The car drove smoothly on the well-paved asphalt road. For a while, no one in the car spoke.
Gu Tie looked at the birch trees outside the window for a while, feeling bored, and tapped the vibrating microphone on his throat: "Old man, can you receive it? Over."
"Unfortunately, yes," Barr replied.
"You really don't think the idea of robbing Chernobyl is a little crazy?"
"It's not us that's crazy, it's GTC. It's such a dramatic transformation from a scientific institution to a dictator."
"Theoretically, GTC is still a scientific institution."
"Yes, with intelligence organizations, military and scientific institutions with assassins, the GTC is equivalent to a second government in many countries."
"You left the consortium son alone and came to engage in such anti-social and anti-human things. Rebellion feels good, right?"
"To be clear, I admit that it is anti-social. It is not Shiva that is anti-human, it is GTC. Members of Shiva come from all over the world and have different cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, and philosophies, but they have the same goal, which is to fight for
Fight for the future of mankind.”
"...It's really boring to talk to you. I'm on the line." Gu Tie ended the call with a headache.
It was still more than an hour's drive from the destination, and with nothing to do, Gu Tie landed in the "World".
After the dizziness passed, Jonah opened his eyes. No one noticed the quiet change in his personality. Several friends were sitting in the room around the fire pot, talking about the past.
"What time is it?" Gu Tie asked.
"Five hours after sunset. You just got back from your shift." Elliot answered.
"Where's Uncle Toba?" Gu Tie looked around and asked.
"What's wrong with my memory? I went out to buy food." Xibi rolled her eyes at him.
"Where are you talking about?" Gu Tie asked casually, not bothering to look through the memories of the astrologer's apprentice.
"Toba's story." Long Ji hugged her knees with her hands and tilted her pretty face.
"Oh, okay, continue." Gu Tie spread his hands.
Jekong looked out the window at the night with a confused expression.
Xibi stared at the bright and dark firelight with his bright eyes, and said in a trance: "Then let me continue.
At that time, my uncle was twelve years old. He was the only son of old Bama, a farmer on the mushroom farm under the jurisdiction of the hereditary nobleman Count Van Exel in the East County of the Bazeral Kingdom. He followed his father to grow mushrooms on the farm - in fact, one of the entire farm
More than a hundred farming families make a living by growing mushrooms.
Count Van Exel is a kind-hearted nobleman who treats his farmhands very kindly. The life on the farm is peaceful and peaceful. The twelve-year-old uncle is a head taller than his father and is the strongest young man on the farm. Although he is clumsy in speech, his brain is not
Stupid, he is an honest and hard-working child.
Dad often said, if your mother were still alive, she would laugh until she woke up naturally every morning. Who in the village wouldn’t want their daughter to marry? The gifts secretly placed in front of the house in the middle of the night are piled up higher than the threshold.
Of course, when the uncle was twelve years old, he didn’t know anything about men and women. Apart from cultivating mushrooms in the greenhouse, he only knew how to keep moving the boulders in front of the house to exercise his strength. One night, a bold girl from the village secretly appeared in the house.
In front of the uncle's house, he handed the confused uncle a piece of delicious apple pie wrapped in a plaid handkerchief.
Later, the villagers learned about their little story. The two fathers laughed heartily, invited the whole village to drink at the tavern, and agreed to hold a grand wedding when the boy and girl of the same age turned sixteen.
Three years later, when the uncle was fifteen years old, he defeated his tall and strong father in a wrestling match for the first time. Old Bama sat panting in the dirt and smiled and said: You are an outstanding adult! You are better than anyone I have ever seen.
Mushroom makers are stronger, even stronger than the Viscount's knights. Tell me, what reward do you want? - Okay, father, I want to know, where is my mother?
Old Bama was silent.
At Dongjun Mushroom Farm, this is an issue that every father cannot avoid. When it is determined that the children have grown up to accept the facts, the father has the obligation to tell them the truth.
Old Bama thought for a while and told his uncle as tactfully as possible: The significance of the Mushroom Farm in the world is not just to provide delicious mushrooms to the nobles of Bazeral, but also to have a sacred mission that has been passed down for hundreds of years.
