our secret base

Chapter 22 Resurrection
whale?stranded?Astronaut corpse?What the hell are you talking about?
Yan Jingxing looked bewildered.

"What do you mean?"

"To be honest, I'm just as confused as you are."

Xie Yuzhi shook her head, and then she suggested:
"I want to go to the scene to see the situation now, do you want to come together?"

"of course."

He nodded hastily.

……

After that, they dragged Ji Chunzao, who was still in a daze, out of the room together, and the three got into the black private car again.

"Go to Stone Harbor Village."

Liu Tie, who received the news, arrived ahead of time. He had been waiting in the driver's seat for more than ten minutes.But before starting the car engine, he hesitated and asked:
"Miss, today is school day, what are you planning to..."

"After going to Shigang Village, we will go back to school, and we have already asked the teacher for leave."

"What if your father asks?"

"Just say it straight. If there is a problem, I will communicate with him."

Xie Yuzhi put her hands on her knees and sat upright in the back seat of the car.

"Okay, I understand."

When the car started, Yan Jingxing secretly looked at her side face.

Her snowy muscles are flawless, her facial features are slightly immature, and she has a kind of youthful beauty unique to this age.

Xie Yuzhi's expression was calm and calm, no matter how he spoke or acted, or how he communicated with adults, he didn't look like a middle school student of his age.

Sounds solid.But because of this, sometimes it makes people wonder what she is thinking.

The girl noticed someone's eyes, and her sharp eyes turned to his face.

"What's up?"

"nothing!"

Yan Jingxing coughed dryly, turned his head pretendingly, and watched the passing scenery outside the car window.

There are three people sitting in the back row of the car. Although the interior of this car is quite spacious, it is inevitable that arms will touch arms and thighs will stick to thighs when encountering bumps on the road.

The faint fragrance that made him uneasy during the conversation last night lingered at the tip of his nose again.

Yan Jingxing, who was sitting next to Miss Xie, pressed her face against the window, and Ji Chunzao, who was sitting on the other side of her, looked drowsy; while the girl sitting in the middle was expressionless.

"Aha--"

Ji Chunzao yawned again, her body began to sway from lack of sleep, her eyelashes trembled and slowly closed.

She leaned towards the car door; after a while, she leaned against Xie Yuzhi again with the shaking of the vehicle.

Feeling the sudden weight, Miss Xie frowned subconsciously, but when she saw Ji Chunzao's sleeping face, her frowned eyebrows slowly relaxed again.

Xie Yuzhi stretched out her hand, combed Ji Chunzao's hair that was hanging down her ears, and carefully tidied up her unrolled collar.

After a while, Xie Yuzhi's eyelids began to droop unconsciously, as if affected by the breathing sound of the sleeping girl beside her;
After that, her body also began to shake with the bumps of the vehicle;
Finally, Xie Yuzhi fell to the side.

"what……?"

Yan Jingxing, who was concentrating on looking at the scenery, felt that his shoulders suddenly became a lot heavier.

He turned his head and found that the two girls were leaning on each other, like bowling balls that had been knocked down, and they were both sound asleep. While being surprised, their bodies froze and did not dare to move.

Did you not sleep well last night?No wonder, with so much going on.

In fact, he also tends to get sleepy after getting up early; but now he doesn't feel sleepy at all.

Ji Chunzao fell on Xie Yuzhi, and Xie Yuzhi fell on him, in other words, he alone bears the weight of the two of them.

"alright."

He muttered, feeling uncomfortable all over.

At this time, Yan Jingxing found that the driver Uncle Liu was looking at the situation behind him strangely through the rearview mirror, and he felt even more uncomfortable.

He began to imagine himself as a statue carved out of stone, keeping his original posture motionless.

*
"We're almost there."

Xie Yuzhi's eyelashes trembled slightly, and she opened her eyes.

The car slowed down, and she heard Liu Tie reminding them, and after realizing her current situation, she couldn't help but widen her eyes in shock.

