Encore③·[Forever]
Foreword:
[Actually, there was no road on the ground to begin with; it was formed by people walking on it.]
[--Lu Xun]
[Part 1 - If The Story Is Over]
The rapid reaction force at Guangling Zhixi climbed onto the train carriages.
--From a great distance, the train conductor, dressed in full uniform, saluted Wen Bucai was standing far away.
Wen Bucai and Victor returned the gift together.
Like ocean waves, they raise their arms and shake out a warm, breezy sound.
The fighters in the ring raised their fists.
People busy at the barbecue grill raised their arms.
Even those who were extremely busy, moving grain sacks and dismantling walls, stopped to watch the station's heroes depart.
During their casual conversation with Jason Megan, Jiang Xueming and Bu Liuxing learned that Guangling Zhixi was the sharpest sword of the Abyssal Railway —divided into a rapid reaction force, a regular army capable of overcoming difficulties, and covert personnel engaged in espionage.
They are stationed at various transportation departments. The rapid reaction forces need to make immediate assessments of the disaster situation in various places and rush to the scene for rescue. Their equipment is of varying quality. For example, the 100mm anti-tank gun that killed the Green Lion last time was a product of the Soviet era and is very old. Considering the precious transport capacity of the stations and the urgency of the disaster, they basically have to use the antique heavy firepower that they find in the warehouse immediately.
These people risk their lives every day to protect the lives and property of people in various stations and cities, a task completely different from the investigation of ordinary passengers.
The Spirit Calamity that armed employees and rock musicians couldn't solve, they had to solve.
They must defeat this formidable foe that ordinary passengers and VIPs cannot overcome.
Fighting amidst complex urban architecture and vital transportation infrastructure is extremely dangerous—the warriors of Guangling Zhixi, like VIPs exploring uncharted territories, are revered figures.
The tracer flares fired from the quadruple machine gun were the fireworks that marked the end of the story.
The scavenger, having regained his courage in the wilderness, dragged his weary body, packed his belongings, abandoned his mobile food cart, and followed the glowing light of the new passengers, embarking on the maintenance path along the railway line towards the Mimir Hot Spring Market.
This city is filled with both laughter and tears.
This city is like heaven and hell at the same time.
Or rather --
--Seventeen thousand meters underground, in the distant and mysterious East.
The boss who guards the gates to the underworld has never explicitly stated what the underworld means to them.
Like that mournful path in the fountain square.
It's like the saying, "We come into this world as human beings, and we leave as human beings."
The complex emotions of humankind are far more intricate than the joys and sorrows of pyroxene.
They simply followed the procession silently, traversing the same roads countless times, now transformed under the radiant red light.
They embraced the bountiful harvest of meat and wealth, and they embraced the strangers they had just met.
Embrace the burning embers in your heart, embrace the rekindled fire within your mind.
The pioneers who blazed trails were with them, and the bosses who drilled through the caves were with them.
The wide and broad road to heaven was paved with the footprints of countless people.
At this point, many people had begun to cry.
Aside from physical possessions like sticks and stones, the scavenger suddenly realized that during his many years of wandering alone, his servants and family had probably forgotten him.
The trade in human flesh, involving skinning and dismembering, not only takes away their physical bodies, but also numbs their hearts through repeated adaptation to new body tissues and neurons, causing them to forget almost everything precious.
At this moment, countless sighs and tears flowed from the crowd.
At first, the young waiter did not understand the suffering of these homeless people.
She suddenly remembered that her employer, Mr. Jason, had hugged her tightly in the same way.
Passengers and waiters are not marriage partners selected by the station.
It wasn't a matchmaker randomly sent here by the boss or a spiritual master.
It transcends romantic love; it's about soulmates who can rely on each other for a lifetime. How can marriage be treated so casually, or understood merely as a romantic relationship?
Under the scrutiny of Polarized Sextant, and through the intellectual lens of Freud theory—
--Passengers and waiters are almost another self to each other.
