The girl was around fifteen years old, an age between a child and an adult. Although there was the indifference of abstention from feelings on her face, it looked nothing more than a thin layer of ice.
Below the cracking ice, however, were her real feelings that were flowing out.
Something in Li Yao’s heart was triggered. He asked in a soft voice, “Bing Bing, do you not want your parents to fight the war?”
“… I don’t know.”
With intense confusion beaming out of her eyes, Bing Bing hesitated for a moment. “Our town fought wildlings and other towns before. That was only hundreds of people fighting at most, but too many people already died. I’ve seen some of the dead bodies. Their faces were all bleeding, their guts were running out, and their limbs were all squeezed. That was horrible.
“I’m told that hundreds of hundreds of people are going to fight a war this time. I can’t imagine what it will be like at all. I-I’m scared that my parents will be reduced to such conditions and never come back again.”
Li Yao thought for a moment and asked, “Have you told your parents what you think? Why do they have to participate in the war?”
“Yes, I have.”
Bing Bing nodded her head hard and said, “But they said that they had to join the war because the Serenity Seraph and the Grand Guardian both told them that as humans, we should not live in fear and indignity below the ground for our entire life.
“We are supposed to live under the real sun and the blue sky. At the very least, we should go to the ground and see what the sun looks like for once in our lives.
“In order to watch the sun on the ground, we have to fight a war and blow away the crust tens of thousands of meters thick that blocks our way!
“I don’t really understand what my parents said. The Fire Flowers are already very beautiful. Is the sun really so spectacular that we need to watch it at the cost of so many lives? I told my parents that I was scared and asked them not to go, but they said that as long as I recite the ‘Serenity Arts’ more often with full attention, I would soon be scared of nothing.”
Li Yao thought of something. Looking at the sorrow on the girl’s face that was getting more and more intense, he asked, “But you did not recite the Serenity Arts well, did you?”
Embarrassment immediately beamed out of Bing Bing’s face. She hesitated and said, “I… I did recite the Serenity Arts well. Every day when the adults practiced it, my partners and I always read it together. But for some reason, I never fully understood it. I couldn’t focus my attention and be completely devoted to it. Maybe… Maybe it’s because I didn’t know if I should turn into what my parents looked like.”
Li Yao frowned. “You don’t like what your parents look like right now?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Bing Bing hesitated for a moment but slightly shook her head. “My parents are indeed a bit weird right now. They are either pacing back and forth without saying a word every day, or sitting cross-legged chanting the Serenity Arts, or staring at the light above their heads next to a road in a trance like stalactites. Even when they talk to me, there is little warmth in them. It feels completely different from the past.
“But… But I don’t like what they looked like in the past either.
“In the past, they were sighing and complaining all the time. Not only did they often fight, but they also often lashed out at me or even abused me.
“But I never blamed them, because I had already grown up and knew how troublesome and painful their work was. They had so many things they needed to take care of and so many problems that they could not fix. Sometimes, when I was half asleep, I could still hear my mother crying in a low voice.
“At the very least, after practicing the Serenity Arts, my father and my mother stopped fighting, sighing, or sobbing in secret. Also, there is now a light in their eyes. When they chant the Serenity Arts together with everybody else, they have a new vigor that I can’t tell exactly.
“So, I think the life right now is perhaps the best for them. I just don’t know if I should forget both the unhappy things and the happy things like them.”
Attracted, Li Yao couldn’t help but squat down to be on the same height as the girl. “Do you have any happy experiences in such a place? Would you like to share them with me?”
“Of course I do!”
Bing Bing put on a sincere smile. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t smiled for a long time, her smile was like a blossoming bud. “Did you know, Brother Li Yao? Deep inside a crevice two kilometers from the town, there grows a kind of purple Fire Flower. A very, very small bug, even smaller than ants, lives inside its pistils. We all call it ‘Flowery Bugs’.
“The Flowery Bugs do not have any color, but as long as you shake them hard, they will vibrate their wings and unleash colorful brilliance. It is very beautiful.
“In the past, before Nepenthe came, my partners and I liked catching the Flowery Bugs best. We would catch a lot of Flowery Bugs, hold them in our hands, and shake them hard. Then, we would blow at them. Wow, when hundreds of Flowery Bugs were blown out by us, they would be like fireworks.
