"Because of you..."
Being watched by those peach blossom-like eyes, Zhang Shutong felt his breathing slow down by a beat.
Then, the girl suddenly tilted her head and, with a puzzled expression, finished the second half of the sentence:
"Because you said that everything must be done under your command, and that no matter what happens, we must hide."
Her tone was so serious, like a penguin that had just struggled to swim ashore, only to be confusedly passed by a giant white bear.
"Or did I misunderstand?"
Zhang Shutong was choked up. He did say something similar, but who knew you were so good at fighting?
He bit the soft flesh in his mouth:
"That's not what I..."
But before he could finish, Zhang Shutong was surprised to see that Lu Qinglian's perpetually expressionless face suddenly became a little more lively; but it was really just a little;
He saw her small lips slightly curl into a subtle arc, which disappeared in an instant.
When he looked at her again, the girl had returned to her indifferent expression, turned around, and walked away. It was as if the scene just now was just an illusion caused by fatigue.
Zhang Shutong watched her back. She also held her back straight when she walked, but she didn't walk with her hands behind her back and with the same romantic steps as ordinary girls her age;
That's because girls who walk like that are usually wearing beautiful little dresses and tight jeans, exuding a vibrant energy in every move.
But Lu Qinglian had none of that. Zhang Shutong had only seen her in her school uniform and her light-blue robe.
The impression she gave seemed to forever hover between these two things.
But Zhang Shutong also remembered the strawberry-flavored milk, the cream-filled Oreo cookies, and the lively fish in the bucket. A series of images came together, outlining the shape of an iceberg hidden beneath the surface of the sea.
They soon reached the foot of the mountain.
The mountain was towering. He would see a withered tree every few steps. A faint mist lingered around them. Zhang Shutong walked Lu Qinglian to the entrance of the mountain path.
The snow at the entrance had not yet melted, and it reflected a cold, silver light in the moonlight. The faint light shone on the mountain path. The mountain path was winding and rugged. The rugged parts were pitch black, making it impossible to see the path ahead.
In the dark of the night, it looked like the entrance to another world.
All was silent. Zhang Shutong handed her the flashlight, but the girl shook her head and refused.
So he said goodbye;
And left.
...
He got home around nine o'clock.
He first called his best friends to let them know he was safe.
He locked his bike and looked at the gray-white walls of the dormitory road. It was still the same as in his memory.
Zhang Shutong recognized houses. Others would at most recognize beds, but he had to be familiar with the houses too. Only then would he know where he was when he opened his eyes every day.
The hallway had sound-activated lights. They would light up with a cough. Zhang Shutong felt that Gu Qiumian's father must have been a bit of a romantic, otherwise, why would he install warm yellow light bulbs?
The handrails of the concrete stairs were newly painted. The faint smell of iron and paint entered his nostrils. Zhang Shutong used to hate this smell, but now he took a few extra sniffs;
From a scientific perspective, it would probably emit a kind of aromatic hydrocarbon. Some people liked it, and some people hated it. But he just felt that there was no reason for it;
It was more that a part of a person's memory would be sealed by a smell. You may have long forgotten what happened on a certain day in a certain month in a certain place, but one day, you smell a certain scent, and it suddenly connects with your nerves. It's so clear.
The smell of home was a bit cold.
He pushed open the door and turned on the lights. Of course, no one was home. His parents were usually too busy to be home and probably had no idea what had happened to their son, but Zhang Shutong was already used to it.
He casually turned on the small color TV at home. He held the remote control for a long time before he could aim it at the receiver. The characters on the screen immediately started shouting their lines. He didn't watch the TV. He just felt that the living room was a little more lively.
His phone buzzed. He opened the group chat and saw that it was Ruoping. She had sent a picture. A bowl was on the table, and there was a sweet porridge made of red dates and white fungus in it. She said she didn't mean anything by it, she just wanted to show him her mom's cooking and make them jealous.
Qingyi said he was reading in his room, but his dad was watching TV outside. It was a famous bad movie, and it was so noisy.
Du Kang's parents ran a restaurant, so he was never short of food. His dad packed a jar of fish porridge, stir-fried snails, and soy-braised beef for him to take home. Ruoping's attempt to show off her food backfired, and she ended up being made jealous, so she muted Du Kang.
Zhang Shutong was also craving food. He went to the kitchen and looked around. The smell of his family's refrigerator had always been very fresh. There were never any leftovers. But Zhang Shutong was wishing there were some leftovers to eat. After looking for a long time, he finally found half of a steamed bun that had been broken apart in the cold light. He also boiled an egg and added a few drops of vinegar to the pot.
