Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 954: Binding Evil Karma (Part )

That night, Cai Ji slept very deeply, as if he had not slept for hundreds of years, and he did not even know when the thunderstorm outside the window would stop. When he woke up, he saw that the sky outside the window was clear, and he was also surprised. He suspected that he had fainted last night. But he remembered that the dean came to the bedside and looked at him, and then took out a notebook and left it to him, asking him to read it when he was energetic. Although it looked like the end of the world outside the window at that time, he still calmly agreed.

The notebook was placed on his bedside table, with a very ordinary black leather cover. He originally suspected that it was a diary or something like that, but when he opened it, he found that it was more like some kind of scrapbook. Some of the news was obviously cut from newspapers, such as a new park built in a certain place, and a fire of unknown cause broke out in a certain hotel; there were also tables like statistical yearbooks, listing incredible data such as street population and sewer length; there were more than a dozen fragments that were not sure whether they were novels or biographies, with descriptions of strange things like painted tigers that eat people, stars that talk in the lake, and so on. There were also many symbols and foreign letters that he could not understand at all. Only the last page of the notebook was different, with a few lines of cursive handwritten in black fountain pen:

——As we all know, amino acids react with sugars at a certain temperature to produce complex chemical reactions, eventually forming melanoidins and heterocyclic compounds, which produce different colors and flavors. The change in taste depends on the reaction temperature and the ratio of the reactants. So, Mr. Zhou, meat is not just cooked.

Cai Ji could already recognize her handwriting because he had seen the book list written by the dean in the textbooks sent to him earlier. To be honest, her handwriting was not particularly beautiful, but it was straight, square, concise, and powerful, making it easy for people to understand. However, these few lines of words were both smooth and fancy, with thin curves and a slight tilt, and the content was completely incomprehensible.

Since he couldn't understand it, Cai Ji didn't spend much time pondering its meaning. He just flipped through each page, scratched his head at words like "number of obstetric wards", and then threw the notebook aside. Seeing that he was no longer lying in bed all day, the strange-finger nurse was very happy and handed him several rags.

"what?"

The nurse said earnestly, "Wipe it off."

"Can this be used to wipe my face?"

"Window. Table."

He wiped the windowsill, cabinets and doors of his ward twice, and because he was bored, he wiped the wards on the entire floor twice. When the nurse came to see him, she clapped her hands happily, probably thinking that he was a man with a lively mind - what did this mean? He wondered, would he stay here as a cleaner in the future? But no matter how he thought about it, he still came with a broom and mop the next day and swept the entire corridor.

He began to like doing these chores. The monotonous and repetitive actions of sweeping away dust and wiping off rain stains calmed his mind, unlike when he was lying in bed with a head full of wild thoughts. He only needed to sweep out the accumulated dust along the cracks of the bricks, thinking that there was still dust in the place where the ghosts lived. But where did this dust come from? Was it because the monster who created this place thought that there must be dust in the world? Thinking about this, the anger and panic in the past seemed no longer important. Maybe in some place in the world that he couldn't see, the seeker mentioned by the dean was still looking for the elixir of immortality to cure the world's diseases, but he only needed to sweep away the dust in front of him.

He swept the floor for two days, and on the fourth day he had nothing to do. So he opened the pile of books and notebooks that the dean left for him, and after a few glances he felt dizzy. He found the nurse and asked if he could go to another floor to sweep the floor. This lazy guy was obviously tempted, but in the end he still shook his head vigorously.

"Can't I go?"

"Danger." The nurse said, crossing her long fingers in front of her chest. Cai Ji had no choice but to stand in the corridor and look out. He saw that most of the windows on the lower floors had been repaired, and the doors and windows of the wards were all closed. Although he still hadn't seen other patients, he could feel that the atmosphere of the hospital was quietly changing, and the number of nurses walking on different floors was increasing day by day. As he looked, his eyes fell on the bare window frame.