Jiang Xueming had long sensed a wonderful connection with Bai Ziqing —exchanging shoes with Seventh Brother, holding his ankle, wiping the dirt off his lips, feeding him, yet there was no awkwardness or offense. In the six months they had been apart for so long, it felt as natural as if they were family members they had known for over a decade.
When faced with the temptation of the dragon guarding his inner treasure, the scavenger mistakenly believes that selling his body can bring eternal happiness. He forgets the BOSS's instructions, the instructions in the log, and the rules of the station.
They bet big, and ultimately lost everything.
Time and again, he walked back and forth between the stations, risking being crushed by trains and swallowed by monsters, until finally, with a fake document and a fake face, he obtained a pile of fake gold and silver treasures from Fafnir, the treasure-guarding dragon within him.
They keep losing even after they've already lost; they keep gambling even after they've already gambled.
Until immense terror began to grip their hearts, courage and confidence vanished, they were unable to confront the lurking beasts of the wilderness, unable to retrace their steps, and trapped on isolated islands connected by railway tracks.
Perhaps the waiters are still searching for them.
Because they are indispensable people in one's life, irreplaceable soulmates.
Jason Megan went through such a long and winding road before she finally realized her mistake and, upon reaching the finish line, hugged the little waiter beside her and wept bitterly.
Bu Liuxing thought of the cannibalistic demons of the Skull and Bones Society again.
What a terrifying, ruthless, foolish, and cunning group of people they were.
The first step toward the abyss is to kill another version of yourself within your life.
Just like natural selection and evolution, only by completely abandoning humanity can one achieve a mad and extraordinary creation.
Both Victor Wen Bucai, the two teachers, have said --
--There is more than one Skull and Bones Society, and the number of people who worship the Blood Butterfly is not limited to just three or four hundred.
In the endless, layered underground world, there are many places where filth and evil reside, and their traces can be found there.
These people steal the power of mystical things; [carnivorism] is their truth. They do their utmost to collect the three elements, to find excellent hosts for the Madness Butterfly, and to spread the Vita Imprint to every corner of the world, creating a pure Earth without differences in height, beauty or ugliness, good or evil, or complex emotions.
Throughout history, numerous historical facts have proven that humans have a tendency towards self-destruction.
This self-destruction process, like the "ritual" or "magic" mentioned by the BOSS, possesses a unique charm.
People relied on it to learn how to make fire by rubbing wood together, and to learn how to avoid lightning and listen to the wind.
Relying on the inexplicable courage of "I think it should work," they went on to make wheels and houses, and it wasn't until thousands of years later that basic geometry and classical mechanics were developed.
The allure of the Madness Butterfly to humans is rooted in human instinct.
Self-destruction and depravity are also like this; they are a kind of irrational [sacrifice] ritual from which one can experience the pleasure of nothingness.
It is a chaotic mess devoid of order, a complete loss of reason and sanity.
These disorganized and undisciplined dens of iniquity, built solely on doctrine and individual leaders, and these pyramid schemes that use cannibalism as a bond to recruit strangers, are indeed small fry in Wen Bucai's eyes.
Throughout the entire process of suppressing the bandits and killing the enemy, there was an extreme frenzy that seemed to be baring its fangs and claws at them. Although they did not see the Madness Butterfly in its true form, its offspring must have been secretly watching all of this.
Xue Ming recalled the core members of the Skull and Bones Society. When they faced their doom, they showed no fear. They saw the headlights of dump trucks illuminating their oil-stained faces as they died, their expressions as if they had become one with the gods, a transcendent sense of liberation.
He couldn't comprehend these people's aesthetics; just thinking about it made his brain tremble.
Just like how he can't abandon his conscience and can't make big money, he simply doesn't have the ability.
Say goodbye to the shadow of terror and embark on the righteous path through trials and tribulations.
The strong and healthy scavengers bid farewell to their companions.
They walked in the opposite direction, intending to return to the main station on foot.
The fellow passengers didn't understand.
Why choose a longer route when Mimir Hot Spring Station is closer?
Starting from the North Sea in Iceland, even the nearest Huge Mountain Station, is hundreds of kilometers away, not to mention the Nine Realms, which is thousands of kilometers away.
This is how these heroes responded.
