Qingshan Wild Man Valley

Chapter 45

The village chief dismissed it, saying, "Since you don't belong to this era, why don't you believe that life exists in outer space?"

“Okay,” I swallowed hard, “I’ll assume you trust me, but I have a question.”

"Please speak."

"If you have a sensory filter, and everyone has a sensory filter, why can I still see those men's sharp teeth, like vampires?"

"Because your subconscious senses danger," the village chief replied logically, "so the brain's defense mechanism is activated, which can dispel some of the illusions."

"Is the subconscious limitless?"

“That’s right,” the village chief agreed, “the subconscious has no limits.”

"Okay, let's move on to the next question."

The village chief nodded.

"Wait!" The beautiful Xiao Chenchen finally couldn't stand it any longer and interrupted loudly while taking care of Doctor Xu Yi, "What are you talking about? Why can't I understand a word you're saying?"

“Use your imagination,” I turned back and smiled at her, though I wanted to cry. “If you think you understand, you will understand.”

"You...!" The beautiful woman glared at me with her beautiful eyes.

I glanced sideways at Xu Yi, who had been panting since he started earlier and hadn't stopped. He had really been through a lot this time; his blackened face was completely ruined. If it weren't for this cover, he would have been pale and his features would have been distorted.

"Xu Yi, are you alright?" After all, we've been through thick and thin together, and besides, I just said some harsh words.

The healer pressed his hand to his chest, finally managing to stop his breathing. Without looking up at me, he curled up and sat sideways on the prayer mat in front of the Buddha statue, unconsciously shaking his head twice.

"I know what you want to ask." The village chief's words completely drew my attention back.

"Then explain quickly!" I glared at him. "Do you want to invade Earth and turn the entire village into your kind?!"

“That’s not the case.” The village chief shook his head with a smile, clearly finding my question laughable. “We have lived and thrived in this village for five hundred years, and we have long since found a way to coexist peacefully with humans—”

"The Forget-Dust Pill?!" I interrupted.

“It’s not what you think,” the village chief denied my conjecture.

I simply held my breath and waited for his explanation.

“As you know,” the village chief said, “our race also possesses intelligence and would never harm you Earthlings innocently.”

Wisdom?! I thought of the men in the underground stone chamber; they certainly didn't deserve to be called cruel. I wanted to retort.

“In fact,” the village chief continued, “the spacetime rift brought us to a valley not far from here, but we are aquatic creatures, so most of our companions died on our journey to find a suitable place to live, and I was the only male to survive.”

"Later, we came to this village and discovered that it has abundant groundwater resources, which contain trace elements needed by our race..."

"So you took over the village?!"

“Miss Sun,” the village chief looked directly at me, “please calm down and let me finish speaking.”

“…Speak.”

"Thank you." The other person smiled. "...Actually, in the corners of the universe that you humans cannot reach, there are countless spacetime rifts. But not every rift can connect two spacetimes. Some rifts connect to death... Back then, a rift appeared above our sky. Just one rift swallowed our entire planet. It was no coincidence that we ended up here. Our ancestors used their bodies to spin at a speed exceeding the speed of light, creating a wormhole in your Earth's spacetime, which allowed us to escape here..."

"Therefore, perhaps I can say that the last survivors of our race, in the Milky Way, and even in the entire universe, are all gathered in this village at this moment..."

"So if even we die, a race with advanced intelligence will completely disappear from the primordial universe, turning into dust..."

Seeing that my gaze was off, the village chief calmly stopped talking. "I know what you're going to say," he said, "but actually it's not that we took over the village. On the contrary, it's that we and the ancestors of this village jointly established the village."

"Five hundred years ago, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties in your Chinese history, there was frequent warfare. The leader who brought the first group of fleeing refugees here was a devout Buddhist. At that time, he learned of our plight and, upholding the belief that all beings are equal, he was willing to accept us and sincerely help our race to continue to thrive, but on one condition..."

"We quickly reached an agreement that, with the permission of over 90% of the women in the village, we could reform a small group of men in the village, making them our kind and helping our tribe reproduce..."

"That's why there's a Buddhist shrine in the village. In fact, every generation of monks in the shrine was specially arranged by the first village chief, who was a devout Buddhist, to be human guardians who monitor our race. They possess biological viruses that are deadly to us. If we take any aggressive actions that threaten your humanity, we will be exterminated..."

