Since the beginning of the school year, these police officers have not been seen again.

Two weeks went on, nothing strange had happened, and my and I's lives had returned to normal—in other words, we had let our guard down for a while.

The pavement of the school has been completed, and we no longer have to take a detour to get to the cafeteria, garden, etc. However, after the start of the third year of high school, we collectively moved to the senior teaching area in the northern corner of the campus - because the place is remote and quiet, if you break in alone, you will tremble, and the surrounding students call this place "Siberia".

In the first two weeks of school, students complained one after another. Because the teaching area of the third year of high school is surrounded by all kinds of plants, it is inevitable that there will be a lot of small insects living here. Some boys complained that small reptiles fell from the ceiling in class, and some girls who participated in evening self-study complained that there were many, many moths flying in and disturbing their study during evening self-study. In short, it seems that the life of the third year of high school has been unsatisfactory from the beginning, which makes it a little difficult for us to adapt to the new senior year.

Of course, for a few of us, the only trouble was that we had to walk ten minutes longer to the garden than before, which meant that there was basically no time to go to the garden except for lunch break and school.

"Eh, I said Yujie, is that something complicated?"

It was noon again, and I was resting in the pavilion with Yirui.

"I think so." The police never showed up in the garden again, and they didn't show up near Eri's classmates or my house again, which made me think that I and Eri were just thinking too much last time, "They may not be investigating the 'Grass Demon', or maybe the focus of their last investigation was not on the 'Grass and Tree Demon'." ”

"It's weird, but no one bothers us anymore!" She looked very comfortable.

"Irri......" I turned my head to the side, "You're going to run out like this......"

Eri-san had taken off her shoes and over-the-knee socks since just now, and sat barefoot and crossed her legs across from me, she probably didn't notice anything wrong with the skirt, although there was no one else here except the two of us, but it was a little embarrassing to look at her like this.

"Ahh I'm sorry......" She hurriedly lowered her feet from the stone bench and pulled down her short skirt, "Oh, by the way, I feel like the homeroom teacher has become very concerned about you lately!" ”

"Well, after all, I was so brave to protect you last time, and it left a different impression on him."

"You say, when will you be able to improve your relationship with your classmates, how good it would be!" She shrugged playfully at me, "You said yes, right?" ”

"I'm not interested in that......"

"That's not going to work!" She put on her stockings and shoes, walked over to me and sat down, "People, you always have to communicate with others, don't you?" ”

"Isn't there a place you can talk to! And Zhendong and my family, you are enough! ”

"Believe it or not, if you still can't fit into the class this semester, I'll ignore you for now." She poked my cheeks, which should have been greasy, with her tender fingertips.

"This ......"

"I've decided that you have to improve your relationship with the rest of your class before the midterm exams, or I'll join those who snubbed you, leaving you alone in the corner shivering."

The corners of her mouth rose slightly, and she smiled wickedly. Well, I have to admit that I don't want to lose a friend like her at all, so I can only accept it.

"No, I promise you won't be able to......"

I didn't think much about how I could suddenly fit in like this, and I couldn't figure it out.

"As for how you'll fit in with the class......" she pursed her lips, "I'll always help you." ”

"You're really self-centered...... "Yirui's classmate is still like this, thinking that one play is another, and she didn't think about my feelings at all, so she asked me to promise her here and her there.

"Well, class is out in half an hour, let's go back!"

"Ahhh ♪

Just as I was about to get up and leave the pavilion, I heard singing in the distance. It sounded like the sound was coming from behind the wall, and it sounded like an old man's singing. I walked over to the voice, which was sometimes far and near, sometimes loud and sometimes low.

"Is this outside the school?"

Yirui put on her shoes and trotted over.

"It's not like ......," I replied—and from the moment ago I had felt that the sound was coming from behind the wall, but it was like it was near us, as if it were hiding behind a row of trees by the wall that I could not name, and it did not sound like it was being blocked by a wall.

