Mist (Web Novel CN)

Chaos

Chapter 35

Fuck.

Ji Yushi who never swore suddenly had this word which was spoken like a mantra by the other members of the seventh squad appear in his heart.

His mind was a mess, “How did this happen?!”

Li Chun was in complete panic, “I also don’t know! The moment I turned around, Cap Song had turned small!!”

The miniature version of Song Qinglan was still wearing the adult versions black combat uniform so the sleeves, pants and shoes were too big. It looked a little comical. This was especially so when he who looked only seven or eight in age was still carrying his Shen Mian. It gave off a funny feeling of a child carrying a toy gun.

Song Qinglan’s child self was pretty soft and cute. Except for his ugly expression, it was almost impossible for one to associate him with Song Qinglan.

After the accident, Li Chun hurriedly brought him back to the space capsule and he hadn’t spoken a single word the entire way.

Now, he finally couldn’t not speak. He spoke up and explained, “Slipped and fell when collecting the plants and became smaller.”

Ji Yushi: “……..”

Li Chun: “……..”

“The baby voice is funny?” Song Qinglan said with a cold expression, “If you want to laugh, laugh it all out now. No need to hold back.”

Time had reversed in Song Qinglan’s body, but his child body still contained the soul of an adult. His words, intelligence and personality hadn’t changed at all so when he spoke up just now, it was both funny and strange.

Even Li Chun couldn’t laugh. He maintained a solemn expression.

At this moment, the sound of fighting suddenly came from the corridor. This was followed by incomprehensible curses from Big Beard.

The three of them hurriedly walked over, only to see Big Beard fighting with the young man who had appeared from outside the outer hatch.

Big Beard looked like a bear, and with brute force, he crushed the young man onto the ground. With both hands around the other’s neck, he cursed angrily, “Anfalahagenhe!!”

The young man who was choked until his face was red desperately resisted, “He-help……”

“Who is this?!” Li Chun was surprised, “Where did he come from?”

Ji Yushi, “Save him!”

Song Qinglan was weak with his small body and could only stand aside.

Ji Yushi worked together with Li Chun and it took them a lot of effort to pull Big Beard away.

Big Beard struggled violently. He looked like he wanted to tear the young man apart.

The young man caught his breath and immediately started coughing violently, “You…..are also from T-Tianqiong?”

With the exception for Big Beard, the people present all wore the black uniforms Tianqiong Guardians wore. The only difference was the ‘12’ on the young man’s chest, but this didn’t prevent them from figuring out the other person’s identity.

“Yes.” Ji Yushi answered, “Are you a Guardian from Tianqiong’s twelfth squad?”

The young man nodded. He stood up with difficulty and looked at Big Beard, “And who is this person? Why did he want to kill me?”

Song Qinglan originally wanted to say that Big Beard never acted normally but, thinking of his baby voice, he remained silent.

Big Beard was clearly still very agitated and restless. He pointed at the young man while saying something to Ji Yushi.

That young man then saw Song Qinglan, “There’s also a child?”

Song Qinglan: “……..”

“How did you also end up here?” The young man was surprised by these new faces and asked, “Have you seen my other teammates?”

Li Chun didn’t know how to answer and could only say, “Um, that, senior, we are from a different era.”

The term senior was a little abrupt.

The young man slowly took in the meaning of those words and then replied, “I am from 1441. How about you?”

The atmosphere stagnated for a moment.

The Tianqiong twelfth squad found in the rainforest was indeed the one which had lost all contact fifteen years ago.

Ji Yushi’s cold voice sounded, “We are from 1456.”

*

The young man was called Xie Sian. He was a part of Tianqiong’s twelfth squad in 1441 and went to complete an A-level mission with seven other teammates. During the transition, their capsule had encountered a problem and then ended up here, in the process discovering the mountain of garbage and the space capsule. After they rested in the space capsule, they split up and Xie Sian and another teammate entered the city together.

According to him, they had lost their way a day after they entered the city. The teammate with him claimed that he saw human life and separated from him and with the communicator unable to establish connection, he could only find a way out of the mirrored city on his own. After walking around for another day or two, he found glowing flowers piled up on the sidewalk.

This was how Xie Sian found his way back to the space capsule.

For Xie Sian, he was only separated from his teammates for about two days.

Xie Sian was in disbelief. He couldn’t accept reality. Even his lips were pale, “So you’re saying that 15 years had actually passed?!”

Li Chun nodded, “Yes, we’ve calculated it. The flow of time in the capsule is 2880 times faster than that city. That is to say, one day in the city is almost equal to about eight years here. That is why the two days you spent in there was actually fifteen years.”

