Journey to the Rose

Outside the city, the bright knife edge pierced the sky.

Rolling thunder exploded from the dome in the distance, dust filled the sky, the thunder made people's ears numb, lightning chased one after another, day and night were inseparable.

Time seems to go back to the beginning of creation.

Ruan Xi was held by Lu Zhenghe and ran all the way. At the beginning, he was not used to this protective posture of holding hands all the time, but he got used to it after running tired. He didn't even care about being shy or not, and followed closely Lu Zhenghe's pace.

Finally, Ruan Xi saw the figures of Li Shen and his party.Finally, he gasped for breath and was defeated.

"Don't rush to run."

Seeing that his face was flushed and his neck was thick, Lu Zhenghe shook his head, stretched out his hand to touch Ruan Xi's neck, pinched the mark where he had been bitten by his fingers restlessly, and said in a tone of incompetence: "The physical strength is so poor, I need to find a place to practice you."

"My physical strength is not bad..."

Ruan Xi couldn't stop panting, and a little blush spread on the tips of her ears, "It's not like you haven't challenged me before."

"Then why are you so tired after running a few steps?"

"My legs are weak."

Ruan Xi rubbed her thighs, then her knees, as if she was not fully charged, "How can you only run a few steps, you have run so far all the way, and you had a fight with you before. You must be Lu Zhenghe pretending to be a robot , the model that doesn’t cause panting after high-intensity exercise.”

Lu Zhenghe expressed his admiration for Ruan Xi's out of breath and the ability to open his mouth to "mock" him, smiled, and fought back: "Finally, you have discovered your true colors."

what?

robot?

Unexpectedly, Ruan Xi opened her eyes slightly, and a trace of panic flashed in her eyes: "Robot? Really?"

Lu Zhenghe: "It's obviously fake."

Ruan Xi: "...Oh."

Lu Zhenghe: "Do you believe this?"

Ruan Xi: "Huh."

Lu Zhenghe expressed amused at the nasal voice he suffocated, he bit his back molars in embarrassment, and whispered slowly: "You hum fart."

Ruan Xi said loudly, "You're a fart."

Lu Zhenghe: "..."

Blinking her eyes, Ruan Xi yawned, decided to divert Lu Zhenghe's attention, and muttered, "The leg still hurts."

As soon as he finished speaking, Lu Zhenghe knelt down on one knee, wrapped his arms around Ruan Xi's waist, and ordered him: "Lean on me."

"what?"

Almost unable to stand still, Ruan Xi felt her legs become weaker, "What are you doing?"

"Rub your legs."

Lu Zhenghe couldn't help but touch the sore muscle on Ruan Xi's thigh with his palm, and squeezed it one by one, from the thigh to the calf, patted and patted, and called him: "Relax, don't be so tight."

As soon as the opponent's body was approaching, Ruan Xi hardly had the strength to stand on one leg. Instead, half of her body leaned heavily on Lu Zhenghe's shoulder, muttering softly: "Take it easy."

After the massage, Ruan Xi staggered to her feet, almost feeling a little better.

Lu Zhenghe said that this is the usual massage method in their army, it can relax the muscles, and if you need it in the future, just say it, and press anywhere on the body.

Hearing what Lu Zhenghe said, Ruan Xi recalled the "pleasure" of being touched on her thigh just now, and couldn't help biting her lower lip. Her mind was in a mess, and she couldn't help thinking about the feeling of being massaged on her waist and abdomen...

It must be very comfortable.

A picture has already appeared in his mind: he turned into a cat, Lu Zhenghe squatted on the ground, scratching his belly with his fingers.

"..."

Ruan Xi shook her head, trying to get this weird picture out of her mind.

·

They joined their companions at the border.

The entire land is vast and abundant, and the weather in areas with few people is even more erratic. It was still thundering and lightning before, but now it has turned into a cloudy sky.The gray sky seemed to cover the whole world.

Wen Kai was hiding under the awning of an abandoned convenience store wearing sunglasses he picked up from nowhere.Beside him were Gu Zirong and Song Shumian, curled up in a corner.The two younger teenagers were so sleepy that they leaned on each other and fell asleep.

It was cloudy and dark, and there were still a few street lamps that were about to lose power outside the abandoned convenience store.The street lamp didn't seem to be able to last much longer, and the ever-burning flame in the lamp head flickered on and off, only illuminating a small area of ​​the surrounding world.

Ruan Xi trotted forward a few steps, smelling a damp smell in the air, it should be raining.

