Longmen Memoirs

He didn't dare not think about what kind of face was hidden under the black mask when he appeared in front of him as the terrifying and feared inner guard of Ursus.

Naive people often die the fastest, and they often die the most confused.

"I should have told you that Ursus has changed." The inner guard broke the silence: "This once huge and glorious country has changed. Perhaps it has become inevitable since the mysterious death of His Majesty the late Emperor. Sliding into the abyss, so many rotten and stinky bugs sprang up from the shadow of the former empire. They parasitized on this dying great giant, trying to greedily divide its corpse after his death, trying to control its final fate. .”

The inner guard said, placing his hand on the handle of the knife at his waist.

"But this does not mean that everyone is waiting for the death of the empire. The new emperor is determined to reform but there are many obstacles. The old nobles are trying to use force to restore the past glory of Ursus and the army. They think and only think of a great enterprise. The victory of the war will enable Ursus to regain the great achievements that were left behind in the era of the previous emperor. Among them, there are some who are just trying to make up for the damage, some are speculators, some are unwilling to surrender their power, and some are patriots."

"The era of the Emperor is really very desirable. For Ursans of my age who care deeply about their country, the era of the Emperor is the embodiment of all the good things we can imagine, but it is truly trembling and crazy. The only thing is that it is not an unfounded fantasy, but actually existed and happened.”

He paused in his words and looked at Chen Mo as if he was curious whether he was willing to listen to his long speech, which sounded like a grumbling speech.

Although he couldn't see his eyes, Chen Mo understood what he meant.

"You can continue."

"Are you patient now?"

"I can light a cigarette and listen to you talk slowly." Chen Mo said this without actually taking out the cigarette and lighting it. He never put down the hand holding the sword.

"I told you it was bad for your health."

"Ah……"

"Because you think my words will help you, or the infected behind you, understand Ursus?"

"You might as well shut up."

"On the contrary, I am very happy that you can patiently listen to this. This shows that you are sincerely interested in those infected people, or the Daughters of Cosiche. Regardless of their identity and position, they eventually belong to Ursus. "

"Usas doesn't think so." There was a touch of sarcasm in Chen Mo's words.

"But this is a fact." The inner guard did not argue and continued: "Can you imagine that when the children of Ursus after the emperor's era grew up and heard that they had realized the beautiful vision in their hearts during the emperor's era, they were very surprised. What kind of excitement and reverence do you feel?"

"They tried to use all means to restore the glory of the late emperor. However, it is a pity that they tried once more than 20 years ago. The failure of the great rebellion not only extinguished their ambitions, but also prevented Ursus from having the power it once had. The generals who took advantage of the expansion of the previous emperor's era, the outstanding imperial generals, and another group of people in the name of royalists and the new opportunistic aristocrats."

"Usus is constantly fighting, and no one can tell who is the rebel and who is implicated for no reason. That crazy period in which only the struggle for power and money was left deprived Usus of its last heritage. But in fact, after the great rebellion, It's just a group of people changed, and the new emperor obviously does not have the prestige and ambition of the previous emperor. He can't even control the new royalist nobles in his own name, so... you can also see that people don't want to I don’t dare to talk about the future of Ursus easily and correct mistakes. What has Ursus become like after Ming Zhebao’s death? The infected are just one of them, and they are just a foreseeable microcosm of the future of Ursus today.”

He said.

"Let's go back to you and me, and the place under our feet. This was once a weapons research institute built by the losers of the great rebellion to fight against the internal guards' purge of Ursus. They and a group of Sami and Colombians who studied ancient witchcraft People built this place together, secretly bringing materials from all over, selecting them, cultivating them, and building a force they didn't even know they could control."

"...You and I are both failures. The inner guards found this place. They did not take action immediately. They were curious about what these remnants could come up with. Maybe this could also become the power of the empire, so they have been monitoring this place. , until it was confirmed that they had just created a bunch of poor imitations.”

He chuckled, and the laughter echoed in the quiet black square, low but full of irony and coldness.

"So the inner guard saved you?" Chen Mo asked.

"You should ask, so I became an interior guard and had to live in the posture of being imprisoned under this tactical uniform in front of you." He said: "After becoming an interior guard, I spent a long time thinking, Thinking about why my country is like this, thinking about what Ursus means to the powerful, a name? Or a arena for people to fight for their own interests, I have not been able to find the answer, and many Ursus people have not been able to find the answer. If we can find the answer, we all want to know where Ursus should go, but I only know that the future of Ursus does not lie with the current group of nobles fighting for power, nor does it lie with the new emperor who has great ambitions but is incompetent."

