Chapter 59: In the Mirror
Yu Shi didn’t like to use anything with a fragrance, including shower gel and shampoo, nor did he like to leave any noticeable scent on himself.
When cooking in the kitchen, there would be a slight aroma of food on him; when arranging fresh flowers in a vase, he would carry a faint floral scent. But he himself had no scent, only warmth.
When Feng Xuexiang, who was suddenly enveloped by Yu Shi’s shirt and resting on his shoulder, experienced this unprecedented warmth, he was stunned and instinctively buried himself deeper into this body.
This was the first time he had found a place to hide here.
To the outside world, Feng Xuexiang undoubtedly seemed “crazy,” but in his own consciousness, he was simply lost.
Lost in this unchanging mirage, trapped for a very long time, unable to escape no matter what.
There was no other life here besides him, so over time, his memories became confused and fragmented; he even forgot who he was and why he was here.
He only remembered that this was a prison, and he could not cross the deep mire and the terrifying swarm of butterflies.
“It’s okay, let’s go back to the platform.”
Yu Shi drove away the butterflies, feeling that Feng Xuexiang, who had initially passively leaned on him, was now actively hugging him, clasping his shoulder and back.
Like clinging to a lifeline, Feng Xuexiang was probably so frightened that he no longer made any sound, only tightening his grip.
Yu Shi was good at cooking and caring, and his arm strength was naturally developed, which did not quite match his handsome and gentle face.
At this moment, he could hold onto Feng Xuexiang and drag him out of the range of the butterflies.
As they neared the platform, the butterflies no longer chased them, fluttering back to the water lily leaves and disguising themselves as quivering purple lilies in the breeze.
Back on the platform, Yu Shi lifted the shirt from Feng Xuexiang’s head, but he remained motionless.
“Mr. Feng, Ninth Master Feng… Feng Xuexiang?”
Only at the mention of Feng Xuexiang did he lift his head, his expression still somewhat dazed.
“It’s okay now. You can let go of me,” Yu Shi said.
Feng Xuexiang released him, watching as Yu Shi calmly put his shirt back on, covering his chest, which had developed a thin layer of muscle from recent training.
Feng Xuexiang collapsed on the edge of the platform, his clean clothes and pants stained with mud. He stared blankly at the mud on him, as if still trying to regain his senses.
But Yu Shi, now dressed, had turned back to examine the mud. He suddenly rolled up his sleeves and began to feel around in the muck.
“What are you doing?” Feng Xuexiang, regaining his senses, leaned forward on the edge, his eyes full of curiosity.
“I stepped on something in the mud earlier. I’m going to see what it was,” Yu Shi explained.
He carefully felt around and soon pulled out an object from the mud.
It had a round belly and a long handle. After washing it in the thin layer of water on top of the mud, its true appearance was revealed.
—it was a blue water ladle.
“What’s this?” Feng Xuexiang, feeling as if he had been trapped for a long time and never realized there was something in the mud, asked curiously.
“It’s a water ladle.” Yu Shi examined the ladle from different angles, confirming that it was just an ordinary ladle, and then handed it to Feng Xuexiang.
“You can use this to scoop some water from the lake and rinse off the mud from yourself.”
Feng Xuexiang took the water ladle, still looking at Yu Shi with anticipation, but Yu Shi had already lowered his head to continue feeling around in the mud.
Feng Xuexiang could only awkwardly and clumsily scoop water from the dark lake surface, glancing at Yu Shi from time to time, afraid he might suddenly disappear.
Yu Shi soon pulled out a small ceramic flower pot from the mud, the kind used for growing succulents.
He placed the cleaned flower pot on the edge of the platform. Feng Xuexiang immediately picked it up and looked at it, then hesitated before saying, “I think I remember…”
“What do you remember?” Yu Shi asked.
“When I was young, someone gave me a plant in a pot like this,” Feng Xuexiang said, his tone suddenly rising, “Look, there’s a character here.”
Yu Shi leaned in to take a look. On the bottom of the small flower pot was a carved character “乡 (Xiang),” written in a very childish script.
Feng Xuexiang suddenly laughed in amazement: “This is my flower pot!”
Yu Shi then felt around and pulled up a long pole, which he could immediately recognize as a dip net—a rod with a net at one end, used for catching fish, water plants, or dragonflies.
His movements were quick, and soon a pile of miscellaneous items had accumulated beside Feng Xuexiang.
Initially, Feng Xuexiang had waited on the platform, but he couldn’t resist and waded down: “I want to look for things with you.”
Yu Shi straightened up: “Aren’t you afraid of the mud anymore?”
Earlier, Yu Shi had noticed Feng Xuexiang’s inexplicable fear of the world outside the platform.
Feng Xuexiang hesitated but eventually said, “I want to be with you.”
As Yu Shi was feeling around in the mud, he unconsciously drifted away from the edge of the platform, creating a sense of unease in Feng Xuexiang.
Yu Shi felt like Feng Xuexiang was like a chick following closely behind a mother hen, sticking close to him wherever he went and always wanting to be near.
Despite having his half-cleaned body getting muddy again, Feng Xuexiang didn’t seem to mind. Whenever he pulled something out of the mud, he would come to ask Yu Shi: “Look, what is this?”
