Before everything goes out

On the path leading out of the village, a young man carrying a hoe struck up a conversation.

"Has Teacher Lin eaten yet?"

"Just ate."

"You seem to be in a good mood. Where are the three of you going for fun?"

"Take them for a walk."

"It's dangerous in the mountains, you can't go in!"

"It's alright, it's just at the foot of the mountain, let's climb that old oak tree."

"Sure! The sun's shining brightly this afternoon!"

The three walked side by side on a country road.

Bai Xiaowu walked in the middle, carrying a tattered little cloth bag on his back, containing something unknown, which jingled as he walked.

"Teacher Lin, he said we are a family of three."

"Um."

"So you're the mother, I'm the daughter, and the uncle is the father?"

"They were just joking."

Lin Wen, holding Bai Xiaowu's hand, smiled shyly at Li Fei.

After leaving the village, walk east along the river.

The sun was blazing, and the water was rushing.

Lin Wen stopped in a river bend filled with pebbles.

"Go, Xiao Wu."

"Um!"

Bai Xiaowu nodded, excitedly pulled an iron box from his cloth bag, and ran towards the river bend.

The river bend wasn't deep, just ankle-deep, and the water was fairly clear.

Bai Xiaowu kicked off his shoes by the river, stepped barefoot into the water, bent over, and buried his head in the water, searching for something.

"Oh? So that box contained stones."

"Yes, that's Xiao Wu's hobby, like stamp collecting. She even keeps the candy wrappers she's eaten."

Under their watchful eyes, Bai Xiaowu picked out stones one by one and put them into the iron box.

Smooth or rough, dark or light.

"She seems to be in a good mood; we made the right decision to come today."

Looking at Bai Xiaowu's smiling face, Li Fei felt good.

"Take Xiao Wu out for a walk to clear his head."

Lin Wen said the same thing to him a few days ago.

"It might just look good on the surface. Xiao Wu always keeps things to herself. She understands everything, but she rarely says anything."

Lin Wen smiled.

After looking for a while, she looked at Li Fei's feet.

How's your foot?

Li Fei immediately understood what she meant:

"It's alright, it should be able to go into the water."

The two nodded in tacit agreement, went to the riverbank, took off their shoes, and joined Bai Xiaowu in picking up stones.

Wang Guodong's medicine is quite effective; the wounds that were abraded a few days ago have already scabbed over, so it's okay to step in water.

By glancing inside the tin box, Li Fei roughly figured out Bai Xiaowu's preferences.

This child.

I don't like stones that are considered beautiful in the conventional sense, but rather stones with strange shapes that are unforgettable at first glance.

"Give."

"Thanks!"

Every time he picked up a stone, Bai Xiaowu would jump up in surprise and carefully put the stone into the box.

soon.

In less than half an hour, with frequent stops and starts, Bai Xiaowu's tin box was completely full.

We left the riverbank and returned to the shore.

As I walked, the rattling sound from the metal box became much quieter.

"Over here."

On a small path, Lin Wen led the two of them into the woods.

"It's just ahead, we'll be there soon."

Lin Wen walked along the mountain path without even breaking a sweat.

Looking at her swaying ponytail, Li Fei even thought that he should have called her along when he went into the mountains to look for someone; at least she would have been more useful than Ma Zi and the others.

"Xiao Wu, have you ever climbed that tree?"

Li Fei looked at Bai Xiaowu beside him.

Bai Xiaowu and he were left behind, already covered in sweat.

"I've been there a few times. Teacher Lin took us there, and Er Ya and the others went too."

"Aren't you afraid of going this far?"

Looking back on everything that happened in the mountains, Li Fei still feels a bit scared.

Human-headed wasp, Grandpa Tree...

There are other things that could mutate as well.

"Teacher Lin said it's okay, as long as we don't go into the mountains, those monsters will only stay in the mountains and won't come near the village."

Why?

Li Fei frowned slightly.

Speaking of this, he had wondered before why the monsters in the mountains didn't attack the village.

