Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Returning to the small courtyard where they lived, it was nearly noon. Chu Ya had seriously reflected on his earlier explanation and realized that he had made it too complicated for Shen Juanjuan, who was too young to understand or maintain focus. He decided to use a simpler and more direct approach: saying one sentence and having Shen Juanjuan repeat it back to reinforce memory.

"Shen Juanjuan has entered the guide differentiation period." Chu Ya flipped the bean cake he was roasting.

Shen Juanjuan, riding his steel pillar bike with his upper body leaning on the handlebars, looked at his feet. "Shen Juanjuan has entered the guide differentiation period."

"Shen Juanjuan will become an official guide after breaking through."

"Shen Juanjuan will become... become..."

"An official guide."

Shen Juanjuan repeated: "An official guide."

"Who has entered the differentiation period and will become an official guide after breaking through?" Chu Ya immediately asked.

Shen Juanjuan slapped the handlebars and straightened up, answering loudly: "It's Shen Juanjuan."

"Very good." Chu Ya gave him a thumbs-up.

Encouraged by the praise, Shen Juanjuan's enthusiasm soared. He patted the handlebars again and urged, "Come on, let's do another one."

The Black Wolf lay at the door, eyes closed, its tail sweeping back and forth until it suddenly hit the open door, making a loud thud.

Chu Ya glanced at it before continuing, "Guides and sentinels both have mental powers."

"Guides and sentinels both have mental powers... I know this, mental power attacks, pop pop pop."

"Shen Miaomiao is a sentinel."

"Shen Miaomiao is a sentinel." Shen Juanjuan repeated, nodding his head, then hesitated. "Why do you want to be a sentinel? Can't we both be guides?"

Chu Ya shook his head. "I am already a sentinel; I can't be a guide. Come on, continue. Shen Juanjuan saw the ghost on the table, which is Shen Miaomiao's quantum beast."

The Black Wolf's wagging tail suddenly stopped, and its ears perked up.

"Shen Juanjuan saw the ghost on the table..." Shen Juanjuan repeated halfway before stopping, staring at Chu Ya in confusion.

"What's wrong?" Chu Ya asked.

Shen Juanjuan was puzzled. "Why is your quantum beast a ghost?"

Bang!

The door made another loud thud.

Shen Juanjuan couldn't see the Black Wolf and assumed it was just the wind, so he didn't pay attention. Chu Ya patiently explained, "I told you earlier, it's not a ghost; you just couldn't see its form clearly. It's actually my quantum beast."

Chu Ya heated the bean cake, cut it into small pieces, placed them on a plate, set out two sets of bowls and chopsticks, and had Shen Juanjuan sit down to eat.

While eating, Shen Juanjuan seemed preoccupied, constantly stealing glances at Chu Ya.

Chu Ya noticed his gaze. "Ask whatever you want."

"Why is your quantum beast—definitely not a ghost—why does it look like—I can't see clearly!" Shen Juanjuan asked himself as he answered, "What is it then?"

The Black Wolf had stormed out of the courtyard, so Chu Ya replied, "It's a wolf, a silver wolf."

"Silver..."

"Similar to the color of the bowl in your hand, but prettier."

"But it's black," Shen Juanjuan said, looking at his white porcelain bowl. "The bowl isn't black."

Chu Ya explained, "That's because it's sick right now, so it looks black."

"Oh." Shen Juanjuan nodded, then asked, "Can't it take medicine?"

"No."

"Then what can we do? Just let it stay sick?"

Chu Ya looked down at a small piece of bean cake in his bowl. "It will get better. Someone will cure it in time."

Shen Juanjuan pondered for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "Shen Miaomiao, will my quantum beast be a ghost on the table?"

Chu Ya suddenly realized that since Shen Juanjuan had entered the differentiation period, he needed to visualize his desired quantum beast in his mind.

When guides and sentinels enter the differentiation period, their mental domains begin forming mental entities. During this process, the owner must visualize the main form, imagine its complete appearance and every movement, repeatedly reinforcing the image. Once the mental domain recognizes it, a quantum beast will form around this image.

Quantum beasts must be real and vivid, not imaginary, so most quantum beasts of guides and sentinels are normal animals, with minor changes at most. For example, a gazelle with a heart-shaped pattern on its forehead or a carp with colorful scales.