"My starting point is there."
"It's just a long way, a slightly longer route."
"I still have the strength, the skills I've lost over the years, the Inspiration I've forgotten, and even the stones and sticks—maybe I can find them again at the trading posts along the way."
"Just go back the way you came out."
"Otherwise, I cannot forgive myself."
"How can I face my loved ones with this broken, rusty heart? How can I face my waiter with this face that's been completely disfigured by plastic surgery?"
"The goddess of fate favors the hero."
"Don't worry, friends."
"The north wind is a hammer, pushing me forward, urging me to hurry on my journey."
"It will hammer me, forging this piece of scrap metal into indestructible steel."
"I just need my dearest loved ones to wait a little while."
"Don't worry. I'm sorry, I'll go back right away!"
"To those friends who didn't have a chance to ask for my name!"
We'll meet again!
The other team marched into the boundless darkness, guided only by the railway signal lights.
At each station along the way, strangers bid farewell to each other, heading to different places to seek the truth and find their own inevitable path.
They are rootless duckweed, without a staff, without a stone—the dreamlike ethereal clouds in the sky, returning to their starting point.
As in the story's [Act Zero], Wen Bucai and Victor wrote in their letters home—
Life shouldn't be a journey from passion to coldness.
[Part ② - Coming Home]
If the story has already ended--
People will return to [the End of Friendship], order a man-faced egg yolk cocktail, mixed with honey, whiskey, and gin, and clink glasses with their closest friends, even if they don't know each other's names.
Flowers bloom in profusion on both sides of the road, and oil is poured on the roadside.
A huge float carrying a dragon head drove up. Fafnir's face was completely cleaned of cartilage and flesh and sent to the Research Station, leaving only a huge skull without pupils and with its dragon horns repaired with plaster.
It hangs atop the giant archway of the Freud Mine, its solemnity, majesty, and historical weight lasting only a moment before it becomes a new internet-famous spot for taking photos.
In the old town of the mining area, several street urchins immediately gathered around the bar; judging from their age, they were probably naive young people.
They had their eyes on this bar; seeing such a prime location occupied by a group of miners, they immediately became envious.
--With a huge flow of tourists entering and leaving the mine, they immediately decided that to turn their lives around, they needed to at least collect some protection money. If the owner was an easy target, then "[The End of Friendship]" would have to be renamed. The name didn't matter, but it had to be something festive that customers would like at first glance.
"Knock knock knock--"
The young man in the lead pounded on the roller shutter door.
He could have easily entered by simply pushing open the spring-loaded door, but instead he pounded on the iron curtain, as if afraid no one would notice this uninvited guest.
At this very moment--
--Wen Bucai sat at the bar, amidst the noisy crowd, giving instructions to Liuxing.
"Your Ming Ge me to melt down and forge the remaining part of Mingde's remains, and combine it with your walking stick. I finished modifying it before we set off. How has it felt to you using it along the way?"
Meteor exclaimed excitedly, "It's like divine intervention! The BOSS's claws are indestructible!"
Wen Bucai also wanted to say, "When you use it in the future, you should take good care of it. I heard from Jason that you don't seem to care much about your waiter."
Before the shooting star could answer.
A man and a woman jumped in through the door.
They were holding guns and shouting.
The man, looking all high and mighty, said, "Keep your heads down! Be a good boy and listen to me!"
The woman arrogantly declared, "Who's the owner here? I need to talk business with him!"
The bartender glanced at it, then anxiously reached for the hunting rifle under the table.
Wen Bucai immediately said, "No! Don't kill anyone here. The guests are innocent, and the wine in their hands is innocent too. Don't let the glasses be stained with blood."
Before anyone could react, these two uninvited guests from the new era burst into the old bar room.
The man fiddled with the old guitar on the wall, excitedly strumming a few notes that produced a piercing noise, but then, finding it uninteresting, he casually tossed it onto the sofa.
Immediately afterward, the woman spotted Jiang Xueming and wanted to come up and take a closer look, jumping excitedly as she stepped on the guests' tables.
Jason immediately stood up. "Who are you people?!"
