Dual wielding volcanoes, killing through the west

“This child, I remember, belongs to the Tuden family…”

"Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with her brain. Instead of going home, she went to be that weirdo's assistant."

"Could this little girl have been drugged? I heard that there's already a girl about her age with that strange person, and that one's in even worse shape; she can't even speak..."

……

The town's social network was very simple, with only a few dozen people, all of whom knew each other. As soon as Newman spoke, people's words and gazes naturally converged into an invisible pressure, all turning towards the girl.

Her already timid posture became even more fearful, almost shrinking herself into the shadows. She felt as if she were about to be crushed by these gazes and words, and her lips trembled as she was about to speak.

----

"It's their own family matter, what's it to you?" Zhang Renfeng suddenly turned around, staring at him expressionlessly. "Who do you think you are?"

Newman paused, seemingly unprepared for a direct rebuttal, and forced a defensive smile again. "You misunderstand. I didn't mean to overstep my bounds. My intention was..."

“For everyone’s sake,” Zhang Renfeng retorted without holding back, “please don’t set off recklessly.”

Chapter 439: I've only been here a day, and I've already offended everyone I could.

"Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you." — From a young age, Zhang Renfeng had fantasized about what it would feel like to hear these words from an elder. Unexpectedly, more than twenty years later, on the other side of the world, he would actually have the chance to experience it for himself.

The phrase "wolfing down her food" is no longer sufficient to describe her.

Aurora prepared all the dishes for dinner by herself, her small figure bustling about in the kitchen.

With limited time, she made simple dishes: cook the meat as quickly as possible, add some seasonings as appropriate to make it palatable and prevent stomach upset.

Even if we take a step back and assume the worst, not cooking it isn't a big problem. Back on the snowy mountain, the wolves were so hungry that they ate a moose raw, and they still didn't have any problems. It's just that eating cooked food makes them look more human.

Zhang Renfeng initially felt sorry for her as she bustled around all by herself and offered to help. However, he had never set foot in a kitchen since he could remember, and now that he was in America, all the seasoning labels were in English, which he might not even be able to read.

As he picked up a bag of fine sugar, about to pour it into the pot, it triggered a sharp popping sound from Aurora—probably the loudest sound she'd made all day. Afterward, the cook pushed Zhang Renfeng out and explicitly forbade him from entering the kitchen again, forbidding him from eating at the same table as Tao.

The first bowl of steaming hot white-tailed venison was ready, and without even being called, the girl automatically sprang to the table. She didn't even bother with a knife and fork, grabbing it with her hands and swallowing it down in just a few bites with barely any chewing.

Meanwhile, the group that had accompanied her didn't rush to leave either. Silverfrost had previously signed a temporary employment contract with Tao, and the income from this job would be tied to Tao's account.

The remaining few, after taking a stroll around the town, discovered that the exhibition was far more popular than they had imagined.

Tourists from all over the country flocked to the hotel, and all the rooms were booked long ago.

Right now, the only place to stay is in the homes of residents in town. If you pay a little more, they'll tidy up their empty rooms or storage rooms and make room for you to stay, which can be considered a rudimentary form of private accommodation.

Each of these extraordinary beings had their own concerns and was unwilling to live with the townspeople. After much deliberation, they decided to return to Tao's laboratory.

Anyway, he had plenty of empty rooms on the second and third floors, which were usually deserted. Taking it as a way of making friends, Tao charged each of them one dollar and let them settle down there.

……

"Is this how it is?" Vivian moved the palette, mixing dark red and pale together. "Is this the color you just described?"

"It seems... there's still a bit..." Ren frowned, unable to say whether it was true or not. His ability to capture colors was completely disproportionate to his ability to describe them.

"It's like the kind of white color that comes from mixing starch," Silver Frost said after watching for a long time, offering a rather abstract suggestion for modification.

"Starch...mixed in..."

Vivian added a touch of gray, and said sweetly, "How about this?"

"Yes, yes, I know!" Upon seeing this color, Ren suddenly understood. "It hollowed out a person's body, sucked their blood, and combined with its own whiteness, that's why it looks like this! Zhang, come and take a look, is this what it looks like?"

Zhang Renfeng was reluctant to leave his junior sister's side, but since his name had been called, he had no choice. Before moving, he took out a piece of paper and wiped it on the wolf's bulging cheeks to remove the oil stains.

This scene was witnessed by Aurora, who was carrying another bowl of simmering meat in broth, as she walked out of the kitchen.

The girl seemed to be frozen in place, her mouth slightly open.

"Ah, Aurora." Zhang Renfeng saw her, nodded slightly, and greeted her with traditional Chinese table manners, "That's enough, come and eat with us."

"There's...and some rabbit meat and turnips. If we don't cook them together, they might spoil tomorrow, which would be such a waste." The girl lowered her head slightly and bit her lip. "I'm not hungry yet, you guys eat first."

She turned and went into the kitchen.

Watching her retreating figure, Zhang Renfeng felt a strange unease, a feeling that was hard to put into words. But he didn't dwell on it and walked straight to Vivian's side.

