Free Web NovelChapter 127: Chapter 127: The Desolate Field
Ryder stared blankly at the scene before him, raising his two front paws to rub his eyes. Repeating the action two more times, he finally accepted the truth that he could indeed see his surroundings.
Where this place was, Ryder didn’t know, but he was certain it wasn’t Crimson. According to the stories from his clansmen and Kaelen, Crimson was a place filled with light, lush vegetation, and spacious, magnificent terracotta houses.
This place was just a desolate field in shades of gray. The sky was entirely covered in gloomy, dark clouds, and the ground was dry and cracked, filled with nothing but gravel and a few sparse blades of grass.
Ryder kept wandering across the field without meeting a second person. While he was exhausted and sitting with his back leaning against a large rock, he suddenly heard a rustling sound behind him. The little mouse raised his head to look in the direction of the noise, and then his soul was frightened out of his body.
The one approaching was a snake... Um... how to describe it?
It was a stream of white light shaped like a snake, generating tiny white light bubbles every time it moved. The light snake seemed to have discovered the existence of the little mouse; it tilted its head, flicked its tongue, and slithered in this direction.
The little mouse stood upright with his back against the rock wall, his entire body trembling like a leaf. Right when the light snake got close, the mouse let out a miserable ’squeak’, then arched his butt, scrambled into the rock pile, and desperately ran forward.
Light snake: "?"
Edward tilted his head, extremely confused. He had been dozing off at the Temple next to Uncle Wofu; when he opened his eyes, he found himself appearing in this unfamiliar, desolate field. He had been wandering around for a long time before finally spotting a glowing mouse-shaped object, so he curiously approached to inspect it. Who would have expected that this mouse would run away the moment it saw him.
Edward was very curious about this mouse made of white light, immediately accelerating to give chase. The light mouse’s running speed was very fast, but the light snake was even faster; in no time, the little mouse was wrapped up by the little snake’s tail.
Ryder only felt his belly being squeezed tightly by something, then his four limbs were getting further and further away from the ground. He struggled and cried out: fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
"Don’t eat me! Don’t eat me! I am very skinny and have no meat! Waaah~"
Edward: "..."
What was this thing? Why so cowardly? Don’t tell him this brat was a real mouse and not a mouse-shaped light.
Edward got a headache from the squeaking cries, having no choice but to put the little mouse down on the ground. However, his tail still tightly wrapped around the mouse cub, not letting this little mouse escape. He shouted coldly:
"Shut your mouth! If you keep crying, I will eat you!!!"
The mouse cub was frightened into choking back his tears, which turned into hiccups. His two small, teary eyes looked at Edward, wanting to cry but not daring to.
Edward: "..." He also looked a bit pitiful...
So Edward let go of the mouse cub. The little mouse was probably tired from running, or was overly terrified, so as soon as he was released, he fell sitting onto the ground, letting out a hiccup. Edward stood upright, stared intently at the mouse cub, and said:
"Who are you? Where is this? Why do you have such a weird shape like this?"
Hearing the light snake ask, Ryder blankly looked back at himself. Oh, so he was also glowing right now. He let out a hiccup, then answered:
"I... *hic*... my name is... *hic*... Ryder. I also don’t know why... *hic*... why I am here... *hic*... also... *hic* don’t know... where... *hic*... this is."
The mouse cub hiccuped every few words he spoke; Edward frowned in annoyance. He stretched his body straight up, then suddenly dove his head down, opening his mouth wide to ’hiss’ right into Ryder’s face. Ryder was so scared he forgot to hiccup, his entire body freezing in a stupor.
Edward tapped his tail against the ground and asked: "Done hiccuping?"
Ryder: "..."
It seemed he was truly done; this hiccup cure was really effective.
Seeing Ryder just staring blankly, Edward was a bit displeased. He used his tail to wrap around the boy, placing Ryder on a flat rock. He slithered onto the rock and sat next to Ryder:
"My name is Edward."
During the past few days at the Temple, Edward always had to pretend that he was still bewitched. Except for when he met that strange Sub-Beast and falsely conversed with the man for a few sentences, most of the remaining time was spent pretending to be solemn. Wofu seemed to have been completely hypnotized; apart from putting on a show outside, he was always sluggish. This left Edward with a bellyful of things he wanted to say stuck in his throat, making him feel uncomfortable to death.
