Chapter 2 In the Comfrey
If there were aliens in this world, Gu Chuan didn't know what color they would mark the world.
The people in the dream called the earth a blue planet, but the place where Gu Chuan lived in the dream was always gray. In his waking world, the sunset riverside was a golden twilight, the first half of the wilderness was black, the lower half was white, and the Netherworld lost its white, leaving only black.
And the new corner of the world that they discovered was the purple of the ocean.
The beautiful purple covered everything in the new world, and at a glance, there was no trace of other colors, and the shallow part of the comfrey was above their knees, and the highest comfrey could even grow above their heads. Comfrey has no grass roots, it is completely soft filamentous. Often, explorers don't step on solid ground, but only step on the soft middle of the comfrey, relying on dense filaments to support their weight.
Walking like this feels like walking in a piece of marshmallow, and your body is half submerged in marshmallows. If you are not careful, your feet will be unbalanced, and you will fall on your back.
Gu Chuan fell once. The pliable middle of the comfrey made his heel not steady, and he slipped all of a sudden, and his whole body sank into the comfrey. He couldn't borrow the strength, and struggled violently with his instincts, and as a result, the filaments around him wrapped around him with the struggle of his hands and feet.
When Zai heard the cry, he immediately used his gear arm to cut the comfrey one by one, and leaned against a protruding rock to pull the young man up from the grass.
The young man lay on the rock, frightened:
"The ground is so soft that I can't walk with my shoes. No, it's not walking, it's stepping into the air, we're flying on the grass! ”
Jae-sin was in line with his thoughts.
The gear man walked a little easier than the man made of meat, because the feet made of gears were much larger than Gu Chuan's feet, and the grip was stronger, but the flexibility and bending of the left and right sides and below were like springs, which could make people lose their balance from time to time.
But they didn't have any special methods, and after a short rest, they carefully penetrated the grass again, and most of their bodies were submerged by the comfrey.
Small patches of land floated over their heads, leaving shadows of various shapes, some flat like bowls or boards, some protruding like hills or sharp needles, most of which were not of any shape and irregular, but the land overhead was common in color—all purple because of the comfrey.
A few protruding rocks are the only different colors in the world that the explorer's eyes can see.
Gu Chuan didn't understand geology, nor did he understand rocks, nor did the gear man, so he simply recorded the characteristics of these rocks - most of them were rough and had speckled crystals on them.
The two barely walked from the dark to the bright, from the bottom of the earth, to the top of the earth, naturally, without any impression of the discomfort of flipping their bodies, though they did, from the point of view of the jellyfish in the distance, have gone from being upright to upright.
"Does Comfrey have a reaction to think?"
Zai asked Gu Chuan.
Gu Chuan shook his head:
"Long Xinjiao didn't notice a mental reaction. Comfrey is indeed a much more primitive creature than jellyfish. ”
"There's no way to get information directly from this plant, can you?"
"Yes."
They continued on their way and decided to make a circle first.
The land is not the same in shape, which brings a particular benefit, which is the ease of marking. Mengsheng will wander in circles, but Gu Chuan is really worried about whether this jellyfish has the intelligence to recognize the direction, so he marked it in advance and determined a starting point and assembly point
Not counting the previous time when the comfrey was harvested to make soup, the explorers marked the land they landed on as No. 1, which means the first land they landed. In addition, it is also called the Oval Island.
The name naturally comes from its unique, almost standard-like oval shape in the vast air and land mass.
The warm sunshine and purple sea will remind people of the wheat waves in their hometown.
There's still a long way to go. Zai Shan raised a special topic:
"I've always had a question I want to ask."
"What's the problem, you just say it."
"Didn't you and Hatsuyun know early on that as we go south, the sun will rise a little higher? And the more you go, the higher you rise? ”
Gu Chuan looked at a land plot in the distance that was approaching the Oval Island that looked like a long wrench, and said:
"yes, did you forget? Hatsukumo and I came from the place where the sun had set. At the beginning, I also told Jing Yujiu that the further I went into the Great Wilderness, the more the sun went down, until it was between the barren mountains, and the sun suddenly disappeared...... Then the moon rose from the moon and hung on the side of the mountain, which was the first quarter moon. And going south from the Great Wilderness, the three of us didn't see that the moon was also rising, and gradually becoming fuller. ”
Zai Yan shook his head:
"But for only a moment, the first quarter moon was obscured by the clouds of the netherworld, and we never saw the moon again until this new world!"