However, there are exceptions, especially among younger children who often have wild imaginations. Chu Ya had heard of an eleven-year-old guide whose quantum beast was a bird with a dog's head, barking while flying. At the time, he was quite shocked, both by the ugliness of the quantum beast and by how the person managed to form such an image.

Previously, conditions were not ideal, but now that they were settled, Chu Ya meticulously cut the bean cakes into neat squares, ensuring the plate looked tidy and presentable. If he treated bean cakes with such care, imagine how he would treat a quantum beast!

But Shen Juanjuan grew up in an orphanage, and the abyss had no animals...

No! He would not allow Shen Juanjuan to conjure up a strange quantum beast.

The bean cakes were rough and dry, but Shen Juanjuan ate them happily, unaware of Chu Ya's constant gaze. After finishing his meal, Shen Juanjuan went to ride his steel pillar bike, while Chu Ya sat inside, drawing diligently.

His hand moved swiftly, and a lifelike little leopard appeared on the paper, with a round head and eyes, looking adorable and chubby.

He turned the page and began drawing on the blank sheet that followed. After some sketching, a fawn with a bewildered expression appeared at the tip of his pen...

At night, Chu Ya leaned against the headboard, flipping through the drawings he had made today for Shen Juanjuan to see.

"Wow, this is a big cat!"

"No, it's a leopard, much bigger than a cat."

"Much bigger? But it looks so small." Shen Juanjuan pinched his fingers together.

"It looks smaller on paper. Look at that table—" Chu Ya started using the table as an example but then remembered the table ghost and moved his hand to the bedside table: "It's even bigger than this cabinet."

Shen Juanjuan stared at the drawing, and Chu Ya asked, "Do you like leopards?"

"...Yes," Shen Juanjuan answered hesitantly.

"What's wrong?"

Shen Juanjuan pointed at the drawing: "I like the one you drew, but not the one outside the drawing."

"The one outside the drawing?" Chu Ya was puzzled.

"When you said it's bigger than the cabinet, I knew who it was. It tried to bite us in that dark room," Shen Juanjuan explained.

Chu Ya recalled the encounter with a group of mutants at the cultural center, where there indeed was a leopard. He explained to Shen Juanjuan that they were not the same leopard, but Shen Juanjuan still shook his head: "I only like this leopard, not that leopard."

Sentinels and guides entering the differentiation period must repeatedly sketch their quantum beasts in their minds for them to grow into the desired form. If they dislike or reject the animal's appearance, the mental domain would not accept it.

Since Shen Juanjuan did not fully love leopards, Chu Ya abandoned the choice and flipped to the next page of the notebook.

"What's this? It's long." Shen Juanjuan pointed at the notebook.

"Haven't you seen it before?"

"I haven't."

Chu Ya paused: "This is a fish."

"Fish... oh, I know fish. They walk in water, right? They can walk in water."

Shen Juanjuan excitedly recounted the fish he had seen in cartoons, wriggling on the bed to mimic swimming. Chu Ya looked down at him, his expression somewhat complex. Even if Cloud Peak had its problems, at least the children there had seen real fish in water, unlike Shen Juanjuan, who had only seen them in cartoons.

"Fish don't walk in water; they swim." Chu Ya pulled back the blanket, "It's cold outside, come in."

"I'll show you how fish walk—no, swim. Like this, look at me."

"I know, I've already seen it. Come in."

Shen Juanjuan crawled under the blanket, hugged Chu Ya's arm, and leaned against him to continue looking at the drawings in the notebook.

"Do you like fish?" Chu Ya asked.

"Yes," Shen Juanjuan nodded, "I like fish." He thought for a moment and added, "But how can fish move in water? They don't have feet. They just wiggle their tails and move forward... Right! I know! They must have feet under their bellies, right? Otherwise, how could they move? They don't use wheelchairs, so without feet, they can't walk."

Shen Juanjuan imagined this enthusiastically, but Chu Ya quickly flipped the page.

He didn't want Shen Juanjuan's quantum beast to be a fish with human legs walking on the ground.

"This is a monkey..." Seeing Shen Juanjuan's immediate wariness, Chu Ya knew he was thinking about the mutants again and continued flipping, "What about this one? Do you like it?"

He had drawn a squirrel climbing a tree, holding its long tail, with lively expressions and movements.

He remembered that the group of mutants did not include a squirrel, so Shen Juanjuan shouldn't be repulsed by it. But Shen Juanjuan glanced at it and asked uninterestedly, "Is this a big rat? We had rats in the orphanage."