Unlike the exhibited works, this is a sketch by Ying Ren and Yin Shuang, in which she tries her best to recreate the appearance of Dover at the time of his death. Because his limbs had been separated when he died, she only drew a vestigial arm, with viscous mycelium crisscrossing on it like strange flowers.

"Wow, Vivian, you've never seen anything like it... to be able to draw it so realistically!"

“If I don’t even have this much skill, what am I exhibiting for? Wouldn’t I just become a laughingstock?” Vivian said without any curiosity. Although Zhang Renfeng couldn’t see her expression under the black veil, he guessed that she had just rolled her eyes at him. “The painting is finished, but so what? Even if you tell the truth about something that defies common sense, how many people will believe you?”

“We don’t need so many people.” Zhang Renfeng picked up her masterpiece, examined it repeatedly, and murmured, “We only need one intelligent person who can help us answer our questions…”

"Will suffice."

----

"Resurrection?" The tweezers that had picked up the metal component hovered in mid-air.

“Resurrect.” Zhang Renfeng nodded.

"Is this a slightly exaggerated metaphor, or...?"

“Hey, Tao, look at this face, does it look like someone who would joke?” Tito scribbled something quickly on the manuscript, teasingly adding, “It’s exactly what it sounds like. I saw it with my own eyes. That guy’s neck was broken. A little while later, he jumped up again and ran away like a madman, not at all like an old man.”

……

With Tito's return, the long-pending calculation manuscripts were finally being processed.

Not wanting to disturb their conversation, Tao gave up the laboratory hall to everyone and took the unfinished model to Titor's private "office." Calling it an office was a bit of a stretch; it was really just a quiet place for her to do her calculations alone.

Helping Tao navigate these massive, complex, and repetitive calculations was also one of Tito's daily tasks as his number one assistant. The two were already used to this way of getting along; he was busy with his own thing, and I was busy with mine, with only the scratching sound of pens on paper, like two meshing gears, perfectly harmonious.

Until Zhang Renfeng and his group walked into the room with a surprisingly rough-style colored sketch.

“I’ve never seen a fungus like this before. This isn’t my area of ​​expertise, so I wouldn’t dare to make a conclusion. However, if it really is a fungus, it just so happens that there’s an expert in this field in the town.”

"Immensa Ampu Timman, known in the industry as 'Dr. Im,' dedicated his life to fungi, especially mushrooms. Therefore, some people also call him 'Mushroom Head.'"

"Because they wanted a piece of the pie from his research, the Newman Hotel sponsored his investment. If you go to the hotel, you should be able to find him."

"Wait a minute." Fresh memories suddenly flashed through Zhang Renfeng's mind. "Is this Im you're talking about... with ginger-red hair, a receding hairline, no glasses, an eyepatch over his left eye, and a slight limp in his right leg, using a cane?"

"You've seen him?" Tao asked, somewhat surprised. "You've only been here for less than a day."

Chapter 440: The Empty Man

Before Dover died, his body was covered with some kind of strange fungus. Just as cordyceps uses the body of an insect as its seedbed, this fungus used the human body as its seedbed and almost gnawed him out of his body.

The scene was chilling and made one's scalp tingle; if you thought about it carefully, it would be easy to lose your appetite.

And right now, right in this town, there is a scholar who works for the Newman Hotel and specializes in fungi.

To call this a coincidence is an absurdity.

And the Newman Hotel behind him seems to be connected to the clues, both overtly and covertly.

"Just what's the deal with this Newman Hotel?"

“One of the reasons I chose this location for the experiment is that I don’t want to be disturbed,” Tao said calmly. Although he had clearly expressed his disgust, his expression remained unchanged, showing no emotional fluctuation. “I’ll narrow the scope a bit more, because I don’t want to be disturbed by them.”

"They are not a religious group, but a place similar to a secret society. According to them, all people in the world are one. Meditation, contemplation, chanting... as long as you can get your frequencies in sync through some means, you can achieve complete 'mutual understanding' and find absolute peace in each other's bodies."

"The greatest fear in this world is the matter of life and death. And those who possess absolute peace may no longer fear even life and death. For those who no longer fear death, the many sufferings of the world naturally disappear."

After listening to Tao's explanation, Zhang Renfeng felt a chill creep up from his ankles, all the way to the back of his neck.

How can someone who is not afraid of death cherish life?

“I’m more curious about where their funding comes from,” Tito complained. “They may not be afraid of death, but people still need to eat to live.”

“This set of rhetoric works surprisingly well in upper-class circles,” Tao said as he continued assembling the model. “Newman also knows how to play the game. Before coming here, he had already attracted many wealthy people from the north with the concept of a hotel, making them willingly spend money.”

“These stupid Northerners…” Zhang Renfeng said disdainfully.

The environment one is in often changes a person in a subtle and gradual way.

For the past few years, Zhang Renfeng has been fighting his way up in western America, or more accurately, the southwest. His expedition to Three Horses took him all the way to the US-Mexico border, as far south as it gets. Although he's not from that country, subconsciously, he speaks the sentiments of a seasoned Southern cowboy towards the northerners of America.

