Volume 1: Breaking Ground Chapter 19 Dream
Ke Xun had a deep dream. In the dream, he kept walking but could not get out of the lush green bamboo forest.
Mu Yiran was not far ahead, but he could never reach her. He wanted to call her name, but the sound he made turned into a breeze blowing into the forest...
Ke Xun opened his eyes and woke up, facing Wei Dong's big face that was leaning towards him from a close distance. Ke Xun waved his hands as if calling for help: "Stop moving your eyes, it reminds me of Wangfu's master..."
"Finally woke up." Wei Dong's face was away from Ke Xun's sight, and his face returned to normal.
Ke Xun woke up completely, and the fatigue and pain in his body disappeared. He saw clearly that he was in a hospital ward. He vaguely remembered that he felt very tired after coming out of the painting, and then he fell asleep on Mu Yiran's back very happily...
Perhaps because of Mu Yiran, I don't seem to be as obsessed with attacking and defending positions as before...
Ke Xun patted his head, almost giving in... No, attack! Must attack! Can't lose!
As soon as Wei Dong opened his mouth, a series of crackling sounds came out.
Ke Xun looked at Wei Dong who was sitting next to him eating potato chips and said, "Hurry up and shake my bed. Don't just sit there. Peel an apple for me! Is this how you take care of a patient? Come on, I want some water! I want to eat the peeled apple!"
"Where can I buy apples for you in the hot summer? Do you want to eat the Red Fuji apples in the cold storage? Usually, people who just got pregnant and really want to eat apples buy those..." Wei Dong started talking nonstop after he stopped eating potato chips. While talking, he started to find the handle on the side of the bed and started to rock the bed.
"Isn't peeling apples standard equipment in the ward..." Ke Xun's upper body was slowly shaken up, and he smiled elegantly, "Hey, hurry up, I need some water."
Wei Dong directly handed over a large mug with thick lines.
"Shouldn't we give him a straw? How can we let the patient drink water directly like this? Can't we be more delicate?!" Ke Xun finally saw clearly the large ward he was in. There were actually six beds with patients, and with the family members, there were more than twenty people in total.
Among the six patients, only Ke Xun did not have a cast. Ke Xun moved his feet through the quilt and found that they were still quite flexible. He then bent his knees and found no problem: "Dongzi, is my leg okay? Which leg is broken?"
Wei Dong really thought about it carefully: "I can't remember... Anyway, everyone rushed to get you to the hospital. The X-ray showed that you were fine, basically just a skin injury. The doctor urged you to be discharged this morning. I really couldn't bear to wake you up, so I let you sleep for three more hours."
Ke Xun simply got out of bed and moved around. His right calf was a little painful. He lifted up his hospital pants and saw a large bruise on his calf, but his muscles didn't hurt, and there was no problem with his bones.
"We also found it strange. After coming out of there, the injuries seemed to have suddenly become lighter." Wei Dong could not mention the "painting" in front of outsiders, even if those people were not listening to him.
"That Mr. Tui is quite kind..." Ke Xun simply simplified "Huatui" into Mr. Tui.
"We think that the reason we were able to recover so quickly is to prepare for the next step..." Wei Dong cruelly told the truth.
"..." Ke Xun ran to the window sill and did some difficult leg stretching exercises, which scared the patients lying in the neighboring beds. They thought that this guy came to the ward to cause trouble.
"Bed No. 84, hurry up and get discharged before noon!" The grim-faced nurse came in and issued an ultimatum, "Also, someone just asked about your bed, maybe they're here to visit."
Ke Xun immediately retracted his legs from the windowsill and adjusted his blue and white striped hospital gown: "How is it? Do I look good in this state? Do I look sick?"
Wei Dong felt that the other party was much more energetic than himself, and did not look like a sick patient at all : "He is still as vigorous as ever."
"I've never received a flower bouquet from a visiting lady in my life..." Ke Xun returned to the hospital bed at the speed of a 100-meter sprint, covered himself with the quilt and half leaned on the pillow.
Wei Dong was about to say: Mu Yiran has already returned to City S, and even Qin Ci has returned to City X...
The door of the ward was pushed open, and it was Zhu Haowen who walked in, holding a small fruit basket in his hand. The sealed basket contained the red Fuji apples from the cold storage...
"Haowen is a native of City B and lives nearby. I'm sorry I didn't come to see you." Weidong planned to borrow a stool from the clinic for Zhu Haowen to sit on.
Zhu Haowen decided to stand and put the small fruit basket in his hand on the table next to him: "I have heard some news about the art museum these two days. That place was indeed a spring bamboo shoot apartment before. The developer used some means to disperse those stubborn residents..."
After all, these things were related to the painting, so Wei Dong still pulled the curtain of the bed to avoid suspicion. To outsiders, they probably thought that the nurses accompanying the patients were helping them change clothes or help them urinate and defecate...
"Back then, there were a lot of news reports about the developer's violent clearing of the area. Later, the news seemed to be blocked. However, we could still find out some things from the people who lived in the resettlement houses near the art museum. Legend has it that the area was cursed by the people living in the Chunsun Dormitory. Hong Kong developers are also very superstitious, so they consulted a feng shui master, who finally used a rhinoceros and an elephant to suppress the Chunsun Apartment, and the art museum was simply called the Rhino-Elephant Art Museum." Zhu Haowen remained expressionless as he said these words.