"So I guess that the end of the second cloud band of the Netherworld plays the role of the mountains of Daling, probably where the moon sets and the sun rises."
"This ......"
Zai Yan thought for a while, didn't pay attention to the uneven density of the comfrey at his feet, and almost fell out of balance. He was supported by Gu Chuan, the two stood still, and he continued:
"Here's ...... Could it be the extreme north of the great river you mentioned, as long as we continue to move forward, we will go to your hometown, and then to the great wilderness. ”
The sun rises to the highest point in the sky and then sets slowly.
When the sun is about to set westward, the river will be not far from them.
He saw the young man stop at the edge of a rock, turned his head, and looked back at himself with a look of astonishment as he had asked the question.
He was almost smiling, elated, and said:
"Promise your good words!"
Dragons roared in the distance, and there was not a single sound of man or wind on the desolate land nearby. This is a time when the world is silent.
Zai Yan walked behind Gu Chuan, and he knew that his understanding was going further than him.
The morning light fell on the young man's back. He laughed merrily as he walked cautiously:
"So, seeing the rising sun is a joy for me to sing and dance as I am committed to completing my world journey. Unfortunately, I was so hungry that I didn't have the strength to do anything. ”
At the moment of the rising of the sun, the theory of the infinity of the world was briefly dismantled, and the theory of the reincarnation of the world stood up as never before, giving him extraordinary peace of mind.
"Then the shape of the world will be confirmed...... "Jae-chan realized something, "but why don't you tell us directly?" If I hadn't realized this, wouldn't you have told us? ”
Gu Chuan shook his head and continued to walk ahead, smashing through one patch after another of denser comfrey with his body.
He laughed and said:
"Because you haven't reached the place where the sun has set yet, have you?"
"That's ......"
"Even if everyone knew about it, wouldn't it be any special benefit? If the sun doesn't set again, or if it doesn't go back to the river, wouldn't all my anticipation and happiness seem so stupid? ”
As for Hatsuun, Hatsuyun is much more indifferent than him. As for Zaiyi, Zaiyi didn't care if he could go around the world and return to the Great River or the Great Wilderness, he just wanted to stay away from the changes that were taking place that made him feel uneasy.
"And that's exactly what happened."
Zai Yi imagined what the time would be like, imagining the cramped, uneasy, embarrassed and disappointed scene of this stranger, and he let out a rare laugh.
The laughter, far away, swept into the depths of land and land flight, mingled with the dangerous cries of the beasts.
He must have laughed at the thought of the egg.
"Don't worry." He said earnestly, "When the time comes, I will comfort you." ”
"Thank you so much! Gear man with a lion head! ”
The young man stopped unhappily on the edge of a rock, and the man stopped.
The time for laughter is over, and the real task lies ahead of them.
At that time, they were standing on the edge of a piece of the world, and from their usual horizontal and vertical angles, they had actually leaned forward nearly thirty degrees, but they still seemed to be upright.
Something that makes people walk upright on the ground, instead of flying or dragging forward, is drawing them on the side of the elliptical island so that they don't fall.
"This force covers every corner of the island, but unexpectedly, it doesn't seem to be very even."
The world ahead is overshadowed by the land higher above. And the world below, layered on top of each other, is an endless number of flying land.
Shadows shrouded each other, and the nearest piece of land was a wrench-shaped island parallel to the Ellipse, only forty or fifty meters away, but about to fly away, while below there was another giant piece of land three to four times larger than the Oval Island or Wrench Island, taking on the form of a large cylindrical mass. Sunlight can only penetrate diagonally from the gap between the islands.
"Here it is."
Gu Chuan untied a long safety rope from his backpack. Both ends of the rope have a hook from the Gear Man.
Zai Yan nodded, wrapped one end of the rope around the rock, and then, Gu Chuan drank some water, measured the reliability of the rope, then rested for a while, and agreed with Zai Yi on the next move.
The next steps of the explorers are easy to explain.
With regard to the gravity of the land circle—though it may not be physical gravity in the ordinary sense, but a force that pulls people slightly to the land—the explorers feel the pull of the dream as they drift between the land.
The initial way of detection is to swing one's body halfway between land and land.