He had previously thought that the monsters were afraid of sunlight, so they didn't move during the day, and at night, every household in the village lit fires, so they dared not approach.

It was later discovered that the "light" was not as powerful as imagined in suppressing the monsters.

such as.

The hornets can move freely during the day, and the tree-men controlled by Grandpa Tree also have some resistance to campfires.

"I don't know either."

Bai Xiaowu shook his head.

"Anyway, as far back as I can remember, the village has never been attacked, not even a single animal has been lost, and no one has ever encountered a monster around the village."

"Not in the last ten years?"

"Uh-huh."

Although he didn't know the underlying principle, this explanation made Li Fei feel a little better.

That being said...

Walking through the woods, passing by each tree, he still couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

If it weren't for the submachine gun I was carrying, if it weren't for the bright sunshine today, if this place weren't actually in the mountains...

He would definitely advise Lin Wen to go somewhere else to relax.

Leaving aside other potential dangers, the main reason is still the "tree".

Ever since his encounter with Grandpa Tree, he now feels a strange sense of unease whenever he looks at any tree.

A single tree is fine, but a grove of trees like this always reminds him of the layers upon layers of tree people, and the swollen, strange appearance of Grandpa Tree.

"So this is what PTSD feels like..."

Li Fei wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and slung the submachine gun on his back to his chest.

Although he didn't know how to use a gun, holding it in his hand gave him a greater sense of security.

...

Lin Wen said, "It will be here soon."

After walking for almost half an hour, the three of them finally emerged from the woods and arrived at their destination.

This is a wide-open clearing in the woods.

Unlike in the deep mountains, the ground is not yellow soil, but soft grass.

Lush greenery covered the entire open space.

Under the sunlight, wildflowers dot the landscape, and the faint chirping of insects can be heard.

It has a kind of Shangri-La feel to it.

"This place is nice!"

Li Fei took a deep breath; the air was filled with the scent of fresh grass.

He imitated Lin Wen, carrying his shoes in his hand and walking barefoot on the lawn, feeling the softness of the tender grass.

of course.

What attracted him most in this open space was the large oak tree in the middle.

The thick tree trunk is crooked and twisted, and the dense branches and leaves are connected, like a large canopy.

Under the lid, on the shortest tree trunk, hung a simple swing, exactly the same as the one in Lin Wen's house.

"Did you make the swing too?"

"My dad made it, many years ago."

Lin Wen smiled.

"Teacher Lin, I'm going upstairs now!"

Bai Xiaowu handed the bag to Lin Wen, jogged over, and quickly climbed up the tree, looking like he'd climbed quite a bit.

"There aren't many things to do in the village, so when I'm free, I bring the older kids to climb trees."

"Yeah, I loved to crawl when I was little, all kids love to crawl."

Do you remember things from your childhood?

"Remember..."

Li Fei then realized that he should be a completely amnesiac ring, so he changed his words.

"I remember some fragments, but not very clearly."

"Li Fei, actually I didn't get into university at all."

under the tree.

The two stopped. Sunlight streamed through the trees and shone on Lin Wen's face, allowing Li Fei to clearly see every single strand of her hair.

Each root is distinct, trembling in the breeze.

"What did you say?"

Li Fei was stunned for a moment, not quite understanding.

Lin Wen smiled and retied her slightly disheveled ponytail.

"Actually, I didn't get into university back then. Even though I was in the top ten in the whole school, my score still wasn't high enough. The day I went home after checking my scores, I didn't want to disappoint my parents, so I lied to them and said I got in..."

Then the disaster happened, and I no longer needed to cover up the lie. Actually, I did want to tell them the truth later, but by the time I made up my mind, they had already left the village.

Li Fei opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.

He didn't know why Lin Wen suddenly told him this.

"I'm sorry I lied to you before, but you lied to me too, so we're even..."

Lin Wen turned around and looked at Li Fei with a serious expression.

"You don't really have amnesia, right?"

"How...how did you figure that out?"

"A woman's intuition."