He saw Wen Kai use his middle finger to pull down the sunglasses a little bit, revealing his eyes, his blond hair covered half of his cheeks, and shouted loudly in another direction: "Hey! Can you fucking stop standing under the tree? Just now After the thunder strikes, I am afraid that the thunder will come again and strike you to death."

Under an evergreen cypress tree not far away, Li Shen was holding a telescope.

Hearing Wen Kai crackling and yelling, he had no choice but to turn around and shout to Wen Kai: "Why can't you say something auspicious?"

"I'm talking about you..." Wen Kai looked around casually, his eyes suddenly stopped, "The young master and Ruan Xi are back!"

Li Shen pointed his binoculars at him, and looked at people through the binoculars: "Go back to the fart, if you want to scold, just finish scolding!"

In the binoculars, Wen Kai's double-magnified face smiled slightly, then raised his finger and pointed in a direction next to him.Li Shen moved his arm, and the binoculars followed the direction of Wen Kai's finger - in the camera lens were the expressionless faces of Lu Zhenghe and Ruan Xi.

"Young master!" Li Shen quickly fled under the cypress tree, "standing out" from the emerald green.

As if he was used to his subordinates quarreling, Lu Zhenghe didn't make any comments, but calmly took over the telescope offered by Li Shen, adjusted the distance, raised the telescope, and looked at the next city through the lens tube. direction.

Lu Zhenghe put away his smile, "How long will we have to go to the next city?"

"There's a line here," Li Shen quickly ran to the place where the stele was erected ten meters away, and drew a circular arc on the ground with his toes, the toe of his military boots showed imprints on the slippery ground, "passed It, we have arrived at Key City."

The stele was inconspicuous, standing there alone, the surface was covered with thin rainwater, as if it could be pushed at any time.

A row of big characters was simply engraved on it: "Jewel City-Key City borders the border".

Looking down again, the stele is already shakeable.The footprints on the ground around the stele are fine and small, which is enough to show that many people have walked past here.

Lu Zhenghe guessed that it was the people who had fled before, as well as the people from Jewel City who set off from here.This journey is like this, people from new cities are constantly joining, and people from previous cities are constantly dying, and they are replaced back and forth, always with hope.

"Let's go," Lu Zhenghe ordered with his gun on his back, and turned to them, "Go to the next city."

·

Wen Kai said that Key City is a suitable haven of refuge for looters, thieves and unjust people.

It has no government, no laws, and it is a free city without jurisdiction in the south of the land. As for why it has not been invaded by its neighbors, there is only one reason-everyone who comes to Key City must find it in the city. Only the key that belongs to you can leave here.

Because of this special reason, Key City is also full of strange legends, and many people have come but can't get out.

"What?" Ruan Xi was dumbfounded.

Wen Kai frowned tightly, opened his mouth, sighed, opened his mouth again, and said a fact that made the blood freeze: "It is true, we must find our own key in the city, and then carry it with us, so that we Only then can we leave the border of Key City smoothly."

Ruan Xi said coldly: "The rules are so perverted?"

"Yes."

"What if you can't find it?"

"If the frontier doesn't sense your key, that door won't open for you."

"Isn't the border of Key City long and stretching?"

"This city is not big," Wen Kai said. "Like the next few cities, this is a small border town from the south to the north. It is far less magnificent and prosperous than the city of Ablaze."

"Okay," Ruan Xi nodded, surprised by the rules of these unfamiliar regions. He always thought that these absurd things had disappeared long ago, but he didn't expect that it was really a product that was passed down from generation to generation and could not be separated. "There is no guideline for that." ?"

"We need to go to the office in the city to guess the board."

"Guess the board?"

"There are many wooden tokens, and we have to draw them randomly. The local people believe that it is God's will."

"What god?"

Ruan Xi felt that at this moment, she had 1 question marks above her head.

He suddenly understood the reason why many students failed in land history exams. Everyone is obsessed with astrology and arithmetic, because it is a unified thing for the whole land, but history covers 26 city-states, and there are countless stories passed down for hundreds of thousands of years. .

Wen Kai shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, the whole continent believes in polytheism, you understand."

·

The group of people didn't dare to waste time, so they had to walk towards the center of the city with their equipment on their backs.

Key City is different from the places I stayed in before. It doesn't look like a developed city-state. The whole city is closer to an uncivilized beast city, but traces of human activities can be seen in the forest everywhere.It can be seen that this is still the best hiding place for danger, more like a bottomless abyss.

In front of me was a dark tree corridor.

Due to the geographical reasons of gradually moving to the north, Ruan Xi felt the cold wind blowing through the city penetrate into his body from every gap in his clothes.The parasitic vines are like nooses, and together with the sunless woods, they create a sick and dull atmosphere.

