How to Feed an Abyss!

Chapter 114.2 – Revisiting the Hometown

After Shi Yuan woke up, he leaned to the window and saw the black abyss watchtower, standing alone on the wasteland, next to an endless cypress forest.

This was a familiar place for both of them.

The aircraft stopped under the tower. Shi Yuan followed Lu Tinghan through simple defensive measures, opened the tower gate, and walked all the way up. The top of the tower had a wide view of the wilderness and cypress forest, only the place that was once an abyss was empty.

Shi Yuan came to the watcher’s cabin for the first time. The furniture was still there, the bed, table, kitchen, communication equipment, and emergency equipment… The room was narrow, but if only one or two people lived there, it was still comfortable enough.

Shi Yuan: “Wow! Have you been staying in this room?”

“That’s right.” Lu Tinghan picked up the two small wooden sculptures on the table, “As I said before, the condition for Teacher Su to let me come is to continue to participate in the command – after all, you are a very quiet abyss, and I don’t have much to do. Usually, I use the optical brain to command battles, and I go back to the city for a few weeks every four to six months to deal with affairs, and then come back.”

Shi Yuan had heard Lu Tinghan talk about these things.

He said, “Oh…what is the thing in your hand?”

“I carved it with a knife.” Lu Tinghan showed him the sculpture, “I didn’t feel like sketching for a few days, so I tried something new.

“You can still carve.” Shi Yuan took it and saw two vivid and lively monsters. One was a combination of a squirrel and a rabbit, gnashing its teeth and grinning, while the other was also a combination of a squirrel and a rabbit, also gnashing its teeth and grinning.

Shi Yuan said, “Wow, you are amazing. You carved this, um, this squirrel and rabbit so well.”

“What squirrel and rabbit?” Lu Tinghan glanced at him inexplicably, “That’s a whale and a wolf.”

Shi Yuan: ???

He looked at the two sculptures in his hand and pondered for a long time. Even he understood that there was not even a slight connection between these two things.

He sincerely said: “Lu Tinghan, you are really not good at all arts except sketching.”

“Really.” Lu Tinghan obviously didn’t believe it, just as he didn’t believe that the violin he played was unpleasant, “I think I carved it well.”

Shi Yuan walked around the house a few more times, looking for something interesting. Lu Tinghan emptied the room when he left, but this was where he had lived for many years. No matter what, there would be traces, such as scratches on the table, a few old books in the corner, and brass bullets left under the bed. Shi Yuan imagined how the 18-year-old Lu Tinghan came here and how he lived with loneliness for ten years.

He also discovered a huge telescope, with a precise structure, facing the wasteland.

He asked, “What is this?”

Lu Tinghan: “……”

Lu Tinghan coughed twice: “This is for observing the abyss.”

Shi Yuan: ?

Shi Yuan: ? !

He stared at the telescope which was two people high and his ears slowly turned red.

He said, “Ah! This is too rogue!” He said again, “…you still drew so many pictures of me on the sketchpad!”

For Shi Yuan, this was tantamount to the p*rverted behavior of being peeped by human beings with high intensity and no blind spots, and drawing nude photos.

Lu Tinghan coughed twice again: “Who knew you could become a human?”

Shi Yuan was unhappy for a while and then was attracted by the radio at the head of the bed.

Lu Tinghan just changed the subject and explained: “Sometimes I listen to the radio.”

“Is there music?” Shi Yuan asked.

He could imagine that Lu Tinghan used to lean on the head of the bed to read a book, with the sound of the radio as the background sound, turning over pages.

“Yes.” Lu Tinghan started to play with the radio, then went back to the aircraft and brought portable energy.

After some tossing, the radio finally lit up, and a row of radio stations appeared, but now they were all silent and lost their sound. Fortunately, there was still some music that came with the radio.

Lu Tinghan said: “There are rock, jazz, classical music, and previous popular music. Which one do you want to listen to?”

Shi Yuan: “Is there a waltz?”

“There should be.” Lu Tinghan looked for it, and the radio played slow three-beat dance music, which was melodious and continuous.

Shi Yuan’s tail began to sway: “Let’s dance!”

They hadn’t danced together for a long time. The radio was placed on the window sill, and the setting sun brilliantly ignited stratus clouds, passed through the window, and fell on them. Lu Tinghan held Shi Yuan’s waist, and the two of them danced in the rhythm of waltz – it would have been perfect if Shi Yuan hadn’t stepped on his feet.

Lu Tinghan whispered in his ear: “Shi Yuan, you really didn’t do it on purpose? You can step on me twice in three steps.”

“No, I did not,” Shi Yuan promised, “I’m working hard.”

Then he stepped on Lu Tinghan again.

Fortunately, Lu Tinghan had long been used to it, and his expression did not change, and continued to lead him to tilt and turn. The elongated shadows of the two of them floated in the room.

Round and round.

The dance steps were light and fast.

Three pieces of music were played, then the radio beeped a few times before the screen went black.