Li Fei took a half step back in surprise, remained silent for a moment, and then didn't know where to begin.

He claims to have traveled from another world?

Is he not Huanzi, but just an ordinary person?

This is too complicated to explain.

Moreover, if he were to say it out loud, Lin Wen might think that he hadn't just lost his memory, but had completely gone mad.

"It's okay, you don't need to say anything. You can tell me when you've thought it through."

Fortunately, he wasn't embarrassed for too long.

Lin Wen smiled, turned around, and climbed up the tree in a few quick movements.

"Come on up, I have something to show you."

Hesitated for a moment.

Li Fei slung the gun over his back and climbed up using both his hands and feet.

He wasn't making things up; in his previous life, he did climb trees frequently when he was a child.

Although it had been a long time since I had climbed this tree, the trunk was slanted enough and quite rough, so it wasn't too difficult to climb.

It's not really climbing, but you could say walking up.

"It's quite tall..."

Sitting in the tree, Li Fei looked down.

Being almost two stories above the ground, the visual disorientation caused a feeling of weightlessness, making his heart race and his vision dizzy.

"You also said you used to climb trees a lot when you were a child. People who climb trees often don't have a fear of heights."

Beside her, Lin Wen burst out laughing.

"I'm just not used to it."

Li Fei turned his gaze away from the ground.

"You'll get used to it eventually, look over there..."

Following Lin Wen's finger, Li Fei looked at Bai Xiaowu on the other side.

On another tree trunk further away, Bai Xiaowu was climbing quietly. Looking further ahead, a few steps away in a branch, was a bird's nest.

The bird's nest was messy, made up of small twigs.

Listen carefully, and you can hear faint bird calls inside.

Upon hearing the sound, Li Fei instinctively gripped his gun.

Even a single wasp among the mutated animals in this forest is quite dangerous.

"It's nothing, it's just a normal little bird."

Noticing his expression, Lin Wen stood up and led him to climb over there.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that there were indeed just a few ordinary birds inside.

There were no extra wings, or any other strange organs.

"Shh..."

Bai Xiaowu took out a few pine nuts from his pocket, crushed them, and fed them to the little bird.

She smiled happily as she watched the little bird eat the pine nuts.

"Let's eat something too; it tastes better when we eat in the tree."

After feeding the birds, Lin Wen offered her suggestions.

"I object."

Li Fei immediately raised an objection.

It's not that I'm afraid of heights, it's just inconvenient.

"I agree!"

Bai Xiaowu raised both hands in agreement, and then Lin Wen made the final decision.

"Two to one, that's settled!"

that's it.

The three of them sat on the thickest tree trunk and ate the dry food they had brought.

"You're right, food tastes better when it's in a tree."

Li Fei chewed on a steamed bun, gazing at the forest scenery.

Birds sing and flowers bloom, a gentle breeze blows.

With the dappled sunlight filtering through the woods, even the coarse grain buns in my mouth tasted better than they had a few days ago.

"I suddenly realized that what we're doing is kind of like a spring outing."

"Spring outing? What's that?"

Lin Wen and Bai Xiaowu spoke in unison.

"It's an activity that the school organizes, where everyone goes to a park to play, buys some snacks... wait, you're not going to ask what 'school' and 'park' are, are you?"

Bai Xiaowu blinked twice.

Without her saying a word, her eyes were filled with curiosity.

"Schools are places where many students spend their time, and parks are not much different from this lawn."

This is Lin Wen's explanation.

Bai Xiaowu nodded thoughtfully, trying to imagine what the school and park would look like.

"In short, let us thank God for giving us sunshine, food, and this clearing in the woods, which gave us the opportunity for this spring outing..."

"No, Teacher Lin."

Lin Wen was interrupted by Bai Xiaowu before she could finish speaking.

Li Fei turned his head and looked at Bai Xiaowu's small face, which had an exceptionally serious expression.

"I don't thank God, I only thank you, and Uncle..."

"You gave me the opportunity to go on a spring outing."