“Let me see.” Yu Shi took the item, washed it off, and said, “It’s a wind-up frog toy.”
Feng Xuexiang fiddled with the worn wind-up frog: “I have a slight impression of this… Does it still work?”
Yu Shi tried it: “It’s rusted inside, so it probably doesn’t work anymore.”
After a while, Feng Xuexiang called out again: “Yu Shi, there’s something here!”
He pulled out a segment after segment from the mud, struggling to get it fully out. It was only with Yu Shi’s help that he managed to retrieve the entire length.
It was a long, thin chain.
Feng Xuexiang looked at the chain with a momentary look of fear, but it quickly turned to confusion: “What is this for?”
Yu Shi examined it: “It looks like it’s used to tie something, like for small animals.”
The end of the thin chain had a small loop resembling a handcuff.
…
A pile of miscellaneous items had accumulated in one corner of the platform, collected by the two of them.
Feng Xuexiang looked at the items with pure bewilderment: “Why are there all these things at the bottom of the mud? Who could have thrown them in?”
If he didn’t know, then it was unlikely anyone else would.
Yu Shi was at the side, using the ladle to carefully clean his hands. The mud on him was so thick that he could only rinse it off slowly.
Having been there for so long and unable to find a way out, Yu Shi realized he needed to ask Feng Xuexiang for help.
However, Yu Shi didn’t think Feng Xuexiang would know or, for that matter, be willing to let him leave.
“Feng Xuexiang, how do you think we can get out of here?”
“I don’t know.” At the mention of the topic, Feng Xuexiang became agitated again and came over to tightly grip Yu Shi’s hand.
“Will we be able to leave if we cross this mud lake? But the butterflies there will eat me. How did you come here? You appeared suddenly. You can take me out, right?”
His hopeful and pleading expression didn’t seem fake. Yu Shi said, “I’m not sure how I got here, but I’ll do my best to help you. How would you like me to help?”
“I want to leave here! If you can’t take me out, will you stay here with me?” Feng Xuexiang moved closer, speaking urgently, “I don’t want to be alone here anymore!”
After saying this, he even opened his arms and hugged Yu Shi, burying his head in Yu Shi’s shoulder and trembling slightly.
Yu Shi: “………”
Just as he had nearly finished cleaning himself, Feng Xuexiang’s hug covered him with mud again.
Until a way out was found, he would have to stay here as well.
Yu Shi wasn’t idle; he rummaged through the pile of miscellaneous items. Feng Xuexiang, curious, sat beside him and intermittently pressed the non-functional wind-up frog.
“I’ll see if I can fix it.”
“Can it be repaired even though it’s broken?”
Yu Shi took the frog, opened its casing, and wiped the rust inside with his shirt hem.
The interior wasn’t as bad as he had expected. It didn’t seem to have been submerged in mud, and the mud on it was easily cleaned.
This raised a suspicion: Was the surrounding “mud” really just mud?
Yu Shi found a small metal piece from the pile of items, polished it slightly, and used it to unscrew the small screws inside the wind-up frog.
In the past, Yu Shi and his second brother, Yu Mo, handled most household repairs. Yu Mo would carefully consult manuals and check online repair tutorials, but he wasn’t very good at hands-on work. Yu Shi did the actual fixing.
If their eldest brother encountered a broken household item, he would simply hit it a few times, claiming that it would work after a few taps.
The third brother was the type who believed that if something was broken, it should be discarded rather than repaired.
As for the fifth brother, he would just extend his voice to call for his older brothers.
So, Yu Shi had become quite adept at fixing these various items.
Before long, the wind-up frog was repaired in his hands.
Though it still looked a bit shabby, once wound up, it hopped around on the platform like a real frog.
Feng Xuexiang’s eyes widened with childlike amazement: “It really moves? You fixed it?”
The frog hopped to the side, and Feng Xuexiang followed, walking behind it as it jumped in front.
“Yu Shi, it stopped moving again. Did it break again?”
“Just wind it up again,” Yu Shi said.
Feng Xuexiang crouched down and twisted the frog’s key, unconsciously twisting his eyebrows with the action. The frog suddenly sprang to life, and he quickly placed it on the ground, though he didn’t get the direction right, so it hopped straight into the mud lake.
“Yu Shi, the frog jumped into the water,” Feng Xuexiang said.
Yu Shi: “…………”
He picked up the frog from the splashy water, and Feng Xuexiang let it hop around, only retrieving it when it ventured too far into the muck. Occasionally, he would deliberately block its path with his hand, finding amusement in the simple game.
Meanwhile, Yu Shi continued to repair items from the pile of miscellaneous objects, his mind focused on how to escape.
He was usually calm and unflappable, so even when he couldn’t find a way out right away, he didn’t get anxious. After all, there was always a system to seek help from if necessary.
Suddenly, he felt a weight on his shoulder. Feng Xuexiang, who had been playing with the wind-up frog, had fallen asleep on him.
Asleep? Feng Xuexiang needed to sleep here too?
The thought flashed through Yu Shi’s mind as his surroundings suddenly brightened.
The simple and bright lakeside residence came into view. Yu Shi reacted quickly, realizing he had returned to reality, and immediately reached out to hold the fallen Feng Xuexiang.
He closed his eyes, falling asleep just like Feng Xuexiang had in that illusion.