In his first year of junior high, he figured out a trick to make hard-boiled eggs not taste like chicken shit. He was very proud of this trick, but he later found that his other classmates didn't eat hard-boiled eggs. They ate fried eggs, scrambled eggs, and tea eggs made by their moms.
Zhang Shutong was completely clueless about the latter three. After all these years, he still only ate hard-boiled eggs. It was simple and convenient, and his skills at boiling eggs had reached the pinnacle.
The water hadn't boiled yet, so he used this time to go back to his room and change his clothes;
His room was quite small, with few decorations. It was just a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk.
There was no style or color scheme to speak of. He also didn't have the habit of boys his age of putting posters on the wall. The color of his room was whatever color his bedsheets were this week.
The house had a heater, so just a thermal shirt was enough. His cold face felt a faint burning sensation. He then went to the balcony with his toothbrush and clothes.
In winter, you have to wring out your clothes hard. By this time, the egg was pretty much cooked. He lifted the lid of the pot, and the white steam rushed toward his face, making him feel a bit happy;
After swallowing the egg in a few bites, he bit into the cold steamed bun and went to the couch. He actually quite liked the taste of cold steamed buns. He ate while watching TV.
In fact, he no longer had the habit of watching TV, but there was no computer at home, and the screen on his phone was too small. Browsing for information on that 3.5-inch glass was just asking for trouble.
He then realized that the TV was playing a cartoon—
A boy with glasses was squatting behind the couch, holding up the bow tie voice changer on his chest, looking sneaky.
He could already guess the plot. A grade schooler, originally named Kudo Shinichi, went to a certain place to play with his friends, encountered some danger, someone died, and then an idiot would choose one of the three suspects;
And then the great detective would have a sudden moment of inspiration, and the truth would be revealed.
It was cheesy, but Zhang Shutong was watching with relish.
Although he started watching from the middle and had no idea what was going on in this episode, what he cared about was not that. Zhang Shutong found that he could suddenly understand this anime.
—It wasn't that the work was so obscure that he couldn't understand it back then. It was that while staring at the TV, he felt a strong sense of déjà vu.
How was his situation so similar to this?
One was drugged by a certain Black Organization, his body shrank, and to find the truth, he started getting involved in one incident after another;
The other was suddenly stabbed at a classmate's funeral. In a way, his body also shrank, and he went back eight years. He was also getting involved in one incident after another to find the killer.
Edogawa Conan had three friends, two boys and one girl. In the TV show, they were solving a case;
Zhang Shutong also had three best friends, two boys and one girl. Tonight, they had already solved a case.
This feeling was truly strange—but Zhang Shutong actually saw a documentary feel in a cartoon.
But after a while, Zhang Shutong found a difference:
A cold-faced girl with short brownish hair was pulling the boy by the ear to the side. Among a group of children and idiots, the two of them were whispering, saying things that were inappropriate for their age. They were in a state of mutual understanding and were out of place with their peers.
This kid actually had a comrade-in-arms they could go through thick and thin with.
Of course, a confidante, a beautiful girl, and all that were not important... okay, they were actually pretty important;
But the most important thing was that there was someone he could be with for warmth.
How important is it to be together for warmth? It's like how cookies sandwiched together by a cream filling are called Oreos. Otherwise, it's just a plain chocolate cookie. Can you name a chocolate cookie in ten seconds?
Zhang Shutong couldn't.
From this, it can be seen that a lonely cookie can only spark a flame with another lonely cookie. Before that, they are nothing. They are just crumbs on the ground after being stepped on, and people would mistake them for dirt stuck to the soles of their shoes.
The more Zhang Shutong thought about it, the more he felt it was a profound philosophy. He planned to name this theory the "Cookie Theory" and share it with the other cookie when he met one.
But in reality, that was impossible.
He felt that he was like a chocolate cookie. He could meet a cheese cookie, a soda cracker, or a shortbread cookie, and they could be the best of friends in the army of cookies, but he could never become an Oreo... just like Ruoping, Qingyi, and Du Kang;
He wouldn't be lonely with his best friends. They had just fought side-by-side tonight. But would he tell them what had happened to him?
Maybe the adrenaline wore off on the way home. Now he was slumped on the couch, the light from the TV screen reflecting on his face. The background music played, and the main character appeared, looking cool and saying his lines. He could hear the sound of the phrase "the truth is only one" in the background. But finding the truth was never like playing house;
The man with the gun, the out-of-control situation, the lingering fear. If two poachers were like this, then who was the real killer? Would it be even more dangerous in the future? No one could say for sure.
