On his way, he killed three snakes and a blood-sucking bat of unknown type. Not looking underfoot, he created a three-legged frog. He got both of his feet stuck in the mud once; now they seemed symmetrical. 

In the middle of this, not managing to dodge in time, he got wrapped up by a plant of unknown man-eating properties. This process was very wonderful. Dr. Kou felt that he had been on a pendulum ride in an amusement park. Sadly, the recreational facilities here didn’t have a high safety coefficient. In the end, if he hadn’t decisively gotten a hold on this big vine, which was only concerned with tossing and not with catching, he might have died from the force of gravity. 

Then he found that…after innumerable hardships, there was another fork in the road that presented him with a choice. In that moment, boundless misery rose in Dr. Kou’s heart; it was simply indescribable. 

As long as he hadn’t reached the end of the road, there would be endless choices, and he would have to walk on nonstop. 

If the power that killed the unknown was a land of hopeless perpetuity, then what the hell would kill choice? 

This time, Kou Tong wasn’t in a rush to make a choice. Instead, he plopped down at the fork in the road. He took off his shoes, whose original appearance was no longer visible, and very ungracefully knocked off the mud, rubbing as he knocked. 

He thought for a long time and could only think of “all roads lead to the same end.” If he kept following this road, he would encounter countless forks. The choices he had to make would be inexhaustible. 

And if the information Qin Qin had given him was true, these choices would slowly penetrate his inner being. Kou Tong had a thief’s conscience; he knew that his inner being wasn’t as bright and powerful as it appeared on the surface. Perhaps this would have been all right when he was in a calm and even temper, but now… He looked down at his forearm, once again leaking blood because of the road just now. He sighed—he felt that before he had thought of something to do, it would be best not to act rashly. 

Kou Tong leaned against the wall. Above his head was still the gloomy sky. All kinds of strange sounds came from behind him. He took his pack of cigarettes out again and lit one. Barefoot, he stretched his legs and tossed his shoes aside, making himself relax as much as possible. 

Everyone had times of agitation. Kou Tong, on this point, very much resembled Huang Jinchen. Probably having had the experience of the Seed in their youth, they both particularly hated to be bound—concretely, this was expressed in Dr. Kou’s rushing around here and there and Master Huang’s shocking defiance of social norms. 

And now, Kou Tong’s feeling was of being trapped in one box after another—the Projector was one layer, and the Lovers card had added yet another layer. 

Though this bit of agitation was soon meticulously suppressed by his adjusted breathing and slow movements. In his boredom, Kou Tong began to toy with the only weapon he had—the little water pistol. 

Why was this thing called Elephant's Bane? Thinking this, Kou Tong shot into the space across from him. Then a magical thing happened. The stream of water went up and faintly changed into a palm-sized elephant. In the frightening chilly darkness, it began to run around in place merrily. 

Kou Tong hadn’t had much hope to begin with. After watching for a while, he couldn’t resist snorting a laugh. 

If he got out, he decided that he would have to exchange views with that hidden Brother Gorilla; fine things could always heal. 

After shooting out this little thing, a little screen lit up on the water pistol. Some choices popped up on it. There were “mouse,” “pig,” and “rope.” 

Kou Tong aimed at the elephant and chose “mouse.” Another stream of water shot out and turned into the shape of a little mouse. The merrily running elephant stopped in its tracks, as if it had suddenly put on the brakes. Then it became so scared that its whole body changed shape. It quickly dashed off in the opposite direction. The little mouse ran very fast. All at once, it burrowed into the elephant’s nose. 

The elephant burst in a splash, spraying all over Kou Tong. The elephant and the little mouse were both gone. 

Kou Tong suddenly felt an interest in having fun. His spirit of entertainment, with no regard for time and place, again defeated misery, driving Dr. Kou. He began to try out the water pistol’s options one by one. 

“Pig” was a sudden water blade that cut off the elephant’s nose, changing the elephant into a pig. When the “rope” option was pressed, the elephant’s nose tied itself into a knot like a rope. Water blobs began to weave together in a hundred ways, making crashing sounds. The final outcome was that they once again burst in a splash. 

After happily amusing himself for a while, a thought suddenly flashed through Kou Tong’s mind—a rope and…a knot? 

He slowly raised the mouth of the pistol and aimed at the vine over his head, shooting out the “rope” order. Then he watched as it gave a start as if stimulated by something, then slowly tied itself into a knot like the elephant’s nose. 

This was dependable! 

Kou Tong quickly sat up—according to the rules of the Lovers, after choosing one road, the other road would automatically close. So all he needed to do was to make that road tie itself into a knot like the elephant’s nose, and it would naturally take him back to the previous fork. Because the other road was already closed, the choice would no longer exist. 

Kou Tong simply wanted to raise his head to the heavens and laugh aloud. He decided that the first thing he would do after getting back would be to take Manman to eat ice cream and hotpot. He would order two, one to eat there and one to take away! 

Whistling, he got up off the ground, stepped into his shoes, casually aimed at the right-hand choice, and shot out the “rope” order. 

