As the "start of the game" radio sounded, the first and most enthusiastic cheers erupted from the surrounding crowd, and all kinds of cheering and talking voices mingled together, diluting the hazy sky and the cold desolation covered with ice and snow. Immersing yourself in such a bustling and warm atmosphere will surely make you feel the reality and beauty of life.

Due to the high level of productivity, people in the town have a lot of free time, but there is a lack of recreational activities. The boredom of life has led people to look for fun activities, and all kinds of festivals that were previously forgotten have been found. Since then, the town hall has taken the lead in holding festivals once or more every month, and festivals have gradually become an important form of entertainment in the town, and now they have become an indispensable part of life, which is the content of a book in the library that describes the history of the 66 towns of Kansu.

I watched the crowd and could feel the joy of being human in the midst of the hustle and bustle. Humans are social creatures, and even with the all-powerful power of mana, humans still do not survive on their own. This is because survival is not only a process of prolonging life, but also a process of recognizing different thoughts and constantly changing oneself accordingly.

The so-called wisdom is born from this. By solving the problems and contradictions that arise in the group, and making one's own behavior contrast with the behavior of others, only then can one's own sense of existence be reflected, so that wisdom has room for existence.

When more differences coexist, people continue to solve contradictions and problems, and form a coexisting society after various run-ins, in which various wisdom is full of wisdom to solve problems and contradictions and form rules.

While adapting to these rules and turning them into one's own use, wisdom will radiate brilliance, gain enlightenment in the collision with the thinking of predecessors, constantly clarify one's own needs and one's own positioning, and form one's own thinking wisdom and joy - this is the social nature of human beings.

It can be seen that human existence itself is a process of continuous transmission and accumulation of wisdom, and it is also a process of constantly discarding its own wildness and chaos, so even new humans with magical powers cannot escape this nature, because wisdom is equivalent to sociality itself. Just imagine, if a person survives in the wild, eats, drinks and wears all on his own, there is no communication, and there are no various problems and contradictions, then what is the difference between this person and a stone?

Without communication, there is no need for language. If you can solve all problems, you will not have any problems, let alone the curiosity and desire associated with them. A human being who has no language, no communication, no curiosity and no desire is just a stone.

It is a form of human wisdom that is supposed to draw a comparative result in society, so this life as a "human being" cannot escape the responsibilities attached by society. So what is my responsibility?

Looking at the lively crowd, I unconsciously became distracted. If the transmission and accumulation of wisdom is the duty of human beings in a broad sense, then what should be the duty of a single person? In other words, what is the broader meaning of a person like me besides the pursuit of a better survival for himself?

The lack of memory prevented me from figuring out how I saw my life in my previous life, whether I was simply living at that time, or was I living for some more meaningful purpose?

"Fold, the game has begun, hurry up."

Rina urged on the side, carrying a shovel that was only a little shorter than herself, and was eager to step forward to dig the ice.

"Let's get started."

I shrugged my shoulders and pulled my flying thoughts back, overlapping the goldfish I had imagined in advance with the ice, like a goldfish leaping out of the water with its head in the air and its tail curled up on the ground. The next step is to cut off the unwanted parts according to the outline of the goldfish, and you can complete a beautiful ice sculpture - unfortunately I can't let them see the illusion, so I have to plan it first, and then let them do it.

I didn't need to explain anything else, I picked up a sharp knife from the pile of tools, and according to the practice of the past few days, I drew the unwanted part on the rectangular ice cube with great force, and marked the direction in which to take the head and which direction was the tail. Then the three people of the real village, who had already been prepared, were each in charge of one side, and stepped forward with a shovel to knock it out, and the extraordinarily sharp metal edge could easily cut into the ice cube with some effort.

I avoided the splashes and sliding ice cubes, and found a shovel to chisel up a piece of ice of my own, while looking around with the corner of my eye, focusing on the movements of my opponents on the left and right.

In terms of body characteristics, on the left are three teenagers in their teens and fifteen years old, while on the right are five children who look older than us, but it is not clear how many years older they are, three boys and two girls.

I don't have much of an impression of the three teenagers on the left, and they don't appear much on the east side of the river. Like us, the five children on the right practice every day, and when they carve, they stick the paper with the shape of the figure on the ice in advance, and then chisel along the shape.

I have observed that the finished product of their exercise is a statue of a bird soaring with its wings spread, but it is impossible to tell what kind of bird it is because it lacks color or conspicuous features, but its form is realistic and three-dimensional, and the feathers are extremely delicate. Judging from these things, there is no doubt that they are a strong opponent in the competition.

This time, they pasted the paper with the drawings around the ice, and then the three boys were in charge of digging the ice by hand, and the two girls took a break to wait for the effortless processing.

