After some searching, Lumian found quite a few gold, silver, and copper coins, totaling 197 felkines and 25 kopeks.
Among them, there were five gold louises alone.
As for paper banknotes, he only found some suspected remains.
Besides money, Lumian also dug out a Little Blue Book.
This book had a grayish-blue cover, was in 16mo size, and was widely prevalent in Intis villages and towns.
Based on the calendar, it integrated almanacs with the religious doctrines of the two major churches, playing a quite positive role in guiding farmers and herdsmen in farming, production, and grazing, as well as enriching their spiritual lives.
Of course, even though nearly two hundred years had passed since Emperor Roselle advocated compulsory education, there were still a large number of farmers, herdsmen, and workers who did not know many words and remained illiterates. They could only rely on the explanations of certain people around them to obtain the hints they wanted from the Little Blue Book.
Lumian casually flipped through a few pages and found that this Little Blue Book was no different from the one in his own home, only looking slightly older overall.
"With a Little Blue Book and this many felkines, this family definitely belongs to the very well-off kind in the countryside. There won't be more than five similar families in Cordou Village..." Lumian discarded the Little Blue Book, sorting those gold, silver, and copper coins into different pockets-some hidden deep in the pockets of the cotton-padded jacket inside, some placed in his trouser pockets, and some casually stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket.
Although Lumian knew these monies couldn't be brought into reality, he still couldn't help but collect and preserve them.
These small things, whether gold, silver, or copper-colored, always made him unable to take his eyes off them.
In his past wandering life, even if it was just a kopek or a rick of copper coins, he cherished them very much, often fighting with others and taking risks to do certain things for them.
Looking around, Lumian hoisted his axe and sneaked toward the collapsed buildings closer to that reddish-brown peak.
He deepened his way bit by bit, his heart in his throat every time he passed through the empty area in the middle of the ring, afraid that dozens of monsters would suddenly surge out and surround him in an unprotected place.
Within the faint gray mist, Lumian hunched his back, came behind a half-collapsed stone wall, and crouched there to conceal his figure.
He cautiously poked his head out and looked ahead.
That was a long, narrow strip located between two rows of destroyed buildings, with no trees, no weeds, only gravel, cracks, and dirt.
Suddenly, a figure leaped into Lumian's eyes.
He stood in the opposite building, not knowing what he was gazing at.
This figure wore a black robe with a hood, and nothing strange could be seen on his back, just like an ordinary human being.
Lumian's heart tightened, growing increasingly vigilant.
In such a dream ruin, the appearance of a normal person was much more terrifying than the appearance of a monster!
Seeming to sense that someone was watching him, that figure slowly turned around.
Lumian glanced quickly, hastily pulling his head back, his back against the wall, not daring to move at all.
Just from that single glance, he had the illusion of whether he had arrived in hell or the abyss.
That figure was indeed a person, but he had three faces and six eyes!
The face in the front had turbid eyes, sparse eyebrows, and numerous wrinkles, remarkably an old man;
The left side had sharp contours, spirited blue eyes, and a dense, pitch-black beard, resembling a stalwart man;
The skin on the right side was smooth and delicate, like a shelled egg, and a pair of azure eyes revealed obvious innocence and ignorance, showing at a glance that he wouldn't be more than five years old.
"What kind of monster is this..." Lumian struggled to control his breathing, not letting his heart beat wildly.
Even in Aurora's horror stories, such monsters had never appeared. Only in the deepest, darkest, and most absurd nightmares could they be encountered.
Although judging "people" by appearance was not good, based solely on this appearance, Lumian instinctively felt that the Three-Faced Monster was countless times more powerful than the previous Skinless Monster!
Moreover, it in all probability possessed supernatural powers.
"Eternal Blazing Sun, great Father, please bless me so I am not discovered by it..." Under such circumstances, the pan-believer Lumian couldn't help but pray to the Eternal Blazing Sun.
If he weren't still holding an axe in one hand, and if the environment weren't so perilous, he would have spread his arms and made the "Praise the Sun" posture.
At this moment, time seemed to freeze, and Lumian thought he might have experienced a hallucination:
It seemed as if a gaze pierced through the wall and landed on his back.
His back instantly stiffened, feeling vaguely burning hot.
It was only a matter of a second or two before this hallucination disappeared, and heavy footsteps headed into the distance.
Lumian waited for a while longer until the footsteps completely vanished before slowly straightening his knees, turning his body, poking his head out, and looking ahead.
The monster was farther away, behind that building which was intact on both sides and collapsed in the middle, revealing half its body in the faint gray mist.
He still had his back to Lumian, seeming to have turned into a statue.
Lumian quietly heaved a sigh of relief.
Facing this kind of monster, he didn't have a shred of confidence.
"Proceeding straight into the ruins from here definitely won't work... Go around?
"Are there no similar monsters in other places?
"The closer to that peak, the stronger the monsters that appear?"