"The length of the safety rope is 100 meters, and the diameter is 8 millimeters. The thickness of the elliptical island is about ten meters, and I am about sixty to seventy meters away from the wrench island. The ground is covered with more than a meter of soft comfrey. First I'll try bouncing. After a successful bouncing, I should be flying between land and land. If I need you to move the rope, I'll yell at you, and if it's okay, and if you can, I'll untie the rope when I land, and when you see it, I'll untie the rope and tie it to you, and I'll pick you up over there. After this set, let's wait for the jellyfish to come back and rest first, no problem. ”
Gear people dare to do everything, naturally there is no problem.
Here they go.
The young man first stood on the rock, aimed at Wrench Island and jumped forward. Zai Yi also recorded his high jump data. On the first jump, he jumped nearly two meters from the ground, and the momentum of the two meters did not break free from the gravity of the elliptical island, but immediately caused him to fall back to the comfrey pile next to the rock.
"No, I need to go farther and faster." He unloaded his backpack and shin guards and handed them to Zai. Put it in your bag.
Then the young man stepped back, stood in the comfrey some distance from the rock, took a deep breath, and then ran forward as if he were flying, tensing the muscles of his legs, and then with the last kick, he stepped on the rock and leaped with his strength until he was three or four meters away in the air.
And he felt exactly the traction on his body quietly shift.
The gravity of the real downward traction, the attraction that was vague in front of him, and the rapidly decreasing force that he felt behind him, interacted with him.
"It worked! It really exists......"
He had flown towards Wrench Island, which was close at hand.
The weightless human body for a moment is like a bird that starts to fly, about to plunge into the infinite and wide sky.
But it was only then that he felt the power of another kind of existence between the land.
"It's the Wind ......"
A huge and surging wind current, which was not felt on land, hit the young man. The strands of hair that had been attached to the head fluttered in the wind one by one.
The body suddenly lost control, like a vase being tossed, and was lifted in the other direction by a strong wind.
It's a feeling that animals rarely feel when they're on the ground or active in the water, and only birds that fight in the sky feel the pressure of the world.
He reached forward to grab the comfrey on Wrench Island.
But Wrench Island, which was originally close at hand, seems to have approached the extreme of Elliptical Island, and has begun to move away again.
So it was only a fraction of a second, and it was not controlled by the gravity of Wrench Island.
The person who leaps is only subject to the real gravity for a moment, and falls straight down. The rope that had been tied to the stone also quickly lengthened and stretched, making a terrifying sound on the comfrey and the rocks.
Zai Yan didn't receive a sound, so he didn't dare to pull the rope, and according to his judgment, he couldn't pull the rope yet.
The young man in the air was lifted by the wind, and the rope bent in a smooth curve in the air.
"This wind can blow people up!"
Instead of crying, the young man burst out laughing.
The feeling of being lifted by the wind gave him a definite fear, but for a moment it was overwhelmed by some greater excitement. His face flushed with excitement.
"I'm going to change the target, Zaiyi, you have to watch it!"
Gu Chuan shouted in the wind.
The fight of the safety rope against the wind, as well as his own standing up and waving hands, sent him very close to Cylinder Island. That familiar feeling returned as he grabbed the lush comfrey on Cylindrical Island.
He managed to roll into the cylindrical grass and crush a large expanse of comfrey. The soft comfrey propped up his body and made him feel comfortable.
At that time, the safety rope was stretched to a limit of nearly 100 meters.
"Load! It's windy, it's okay! ”
Gu Chuan shouted, untied the rope, and tied it. Zai was as good as a stream, tied the rope to his body, ran away, and then jumped into the wind as well.
After only reverberating in the wind for a moment, he landed more peacefully than Gu Chuan in the comfrey of Cylindrical Island.
The two were tentative, and Gu Chuan said excitedly:
"You're right, Hatsuyun is right, it's both windy and powerful...... This force ......"
Unexpectedly, Zai Yan suddenly grabbed his hand and lay down on the comfrey together, and the dense comfrey bushes instantly submerged their bodies and did not pass their ropes.
The outside world is isolated by filaments.
The young man knew that there must be a reason for Zaiyi to do this, so he held his breath and said nothing.
In the comfrey, he heard a faint sound of footsteps.
Footsteps were close to them, followed by a regular whisper, followed by a stern shout. Later, they will learn that the shout means:
"Come out, we know you're here."