Zhang Shutong didn't want to get the three of them involved. Since he had nothing to say, he could only bear it alone.
Zhang Shutong shook his head, thinking he was being a bit obsessive. Why was he so fixated on becoming an Oreo?
At this moment, Conan's show ended. He turned off the TV, and the living room returned to its quiet state,
The people in the group chat were all talking about Lu Qinglian. They probably only thought the girl was good at fighting at the time, but after they got home and calmed down, they realized that she wasn't just good at fighting, she was extremely good. They became more curious.
Qingyi also looked up a bunch of information, saying that the Green Snake Temple had existed since before the liberation, with a long history. Lu Qinglian's grandma was also a temple priestess when she was young. After chatting for a while, the three of them belatedly started talking about a question: What was Lu Qinglian doing there tonight?
Zhang Shutong had already lost interest in this question.
But it did remind him of another thing. On the way back from walking her home, the two of them had a conversation. At the time, Lu Qinglian suddenly opened her mouth and said she had one last question for him.
"I lent you my history notes last week. Did you not give them back? I need to use them when I get back."
But he had no memory of this at all. After all, it had been eight years;
And it wasn't like when he lent her his gloves for shoveling snow. Although he had forgotten about that too, when he was reminded, he could at least vaguely remember it;
But he couldn't show that he didn't remember, so he just nodded and said he would look for them when he got home tonight.
This incident taught him a lesson—
He thought that his relationship with Lu Qinglian was not good enough for her to lend him her notes, but since it really happened, it meant that a person's memory was not necessarily reliable;
Now that he was back, he shouldn't always use his past impressions to interact with people. That would just tie his own hands.
Today was December 5th, the first day after the reversion. Before going to bed, he had gained a piece of wisdom. Zhang Shutong said goodnight to everyone in the group chat, turned off the lights, and went to sleep.
While he was asleep, the other three were still chatting animatedly.
Zhang Shutong: Goodnight.
Du Kang: You're going to sleep already?
Du Kang: Really sleeping? Are you there?
Qingyi: You forgot he silences his phone when he sleeps.
Ruoping: It's not like we won't see him tomorrow at school.
Ruoping: @Qingyi So what do you think of my suggestion just now? Should we take the initiative to talk to Qinglian tomorrow?
Qingyi: Up to you.
Ruoping: Then what should I say?
Qingyi: You can talk about studying. She's number one anyway. You can ask her about a problem or borrow her notes.
Du Kang: I advise you two to give up. I've already tried that.
Ruoping: Why?
Du Kang: She doesn't take notes.
...
The mountain path was very hard to walk on.
The surroundings were pitch black, and he couldn't see his own hand;
The road was icy, the rocks were steep, and the dry branches of the bushes were crisscrossed. But the lonely figure walking on the mountain path was not looking at her feet;
Her steps were light, and she was walking with ease.
The night sky tonight had no stars. Only the cold moonlight trickled down little by little, but it was all blocked by the clouds. A few stray rays would land on her fair face, and her eyes would look like the only stars, shining with a faint light in the darkness.
But there was still no expression on the girl's face.
The temperature was getting lower and lower.
As she reached the middle of the mountain, she seemed to see the lights of a distant courtyard. That was the temple named Green Snake Temple.
At this moment, a black shadow suddenly darted out—
The black shadow was very short. It was a fox. The fox was not afraid of people. It came to the girl's leg and gently rubbed its head against her robe, making a whimpering sound.
The arrival of the fox was like a small stone being thrown into an ancient well. The water rippled;
The mysterious and beautiful sixteen-year-old girl, like a fairy who had descended from the heavens, was squatting on the winter mountain path. The snow under her feet was like solidified clouds. She gently stroked the fox's head.
The fox just whimpered.
In the past, there were five of these furry creatures. They would always frolic in the mountains in groups. They liked to follow the girl. Their paws would tread on the mountain path, and their noses would sniff the scent of the plants. They were carefree, and it seemed like nothing could scare them.
But now, there was only one left.
One of the fox's ears was torn. The wound was dry with blood, which soon stained the girl's robe.
"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice after a long time.
The fox seemed to understand what she meant and whimpered as it ran away.
The girl stood up and waited until the fox's shadow disappeared before continuing on her way.
The temple was getting closer and closer. At the moment the lantern hanging on the courtyard wall went out;
Finally, she pushed open the heavy courtyard door.
The temple was not that big. It was only a few dozen steps from the courtyard door to the temple entrance.
She walked step by step, untying the ponytail behind her head. Her long hair flowed down, and her aura changed with it.
