Volume 2: Winter’s End
Continuing to flip through the drawings, a slightly peculiar one caught Shu Xun’s attention. In the middle of the picture, there was a wall-like solid line, and at each end of the line, there was a little girl in a red dress—two Qing Mengs. The girl on the left side was accompanied by an arrow pointing to the right as if indicating a movement.
Seeing this artwork, Lie Yang seemed to recall something and said after a moment, “Remember when I mentioned discovering survivors? I found Qing Meng near the central street. But when I turned a corner and chased after her, she was already gone. Given the strange situation in the southern half of the city at that time, I didn’t continue the search.”
Shu Xun suddenly remembered that when they were chasing Qing Meng yesterday, it was also at a corner, and Lie Yang suddenly spread his wings to catch up swiftly. Thinking back now, with their speed, they wouldn’t have lost her. Lie Yang’s sudden acceleration was probably because he was afraid Qing Meng would disappear again at the corner. “Are you saying that Qing Meng has some ability beyond this era? Like an Awakener?”
Lie Yang hesitated for a moment but nodded. “At that speed, I couldn’t have lost her. It was like Qing Meng suddenly teleported to another place. If that’s the case, it’s complicated. The theory of cosmic consciousness wouldn’t allow living beings to awaken abilities beyond their era; otherwise, it would lead to uncontrollable consequences. What special reasons caused this?”
Shu Xun, gripping his hair, began to contemplate. At the same time, he subconsciously walked back and forth on the drawing paper. About a minute later, he raised his little head again. “What you said is probably true. There is more than one blue-eyed person expelled to the southern half of the city. Would they choose to leave a child alone in this dead city? They probably don’t want to leave Qing Meng behind; they can’t. This also indicates another issue: the blue-eyed people are different. Blue-eyed individuals with special abilities like Qing Meng should be very few. The others, over a dozen of them, lack the ability to take Qing Meng away. Likely, they didn’t discover Qing Meng’s ability, and they themselves don’t possess it.”
Lie Yang remained silent, looking thoughtful. He wondered why he noticed abnormalities so early but couldn’t deduce anything. Lie Yang rolled his antennae in confusion, watching Shu Xun analyze things in a seemingly logical manner.
“So, what causes this difference? Can we speculate that blue-eyed individuals with this special ability can make themselves disappear, while ordinary blue-eyed individuals don’t possess this ability? For example, Qing Mo from the Micro Lake, the woman’s body killed in the toll booth accident, none of them disappeared.” Shu Xun pondered, pulling at his hair.
Even though Nuan Dong already knew that Shu Xun was highly intelligent and had good logical abilities, a hint of surprise still crossed his eyes. Such meticulous thinking and connecting abilities were indeed rare. “Apart from that, there’s another possibility. If blue-eyed individuals want to disappear, they must meet certain conditions. For example, yesterday when the blue light descended, Qing Meng ran to the window and saw something, giving her a premonition, leading her to request to draw a portrait of Lie Yang.”
“Uh.” Lie Yang interrupted Shu Xun and Nuan Dong’s conversation. “You can skip these speculations and just tell me the conclusions.”
In the live broadcast room:
“Who’s the one so spineless, ready to lie down and win? I don’t know! My king! My king! Come back soon!”
“Shu Xun’s logical abilities are off the charts! Clearly seeing and hearing the same content, but always able to think of deeper things than others. What kind of bloodline has awakened in him?”
“I’m curious too. It seems like Little Dumpling’s awakened race, despite being petite, has significantly enhanced mental power and intelligence!”
“Why do I feel like every time he uses his brain, my king looks like a poor little victim being bullied…”
“Hahaha, the one above can take a screenshot as a keepsake. When Lie Yang comes back to the game, send it to him. Good luck to the one above. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
And now, the pitiful victim has shamelessly prepared to directly enjoy the fruits of deduction, completely giving up on using his brain because of Shu Xun’s wise discovery. Regardless of how he thinks, Lie Yang can’t keep up with the thought processes of the other three.
Shu Xun just shrugged at Lie Yang’s behavior, accepting it with resignation, and continued to look at the drawings. As Shu Xun speculated, the next two drawings were also in a similar style. It seemed like Qing Meng suddenly discovered that she was a magical little fairy. It was evident that Qing Meng was very jubilant. Subsequently, unsurprisingly, this special ability should have been discovered by the people closest to her, Qing Meng’s parents.
In the drawings, the man with black-framed glasses and the woman with long hair stood in front of Qing Meng, bending over as if saying something. The little girl in a red dress had long tears drawn on her cheeks. At the same time, there was a cross drawn on the arrow representing movement. Without the previous speculation, this pattern might be confusing, but now it was easy to guess.
