From the first day of the Lunar New Year to the sixth day, Qingmu stayed in the Mulberry Garden and didn't go out at all.
On the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, Yao Jingjing and Hou Biao, who had returned from celebrating the New Year in Cuanzhou, brought bags of local specialties to visit Bi Shenghua. As soon as they entered, they saw Qingmu lounging lazily on the sofa and Crow gnawing on a braised pork knuckle on a bird stand.
Yao Jingjing stood there stunned. She wanted to speak, but as soon as she opened her mouth, her nose suddenly stung, and tears welled up in her eyes.
Hou Biao had lost his memory, but the person in front of him looked familiar. Seeing Yao Jingjing's expression, he knew that this person was probably Qingmu, whom they often mentioned.
He put down what he was holding and gave Qingmu a simple, honest smile.
Qingmu already knew about Hou Biao from Bi Shenghua. He stood up, patted him on the shoulder, but didn't know what to say. In the end, he only said two words:
"Thanks."
Hou Biao seemed to be struck by lightning; his burly body jolted violently.
Seeing the slightly awkward atmosphere, Bi Shenghua quickly stepped in to smooth things over, taking the local specialties from Cuanzhou they had brought and saying, "Oh dear, you've come all this way, why bring so much stuff... Oh, it's all food!"
Crow swooped over, looking at this bag and that box, "What, what, what's all this food? Is it spicy? I won't eat anything spicy, quack..."
The Boss Coal's eagerness made the atmosphere cheerful.
"Not spicy, not spicy at all!" Yao Jingjing laughed through her tears. "This is Xuanwei ham, this is black goat meat, this is Job's tears, this is konjac..."
The Crow flapped its wings and interrupted, "Stop! The first two are enough, quack, the rest... no!"
Bi Shenghua laughed, "You must have been born Tiger! Alright, I'll go buy some groceries; I'll give you a different meal today." Then she said to Qingmu, "How about we call Hu Xing and Captain Shi over too?"
Qingmu thought for a moment and said, "Alright, it's time we got together."
While Bi Shenghua buy groceries, Qingmu and Yao Jingjing chatted, Hou Biao listened quietly like a well-behaved child.
Yao Jingjing and Hou Biao could be considered half-apprentices of Qingmu, and they could talk about some things openly with him, unlike in front of Bi Shenghua, where Qingmu was hesitant to say anything, afraid of scaring her. So when Yao Jingjing asked him where he had been these past few years, Qingmu didn't hide anything and simply told her about going to Ramla. Even though it was simple, it left Yao Jingjing speechless.
Yao Jingjing recalled something and said, "I met a strange man at a bar who said he was looking for a cat from the Holy Land."
She then recounted her entire encounter with Ramesses at the bar, and asked, "Does this have anything to do with the Holy Land you mentioned?"
"Are you sure you saw his hair was red?" Qingmu asked.
Yao Jingjing nodded and said, "I'm sure. The bar's lighting is a bit dim, but you can still distinguish the colors."
"Then it must be him." Qingmu thought of Petru, " The Redbeard Family! Ramesses... Why not Hayreddin? Ramesses... That name sounds familiar!"
Yao Jingjing said, "I checked, and it was a pharaoh from the 19th Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Three years ago, some things happened in Egypt. The Giza region of Cairo was sealed off by the government. There were rumors online that an underground palace had been discovered at the Great Pyramid. This has now been confirmed, but the underground palace is not yet open to the public for tourism."
In addition, many tourists went missing back then, and rumors circulated that the Mummy had come back to life and eaten the tourists. I didn't believe in these things at first, but that Ramesses... he was surrounded by an aura of death, and he didn't seem like a living person. I still get chills when I think about it now."
Qingmu asked, "Did he say anything else?"
Yao Jingjing thought for a moment and said, "He said he is the Guardian of the Holy Land, Osiris awakened him in the flames. He has already felt the divine power surging from the void. No one can escape the cycle of fate; the battle has begun!"
"The divine power surging from the void..." Qingmu nodded. "He probably knows more than I do. I need to find this person."
Yao Jingjing said, "Won't there be any danger? He has very strong Mental Power."
She suddenly remembered Qingmu's abilities and felt that her words were somewhat superfluous, so she lowered her head in embarrassment.
Qingmu smiled and said, "It's alright, he probably meant no harm, otherwise he wouldn't have given you this advice through a dream."
Yao Jingjing nodded and said, "That's true. After we came out of that dream, many things that were confusing before suddenly became clear. The boundaries of the dream expanded a lot, and combined with what you taught us, we progressed very quickly."
Qingmu said, "So you should thank him. If it weren't for that, Hou Biao wouldn't have regained consciousness so easily. Your Mental Power is already very strong, and I have nothing more to teach you."
Yao Jingjing suddenly realized, "Ah, so that's how it is..." Then she looked at Qingmu expectantly, "Is it possible to recover A Biao's memories?"
"It's possible, but I don't know what to do." Qingmu, considering his recent changes, confirmed that his memories hadn't been erased. It was likely that when his consciousness was damaged, his memories were fragmented into tiny pieces due to the shattering of his dreams or some other reason.
But this immediately reminded him of something else, and he asked, "Does Hou Biao dream now?"
Yao Jingjing also looked at Hou Biao, Hou Biao shook his head and said, "No."
Qingmu noticed that Hou Biao's symptoms were very similar to his own in the past, and Hou Biao's condition was caused by killing the invading Parasitic Consciousness. Could Aoki himself be suffering from the same problem?
But ordinary Parasitic Consciousness obviously cannot infest his consciousness. What kind of Parasites could force him to self-harm? And what kind of person was he before this?
Could it be that I was parasitized for a long time, which is why I feel so close to those Itza People?
Qingmu recalled his experience in Ramla, especially the inexplicable spiritual connection he had with the Itza People.
Regardless, we have to find that Ramesses. He should be connected to the ancient Awakened organization, and perhaps time distortion and the resurrection of the Pharaoh are not impossible. Having experienced various strange time-space phenomena in Ramla, Qingmu would not arbitrarily deny any unknown mysterious phenomena.
He asked Yao Jingjing, "Do you know where that Ramesses went?"
Yao Jingjing shook her head and said, "I don't know."
Qingmu said, "He didn't leave any instructions or ask you to do anything?"
"No," Yao Jingjing said. "Actually, I'm also very surprised. That day at the bar, he approached me and even gave us a lesson, helping us improve our Mental Power and helping A Biao through his difficulties. I don't believe this is a magical encounter like in a martial arts novel; he must have some purpose. But so much time has passed, and I haven't seen him since. It's as if he just appeared by chance."
Qingmu said, "He has his own mission. The reason he helped you is because he has a connection with the cat your family, or rather, your great-grandmother's, pet cat."
"Cat?"
" The Holy Land he guards must be the Egypt pyramids. Remember the white cat your great-grandmother placed in your mother's consciousness? The white cat guards a Dream Corridor, at the end of which is a desert. I guess Ruxue is the cat he's looking for, the one belonging to the Holy Land."
" Ruxue? Hanran?" Although Yao Jingjing had made similar guesses before, she still found it hard to believe. "You mean, the cat my great-grandmother kept was brought from Egypt?"