“There are indeed such people~~~ those who are extremely satisfied materially, but still spiritually impoverished.” Tito said with a sense of understanding, “They are often young people from very wealthy families who have enough to eat, wear, and use to last a lifetime, so they can only seek some spiritual breakthroughs.”

"Matter has its limits. An apple is just an apple; you can't conjure up a second or a third one."

"But the spiritual world built by imagination has no limit. He can say that there is a golden apple in such and such a place, and that after eating it, he can do such and such. As long as his words are realistic enough and moving enough to make those rich people believe that such a golden apple really exists, the money will naturally come."

Zhang Renfeng thought of Colin Chedel, and the Red Bird Tavern in the Windblown Sands, which was the beginning of all the stories.

The golden apple he was looking for was called "Cowboy and Freedom".

"In short... when he meets a rich person, he talks about higher spiritual needs; when he meets an ordinary person, he talks about some practical self-satisfaction; when he meets a poor person, he talks about something even more basic, such as how to view one's current life and predicament."

"In a sense, the inn also had its positive aspects. After he arrived, he quickly took over the position of mayor with an overwhelming advantage, and a considerable portion of the money he earned through the inn was used for the development of the town. For example, the stone-paved road was built with Newman's funding."

"Since he took over the town, he has been preparing events every now and then, which has completely turned around Dover's reputation. He has transformed this unremarkable place into a town with a thriving tourism industry."

“You saw it when you went out today, didn’t you? Tourists from all over the place are almost crowding this town—this is the norm now. And his Newman Hostel can take this opportunity to recruit more members and expand this business to towns in other states. For him, it’s a win-win situation.”

"Speaking of which..."

"They've invited me more than once, just like Immensa, to join the hostel and become one of them."

Tao smiled inexplicably, as if imagining himself standing in the crowd, wearing a gray robe, just like those people. "Once I join, I can apply for a large sum of funding. He promised me around $5000, which is enough for my expenses for the next quarter."

"You can actually hold back?" Tito joked.

"I don't want to become like that, chasing after those illusory things. Since ancient times, the needs of the living have been the most important. Living people, real people, flesh and blood—I'd rather use my inventions to help them," Tao said in a deep voice. "Besides, 'empty people' and all that..."

"It sounds absurd, doesn't it? If a person can't even feel the most basic negative emotions, if they don't experience pain, then correspondingly, they don't experience joy either. Can such a person really be called 'alive'? They're nothing more than a walking corpse."

……

The scratching sound of the pen tip gliding across the paper suddenly stopped.

Noticing Tito's unusual behavior, Tao looked up and asked, "What's wrong?"

"What did you just say?" Zhang Renfeng's pupils constricted slightly. "[Empty Man]?"

Before his death, Dover called out this word more than once. Judging from his words, even his ability to be resurrected was a gift from the Empty Man.

When the word slipped out of Tao's mouth again, Zhang Renfeng didn't think it was a coincidence. Instead, he felt as if everything had finally come together.

"Didn't I just mention that their goal is to find 'absolute peace,' which means, as a human being, to abandon all positive and negative emotions?"

"Joy, contentment, happiness, anger, pain, despair... all of these are no longer perceptible to people. They call this final state the 'empty person,' that is, a person who has reached a state of nothingness. However, I think it would be more appropriate to call such a person an 'empty shell.'"

----

Hotel. Cathedral. Underground.

Torches were lit, and countless figures in grey robes stood in huge circles. In the dim firelight, only one person moved. He wore a white robe, unlike anyone else, creating a striking contrast. He moved slowly and deliberately across the ground.

Newman, also clad in a grey robe, shed his money, power, and status, as well as everything he had on the surface, in this dark underground, becoming just another ordinary person.

Immensa was not wearing a gray robe, but dressed as usual, standing behind Newman, seemingly implying that he was independent of the entire system.

In this darkness, only the white-robed figure who slowly approached... was different.

As he slowly walked up the steps, the man finally stopped in front of Newman, seemingly waiting for him to speak first.

“Long time no see, Empty Man,” Newman said in a deep voice. “We need your help.”

"……I know."

Angel Eyes removed his white hood, revealing a pair of eyes that seemed otherworldly and inhuman. His tone was as calm as ice. "Without further ado, let's begin."

Chapter 441: Some want to change the past, some want to change the future

All the men in grey robes took out an empty glass bottle they carried with them, mostly empty wine bottles. The torches were gently placed on the ground, and they all raised the bottle mouths to their lips in unison, took a deep breath, and began to blow into the bottles.

"Ugh——"

The sound of blowing on a bottle might not seem like much.

However, when dozens of people made this movement simultaneously, the resulting echo was like a deep, resonant wall of sound, thick and deep. This sound was extremely eerie, unlike any sound in nature; listening to it for a long time would give one goosebumps and create a strong sense of unease. But these gray-robed figures seemed oblivious, even enjoying it. Amidst this unsettling sound, Newman slowly stepped forward, lifted the cuff of his right sleeve, stretched out his entire arm, palm up, and knelt on one knee, as if praying for something.

Angel Eyes stood expressionless, grasping his wrist. In that single gesture—standing versus kneeling—the difference in their status was crystal clear.

"Hiss..."

The sound was like a snake flicking its tongue.