This time I chose Paladin.

Chapter 65 Come with me (referring to the bicycle)
As the sun rises and the moon sets, all things grow. The friction between the alien earthlings and the local monsters gradually increases, and the battle never stops, just like a daily job.

And on a sunny day, Nie Weiyang was ready to leave Langcheng again.

He still wore sunglasses, but this time they not only concealed his strange eyes, but also blocked out light—after all, that was the original purpose of sunglasses, right? Although he didn't need them for that purpose...

But the question now is...

He has no car.

The motorcycle died on the battlefield and turned into ashes in a cloud of smoke. The people cleaning the battlefield picked up the few remaining pieces of its broken shell. Nie Weiyang found a place to bury this relic from Earth two days ago and also put a wooden sign in front of it as a tombstone.

R.I.P.
This time he was leaving, he first had to get a good enough means of transportation. Before that, he planned to walk, but Xiang Feng stopped him while pushing a bicycle.

Nie Weiyang stood before the Blood Moon Rising Battle Monument in Langcheng Cemetery, watching several Craftsman players tinkering with their craft. He saw some familiar names on the monument, but he didn't look at them much, nor did he think much about them.

He simply put down the bouquet of flowers in his hand.

He had picked this this morning from the banks of the Langcheng River—the sun had risen, and order had returned to the world. It should be deep winter now, but the temperature felt more like an extended autumn. Autumn has flowers, long-lived flowers, but also flowers that kill all other flowers.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

Xiang Feng first handed him a small package, then patted his side. It was a not-so-new bicycle.

"There's sugar in the bag. The canteen staff made it from beetroot. I know you don't need it, but they wanted you to try it... As for this bicycle, it was brought by a child," he said. "The child saved up three years of pocket money to buy it. He held it in his arms like a treasure during the delivery. Now that he knows you need a means of transportation, he insisted on giving it to you."

Nie Weiyang was holding the bag of candy in his hand. He turned his gaze and saw a beautiful off-road bicycle next to Xiang Feng. Further away, at the entrance of the cemetery, two boys who looked to be in junior high or high school were looking at him nervously. One of them had dyed yellow hair, and the other had a tuft of green hair highlighted.

"Theirs?" he asked again.

"The one with yellow hair is called Xiang Bang, and the other is called Liu Yu. They are cousins." Xiang Feng had a strange expression on his face. "I don't know what their parents think..."

What Xiang Yu and Liu Bang.

Nie Weiyang was a little nervous. He looked at the bicycle again, thought for a moment, and asked, "Is there anything they want?"

"I asked them too, and they said they didn't want anything except this," Xiang Feng flipped his hand and took out a notebook with the words "Wild Grass Identification Class" written on it from his backpack. The handwriting in it had a kind of neat but ugly quality.

He handed the notebook to Nie Weiyang and stuffed a pen into his hand.

"Write it," he said.

Nie Weiyang was stunned: "...What to write?"

"Signature and message. You didn't let us give you a farewell party, but you know how much we all feel about you." Xiang Feng's voice took a rough turn: "Great~Hero~"

Nie Weiyang felt goosebumps all over his body. He couldn't help but take a step back and glanced at the two children from a distance. They were staring at him and the paper and pen in his hand nervously and excitedly.

"... Help me think of what to write." He gritted his teeth.

This must be a very important moment for the children. First of all, he must not spoil the fun, and secondly, he must choose his words carefully, because he himself was once a child, and he knows very well that if a person receives a message from the person he admires in his teens, this message may even become the proposition of his life.

"I don't know." Xiang Feng answered simply, "I have no experience. Try your best."

“…” Nie Weiyang looked at him with an indescribable look.

——What about loyalty?

“…”Xiang Feng turned around and looked at the monument.

——I don’t understand what you are saying.

Nie Weiyang: “…”

Haha. Brother, you have changed.

He glanced at the two children in the distance again, pondered for a moment, lowered his head and began writing, quickly scribbling a line of words. He then closed the book, finished writing, and handed the item back to Xiang Feng. In the distance, he could faintly hear two excited cheers, which brought a smile to his face.

By now, the stonemasons had come down from the scaffolding, and stone dust floated in the sunlight like a soft mist. Xiang Feng looked at the monument, which was densely covered with the names of nearly 30,000 people. Familiar names.