The man slapped the cowboy hat on the wall, making it spin with each slap. He tossed his red hair, ripped open his shirt to reveal the Madness Butterfly tattoo over his heart, ready to make a grand entrance.
"We're members of Skull and Bones Society! Hehehehehe, if you don't want to become a human meat hotpot, you'd better behave!"
The woman moved closer to Jiang Xueming, grinning and laughing. Her brightly colored nails and hair gave her an air of artistic refinement, prompting Wen Bucai to exclaim, "So talented!"
"Don't move! Otherwise, all three thousand brothers and sisters in District 18 of the Skull and Bones Society will slaughter your families, your families' families, your friends, and your friends' friends!"
Bu Liuxing suddenly stood up, tense. "Really? You're serious? There are over three thousand people? Is there really such a good thing?"
Jason covered his face. "He seems to have taken it seriously."
Wen Bucai pinched Victor's face, utterly bewildered, and made sure he wasn't dreaming. "Doesn't their organization experience creative blocks?"
Victor waved his hand away from his old friend's restless hand. "Don't pinch my cheek. Don't you have your own waiters? Besides..."
Bloodhound grabbed its employer's hand, pinched its own face in a show of affection, and finished speaking for its employer, "Besides, these two punk youths don't look like cannibals at all. They don't have any Inspiration pressure; they're a new generation born in Mimir Hot Spring Market."
"That's right!" The man, with an arrogant expression, crossed his arms and stood in front of Bu Liuxing, tilting his head back to stare at the 1.9-meter-tall man. "It's just like we said, those who disobey will die!"
"Hehehehehehe." The woman plopped down on Xue Ming's dining table, her eyes wide. Her makeup was so thick it looked like a bulletproof helmet. She rolled up her trousers, took off her high heels, and used her toes to dab some mashed potatoes from the table. She ordered Jiang Xueming, "Lick it clean! I want you to lick it clean quickly! What's with that cold expression? Aren't you afraid of me? Aren't you afraid I'll shoot you unconscious a few times, and make you vomit all over your stomach? And then I'll personally shove my toes into your mouth? You like that? You like being passive, don't you?"
Jiang Xueming remained silent.
He simply looked at Wen Bucai.
Wen Bucai covered his mouth, staring at the wanton woman's long legs, and muttered in surprise.
"The moves are incredibly difficult. The flexibility is amazing, and the person is so talented."
The toes covered in mashed potatoes were getting closer and closer to Xue Ming's face.
The woman gradually raised the rhinoceros revolver in her hand, about to move it towards Xue Ming's abdomen.
Victor offered a compromise. "Destroy their will, don't shoot."
Xue Ming physically destroyed the punk sister's will.
He grabbed the tablecloth with one hand and the muzzle of the rhinoceros's gun with the other, moving with lightning speed, breaking free from his seated position like an awakened tiger.
With only soft moans and whimpers, the woman managed to put her toes into her own mouth; her flexibility was truly remarkable.
Xue Ming wrapped her in a tablecloth into a large bundle, tied it with her colorful hair, and at the same time, the rhinoceros revolver he had seized was reduced to a jumble of parts.
At that very moment--
--Ah A Xing decides to destroy the man's will from a spiritual level.
He simply gave the man a bear hug, and the gun in the man's hand was silenced by the immense force, and the magazine fell off.
Immediately afterwards, the man heard A Xing ask urgently.
"You really have over three thousand brothers? Are they all bastards of the Skull and Bones Society?"
"Really? You're not lying to me, are you?"
"Do you have a girlfriend? That girl who made Ming Ge lick her toes looks a lot like you, are you siblings? If you don't have a girlfriend, I have a lot of girls' contact information in my contacts, do you want it?"
Are you planning to get married? Do you plan to have children?
How much is your monthly salary? Do you have to pay taxes?
Where did you buy the house? What's your zodiac sign?
These psychological attacks severely tainted this uninvited guest.
Only the increasingly tight arms were pressing on his chest and lungs, and he passed out in just two seconds.
The street urchins who were still watching the commotion outside were immediately terrified and scattered like birds.
