abnabooks Chapter 109 : Chapter 109
Chapter 109 : Chapter 109
Chapter 109
The blond, green-eyed young man carried a lantern in one hand as he walked beneath the shade of the Tree Sea. When he looked back at the Tree Sea behind them for the second time, he used the communication frequency unique to trees to give the plant Aberrants whispering in the darkness a small warning.
“What are they saying?”
A probing smile touched the lips of the youth following behind him.
[Nothing. They are only discussing your identity.] Now that he had reached the crest of the hill, Emerald sighed with nostalgia. [I have not seen a scene like this in decades. I never expected that after so many years, I would still hear such conversations.]
“Then it is a pity that I cannot understand them.” Following Emerald’s gaze into the distance, Ji Qing’s voice carried a faint trace of regret.
To the current Ji Qing, it was like standing before a group of foreigners conversing in their native tongue.
He could sense that the trees were discussing something related to him, yet he did not know what they were saying. The frequency of the trees’ communication was somewhat like the constantly pulsing electromagnetic traces on a medical monitor; it required a specific method to decipher.
The moment Ji Qing said that, a flicker of surprise appeared in Emerald’s eyes.
“Did I say something wrong?” Ji Qing frowned.
“No—” Emerald steadied himself and shook his head. “You said the same thing long ago, when we first met.”
“That sounds like it was a long time ago.” Ji Qing’s brows relaxed at once. But then, thinking of something, he looked up and studied Emerald with dissatisfaction. “So using Telepathy the whole time earlier really was a test? You could speak human language all along…”
“I simply cannot read written text,” Emerald replied calmly. “Plants are mostly inert. We dislike change, so under normal circumstances, we do not leave the places where we were born.” He paused, then added, “Still, after many years of cultural exposure, I can understand some writing.”
“Though you still do not like typing.” Ji Qing shrugged helplessly.
“Strictly speaking, I simply do not understand the connection between syllables and written characters,” Emerald corrected with a solemn expression. “I cannot understand why they use completely different syllables to represent writing. It is a very strange thing, is it not?”
“That would involve human history,” Ji Qing said.
“Human history has nothing to do with me,” Emerald declared stiffly.
“All right. Let us just say that it does not.” Ji Qing held back a laugh.
Ji Qing quickened his pace and rapidly caught up with Emerald. The ground beneath his feet gave off a faint, soft sensation, as though he might sink into a hollow underground space the very next second.
There were probably quite a few cavities below, Ji Qing thought inwardly.
Above the lush branches of the Tree Sea, the clouds at the horizon had already been dyed brilliant purple and warm gold. The sun was about to set, yet inside the Tree Sea Restricted Zone, where the trees grew thick and dense, light and heat had already vanished, leaving behind nothing but dimness.
The only source of light before Ji Qing was the lantern in Emerald’s hand.
“Where are you taking me?” Ji Qing asked.
Emerald suddenly stopped and teased with a smile, “You really do forget things easily. Licheng is right ahead, is it not?”
“Licheng?” Ji Qing’s voice took on a hint of confusion, but he quickly shook his head. “Please do not expect too much from someone with amnesia. Right now, I do not even understand the most basic circumstances.”
Emerald was briefly stunned, then murmured softly, “That was my oversight. Though now I do find myself hoping this situation lasts a little longer.”
“Hm?”
“Nothing, my king.” Emerald shook his head seriously.
He lifted the lantern in his left hand and pointed with his right toward the black houses faintly visible through the mist in the distance. “It is right ahead. As you requested, I have already cleared Licheng of the Infected. From here on, let me explain everything to you.”
“…Thank you,” Ji Qing said hesitantly.
Before meeting him, Ji Qing really had instructed Emerald to come alone, saying that he did not want to run into anyone else. He simply had not expected Emerald to interpret it in such an unconventional way—
Ji Qing’s idea of clearing the area: the two of them meeting in some empty wilderness outside the city.
Emerald’s idea of clearing the area: remove all the people.
Could that still be considered a roundabout success?
Ji Qing almost laughed to himself, but soon he could not help asking, “What kind of ‘cleared out’ are we talking about exactly?”
“I drove them all out, of course.” Emerald smiled. But after recalling something unpleasant, his tone turned cold. “If it were not necessary to maintain the stability of the organization, I could slaughter an entire city on the spot and tear a certain someone to pieces.”
Ji Qing: “…”
Could that “certain someone” possibly be Red Heart?
To be honest, Ji Qing finally understood why Emerald had such a strong attraction for Red Heart. Emerald’s true form was a plant Aberrant, while Red Heart looked very much like someone infected by an herbivore such as a rabbit.
It was perfectly normal for Red Heart to think Emerald smelled sweet and delicious. The two of them were on opposite ends of the food chain, so naturally their likes and dislikes would correspond as well.
Ji Qing subconsciously looked toward the black houses in the distance.
Although there was still a great deal he did not understand, Ji Qing vaguely felt that the current situation was not bad at all. The identity puzzle that had been troubling him had finally seen a breakthrough, and he had at last found a companion with whom he could talk about identity.
Though…
Ji Qing laughed at himself inwardly.
