flstandardbreds Chapter 111 : Chapter 111
Chapter 111 : Chapter 111
Chapter 111
Ji Qing was already awake by first light the next morning.
The information he had received yesterday had been so explosive that Emerald's words were still echoing in his mind even now. Ji Qing himself was the sort of person who tended to talk more in front of people and things familiar to him, but could acquaintances from before he lost his memory really count as familiar at all?
At the moment, Ji Qing did not dare say anything too outrageous.
Feeling somewhat irritable, Ji Qing rubbed the space between his brows.
Licheng was desperately short on supplies, and its dwellings were equally crude and worn-down. Yet the room he had stayed in last night alone had been carefully cleaned. Only now did Ji Qing finally sense that something was slightly off.
He thought: Emerald must have ordered someone to clean it.
Although Emerald held humans in marked contempt, he still tacitly allowed the Infected to scrape out a living around him. For the Infected, whose lives were short and who had to endure mutation, was Emerald not also a cold and arrogant deity in his own way?
Ji Qing gently reached out and peeled the sticky note off the mirror in the washroom. Written on it in childish, messy handwriting were the words:
【Big brother whose name I don't know, I was the one who cleaned your room! I cleaned it super well, right OvO? Also, breakfast is only compressed biscuits, or big brother could learn from me and spend a little more time in the sun. Your stomach will feel better that way! —Cute Little Flower】
"Looks like she's a little girl," Ji Qing said with a laugh.
With light steps, he returned to the bedroom, stuck the note onto the desk, and drew a huge smiling face beside the little girl's signature.
After finishing all that, Ji Qing leaned half against the desk and calmly gazed out at the Tree Sea beyond the window.
The sun had only just peeked over the horizon. Only the eastern sky had been washed in milky white, while every other direction remained submerged in night. Along the outer silhouette of the Tree Sea, Ji Qing spotted many white things that looked like faint motes of light.
They swayed in the wind and drifted apart in every direction.
A few strands of that white light were even carried by the breeze closer and closer to the town. They crossed the wilderness Ji Qing had walked through, passed over the red-spired house where he and Emerald had spoken last night, and finally stuck themselves directly to the glass window before Ji Qing's eyes.
Curious, Ji Qing leaned closer and discovered that they were precisely what Emerald had mentioned yesterday: "Tree Sea Pollen."
Before Ji Qing could even compose his next thought, the glass window suddenly gave a dull, muffled crack. A few fissures spread outward from the spot where the pollen had landed, but before the glass could be shattered by it, the white pollen had already dimmed and withered in place.
Ji Qing watched that change in silence.
He understood at once: it seemed Emerald had been right to deliberately take him far from the town's edge last night.
For the time being, Ji Qing had no desire to be parasitized by the pollen released by the Tree Sea.
"But it's unexpectedly beautiful..." Ji Qing murmured softly, his green eyes reflecting the strange spectacle before him, like a heavenly maiden scattering blossoms. "It almost looks like it's snowing."
Though what was falling was, in fact, pollen harmful to the human body, Ji Qing silently added in his heart.
Time passed second by second.
By the time the sky had nearly brightened completely, the Tree Sea's pollen had finally stopped scattering with the wind. Ji Qing pushed open the door and stepped out of the room. White-gray pollen lay scattered all over the concrete ground. Yet although it looked frightening, it was harmless once it had landed.
It would simply be somewhat troublesome to clean up.
Ji Qing suddenly thought of Emerald's identity. Perhaps the master of the Tree Sea was also, in his own way, restraining the Tree Sea's outward expansion.
Emerald was without question the Tree Sea's Lord.
It had never been that there was no Lord here. The Lord simply had never appeared. The Federation had made a grave mistake here, but when Ji Qing thought about just how many mistakes the Federation had made, he immediately felt there was no need to mention this one in particular.
In the future war between humans and Aberrants, humanity would unquestionably be in an extremely miserable position.
If one asked why, the answer was rather simple: aside from the Federation, nearly all the other continents had already been occupied by Aberrants. In such a hopelessly uneven contest, Ji Qing could not see any hope of humanity winning. But humanity would never surrender, so this was destined to be a difficult and protracted war.
With steady steps, Ji Qing headed toward the place Emerald had told him about last night. After imposing for a night, it was time for him to leave.
His purpose in specifically coming to see Emerald had already been fulfilled.
There was no longer any reason for Ji Qing to remain here now, though if it had been the him from before his memory loss, he probably would have stayed a little longer. At that thought, Ji Qing's steps paused almost imperceptibly, and he instinctively lifted his head to look back at the Tree Sea behind him.
The gray-white pollen covering the ground and walls was suddenly stirred by the wind, fluttering and scattering in the direction the wind had gone.
Ji Qing's green eyes quietly reflected it all.
He did not feel particularly afraid, he thought.
If not for the heap of matters still awaiting him, Ji Qing even felt that he might have sat quietly beneath a tree and admired it for a while. But there was one thing he found rather regrettable: there had never been any serum to suppress mutation.
Mutation was still irreversible.
The reason such rumors existed was because Emerald had used another irreversible method to suppress the mutation on the Infected. At the time, Emerald had said seriously, "Because I am an Aberrant, my king. As an Aberrant myself, I can naturally suppress the mutation caused by another Aberrant."
"But that is merely fighting poison with poison. It cannot achieve what humans would call treatment."
A trace of remembrance lingered in Emerald's eyes, and a faint smile rested on his lips as he said, "That explanation was something you yourself once proposed, my king."
