Chapter 100 Star Chasing Journey (20)
Liu Sheng shook her head. Was she overthinking things?
She applied the last reinforcing array to prevent the vehicle from falling apart while driving.
Finally, the repair work was finished, and they could return to the village.
“Sister, Sister, when can we leave?”
Xiao Shu’s voice sounded a bit timid for the first time.
Liu Sheng turned to look, and Xiao Shu’s large eyes flickered with the unease of a deer.
She reached out and patted Xiao Shu’s head, offering a meager comfort.
The last remaining leaf on the small branch at the top of her head trembled helplessly in the night wind, and Liu Sheng even pinched it with her hand.
Then, Xiao Shu, clearly displeased, slapped her hand away: “Wuwuwu, I only have this one left!”
Fine, if she didn't want to be touched, then she wouldn't be touched.
Mainly, she hadn't touched it yet.
Liu Sheng walked back to the vehicle: “Captain, we can go.”
Chen Shanyuan, however, seemed not to have heard, his face filled with pleasant surprise as he looked at his drinking buddy, Old Wang, beside him.
“Old Wang! Old Wang! You’ve recovered?”
At this moment, Old Wang frowned, touching his head, still somewhat bewildered.
“Where am I…?” He looked up at Chen Shanyuan, whose face was wrinkled with tension, “Old Chen, why are you here?”
“It’s good that you’re alright… It’s a long story…” Chen Shanyuan patted Old Wang heavily on the shoulder.
“Got any wine? Feels like ages since I had a drink…” Old Wang said, smacking his lips.
It was unclear how much Old Wang had been through; his hair was now gray, and his face had aged considerably.
So Chen Shanyuan sighed, pulled out a small porcelain bottle, and handed it to him.
“Don’t drink it all, this is Jade Tower Spring. I want to keep some.”
“Then, Old Chen, you want some too?”
“No, I’m the captain. I can’t get drunk and mess things up.” Chen Shanyuan still had his basic principles.
Old Wang chuckled at that, a hint of bitterness in his laugh, then he buried his head and started drinking.
Chen Shanyuan watched Old Wang drink sip by sip, constantly praising the good wine, his eyes red with envy.
Not only Old Wang had recovered in the vehicle; the other rescued individuals gradually regained their consciousness. Although still somewhat bewildered, they all murmured blessings to the Supreme God.
Liu Sheng always felt a sense of strangeness, but after looking around, the same people were still there, and nothing seemed to have changed.
Since everything was going smoothly, Liu Sheng started the flying vehicle. Although the body swayed a bit and the flight was somewhat bumpy, overall it was quite stable.
Because the vehicle was almost scrapped, Liu Sheng didn’t dare to fly too high, so they slowly flew towards Cosmic Village.
If it hadn't been for this flying vehicle that could search from the air, first, Chen Shanyuan and his team would definitely not have been able to keep up with those weird objects and would have eventually gotten lost in the forest.
Secondly, they wouldn't have been able to arrive so promptly. Perhaps by the time they slowly found them, Yu Jinling and Song Ru would have already turned into brick walls.
Not to mention the incredible effect it had later on.
Liu Sheng felt a little proud of her craftsmanship.
Coincidentally, Wen Weilan sat beside Liu Sheng and quietly chatted with her about Kuang Bowen's Dao Heart being shattered due to her excellent craftsmanship.
“Such a thing happened?”
Liu Sheng truly couldn't recall. At that time, she was focused on learning and didn't care much about these competitions or assessments. She just did what she needed to do.
Moreover, she had face blindness, and Kuang Bowen was truly unremarkable in appearance, so she genuinely couldn't remember him!
“Yes,” Wen Weilan said with a smile, “he said he always remembered the communication paper crane you made back then. It could not only send letters but also transmit mirage images, which really hit him hard.”
“Really?” Liu Sheng frowned.
However, Liu Sheng’s thoughts soon followed the tune of the 'yi-yi-ya-ya' singing coming from behind.
Everyone turned to look, only to see Old Wang, drunk, singing loudly, though it wasn't particularly pleasant.
Seeing that no one was applauding, Old Wang squinted and changed his tune: “What’s wrong, don’t you all like my singing?”
“Then I’ll tell everyone, *hic*, a story!”
“I have a, friend, Chen Shanyuan, *hic*, when he gets drunk, he likes to take off his clothes and says he wants to imitate some kind of ‘under-the-forest style’… Mmm mmm mmm… Why did you hit me?!”
Old Wang covered his head, pouting, and spoke to Chen Shanyuan with a look of grievance.
However, this expression from a burly, disheveled middle-aged man did not evoke pity.
Chen Shanyuan’s face was beet red with embarrassment, wishing he could smash Old Wang’s mouth with his hand.
But Old Wang’s cultivation was similar to his, and although he had a potbelly, his upper body was as agile as a snake, dodging quite promptly.
So the two of them started cursing and bickering, engaging in a small-scale sparring match in the back.
Seeing this situation, the villagers and Hunter of the Strange team members, who had just endured a period of imprisonment, couldn't help but laugh.
The flying vehicle swayed, filled with laughter, and the heavy burden on everyone’s hearts lightened considerably.
“Are they good friends?” Wen Weilan asked, surprised.
Liu Sheng recalled Kuang Bowen’s words: “His name is Wang Tiezhu, and he was from the previous Hunter of the Strange team.”
“Wang Tiezhu? That name sounds a bit familiar… I seem to have seen it somewhere…” Wen Weilan seemed to recall something, a little puzzled, “However, this name is quite common.”
Wen Weilan thought about it and then gave up. It was indeed a common name for village children.
“You’ve seen him recently?” Liu Sheng, however, didn’t intend to let it go so easily.
Wen Weilan blinked, not quite understanding why Liu Sheng was so concerned: “Uh, hmm, I think so.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t from when you were a Hunter of the Strange?”
“I don’t think so, it feels very familiar, like it happened just in the last day or two.” Wen Weilan tried her best to recall, knowing that Liu Sheng must have thought of something.
Liu Sheng bit her lip hard, then suddenly leaned forward to ask some villagers sitting on the other side of the aisle.
“Excuse me, could you please tell me how you entered the Weird Domain, the month and year you entered, and your experiences up to this point?”
This series of questions stunned them, and others couldn't help but look over.
After the four people at that table exchanged glances, the old man, whose cell they had broken through, was the first to speak tremblingly.
“I, I’ll go first. I usually chop firewood in Changxing Mountain. It was probably the twelfth month of Jinghe Year Eight, around the time when the snow was thick. I walked and walked and got lost, and then I came here. Later… that memory is a bit blurry, but I think I was in that… ‘Science Popularization Museum’… That woman wanted us to study, so I went to study, but I couldn’t read, I really couldn’t understand… Looking at the pictures made me dizzy…”
“That woman? Li Mingzhu? How did she appear before you?” Liu Sheng felt like she was about to grasp something.
“Hmm… At that time, I was walking, and everything went black. I was so scared I couldn’t move. I thought I had gone blind, but then I could see again very quickly, but…” The old man shivered, “But what I saw was a group of people standing beside me. Some of them looked really scary, clearly not living people. And in front, there was a woman who called herself a ‘tour guide,’ that Li Mingzhu. What she said was all jumbled, and I couldn’t understand her.”
“Anyway, I didn’t dare to resist. She said where to go, and we went there. Then we walked to Cosmic Village.”