The sound of shaking came from the ground. Kou Tong happily watched the straight road begin to bend like a rope tied into a knot. Then he stepped in and was gratified to hear the rumbling sound of the high wall rising behind him. 

The bleak scene from before was blocked by a wall and turned into a whole other world. There was a bit of light up ahead. 

Kou Tong happily walked forward. He knew that the next time he returned to this fork in the road, the rules of the Lovers card would be broken; no matter what choice this road was, there would be just this little segment…

Just then, Kou Tong all of a sudden clearly saw the thing sitting not far away where the bit of light was. He seemed unable to set down his raised foot. 

It was a small medicine chest with the lid wide open. Inside there were only empty bottles of suxiao jiuxin pills and nitroglycerin¹. 

They were lying there all on their own, like a pair of empty eyes.

In that instant, Kou Tong’s hands and feet turned cold. Every second seemed to stretch out again and again in front of him. He was like a frozen statue. 

Suddenly, Kou Tong groaned and clutched the wounds on his arm. The wounds that had begun to heal under Huang Jinchen’s careful attentions seemed to have been sliced with a knife. The wounds abruptly became bone deep, blood quickly seeping between the cracks in his fingers, dripping down to the ground along his clear-knuckled fingers. 

“I…need to get out now, right…I need to keep following this road.” These words appeared blankly in his head. Then, like a marionette, he walked forward like a walking corpse. 

Leaving a trail of blood behind him. 

When the rules of the Lovers card lost effect without warning, Huang Jinchen found that he was standing on the original little road. He had taken hardly any steps forward. He raised his eyebrows. He didn’t know whether one of his two companions had been magical enough to break the rules of the Lovers. 

Huang Jinchen lowered the gun in his hand, turned his head, and saw Yao Shuo on his other side, that stupid woman Qin Qin even further away, looking at them hatefully, and Kou Tong leaning back against a wall, standing at the entrance to the road. Huang Jinchen, beaming with joy, threw himself forward at once. “Tongtong Darling, let me tell you, I just saw a whole row of yous doing striptease in front of me, heh, and I dashed over without a second thought, and then…”

His steps suddenly stopped. 

The edge of Kou Tong’s coat was soaked with blood, all scarlet. 

“Kou Tong?” 

Kou Tong raised his head extremely slowly and looked at him, his gaze vague. Then his body swayed, and he suddenly pitched forward. 

Huang Jinchen felt his breath and heartbeat stop simultaneously. 

When he came around, he had already caught Kou Tong. He instinctively turned the muzzle of his gun, pointing at Qin Qin, who was watching them indifferently from not far away. 

Yao Shuo was very startled by the two of them. Without even thinking, he immediately threw himself forward to hold down the muzzle of Huang Jinchen’s gun. Practically at the same time that he turned aside the muzzle of the gun, Huang Jinchen pulled the trigger. With Yao Shuo’s interference, the bullet went wide. It hit the wall next to Qin Qin and, brushing past her, fell to the ground. 

Huang Jinchen raised his head and looked at Yao Shuo. That look almost made Yao Shuo’s scalp go numb. He seized Huang Jinchen by the collar and yelled, “You want to commit a murder? You want to go to jail after we get out?” 

Huang Jinchen’s cheeks were bitten tight. His murderous intent seemed to congeal into a physical substance, directly hitting the man in front of him. 

Yao Shuo’s hand holding his collar loosened uncontrollably. He couldn’t resist taking half a step back. But still, he held out, pale-faced. Pointing at Huang Jinchen, he swore, “Who the fuck are you? Why don’t you think about who you are? Are you a bandit or a drug dealer? Can you kill someone just because you feel like it? Is that ball of meat on your shoulders a chamber pot?!” 

A shriek came out of nowhere. A birdlike woman flew down from above, grabbed Qin Qin by the hand, lifted her off the ground, and flew up into the sky. 

Yao Shuo acutely noticed Huang Jinchen’s hand holding the gun move. Immediately, by some miraculous good fortune, he yelled into his ear, “The Projector was made by Kou Tong! If something goes wrong, he’s bound to bear joint responsibility! If someone dies inside, do you want to drag him into it?!” 

Huang Jinchen was staring in the direction Qin Qin had flown away. From beginning to end, his gaze was calm and steady, looking at her and the bird woman as though looking at inanimate objects, until they disappeared from his line of sight. 

Yao Shuo quickly took the opportunity to check what was wrong with that ancestor Kou Tong. He found that apart from the slightly frightening wounds on his arm and the slight scrapes on his ankles revealed under his rolled-up pant legs, there didn’t seem to be any other external injuries. His face looked awful, but his breathing was fairly steady. So he finally slowed his voice and said to Huang Jinchen, “Let’s take him home for now and see whether we need to take him to the hospital, or…” 

Before he could finish, Huang Jinchen averted his gaze, nodded to Yao Shuo, and stuck his gun into his belt. He bent down and picked up Kou Tong, carefully adjusted his position, and strode away carrying him. 

Yao Shuo looked at the big sack Huang Jinchen had tossed aside and forgotten about. He was conflicted for a moment, then sighed and picked it up himself, put it over his shoulder, and followed.