After Petru successfully distracted Qingmu from the savages, hordes of savages began to gather in his direction. However, he was not in a hurry. The savages posed no threat to him; his weapons were sufficient to handle them. The only things he needed to be wary of were traps and ambushes.
So Hanran climbed up that very tall tree and began acting as Petru's lookout.
Hanran's exceptional eyesight was even more useful than a telescope, and their teamwork was impeccable until Hanran spotted the old man.
The distance was still quite far when the old man raised the stick in his hand. The stick looked strange, like the long handle of an umbrella with a hook at the end.
He Hanran felt the Mental Power on the island come alive, like swarms of locusts, covering the sky and densely packed.
The Crow that had just flown over shouted "Run!" and a huge surge of Mental Power swept out, blocking her and Petru's path.
Then she saw the Crow being swept up into the sky.
Fortunately, the Crow blocked their way, preventing her and Petru from being caught off guard.
Petru frantically threw a grenade; the huge explosion stunned the savages, but didn't frighten the old man.
The locusts, growing ever denser, transformed into an endless tide. Hidden within these towering waves were countless Venomous Snake, their fangs bared, hissing and spitting out venomous fangs.
Hanran's fur stood on end. She leaped down from the tree. She wanted to help Petru, but she couldn't withstand the relentless, terrifying power and could only flee in panic.
Fortunately, the old man's attention wasn't on her, but on Petru. All the savages surrounded him, and he had no chance to escape.
She ran Hanran, almost getting lost. Only after confirming there was no danger did she turn back and quietly follow the savages' tracks. She had initially thought Petru would be eaten, but he wasn't. The savages seemed very interested in the weapons he carried, playing with his guns and grenades the whole way, only daring to touch them after they fired twice.
The savages' curiosity about weapons saved Petru's life, and they took him back to their tribe.
It was a habitable place in a canyon, with a river flowing through it and many wooden houses built on both banks.
Hanran dared not approach, fearing she would be discovered by the old man. She gazed at the savage tribe in the canyon from afar, feeling a sense of disorientation. Then, she saw the waterfall flowing backward up the mountain behind the tribe.
The waterfall flows into the sky, and there's a lake in the sky!
Hanran returned in the dark.
Cats have excellent night vision; their retinas contain 200 million rod cells, allowing them to detect much fainter light than humans. However, their eye structure is not fundamentally different from humans, and their response to light is within the normal visible light wavelength range; they cannot see electromagnetic waves beyond the visible light spectrum.
Qingmu didn't know how it found its way through the pitch-black night; the island, devoid of stars and moon, didn't seem like it could reflect even the slightest bit of visible light.
When he entered the dream and asked Hanran, Hanran's answer was completely unexpected. She did not return by sight, but by sensing the things around her with her Mental Power.
Qingmu once sensed the presence of Mental Power in the old willow tree in Liuying Lane, which led him to believe that all things possess a spirit. But regardless of whether this proposition is true or not, even if it is true, sensing the faint, almost non-existent Mental Power of plants is like trying to see the pattern on a mosquito's wing with your eyes; it requires an enormous amount of mental effort, and no one can persist for long.
"No, no, no, it's not the Mental Power of sensing plants," Hanran said. "It's the Mental Power Field on the island that allows me to sense everything around me, like I have an extra pair of eyes. I can see a black and white world, like... a film negative... yes, like a film negative!"
In his Hanran sleep, Qingmu saw the black-and-white negative she had described, but within this negative, another layer of imagery was also incorporated.
This layer of the image is not very clear, like a double-exposure photograph.
In Hanran dream, she transformed back into the noble and elegant white cat, Ruxue. She herself was unaware of this merged scene; it was Qingmu first noticed it.
He stripped it from the dream of Ruxue, and thus, a vast desert of yellow sand appeared in the dream of Ruxue.
The rolling sand dunes and weathered rocks looked familiar to Qingmu. He quickly remembered where he was—the forbidden zone in Yao Jingjing's mother's mind—the other end of the Dream Corridor once guarded by the white cat.
Strangely, this forbidden zone ceased to exist after Qingmu took away the Dream Corridor. Although Ruxue was imprisoned there by Qingmu for a period of time, she was merely a consciousness and did not retain any memories. Later, Ruxue merged with Hanran Ran, and apart from her conscious instincts, the remaining memories belonged to Hanran Hanran, who was just a gluttonous orange cat with a tortuous cat life.
Ruxue didn't know why such a scene had appeared. She stared blankly at it in her dream for a long time. The two layers of images were clearly two completely different worlds when separated, but they merged so naturally! This meant that in her subconscious perception, it was the same place.
Su Huilan said, "Could it be the past of this island? And that Ruxue once came here?"
Qingmu shook his head. He couldn't believe this was the same place. Even with the passage of time, traces would remain. He felt there was another layer of logic here, not what it appeared on the surface.
Therefore, he opened the Dream Corridor again and walked into that desert. The Old Madam Cuan's remaining consciousness had said that it was Awakening Sacred Land, or that it held the key to unlocking the Holy Land.
Qingmu had almost forgotten about it, but now that he thought about it, his mind was in a complete mess.
When his mind is in a mess, he gets a headache; and when he has a headache, his laziness kicks in.
So he simply stopped thinking about anything, exited the dream, and began to stare blankly at the stone wall of the cave, like Bodhidharma facing a wall.
Su Huilan and the others didn't disturb him until dawn, when they asked him, "Comrade Bodhidharma, have you attained enlightenment?"
Qingmu stretched and said, "Got it, got it!"
Su Huilan asked curiously, "What did you realize?"
Qingmu said, "I'm hungry!"
Su Huilan was both annoyed and amused. "All the good food is in your own bag!"
Alice said, "There's still so much of what you gave us to eat yesterday!"
As she spoke, she took out several packets of ham and dried fish and placed them on the ground.
With Hanran burst of energy, she darted over, clutching a bag of dried fish to her chest with her paws, warily scanning her surroundings. Perhaps realizing her actions were rather unrefined, she grinned somewhat sheepishly at Qingmu and Tushu, baring her sharp teeth. Then, she used her paws to push two bags of ham towards Qingmu, before tightly clutching the dried fish, refusing to let go.
Just then, Guagua sound came from outside. Crow flapped its wings and flew in. Seeing the food on the ground, it landed and cried out, "Caw, you bad bastards! You didn't even wait for me to come back for breakfast!"
Hanran the Boss Coal return, Hanran quickly snatched back the ham he had just peeled, hugged it to his chest along with the dried fish, then cawed ingratiatingly at the Crow and gave it half.
The Crow nodded in satisfaction, patted the cat's head with its wing, and said, "Hmm, you're still thinking of me, quack!"
The food on the ground was divided up by the cat and the Crow, leaving the group of people both amused and exasperated.
Su Huilan took out a few compressed biscuits from her bag and handed them to Qingmu, saying, "Looks like we'll have to make do with these for now!"
Qingmu laughed, "It's alright, we won't let them tear open the packaging unless they share their food. These military vacuum bags are very sturdy; let's see how they manage to open them with their claws!"
The Crow and the cat exchanged a glance, then looked at the food bag under their paws, their eyes revealing extreme reluctance, yet their paws tightened their grip on the food...