Victor sighed.
Wen Bucai: "What's wrong? Why are you unhappy?"
Victor: "People don't hate evil."
Wen Bucai: "Don't bring your fiction into reality."
Victor: "People just hate their own incompetence and wish for a shortcut to instantly don the dragon's skin, even if it's fake."
Wen Bucai clapped his hands. "Wow! A philosophical genius!"
"It's time to go, my friend," Victor said.
Wen Bucai: "Would you like me to give you a ride?"
"Aren't you coming with me?" Victor asked, puzzled.
Wen Bucai was nonchalant; "I still have a lot of things to do. In this place, think about it, the people who do business with the Skull and Bones Society's middlemen are waiting for me to arrest, and Governor Zhao Donglai is waiting for me to return to report on my duties—what would this city be like without me, what would this bar be like without me?"
At that very moment--
--A fight broke out in the bar.
Two drunken patrons suddenly started fighting, punching each other in the face.
The meteor hadn't even recovered yet—
--The enthusiastic Red Stone People immediately punched him.
Meteor: "Why? You're even crazier than me?"
The customer who punched the meteor shouted excitedly, "Well done! That was great! That felt so good! You guys got me fired up! I just couldn't control myself!"
--The reason is outrageous.
Immediately afterwards, the shop was thrown into chaos.
The guests at the next table, who had been chatting and joking, suddenly joined in a heated boxing match. Their expressions changed in an instant, from quiet and peaceful to beaming with joy.
Amidst the chaos, Jiang Xueming secretly escaped through a window. Bu Liuxing tried to join them—but was grabbed and dragged away by Bloodhound Lady.
Wen Bucai and Victor were playing a clapping game, one clapping for each other, while taking the ketchup handed to them by the bartender.
Wen Bucai shouted, "Well done!"
Victor exclaimed, "That's right! I was injured by his internal force. Chinese martial arts are truly amazing!"
Wen Bucai smeared ketchup on Victor: "This is too intense! We're really fighting too fiercely! Don't come any closer, we're both VIPs at the station, we might accidentally hurt you."
Victor led Wen Bucai towards the door, saying, "It's been wonderful to have a fight with you."
It was all clumsy and perfunctory acting, devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
The four met at the back door of the bar.
Jiang Xueming asked, "Where's Jason?"
Bu Liuxing: "And what about his servants?"
Wen Bucai shrugged and pursed his lips.
Victor pondered, "They should still be inside."
All that could be heard was the sound of glass shattering.
Jason, his head covered in blood, smashed open the bar window, half his body hanging from the windowsill.
The waiter, his eyes bloodshot, grabbed Jason by the collar. "You've only had one drink! And you're calling me Wendy again? Wendy?!"
Jason murmured, his face flushed, "If no one remembers the dead, then they are truly dead."
Wen Bucai simply covered his mouth and said, "It's a famous quote from Lu Xun. He was so talented!"
Victor: "So, they didn't experience any creative blocks in their comedy writing?"
Twenty minutes later.
The train station at Mimir Hot Spring Market is still as bustling as ever.
The seven friends were about to say goodbye.
Jason's head was wrapped in bandages; he looked like he had been injured all along, yet nothing could extinguish the light in his eyes.
Jason said, "I need to rest and make thorough preparations before going to [RSH· Red Star Hill]—three years ago I didn't dare go there, and it left me with a deep-seated fear. Now I'm fearless. Thank you all—especially you, Jiang Xueming."
Jiang Xueming said, "I need to go home for a while, rest for a bit, go to the large library to study, and while I'm at it, I'll tidy up the coffee shop."
Jason said, "If I come back alive, I'll definitely go to your kitchen."
Wen Bucai shouted, "Cover it up!"
Victor reached out his hand. "Don't say it."
The bloodhound reached out its paw.
The waiter was the quickest; he had already covered Jason's mouth tightly and told his friends, "I'm going with the employer! Don't worry, I've got everything covered!"
Bu Liuxing said, "Ming Ge and I have to go home now, teacher. Take care."
