How to Feed an Abyss!

Chapter 73.2 – Memories of the Past

The next day, Lu Tinghan came back.

He did not break his promise. In the morning, he accompanied Shi Yuan to the scientific research center and watched him do experiments.

Lu Tinghan asked Professor Guan: “Are there any results?”

“No,” Professor Guan sighed, “This is a protracted battle. How can it be so simple? More than a dozen detectors have been scrapped in the past few days. Do you know what the only result is?”

“What?”

“My red bean cakes are all gone.”

“It’s going to expire anyway,” General Lu said, “It’s okay to eat all of them.”

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Shi Yuan and Lu Tinghan left.

Shi Yuan got into Lu Tinghan’s car and found that the co-pilot had put a bunch of xuejian flowers.

“Wow!” His eyes widened. “Where did you get it?”

Since the fall of Gleaning City, even Lu Tinghan couldn’t find a few flowers.

“I saw it in the main city,” Lu Tinghan said, “By chance, I saw someone raising it on the balcony. I sent an adjutant to ask if it was for sale, and the man quickly divided the bunch.”

Shi Yuan happily returned home with Xuejian flowers in his arms and put them in a vase.

“I don’t know how many days it will last.” He put on clean water and tried to tidy up the bouquet. “The flowers I raised last time withered quickly.”

“They just bloomed and can last for at least a week or two.” Lu Tinghan boiled water in the kitchen, made two cups of green tea, and put it on the table. “If they wither, I’ll find a way to buy them again.”

“Can you still buy it?” Shi Yuan said, “I heard them say that most of the flowers are raised in Gleaning City.”

“Yes, almost all flowers are planted in Gleaning City.” Lu Tinghan smiled. “I can’t guarantee that I will find it, but I will try my best.”

“What about the seven-colored roses?”

“Shi Yuan, there are really no seven-colored roses in this world.”

Shi Yuan dropped his tail a little disappointed.

He fiddled with it, but the flowers were still crooked and just wouldn’t obey. Lu Tinghan walked over and once again helped him organize the flowers beautifully.

Shi Yuan looked at the blooming flowers and suddenly said, “I really want to go to the Grand Theater. At that time, every time the performance was over, many flowers were thrown on the stage.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Lu Tinghan said in his ear, “I have seen many of your performances, all of which are wonderful.”

“Is it—is it impossible for us to go back?” Shi Yuan asked, “Back to Gleaning City.”

“When is it impossible for you to go back?”

“Without humans, the city is different,” Shi Yuan thought for a while, “Qin Luoluo told me that there was a sea of flowers every day when the Grand Theater was at its peak. Eventually, the theater returned to the sea of flowers again.”

—The infected flowers came overwhelming and bloomed vigorously.

He could still remember how those flowers embraced the stage.

Lu Tinghan asked, “Do you like Gleaning City or here?”

“I like them both,” Shi Yuan replied.

In the evening, they drank green tea and played Sudoku together.

Lu Tinghan said: “This book is more difficult, we can start with the simple one.”

Shi Yuan bit the tip of his pen: “Let’s do this one. You bought it when you were a kid.”

So, Lu Tinghan taught slowly, Shi Yuan learned slowly, and finally answered the sudoku on his own.

By 10 o’clock, they were lying in bed.

Lu Tinghan leaned on the bed to read a book, Shi Yuan was in his arms, satisfied to be touched.

When he finished purring, he suddenly asked, “Lu Tinghan, do you have anything to say?”

Lu Tinghan looked at him.

Under the warm yellow light at the head of the bed, his side face was handsome but didn’t have the usual toughness – every time he looked at Shi Yuan, he always showed his softest side.

He kissed Shi Yuan’s hair and whispered, “…I just think you are very nice. You have no reservations about what you like and what you love. You obviously have great power, but you are still so kind.”

Shi Yuan was stunned for a while, then suddenly said, “But, this is what you taught me ah.”

Lu Tinghan was startled: “Huh?”

Shi Yuan: “Lu Tinghan, do you remember that sketch?”

“Which one?”

“I found a sketch you drew in the book.” Shi Yuan got out of bed, ran to the living room barefoot, pulled out the sketch paper from the book, and brought it back. “This one.”

On the sketch paper are Lu Tinghan’s eight-year-old brushstrokes, drawing flowers and light, and Shi Yuan looking at him with a smile.