This is a list of names of casualties. Nie Weiyang was just looking at this. He hopes that he will see less of this in the future, and it would be best if he doesn't see it at all.

The wind blew away the stone mist, and Xiang Feng's gaze slowly slid down, following each name and landing at the bottom.

There is a passage written there.

[-Will we fall into this heavy rain?
-
Yes, we do.
-
Heavy rain will wash away our blood, and we will merge into the water veins.
-
We will be one with the plants and trees, one with the birds. We will accompany all things as they grow until the sun rises.
-
When the rain stops and the sun shines on the plains again, the breeze stirs the leaves, and animals travel across the mountains and rivers, their footprints spread all over the place.
-
By then, the world will become beautiful and noisy again, and the echoes of all things will fall on your ears.
-
We are back to see you.

Xiang Feng remained silent, and so did Nie Weiyang. After a long pause, he suddenly asked Nie Weiyang, "Are you really not going to say goodbye?"

"I don't like saying goodbye, and I don't like seeing people for the last time." Nie Weiyang said calmly, "What are you going to do next?"

"We're maintaining internal development while exploring outward." Xiang Feng's expression grew slightly more serious. "We've already established contact with the city, but for some reason, the radio isn't working... We can only rely on messengers to deliver messages."

"Radio..." Nie Weiyang thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, "How much energy do you have?"

"29 o'clock." Xiang Feng's expression turned stern.

"If there are still free attribute points, give them a little and upgrade it to level 30," said Nie Weiyang.

Xiang Feng closed his eyes, quickly adjusted his attributes, then opened his eyes and looked at Nie Weiyang.

Nie Weiyang lowered his head and spoke in a low voice, "It's not that the radio can't be used—something has changed in this world. All artificial signals will be transmitted directly to a place called the 'Netherworld.' Only by using the 'Netherworld Signal Transceiver' powered by the 'Netherworld Crystal' can normal communication links in human cognition be established.

"The cause of this problem is called [Definition Boundary Offset]."

Xiang Feng felt a slight headache. His eyes twitched slightly, and his breathing trembled slightly... But he quickly grasped the key point of the question: "...What caused it to happen?"

Nie Weiyang shook his head: "I can't say."

Xiang Feng knew this was probably because his spiritual attributes weren't strong enough. He took a deep breath and asked, "So, is there anything else I should know?"

Nie Weiyang pondered for a moment and said, "The shift in the definition boundary is constant. Only a space completely isolated from the outside world, devoid of life and thought, can prevent this shift."

"Where can I find such space..." Xiang Feng muttered, and suddenly stopped: "'Backpack'?!"

"Yes." Nie Weiyang shrugged slightly.

So from the very beginning, he put some information and knowledge carriers into his backpack, and there is still a complete information backup in it. He is not planning to take it out now.

Because this space, where there are no living things, spirits, or thoughts, is actually the safest place for the "Boundary War."

"Also, we should abandon our complete reliance on existing military technology as soon as possible. Technology needs to be updated to avoid this kind of harm," Nie Weiyang said. "This harm targets targets similar to those we once faced, so we must make changes... Now, even if the old nuclear bombs are brought in, they will gradually lose their effectiveness. In other words, they will be of no 'great use.'"

"Because if they explode, it will only cause widespread damage to the environment, and then a bunch of bosses will emerge and target the culprits and beat them to death."

The principle behind this matter is the same as the cause of the three-headed water snake - the damage caused by nuclear bombs to the environment is much more terrible than humans catching a few fish.

Xiang Feng was silent for a long time, and the storm-like pain in his head gradually subsided.

He asked cautiously, "So... how do we define the boundaries...?"

Nie Weiyang thought for a moment, then pulled a candy from his small bag. The yellowish crystal shone softly and alluringly between his fingers.

"This candy is sugar. But I could also call it 'salt,'" he said. "As long as everyone says it's salt, after one generation, it will be called 'sugar, also called salt.' After two generations, it will be 'a kind of salt, formerly called sugar.' After three generations, it will be 'salt.'

“The change in the definition of boundaries is to significantly shorten the process of acting on the collective unconscious and, in turn, to change the phenomenon through the power of the collective unconscious in some vague and ambiguous ways.

“This manifests itself in various forms, but from now on, sugar is salt.”

　Knights of Cydonia - Muse
　　The song from the Halo 5 trailer, Hao Ting
　　Enjoying music is one of life's greatest blessings.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)