The King of Beasts smiles but does not speak [Shan Hai Jing]

Liang Yu stood in front of the window.

Today's weather is not very good, and the usually blue sky has become foggy because of the continuous light rain.

"How's it going?"

Liang Yu turned his head and looked at Shuyan who was standing behind him, obviously exhausted.

Shuyan nodded, with a gloomy expression: "He has woken up. But judging by his appearance, it seems that he still doesn't understand what happened in his own country."

"Where is he now?"

Shu Yan said: "He has been pestering Chiyao since he woke up, just now the servant girl came to report that Chiyao took him out to play."

Liang Yu's eyes drooped slightly: "Looking at his appearance that day, I thought he didn't like Chi Yao."

"Children, moody." Shuyan smiled wryly, "But that's fine."

After all, he is still so young, if he has been immersed in the pain of destroying the country, they really don't know how to comfort him.

"Shuyan, what do you know about this 'Dan'er Kingdom'?" Liang Yu thought for a while and said, "When we went that day, why was there not a single old man among the corpses all over the ground?"

When they rushed there, although the situation was in a hurry, Liang Yu still kept such a strange situation in his mind, but he never had the chance to ask.

Now that the child's condition is a little more stable, he feels a little relieved, so he asked this question.

Only then did Shuyan realize that he hadn't explained the situation to the Lord, and hurriedly said, "Dan'er Country...is a bit special."

A hundred years ago, Daner Kingdom was just an ordinary country.

But it stands to reason that the nobles of all the countries on the four continents have somewhat different characteristics from the commoners.But the nobles of this Dan'er country have nothing unique except that they are more delicate and beautiful than the common people.

This kind of "ordinary" has instead become a distinctive feature of the nobles of the Dan'er Kingdom.

Everyone also thought that this kind of ordinaryness was the will of heaven, and there was nothing to worry about.

But one day a hundred years ago, Dan'er country suddenly caught fire.

This was a big fire for no reason. The fire started beside a main river on the border of Dan'er Kingdom, and it burned for three days and nights without stopping.

Although I don't know why the fire was so difficult to put out, but because the fire went out by itself after three days without causing any property damage and no one was injured, it didn't attract too many people's attention.

But not long after the fire was extinguished, a frightening thing suddenly happened in Dan'er Country——

People started to die inexplicably one after another.

The deaths seemed unrelated, but most were near middle age.

The people of Dan'er country thought that these people died suddenly because of some kind of disease.

But soon they discovered that the deaths of these people were probably related to their children.

"Child?" The more Liang Yu listened, the more strange the direction of the story became. "Why does it sound so scary?"

Shuyan was also very helpless: "This incident was very sensational at the time, and it also scared many people, but it is the truth."

The reason why the connection between "death" and "children" was discovered was that among the nobles of the Dan'er Kingdom who died during this period, the death of a family was not sudden, but related to illness.

At that time, the weather was turning cold, and the family caught wind and cold without paying attention.

Because the health of the hostess and hostess of this family was not very good, they passed away one after another, leaving only a boy who was not more than the age of the head.

There was nothing special about this poor child who lost his parents.

After he became an orphan, other Dan'er nobles naturally sympathized with him, and his uncle adopted him to his own family to continue to take care of him.

This seemed to be a small thing, and no one noticed anything unusual at the time.

However, after a long time, the uncle's family who adopted the child discovered a problem——

This child has never grown up.

He has always maintained the appearance of his parents when they passed away, and he has never grown up again!

After the uncle's family began to discover the strangeness of the child, another child with the same situation appeared in Dan'er Middle School.

The child's father died early, and he has been living with his mother.After the only family member passed away, the same situation happened to this child——

He also maintained the appearance when his mother died, and never grew up.

Liang Yu turned his head thoughtfully: "So, these children can grow up because of their parents?"

"Of course." Shuyan affirmed, "To be precise, it depends on the lifespan of the parents."

Taking the lives of their parents as nourishment, and growing themselves by nibbling their lifespans.

And once their parents die, they can never grow up and never grow old again.

Liang Yu frowned: "But once you maintain your youthful appearance, wouldn't you be able to live forever?"

Shu Yan said: "It's not that you can live forever if you maintain your youthful appearance. To be precise, they can all do it."

According to the common sense of heaven and earth, human beings will grow old and then die.

But the people of Dan'er country no longer follow this way.

Their lifespan is only shortened by the "need" of their children, but if the family is childless, they will never die of old age.

Liang Yu showed a rare look of astonishment: "Isn't this...eternal life?"

Shuyan nodded slightly.

Although he still dies due to emergencies and diseases, he gets rid of the inevitable law of "getting old", so that his life has the possibility of infinite continuation.

Liang Yu said: "But if this is the case, according to human nature, there should be very few people who are willing to breed children."

After all, having a child means that she will die because of her child.

And if you choose to give up childbearing, not only can you prolong your life, but you can also keep yourself young forever.

It seems that it is easy to make a choice!

"It should be so." Shuyan suddenly remembered the surprise he felt when he heard the rumor a hundred years ago, and there was a hint of respect in his eyes for a while, "However, in fact, in order to ensure the aristocratic blood of Dan'er Kingdom To be able to continue, all the nobles have reached a consensus."