Now unexpectedly meeting a little mouse cub, who seemed to be around his age, Edward naturally wanted to make friends. Ryder could sense good and bad; of course, he could see that Edward didn’t want to eat him. Moreover, the snake showed great friendliness, so Ryder gradually let go of his guard.
The two strange children meeting for the first time quickly became friends.
"Crimson? You mean Crimson in the Southern Continent, on the other side of the magical beast forest, right?!" Hearing Ryder mention that his tribe was currently seeking refuge at the Crimson tribe, Edward became excited, his tail wagging furiously. Ryder asked in surprise:
"You also know that tribe? Could it be you live near there?"
Edward was so happy he could cry, saying: "Near there, my foot? I am a person of that tribe. My Papa is the Priest, and my Daddy is the Chief!"
Ryder let out a "Wow", stood upright, and happily said: "Wow, I didn’t expect you to be Brother Kaelen’s child! Why didn’t I see you in the tribe? Did you go outside with the Chief?"
Edward snorted, saying unnaturally: "No, I got lost, right now I am still at the Temple over in the Northern Continent."
He couldn’t just say that he was attracted by Wofu’s spatial energy, jumped over to freeload a sniff, and then got teleported away along with Uncle Wofu’s body. And then he was even captured by someone to be the Holy Son. That was very embarrassing!
Ryder completely didn’t suspect anything, widening his eyes and saying: "You are so pitiful, being separated from your two fathers while still so young. I will tell your two fathers so they can come find you!"
Edward nodded, saying joyfully: "Thank you. Please tell my two fathers that I am at the Temple serving as the Holy Son. Furthermore, remind them to be careful of the Temple Master; he is very strange, giving off the feeling that he is not very human."
Ryder scratched his head, trying to memorize the information Edward conveyed into his brain. The two children sat next to each other again, chattering endlessly about all sorts of things.
Ryder told Edward about what he had experienced, as well as his feelings about Crimson. Edward, in turn, recounted what he had seen in the Northern Continent, only keeping the part about being captured back to the Temple vague. The mouse cub was too young to understand all the profound complexities in that; saying it out loud would only scare the boy.
Back in Crimson, Kaelen rubbed his eyes, waking up from his nap. He groped around in his embrace; upon not feeling the mouse cub, he jolted in surprise, his drowsiness instantly vanishing. He flipped through the blankets and pillows once over but still couldn’t find the mouse cub anywhere. Just as he was about to open his mouth to call out, he saw the mouse cub lying inside his eldest son’s nest.
He breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know when the mouse cub had crawled into Edward’s nest, only seeing that currently, the boy was sleeping soundly on his back, his belly exposed, with the nest-lining cloth turned into a blanket draped across his stomach. The mouse cub’s four small limbs were stretched out straight, occasionally twitching a few times.
Kaelen shook his head helplessly, gently pulled the nest-lining cloth out, and then used a soft towel instead of a blanket to cover the boy. Leaving Ryder to sleep peacefully, Kaelen sat up, washed his face to wake himself up, and continued his work.
Quite a long time passed, probably more than an hour; a rustling sound on the bed pulled Kaelen out of his busy state. He looked up to see the mouse cub wearing the blanket on his head, sitting blankly in the nest. Kaelen set down the book in his hand, stepped forward to pick the boy up, and smiled, saying:
"You’re awake? Let me help you wash your face, then you can drink some milk."
Ryder remained in a groggy state, letting Kaelen help him wash his face, then hugged the milk bottle with a bamboo straw, slurping it down. The boy kept feeling like he had dreamed of something, a very important dream, but he had been sitting there thinking for a while and still couldn’t remember what he had dreamed of.
On the other side of the continent, Edward also woke up from his dream. Earlier, he noticed Ryder’s figure fading away, knowing it was time for the boy to return, so he instructed the boy to carefully remember what he had said. Ryder firmly nodded in affirmation, then even promised to come see Edward next time. Next, the light mouse suddenly shattered into tiny light spots, flew into the air, and vanished completely.
Right after that, Edward’s body also vanished. Returning to reality, Edward’s heart was pounding rapidly, the tip of his tail curling up like a hook. He excitedly slithered back and forth in the room, his tongue constantly flicking in and out.
Someone was relaying a message to his Daddy and Papa; he firmly believed that it wouldn’t be long before he reunited with his two fathers and younger brothers. Edward was busy rejoicing, completely unaware that after waking up, the little mouse had utterly forgotten the entire content of the dream. freёwebnoѵel.com
So his journey back home was still very far away!