"Look here, there's a big open space behind here!" Yi Rui didn't know when she ran so far away, bouncing and beckoning me from afar.

To be honest, I always thought that behind this row of small trees was a whole wall. When I looked closer, there was a gap in the little tree for a man to pass sideways, and there was also a gap in the wall — a small door that had been broken by man, to be exact. Looking inside the gate, there was indeed a small hill with a small slope, or perhaps there was a forest inside the gate.

"I'll go in first!"

I slipped through the small door that was just big enough for me to enter sideways, and the petite Eri-san was able to pass through it with ease, as simple as jumping over at once.

"Who could this be?"

This forest is literally from another dimension, and I have never seen it before, and I never thought that there would be such a forest here. The song did come from the front, and as we walked deeper and deeper towards this "different dimension" woods, this majestic song became clearer and clearer.

"Is it a gardener?" She followed me closely.

"I don't know, why is the gardener here......"

I remember that the gardener's hut was supposed to be at the entrance to the garden, and I had been there to carry tools when we were planting flowers, and I had seen the gardener there with my own eyes.

We went deeper and deeper—the entrance was actually less than twenty meters away, but it was so dark that I didn't know how far I had gone inside. As we turned a small corner, a dilapidated wooden cabin covered with vines came into view.

I followed the sound and slowly approached the dilapidated cabin. There was no one at the door of the cabin, and the sound must have come from the other side of the cabin. The hut was divided into two rooms, one dark with dry branches piled up, and the other that appeared to be where the old man lived, with a mattress on the hay on the floor, and a few braided branches hanging from the doorway swaying in the breeze of the woods.

There was a handful of low bushes in front of the house, and I-Eri and I hid ourselves behind the bushes.

"Ahhhhhhh ♪

"Wait." I pressed down again, who was about to stand up.

"Whew, ......it hurts," she was defenseless, and I pushed her to the ground, almost screaming in pain, and the yellow and dry fallen leaves on the ground immediately made a "stinging, stinging" sound.

"Well, it's okay."

I pulled her up and helped her dust off her skirt as I continued to look around the cabin.

"I'd rather stay in the world than fly to be a heavenly immortal ♪~" The voice is getting closer and closer to us. Sure enough, an old man slowly walked out of the back of the house with a wooden basin.

"Come out, two." He left the basin at the door of the hut.

I grabbed Eri's shirt and told her not to stand up yet.

"In such a quiet place, your every move is under the supervision of my 'clairvoyant'!"

"Are you ......" I saw that there was no need for me to hide anymore, so I slowly stood up, "You are a gardener?" ”

"Who else could it be." He sorted out the tools he leaned on on the edge of the hut, "You kid borrowed gardening tools from me last time, saying that you were going to plant flowers, have you forgotten?" ”

"Master Wu, why are you here?"

Yi Rui didn't know when she knew the name of the gardening master, and called out in the back.

"Ah, Ruirui." The two of them seemed to have known each other for a long time. However, I find the name "Ruirui" a little strange.

He took out a puff fan out of nowhere, and calmly fanned it: "I have found this place for you......" He laughed as he led us to the back of the hut. There was a small stream at the back of the hut, I don't know where it came from, and there was a moss-covered stone table next to the small stream, and several uneven stone benches were placed crookedly on the side.

"Master Wu, what's going on here......"

Yi Rui asked the gardener while patting the dust on the stockings that he had just fallen.

"In 1981, the new campus of the school was built in this place, which was originally a village, and the place where you are standing now used to be the back mountain of a family, although it is not high, it can also be called the back mountain." He sat down in the position near the stream and continued, "Later, when the school was built, the hill was just separated by a wall, which was good enough, and it was impossible to see a small forest like this behind the wall from the school. However, after I came here to work, I stumbled upon this place, and it took me a long time to apply to the school before I was allowed to open a small opening to enter and exit from here. As he spoke, he pointed to the entrance where we had just entered.