Certain qualities that belonged to a girl disappeared. Her posture hadn't changed. She was still wearing that robe, but in just a few dozen steps, she seemed to have shed all her disguises. Her long hair was now hanging down to her shoulders, and she looked like a mature woman.
All things seemed to submit to her arrival—
The howling night wind whispered around her;
The wild weeds bowed their heads at her feet;
Even the faint moonlight was completely extinguished;
She gently shook her long hair, revealing her expressionless face. In the complete darkness, her eyes could not be seen clearly.
When she walked to the front of the temple and pushed open the wooden door with peeling paint, the faint candlelight illuminated her face. The already faint emotion in her eyes also faded, becoming as calm as an old well, just like a person sealed in an old black and white photo.
Lu Qinglian looked at the altar in front of her.
There were eight candlesticks on the altar. Half of them were extinguished, barely illuminating the statue of the god above;
The statue was of a giant green snake, about two meters long. But only the snake's body, carved from camphor wood, could be seen. The head and tail were hidden in the darkness.
"I'm back," Lu Qinglian said calmly to the empty hall.
A female voice suddenly came from the side hall next to the statue:
"What were you doing tonight?"
The voice sounded like an old woman. It was hoarse, and when she spoke, it was like a razor blade scratching glass. It was also like a scorpion lightly shaking its tail stinger.
"I was playing with a few kids for a while."
Lu Qinglian's voice was no longer as clear as before. It was now as still as water, with no hint of movement.
"What kids?"
"Students from the school."
"Are they kids or friends?" The voice suddenly laughed. It was sharp and piercing, with no attempt to hide the mockery. "Do you even have friends?"
"They're just kids. Not..."
"Lu Qinglian!" the old woman shouted.
"...Yes."
"You're really starting to see yourself as a student! Don't forget your duty!" The old woman's gloomy voice was squeezed out of her throat little by little. "You are, a, temple, priestess!"
"Yes."
"...For your whole life! Besides this mountain and serving the god! You have no other thoughts. Don't do anything extra! Anything!"
"Yes."
The old woman was about to say something else, but because she was angry, she started coughing. After her breathing stabilized, her voice also became very low, like a venomous stinger lurking in the darkness.
Lu Qinglian just lowered her gaze:
"You should rest."
The voice in the side hall finally disappeared.
Lu Qinglian re-lit the extinguished candlesticks. The temple immediately became bright. The head and tail of the green snake were revealed in the candlelight. He saw that the green snake had a flat head that shimmered with a dark golden light in the candlelight—
The entire body of the green snake was carved from camphor wood. Only the snake's head was cast in brass. Over time, even the metal itself had faded a bit;
The green snake's face was ferocious. Its upper and lower jaws were slightly ajar, revealing dense and sharp fangs;
And on both sides of the flat snake head were two eyes inlaid with agate.
They say that painting the pupils of a dragon is what makes it a lifelike dragon, and the same could be said for this green snake. The two agate eyes made the green snake look incredibly realistic.
But if you looked closely, the color of the two agates was not the same. The one on the right was a little darker.
And if you got even closer, you would see that the snake's right eye was covered with a thin layer of wax.
Lu Qinglian used her fingernail to scrape off the solidified wax from the snake's eye, but she wasn't surprised.
Because she was the one who had put it on.
As the wax was scraped off, a few crumbs fell onto the altar. Looking at the snake's right eye again, the agate had cracked.
The wax was there to cover the cracked snake's eye.
But the reason the agate cracked was not because of its age; it was not a defect that was deliberately left there;
It was an accident that had happened suddenly this afternoon when she was shoveling snow.
The green snake statue, which had existed for more than a hundred years, had its right eye, inlaid with agate, crack without any warning.
So she went out to do something this afternoon.
And she had only just returned.
Lu Qinglian stared at the cracked agate and stood in front of the altar for a long time.
She put her hand into the lit candlestick. She didn't even frown. One of her fingers was stained with a light red color. Before the wax could solidify, she lightly coated the snake's eye with it.
Her grandma was in the side hall and would not come out. Even if she did, her old and dim eyes wouldn't be able to see the wax on the agate.
For now, only she knew about this.
Finally, Lu Qinglian took one last deep look at the green snake's right eye, turned around, and left.
The night wind blew into the temple door, and the candlelight in front of the altar flickered precariously.
In her mind, she heard a sentence her grandma had once said.
At that time, her hair had not yet turned gray;
She knelt solemnly in front of the statue and said to her:
If one day the right eye of the Green Snake God cracks;
It means that...
Someone has returned from the future.