Just now... I fell asleep leaning on a boy's shoulder? !

Xie Yuzhi straightened up quickly, and saw Yan Jingxing holding his chin in one hand, staring out of the window intently, as if he hadn't noticed anything...

No, it's impossible not to find out!She leaned up just now!
The girl felt hot on her face.

It's not over yet, and what's worse, she saw traces of saliva on Yan Jingxing's shirt...

Me, I'm still drooling?

It's all because she slept too late yesterday, she tossed and turned in bed thinking about problems, her anxiety and excitement were tangled up in a mess, and her long-standing living habits were suddenly disrupted, so——

No, stop making excuses at a time like this.

Even Xie Yuzhi would inevitably feel flustered when encountering such a thing, and managed to calm down after several deep breaths.

She couldn't help raising her head again, and secretly observed Yan Jingxing's expression, but the other party didn't even turn her head, it seemed that she was going to pretend to be stupid for herself.

"Woo... what's wrong?"

At this time, Xie Yuzhi felt a movement coming from her shoulder, she looked and found that it was Ji Chunzao who was lying on her body, opening his eyes in a daze,

After seeing her face, Miss Xie unconsciously relaxed a little.

Because Ji Chunzao's current sleeping appearance...was worse than her own.

The girl's hands were still on her arms, which wrinkled her dress; and not surprisingly, she also left traces of saliva on her body.

Alas, dozing off in an awkward position in the car, it seems that drooling is inevitable.Xie Yuzhi thought to herself, this is not her own problem, so she got psychological comfort.

"Wake up, we're here."

Xie Yuzhi pulled the curly-haired girl's mouth with two fingers.

"Ah?...Oh."

Ji Chunzao's big sleepy eyes finally opened slowly, she covered her mouth and yawned.

"I didn't sleep well last night. I just fell asleep. I'm sorry... Hey, what's wrong with you two?"

Yan Jingxing still maintained the posture of looking out the window with his chin resting, while Xie Yuzhi was arranging her hair, with a faint blush remaining on her face.

……

Cars are parked on the side of the road.

Ji Chunzao was the first to open the car door and jump off.

Xie Yuzhi, who was sitting in the middle, hesitated for a moment, although pretending nothing happened was also a way, and seeing what Yan Jingxing meant, he really meant it.

but……

"and many more."

Before Yan Jingxing got off the car, she called him to stop.

"I fell asleep just now, sorry."

Xie Yuzhi took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped off his saliva.

Yan Jingxing looked surprised, but he smiled and said, "It's okay."

*
Under the leadership of Liu Tie, several junior high school students looked left and right curiously, walked on the wet street, and passed by the bustling crowd in a hurry.

Shigang Village used to be the largest fishing village near Baiyue Town. It has been a tradition for hundreds of years for fishermen to go out to sea to catch fish. However, with the rise of offshore aquaculture in recent years, their status has gradually declined.

The village is very close to the famous natural deep-water port on the southeast coast, so as long as you stand on the mountain at the head of the village, you can often see huge freighters gliding on the sea accompanied by groups of white gulls.

There are also several special markets in the village, which are used to sell the freshest fish, shrimp and crabs. The air is filled with the smell of seafood. Every morning, hawkers from nearby vegetable markets, as well as people who run restaurants and hotels, come to buy goods.

Liu Tie took them to find an old fisherman with leaky teeth. He was the man who found the stranded whale.

"Come this way."

The other party smiled and grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

Everyone followed him to a houseboat. The door and roof of the house looked a little dilapidated, like an abandoned house.A fishing boat tied to a stake with a rope floats on the water.

"This morning, my brother-in-law and I were planning to go out to sea, but we saw a whale on the beach. We called and said that we would use a boat to tow it into the sea, but when the fishery administration boat came, the whale was already dead. gone."

"We saw a huge crack in the belly of the dead whale, and that thing was pulled out of the crack..."