"There is such a quiet place at the back of the school...... "Yirui sat on the stone bench, holding her head with her hands, and seemed to be listening very seriously.

"Young man, you are what your classmates call the 'Demon of Grass and Trees'."

"Huh!" I suddenly came back to my senses, and my gaze shifted from the stunned Yirui to the old man, "Yes, yes......"

"And Rui Rui, do you also have a strange superpower that can make seeds germinate quickly and make flowers bloom immediately?" He turned to look at Yirui.

"Let the seeds germinate quickly and the flowers bloom immediately? I can't seem to do that, but I have a skill like grafting. She looked interested, her eyes wide open.

"You can quickly manipulate the movement of any leaf or flower, right?"

"That's right." I can indeed manipulate the blades very quickly, and even turn them into weapons.

"Sure enough......" he took a sip of the flask that he didn't know when and where it came from, "and finally again......

"Again?" Iree and I asked this question at about the same time.

"Ten years ago, twenty years ago, there were young people like you." He took another big sip into the flask, looking happy, "They're just like the two of you, each with this supernatural ability. ”

"Huh? This ......"

How could there be such a thing, I thought to myself - it seemed to me that the two of us had such strange supernatural abilities was ridiculous.

"It's all my own witness, from my thirties to such an old man, how many reincarnations have come down......" He laughed again, quite a kind of hermit in martial arts novels.

"Reincarnation? So, what happened to them? Yirui-san didn't seem surprised by such a strange coincidence, and asked seriously.

"God will not give you a pair of eyes for nothing, because you need to see the world until you have experienced countless things, and your life is burned out, and you don't need these eyes, and then he takes them back to pass on to those who have been given a mission in the next samsara; Nature, of course, does not give them such abilities for no reason, until they complete their mission, and this supernatural ability naturally disappears......"

"Gone?" Yi Rui looked surprised.

"Yes, gone."

He just drank and laughed merrily.

"What is their mission?" Yirui tilted her head and asked suspiciously.

"What does this have to do with a gardener like me?" He suddenly laughed again, "It's just that when I was working, I happened to meet them using supernatural abilities, of course, I also saw the two of you using supernatural abilities, and as for what happened, why they lost their supernatural abilities before they graduated from high school, the old man doesn't know!" ”

I was listening to Yirui and I when suddenly I heard the pre-class bell ringing in the distance through a somewhat dense grove - the pre-class bell that rang five minutes before the first class in the afternoon, so that we could wake up quickly after the lunch break.

"Oops!" Yirui hurriedly got up, "Master Wu, let's talk next time." ”

"Oh oh......" He still sat there calmly, with the same calm smile he had maintained since just now, "Let's go to class, come back next time I have time, remember not to bring other students over!" ”

"Okay, let's go first!" Yirui picked me up and forgot to rush to the campus, and at the same time turned around and waved goodbye to the gardener.

"Let go of me, it's not good!" Being dragged by Yirui, I had some difficulty facing these sophomores who were walking around the side of the teaching building and were sober and now taking over the teaching area.

"It's all your fault, you idiot, you don't know how to look at your watch!" She said in a reproachful tone as she trotted forward.

"Please, aren't you wearing a watch too......"

"Hmph, you have to ......," she muttered softly.

The hem of her skirt danced up and down with her brisk steps, and the wind blew through her long hair, sending a faint fragrance. I gave up the struggle and let her hold my arm and run freely.

September has arrived, the weather is gradually becoming less hot and dry than when I first met her, and autumn is silently changing everything on campus, marking the beginning of our last year on campus. However, our mission to protect the garden has only just begun.

The first cuttings looked like they were about to bloom, and the three of us were already planning a new round of renovation – to turn it into a sea of flowers in March next year, so as to stop the school from doing anything about the garden that recorded the fond memories of the three of us.

Of course, as for the mission that the gardener said about nature, we are still waiting for me and Yirui to experience and discover it together......