I paused and turned my head to take in their progress, only to notice that one of the girls was also looking at us, as if sensing that I was observing them, and reached out to gesture with my hands crossed.

What does that mean?

Since she was wearing a mask, I couldn't tell her intentions by her expressions, so I took it as a kind reminder to tell myself not to be distracted, so I waved my hand at her and turned back to finish the ice sculpture.

"Yarn, you come to me first to carve the scales."

With the cooperation of the four people, the outline of the goldfish quickly emerged, and at this point I asked the yarn to stop and go to the side of the fish's back to carve the scales. Most of the body of a fish is covered with scales, and it is very difficult to carve all the scales, so it is necessary to arrange for someone to do this work in advance. However, Rina and Mamura both found this work boring and troublesome, and only Saya had no objection to this repetitive and monotonous work, so it was handed over to her.

Yarn nodded, and retrieved the saw, chisel, and file from the tool. First, the position of the back of the goldfish is chiseled flat with a chisel, and the small bumps or ice slags on the top are ground off with a large file, and then a saw is used to cut several criss-cross grooves on the smooth ice surface, so that the top forms a grid shape two fingers wide and narrow.

After that, the end of each mesh eye is chiseled diagonally deep with a chisel to make it look like floating scales, and finally the rough scales are filed smoothly and flatly with a file.

Her movements were swift and skillful, and in a few moments a patchwork of scales appeared on the ice.

A large amount of ice was chiseled so that the ground was quickly covered with a layer of broken ice, and Rina used a shovel to scoop up the broken ice and pile it on the side, forming a small iceberg. Mamura and I first sawed out the boxy base with a saw and polished it. Then I circled around the ice sculpture, and when I felt that there was more of it, I stepped forward and shoveled it hard, breaking the ice and smashing it indiscriminately.

As time passed, the crowd that became quiet after a while of the game became noisy again, and the long engraving time inevitably made people boring, so a lot of spectators began to flow, sometimes looking at this team, sometimes looking at that team.

It's fast, and the team is good at it, and there are bound to be a large crowd in front of them, and they'll be close together, like ......

"Oh! This is a goldfish, and it looks like it's almost finished. ”

"These four kids are the youngest in the game, aren't they?"

"Looks pretty good. It's only been an hour and a half now, and if there are no mistakes, this set should be the fastest to complete. ”

"Ori, Mika, Sa, Mamura! Work hard! You're the fastest at the moment! ”

……

Just like now, the audience gathered around us and made all kinds of comments as if we were watching rare animals, but luckily most of them were smiling kindly and didn't make any intrusive moves.

However, due to this, Mamura's movements became hesitant, and he sometimes raised the shovel and lowered it again, as if he had lost his judgment due to nervousness.

I waved at Rina and Zaoji, who were squeezing their heads out of the crowd, and then walked over to Mamura's side, patted him on the shoulder, and comforted him softly, "Mamura, don't be nervous, remember to treat everyone like bugs." ”

"Well...... Bugs ......"

Mamura nodded, took a few deep breaths with his eyes closed, and then continued his carving work while muttering "bugs".

Perhaps because of the tension turned into motivation, our carving seemed to go exceptionally smoothly this time, and the wheel gallery construction was completed less than half of the race time. The head of the goldfish and the curved body with a narrow top and wide bottom have emerged, leaving only the tail still flattened.

"Rina, Mamura, then you are in charge of the head, the fish lips, the tumor on the head will be completed first, and the eyes will be the last and we will come together."

Putting down the shovel that had completed the task, I gave a word to Rina and Mamura, then replaced it with a flat shovel and a chisel and began to "wrap up". As the weakest link, the work of the fins is definitely the most troublesome.

There are five fins on the body of the fish, namely pectoral fin, pelvic fin, dorsal fin, anal fin, and caudal fin, of which the pectoral fin can fit the body, and the dorsal fin, anal fin, and pelvic fin can be carved thicker, which does not affect the appearance. These are all valuable lessons I have learned after experiencing many fin fragmentations that have caused the entire process to fall short.

However, I couldn't find a good way to deal with it only with the tail fin, which is generally wider and looks extra fluffy and soft. In order to convey that feeling, the tail fin had to be carved into a curly and thin shape, but not too small, otherwise it would be aesthetically pleasing.

Therefore, when carving the tail fin, the hammer must not be used, and the whole process of carving the fin must be sharpened with a cone knife, and then the chisel is used to expand and polish the shape little by little.

From easy to difficult, I first completed the pectoral fin, pelvic fin, dorsal fin, and caudal fin, and finally chiseled out a flat side of the caudal fin, which was still a large rough piece, and used a chisel and file to make the fins, and finally carefully started the last side of the work.

