Xia Kong was the third character who had come to the village.
The first was Bai Lu. That year, cattle plague just started, and the old yellow cattle in the village died one after another, as if their souls were taken away by the gods in the sky. The second was Chang Li, who came and left quickly. Before he could stand firmly, he was bitten by the madman Li Er at the east end of the village, and he never spoke again.
Xia Kong was different. When she came, she stood on the dry well at the entrance of the village, as if she was standing at the source of some legend. Her skirt was not blown by the wind, but the whole village seemed to be blown by her.
“She is the child of the wind.” The village party secretary Lao Zhou said, his eyes were erratic, as if he saw the future from a pot of unboiled soup.
But no one knew what she was here for. Until she walked into the cowshed and killed a cow with green light on its head. The blood was not red, but blue, seeping into the villagers’ feet along the cracked ground, but the villagers seemed not to see it, only staring at the shining “tide-eroded sail core” in her hand.
After she left, the village began to change.
Scales grew on the roof, wheat sang at night, and the well water became sweet but no one dared to drink it. A brave boy ran into her house under the cover of night, but went crazy the next morning, saying that she lit seven lamps in the house, and there was a face of her sitting in each lamp.
The villagers said that she was practicing martial arts, wanting to break through, and wanting to “fill the fate seat”. They didn’t understand what it was, but they began to exchange things for her to kill monsters. She didn’t refuse. Someone sent a blind chicken, and she carried the chicken to the forest, and soon brought back a piece of burning phosphorus bone, like burnt amber.
She said, “You need this.”
People didn’t know if they needed it, but since she said it, they accepted it. A girl heard that this thing could make people “upgrade”, so she secretly swallowed it. That night, she flew out of bed and crashed into her ancestral tomb, dying.
More people began to exchange things with her. Some people cut off a finger of their old mother, some people offered their newborn baby’s nails, and some people cut off the ancestral curse paper, just to let Xia Kong “break through” once.
She said it was not enough.
She wanted the “Golden Fleece”, the “Iris Petals of the Wheel of Destiny”, and the “Crystallized Phlogiston·High Purity”. She said these things were not what she wanted, but what the system wanted. No one knew who the “system” was, but when she spoke, her eyes were as bright as a fish turning white in a pond, and no one dared to question it.
Some people secretly followed her into the mountains to see where she got those strange materials.
They saw her go into the cave, and the four ancient characters “Confession of the Sea Abyss” were written on the entrance of the cave, as if carved by someone with claws. No one who went in came back.
Every time she went in and came out, she always had a few more things in her hands, sometimes a feather that made a low sound, sometimes a bone that was covered with cold sweat, and sometimes a small bag of crying stones.
She gave these to the three-eyed clay Buddha in the temple, and the clay Buddha spit out some silver “shell money” from its mouth. She said that this thing could “upgrade talents” and it cost three million.
Everyone in the village helped her to collect money. Some sold their land, some dismantled the kang, and some knocked down the gold teeth of their ancestors’ tombs – everyone was crazy, as if they believed that as long as she upgraded to “full life”, the village would return to normal.
She also spoke less and less, just cooking the food called “stuffed meat tofu” over and over again in front of the temple. The fragrance broke through the top of the head, and even the stars in the sky squinted their eyes.
Once, outsiders came to the village, saying that they were sent by the government to investigate abnormal weather. They knocked on her door and were blown away 30 meters away by a gust of wind. Later, they only left a report saying that the wind in this village was wrong.
The village became more and more strange.
The wind would sing “The Song of the Resonator” at night, chickens began to lay talking eggs, and the old people began to recall what would happen in the future.
And Xia Kong, she finally stood on the top of the temple, and summoned the wheel of fate with the materials she had pieced together.
That day she rose. She rose very high, as if she had broken free from some invisible rope.
The villagers knelt down, some shouted “God”, and some shouted “She can finally leave”.
She didn’t look back. But the moment she looked back, a tear fell from her eyes, fell on the ground, and turned into a glowing word:
“Freedom”.
No one saw her again. But since then, the wind in the village has never stopped.
Some people said that she turned into the wind.
Some people said that she went to the next village and continued to collect the materials she wanted.
Others said that she finally logged out of the game, returned to that gray reality, turned off the computer, walked into the kitchen, and started her life again.
But no one knows which one is real, just like no one knows who the “system” is.
You only know that if you play that game again and choose that character again, she will still be there, waiting for you to collect all her things.
Then, she can fly.