Lu Tinghan had always wanted to ask about this. During this period of time, he was too busy so it was delayed to this day, but Shi Yuan discovered it.

Shi Yuan said, “I know you forgot, otherwise, you will definitely recognize me – this is the first time we have met. You came to me across the wasteland, when there were xuejian flowers blooming everywhere.”

Met for the first time?

Lu Tinghan looked at the sketch and tried to remember. He heard Cai Deyuan say that when he was a child, he disappeared in the wasteland for two days and came back with a high fever. Fortunately, he was not infected. But his memory about it was blank, and he couldn’t remember anything.

“Think about it a little more.” Shi Yuan looked at him with jet-black eyes. “You must still remember me. You can always find me.”

On this night, Lu Tinghan held Shi Yuan in his arms, and Shi Yuan’s face gradually overlapped with the boy in the drawing, without any difference, as if those twenty years had never existed.

The wind outside the house blew and whistled, blowing a few wisps of rain and sticking to the window sill. The winding lightning struck, Shi Yuan buried his head, leaning against the quilt and Lu Tinghan’s embrace, hiding from the blast of thunder.

Then, the dusty memories began to loosen—

Thunderstorms, convoys, and towering city walls.

The wind, the wasteland, and the swaying sea of xuejian flowers.

Lu Tinghan remembered the past.

—23 years ago, due to a thunderstorm, Lu Tinghan’s aircraft was unable to land in the main city. Instead, he went to the outpost and transferred to the convoy.

The 8-year-old Lu Tinghan followed the convoy and wandered through the wasteland.

He was the child of Lu Zhun and Yu Qingmei, and naturally, he received priority care. But on the third day of the trip, an accident happened.

The convoy met a large number of infected Xuejian flowers.

Xuejian was the only plant that was not infectious and aggressive after being infected. The only harm was probably that some people would be allergic to its pollen. People said that as the flower of the Alliance, it had been blessed by Heaven, and the heroic spirits of countless ancestors inhabited it.

That night, a large number of xuejian flowers blossomed vigorously in the wasteland, exuding a faint light, striking and beautiful, and there was no end in sight.

The convoy did not dare to relax at all: they were notified that Abyss No.3 and Abyss No.0 were restless.

This was the first time Abyss No.0 was agitated.

If the threat of Abyss No. 3 was foreseeable, then no one knew what the restlessness of Abyss No.0 represented.

Everyone was hurriedly packing their things, and no one noticed in the chaos that an 8-year-old child had secretly ran away.

—Lu Tinghan was originally sitting in the car, watching the two soldiers take off the spare tires and then check the ammunition of the guns, but suddenly noticed something and turned his head suddenly.

Behind them was a large sea of xuejian flowers.

But he clearly felt it, and he clearly “knew” that there was someone at the end of the sea of flowers!

He jumped out of the car, found a soldier, and said, “There is someone in the sea of flowers.”

“Who is there?” The soldier who was covered with oil, wiped his sweat with the back of his hand, and said impatiently, “Go and play inside, how can anyone be there? You hurry up in the car and sit down, don’t cause trouble.”

Lu Tinghan: “I—”

“If you don’t listen, I’ll lock you in the car!” the soldier threatened, “Didn’t you hear? Abyss No.0 is going crazy. Now is not the time to joke!”

He walked away.

Other soldiers were also busy in the distance, and the call in the sea of flowers became clearer and more urgent, Lu Tinghan felt its restlessness and…loneliness.

And this loneliness, in this world, only he could perceive it.

Even a child knew how dangerous the wasteland was, not to mention Lu Tinghan, who had already begun to teach himself the infection characteristics of monsters.

But Lu Tinghan only hesitated for a moment and walked towards the sea of flowers.

He thought to himself, ‘that person should be not far away. I’ll just walk for a few minutes – just a few minutes, I can find him and bring him back to the convoy.’

‘Only I can hear his cry.’

‘Of course, I want to find him.’

The child walked towards the sea of flowers, and with every step he took, white petals gently lifted with each step.

He didn’t notice that the hazy pollen enveloped him and confused his vision, while the sea of flowers under his feet surged like a tide, taking him to the end of the world. With every step he took, the sea of flowers carried him forward for countless kilometers.

It was like a child chasing a bird and a deer in a fairy tale, getting lost in the forest without knowing where he was.

This was a road paved by the xuejian flowers, leading him to the very end of the wasteland.

Towards a soul that had been lonely for tens of millions of years.