"Do you have any glass windows ready?"

The nurse's head tilted to the left, and she looked at him as if her neck was broken. Cai Ji pretended that he didn't care, but he was convinced in his heart that she must not be an ordinary dead ghost.

"If there is a window, I'll try to install it?"

The nurse went to look for it for him. She found a bundle of dirty and moldy glass plates from somewhere, carried them to the sixth floor, and carefully placed them in the corridor. Cai Ji lifted a glass plate with both hands and weighed it, realizing that this guy who seemed to do nothing normally had at least 200 kilograms of arm strength.

He stopped thinking about it. Maybe she was a monster, maybe everyone would slowly become like this after death. If he asked the nurse herself, she probably wouldn't have the answer. Today, he had a vague intuition that the only person in this hospital who could communicate normally was the director. And she disappeared again after she said she was going to help clean someone's house - if she had time to help others clean, why not repair her own hospital?

He cleaned each glass plate until it was shiny and new, and then began to mark the dimensions. The nurse was very interested in his new job and came upstairs to check it out almost every half an hour. She brought him a marker, a plumb line, a tape measure, and a level, but she didn't seem to understand what a glass cutter was. Cai Ji explained it to her for a long time, but she walked away absent-mindedly. He thought the matter was over, but she came again the next morning and brought him a thin, silvery, transparent knife.

He thought it was a fruit knife, but found that the blade was too thin, and only as thick as a little finger, not even suitable for peeling fruit, so he suspected that it was a special scalpel she got from somewhere. The handle seemed to be made of copper, with a faint green glow in the dark, and the blade was shiny and white like ceramic. He couldn't help but reach out to touch it, only to feel that it was a piece of cold iron.

"Is this not okay? It looks like a very expensive item, is it an antique? It would be hard to explain if it gets damaged."

The nurse shook her head and pointed impatiently at the glass with a line drawn on it. Cai Ji had no choice but to squat down and try to get by with a few gentle cuts. He carefully placed the blade flat on the glass surface, fearing that the most fragile tip would be worn out. But as soon as he applied a little force, the knife in his hand sank.

"……what?"

He stared blankly at the blade embedded in the glass. It didn't seem like the knife had cut the glass, but rather that the blade had been sucked into the glass. Except for the handle exposed outside the glass, there was not even a trace of a knife crack. He gently pulled the knife back and plucked a few strands of hair to blow on the blade, wanting to see if this was the legendary magic weapon. The hair never broke, and he blew again and again without giving up, almost putting his lips on the blade. He tried hard to cut his clothes again, and almost tore them. Finally, he mustered up the courage and pressed his finger on the blade, leaving only a red mark on the fingertips, which felt neither painful nor itchy.

He put down the knife and looked at the nurse in confusion. The nurse also stared at him intently, as if she found his behavior very interesting. Seeing that he was no longer cutting new things, she pointed to the glass on the ground again.

"this."

Cai Ji squatted down again to cut the glass. He used the strange silver knife to gently cut along the marked line, and the glass plate was cut into two pieces like thin paper, without even having to break it hard. He looked at the glass, and then at his fingers.

"Could it be that this knife is only useful for glass?"

The nurse did not answer, but only focused on looking at the glass plates. She was much more interested in making windows than in a strange knife that could only cut glass. Cai Ji had no choice but to continue doing his work. Even with such a strange tool, he still broke several glass plates, either because of the size error or because the blade was tilted too much. The nurse did not show any regret for these wasted glass plates, but instead asked him to carve the broken glass into various shapes. Cai Ji did not understand what the fun was in this, but he had to do it.

He first cut out the simplest geometric shapes, then beads, snowflakes, small animals and simple Chinese characters. After becoming proficient, he began to assemble parts, hoping to build a glass tower. Later, they completely forgot about making windows and only focused on cutting various patterns. When he and the nurse were working hard on making a glass tricycle in the afterglow of the sunset, a familiar voice came from behind.