“We often competed with each other about whose fireworks were most splendid. The way you shook them and the force to blow at them both mattered. I always blew the biggest and most beautiful fireworks!
“I remember the time when we found the deepest, darkest, and most spacious cave to blow the Fire Flowers. When my partners and I blew the Flowery Bugs at the wall, the whole cave was illuminated by us. It was the most glamorous thing that I’d ever seen. We were so enthralled that we forgot about the time until the adults came to find us. Naturally, we were all punished after we were back, and we were all grounded the next day. None of us could leave the town for a long time. Haha!”
The more she talked, the more excited she became. Her face was blushing, and there was not the slightest coldness on it anymore. She was just an innocent and cute girl like any other girls of her age!
“Also, do you know that the stalactites have different flavors? There is an icy, moist, and cool stalactite that we call ‘Sweet Stones’. In the hottest season, we all like to go to sleep while hugging the ‘Sweet Stones’. That is the most comfortable thing!”
After Bing Bing began to talk, there seemed to be no stopping her. With brilliance beaming out of her eyes, she went on, “Also, stones with a lot of holes can be found from a lot of relics. When you blow at them, you will make very pleasant sounds. If you block different holes, the pitches of the sounds will change too. We call such stones ‘ocarinas’. When dozens of ocarinas are blown at the same time and a handful of Flowery Bugs are released, we will just listen and watch while we are lying on the ‘Sweet Stones’. That is the happiest thing for me!”
Li Yao seemed to be truly seeing the beautiful picture in the endless darkness and hearing the giggles of the children mixed in the wonderful sounds of the “ocarina”. He couldn’t help but feel caught in a trance.
Bing Bing pursed her lips and said in a low voice, “My best friend’s name is also Bing Bing. Everybody calls her ‘Big Bing Bing’ and me ‘Little Bing Bing’. I am best at releasing the Flowery Bugs, and Big Bing Bing was best at playing the ocarina. She could play hundreds of melodies that were from a long, long time ago. Everybody liked to listen to her playing. Even the Flowery Bugs that I released liked it. We would cooperate every time. When she played the ocarina, the Flowery Bugs that I blew out would be dancing. It was really beautiful!
“But her father was eaten by a demon beast while scavenging in the relics. She has been practicing the Serenity Arts carefully with her mother since then. She doesn’t go out with us again or play the ‘ocarina’. I went to visit her once and asked her to go out with us, but she said that she had forgotten all the tunes.
“I was very sad. I did not want to be like Big Bing Bing. I did not want to forget how to release the Flowery Bugs ever… Every time, when everybody in the town gathered together to practice the Serenity Arts, my head was full of Flowery Bugs, ocarinas, and the stalactites of different flavors that we licked in the past. That is probably the reason why my partners have all picked up the Serenity Arts but I never got the hang of it, right?”
Li Yao was silent. Looking at the girl’s gray cape, he asked, “Why have you joined Nepenthe when you do not want to practice the Serenity Arts? Did someone force you?”
“Force me? No!”
Bing Bing bulged her eyes and said, “It’s because the people of Nepenthe are all good guys and the only ones who give us a hand from upper areas.
“Our town is so poor and remote that nobody had ever come down to help us whatever disaster we encountered in the past. I was told that the guys who occasionally descended from the upper areas were very mean and that whoever ran into them would not end very well!
“Only the people of Nepenthe have helped us sincerely. In our most troubled times, it was they who brought crystals, fuel, and compressed air from the upper worlds and helped us survive the difficulties. They are not as arrogant and brutal as other people from up above at all. They say that we are all equal brothers and sisters. They eat and live with us, telling us a lot of things about the upper worlds. They also help us to dig tunnels, tighten the wall, maintain the magical equipment, and resist the demon beasts and the wildlings. Many believers of Nepenthe whom we did not know have sacrificed for our town. They are buried around our town and continue to protect us!
“Since Nepenthe is so nice to us, isn’t it only reasonable for us to join Nepenthe? Besides, although they are incapable of playing the ocarina or flying the Flower Bugs anymore after practicing the Serenity Arts, it’s true that they are free from troubles and pains too. Besides, when they chant ‘Serenity Arts’ together, there will be… some kind of reverberation that will make them smarter and stronger!
“Brother Yao, are you not an honorable guest brought by the Serenity Seraph? How can you not know this? Are you not the Grand Guardian of Nepenthe?”