A hundred years ago, the Bishop of the Anglican Church of the Kingdom of Bazeral received a message from the Lord God Sheila when he was presiding at mass. Avakai, the jealous demon from hell, was spreading a vicious curse. The Sutherland family of the Bazeral royal family
All female members fell victim to the curse.
Soon thereafter, the female members of the royal family were infected with strange diseases one after another. The curse made them bloated, obese, ugly, weak, and gradually died.
The king asked the bishop for help. After contacting the Holy See of the Anglican Church, the bishop decided to initiate an exorcism ceremony to expel the devil with divine power. However, the curse was too powerful and could not be eliminated. It could only be transferred to another woman.
The death of this woman was annihilated in the world.
The king selected a thousand female slaves to participate in the exorcism ritual, but only two cases were successful. The two women soon died of swelling, in exchange for the lives of the queen and princess.
The coroner found similarities on the corpses: they were both born with the crescent-shaped mark of the main god Sheila somewhere on their bodies. The two women came from the same family, and were both descendants of intermarriage between cousins in the family.
The bishop told the king that this was a precious bloodline blessed by the Lord God Sheila. In order to exchange for the continuation of the Sutherland family, the reproduction of this family must be protected.
The king immediately ordered to grant permanent freedom to the immediate relatives of the two female slaves, to relieve the status of slaves of these 120 people, to open farms in East County, to exempt them from taxes, and to deploy troops for protection - in exchange for their freedom, the king ordered their descendants to
She is never allowed to leave the mushroom farm. Every adult woman who has given birth to a child has the obligation to unconditionally dedicate her life to the royal family.
One hundred years have passed in a blink of an eye, and the Mushroom Farm is harmonious and peaceful under the protection of the hereditary nobleman Van Exe. Whenever a new female member is born in the Sutherland royal family, a peasant woman is selected by lot, responds to the call, and calmly bids farewell to her husband and children.
Sit in the royal carriage and enter the royal city never looking back.
More than ten years ago, the king's youngest daughter, Princess Abidele, was born. Lao Bama's wife unfortunately drew a black lottery symbolizing farewell. She kissed her husband and infant son goodbye with tears, and left the mushroom farm in a luxurious royal carriage.
, and never came back.
After hearing this story, the uncle felt sad and frightened. His memory of his mother had long been blurred, and the fifteen-year-old man's heart began to worry about his fiancée's future.
Time passed day by day, and after their sixteenth birthday, they held a lively wedding, and the whole village gave them their most sincere blessings in front of the statue of the main god Sheila. Another two years passed, and they gave birth to a lovely little boy, but
Unfortunately, the little boy died of lung disease before he was three months old. The two were extremely sad and agreed to raise another child in a year.
But misfortune struck again. Princess Abdel, who was far away in the royal city, had already married a prince and gave birth to the next generation of the royal family, a beautiful girl. The ancient treaty showed its ferocious teeth. On an ordinary winter day, the mushroom farm
Thirty-three women gathered in front of the statue of Sheila to draw lots. The uncle's wife opened her trembling palm, which was a black lot.
It was a sleepless night.
Early the next morning, the royal carriage, accompanied by the earl's knights, drove into the Mushroom Manor and stopped in the middle of the town. The wife kissed the uncle goodbye with tears, lifted up her skirt and walked into the carriage. The horse's hooves stepped on the stone post road and gradually went away. The uncle stood
He stood there motionless and silent.
Finally, he went crazy.
He raised a pitchfork, broke through the thick wooden door of the Mushroom Farm amidst the exclamations of the whole town, knocked down fifteen soldiers guarding the village, and strode after his wife along the post road in the direction where she left.
Count Van Exel led twenty knights, one hundred and sixty infantry and one hundred archers to catch up. The good-tempered count tried to dissuade him. The uncle waved the pitchfork with red eyes and said, "My lord, I don't want to do this either, but I don't want to do this."
If you have to do this, please stay away and don't get accidentally hurt by me.
He knocked twenty knights off their horses and bent the pitchforks into bows; he also dispersed one hundred and sixty infantrymen with his bare hands, his fists covered in blood; when one hundred archers fled in fear, he nailed a nail on his back.