"Similarly, in order to maintain the fairness of the agreement, I mutated my physical constitution and slowed down my biological clock so that I could live on and protect my companions..."

"And just as you have experienced, every Buddhist temple here, besides its surveillance function, is also a place for fair voting. Every five years, women in the village who have reached childbearing age can come here to open the Buddhist scriptures. The scriptures contain all the secrets of the two races, and those women who know the truth have the opportunity to decide our fate. They can choose to forget and easily let the contract for peaceful coexistence between humans and aliens continue—or they can choose to oppose, but the number of opponents must exceed ten percent, and we will not sit idly by. The result then will be absolutely unbearable for anyone!"

"Of course we can't accept this!!" I couldn't take it anymore. You selfish aliens—"What do you mean by fairness and justice? Opposing you means certain death, and that's what you call fairness?! The men and women in this village have no choice but to obey your planet's so-called equality agreement. On the surface, it seems like a good deal—we're making a small sacrifice to save your race from extinction. But let me tell you, let me tell you with the intelligence of a 100% purebred high-level ape, this deal, for us humans, for everyone in this village, has been anything but fair from beginning to end! Just because that self-righteous Buddhist thinks he's so equal for all beings, he's sacrificing the unsuspecting men in this village to breed with you—it's not him who's being modified, it's not him who's having sex with the fish, what kind of nonsense is he spouting—what right does he have to decide the fate of others?!"

"Furthermore, all the rules in this plan were set by you. Biological weapons and deadly viruses are all your own ideas. We are clearly the vulnerable group, we are clearly the ones being threatened by you, yet you shamelessly portray yourself as pitiful and controlled at every turn. Let me tell you, we humans are also advanced animals. We have intelligence, we know what hypocrisy is, and we know what it means to recuperate and conserve our strength. It's just that you reproduce slowly, so you say you have no interest in controlling humanity. But when your population expands to the point that a village is no longer enough for you, do you dare say you won't set your sights on this entire Earth? Do you dare say you've never thought of sharing this entire blue planet with Earthlings!"

"Sun Qingshan!!" Someone called out to me, but after a long, incoherent rant, I was honestly ecstatic—what was going on? Were aliens planning to carve up Earth? Was I standing up for humanity? I believed that even if the situation was dire and the aliens were vicious, a true Earthling would never back down at such a time. Just like in mythological dramas where demons are vanquished, or in science fiction films where aliens are eliminated, we should never trust any race that is superior to humanity or poses a threat to us, because once they become powerful, humanity will be wiped out.

But it's also possible that I've watched too many science fiction movies...

At this moment, the village chief's face clearly darkened, but I didn't expect that the first person to stop me from speaking recklessly would be Xu Yi, who was resting not far behind me. "Sun Qingshan," the divine doctor said in an imperative sentence, "enough, stop talking."

I took a deep breath. It wasn't that I didn't understand what he meant. Some things should never be brought up too clearly. Forcibly revealing the enemy's trump cards is a mindless and deadly tactic.

“Perhaps you really can’t accept our existence,” the alien village chief chimed in, “but no matter what, it was I who saved you.”

"Ha!" Those words only hit a nerve. "So why did you play the amnesia card?" I asked. "Isn't it to force all the old and young monks in this village to become your accomplices?! Because you have amnesia, you've handed over the task of ensuring equal relations between the two races to them. On the surface, you're just and noble, protecting the interests of your rival race as the alien village chief. Therefore, we, the guardians of humanity, have to yield, help you modify humans, and become your accomplices—even if you really saved me, it was only because you have amnesia; you don't understand anything, so you want to figure out what your villagers are up to—now you understand everything, and telling us everything makes you seem magnanimous and sincere. But what if I said I was going to spread your secrets everywhere? What if, as a woman, I said I disagreed with your human modification plan—"

"Sun Qingshan!!" Xu Yi shouted from behind, then coughed violently.

Immediately following, a loud crash came from outside the Buddhist hall. Everyone inside stared at the door, where someone was banging on it.

Just as the door and frame were peeling off the wall, a loud bang filled the air as the tall metal door, more than a meter high, crashed heavily to the ground.

Debris flew everywhere, and I inhaled the dust, coughing violently from the choking.

A group of bald monks wielding various weapons rushed into the Buddhist hall. "Internal strife?" I asked in surprise. "Or have they finally realized they should rebel?"