Ruan Xi was afraid of this strange dark jungle from the bottom of her heart, but she had to cheer herself up.

In his mind's eye, there would be monster barks lurking in the blackness, scarlet, glowing eyes, and giant footprints powerful enough to crush vegetation.All this comes from a strange land.

"Look at the road," Lu Zhenghe leaned towards Ruan Xi, "Are you scared?"

Ruan Xi didn't want to admit it: "A little bit."

After finishing speaking, he also hid away from Lu Zhenghe, shrinking his head.Because there was an ugly branch that was overgrown and stretched out in front of him through the dense branches, almost cutting his face.

"He said he wasn't afraid."

Lu Zhenghe grabbed Ruan Xi's hand and pulled it forward. He blocked Ruan Xi's back with a protective posture to protect him and continue to move forward.His palms were wet, as if they had just been soaked by the rain.It was not known whether it was sweat or the humidity of the jungle that soaked it.

Ruan Xi didn't wear gloves or bandages.

Being held by Lu Zhenghe, his rough and cold tactical gloves rubbed against his palm, and he was distracted by the warmth under the bandage.I felt the peace of being touched in my heart.

The darkness in the tree corridor seemed to be half a degree brighter, and water droplets continued to drip from the treetops.Ruan Xi raised her hand to wipe off the water on her eyelashes.

"There is a big tree ahead," Wen Kai pointed to the streetlight not far ahead, "Let's go there and have a rest."

Everyone looked in the direction of Wen Kai's finger.

It was a huge eucalyptus tree obviously standing in the tree gallery, with plump and plump branches, like a platform waiting for vehicles to pass by.

A group of people walked lightly, and walked slowly to the trunk of the eucalyptus tree. The lamp stand above the head, which was entwined with green vines, was emitting a dim light. There was a plant wrapping the wick, which looked very much like a celestial vase-shaped piggreen.

Nervously shaking Lu Zhenghe's fingers, Ruan Xi whispered, "Will there be mucus on it..." The texture of the skin made him want to vomit.

"Then let's stand aside."

"Really?"

"Well, stand behind them."

Seeing his cautious and "sneaky" movements, Ruan Xi became curious and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Don't you want to see the space-time mirror? Show it to you."

"No, I don't want to see me, I want to see you." I was surrounded.

"mine?"

Lu Zhenghe took out the hard object from the pocket of the combat uniform, pondered for a few seconds, and turned his body slightly to the other side, "I want to see mine myself."

"Let's do this," Ruan Xi said with a cold expression. While speaking, he put his hand deep into his trouser pocket, took it out with difficulty, and then stretched out his palm, revealing a colorful dice on his palm. His tone seemed firm and fair. With emotion: "One, three, five, look at yours, two, four, six, look at mine."

Dazed for a moment, Lu Zhenghe laughed at him, "You still brought this?"

Ruan Xi held the dice, raised her chin, and looked provocatively: "I bought it at the market, and I chose it for difficult diseases."

Lu Zhenghe nodded, spread his palms to make a "desktop", and signaled Ruan Xi to throw the dice into his palm, "Then you throw the dice, and I'll catch it when it falls, and then open it to see what it is."

"No regrets."

"No regrets."

When Ruan Xi threw it, the dice fell into Lu Zhenghe's palm. Lu Zhenghe clenched his fist, and then opened his palm under the gaze of the two of them. Two bright purple solid circles appeared on the side where the dice faced upwards.

Oops, careless.

Ruan Xi closed her eyes, thinking about how to deny it.

The corners of his lips were raised, Lu Zhenghe was in a good mood, and he quietly reminded: "Two."

"Give it to me," Ruan Xi pointed to his other hand hidden in the zipper of his clothes, resigned, "but I have a premise..."

"You said."

"After seeing my memories, you are not allowed to laugh."

I didn't think it would be funny at first, but after hearing what Ruan Xi said, Lu Zhenghe's expectations were raised again.He said, "Why am I laughing?"

"Because of me..." Ruan Xi paused, "Maybe I'm in a mess."

There were footsteps of passers-by in the tree corridor. People pushed aside the jungle blocking the way in front of them, and hurriedly rushed towards the place where there was a light source ahead.The leaves were blown by the hunting cold wind, trampled by the restless crowd, and left in place to rattle.

Fortunately, these savagely growing vegetation are large and dense enough to cover the sight of human heights and hide every hidden path in the tree gallery.The breathing creatures couldn't see each other's existence clearly, but they could feel the strange breath around them like a tide.

Ruan Xi and Lu Zhenghe stood in place without moving.