"..."

Chen Mo said nothing.

The inner guard didn't speak again.

We still don't know whether the inner guard's words are true or not. If we just deduce them from these words, it is not difficult for Chen Mo to imagine that those who want to know where Ursus should go, including the inner guard in front of him, have differences. That is to say, the upper class of Ursus, or within today's Ursus, secretly split into several factions with different ideas, and the same is true for the internal guards loyal to the emperor.

Chen Mo still doesn't know Ursus well enough.

If he knew enough, he would know what the disagreement between the inner guards meant to Ursus. Between loyalty to Ursus and loyalty to the emperor, their essence was shaken, and therefore the emperor's view of them was also shaken. .

"Kosche..."

"The immortal black snake is one of them." The inner guard replied: "Tallulah is one of his chosen successors. In the ancient legend of the undead in Ursus, the black snake has the ability to split and usurp souls. Maybe it’s just a kind of spell, but as the heir of Cosiche, she will become the next Cosiche after awakening to inherit everything left by the Black Snake.”

"Because no one is sure about Ursus' future path, and no one is sure that he has chosen the right path, so everyone has their own ideas and concepts."

"Including the emperor's internal guards?"

"Usas is being divided," he said, without answering directly.

"..."

"It seems you didn't choose either of them." Chen Mo asked.

"No, you think too highly of me. I am just an internal guard. I should have said that I chose the winner, so no matter who is the winner, Ursus will embark on a new path. Maybe the new emperor will take power. , maybe the military nobles are resurrected, I only care about who wins this war and who can become the master of Ursus."

"There is another possibility." Chen Mo suddenly said: "The Ursus you care about is just like countless countries that have been submerged by time in the past.

The inner guard was startled.

He spoke slowly.

"The title is just a code name and has no meaning. Even so, the people alive on this land still belong to Ursus."

Chen Mo put down his sword.

"last question."

"Let me guess." The inner guard interrupted him: "You want to ask me, how do you believe me? How much do you believe me?"

"How much do you think I believe?" Chen Mo asked.

"You probably don't believe it at all."

The inner guard answered matter-of-factly and added: "...That's good."

He said it very seriously, as if he really thought it was a good thing that Chen Mo didn't believe a word he said for most of the day.

"So you contacted me all the way and came to this hellish place just to share your complaints about Ursus with me and revisit your old place. I didn't know that the inner guard of Ursus lived such a leisurely life."

"I really want to have a good chat with you." The inner guard replied slowly: "Your encounter with the daughter of Cosiche has made it inevitable for you to step into the battle of Ursus."

"You are wrong, Neiwei." Chen Mo shook his head and said, "I don't think I can play any role in the so-called fight you mentioned. The only thing I can do is to make a group of people want to abandon them in this Ursus. Those infected who survive will have a chance to survive."

"That's hard."

"Except the choice to die is easy, doing anything is difficult."

Maybe one day, even death will become difficult. Maybe the difficulty is not dying, but choosing to live.

At least Chen Mo doesn't dare to die now.

The giant palace was inserted back into its sheath.

Chen Mo had no idea of ​​continuing the conversation.

The inner guard's voice sounded from behind.

"The Third Cavalry Division of the Fourth Army in Kosovo Town has grasped the current location of the infected. As expected, your so-called opportunity to allow the infected to survive is just around the corner."

His words seemed to be a sarcasm to Chen Mo's answer just now. Perhaps this was the real reason why he contacted Chen Mo. No one could tell. As he said himself, the infected person may not be one of the many possibilities in Ursus. .

"What a coincidence." Chen Mo said.

The inner guard looked at his back.

"This is not a coincidence. You know very well that everything that happened to the daughter of Cosiche cannot be called a coincidence."

"Why don't you swing the knife behind me the moment I turn around."

Chen Mo turned around and asked.

That way he would no longer have to consider every word the inner guard said before, how much he should believe and how much he should doubt.

The inner guard seemed to have guessed what he was thinking.

He pulled out the long knife from his waist, and in Chen Mo's sight, he let go of his hand and let the sharp weapon plunge into the ground.

Chen Mo laughed lightly.

He turned his head and walked towards the way he came. He paused slightly, then raised his hand and waved with his back to the inner guard.

He didn't say goodbye.

The inner guard watched his movements without saying a word. He stood in the middle of the black square, and time seemed to have returned many years ago, when they were still young and had just met, and he always had a silly smile on his face.

