." Qiu Shi frowned. "If this is how it was originally intended to be used, why would it be necessary to allow the first-level biochemical body to have its own thoughts?"
"Because it wasn't like this at the beginning," Xing Bi said, "It was free at the beginning."
Qiu Shi turned his head and asked: "Why did it become like this later? Sealing, locking memories, and partnering were also something that came later, right?"
"I don't remember," Xing Bi said, "Perhaps when I get closer to humans, that oath will become less easy to uphold."
Qiu Shi looked at him.
"Do you remember what you wanted to say just now?" Xing Bi asked.
"What?" Qiu Shi was stunned.
"Because I'm not wearing any clothes, you can see the one you forgot." Xing Bi said.
“…No,” Qiu Shi sighed and sat up, “It sounds weird when you put it that way.”
"Then show me how to say it." Xing Bi said.
"I wanted to say something, but then I turned around and saw that you were not wearing any clothes," Qiu said, "and then I forgot about it."
"Is there any difference?" Xing Bi asked.
"Is there no difference?" Qiu Shi said, "Don't play dumb."
Xing Bi smiled and said, "Do you remember it now?"
"I remember now," Qiu Shi looked at his arm, "When we were in the cave, who was that Lin Sheng that Li Feng mentioned?"
"A first-level submersible," Xing Bi said, "a biological body similar to mine."
"Why is Li Feng asking you this?" Qiu Shi frowned.
"Want to tell me that they activated Lin Sheng." Xing Bi said.
"Then tell him that it's none of your business who activates it," said Qiu Shi.
"Lin Sheng is very strong." Xing Bi said.
"What's wrong?" Qiu Shi said, "Are you two still competing for the job?"
Xing Bi didn't say anything and just kept looking at the sky.
"I mentioned before that there are several other biochemical bodies doing symbiotic experiments. Li Feng asked you this again," Qiu Shi asked, "Is he one of them?"
"Yes." Xing Bi said.
"Can he replace you?" Qiu Shi asked.
"No," Xing Bi raised his arm and looked at his hand. The black marks on his hand appeared faintly again, "But if I can't control these, he might control me."
Qiu Shi was silent.
Xing Bi kept his arms raised and stared at his hands, not moving for a long time.
He pulled Xing Bi's hand down and asked a question he didn't want to ask.
“Given the chance,” he asked, “would you run?”
"I'm still..." Xing Bi said, "I'm not desperate."
Qiu Shi lay down again. He couldn't fully understand many of Xing Bi's words. Maybe it was because he hadn't lived long enough, or maybe life outside the city was not complicated enough. He had seen many deaths, of all kinds. He knew how to survive outside the city, but that was all.
Those brothers were just like him, all of them were as innocent as dead people and didn't think about anything. The most obvious difference was that they didn't want to die.
"Go to sleep," Xing Bi said, "I will know if someone comes."
"I can't sleep," Qiu Shi said. "It was so exciting to cross the river just now. I'm very excited now."
"I thought you would choke on the water." Xing Bi said.
"Not really. I was holding my breath," Qiu Shi touched his ribs, "but when I fell into the water, I bounced twice, just like skipping stones on the water. I was afraid that my ribs would be broken again."
"What is water drift?" Xing Bi asked.
"As a partner who is responsible for ensuring my safety, shouldn't your focus be on my ribs?" Qiu Shi said.
"The bones are not broken," Xing Bi held his wrist, "and your pulse is strong. You are not in danger at the moment."
"Haven't you ever skipped stones on water?" Qiu Shi asked.
"No." Xing Bi said.
"Come on, I'll teach you." Qiu Shi sat up.
"So excited?" Xing Bi said.
"Are you coming?" Qiu Shi asked.
"Come." Xing Bi sat up.
Qiu Shi walked to the water's edge, squatted on the ground, found a few stones and put them in Xing Bi's hand: "Use this."
"Hmm." Xing Bi took a look.
"Watch." Qiu Shi tossed the stone in his hand and threw it towards the water. Although the water flow was quite fast, the stone still created four or five splashes on the water.
"It's a bit similar." Xing Bi said.
“… Don’t take it so seriously.” Qiu Shi said.
"Let me try." Xing Bi said and threw away the stones in his hand.
"You..." Qiu Shi wanted to say, aren't you a first-level biochemical being with a strong learning ability? Didn't you see how I threw it
But he didn't get a chance to say that.
Because the stones thrown by Xing Bi actually created several splashes of water at the same time, and they bounced away happily on the water.
"Your ancestors." Qiu Shi looked at the water.
"It looks very nice." Xing Bi bent down, picked up a few stones at random, and threw them out again.
There were several long splashes on the water surface, jumping away into the distance.
"You play," Qiu Shi turned and walked towards the fire, "I'm sleepy."
"Not excited anymore?" Xing Bi asked.
"Did you do this on purpose?" Qiu Shi turned his head and looked at him.
"No." Xing Bi raised the corner of his mouth slightly.
"You can hardly hold back your laughter." Qiu Shi lay back down beside the fire.
Xing Bi also came back and sat next to him.
Qiu Shi thought about it and rested his head on his arm: "Will it be boring? It's so easy to learn anything."
"No," Xing Bi said, "I have only just learned how to skip stones on water."
"Who taught you how to snap your fingers?" Qiu Shi asked.
He had never thought about how these details about Xing Bi came about, allowing him to be infinitely close to things beyond human emotions and thinking.
"My former partner." Xing Bi said.
Qiu Shi paused: "Are you still alive?"
"Does this question require me to answer?" Xing Bi asked.
“Fuck,” Qiu Shi laughed. “No need.”
Xing Bi also smiled.
"Do you still remember him?" Qiu Shi asked.
"That part of the memory is within the locked range," Xing Bi said, "I don't remember it."
"You don't want a partner, do you?" Qiu Shi said, "This kind of partner in name only... is just to restrict your partner."
"But because of you, I can be reinstated." Xing Bi looked at him.
The author has something to say:
Continue tomorrow ╰_╯.
Things like underwater breathing are actually very difficult to implement and not very effective⊙▽⊙.
Qiu Shi: I’m not so weak that I would be choked if I fell into the water.