Neverland

Xu Muzhou's words became a prophecy.

The progress bar was like a complete "strike" from now on, no matter what Xu Muzhou and Yan Cen did, they never moved again.

In addition, Toya still appears in this castle with a frequency of two days and one day, but the strange thing is that as long as he "should" disappear, no matter how Xu Muzhou and Yan Cen look for him There was no way to turn him out of the castle, not even in the attic.

It was as if Toya had disappeared into the castle, a cloud of ashes, only to reappear at the end of the day.

Xu Muzhou watched coldly for a few cycles, and found that whenever it was Toya's turn to show up, as long as he and Yan Cen did not leave the house, Toya could stay in the hall for a whole day.

Most of the time, he knelt and sat in the center of the hall, facing the direction of the gate, praying devoutly with his palms folded.

The dusty crystal ball rested peacefully on his lap, occasionally being gently shaken by Toya's wide and long sleeves.

But if he and Yan Cen have the slightest intention to leave the room and wander around the castle, Toya will quickly pack up her things and head back to her small room like an ostrich. Come out again.

The progress bar didn't move, and Xu Muzhou also felt that something was wrong. He blocked Toya several times overtly and secretly, and he also talked about Joseph from Toya's childhood in a circumstantial way, almost revealing Toya's life experience in this life .

Toya is a naive child, and she doesn't reject Xu Muzhou. Most of the time, she asks what to say, but even so, the progress bar is always quiet, and no matter what she says, she can't touch the final task point.

In addition, Toya would disappear one day every two days, watching the time pass by group by group, and the day when the supplies were coming was getting closer, Xu Muzhou couldn't help feeling a little anxious.

Although it is theoretically possible to stay in the mission world indefinitely, if the day of "rescue" comes, let alone how to persuade Toya to stay in this castle, Xu Muzhou himself really wants to make a quick decision, I don't want to stay any longer.

——It's not that he's not very professional, it's just...the living standard in this world is too low.

Not to mention that the castle was built on an island, it was wet and cold and the bed was small, just a little food was enough for Xu Muzhou.

Everyday black bread, purified water, the black bread was dry and hard, and Xu Muzhou ate it with a wooden face until the end, feeling that he was going to become a piece of black bread.

But compared to Xu Muzhou, Yan Cen seemed very calm. He divided the time in this castle into two types: "Tuoya is present" and "Tuoya is not present", and in the first two time periods, the castle's Every room was scanned.

After confirming the situation in the castle in each time period, Yan Cen seemed to have entered the salted fish period, and began to sleep in the house every day to catch up on sleep, laughing intermittently and watching Xu Muzhou's little bee on the ground like a bee Flying up and down, it seemed as if he had given up on taking the initiative to attack at all, and was preparing to follow the fate of the mission.

Even yesterday, he dug out the straw paper and charcoal pencils from the utility room, and sat in the room to draw when he had nothing to do, as if he was on vacation.

"Brother Yan, what are you doing?" Xu Muzhou came in from the door, poked his head to watch his movements, and put the key chain on the table casually.

Yan Cen didn't answer, and leaned against the head of the bed without raising his head, drew two lines on the paper with a charcoal pen the length of his index finger, and asked casually, "Did you see Toya?"

Yan Cen went to learn about the situation in the castle these days, while Xu Muzhou chased and intercepted Toya when he had nothing to do, and forced him to play the role of "confidant brother".

It's just that Toya was young, and she didn't remember anything, and her life was more than a dozen years, and ten of them were spent in this dark prison. How could there be so many things to ask.

Apart from the obvious and obvious clue of Joseph, even if Xu Muzhou didn't give up, he couldn't get any further flaws from Toya.

Just counting the time, tomorrow is the day when Toya disappears, Xu Muzhou still wants to try his luck.

"It's almost the same as yesterday." Xu Muzhou said as he sat on the edge of the bed, stretched his arms to take the remaining half bottle of water from the table, and gulped down two mouthfuls.

Although the water was crudely made, it was much better than black bread after drinking it. Xu Muzhou wiped his mouth and passed the bottle to Yan Cen.

Yan Cen's subordinates didn't stop their movements, they turned their heads closer to the mouth of the bottle, and took a sip from Xu Muzhou's hand.

"Old master." Xu Muzhou finished complaining, and then leaned over to look at the straw paper in Yan Cen's hand, and asked, "What are you drawing?"

In fact, without Yan Cen's answer, Xu Muzhou took a closer look and found out that Yan Cen was drawing the layout of the room.

Yan Cen's brush strokes are very clean, and his writing hand is steady and precise.Even Xu Muzhou, who was used to drawing design drawings when he was in school, couldn't help but want to praise the drawing well.

Perhaps because of his good observation skills, although Yan Cen drew a realistic sketch, there are almost no waste lines, and the structure and proportions are perfect. At first glance, it seems that the entire situation in this room has been shrunk on paper of.

"So you still have this skill?" Xu Muzhou asked curiously.

"Live a long time and learn a little about everything." Yan Cen smiled slightly, and before Xu Muzhou could express his ridicule on this universal quotation, he added with a smile: "What's more, I learned to paint when I was young. Everything works.”