He stretched out his hand, but his fingers wrapped in black gloves could only touch the hard mask on his face. He could no longer remember the appearance of the Ursus boy back then.

【~

Chapter 92 I'll try to believe every word you say

Chen Mo didn't take action until the end.

He didn't expect that the contact with the inner guard would be so smooth, so smooth that he couldn't even find the opportunity to take action himself. Or maybe it was just because even if he killed the Ursus inner guard here, it would be too much for him and what he said. The facts still cannot produce any substantial changes.

For some reason, Chen Mo felt a little relaxed. Perhaps the inner guard was right. He had been tense for too long since he came to the snowfield.

Chen Mo didn't think there was anything wrong with this.

He no longer paid attention to the Ursus left in the square, nor did he look back. His back slowly disappeared from the sight of the inner guard. After feeling that they had disappeared, Chen Mo stopped.

Directly opposite the line of sight.

It was in the black passage, a few meters away.

Tallulah stood silently in front of Chen Mo, in the silhouette of the shadow outside the weak portable light source in Chen Mo's hand, outside the cells leading to purgatory.

You can vaguely hear the roar of thunder from the end of the passage, maybe it's raining heavily outside.

Chen Mo should have expected that this day would come. He was not surprised, but it just came too quickly.

Tallulah did not come towards him. She stayed where she was, looking in the direction of Chen Mo. Her beautiful gray eyes were hidden in the dim light of the flashlight.

There was a windproof coat on top of the black military uniform. It seemed that he came in a hurry, so that the gray scarf on the collar was just hurriedly pulled off.

It was unusually quiet in the dark corridor, so quiet that one could seem to hear each other's breathing, but it seemed like an illusion.

The girl's right hand rested on the hilt of the long sword at her waist. She did not move her eyes away from the beginning to the end, as if she was blocking Chen Mo's face, which was indeed the case.

Her footsteps seemed to be imprisoned on the ground. It was not difficult for Chen Mo to think that she had been here for a long time. Maybe she had seen her conversation with the inner guards, but she did not rush out to interrupt them.

She didn't impatiently come out to question because of what she saw in front of her. She wasn't impulsive and blind. This was her temperament, but her heart may not be as calm as she showed.

It would be better to say that she really wanted to ask something, but she didn't know how to ask or where to ask.

Her indifference seemed to be giving Chen Mo a chance to explain.

It's not like her to passively wait for others to speak first.

"Did you see it?" Chen Mo asked aloud.

"I saw it." Tallulah replied calmly, and then asked: "Inner guard?"

"Inner guard." Chen Mo did not deny it.

"How much did you see?"

"I wasn't listening," Tallulah said.

"Why not..." Chen Mo asked subconsciously, but when he saw Tallulah looking into his eyes, he suddenly understood the reason. She looked at him and pursed her lips gently. Chen Mo's eyes were no longer in her eyes. The common confidence and calmness.

She was lying to herself, because if she didn't listen, she wouldn't get the answer she didn't want to get, which also meant that there was still a little room left between them.

"I'm waiting for you to explain to me." She looked at Chen Mo and replied softly, her lowered hands couldn't help but squeeze tightly.

"It's evasion."

"I am certain."

"I thought you wouldn't say such a thing."

"I thought I wouldn't say such things before." She lowered her gaze slightly, and her voice fell into Chen Mo's ears, with a little self-deprecation: "I won't try to escape the facts that I don't want to admit and accept, but now I Only then did I realize that I was not as determined as I thought. Not long after you arrived at the camp, the inner guards showed up, and now, you are meeting here again."

Those eyes seemed to say, I need an answer. Maybe what she needed was not an answer, but a reason to convince herself. The hand she clenched but could not use force on the hilt of the sword seemed to be telling Chen Mo , she is ready.

Tallulah knew very well that the reason why smart people easily make wrong judgments is that they are too smart. She had already made a guess in her mind, but she still left the right to explain to Chen Mo.

Chen Mo sighed.

Maybe this can actually be regarded as a good thing, at least now he no longer has to think about the last words of the inner guard and how to persuade the camp to make preparations.

They couldn't afford to take the risk, even if it was just a bad joke from the inner guard, but they couldn't bear the consequences if the joke came true.

"I can't guarantee that I can give you an answer that satisfies you."

"It's okay, I'm used to it," Tallulah said, adding: "So I'll try to believe every word you say."

Chen Mo was stunned.

"Even if I'm lying to you?" He still had to ask.