The middle-aged monk who was leading the group first appeared as a figure, then slowly walked into the smoke and dust. When the light shone on his face, he suddenly raised a large hammer and smashed it down without hesitation—instantly dealing with the old monk who was confronting him and demanding an explanation.

"Not good!" My subconscious alert kicked in, and I immediately retreated, forming a group with the beautiful healer behind me. Then I turned around and shouted, "Our fighting ability needs to be upgraded! Let's get out of here!"

Chapter 56

My name is Sun Qingshan. I am highly educated, decadent, and irresponsible.

Just like walking reminds me of zebra crossings, summer reminds me of big watermelons, when I saw the beautiful Xiao Chenchen jump in front of someone and slap them across the face, at the same time, I thought of a savage.

Not long ago, in the early May evening in the courtyard, the wild man didn't even raise his hand to resist before being whipped by the same person.

That night, I argued with the savage; the next night, we had a cold war; the third night, we continued arguing... until Aunt Xu Yi died, and my attention was suddenly diverted—the argument stopped.

I must say, arguing has always been a beautiful idea of mine. When I'm emotionally charged and talking non-stop, but the savage sits silently to the side, and when he gets fierce, I wish I could pounce on him and strangle him.

So memory is a strange thing. When you can't remember something, everything you see seems familiar; but when you actually remember it, everything that is real seems like a dream.

I remember back then I was fooling around with the savage, which exposed him and got me into trouble.

That night, on the way back to the city from Dujiangyan, at the inn, I didn't ask the wild man how he felt about being beaten during the day or touching Xiao Chenchen's soft breasts, but I said some things that were self-righteous and didn't really consider his feelings.

When I ran out of toner, I asked the savage when he would take me back to Savage Valley.

He turned to look at me, and stopped tidying the bed. I said, "Actually, I do know you. If there wasn't a time portal in Savage Valley, I wouldn't have traveled through the same place twice. Let me go back and get something, or I can take you back with me. Then you won't be afraid I won't come back."

The savage maintained the same posture for a long time. It's not that I don't understand him, otherwise I wouldn't have pretended to be clueless the whole way. Why did he insist on taking me away from Savage Valley? For someone who has nothing, what is there there that he would suddenly avoid like the plague?

I thought about it for a long time and made many assumptions. I felt that there was no hope for Xu Yi to save people. Taking the things was fake. The wild man lived in fear every day and could not absorb anything he ate. I really wanted to take people with me and bring him home. I just didn't believe that science was so advanced that a perfectly healthy person could not be cured of anorexia.

But the savage, holding the corner of the blanket in his hand, turned to look at me for a long time before shaking his head and turning back to continue tidying the blanket.

"Why?!" I jumped up. "It's not like I'm not coming back. I'm just going to grab something and come back!"

He continued making his bed and ignored me.

I understand him, I sympathize with him, and I even know that he is a chauvinist at heart. He can only protect me from behind, and I can't bear to run around and do any hard work for him. So I made up all the reasons and considered every possible scenario. The trap is in my bed, or the trap is in the Savage Valley. If I can't get back, I will report to the embassy that the Savage is a missing person, or I will have him use his light-footed skills to fly into the airport, board the plane directly, and go home to see his parents-in-law.

Actually, I always felt that time travel was a simple thing, or that you could just find a pit, jump in, and that would be it.

But the savage dared not try, or perhaps he simply did not want to try.

So that night, the action he kept repeating was shaking his head, shaking his head, and shaking his head again.

When he shook his head, his eyes were fixed on the ground, and his face showed no emotion.

I almost grabbed his ear to scare him. On the third day, he ate for the whole day in a state of cold war, and vomited a lot at night. When I fed him water, he raised his head, his eyes were red and swollen, and he looked like a pitiful little rabbit.

It was only then that I suddenly realized something: the principle of mutual generation and restraint is universally applicable. One thing subdues another. I used to think that I was selfish and self-serving, and even more so, cold-hearted and ungrateful (towards men). But the savage was a genius. He could control me with his inaction. I couldn't force him to do anything he didn't want, but I couldn't escape doing anything he wanted me to do. So I fell into his hands, and there's nothing to complain about.

