Chapter 56 - 12
Li Zhiyuan lifted his head, looking at the desk in front of him, the lamp, and the "Jianghu Chronicles" Volume Five which he had only flipped through a few pages of.
Indeed, he had fallen asleep; but he knew this was not a dream.
He couldn’t understand why, at the last moment, the old lady would choose to "release" him.
He didn’t want to use the word "rescue" because it was also she who had drawn him into this birthday celebration.
Perhaps, it is difficult to describe her with merely the simple labels of "good" and "evil," just as she herself was a combination of human and cat corpses, inherently a manifest of complex contradictions.
Li Zhiyuan closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips against his temples and slowly kneading.
When studying in Beijing, he always felt he was on a one-way street, the streams of cars and crowds dense, but that he only needed to follow the road straight ahead.
However, once he returned to his hometown, he discovered that although the roads were narrow and often pitted, and not crowded with cars and people, the interconnected field paths amidst the rice paddies often plunged him into a bewildered state of choice.
He could feel the changes within himself, especially since meeting Little Huang Ying these past few days, the transformations that had taken place.
He was observing more diligently, pondering more seriously, conversing more cautiously, and dealing with non-human beings... which was really not easy because there was no room for error.
All in all, he was becoming less and less like a child who should only be ten years old.