Full of arrows, his steps were difficult. The earl sighed from a distance and turned his horse's head.
The royal city is to the west of the farm. The uncle walked slowly westward with a pitchfork, leaving bloody footprints one after another, until a horse chased him with flying hooves. The man on the horse shouted: Don't stop! The uncle turned around.
When I saw it, my father, old Bama, was coming.
With tears in his eyes, Old Bama unfolded a sheepskin scroll on his horse and read loudly: According to the century-old contract, if one person leaves without authorization, all the farmers in the Mushroom Farm will immediately lose their freedom, deprive themselves of their status as farmers, and become slaves, with men working hard.
Women kept in captivity will never be able to leave their country. - Count Van Exel.
After finishing reading, Lao Bama threw away the parchment and rolled off the horse with a bang. He knelt in front of the uncle and cried, "Son, son, I know I can't stop you, but think about the hundred families in the village, okay? What are you doing for me?"
Can you think about the mushrooms in the greenhouse? Can you think about the tavern, the church, and the house we worked so hard to build?
The uncle stopped, thought for a while, walked two steps west, thought again, and was at a loss. The bow bent into a bow with a bang and was broken by the pitchfork used as a walking stick. The uncle collapsed on the road.
Old Bama ran over and hugged his son and said: Good boy, let's walk back and keep heading east. The earl guarantees with his hereditary title that as long as we keep walking east from here without looking back, everyone else in the mushroom farm will be pardoned.
's sin.
The uncle said unconsciously: Can you never go home again?
Old Bamati burst into tears and said: I won’t come back.
Old Bama helped the uncle onto the horse and led the horse eastward along the post road. When passing the mushroom farm, the uncle was sleeping deeply. Old Bama hardened his heart and did not look back.
The father and son walked from dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn. The kind-hearted earl prepared bread, water and twenty silver coins in the horse's backpack, which was enough for them to walk for a long time.
The uncle woke up on the third day. His strong body gradually healed, the arrow squeezed out of the muscles, and the broken bones connected themselves. He didn't say anything, jumped off the horse and replaced his father on the ride, and led the horse silently to the east.
On the tenth day, they climbed over the hills, walked out of the Bazeral border, and moved along the gradually smaller post road.
On the twenty-sixth day, after crossing the border of the last small principality, the mountains gradually leveled off, and in front of us was an endless open plain. From here to the east there is no country. At the other end of the open plain is the surging "Goddess" in the center of the world.
"Sea of Blessings", from here onwards, the traces of human civilization disappear, replaced by more and more beasts and magical beasts.
Halfway through winter, the climate became colder, and on the twenty-eighth day, it started to snow. The snow did not stop until the end of Lao Bama's life.
Old Bama caught wind and cold, lying on his horse and kept coughing. Before leaving the country, the father and son exchanged all their silver coins for dry food without any medicine. Old Bama refused to look back and asked for help. The uncle could only try his best to hunt wild beasts with rich fur and taxidermied them.
Animal skins to keep my father warm.
The uncle was a born warrior and a born hunter. During the days of walking on the vast snow-covered plains, he slowly learned to master a stronger body than ordinary people imagined, and his fighting skills quickly matured. Wild beasts and monsters kept appearing, in order to protect his father.
The battles that took place turned the uncle from an eighteen-year-old young farmer into a ruthless killer who was indifferent to blood. As powerful monsters appeared one by one, he learned to hide his whereabouts, make detours, ambush, and burn all the energy of his life.
, guarding my father, who was getting weaker day by day, and kept heading east.
On this day, there was a strong wind and snow, and everything five yards away became blurry. The uncle, carrying his dying father on his back, was trudging forward through the deep snow. Suddenly, he stumbled, and there was no longer plain, hard land under the snow.
, but irregular stones. The uncle stopped in surprise. Old Bama woke up leisurely, slowly raised his hand to brush away the snowflakes accumulated on his eyebrows, and said vaguely: Son, we are here.
Where are you? The uncle turned around and asked.
Old Bama pointed forward tremblingly. Here he is. He repeated it.
The uncle shook his head, covered his father's back with fur, and stepped forward. The snow gradually became thinner, and he could feel the crunch of gravel under his leather boots.