When Xu Muzhou thought about it, he felt that it was normal. After all, in the era when Yan Cen was alive, let alone painting, a nobleman like him had to be proficient in everything.

Maybe I have to get up every day when the cock crows, go to bed in the middle of the night, and practice three-nines in winter and three days in summer all year round... No wonder I have developed such a good skill.

Thinking of this, he glanced at Yan Cen with complicated eyes, patted him on the shoulder, and said distressedly: "Thanks for your hard work."

Yan Cen: "..."

The little fox was thinking about something weird again, Yan Cen thought inexplicably.

The strange brain circuits that Xu Muzhou occasionally radiated were not captured by Yan Cen for a short time, but were recorded by the evaluation system of Neverland, which virtually became a little surprise in the memory of the long years to come.

"But having said that, why are you painting this room?" Xu Muzhou asked.

"It's boring to be idle." Yan Cen said: "I suddenly became interested when I saw the pen and paper, and I drew casually."

Xu Muzhou groaned and didn't pay much attention to it. After all, the task was not progressing, and it was impossible for Yan Cen to sleep all the time in the house. There was no Wi-Fi or mobile devices in this poor place, and there was nothing to pass the time.

But before Xu Muzhou came in, Yan Cen's "masterpiece" to pass the time was almost finished. He outlined the shape of the window edge on the wall with a few strokes, then folded the straw paper and put it together with the charcoal pen On the coffee table.

Seeing this, Xu Muzhou habitually took off the large coat on his bed, and climbed onto the bed with hands and feet.

During this period of time, he and Yan Cen have figured out the rules of the castle. The wall clock at the gate of the castle will chime the hour every twelve o'clock at midnight. Within 2 minutes after the chime, he and Yan Cen will feel the same. A sudden sense of sleepiness.

Although this feeling is inexplicable, it does not force people to sleep. Besides, according to Yan Cen, he once went out when the clock struck midnight, and he didn't see anything wrong with the situation in the castle, so Xu Muzhou simply I didn't care about it either, after all, it's normal for this kind of unscientific place to be a bit evil.

In order to maintain their strength and eat less of the unpalatable black bread, Xu Muzhou and Yan Cen went to bed early these days.

Yan Cen turned slightly to make room for Xu Muzhou, and let the other party crawl to the inside of the bed, then shook off the balled quilt at the foot of the bed, and covered Xu Muzhou.

After finishing all this, Yan Cen leaned over and crushed the kerosene lamp with a small piece of iron.

The only light source went out, and the room turned dark again. Xu Muzhou shrank back under the quilt, feeling another gust of wind blowing in through the seam of the quilt.

He poked his head out of the quilt, looked in the direction of the window, and said, "Did you forget to close the window?"

Yan Cen looked up, hummed, and got up to close the window, but Xu Muzhou held him back.

"Forget it." Xu Muzhou said vaguely, "It's not too cold today, so let's just leave it at that."

Yan Cen wasn't very afraid of the cold, but he hummed indifferently, and patted Xu Muzhou's back with his hand.

"Go to sleep." Yan Cen said.

Because the window was not closed, Xu Muzhou slept extremely split that night. Even in his dream, he could always hear the sound of the waves, and the sound of the wooden window hitting the wall was endless. Li can't live in peace.

Xu Muzhou woke up overnight, feeling that he was about to evolve from black bread into a fish.

The waves were too loud, and Xu Muzhou woke up early. When the sky was just getting bright in the morning, he opened his eyes from the bed with the sound of the rising tide.

Yan Cen always wakes up earlier than Xu Muzhou, the bed next to Xu Muzhou is still warm, but the person is gone, Xu Muzhou reached out and touched under the quilt to make sure that Yan Cen did not go far, most likely he just went out to get today's dry food.

Toya is also amazing in this regard. Although she disappears at every turn, the fresh water of black bread will appear in the center of the hall on time every day. I don't know how he brought it here.

Xu Muzhou once joked that the castle lived in a group of elves who ran errands when they were given bread.

The wooden window that was blown open by the wind was blown to the wall, and then slid back tremblingly by itself, and was blown in again by the wind after sliding halfway.

Xu Muzhou sat on the bed and yawned lazily, ready to get out of bed to save the poor wooden window.

He walked halfway, but from the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw that the straw paper that Yan Cen put on the table yesterday fell to the ground, probably because it was blown down by the wind.

The straw paper was not tightly folded, and it fell apart after spinning in mid-air. Xu Muzhou bent down to pick up the paper, and looked at the painting on it.

Xu Muzhou was about to fold it just by taking a casual glance, but as soon as his eyes fell on the paper, his expression changed slightly.

Xu Muzhou stared at the small coffee table next to the bed on the painting for a long time, then turned his gaze in silence, and looked at the small coffee table at the end of the bed beside him.

A bunch of keys lay quietly on the coffee table, the kerosene lamp was set aside, and the broken gap on the right window sash was still clearly visible—everything in this room was exactly the same as Xu Muzhou remembered last night.

——But it was the exact opposite of the painting in his hand.