hsntnovel Chapter 114 Birth, Aging, Sickness, and Death, Becoming a Dragonfly
Chapter 114 Birth, Aging, Sickness, and Death, Becoming a Dragonfly
The turn of events was so sudden that no one could have predicted it.
She usually presents a kind and benevolent image in the lower city, but in the past timeline, she had this kind of face.
"I, I'm not..." The little monster lay on its back on the ground, its voice strained from the prolonged pressure on its chest.
Li Can also felt difficulty breathing in his body.
Hearing Huang Xiaoqi's words about "defective products" and "perfect people," everyone couldn't help but have some guesses.
In Li Can's view, the exchange and analysis of the past and present should refer to the distinction between people in the lower city and people in the upper city.
It's just completely reversed.
The people of the Lower City, who could live to be a hundred years old and whose appearance remained almost unchanged, were undoubtedly the most superior race in the world in the past. They despised everything and regarded themselves as supreme.
Li Can just didn't understand how they could analyze and judge that the little monster was not of the same race as them after only meeting him once.
And the puzzling points don't stop there; the little monster, the old city lord, clearly possesses the qualities of a "perfect person"...
[So, the city lord's situation wasn't good in the past; he was an outcast who wasn't accepted by either race?] Shen Yuan stopped commenting on Huang Xiaoqi's actions and focused on the story itself.
If I'm not mistaken, the people living in the lower city now are the very people who were once part of the Perfect People. Brother Xing, you guys... logically speaking, having lived for so long, you should have memories of your past, right?
However, based solely on my understanding of the people in the lower city, they don't seem to know much at all; rather, it's as if their memories have been reset.
Li Can and Li Lan were certainly not the original residents of the Lower City. Although they came here to complete a mission and did not have many inherited memories, they were aware of the abnormal mental pollution among those around them.
[That's all; it should be an incident of collective amnesia.] Li Can gave a brief summary.
This is a conjecture, but also the closest possible deduction to the truth.
Li Lan joined the tour group. [I don't remember much, only recent years; my memories of the past are very vague.]
[Sigh, so the city lord must have done a lot behind the scenes to cause the world to develop into what it is now.]
The scenes of life being shown to the outside world are still unfolding.
In her youthful state, Huang Xiaoqi, with great disdain for the demolition carriage driver and the servants who accompanied him, pulled the little monster up from the road.
It was thrown into the corner like trash, and with a "splat" sound, it was like an empty sphere filled with liquid water hitting the wall.
All four of them felt a trembling pain.
"I'm really not defective, I..." Xiao Guai wanted to say something to explain himself, but Huang Xiaoqi climbed back into the carriage, which jingled and clattered as it drove away into the distance.
It was as if her attention to Xiao Guai earlier was just an illusion, or perhaps she only stopped and stood in front of him because she thought he was one of her own.
The result was a great disappointment to him and a loss of his noble status, which made him furious.
The flesh on Xiao Guai's face, where her sharp fingernails had scratched, still ached faintly.
He was a tiny little ball, lying in the corner for a long time before finally crawling over to look at the pool of bubbles beside him.
Through the reflection of the muddy water, Li Can finally saw a pitiful little face clearly. Although he could see the overall outline while wearing sunglasses, it was just a rough cutaway and not very clear.
The other three were also seeing the old city lord as a child for the first time, and couldn't help but feel a bit curious.
That's basically a miniature version of him with his mask torn off.
Her chubby cheeks still retained a childlike innocence, and her big, innocent eyes had black pupils as round as longan seeds.
My hair is a mess and I don't know how long it's been since I cleaned or styled it.
The clothes hanging on her body were clearly an ill-fitting adult shirt, tied at the waist with a hemp rope, otherwise it might have slipped off her huge shorts at any moment.
The little monster reached out to touch the red marks on its left cheek, but ultimately gave up.
He looked down at his hands; his fingernails were full of dark brown sludge, and his palms and the backs of his hands were a mixture of dust and bloodstains, both black and red.
[The old city lord's past was truly tragic. Was he an orphan from birth? How did he become the city lord at such a young age? No, if he's aging very slowly now, then people back then must have lived for thousands or tens of thousands of years!]
Shen Yuan muttered to herself, her own words startling her.
"That's right," Yang Mo said thoughtfully, giving a soft reply.
Xiao Guai seemed to have been thinking about many things. Finally, clutching the pain and bruises on his chest from being kicked by a horse's hoof, he slowly got up and, as if possessed, began to leave the city where "perfect people" lived, turning his back on them.
He walked barefoot on the road for a very long time.
Exhausted, Shen Yuan and Yang Mo no longer had the energy to post comments or send bullet screen messages.
It seems like Xiao Guai is moving in a trend, but whether they're running or moving, they're both feeling the strain.
My left foot hurts so much.
"Stop talking, my right foot is almost rotting too." Yang Mo was worn down and had no temper left.
[So, was the city lord always this stubborn since he was a child? He never even bothered to find himself a pair of shoes. Look at him, he even knows to redesign the pattern of his clothes with rope...] Shen Yuan was exhausted.
But no matter how much pain they were in, they could not escape the constraints of this body.
We still have to honestly endure the arduous journey, like walking through eighty-one tribulations.
Finally, they reached the gate of another city, and the little monster finally stopped.
Although it's called a city, it's actually more like a village.
Compared to the development and changes on the "perfect person's" side, it is really lagging behind.
The houses were connected by sheds made of straw and wooden frames, and the walls were made of mud bricks and stones piled together.
Dragging its body in pain and hunger, the little monster hurried toward this gathering place of "defective products".
Li Can glanced around and saw that the people living there were in conditions similar to those in a cowshed, and the population was generally aging.
There were hardly any young people to be seen; it was almost entirely grandparents and other older people working hard to make a living.
Occasionally, you can see a few children running around by the roadside, holding bamboo dragonflies and windmills, constantly muttering something: "Little wind, little wind, little green, little green, little child, little child, birth, old age, sickness, and death, turning into a dragonfly..."
Li Can frowned. He couldn't quite understand what they were saying; it sounded like some kind of strange folk proverb or nursery rhyme.
Several elderly people sat on a haystack, using crudely made wooden combs to comb each other's long, gray hair, while simmering some kind of radish and wild vegetable porridge in an iron pot placed directly by the roadside.
Although it didn't look appetizing, it smelled absolutely delicious to the little monster who had been starving for a long time.
Like a thief who had done this countless times before, he sneaked around behind the iron pot, took an iron bowl that he had somehow gotten his hands on, and reached into the pot.
"Your child will be almost forty this year, right? He probably can't keep pretending to work for Perfect Man anymore," the old nanny said to her old friend beside her.