Chapter 521: Where’s Dad?
Oil-fried millet cakes were on their menu the next day. They were flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. A pleasant sesame taste filled their mouths when they ate the cakes. They couldn"t really pair the food with anything else. Lin Sanjiu tore open a few dated packets of pickled radish. They wouldn"t go bad while they were in her card deck. The crunchy pickled radishes were salty and spicy. Eating the radishes, small millet cake, and some bread paste, they ate until they were so full they couldn"t move.
A bag of "sepia yellow" meat buns was on their menu for the third day. The buns were soft and puffy, and there was plenty of meat filling in them. They were still piping hot when she ate them. The flavorful juices from the meat along with chopped spring onion filled their mouths. The grand prize didn"t even mind when his hand was covered with oil when he wiped his mouth.
On the fourth day, they skewered pieces of meat on some twigs and seasoned them with spices. On the fifth day, they dipped their bread in a meat stew. They stirred in a few eggs and added some wild vegetables. On the sixth day, the grand prize went so far as to fry meat sauce noodles with the instant noodles they had.
"The dimwit was right, G.o.ds don"t like coming to this rural little village," Lin Sanjiu never expected that one day she would actually think about what she wanted to eat the moment she opened her eyes in the morning.
In the beginning, they remained tense and cautious. However, after resting for a few days, they gradually loosened up.
She could finally use the items she had collected from Kisaragi Station and Meat Elysium. After Lin Sanjiu walked through the house filled with holes, she made some quick decisions. She threw away the stone bed that the dimwit was sleeping on and gave him one of the hotel beds that Qing Jiuliu urged her to keep. Ji Shanqing and her bed were also covered by bedsheets, mattress toppers, and pillows. Their beds were thick and soft. Perhaps their beds were too comfortable so waking the grand prize became a daily battle each morning.
"Hey, wake up," Lin Sanjiu tugged his leg and pulled him out of bed. She made a crumpled line across his bedsheet. "Have you forgotten? We need to do something serious today."
Hesitated for a moment, Ji Shanqing finally stuck his face out from under his quilt. Set against his white quilt, his moist and gentle features showed signs of his leisurely indolence. He blinked with his sleepy eyes and suddenly remembered.
"Oh, we are going to bury Sister Hiliu today."
After Lin Sanjiu discovered that there were no "G.o.ds" in this village, she had already started looking for a suitable burial spot for Hiliu.
After searching outside the village for two days, Lin Sanjiu started to have some thoughts about the place. G.o.ds probably didn"t come to this village because of the rugged terrain. It wasn"t worthwhile coming here. The village was set right in a low-lying ground which was smack in the middle of a gully surrounded by high mountains. It was like a trapped and immobile insect.
If they didn"t use their Special Items while escaping, Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing would never have discovered this village. Any person that wanted to enter or exit the village would have to scale over many tall mountains. This was not something easy even for posthumans let alone "inhumans" like the dimwit.
Lin Sanjiu could even imagine how the people living here escaped. There were no seeds and no metal farming tools here. Even if they could grow some vegetables, their harvest was paltry due to the lack of sunlight year round. There simply wasn"t enough to eat. They would need to spend several months climbing over mountains just to get a kitchen knife. As time went by, the village was gradually abandoned, but this was all to Lin Sanjiu"s advantage.
She quickly found a burial spot near a steep mountain cliff to bury Hiliu.
—
Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing were standing under a thick canopy. As always, there was a thick white fog above their heads but the canopy was so thick that they could barely see the white foggy sky. Looking down the cliff, they could see a continuous stretch of lofty mountain ranges which continued into the horizon.
"This place faces the east," Lin Sanjiu commented as she set Hiliu"s corpse gently on the ground. "I know we can"t see the sunrise in this world, but I just hope that she could face the east."
Hiliu"s corpse looked even paler and weaker than when she was alive. Her stomach was still huge. All the suffering she had endured seemed to have faded at that moment she closed her eyes.