Xie Sian’s hand holding the can began to tremble.

The news was cruel, but Li Chun had to tell him, “Not only is the rate of time flow different there, there is also another place where the time flow rate is 24 times faster than that of the space capsule. Fifteen years in the space capsule is 360 years there. My teammates saw there…..the remains of several other seniors.”

Xie Sian immediately raised his head, “Impossible! How could this be?!”

Song Qinglan sat on the sofa, quietly watching them talk. The expression on his small face was serious. It was the usual look he would have as an adult when he was thinking about something.

He was now also a victim of time. He had nothing to say.

Ji Yushi and Big Beard talked for a while on the side. Through gestures and simple language exchanges, he figured out what was going on and walked over with a piece of paper.

Big Beard had a spokesperson so he wasn’t afraid that they wouldn’t understand. He very simply plopped his ass down on the sofa.

He was tall and big and weighed about three hundred catties so the moment he sat down onto the sofa, the spring underneath creaked and little Song Qinglan next to him bounced up slightly.

With regard to the matter of Song Qinglan turning smaller, Big Beard showed great interest. With canned food remnants stuck on his beard, he stared at Song Qinglan and wanted to reach out to touch him.

Without even looking at him, Song Qinglan directly picked up Shen Mian and used it to push away the dirty hands trying to pinch his face.

“If you don’t believe him, you can look at this.” Ji Yushi’s slender and tall figure passed before them and stopped in front of Xie Sian, “Do you remember fighting against a red-haired foreigner when you first came here?”

Xie Zian hesitated, “How did you know?”

Ji Yushi handed over a paper with Big Beard’s drawing, “It’s not that I know. The party involved is right here.”

On the paper was a drawing of eight Tianqiong Guardians and every one of them had a 12 written on their chest.

They were all lined up one by one. The one at the front held a gun and seemed to be threatening a very tall person.

“Our capsules were damaged when we arrived here,” Xie Sian looked at the drawing, “and we soon found this space capsule. The engineer in the team wanted to borrow this space capsule to modify and use it to transition again but that red-haired foreigner refused. A few days later, the engineer, the vice-captain and another teammate…..threatened the foreigner but he still refused to hand over the key. In the end, we had no choice but to be a little rough.”

The so-called ‘threaten’ was probably a case of robbery. Xie Sian spoke with much difficulty, “I didn’t participate, but I also didn’t stop them.”

Li Chun opened his mouth wide. He couldn’t imagine what humans would be like when faced with such a situation.

“This was also the reason for you splitting up?” Ji Yushi asked, “Because you couldn’t accept the other’s actions, so you didn’t want to go together?”

“The three of them and the rest of us had a falling out.” Xie Sian acquiesced, “The one in charge of logistics and I went through the outer hatch and the captain and the left and right flanks went in the direction of the mountain of garbage. We agreed to gather up 24 hours later.”

Afterwards, that 24 hours became forever.

Xie Sian asked, “You said the party involved is here?”

Ji Yushi, “That’s right.”

Having said that, Ji Yushi’s tone turned colder, “Your threatening of that person was equivalent to robbery. He had his shoulder blade broken because of you and after your squad parted ways and left, he had lived here alone for fifteen years.”

Li Chun and Song Qinglan both realised that the involved party……was Big Beard.

Xie Sian immediately raised his head, “I-it was you?”

Big Beard snorted loudly with some scorn, ““Anfalahagenhe.”

Fifteen years. It was enough to turn a tall red-haired foreigner into a scraggly little mound with a beer belly.

There was nothing like the change in a person’s appearance to allow one to clearly feel the passage of time. Xie Sian who only felt like two days had passed went through all sorts of emotions in an instant, including guilt, shame, shock and some melancholy.

No wonder Big Beard would use the chain dragging method every time he picked up a human. No wonder he would lock up the seemingly fit traverser and let him starve for several days…This kind of thing may have happened many times already and it was already incredible enough for Big Beard to still continue picking people up and bringing them back in order to try and communicate with them.

Perhaps those with bad intentions were dealt with by Big Beard, or perhaps there were people who had stayed here for a short period of time but couldn’t understand his language so they entered another world with a different time flow rate and never returned.

This crevice was like a real transfer station. It sent people from all eras and universes to different places.

Having temporarily solved one problem, Ji Yushi turned around and looked at Song Qinglan who was a few metres away.

This…..was the problem that troubled him the most.