In short, he vomited and cried on the spot, so I made the words "Wild Man Valley" a taboo subject for a time. I didn't dare to ask why, and I didn't dare to mention it again afterward. He had insomnia all night, and I had insomnia all night watching him, thinking about his psychological problems. The next day, I came up with an "absolute rule" and also encountered the disheartening thing of an aunt's funeral.

Even if it's a bit shameless of me to praise myself, I have to say that my efforts for the savage were an extraordinary performance that I have never made in my 24 years of life. He should know me just as well, but he still chose to cut off all my escape routes.

That's why I got caught up in someone else's conflict, while he disappeared without a trace. It's hard to tell who's right and who's wrong, because from the beginning I was thinking that if I had to choose, I probably couldn't give up everything for him. My parents' lives are all extremely important to me, so I wanted to be a little selfish and hope that the wild man would submit to me.

He once asked me whether I would choose home or him if I could go home. He was really hypocritical back then. If he wanted to hear a promise, he shouldn't have used a question in the first place.

He wasn't by my side at that moment, but for the first time, I had a real opportunity to make my own choices. The alien village chief was within five steps of me. Which wormhole was it? If I could go fast enough to open or expand the wormhole, could I have a third time after my two previous travels?

But I didn't have time to ask these questions, because the people in this village who broke into the Buddhist temple either wanted to rebel or wanted to riot.

The ascetic monks, carrying knives and staffs, led by a middle-aged monk, immediately killed the old monk, who was also a human being.

“You see,” the leader of the visitors said to the village chief, “everyone is on my side. Not long ago, I poisoned all the ponds in the village, big and small. Those aquatic monsters of your kind are probably already upside down and floating on the surface.”

The implications of those words were exaggerated, but the village chief was not provoked. On the surface, he seemed completely unmoved, and stepped forward step by step. "I only care about one thing you said," the village chief said, "Those mutants in the underground stone chamber, were they your doing?!"

The other party sneered, neither confirming nor denying.

"But how do you get them to obey you?!" the village chief asked again.

“You should know this better than I do,” the other person replied. “Don’t forget, you were the one who taught me what the amygdala is. You told me that the amygdala is responsible for storing a person’s emotions and memories, so I did some tampering, removed those people’s amygdala, and replaced it with something else.”

"It seems I really have taught you a lot," the village chief said coldly, then suddenly turned to look at me. "Does that include you providing Forget-Me-Not Pills to outsiders?"

"Forget-Dust Pill?" The other person frowned for a moment. "Where did you hear this name from... But I guess you must be mistaken. It's not Forget-Dust Pill... It's Forget-Time Pill."

As I finished speaking, Xu Yi coughed softly behind me.

The cough caught the attention of the middle-aged monk. "What's the rush?" The other party turned his gaze to the divine doctor, his tone unchanged. "Don't be in such a hurry. Let me capture this five-hundred-year-old immortal monster first, and then we can catch up properly..." He paused, and finally added two more words of address—"brother-in-law."

I turned around abruptly and saw Xu Yi clutching his chest and closing his eyes tightly. The beautiful Xiao Chenchen suddenly jumped up, leaped through the air and flew to the middle-aged monk, slapping him across the face.

"See?" the alien village chief called out to me at that moment. "It's not me who's lying, it's that you humans are untrustworthy, which is why you can't trust anyone."

"So what... exactly does he want to do?" I asked, pointing to the middle-aged monk.

“He planted the virus I gave him in the pond, killing all my companions,” the village chief said expressionlessly. “So I guess his next goal is to use the techniques I taught him to accomplish some great feats. For example, if he can capture me alive now, he can use my genes to create countless mutants, and all of them will be under his command.”

"Is he out of his mind?" I frowned immediately. "Who exactly is he?"

"Li Shun!!" This time, without the village chief speaking, the beautiful Xiao Chenchen glared angrily at the middle-aged monk and gave the answer.

"You're still not giving up after the uprising failed?! Now you've become a monk, moved into someone else's village, and you still want everyone in the world to suffer with you?!"

The name Li Shun was so familiar that it was like beads on a string or a light bulb plugged in; suddenly, I understood everything.

Not only did he understand, but he also suddenly recalled a passage from a middle school Chinese exam that required translation: "...When Wang Xiaobo rebelled in Shu, he was unable to pacify his followers, so they jointly elected Li Shun as their leader... The notorious bandit Li Shun of Shu captured Jiannan and the two Sichuan regions, causing shockwaves in Guanzhong, and the court was deeply concerned..."