"You guys, what are you doing?"

Cai Ji looked up in a daze and saw the dean approaching while looking at the glass plates on the corridor. This seemed to be the first time Cai Ji saw a confused look on her face. He was still in a daze, and the dean's eyes had already fallen on his hands. His originally relaxed attitude immediately disappeared. Although his voice was not harsh, his furrowed brows revealed anger.

"…How did this end up in your hands?"

Cai Ji opened his mouth to explain, and turned to look at the nurse. But the nurse had an indifferent expression on her face, and lowered her head to play with her fingers. Seeing that this guy was about to throw the responsibility to him, he felt that the situation was getting worse, and hurriedly said: "This is--"

"You don't need to say anything."

The dean closed his eyes and rubbed his temple slowly with one hand: "She gave it to you, right?"

"Ah... um."

"You stole it from my office?"

The nurse had tied her ten fingers into a fine knot and then said in a flat voice, "He wants a knife."

"That's a low-level excuse. And did I tell you not to touch the things in my drawer?"

"It's not locked."

"You can't move it even if it's not locked. If you do this again, I'll move your flowers to the ward on the fourth floor next time."

The nurse lowered her head and walked away in a gloomy mood. Cai Ji stood there stiffly, not knowing what to say. The dean glanced at him, rubbed his forehead and sighed.

"You're said to be timid, but you're not afraid of things you don't understand. Fortunately, this thing is not dangerous to others... so give it to me first."

Cai Ji nervously handed the knife over, watching the dean casually grab it in his hand and rub the blade with his palm, without any fear. Noticing his gaze, the dean also opened his palm to show him.

"I got this thing from the house I cleaned earlier. I thought it might be useful, so I put it in the office temporarily. I didn't expect her to give it to you... It's really ridiculous. Even if you two want to have fun, you shouldn't do such dangerous things."

There was no strong blame in her tone, but Cai Ji still felt a little guilty. He explained his original intention of helping to repair the window, but looking at the glass fragments scattered on the floor, even he felt a little unjustified. Just as he was regretting that he shouldn't have fooled around with the nurse, the dean asked again: "Besides glass, have you used this to cut anything else?"

"I touched it twice with my hands."

"You've noticed that the blade has become very blunt and can't cut at all?" Cai Ji nodded hesitantly. The dean also placed his fingers on the blade and pressed twice. "This is not an ordinary knife, but a ceremonial tool. For most people, it is no different from an ordinary iron rod. But for you, it is completely different in terms of danger. If I hadn't come back to check today, I don't know what kind of trouble you two would have gotten into."

Cai Ji looked at her in confusion. The dean didn't say anything, just asked him to follow him. This was the first time Cai Ji followed her downstairs. When they reached the stairwell, the dean didn't take out the key, but just stretched out his hand and pushed the door that was originally locked to open. When they arrived at the first floor, they did not go to the courtyard, but turned around and walked down the stairs to the basement.

It was only then that Cai Ji realized that this building had an underground part. He looked around the corridor behind the stairs with wide eyes. The floor tiles and walls on both sides were very similar to the corridor on the sixth floor, but what surprised him was that the corridor, which should have been a space dug out underground, was also equipped with glass windows like those on the upper floors. It was pitch black outside the window, and he couldn't tell whether it was filled with non-reflective materials or there was another larger space. If he hadn't been very clear that he was underground, he might have thought it was just a dark night.

Perhaps guessing what he was thinking, the dean who was walking in front said, "That's the experimental area."

"experiment?"

"Well, it's a place where corpses are used for research."

Cai Ji staggered. The dean turned around and looked at him with a helpless smile on his face.

"It's fake. There's just nothing there."

"That...corpse..."

"There are no real funeral homes in this city, only a few conceptual pseudonyms."

"what?"

"Those who fell here are already dead souls. Do you think there are forensic doctors and coffin shops in the underworld?"