This was probably also the reason he still could not recover his memory. Ji Qing had never really felt any crushing pressure from this whole sequence of events. Or rather, ever since he met the System, whenever he encountered a problem, he could talk it over with the System, occasionally read the analyses of manga readers, and then tease Xie Chang’an now and then…
If there was pressure, then yes, there was some, but not that much.
The anxiety and unease of arriving in a strange world had been eased considerably by the existence of the manga and the System. Ji Qing had always liked reading manga, and now he could personally participate in the manga’s plot, while also occasionally looking at how he was being judged within it. The only downside was that every now and then, he missed home.
Home…
Ji Qing’s eyes darkened all at once.
For the rest of the journey, Ji Qing completely lost the desire to speak.
He quietly followed Emerald toward that unknown town, and when the last red glow in the sky faded away, the two of them finally reached the edge of the town.
Emerald first swept his gaze across the surroundings, then led Ji Qing toward a house with a red pointed roof.
Click—
The old wooden door gave a dull sound.
Emerald quickly stepped inside. After quietly observing the surroundings, Ji Qing followed him through the door.
Night had fallen, and darkness gradually spread across the land.
Emerald casually set the Kerosene Lamp on the dining table in the living room. Its wick burned fiercely in the dark room, the orange flame leaping constantly like a brilliant bonfire in the night.
After gently pulling the door shut, Ji Qing took a seat across from Emerald.
The air inside was somewhat stifling, and the corridor they had passed through was thick with dust, yet only the table and chairs in the living room were clean and tidy. Ji Qing guessed inwardly that Emerald had probably cleaned them specially before setting out.
But he had only cleaned the things he himself would use? Ji Qing suddenly found that amusing.
Ji Qing soon noticed green vines resembling ivy growing through the cracks in the wall beside the living room window. The roots of the vines secreted acidic substances that allowed them to cling tightly to the cement-and-stone wall, and the wall had consequently become damaged and fragile.
“It looks like no one has lived here for a very long time,” Ji Qing said softly.
The Tree Sea Restricted Zone had formed fifteen years ago, yet Federation records from fifteen years ago did not mention the existence of any such small town beside the freshwater lake. Presumably, this town had been abandoned by humans long before those fifteen years.
“Yes.” Emerald nodded, his tone calm. “After all, this place is quite close to the Tree Sea. If people fall asleep here at night, they are easily lured into the Tree Sea by the pollen it releases. And the Dawn Society only uses the outer half of the town that lies farther from the Tree Sea.”
The Infected were still human, Ji Qing silently added to himself.
He quickly asked, “Did you receive the World Book?”
“I did.” Emerald paused, then said with a faint note of grievance, “Originally, I thought you would return with the World Book yourself. I did not expect that in the end, you would only send Red Heart back with it. You have no idea how I felt at the time.”
Ji Qing: “…”
Ji Qing awkwardly covered his face and emphasized, “Please stop bringing that up. You are making me feel like an awful person. And also… stop speaking so formally with me. I told you that before too, did I not?”
“Of course you did.” Emerald casually brushed back his hair.
The room suddenly fell silent.
Seeing that Emerald did not intend to dwell further on his earlier actions, Ji Qing finally lowered the hand covering his face. The first thing that came into view was Emerald’s stunning beauty—those emerald-green eyes, golden hair, high nose bridge, together with his inhuman aura…
He could practically pass for an elf, Ji Qing thought inwardly.
So Ji Qing said, “Has anyone ever told you that you are very good-looking?”
Emerald did not find the question strange in the least. Smiling gently, he said, “On the day you first saw my Human Form, you said the same thing. At the time, you also said that putting a beautiful vase in the house was pleasing to both the eye and the heart.”
Ji Qing raised a brow. “…”
For some reason, Ji Qing suddenly felt that he could more or less guess how his pre-amnesia self had regarded Emerald. To avoid any further trouble, Ji Qing simply asked outright, “Emerald, may I ask you something? Did I often disappear for ten days or half a month at a time, and then come back and… well, talk to you about strange things?”
“Do the things we just discussed count as strange things in your eyes?”
“They do.”
“Then that was probably the case.”
Ji Qing fell silent. “…I understand.”
Damn. So it really was like that.
While inwardly condemning his past self, Ji Qing also could not help feeling that he had probably been living quite well back then. He had once sighed to the System that he was “rather suited to keeping pets in a fixed residence,” but he had never imagined that he had directly treated one of his own kind as a pet.
No, wait—
Emerald’s true form was a plant. In other words, what he had actually been raising was a Potted Plant.
Ji Qing fell silent at that thought and told himself that he had probably just found a telepathic plant interesting. Since it did not seem all that dangerous, he had likely decided to keep it around for a while and see what happened.
But once he had “raised” it…
The earlier information about the Tree Sea as an S-Rank Danger Zone resurfaced in Ji Qing’s mind once more.
Tree Sea, S-Rank Danger Zone, currently Lordless.
Emerald, a plant Aberrant, capable of using Telepathy with Aberrants of other species.
Two things that should have had nothing to do with each other suddenly connected in Ji Qing’s mind. Unable to bear looking directly at the implication, he covered his eyes and thought:
Just what on earth did you raise…?