"crack?"

Xie Yuzhi noticed that the usage of this word was a bit strange.

"Is it a wound? The whale was scratched by something?"

The old fisherman stroked his beard on his chin, showing a reminiscing expression.

"Actually, we don't know how the whale died. We only saw a gash on its body full of barnacles, which doesn't look like a wound."

"Where's the whale?"

"It's still on the beach, and a group of people are surrounding it, saying that an expert has come and is examining the cause of the whale's death."

The old fisherman pushed open the door of the boathouse, and a young fisherman with a face similar to his was sitting on a chair, fidgeting.

In the middle of the houseboat, a white "person" is lying.

"Really...astronauts."

Yan Jingxing murmured.

"Why is there an astronaut in the whale's belly... No, let's put this question aside for now," Xie Yuzhi turned to the old fisherman and asked seriously, "Who is inside? The news we got is that this is' A dead body'."

"Oh, my uncle made a mistake, there is nothing in it. This kid has never been very reliable..."

Before the old fisherman finished speaking, the young fisherman who had been silent just now raised his head and said.

"No, I really saw the spacesuit move! That's why I said there was someone inside. I was still thinking about how to rescue him, but I didn't expect that after taking off the helmet, it was empty inside."

"That's because you got it wrong, kid." The old fisherman said casually, "Maybe there are some parasitic crabs and fish inside the chrysalis, so you think someone is moving inside."

Both Yan Jingxing and Ji Chunzao stared at the astronauts on the ground, falling into indescribable astonishment, only Xie Yuzhi was still asking questions.

"Where did this spacesuit come from?"

"It was thrown away." Liu Tie replied casually.He obviously didn't understand what this spacesuit meant to young people, and he didn't understand why the young lady didn't even go to school when she heard the news, so she insisted on running over to join in the fun.

"Drawing a spacesuit from the belly of a whale"—although it is indeed a rumor that can make a fortune in the newspapers, it is nothing more than that, and it is not worth paying attention to.

"How could anyone lose a space suit?"

"It doesn't have to be a real 'spacesuit', it should have been forged by someone as a collection or souvenir, and then it was thrown into the sea for unknown reasons, and then drifted away and swallowed by a whale."

At this time, the old fisherman came over, rubbed his dirty hands and said with a smile:

"I heard that someone is already planning to buy this thing. I secretly pulled this thing back before others arrived. How much do you think it can be sold for?"

Liu Tie looked at Xie Yuzhi, and seeing her nodding towards him, the man sighed, took out his wallet, and pulled out a stack of red tickets.

"Let me say it earlier, this is probably just an ordinary model, not a real space suit, and it won't sell for much."

"Okay, okay, you look at..."

……

Yan Jingxing did not speak.

The conversations of people in the boat house seemed to be far away from him.

He just stared blankly at the white figure lying on the ground.

No matter what others say, in his eyes, this is a corpse, belonging to a long-dead astronaut.

"He" was covered with muddy water and kelp, and died in the deep sea, in the belly of a whale, and in the depths of the unknown world.

But... why?

Shouldn't astronauts be floating in space?The boundless starry sky, the unknown planet, is that where "he" should go?
"Jing Xing, what's wrong with you?"

The little girl beside him noticed his strangeness, tugged at his sleeve, and asked in a low voice.

"No, nothing..."

Yan Jingxing held his forehead and forced a smile at Ji Chunzao.

But at this moment-

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the white figure lying on the ground tremble suddenly.

"Uh……?"

Is this a scam?
Yan Jingxing turned his head and watched the wet astronaut slowly and little by little get up from the ground.

The boy opened his mouth in astonishment.

The revived "he" walked stiffly, passed by everyone in the house like no one else, and just pushed open the door of the boat house and walked out.

Yan Jingxing took a deep breath.After he came back to his senses, he pulled out his legs and followed the pace of the astronauts immediately.

(End of this chapter)