When they were still in Meat Elysium, Qing Jiuliu returned [The Mountains Remove The Foolish Old Man] to Lin Sanjiu. Unwilling to give up any hope, Lin Sanjiu tried to use that item on Hiliu before. Hiliu"s death was an undeniable fact, but Lin Sanjiu was unable to activate the item even after consecutive tries.
When she thought about it afterward, she finally understood. [The Mountains Remove The Foolish Old Man] required everyone involved to recognize that nothing can change an irrevocable situation. However, Hiliu was already dead. As a person involved, there was no way she could form any thoughts dead, so she naturally couldn"t come into a consensus with anyone else.
"If that item can resurrect a person, I don"t think it"ll end up with Carrot Lo."
Lin Sanjiu sighed as she dug a hole. Even though she didn"t have any proper tools, there was soon a hole in the ground. Both of them wrapped Hiliu in a white bedsheet and placed her into the hole. Ji Shanqing noticed a number of red wildflowers nearby and picked a few stalks. He placed them beside Hiliu"s face before they filled the hole up.
A fresh mound now laid in the shadows of the trees above them. The view from the mound was very good and overlooked the stretch of mountain ranges with no G.o.ds in sight.
Lin Sanjiu didn"t say a word as they returned.
When the village was within sight, Lin Sanjiu asked Mrs. Manas a question, "How much longer will it take?"
After resting for a few consecutive days, Lin Sanjiu"s had already regained all her higher consciousness. Once she had time, she constantly pressed Mrs. Manas regarding the issue of leveling up her [School of Higher Consciousness]. After all, she could only return to the Astral Plane if she could bring that ability to the next level as fast as possible.
"I think it won"t be long. You should reach the secondary school stage within a few days," Mrs. Manas answered earnestly.
It was good news. Lin Sanjiu was relieved. She even felt a sense of antic.i.p.ation
Ever since the apocalypse befell her world, various events shaped her journey until today. She had gone through too many farewells and deaths, so she couldn"t help feeling that the Astral Plane was the key for her to escape from the never-ending partings from others due to world leaping.
"We have only been eating and sleeping. I should find some time to organize my thoughts with the grand prize…" Lin Sanjiu thought as she returned to the village.
The dimwit was standing on the path toward the village. He paced with his mouth open almost like an anxious critter. When he saw the two people returning to the village, he immediately wailed and ran back into his dilapidated house.
"What"s wrong with him?" Ji Shanqing sneered when he saw the man"s reaction. Even from the beginning, he didn"t like that dimwit who was dirty, stupid and had a surprisingly large appet.i.te. "Did he a.s.sume that we left like his father? Sis", listen, why do we have to feed him?"
"Even though he eats quite a lot, we still have plenty. There"s no harm sharing some food with him," Lin Sanjiu persuaded.
"He can"t even do anything, but when he eats he never leaves anything behind," Ji Shanqing groused. The dimwit rushed out of the house again. His flat face and wide-set eyes reddened with excitement.
Pointing to both people, he turned and shouted at the house, "They"re back!"
Startled, Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing stopped.
"I"m coming," a voice came from inside the house. The person cleared his throat as if he was trying to clear some of that exhaustion in his voice. The dimwit was filled with glee. He seemed oblivious that he had the obligation to explain the current situation and introduce the person in the house. Lin Sanjiu could only stare at the shabby house.
"Did his father return?" the grand prize whispered to Lin Sanjiu, "He better not expect us to continue taking care of his son…"
With a sigh, someone lifted the ragged burlap door curtain.
It looked like it had no bones. It was as if there wasn"t anything in its body. It was like a thick stack of skin. A duoluozhong, which looked like a pile of black, dried skin, stuck his head out of the door curtain. It locked eyes with Lin Sanjiu.
"They gave me a lot of food," the dimwit said, "It was delicious! Why don"t you ever give me anything tasty?"
The duoluozhong appeared to be as stunned as the two people outside. His eyes drifted between the two people, and he immediately ran.