Shuyan sighed slightly: "The consensus is that under each surname, there must be a new life, and the family where this new life is born will be determined by lottery."

"Drawing lots?"

Isn't this equivalent to the "life and death lottery", whoever draws it will die?

Liang Yu asked suspiciously, "No one resisted?"

Who would be willing to entrust their life and death to the illusory "God's will"?

"Why do you want to resist?" Shuyan looked more surprised than Liang Yu, "This is already the best way. Human beings are not protected by the law of heaven and can only rely on themselves. So for them, the most important thing, Of course, it is possible to continue your own race!"

Liang Yu was at a loss for words for a while, looking at Shuyan's affirmative gaze, he even didn't know how to answer.

Not only in this world, isn't it actually the same in his original world?

For some people, in order to keep the "blood" alive, many things can be sacrificed, whether it is freedom, dignity, or... life.

But the people of Dan'er Country are different from some ugly people in their own world after all.

At least they sacrificed themselves, not their children.

At least what they are looking for is the real continuation of life, not the illusory "surname" and "family".

Liang Yu pondered for a moment, then suddenly thought: "But aren't the parents of that child already dead?"

What he was referring to was, of course, the only "survivor" they recovered from the pile of corpses.

"That's right." Shuyan's expression was solemn, and he didn't know whether he should be sad or happy. "His parents are dead, and he will never grow up again. But also... he will not grow up." Taking on the responsibility of 'breeding offspring' naturally also means that his lifespan will be no different from that of our spirit beasts."

The rain outside the window continued, but the house fell silent for a while.

After a while, Liang Yu said, "Does he have a name?"

Shuyan naturally knew who the "he" was referring to in the Lord's words, so he nodded hurriedly: "There are, named 'Shuangsheng'."

Human beings don't have "numbers", only names.

The national surname of Dan'er State is "Shuang".

Liang Yu sighed softly: "It turns out that he is originally from the royal family."

Or maybe it was because of his high status that he was protected by so many people and survived such a tragic massacre.

"In addition..." Shuyan looked at Liang Yu's face, and hesitated to speak again, "In addition, the son of Wuqi Kingdom has also arrived in Quanfeng Kingdom and has been resettled."

In fact, as early as the day of the banquet, the prince had already arrived in Wangcheng, but before he saw Liang Yu, something happened in Dan'er Kingdom.

For the next few days, Liang Yu was in a bad mood, and no one dared to bother him, so they put the matter on hold.

Liang Yu rubbed the center of his brows, and the look of exhaustion appeared on his face again: "The son came from a long way, take good care of him, and let him come to see me tomorrow."

Shuyan agreed to the "promise", but secretly said in his heart, it seems that he will go to the courtyard where the prince is placed again in a while.

The prince left his hometown and was not summoned by the Lord for several days, so he might feel uneasy.

He still needs to go up to appease the master.

But as soon as this son was mentioned, Shuyan inevitably connected him with Shuangsheng's life experience: "My lord, speaking... this 'Wuqi Kingdom' is also slightly similar to Dan'er Kingdom. place."

"Oh?" Liang Yu looked back at him, "Could it be that Wuqi Kingdom is also different from other countries in the way of inheriting blood?"

But Shuyan shook his head: "No, their peculiarity is that... this country does not need to inherit blood."

Under Liang Yu's curious eyes, Shuyan slowly said: "There is no country without Qi in the world, and the land where this country is located was originally just a wasteland. But when the mountains and seas changed 300 years ago, changes also occurred in this wasteland. There are not only mountains and rivers, but also a thousand 'pebbles' that came from nowhere."

"Pebbles?" Liang Yu even felt a little funny, "The nobles of Wuqi Kingdom...couldn't all be born from pebbles?"

This speculation sounds so absurd, but Shuyan cannot deny it.

Because, it is indeed true.

Eggs give birth to thousands of people, and these thousand people are not divided into males and females, and they will not give birth and reproduce.

Liang Yu pondered for a moment, and suddenly thought of something, he raised his head and looked at Shuyan: "Could it be that..."

"Of course." Shuyan said in a deep voice, "The biggest difference between the nobles of 'Wuqi Kingdom' and 'Dan'er Kingdom' is——"

"People in Wuqiguo not only have a lifespan that can be extended indefinitely, but they will never die except by committing suicide."

Neither disease, disaster, nor the killing of others can take their lives.

The only ones who can make them choose to die are themselves.

The author has something to say:

The setting of Wuqi Kingdom here is adapted from the saying in Zhang Hua's "Natural History" in the Western Jin Dynasty: "Wuqi people live in caves and eat soil, and there are no men and women. If they are buried dead, their hearts will be immortal, and they will turn into humans after a hundred years." Listen. It's so magical! ! !

Then, in order to give them a birth method (after all, there is no gender distinction, how can they reproduce...), so I combined the description of "The Country of Egg People" in "Shan Hai Jing·Da Huang Nan Jing": "The land of the Great Wilderness Among them, in a country with egg people, all its people lay eggs."

There is also Guo Pu's note on the encyclopedia: "That is to say, eggs are born."

***

In addition, the number of chapters will not be marked in the future, only the title of the chapter will be marked.

The title of this part of the chapter is "浞訾丽斯 (zhuózīlìsī)", which refers to arrogance.

In fact, the title of each chapter is very meaningful... um...