Wen Bucai handed the stick back to Xue Ming: "I'll be going to the Nine Realms during the New Year. When you're there, could you adjust the M500's magazine and give them a name? I don't think these two guns have any real affection for me anymore—how about we all meet up at your coffee shop and watch the Spring Festival Gala together?"
"No! That's so tacky!" Jason said.
The waiter replied, "No! It's too ugly!"
Meteor asked, "How about the Bilibili Spring Festival Gala?"
Jiang Xueming: "I have no objection, but I want to bring Seventh Brother along. She'll probably find it boring, and she might even try to kidnap me to see her father."
Bloodhound: "Wherever my employer is, that's where I'll be."
Victor: "Let's go."
The group boarded different trains.
--Victor and the Bloodhound were going to the Huge Mountain Station to return to Reykjavik, Iceland, and then fly directly to Vienna to visit their parents' century-old manor and lay flowers at their graves.
--Wen Bucai retraced his steps, making no mention of the remaining member of the trio, [Sheriff Jack], as if he had many things on his mind. He was going back to Baiweifang to investigate the whereabouts of the Skull and Bones Society and Bones Society ministers and hunters, hoping to capture them all.
Jason Megan and the waiter are heading to Sky Station in London to prepare, where professional Nightingale's Nest shooting instructors will teach him how to use CQC (Combat Quality) marksmanship. After spending the New Year with Jiang Xueming, he will embark on the most important journey of his life: to Red Star Hill to complete the "inevitable path" he hadn't finished three years ago. Perhaps this is his chance to transform.
Xue Ming and Liuxing sent the weapons to the shipping station, but the ammunition was confiscated, and only the empty guns could be returned to Nine Realms Station.
The staff at the Mimir Hot Spring station stamped a new seal on their logbook.
The log contains very little information.
--A wondrous adventure that is difficult to describe clearly with pale words.
"Jason Megan is a very special person. His Inspiration is extraordinary. This journey has been full of hardships and dangers. He risked going crazy and dying to help us see the way forward and turn bad luck into good. The fact that he named us Lingyun in the beginning was all by chance and destiny."
"The North Sea isn't just home to Iceland; it also includes Finland, which is swept by fierce, cold winds."
"This land is only 338,000 square kilometers—and the Lingyun Band was born from it."
"The name of this progressive power metal band comes from the compound word [Stratovarius]."
"It represents a fusion of classic and modern, like the ever-changing clouds in the sky."
"It is a long-forgotten yearning for freedom, courage, and innocence—this is the essence of Lingyun's music and lyrics."
I closed the journal and put away the pen.
Jiang Xueming gazed at the endless darkness outside the car window and made a phone call to Seventh Brother.
"Hey, Xiao Qi?"
"Hey employer! How was your trip to Mimir Hot Spring Market? Don't worry about the debt! If it really comes down to it, we can pay it off in installments! We can split it up and pay it off slowly over a lifetime!"
"I got the money."
"Ah?"
"I've got the money; I'll pay it all back in one go."
"No, no, no! There's no rush!"
"Also, I hope we can spend the New Year together. We have two months left, could you help me get the coffee shop space and renovations done?"
"Did you sell your kidneys or blood, employer? Blood Butterfly Loan Shark don't tolerate this!"
"No, I went to slay a dragon."
"What?!"
"He also learned a magic spell, to dispel your weapons."
"What?!"
"The dragon slayer made a pair of Magic Wand for us, and I plan to give one of them to you, just like the rings that the BOSS and the Spirit Elder gave me. I hope it can protect you."
"What?! Wait a minute!"
"Is there anything else?"
"Do you have any magic like that?"
"No, there is no charm spell."
"Well, you've actually learned to answer first! I wasn't talking about that, I meant... uh... do we have... the technique to take your pants off?"
"My signal is bad, I'm hanging up now."
Jiang Xueming hung up the phone without saying a word.
Then he closed his eyes, hugged the stick, and took a short rest.
Bu Liuxing also came over. Since he didn't have any protective clothing, he asked a flight attendant for a blanket and snuggled up to Ming Ge.
Take a nap, just a short nap.
Let's go check out the VIP carriages.