Lumian pulled his body back, thought for a moment, and decided to call it a night for tonight.
He planned to ask the woman who gave him the tarot cards after dawn to see if there was any way to deal with the Three-Faced Monster, and only consider detouring if that really failed.
He hunched his back, left the wall, and headed the way he came.
At this time, he had an idea:
"If I fall asleep in this ruin, can I also escape the dream?"
Considering the numerous monsters around, he temporarily suppressed the urge to try.
On the return trip, he quickly searched every destroyed building he passed, but found no useful written materials, and even the coins were just a sparse few.
Retreating for a while, Lumian thought about it and decided to make a slight detour, approaching from the side the burnt-down house he had reached earliest-which was where he buried the Skinless Monster.
He wanted to observe whether the death of that monster would be detected by its peers and whether it would trigger certain changes.
Finding the location and hiding his body, Lumian poked his head out from the side and looked toward the target area.
The next second, he saw another "figure" again.
That figure was half-human, half-beast, with its legs folded forward, crouching there and inspecting the corpse of the Skinless Monster.
It had already pried open the stone bricks and wood blocks Lumian had piled on top.
It wore a dark jacket and rather tight muddy trousers, its black hair messy and greasy as it draped down to its neck, and a hunting rifle strapped across its back.
A hunting rifle!
Lumian hurriedly shifted his gaze away and pulled his head back.
"These monsters are truly outrageous!
"They can actually even use hunting rifles..."
At this instant, Lumian had the absurd, disillusioned, and lost feeling of being a hunter who went up the mountain to hunt with weapons and partners, only to find that the rabbit on the opposite side was mounting a water-cooled machine gun and aiming at him and his companions.
Time passed second by second as he patiently waited for the monster with the hunting rifle to leave.
Finally, he heard a slight commotion sound arise, gradually receding.
Lumian cautiously poked his head out again and looked toward the half-human, half-beast monster.
It proceeded in the posture of a cat, heading toward the back of the building.
Lumian first let go of the heart that had been hanging, and then opened his eyes wide.
He discovered that the place the monster walked completely overlapped with the route he had taken when he penetrated deep into the ruins earlier!
"It's tracking me!
"It has very strong, beyond-normal tracking abilities!"
Lumian subconsciously made a judgment.
He was immensely glad that he had a whim on his way back and took a detour, otherwise he definitely would have run right into it or even been ambushed!
As soon as the monster's figure vanished, Lumian quickly got up and sprinted toward his home.
The crimson stove fire reflected on the glass windows of the ground floor of that house was like sunlight capable of dispelling darkness.
Lumian ran all the way outside his two-story building, pulled open the ajar door, and rushed in.
After locking the door securely, he looked toward the ruins through the window.
Far in the gray mist, at the edge of the ruins, a figure faintly stood, but it didn't approach this side.
Phew, Lumian let out a breath, preparing to extinguish the stove fire, go upstairs to sleep, and leave the dream.
He glanced at the stove fire that was still burning, feeling doubtful in his heart:
"It can still burn for a good while...
"I can test whether it continues to burn until it extinguishes after I leave the dream, or if it freezes at the very instant I left..."
Lumian had already confirmed through the matter of the rain that the wilderness where the ruins were located presented a state of natural development, having nothing to do with whether he dreamed or not, but whether the same situation applied inside his own house, the so-called safe zone, remained to be verified.
He did as he thought, added a few more pieces of coal to the stove fire, poked it, and then hoisted his axe and pitchfork up to the second floor, entering the bedroom.
When Lumian woke up, it was just dawn.
He checked his shirt-like pajamas and, unsurprisingly and quite disappointedly, found that those gold, silver, and copper coins had not followed him into reality.
Rolling out of bed and loosening up his body, Lumian walked to the desk and reached out to pull open the curtains.
Amidst a rustling sound, a soft and pure light flowed in.
And as the window opened, fresh and natural air drilled into Lumian's nostrils, making him unable to help stretching a lazy stretch, feeling that sometimes waking up early was still quite wonderful.
Of course, this also had to be thanks to the "Patriotic Health Campaign" vigorously promoted by Emperor Roselle; even if its impact on the countryside wasn't too great, it ultimately brought about a certain improvement, at least turning excrement into a treasure so it wouldn't be everywhere. Thanks also to the subsequent rulers who preserved it, merely changing its name.
His gaze wandered all around, sometimes looking at the distant mountain forests, sometimes gazing at the orange-red-dyed clouds at the edge of the sky, and sometimes observing the weeds outside the house.
Suddenly, Lumian's gaze froze.
He saw a bird of a larger size perched on an elm tree not far away.
That bird had a sharp beak, a cat-like face shape, brown feathers dotted with fine spots, and brownish-yellow whites of the eyes matched with black pupils, looking very spirited.
This was an owl.
It seemed to be looking at Lumian.
Before you continue