It was also quite hard for Song Qinglan to calm down and sit obediently on the sofa, waiting for them to solve the former problem first.

Ji Yushi felt a headache forming.

What should they do if Cap Song doesn’t change back?

“Cap Song, let’s go to the place you fell.” Ji Yushi walked over to Song Qinglan and bent down to talk to him, “If you really can’t change back, you will have to live in the rainforest for ten to twenty years.”

Li Chun immediately disagreed with that idea and quickly strode over, “Damn! Advisor Ji, don’t scare me! Wouldn’t that drive him crazy?!”

Song Qinglan’s small face was stiff, “……”

Ji Yushi blinked a few times, “Just kidding. There must be a problem with time flow at the place where you fell. Chaos, right? Messy and disorderly. As long as we can find a way, any problem can be solved. It wouldn’t be more difficult than fighting zombies and hiding from black walls.”

Li Chun stayed to take care of Zhou Mingxuan and along the way prevent Big Beard from killing Xie Sian.

Ji Yushi on the other hand went with Song Qinglan to the place where he slipped and fell.

“Please, Advisor Ji. Please don’t turn smaller too!” Li Chun cupped his hands together, “Be extra careful!”

Song Qinglan, “Then you come?”

Li Chun immediately turned around, “Let me see if Old Zhou is awake. He really can fucking sleep! He should be better after a day. Brother Wen and the others are also not here yet so I should try calling Tianqiong to ask. What the hell is with this?! I’m filing a complaint!”

*

Song Qinglan only realised after stepping out of the space capsule, that Advisor Ji just now….was coaxing him?

This feeling was difficult to describe.

After all, he wasn’t a real child.

Ji Yushi was almost 1.8 metres tall, which was very tall for a seven- or eight-year-old child.

It was difficult for the two to keep the same pace. Ji Yushi seemed to have deliberately slowed his pace down to let him catch up and would occasionally discreetly glance over to see how he was doing.

Somehow, Song Qinglan was suddenly able to accept the reality that he had become the weaker one, “Advisor Ji.”

The child’s voice was crisp, but he deliberately spoke maturely.

Compared to Song Qinglan’s usual low and magnetic baritone voice, Ji Yushi wasn’t very used to hearing it like this.

Ji Yushi could still clearly remember the feeling he had when he first heard Song Qinglan’s voice travel through the public channel.

But it just happened to be the same person.

A distant memory came. There once was an even more delicate voice often sounding behind him, passionately and clingingly calling his name.

Ji Yushi wondered if he could be regarded as unintentionally coming to know all the various forms of a certain captain surnamed Song.

Ji Yushi answered, “Mhn?”

Without any hesitation, something soft and warm was stuffed into his palm.

Ji Yushi looked down and saw the little Song Qinglan holding his hand.

It turns out that the warm thing was the child’s hand.

Song Qinglan raised his child-like face, his expression natural and relaxed, “Fuck, these shoes are too big. Can’t walk fast and gets in the way. I’ll need Advisor Ji’s assistance with this.”

Ji Yushi : “……..”

The outer shell had changed but the contents were still the same.

It felt very strange.

Even since Song Qinglan turned smaller, those size 46 short boots had become a burden.

But the frozen soil was cold and there was no other replacement here. He couldn’t walk barefoot because he would end up with frostbite within minutes.

Ji Yushi very naturally held the child’s hand.

“Let’s come to an agreement.” He heard Song Qinglan say this, “When we return, can you forget about this part? At least don’t tell others.”

Ji Yushi wanted to laugh, “I’ll try.”

Aurora flashed in the sky. The vines by the roadside glowed slightly.

Ji Yushi suddenly stopped in place, let go of the hand and squatted down to look at Song Qinglan.

His clear eyes seemed like it could reflect the Milky Way, “Are the sleeves too long too? Cap Song, I won’t laugh at you even if you tell me.”

Song Qinglan’s cotton-padded jacket was just draped over him and underneath it was the combat uniform which hung past his hands like those Chinese opera singers.

Ji Yushi wasn’t very good at taking care of people, but he had seen others take care of children.

Song Qinglan mumbled vaguely, “It’s okay. It’s not that long.”

Ji Yushi lowered his eyes. His eyelashes were long and thick, casting a shadow over his fair skin.

He helped Song Qinglan roll up his sleeves, and then bowed his head and rolled up his trousers.

“You helped me a lot as well when I was injured. You don’t need to feel embarrassed.”

After doing all that, Ji Yushi stood back up. The angle produced from the height difference between the two made him look a little proud.

“Cap Song, I don’t just remember grudges.”