"No, it's a squirrel."

Shen Juanjuan thought for a moment: "So this rat is called a squirrel?"

Forget it.

Chu Ya kept flipping.

He had reached the last page, and this time, Shen Juanjuan exclaimed happily, "I recognize it; it's a puppy."

"Do you like it?" Chu Ya asked.

Shen Juanjuan nodded: "Yes, I've even seen real puppies."

Chu Ya slowly exhaled in relief. Shen Juanjuan liked puppies and had seen them, fulfilling both essential conditions for forming a quantum beast.

"Then shall we make it your quantum beast?" Chu Ya asked.

Shen Juanjuan's expression became hesitant, and the joy on his face gradually faded.

"What's wrong? Don't you like it anymore?"

Shen Juanjuan shook his head: "I do like it." He looked at Chu Ya dejectedly, "But it doesn't like me."

"It doesn't like you?"

"I once had a puppy, but it didn't want to stay with me and ran away." After saying this, Shen Juanjuan lay down and burrowed into the blanket, showing only his fluffy back and a muffled voice: "Since it didn't like me, I didn't like it as much either."

Chu Ya looked at him and asked softly, "Why didn't it like you?"

"I let it stay in my office and closed the door, making it wait for me all day, and then it ran away."

Chu Ya paused: "You left a puppy in that metal room and made it wait for you all day. What else could it do but run away?"

"Anyway, it just didn't like me, so I won't like it either."

Chu Ya spent the entire afternoon drawing animals, but they were all rejected. He sighed helplessly, "What do you like then?"

Shen Juanjuan turned to look at him with a distant gaze, "I like those without legs that can't run."

Chu Ya silently looked ahead. After a moment, he suddenly turned around and reached under the blanket to pinch Shen Juanjuan's leg. "No legs, no legs, always talking about no legs. I'll make you have no legs; I'll teach you to be smug..."

Shen Juanjuan burst into laughter, wriggling and shouting that he was ticklish until he had no more strength to laugh. Only then did Chu Ya let go.

Chu Ya turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness.

"Time to sleep."

"Hahaha..."

"Sleep!"

"Hahaha..."

"I didn't even touch your feet, why are you still laughing?"

"Hahaha..."

When Shen Juanjuan finally stopped laughing, he leaned against Chu Ya, still mumbling.

Chu Ya looked up at the ceiling in the darkness and asked softly, "Don't you have any animal you like?"

"Yes!"

"It can't be the cabinet ghost, and it can't be something without legs."

"The table ghost." Shen Juanjuan turned to face him, looking at the vague outline of Chu Ya's profile, "I have my favorite animal."

"What is it?" Chu Ya didn't expect a serious answer.

"Raccoon."

"Raccoon?" Chu Ya looked at Shen Juanjuan in surprise, "You suddenly like raccoons? You've never seen one."

Shen Juanjuan whispered, "It has brown fur, black round eyes, and two small ears on its head."

Chu Ya was silent. This was the same description he had given when Shen Juanjuan asked him what his favorite animal was before.

"I love raccoons, very much."

Chu Ya heard the seriousness in Shen Juanjuan's voice, knowing this was his genuine feeling, and understood that he liked raccoons because of Chu Ya's own fondness for them.

If Shen Juanjuan's quantum beast were a raccoon, that would be great, but he had never even seen one.

"I really like raccoons; they are so beautiful, with brown fur." Shen Juanjuan closed his eyes and reached out to stroke an imaginary raccoon in the air, "Their eyes are black and round, and they have two small ears on their heads."

Chu Ya listened quietly, recalling his mother's raccoon, feeling a pang of sadness.

"...Their fur feels so soft, one ear drooping on its head, and it's missing an arm..."

Chu Ya snapped back to reality and turned to look at Shen Juanjuan. He saw that Shen Juanjuan had somehow hugged the one-armed bear, pinching its ear with one hand while tracing shapes in the air with the other.

"Stop, stop." Chu Ya shook Shen Juanjuan, "Raccoons aren't like that; don't imagine things."

"I'm not imagining; it's such a beautiful raccoon, and it likes me too." Shen Juanjuan continued tracing, smiling.

"Hey, hey, hey." Chu Ya shook his face gently, "Stop thinking about any bears."

"So cute, the raccoon." Shen Juanjuan laughed with his eyes closed, "Hahaha, so cute, the raccoon."

