"Theoretically, that's true. Without the Sacred Staff, it's difficult to manipulate the Mental Power Field here to gather the spacetime fragments. And the Sacred Staff requires human consciousness to guide and control it; it's merely a tool."
If this inference holds true, then things become very complicated.
Although the hangar wasn't large, it was dark inside, and with the helicopters providing cover, it wasn't difficult for someone to hide. Petru group would be most easily spotted when they went to dismantle the aircraft parts, but at that time they hadn't yet fallen into the Spacetime Deep Well, so there was no need for anyone inside to maintain the time-space bubble.
If, after the Altar of Fire is activated, someone gathers the spacetime bubble and moves it to the Swordfish's hangar, everything in the hangar is preserved—the planes and weapons are all new. However, the planes are out of fuel, and removing so much fuel cannot be done by one person in a short time, indicating that more than one person knows the secret of this special space.
These people also left the hangar after the Swordfish left the Spacetime Stasis Zone and hid in the ship's cabins? Could the shadow that the Crow saw really be...?
Even so, how did the time-space bubbles in the hangar come about after the second fall into the Spacetime Deep Well?
When the Altar of Wind was activated, only Qingmu, Situ, Duwa, and Petru had the opportunity to collect the fragments of time and space. However, because the whirlwind scene was too shocking and the time-space freeze line was coming, everyone was in a hurry to run away, Qingmu did not notice the fragments generated by the superimposed space.
He thought about it carefully and was certain it couldn't be Situ. Because Situ's location was always very close to his, he would definitely be able to sense any mental movement from him.
Duwa is the most suspicious. She is the initiator of the altar and is most sensitive to the Mental Power Field there. If anyone can discover the secret of the convergent spacetime bubble, she should be the first one.
It's not impossible that Petru is involved; Su Huilan had long said there were suspicious points about him. He is the inheritor of the Soul of Fire, and Ronald Cohen just happened to leave behind the Soul of Fire.
Of course, it's also possible that someone infiltrated the altar after they left. Qingmu didn't know how long it would take for the spacetime fragments to dissipate, but the area around the altar was very open, and it wouldn't be easy to hide on the side without being discovered, unless one hid among a pile of corpses...
Thinking of the dead, Qingmu suddenly thought of Anderson and Boris, who had died. For some reason, he felt something was off. But those two had clearly been buried!
He clearly remembered the pit they dug together, the body that Ivan and Petru carried, and the mound they covered with earth...
Ivan
Qingmu suddenly remembered that unusually calm Russia, an ordinary person without any Mental Power, whose calmness in this environment was somewhat abnormal.
He was also the first to discover the hangar.
The hangar seemed to have been deliberately prepared for them, not only allowing them to endure the long period of stagnation but also providing them with powerful weapons, ultimately leading to the massacre of three Itza tribesmen. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to activate the Altar of Wind so easily; apart from negotiation, they had no other way to counter the Mental Power Formation of thousands of Itza People.
It all seems to be part of some kind of arrangement.
Qingmu suddenly realized that everything was becoming suspicious. Every event, every person, seemed questionable. The most crucial point was Ronald Cohen —was his dying wish true? If it was, then regardless of the arrangements behind it, as long as activating the altar was the right thing to do, everything could be understood. But if it was false... that would be complicated!
The Crow suddenly said, "What if Ronald Cohen isn't actually dead?"
"Why?" Qingmu asked in astonishment.
"In the end, they never found his body, did they?" said the Crow.
Qingmu suddenly remembered that Ivan and Petru carried the body together in the end. They both said they didn't find Ronald's body and assumed the other had carried it away.
It's Ivan again...
Petru also quite suspicious...
Seeing Crow deep in thought, the Qingmu lowered its head and hovered in front of him, saying, "Hey, hey, why have you become so thoughtful? This isn't like you at all! You should be... really lazy, quack!"
"I was lazy because I lost my memory, but now I've remembered some things," Qingmu said.
"What did you remember?" the Crow asked.
"I've been here before." Qingmu looked up at the sky.
"Oh, of course you've been here before! There was a big moon in the sky when I was here last time!"
"Not that time. Before that time..."
"Before that time?" the Crow asked, startled. "I don't remember. Did you have other birds back then?"
Qingmu ignored him and looked at the altar, saying, "I hope we haven't done anything wrong."
The Crow raised its head, thought seriously for a while, and said, "The key is still that hangar, or maybe there's another reason. If we don't use those sacred sticks you have, what other way is there to support a spacetime bubble like that?"
Qingmu shook his head and said, "Without the Sacred Staff to connect the entire Mental Power Field, even if an individual can sense those spatial fragments, they cannot influence them, let alone condense them. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Group consciousness."
Qingmu suddenly thought of the more than three hundred officers and soldiers sleeping on the Swordfish. But then he shook his head, thinking it impossible. Those officers and soldiers were all dead and had already been cremated.
Cremation... He remembered that he had once specifically gone to see that charred wasteland, but he hadn't even seen a trace of bone. At the time, he only thought it was due to the effects of Stasis Spacetime and a special environment, but now he realized that he truly hadn't witnessed the cremation of those corpses...
Alice?
Qingmu's brows furrowed deeply.
He asked the Crow, "If Ronald hadn't died, where do you think he would be now?"
The Crow thought for a moment and said, "Maybe they've already gone home, caw!"
"Go home?"
"Right, you can get home with a willow twig, so why can't others find other ways to get home? Going home means eating braised pork hock, which is better than eating dried fish here Tiantian! Now you're the only lazy one left who can't catch fish, and we don't even have dried fish to eat. I'm such a poor bird..."
The Crow Guagua and lamented its tragic fate.
When home was mentioned, Qingmu immediately thought of the old street and the old tree. But for some reason, what flashed into his mind was not the willow and the book tree, but a mulberry tree.
He turned back to look at the altar, his brow relaxed, and he smiled, saying, "You'll be able to eat braised pork knuckle soon."
The Crow was taken aback, then noticed that the slender willow branch in the altar had grown into a large tree, looking exactly like the old willow in Liuying Lane.
It let out a croak and almost flew over. But remembering that they were still in the Spacetime Stasis Zone outside, it grabbed onto Qingmu's hair tightly, flapped its wings a few times, and cried out, "That was close! Guagua!"
Qingmu stepped down from the altar and came to the willow tree. He flicked the wooden spirit in his hand, and the entire space trembled. The spacetime bubble protecting them shattered and disappeared.
The Crow said worriedly, "Are you going to burn your bridges? What if... what if this path doesn't work out..."
Shut your Crow!
As Qingmu spoke, he reached out and touched the green silk ribbons hanging in front of him. A strange sensation, like an electric current, flowed into his fingers and spread throughout his body. Without hesitation, he lifted the willow curtain and stepped inside.
His and the Crow's figures disappeared little by little, like a picture being erased from paper. The willow tree inside the altar decayed rapidly, experiencing a thousand years in an instant in the still space of time. Its flowers and leaves withered, its roots dried up and its branches rotted, and finally it turned into invisible dust, leaving only a small willow branch stuck in the crack of the stone in the ground.