In the swirling snowflakes, the field of vision is no longer pale. A touch of dark blue emerges from the skyline, expanding rapidly like blue ink on papyrus. When the leather boots click through the thin ice, they fall into the water.
At that time, the uncle stared dumbly at the overwhelming dark blue that completely occupied his sight, and then he realized that he had arrived at the beach.
Behind you is the endless snowfield, and in front of you is the legendary "Sea of Divine Blessing", the sacred ocean that keeps all life away, the only way to the center of the world, the huge waves roaring in the wind and snow, rolling up the ice floes and violently lapping the coastline
, splashing with bone-crushing cold water droplets.
"Ahem...the snow has reduced the number of monsters, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get here." Old Bama coughed and said, "Now, let me down."
The uncle carefully put the old Bama on the ground. He was surprised by how light the father was, as if he had no weight at all. Is this the same father in his memory who was always strong, loved to drink and fight?
Now, kneel down. Old Bama managed to stand up straight, letting the wind and snow beat on his pale cheeks.
The uncle bent his heavy shoulders, knelt on one knee, and looked at his father's feet.
Old Bama stretched out his hand and stroked his uncle's icy hair. Son, don't blame me, Old Bama whispered.
He straightened his back suddenly, his eyes radiating with light: Now, as the second heir of the seventh generation of the family, I announce that you, Toba, the eighth generation eldest son of Mushroom Farm, will be permanently expelled for violating a century-old contract.
If you leave the family, from now on, the family will not be responsible for any sins you commit, and the family will not be responsible for any honor. The Lord God Sheila will abandon your protection and deprive you of your surname forever. Now, stretch out your right hand.
The uncle couldn't help but stretch out his right hand that was stiff due to shock. Old Bama rolled up his animal skin sleeves and found the crescent-shaped stigmata of the main god Sheila on the uncle's arm - a resident of the mushroom farm, the only symbol of the mysterious family - broke out
Using a strength that was unbefitting of a person whose life fire was about to go out, he used his nails to scratch the uncle's tough skin, and cut two intersecting "X"-shaped wounds on the sacred mark. Vibrant blood spurted out, quickly
Frozen in the wind and snow, looking at the uncle's bewildered expression, Old Bama twitched the corners of his mouth and smiled: From now on, you are no longer bound by the century-old contract and can turn around and go west, but I will die unable to go east again.
place, I should be able to get forgiveness from the earl.
Father... uncle was kneeling in the snow and howling.
I am no longer your father, don’t forget, you will have no surname from now on. I hope you can find your surname soon. Old Bama nodded happily to his strong and tall son, coughed twice, sat down and waved his hand
:Leave me alone, let me lie down.
The uncle knelt and crawled over to hold his father's body. Before old Bama's body touched the snow, the fire of life was quietly extinguished. The waves of the divine blessing were like thunder. Before setting off to the west, the uncle knelt there.
One day and one night.”
Xibi spoke passionately, with tears hanging from the corners of his eyes, as if he had experienced it himself. The brazier crackled, people's faces lit up and darkened, and no one spoke for a while.
Suddenly, the door of the stone house opened, and a huge figure squeezed in with the cold air outside, muttering, "I'm back. Today's dinner is quite sumptuous. The fresh ground dragon meat just arrived from Mr. Eight Eyes' place. I have salt here."
and pepper, I will roast it for you later. If you don’t eat it, I will brag. The roasted meat will be so delicious that your tongues will swallow it... Why do you all look so unlucky? Mr. Astrologer, I didn’t say anything about you.
Ah, you look as good as usual." Mr. Toba, a farmer from Bazeral and the head of the house, stood bent over in the house carrying food, looking left and right, confused.
"Uh...it's nothing. We just discussed the ultimate issues of the universe and life. Their philosophical literacy is not enough, so their brains crashed. Toba, what is your original surname?" Gu Tie said nonsense, suddenly feeling that just now
The story was missing an important clue, so I asked.
"I've forgotten that last name a long time ago. Hehe." Toba replied honestly.
Gu Tie looked at Xibi, who was wiping his eyes, and then at Toba, who was rubbing his hands and bending his waist. He always felt that the two images inside and outside the story could not coincide with each other.