Chu Ya realized he was deliberately causing trouble and ignored him, tucking his hand back under the blanket. "Go to sleep. Since you like raccoons, I'll draw more raccoons tomorrow, and you can think about them from the drawings."

Chu Ya lay down, pulling the blanket up, but Shen Juanjuan propped himself up and leaned close to Chu Ya's ear. "So cute, the raccoon, hehe, so cute, the raccoon, I'm going to start drawing raccoons."

Chu Ya lay flat, ignoring him, but Shen Juanjuan kept repeating, even trying to pry open Chu Ya's eyelids to show him the raccoon he was drawing. Chu Ya closed his eyes and reached out to feel beside the bed.

"So cute, the raccoon... What are you looking for?"

Chu Ya remained silent, slowly raising a coat hanger.

Shen Juanjuan stopped his antics, lying down and hiding under the blanket. "I'm sleeping, I'm asleep, hmmm..."

The next day, Shen Juanjuan went to the orphanage early to collect food. The weather was bad, and it started raining again in the abyss, further lowering the already low temperature. Chu Ya wrapped Shen Juanjuan up like a cotton ball, put him in a raincoat, and took him to the orphanage.

The dirt in the alley had been washed away by the recent rains, revealing clean stone slabs beneath. The wheelchair rolled over shallow puddles, making a faint splashing sound.

"Child, life is like this; instead of being unhappy, sing and bask in the sun with Grandpa... Grandpa's little car vroom vroom, vroom vroom, vroom vroom..."

Shen Juanjuan sat in front of Chu Ya, covered not only by his own raincoat but also by Chu Ya's. Through the plastic film, his vision blurred as he sang and made driving motions with his hands.

When he noticed the wheelchair stopping, he continued driving until he realized Chu Ya wasn't moving. Then he looked up at him.

"Why aren't we moving? Why aren't we moving?"

Chu Ya didn't answer, just staring ahead silently, lips tightly pressed together, hands gripping the wheelchair handles nervously.

Shen Juanjuan followed his gaze and turned to look. The plastic film was even more blurred by the rain, but he could see a figure approaching from the other end of the street.

Shen Juanjuan had never seen anyone else in Mixin Town. Sensing Chu Ya's tension, he also became nervous, slowly lifting a corner of the raincoat to peek outside.

The person wore a gray robe, holding a black umbrella in one hand and a large bag in the other. As soon as Shen Juanjuan saw the gray robe, he opened his mouth in surprise. When the person came closer and their face under the umbrella came into view, he couldn't help but shout, "Dean!"

"Ah." Dean Liu responded from afar.

"Dean." Shen Juanjuan called out again.

The dean, Liu, lost his footing and nearly slipped, regaining his balance before responding, "Ah."

"Dean..." Shen Juanjuan cupped his hands around his mouth.

Chu Ya came back to his senses and placed a hand on Shen Juanjuan, "Alright, the dean heard you."

"Oh."

The Black Wolf appeared on the rooftop beside them, slowly approaching Dean Liu. It moved silently across the cement tiles, its claws occasionally glinting coldly.

Dean Liu had already come close, smiling as he greeted them, "Ah, you were hard to find. I wandered around all morning and only found you when I heard Shen Juanjuan singing."

"That's right, I was singing," Shen Juanjuan said with a smile, extending his hand. "Life is like this, kid. Instead of being unhappy, why not sing and bask in the sun with grandpa... Did you hear me singing that?"

"Yes, and also 'didi di, didi di.'"

"There's a 'dada da' in between the 'didi dis.'"

The Black Wolf crouched on the wall, ready to pounce. Chu Ya glanced at it, and upon receiving his look, it stopped, merely shaking its head impatiently to fling off the water droplets.

"Today's rain is heavy, so I didn't want the child to be out in it. I brought the food to you." The hem of Dean Liu's gray robe was stained dark with water, and his glasses were fogged up. He spoke to Chu Ya naturally, as if they were just acquaintances meeting on the street, showing no signs of unusual behavior.

Dean Liu leaned down to look at the child wrapped in plastic film, "Shen Juanjuan."

"Ah," Shen Juanjuan responded crisply.

Dean Liu lifted the bag in his hand, "I brought you some big buns."

"Wow, big buns! Great."

Chu Ya knew that Dean Liu had likely come for more than just delivering food, so he quietly suggested, "Dean Liu, the rain is heavy here. Why don't you come sit at my place?"

"Sure, let's go sit."