In Dihai, Shanshan sat outside the gate with a depressed expression, her hands hugging her legs, and she quietly looked at the lush woods outside.
Suddenly, accompanied by the creaking sound of broken trees, a deformed monster several stories tall slowly emerged from inside.
From the outside, he looked like a giant split wolf, but this wolf had no hair on its body. Instead, it was covered with a thick layer of red mucous membrane. Some purple flocculent creatures were constantly swimming in the mucous membrane.
The giant wolf opened its two huge mouths and kept gnawing on the broken branches that fell on the ground. When it had finished gnawing on the broken limbs, it began to gnaw on the grass on the ground. When it had finished gnawing on the grass, it began to gnaw on the soil.
As various things were continuously swallowed, its still-wolf-shaped body became more and more of a monster. If it was just a mixture of two wolves just now, then judging from its limbs, it was now a collection of six wolves.
Shanshan recognized it. It was one of his younger brothers. After not seeing it for a few days, it seemed to have found its own source of food, which was to eat the flesh and blood of its father.
The father didn't care about the disappearance of flesh and blood. He was considering other issues at this time.
Looking at it, a hint of sadness appeared in Shanshan's eyes, and then she turned sideways and leaned most of her body against the khaki door.
Shanshan's voice was filled with pleading, "Dad, please let me in."
Despite the request of his own child, the door remained closed.
A shining white light appeared from Shanshan's body, and her body gradually became transparent, trying to use her ability to enter the room.
However, when Charles didn't want her to come in, she definitely couldn't come in. After all, their powers came from the same source, and teleportation was completely ineffective.
The white light flashed a few times and then disappeared. She was still there. Frustrated, Shining touched the marks on her face with her hands. "Dad, the changes in my body really have nothing to do with helping you. It has always been like this."
As she said this, her eyes gradually dimmed, "I don't know what I will become after I grow up completely."
Charles' tired voice came through the door. "Be good, go find your mother. I shouldn't have gotten you involved in this mess in the first place."
Shanshan closed her eyes with a look of pain. "Dad, you sent Mom to the surface yourself, didn't you know? Where can I find her?"
"The other gods of Earthsea can't get out, how do you want me to find her?!"
"Did I send her to the surface myself? Then I must love him very much? What was I thinking at the time, why didn't I send you up there too?"
"No, that's not right. You can't go up there. If you go up there, everything will be in chaos on the surface. You belong to Earthsea! Go! Get out of here."
Shanshan clenched his right hand and slammed it against the door, his voice trembling. "Dad! You're all I have left! I don't have much time left."
As soon as the voice fell, the door slowly opened, and Charles' back appeared in front of Shanshan. "If you want to stay, you must promise me one thing, otherwise I will send you away and you will never find me again."
Shanshan seemed to know what Charles was going to say, and she began to explain: "Dad, have you forgotten how my age has changed since I was born? I grow so fast. Maybe from the beginning, my life span was less than ten years."
"Agree to my request." Charles tilted his head slightly.
Shanshan hung her head in frustration, "Okay, I promise you."
"If the previous situation happens again, you must not sacrifice your own safety to wake me up. The farther away from here the better."
Shanshan finally nodded with difficulty.
Charles held up his daughter's face, and when he saw the wrinkles, a trace of heartache appeared in his eyes.
His fingers slid down slowly and inserted into Shanshan's white neck like tentacles. He tried to analyze Shanshan's body and find possible solutions.
But Shanshan didn't care at all. "Dad, don't be like this. I'm not human. I'm not afraid of death. I actually had a premonition that when I get to the end of my age, maybe that's when I'll transform into the real me."
She smiled when she said this, "You know what? Actually, when I was just born, if my mother hadn't nurtured me as a human, I might have already transformed."
"My mother taught me a lot, and I also learned a lot from humans, but it was not until now that I realized that I was not human."
"Learning the appearance, language and social rules of humans is meaningless in itself, just like a human learning the language of ants and joining their society. Maybe the way I look now is abnormal."
Charles held Shanshan's head and kissed her on the forehead, "My poor child."
A faint smile appeared on Shanshan's delicate face. "I'm not pitiful. Although it's wrong, as a human being, I feel a lot of special emotions, such as the feelings you and mom have for me. I like it very much."
Charles brought her to the leather sofa and slowly sat down. The skin on his back quickly merged with the sofa.
Charles' eyes showed a trace of confusion, "Sparkling, is mom really on the surface now?"
"Well, you delivered it yourself. Since she sacrificed 2 million people for power, you should have made up your mind." Shanshan curled up in Charles' arms.
Charles muttered to himself again: "So many people died? By the way, what's her name?"
"Anna, but you usually call her Zhao Jiajia."
"Really?" As Charles slowly raised his hands, a portrait of a woman that was tucked in his diary appeared in his hands.
The woman in the picture is very beautiful and charming. He did not draw this picture himself, and he has long forgotten who drew it.
But Charles understood that if a woman did not have deep feelings for him, she would not have kept it in his diary, just like his wife Anna.
Charles' rough fingers slowly slid across the portrait, and he slowly spoke to the strange woman in the portrait who had no memories: "Anna, hello, how is life on the surface? Don't worry, I'll take care of everything down there, just live your life in peace."
Shanshan looked at this scene with a hint of envy in her eyes. There was a time when she also wanted to try this kind of love.
But before she could try, she had grown up.
At this moment, Charles, who was watching in a trance, suddenly frowned and slowly stood up.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"Something is wrong. I don't know what it is, but something important seems to have happened just now."
(End of this chapter)