"That does sound like me."
Ji Qing's lips curved into a helpless smile as well. The phrase "fight poison with poison" was unmistakably Chinese in flavor. How could Emerald, who barely understood human writing at all, possibly have quoted a Chinese idiom correctly?
So when Principal He Yun had deliberately mentioned the serum, he had been testing him as well. Ji Qing secretly admired himself. His adaptability truly was excellent. He had managed to bluff his way past it without a problem.
But now that the conversation had already reached this point, Ji Qing prepared to ask one more thing: "How are you planning to use the World Book?"
"My king, do you really wish to ask me that?"
Ji Qing feigned innocence. "Why not?"
A trace of grievance immediately surfaced on Emerald's face. "Sigh... Compared with that, I would much rather you free yourself from the humans as soon as possible. You have been blinded by them for far too long. They are by no means the innocent creatures you believe them to be."
"Are you worried about my position?" Ji Qing asked.
"Not exactly." Emerald shook his head calmly. "It is only that your temperament is too kind. That leaves me no choice but to weigh the risks that may follow."
Ji Qing gave an inexplicable sigh. "I see..."
But a moment later, he said seriously, "Once I finish dealing with everything, I will think about it."
In his memory, Emerald let out a soft sigh at those words.
Ji Qing had not turned around to look at him then, so he had no idea what expression Emerald had worn at the time. Ji Qing guessed that perhaps Emerald had been disappointed by how overly gentle his thinking was. Even so, Ji Qing did not think he was that kind of person at all.
He simply felt that this matter could not be decided now.
When his memories returned and everything had settled, he would naturally have time to think about himself, to think about the war between humans and Aberrants. Which side should he stand on? Who should he become? Those questions would have to be left to the Ji Qing of that time.
But as for the World Book's purpose... it really did match Li Xuehua's guess.
Licheng had fallen during the Black Tide incident twenty-one years ago.
There was absolutely more than one mastermind behind that Black Tide incident, so Ji Qing still needed to investigate the truth of what had happened back then. Seizing the World Book was based on that foundation, but Ji Qing had no intention of asking Emerald how it would be used.
Since everything was already prepared, then let events proceed.
But before leaving, Ji Qing felt there was one thing he absolutely had to ask.
A moment before Ji Qing, still dressed the same as when he had arrived, bid farewell to Emerald, he suddenly asked in a light tone, "Emerald, where is your true body right now?"
"Hm?" Emerald blinked in confusion.
Then, assuming this was yet another spur-of-the-moment whim from his sovereign, he obediently smiled and answered, "It is not on this continent, my king. It is in the rainforest where we first met. Back then, the one who followed you here was only an avatar of my true body."
"A clone?"
"That description is terribly rude." Emerald shot Ji Qing a displeased glance. "I merely let my true body fall asleep. If I encounter danger too difficult to handle, I will abandon the avatar and return to my true body."
"Oh." Ji Qing let out a sound of understanding.
His acceptance of this was unexpectedly high. Presumably, Emerald's true body was not some fairy-like form like the one before him, but that also neatly explained his earlier loss of control. It seemed he had pushed his ability to the limit and had almost been dragged back into his true body.
But then again—
Ji Qing very quickly asked with keen interest, "Then, Emerald, do you know what my true body is?"
Ji Qing truly was overwhelmingly curious.
From the very day he first learned that his true body was an Aberrant, curiosity had tormented him. Ji Qing had already encountered talking fish, talking birds, and talking trees. Now he desperately wanted to know what sort of creature he himself was.
Was this some sort of firsthand nature documentary experience?
Emerald looked both amused and exasperated when he heard that. "My king, do you really wish to ask me that as well?"
Ji Qing once again feigned innocence. "Why not?"
This time, however, Emerald was not moved by Ji Qing's innocent expression. With unwavering firmness, he replied, "Of course not."
"...Tsk."
Ji Qing clicked his tongue almost reflexively. But since Emerald had no intention of saying it, Ji Qing had no intention of continuing to ask. It had no bearing on his future plans, at most merely satisfying a bit of his personal curiosity.
"Then goodbye, Emerald." Ji Qing raised a hand in farewell.
Watching Ji Qing's figure recede farther and farther into the morning light, Emerald's eyes darkened slightly. Only after Ji Qing had gone far enough that his voice could no longer be heard did Emerald raise his right hand and wave it lightly, murmuring with a trace of wistfulness, "Goodbye, Qing."
Perhaps it was only natural to feel a little sorrow.
When he had first accompanied Qing to this continent, he had known no more of the future than he did now. Human language had been far too profound and difficult to understand, to the point that at the very beginning, Qing had been the only one with whom he could communicate. Still, he was quite used to that by now.
Unlike Qing, who loved to roam, he was usually the one who simply waited, waiting until Qing remembered him.
But perhaps the only one who could make a tree grow weary of its surroundings... was Qing.
Emerald looked toward that figure, now so tiny it was hard to distinguish, yet his thoughts could not help but drift back to the day they had set out. He thought: Qing rarely showed his true form before others. Most of the time, he appeared in human form, so many of their kin did not know what species he was.
But on that one day...
When the fierce wind high in the sky brushed past the sapling's branches and leaves, when the snow-white mountain ridges spread all the way to the tips of the roots, he suddenly understood what his kin on the ground felt when they gazed up at the sky. That longing had never been some baseless fantasy.
They yearned for the sky, just as he yearned for Qing.