They stood on the window sill and kissed, Lu Tinghan lowered his eyes slightly, and Shi Yuan closed his eyes in his arms.

No matter how many times they kissed, this little devil just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. Lu Tinghan saw Shi Yuan’s eyelashes cast a small shadow, and the black scales at the end of his right eye submerged into his temples. The devil horns and long tail were both strange and beautiful, and every hair tip was dripping with soft light in the setting sun. Behind him, there was the endless wasteland, the lush cypress forest, and a circle of burning and falling sunset.

After the kiss was over, they stood by the window watching the sunset.

Lu Tinghan whispered: “It’s been so long.”

“Yes,” Shi Yuan said, “It’s been so long.”

The setting sun fell, and the sky light seemed to escape to the horizon. Everything was dim, they left the watchtower, and the cypress tree and the tower body became silhouettes.

The cold wind was blowing gloomily, and Lu Tinghan asked Shi Yuan to put on his coat, hugged him, and asked, “Is this the autumn outing you imagined?”

“Well, it’s similar to what I thought!” Shi Yuan replied, “No wonder humans like autumn outings. What about you? Did you have fun?”

“How can I not have fun with you?” Lu Tinghan said with a smile, “It’s just that my feet hurt a little bit.”

Shi Yuan suddenly bent his eyes with a smile, stood on tiptoe and kissed Lu Tinghan’s cheek as a gesture of apology, but Lu Tinghan pinched his cheek. The two walked back to the aircraft with a smile. It was late, and white fog came out every time they said a word.

The aircraft left the ground and headed back towards the main city.

*

Later, Shi Yuan continued to help fold the flowers.

When people nearby heard about this, more and more people came. People gathered in the handicraft factory in their free time, folding paper flowers while chatting. The topics they talked about were endless, and in the end, they would always return to “Deep Dive”.

Most of the time Shi Yuan listened silently, occasionally picking up a few words, but he never stayed too late.

Everyone knew him, and several times they wanted to keep him and chat with him until late. Shi Yuan smiled and refused: “No, there’s still someone waiting for me at home!”

So everyone could see that Shi Yuan must have someone he loved deeply.

The day of “Deep Dive” was approaching day by day.

When Shi Yuan left the handicraft factory one day, he thought for a while and took away a handful of paper flowers that he had folded.

The next day, he went to the woods outside the city, stepped across the stream, and stepped on the patches of light among the leaves. A group of little monsters walked with him, quickly climbed over the stones and roots of the trees, and poked their heads to look at him.

He had been here many times.

The mountains in the distance were submerged in the white mist, ethereal and dreamlike. Dewdrops hung on the leaves, and he walked all the way to the deep mountains. There were all kinds of monsters along the way, magnificent old trees, sharp strange rocks, pairs of blue birds, golden fish swimming…

Shi Yuan and they all knew each other.

Just as he told Lu Tinghan, he gradually learned to get along with monsters.

Until he came to the end of the mountain forest, vaguely, there was a touch of silver-white swimming on the continuous mountain peaks, and the scales shone.

It was a giant snake coiled in the mountain, towering and huge, without a head or tail.

Shi Yuan saw it by chance and came to look for it several times, but he couldn’t get close to it every time. He brought paper flowers here today, just to give them to the giant snake.

He thought, since he liked flowers, maybe there were other monsters who liked them too.

“Swish—swish—”

The giant snake swam its body, its scales looming in the mist.

“Wait!” Shi Yuan shouted, “Don’t go!”

He was worried about the giant snake escaping again and rushed over to it.

He ran so fast that the wind swept up the leaves and petals, only to see the huge form moving farther and farther away, hiding in the fog, and almost disappearing.

“Wait!” he shouted again.

The forest was so full of grass that it was hard to see the path. He suddenly stepped in the air and fell down the broken slope.

Shi Yuan: ! !

For a while, the sky was spinning, and he seemed to hit something. Fortunately, the hillside was not high. He kept his balance with his tail in the air and fell softly into the grass.

He was unscathed, but there was a little pain in the back.

Shi Yuan sat up dizzily and looked back. A thick black branch also fell. It was probably because he broke the branch when he fell, no wonder his back hurt.

“Swish—”

There was another sound of scales rubbing against the trees. Shi Yuan looked up, and the huge snake actually turned around, lowered its head, and looked at him.

It had glazed eyes.

The paper flowers were broken and scattered all over the place. There were peach blossom-like pale pink new flowers on the branch.

“…” Shi Yuan picked up the black branch, and with great effort, he raised it to the giant snake, and said, “My gift is broken, let me give you this!”

The peach blossoms trembled in the chilly wind, and the boy’s voice echoed in the valley.

He said: “I like flowers. Hope you will like it too!”

The wind was blowing loudly and whistling. After an unknown period of time, the behemoth moved.

“Swish swish—”

The scales rubbed against the peaks, and it slowly lowered its head.

In the mist of the mountains, the white snake held the flowers.