Hearing the dean mention the word "the underworld" so casually, Cai Ji felt a little dazed again. He asked blankly, "Can ghosts die too?"

"It's not like there's no such saying. After a ghost dies, it becomes a ghost, after a ghost dies, it becomes a ghost, and after a ghost dies, it becomes a barbarian. If the inhabitants of the netherworld are all souls that have fallen from the mortal world, then after leaving the netherworld, they may also fall into a state that is even more difficult to observe in terms of concepts - whether it is true nothingness or not, I can't answer you either."

"But, if that's the case, will the people who stay here still die?"

"I think so. Although it is different from the birth, aging, sickness and death in the world of the living, this city will be abandoned sooner or later, and the souls living here will fall to a place farther away from the earthly world."

The dean spoke calmly, as if he was not worried about such an outcome at all. When will the city be abandoned? What will happen to the monster who dreamed of this? Cai Ji was still thinking about such questions and almost bumped into the dean who had stopped in front of him.

"arrive."

They stopped in front of an ordinary green-painted wooden door, which was no different from other rooms. On the bronze plaque beside the door were written the words "Dean's Office". The dean just stretched out his hand and pushed, and the door, which was obviously locked, opened directly. Cai Ji stretched his neck, trying to see the situation inside clearly over the dean's shoulder. He had imagined what such a place would be like - would it be as magnificent as the boss' office in the movie? Or as eerie and strange as in the horror movies? - The result was neither. The scene in front of him only gave him a slightly strange first impression: it turned out to be a double office.

The total area of ​​the dean's office was slightly larger than his ward, but it seemed very crowded: in the middle was a huge desk that Cai Ji had only seen in the city library, which took up almost one-third of the room. The middle area of ​​the desk was very empty, with only an open large-page notebook. On the left and right sides were piled with various sundries, and there were two chairs facing each other, as if two people would usually work face to face here.

Because the furnishings on the right were obviously more complicated than those on the left, Cai Ji subconsciously looked over and sized up the cabinet on the right wall. In addition to two rows of books of unknown purpose, in the middle of the cabinet were dozens of old pencils and brushes, layers of colorful square boxes, a pile of wooden boards and scraper-like tools. Under the tools were many delicate and meaningless ornaments, most of which looked like amethyst or glass.

Among the ornaments, three palm-sized miniature landscape boxes stood out, but the things inside were too small. He could not help but walk over and carefully examine the most exquisite box in the middle. The box body seemed to be carved out of a whole piece of wood, but the outer shell had a black jade color and was decorated with silver-white butterflies inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The miniature model in the box was a small garden scene. In a space less than the size of a palm, he could identify flowers, vines, streams, covered bridges, birds and animals, and even moss on rocks - but there were no people. Except for the dried flowers with curled edges on the ground, all the models seemed to be made with gauze, thin thread or paper as the base, and then carefully painted. Even the inner wall deep in the box was painted with paint to depict the distant view of the garden: it looked like a silver-red sky at dusk or morning, covered with wisps of clouds; beyond the clouds, the dark green mountain shadows were faintly revealed on the right side of the sky.

Looking at the mural in the box, the story of "The Son of the Mountain Wish" naturally emerged in his mind. If he was not afraid of damaging the delicate flowers and plants in the scene, he really wanted to touch the outline of the mountain to see if it really existed. He resisted the urge to reach out and followed the outline of the mountain all the way to the foot of the mountain. Only then did he discover that there was a small house hidden behind the flowers. The house was also painted on the background, with only the door slightly protruding. It was probably pasted with a thin piece of wood, but it was not pasted very tightly, leaving a gap, like a door ajar, waiting for someone to open it.

What was inside the house? Although he knew that the house was just a sticker on the background, the darkness behind the door still attracted him, making him imagine that he could gently stretch out his fingers, push the wooden door open and take a look. As he was thinking about it, the dean behind him said, "Just take a look, and try not to touch the things over there."

