"Leaving for good?"
Chengduo watched as Zuo Zhe packed his belongings. It was obvious he was about to leave.
"I have been here for three years, five months, and four days. I've done everything I could possibly do here. It's time for me to walk my own path in life. I've told Uncle Liao this many times. At first, I thought he wasn't much older than me, so I called him brother. It wasn't until he got married that I realized he and my dad were already the same age. Duoduo, what about you? Are you really going to stay here forever?"
Zuo Zhe had finished packing. His belongings were sparse: two changes of clothes, mostly for summer and winter; a specially modified laptop; a specially crafted fishing rod; along with his ID card and water bottle.
"Me? As for me, I'm still young. By the way, aren't you going to say goodbye to them?"
At this moment, Chengduo was dressed in traditional Miao attire, a faint shimmer dancing within her emerald-green eyes. The corners of her mouth turned down slightly, and her hands clenched into tighter and tighter fists.
Zuo Zhe's appearance had reverted to how it looked when he first arrived—still just as lean. Hearing Chengduo's words, he took several books from the table beside him.
"These books contain what I want to say to them. As for a proper farewell, let's skip it. I really don't want to hear them all shouting 'Uncle' at me again; that's just too agonizing. Everyone comes into this world alone. I can't stay with them forever, and no one can stay with anyone forever. Every parting is just to pave the way for the next reunion."
With that, Zuo Zhe walked up to Chengduo and gently flicked the bridge of her nose with his finger.
"Don't cry now. If you cry, you won't look pretty."
Ignoring his words, Chengduo silently embraced Zuo Zhe and refused to let go.
After a moment: "Alright, hey, alright, that's enough." Zuo Zhe patted Chengduo on the shoulder. "Come on, you're the big boss of those kids. Look, I brought this for you."
Zuo Zhe covertly produced a flute-shaped Dharma Artifact from behind his back.
"Here, this will help you control your Gu insects. Use it well. The next time I see you, you'll have to play a song for me."
Hearing this, Chengduo loosened her grip and extended a single palm. Resting in the center of her hand was a tiny Gu insect. Her expression was dead serious.
"This is a Spirit Gu. No matter how far apart the two owners are, they can still communicate. You have to take it with you! If you don't, I'll call Xiaohu and the others over and make them stop you from leaving."
"My, my, Duoduo is getting formidable, actually resorting to threats now. Fine, fine, I'll take it with me, alright?"
Zuo Zhe's tone was completely relaxed as he reached out and took the Spirit Gu.
By now, they had reached the exterior of The Bunker.
"I'll come back to visit in the future. Goodbye, Duoduo."
Zuo Zhe waved and got into the car heading for the nearby airport.
Chengduo stood motionless, watching the vehicle gradually recede into the distance until it vanished from sight.
At that moment, Liao Zhong emerged from the base. The fierce and forbidding aura on his face had mostly dissipated by now, and the belly that used to be far from flat now sported a distinct potbelly.
"Uncle Liao, he'll come back, right?"
Every word Chengduo spoke was clear and distinct, yet her words made Liao Zhong feel as though his precious cabbage had just been devoured by a pig.
"Forget about it, he's definitely coming back. Besides, I can't keep him trapped here forever either. That wouldn't be fair to him. The little punk left and still managed to leave my Duoduo feeling so attached. What a pain. If I'd known, I should have beaten him senseless a few times back in The Bunker."
"Uncle Liao, let's go. I need to go comfort the others. He meant something different to us. Every time we spent time with him, his eyes held neither pity nor fear. He always looked at everyone as an equal, yet he was the only one who belittled himself..."
Their voices drifted further away as they conversed.
Meanwhile, sitting in the car, Zuo Zhe simply watched the bustling traffic and the rapidly shifting scenery outside, reminding himself of the first time he left his hometown for university.
Zuo Zhe's academic aptitude was thoroughly average; he had only managed to get into a regular second-tier university, majoring in the simple, uncomplicated field of tourism management. Half of his college years were spent fooling around, and the other half was spent on work-study programs. Despite putting in a fair amount of effort, his grades were just barely passing, and the certifications he should have acquired slipped through his fingers. He even fell victim to a scam—though thankfully he didn't have much money back then, so he only lost two months' worth of living expenses.
"We've arrived. Make sure you don't leave anything behind."
Zuo Zhe nodded, stepped out of the car, and retrieved his luggage from the trunk. With a firm push, he slammed the trunk lid shut.
He waved his hand. Goodbye.
Zuo Zhe's flight was booked for this evening. With his remaining savings, he could afford to travel and mess around for a bit longer.
As for his innate abilities, they were rather simple. Aside from the basics of circulating Qi, he possessed something resembling a pair of scales—though that particular item still hadn't lit up yet.
He placed his luggage onto the conveyor belt and passed through the security scanner. Calculating the time roughly, he pulled out his laptop and logged onto Bianyi. The one thing this website did right was keeping annoying spam ads at bay, though it required downloading a standalone browser, and its confidentiality measures were fairly decent.
At the airport convenience store, he bought a bucket of Baixiang instant noodles, poured in some hot water, and waited three minutes. When he peeled back the lid, a rich, savory aroma wafted out. Pulling out the fork tucked into the lid, he dug in.
Two hours later, he was already aboard the airplane.
Half an hour after takeoff, a flight attendant distributed pre-heated airline meals to the passengers.
As for the taste of the airline meal, the less said the better. After all, airlines didn't turn a profit by selling gourmet food. Still, it wasn't too bad; at least he wasn't flying on the cheapest budget airline—otherwise, forget about a meal, even using the restroom would be a struggle.
Before boarding, he had actually witnessed a rather bizarre spectacle. Word was that on a flight bound for the capital, a first-time flyer had heard that air travel was dangerous, so they deliberately acquired some ancient copper coins from a temple and tossed several of them straight into the plane's engine! If the flight attendant hadn't reported it to the pilot in time, the plane probably would have dropped out of the sky the moment it took off.
The kicker was that even without the flight attendant's report, the plane wouldn't have been able to take off anyway, because someone else had kicked open the emergency slide.
Though Zuo Zhe considered himself well-traveled enough to have seen it all by his age, he honestly hadn't expected to witness *that*.
For those two incidents to happen simultaneously—what a remarkable coincidence.
If you're asking what happened to those two individuals now? Well, you'd probably have to visit the airport police station to find out.
The general public still felt a degree of unfamiliarity toward airplanes, or rather, toward the act of flying. Even though flight frequencies were relatively high, air travel simply didn't match the accessibility of cars and trains—especially in this era. Splurging on a single plane ticket was enough to make an ordinary person's heart ache for days.
As for Zuo Zhe's destination: Yingtan.