Lu Zhenghe was silent for a few seconds, then touched the back of Ruan Xi's head comfortingly, "Why don't you stop watching?"

"I'm willing to admit defeat."

This is the spoils of war that took a lot of effort to fight for.

Taking the "space-time mirror", Ruan Xi felt that it looked like a small mirror that couldn't be more ordinary on the surface, but the raw material was a rare legendary gem.

With the help of the faint light of the pigweed street lamp, Ruan Xi slowly raised her hand to pick it up until her own face jumped into the mirror.

Sure enough, the scene shown in the gem was as he expected——

First is a piece of sea.

Then, the distance from the coast narrowed, and deserted sandy beaches appeared.The beach seems to have just been washed by the waves, and it is wet, surrounded by reefs that have been washed gray and black by the sea.

This is Ruan Xi's perspective.

Because the space-time mirror can't make a sound, it can only be judged that Ruan Xi is running with the constantly shaking picture.

He was very tired from running, and the corners of the hem of his school uniform were faintly visible at the bottom of the screen, as if he was panting heavily, and he stepped unsteadily on the beach, stumbled, as if he was about to fall.He seemed to be calling something, facing the deserted beach, facing the vast sea, screaming hoarsely, heart-piercing.

The sea at night will eat a man.

The moonlight floated on the surface of the water, carrying it forward.

Lu Zhenghe asked: "Whose name are you calling?"

Ruan Xi was very calm: "Your."

"mine?"

"Well, you seem to have disappeared at this time. After four years, I don't remember very clearly. One night when you were reported missing just now, I was looking for you at the beach for a long time. Everyone said that you were killed by Su because of me. The Caspian Sea was punished. Said that you drowned in the sea. Because you are not the one appointed by God to betrothed to me... But I don't think so. I guess, did you secretly go to the beach to be dazed, and you were swept away by the rushing waves ? So I kept looking for you by the sea.”

"How long have you been looking for it?"

"Two years."

Two years, 730 days, but Ruan Xi said it in two days.The tone of his story is very light, as if it has been more than ten years since this incident, and time has washed away all its luster, "Once there was a lot of rain in ablaze city, I finally learned to drive, so I secretly drove at home. The car in my car wanted to leave Ablaze City to find you. Later, it rained too much and the road was impossible to walk, so I gave up and turned back, hoping to wait for the next opportunity."

"What about in two years?"

Lu Zhenghe smelled his own pheromone smell in his ears, took a deep breath, and felt that the tree corridor made the other party's skin moist.

"I gave up looking for you after two years," Ruan Xi stared blankly at a leaf swaying in the wind in front of her, "I decided that if we meet again, I will definitely beat you up until you die. Kneel on the ground and beg for forgiveness."

"Because you hate me." Lu Zhenghe said.

"A little bit of hate," Ruan Xi didn't dare to look him in the eye, and lowered her eyelashes, "Now I realize... I will still forgive again and again."

There was a glimmer of light on the space-time mirror, and the scene of waves crashing on the beach disappeared, replaced by a deep and quiet bedroom.

The line of sight is still the first angle, Ruan Xi's slender fingers are closed together, and there is a match that is about to burn out between the fingers.

The light of the fire was faint, and with the help of the not-so-bright light in the room, a photo hanging on the wall was taken down—this photo was Ruan Xi and Lu Zhenghe when they were students, standing side by side, wearing school uniforms, and looking at each other at the same level lens.

Then the match was thrown away.

Ruan Xi held the photo in her right hand and a pair of sharp scissors in her left.

The scissors are opened, and the two interlaced blades form an angled arc, and the acute angle is stuck on the midline between the two people in the photo.

Ruan Xi's hands moved, like trembling uncontrollably, and a sigh stuck in her throat.After a stalemate for a while, he put down the scissors and didn't bear to cut out the photo.

The image displayed on the gem is stuck at this second.

The two people in the photo seemed to have smiles on their lips, but the picture became more and more blurred, and then some black shadow flashed past, and then the picture became clear and stopped abruptly.

There is still the sound of the wind blowing through the fallen leaves in the tree gallery.

"Are you crying?"

It was Lu Zhenghe who was speaking.

Looking at the past events that happened a long time ago, Ruan Xi couldn't restrain herself for a while, turned away her face, and wanted to lean towards a place that could not be seen in the dark.He recalled the day when he wanted to cut the photo, but he couldn't remember whether he shed tears or not.

Ruan Xi said calmly, "I'm not crying."

"Not only did you not cut this photo..."

Lu Zhenghe whispered in a low voice, the voice echoed in the warmth, "You still took it on the road."

Key·56 "It turns out that we not only fight, but also quarrel."