At this time, Mamura and Rina had completed the work of the fish head, there were two large tumors on the fish head, which looked like two hills undulating, from the left and right hat tips that seemed to be crowns, the fish lips were thick and thin, the lower jaw had obvious ups and downs and protrusions, and the gills had been carved out intact, only the eyes were still two raised ice cubes.

The scales of the yarn were also mostly completed, and with the help of Mamura and Rina they quickly covered the surface of the goldfish's body. The entire ice sculpture was almost finished, and all that was left was the fish eyes and the tail fin in my hand.

When the scales of the yarn were completely completed, and with the experience of the morning's success, I finally chiseled out the shape of the tail fin on the other side with great difficulty, and then carefully sharpened the fins.

"Fold it, work hard!"

Mika, who turned into a bystander, clenched her fists and cheered loudly, if I hadn't noticed her movements, I was afraid that her encouragement would have caused me to destroy the entire ice sculpture. It's like a shout from her yesterday that made all my hard work in the morning go to waste.

"Shh......h Mika, be quiet. ”

Sha made a silent gesture and crouched to the side and quietly looked at the ice sculpture, as if to find the flowers from it. Although she was calm, I could see the tension and anticipation in her eyes.

Yarn is the one who values this competition the most among us - it's not speculation, it's not reasoning, it's fact.

Although every practice is the loudest of Rina's muttering, but in fact the most serious is often the yarn, once she starts carving, she will become engrossed, even if she is often responsible for the most boring part of the scales, she has no complaints, silently and attentively to complete the work at hand, and after the completion of the will carefully inspect each scale, to correct the defects.

So if this competition fails, as the original proposer, the most disappointed will only be her.

As soon as I thought of the way the yarn was silent with tears in her eyes, I felt that the movements in my hands became heavier and heavier, and I did not dare to slack off at all.

I shook my head and threw the distracting thoughts out of my head, constructing in my mind the illusion of no one around me, focusing on my tail fin and the tools in my hands, and the only sound that came into my ears was the monotonous click and hoarse sound of metal rubbing against the ice.

Fin bars emerge on the tail fin, and when the last bent fin fills the ice, a brush is used to brush away the ice chips.

That's when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and take a step back and look at my work. I saw that the tail fin presented a semicircle, its curved surface was in the form of waves, the fin strips on the ice surface were like skeletons supporting the skin a finger wide, and the crystal clear fins were integrated, and there was no crack in sight, which was as beautiful and light as the ribbon wrapped around the fairy's body, giving people the illusion that it would shatter when touched.

"Fold, that's great! You did it! ”

As soon as I lifted the illusion that had been acting on me, I saw Mika pounce and hug me. Close at hand, I could see the most enthusiastic joy and satisfaction on her face, her sparkling eyes glittering with water, and the scars under the corners of her eyes seemed to turn red and bright.

The joy was unpretentious, and it unfolded before my eyes in a sudden way. I realized the mistake in my thinking, sighed, and couldn't help but smile - it wasn't just Sasa who really cared about this competition, Mika also cared, but she covered up this care under a big grin, and even I didn't notice it.

I didn't break away from Mika's embrace and spread my hands out to avoid the tools at hand stabbing her. Then he turned his head sideways to look at Mamura, and realized that he was also grinning, and his delicate face was like that of a little girl who had received something beloved. On one side, the yarn stood up, picked up the chisel and file, and smiled at me with a reassuring soft smile: "Fold, it's beautiful." ”

"Mika, you're hugging you too tightly, do you want me to pick you up?"

Patting Mika on the back, I deliberately teased her in a teasing tone. She immediately let go of her hand and took a step back like a rabbit, a pair of soft rabbit ears on her head swayed with the movement, her cheeks flushed, and she muttered loudly: "Who wants you to pick it up, it's just a comfort to you." ”

"Yes, yes, it's a comfort to me. Anyway, it's time to finish the eyes and put the finishing touches on it. ”

I don't want to dwell with her on the question of "success needs comfort, what does failure need". I clapped my hands, and then pointed to the area of my eyes, and the yarn, which had been prepared for a long time, stepped forward to start work.

"Ah...... Yarn is so cunning! ”

Mika was taken aback and quickly picked up her tools and followed—I had told them the story of the adaptation of "The Finishing Touch", so they seemed to regard the carving of the eyes as the most important part.

So, in the good-natured laughter of many audiences, the last two eyes were born in the hands of Sawa Mika. A crystal clear, as if jumping out of the water pot-bellied goldfish ice sculpture was completed, and it also drew an end to our six days of hard work and anticipation.

"The second team is the first to complete the work, there is still one hour and twenty minutes left, please other participating teams hurry up."

After the staff checked the goldfish ice sculpture, a sound sounded on the loudspeaker, announcing that our competition was coming to an end.

……

PS: I'm sorry, I couldn't send it out before twelve o'clock, the network is a little bad, and the writing is delayed.