Vancouver's night was still brightly lit, but people had not yet recovered from the shock of the horrific live television broadcast. They were like zombies, unable to even see a strange person walking by in the dead of winter wearing a thin old trench coat and slippers, with a Crow on his head.
"Caw! What's wrong with all these people?" the Crow asked.
"Anyone who witnesses murder for the first time would be terrified, let alone in this way," Qingmu said.
The Crow muttered, "The murders in the movies are much scarier than this!"
Qingmu said, "The movie is fake, but this time everyone knows it's real. You've heard the story of Lord Ye who loved dragons but was terrified of them, right?"
The Crow thought for a moment and said, "Then they should be trembling with fear, or hurrying home. Why are they cawing like idiots in the street?"
"That's because of Selina's influence," Qingmu sighed. "What an amazing woman! Her influence has affected the entire world; everyone's consciousness has directly received information that cannot be expressed in words and is enough to overturn their worldview. If you suddenly found yourself possibly living in a real dream, you'd be dumbfounded too."
"I didn't," the Crow protested.
Qingmu laughed and said, "Has your worldview been turned upside down too?"
"Um..." the Crow thought for a moment, "It's a tiny bit overturned, but I don't care, quack Ronald said that no matter where Gaia goes, Gaia won't make braised pork knuckle for me. So quack, let's hurry back to Wuzhong!"
"I'm afraid we can't go back for the time being," Qingmu said.
"Why?" the Crow asked in surprise.
"You said it yourself, Gaia won't make braised pork hock for you. So that you can have more braised pork hock in the future, and so that Ruhua can live a good life, we must prevent it from coming."
"Quack... How do we stop it?"
" Selina's actions will inevitably cause chaos within the Gaia Organization on Earth. I believe that Selina will awaken the independence within many Parasites' consciousnesses, and they will be unable to pose a threat to humanity in the short term due to internal strife. Moreover, with Ronald dead, they are leaderless, and a split is inevitable."
"Isn't there still that old Itjenetjer? He looks really powerful..." the Crow said with a worried expression, as if Itjenetjer had stolen its braised pork knuckle. "The whole world saw him kill Selina; that should deter any independent thoughts, right?"
" Itjenetjer does seem very powerful. But everything has two sides. He can intimidate people, but his cruel methods are more likely to incite fear and resentment towards Gaia. Originally, Gaia's arrival might have garnered supporters among normal humans, aside from those already parasitized by the Gaia Organization; humans are inherently difficult to unite. But now, Itjenetjer's brutality has been exposed to the whole world, forming a stark contrast with Selina. No one will openly support him anymore; supporting him on the moral high ground of humanity is untenable. I think Selina probably foresaw this all along."
"You mean, Selina deliberately let Itjenetjer kill her?"
Qingmu nodded, then said somberly, "She went with the flow, which is why I said she was a remarkable person."
Hearing Qingmu say this, Crow agreed, thinking that Selina was a great woman. As he pondered her words, the phrase "freedom for mortals" kept popping into his mind.
It suddenly realized an important question: if mortals are free, what about the birds?
The calls of night herons could be heard from not far away.
The Crow complained, "That's unfair! That's unfair! Why only talk about humans? What about birds?" Then it suddenly remembered Hanran, "What about cats? Animals have consciousness too, and they need freedom too!"
Qingmu said, "Yes, that's right. Pigs also need freedom, not a destiny to be eaten."
The Crow immediately shut its beak and changed the subject, saying, "Caw, look, the night view of Vancouver is quite nice, Guagua..."
It suddenly jumped up from the top of the Qingmu, flew to a stone block next to it, tilted its head and looked at the Qingmu, saying, "Caw! You seem to have changed!"
"How have I changed?" Qingmu asked.
"Ever since you slowly regained your memory, you've become increasingly abnormal. Look at yourself, you're no longer lazy, you walk with a whoosh, you've become serious, no longer carefree, and most importantly, your thinking has become more rigorous."
In the past, whenever you encountered a problem, two little voices would talk in your head.
A little person said, "Oh dear, this is so complicated, let's not think about it anymore, I might as well go back to sleep!"
The other little person immediately retorted seriously, "Okay, okay, then go back to sleep, quack!"
Look at yourself now, where are those two little people? Did you murder them? Don't you feel like a murderer at all?
Qingmu was stunned, speechless for a long time. He looked at himself and said, "Such a big change?"
The Crow nodded seriously and asked, "How about getting a haircut and changing your clothes?"
Qingmu thought about it seriously for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Forget it, it's not important."
"Caw!" the Crow said, tilting its head. "Are you afraid that Ruhua won't recognize you?"
Qingmu looked up at the dark sky, slowly walked forward, and muttered to himself, "I'm afraid if we don't hurry, we won't recognize her anymore."
The Crow didn't react for a moment, then jumped onto his head and asked, "What did you say?"
Suddenly remembering the terrifying Spacetime Deep Well, she exclaimed urgently, "You, you're not going to go go Ramla again, are you?"
Qingmu said, "To prevent Gaia's descent, the most urgent task is to stop the Holy Land from restarting. Three of the Five Great Sacred Lands have already been opened. Of the remaining two, the key to the Holy Land of Stone is in Situ's hands. If it weren't for the time difference, I think it would have already been activated by now. The only one we can possibly stop is the Holy Land of Ice."
"Caw, so we really are going to Ramla again!" The Crow felt a little dejected at the thought of those hungry days, but when it thought of Hanran and Ruxue, its spirits lifted considerably. "Alright, alright, go and bring that fat cat back."
Qingmu said, "We don't need to go to Ramla for now; actually, it's not that easy to go even if we wanted to."
"Where shall we go?"
" The Holy Land of Ice is near the North Magnetic Pole, but no one knows its exact location yet. With Ronald Cohen's abilities, it wouldn't be difficult for him to investigate the Queen Elizabeth Islands. I guess they must have tried, but obviously they haven't found it yet, otherwise they wouldn't be keeping an eye on the Wolf Family."
"You mean the place in old Wolf's dream is the Holy Land?"
"At least there are clues about the Holy Land. Besides, if the key to activating the Holy Land lies only in Ramla, the Parasites only need to focus all their efforts on activating the altar in Ramla, so why bother causing so much trouble on Earth? Therefore, I guess the last Holy Land is different from the other four."
What's different?
"I don't know. But its location tells us it's near Earth's magnetic poles, so it must be related to Earth's magnetic field, which humanity still doesn't fully understand. The Five Great Sacred Lands sites, when connected, form a pyramid, with the Holy Land of Ice at the top. It must have some extraordinary significance. The reopening of the Holy Land might reverse the magnetic field, or it might make it disappear. At that point, even without Gaia's arrival, humanity wouldn't survive. Cosmic rays and Sun storms would wipe out life, and Earth would become as desolate as Mars."
"Could it be..." the Crow suddenly wondered, " that Mars was once just as prosperous as Earth, but was destroyed by Gaia, quack?"
It suddenly felt a heavy burden on its wings, that it was about to become a sacred Crow to save the planet, so it solemnly stretched its neck and cried out:
"Alright, let's set off now to save this world from its impending doom! Quack... So... where are we going?"
" Alaska," Qingmu said.