After Qing Meng’s parents discovered her special ability, they sternly warned her not to use it. The reason was probably that the blue-eyed people were already in a delicate and sensitive position. Once Qing Meng exposed her uniqueness, the situation would become very dangerous.
Continuing to flip through, the art style seemed to become more and more bizarre. Qing Meng seemed to have encountered a very perplexing situation, just like the conflicted Qing Mo. Something extraordinary and fearful happened around her, reflected in the drawing of a sleeping little girl surrounded by patterns representing ghosts and monsters. Although these patterns were strange, the sharp teeth and thick black pigments were enough to express Qing Meng’s fear of them. They had open mouths, devouring the people around.
Next, Qing Meng’s parents discovered or learned about this situation. Perhaps at that time, news about the blue-eyed people causing the disappearance of the population had already spread. The blue-eyed people were extremely rejected, waiting for a bit of solid evidence. Once obtained, the suppressed panic of the people would erupt. Qing Meng’s parents obviously couldn’t find a solution to the situation, just like Qing Mo. They chose to give Qing Meng stimulants to reduce her sleep.
In the following series of drawings, there were still several pictures of the little girl sleeping, depicting those indistinct shapes and people being consumed. Qing Meng’s parents always accompanied her at her bedside. Until one day, the man with black-framed glasses and the woman with long hair each brought a large stuffed bear as a gift for Qing Meng. She clearly liked them a lot. It was from this day that Qing Meng’s parents consciously began to train her in independent living skills.
For example, the little girl wore a small apron to learn cooking, went to buy medicine alone, did household chores, and so on… Qing Meng seemed to enjoy doing these activities, perhaps finding them fun in her eyes.
Shu Xun, however, realized that Qing Meng’s parents were helping her grow rapidly because they were unwilling to leave. Accompanying Qing Meng meant that one day, they might also disappear silently. And that day did come. In the drawing, Qing Meng, tired, fell asleep on the table, and those strange things appeared again. This time, the ones being consumed were a man with black-framed glasses and a woman with long hair.
The next few drawings seemed to have a blank period, presumably a time when Qing Meng was emotionally unstable after losing her parents, during which she stopped drawing. The next content that appeared was Qing Meng in a different environment, presumably prepared in advance by Qing Meng’s parents. Her new residence should be in the northern half of the city, and the accompanying family changed, but it should still be relatives. However, it was evident that Qing Meng found it difficult to integrate, as they appeared in the drawings infrequently, while the two stuffed bear toys remained by Qing Meng’s bedside.
There were only a few scenes of this kind of life, and no sleeping scenes appeared. Qing Meng was probably taking medication all along. After flipping through, only one drawing remained below. It was a very oppressive illustration, depicting the apocalyptic scene of the end of the Micro City.
The upper half of the drawing was painted with a thick black color, resembling the entwined clouds overhead today. Below was the Micro City represented by tall buildings, with numerous abstract residents on the road. Unidentified things flew out from the cloud, enveloping the people on the road. In addition, black butterflies fluttered among the crowd. The small sheet of paper was filled up, but it still seemed unable to completely express Qing Meng’s thoughts. However, it could be inferred that people with blue eyes could see things that ordinary people couldn’t, or referred to as energy. That energy could devour the population, destroy electronic devices in the entire Micro City, and even cause silent and instantaneous death.
Shu Xun stood on the drawing, pointing to the black butterfly on the paper with his short finger, then pointed to the huge black wings on Lie Yang’s portrait. “The black butterfly.”
Lie Yang spread his wings and pointed to his back. “Pure Emperor Butterfly. The wings won’t change color even upon closer inspection.”
Shu Xun sighed softly. “What I mean is that Qing Meng consciously changed your wings to black, and since Qing Meng likes you a lot, these black butterflies may represent some kind of goodwill. At least, in Qing Meng’s eyes, they don’t seem evil. So, what destroyed the Micro City in this drawing should be the black mass resembling a cloud above. Looking at these ribbon-like objects here, it seems to indicate that something spread down and rapidly spread in the micro-city, causing the instantaneous death of all the residents. The people who disappeared were probably the result of the black butterflies. However, whether these black butterflies really exist needs verification, as it could also be Qing Meng’s imagination, a way for her to express herself.”
The other three looked somber at this revelation. Since entering the game world, the sky outside had been consistently overcast, but they hadn’t sensed anything abnormal. If there was energy hidden in the clouds, there were only two possibilities: either this energy surpassed cosmic civilizations, coming from a higher civilization, or this energy had already shifted or gone dormant, remaining hidden. Without energy fluctuations, they hadn’t noticed anything.
Shu Xun turned to look at the gloomy sky outside. He subconsciously wrapped his small clothes tighter around himself, suddenly feeling a bit creepy, as if there was an inescapable feeling as long as they were in this world.