"I also looked up some legends about the Rhino-Elephant Art Museum online, especially about the internet-famous restaurant below the museum. Many people say that if you go there for midnight snacks at night, you will see strange things." Wei Dong took out his phone and clicked on it. "I didn't expect that the more rumors like this, the more popular the restaurant became."
"Strange thing?" Ke Xun asked.
“The most common saying is that you will see a fleeting shadow, and that shadow is often wearing red clothes.” Wei Dong pointed to a message and read it out.
Zhu Haowen spoke again: "I just want to know, have you experienced situations similar to this one before?"
Ke Xun thought for a moment and said, "This time it seems particularly real. The previous system game style was stronger and the NPCs were more mechanized. I think the location this time is very critical. The picture and the real world overlap, resulting in many scenes being restored very realistically."
Ke Xun looked at the thin isolation curtain and said, "We can't say any more. We can discuss some things in the group."
Zhu Haowen seemed to be interested in the world in the painting: "I pay more attention to rules and logic. As long as the world is not arranged arbitrarily, it is a reasonable existence."
Wei Dong looked at Zhu Haowen and was very glad that he had ended his history of being roommates with this person. If they had not experienced the life and death in the painting together, the person in front of him would really be like an NPC arranged in the painting...
Wei Dong looked at the "flesh and blood" Ke Xun again, who was drinking water from a large mug, and suddenly he felt a sense of happiness that he was tightly embraced by the real world.
"Can you please stop looking at me with such a sneaky look?" Ke Xun was drinking water and still had one eye free to look at Wei Dong. That was quite a skill.
"Including those two, there are five of us in total. See you then." Zhu Haowen said indifferently, and his tone was like the cold-faced head teacher of a freshman class introducing the students: Let's get to know each other.
…
After Zhu Haowen left, Ke Xun was discharged from the hospital and took a train back to his hometown, City Z, with Wei Dong.
City Z and City B are not far from each other, and it only takes more than two hours to travel by train. There are very few people in the carriage at this time today, and there are no other passengers around the two people.
Wei Dong leaned back in his chair and took a short nap. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ke Xun grinning foolishly at his phone.
"What can make you so happy and unimpeded?" Wei Dong rubbed his sleepy eyes.
Ke Xun laughed a few times, his eyes never leaving the phone screen: "Have you ever thought about how we will immediately engage in real life after leaving the painting?"
"Can the omnipotent cell phone tell you this?" Wei Dong habitually opened the mobile phone to play Candy Crush Saga. "Mobile phone, please tell me, who is the most lewd man in the world?"
Ke Xun simply ignored Wei Dong's next words: "Dr. Qin said in the group yesterday that he rushed back to City X from City B that day and was immediately scheduled for a major surgery. He was the lead and the operation was very successful."
"Doctor Qin is also a man who is used to big scenes. Ordinary blood and flesh will never make him tremble." Wei Dong eliminated a large number of red balls casually. The feeling was very pleasant, and it felt like he was silently fighting against those paintings.
"And that guy," when Ke Xun talked about "that guy", his eyes and eyebrows seemed not to belong to him anymore, as if an indescribable joy flowed from the tip of his heart and slowly spread to the corners of his eyes and eyebrows.
Wei Dong has seldom seen Ke Xun showing a similar expression. Although Ke Xun has not shown depression in these years and is always happy when with his brothers, Wei Dong always feels that Ke Xun has retained a part of himself, and that part may be reserved for his true self - ever since Ke Xun's parents got into trouble, he has never shown the carefree smile of his youth again.
Although Mu Yiran is an unattainable international legend for Weidong Kexun who lives in City Z, Weidong actually hopes that this fairy-like person can stay in the world longer if it can make his buddy happy from the bottom of his heart, even if it would be enough to make his buddy laugh a few more times.
"Did you hear me? You're hungry again after eating a KFC family bucket?" Ke Xun gently pulled Wei Dong's head.
"Who stabbed me?"
“…”
Wei Dong blinked hard, trying to hold back the tears that were about to overflow: "Well, I didn't hear clearly just now, what's wrong with the boss?"
Ke Xun patiently repeated, "Two hours after leaving City B, he appeared at a famous painting auction in Hong Kong."
"Two hours? It takes three hours to fly from City B to Guangzhou, right? How come it only takes two hours to get to Hong Kong?" Wei Dong thought he was quite smart sometimes.
Ke Xun didn't think about this question seriously. In his imagination, Mu Yiran should be picked up by some mysterious person as soon as he walked out of the art gallery. Everyone was dressed like The Matrix...
"Then he probably took a private plane to Hong Kong." Wei Dong once again saw the godlike distance between the big guys and ordinary people, and couldn't help but nagging again: "Ke'er, I still feel that the big guys are too far away from us... In fact, many people around us are pretty good, such as Hao Wen'er."
"Who is Haowen?" Ke Xun looked up from his phone blankly.
"forget it."