Cai Ji turned around like a thief. The dean had already walked behind the desk, picked up the thick and wide notebook in the middle, and buried her head in the handwriting on the pages. She turned the last page, then picked up a pen and wrote on it herself, saying as she wrote: "Are you interested in the model over there?"

"Hmm... that butterfly box, is it made according to the story of 'The Mountain Wish Child'?"

"Probably so."

"Didn't you do it?"

"It wasn't me. Someone else did it when they were on duty." The dean wrote without looking up. "I usually work on the other side."

She pointed to the cabinet on the left with the end of her pen. Cai Ji looked over and saw only thick books of various dull colors piled on the shelf, and a gray windbreaker hanging on the hook next to it. Compared to the dullness of the cabinet, the situation on the desk was not much better. Various documents and cards covered with handwriting were scattered on the table. The double-layer composite pen holder was full of the most ordinary black fountain pens and several packets of unknown powdered granules. Only one clockwork mechanical timer was interesting - a black goldfish with blistered eyes was painted on the top cover with thick paint, looking dull and stupid. Cai Ji looked at the upright goldfish, and then glanced at the dean who had just put down his notebook and rubbed his eye sockets vigorously.

"Any questions?"

Cai Ji hurriedly said no. The dean walked to the left table without noticing and opened the first drawer. Cai Ji also looked over and saw that it was full of folders, with only a narrow leather bag on top, with a fresh jasmine flower stuck in the bag. The dean took a look at the flower branch and took a deep breath.

"You're still using this to make up the numbers. It's getting more and more outrageous."

She took out the flower branch from the leather bag and put it on the table. She also put the strange glass-cutting knife back into the leather bag. The size was just right. After thinking for a while, she walked to the opposite side of the desk, took out the key from another person's drawer, and locked her own drawer. After doing all this, she sat back in her chair and looked up at Cai Ji. Although he didn't receive much attention from teachers when he was in elementary school, he felt that she looked like a high school class teacher who jumped out of a movie.

"What do you think these days?"

"What, what idea..."

"You're already in the mood to cut glass with the nurse, so you should have accepted what I told you, right? So, what are your plans next?"

The way she spoke was just like a class teacher, which made Cai Ji even more at a loss. Fortunately, the dean did not force him to speak, and he quickly continued talking.

"You are not someone who fell into this city under normal circumstances, so you were taken in here. According to the original treatment guidelines, you can continue to stay in the ward, or leave this hospital at any time - but before you leave, you will forget everything about this place and live in the city just like before you met me. As for the matter of the black bird, you don't have to worry. I will always keep an eye on you. If you encounter the same situation as me again, you will be able to get treatment soon."

Although he had a vague premonition in his heart, he never expected that the dean would propose to leave so abruptly, and he could not help but stand there in a daze for a moment.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"…If I stay here, what can I do?"

"The staff here are all specially trained. You don't have that kind of qualification, so you can't work in a hospital like they do. But if you want to live here, you don't necessarily need to do anything."

  Cai Ji's heart slowly sank. He felt that things were not what he had thought in the past. While he was hesitating, the dean changed the subject:

"If you don't want to leave, and don't want to be trapped in the hospital like a patient, there may be other jobs for you. But..."

Cai Ji blurted out, "But what?"

"In that case, you must first understand a fact."

  The dean's eyes were fixed on his face. The seriousness of her expression made Cai Ji think that she was going to say that she was suffering from a terminal illness. But what was a terminal illness now? He forced a dry laugh and then stuttered, but said very firmly:

"I can accept that."

  The dean stared at him like a wooden statue. For a moment, she seemed to be a completely different person, a person who didn't know Cai Ji at all, looking at him and evaluating his ability. This look made Cai Ji want to back out again, but in the end he still stood there nervously. The dean nodded and asked:

"Do you remember what happened in the old shipyard before you came here?"

(End of this chapter)