Drifting through the hell of earth

Chapter 21: The Tale of a Monk

A-Lai exerted his last ounce of strength, but he couldn't move. He even wanted to turn his head to look at his former classmates, but his vision was blurred, and all he could feel was a pair of soft hands tightly holding his own.

Room after room in the academy began to open, the headmaster leading a group searching for surviving students and casualties. Yep, the headmaster was hobbling around with a wood stick right after waking up from a coma, taking the lead in the search.

"Thud!" Another intense impact sound resonated from the doorway, and the villagers exerted great effort to force open the classroom door.

"Survivors here! Come and help!"

A familiar voice called out from the classroom doorway. Finally, the youth let go of his consciousness, taking a deep breath of exhaustion before plunging into boundless darkness.

When the group outside saw the struggling creature, which had walked over a hundred meters before falling on its back, with a gaping hole in its belly and a twisted short gun lodged inside, they were left astonished.

This creature, resembling a colossal centipede, possessed long and robust limbs, fur as hard as iron wires, and its fatal wound was a puncture hole in its belly, with a twisted short gun still embedded within.

After a long time, when the people who survived the catastrophe realized that the monster had really been withdrawn, some hugged each other with tears in eyes, some spread on the ground, and some muttered in disbelief:

"Oh God, is there aught more mad than tonight?"

The moon disappeared into the darkness; dawn was approaching, but it was also the darkest moment.

In the pine tree shadows where Jack the werewolf once stood, the branches softly caressed the nearby dwarf pines, reminiscent of a lover's tender touch. A soft breeze carried a whispered murmur,

"Hey, girl, you made me grow,"

The dwarf pine's branch responded with a wild swing, like a high-five right on someone's cheek!

Morlin clutched the scroll, excitement coursing through him as he stepped out of the meditation room, eager to share his discovery and joy with someone. Hesitant to disturb the abbot, he glanced around and found the courtyard deserted, save for an elderly monk who had just finished sweeping the courtyard and was now resting on a tree stump in a corner, likely tired from his labor.

The old monk wore a worn-out saffron robe, his calloused hands bearing witness to years of hard work. In the corner, a charcoal stove boiled water, and after the water in the kettle had boiled, the old man moved it away from the fire, waiting for the temperature to drop to around 60-70 degrees Celsius. At the same time, he took a small handful of jasmine tea and placed it in a large clay teapot.

In the temple, he now did some physical work such as cleaning and making tea, much like a civil servant who had retired after a lifetime of hard work without much chance of promotion. It seemed that this old monk was just passing time, as the saying goes, "Learning in the morning, dying in the evening." Morlin pondered whether his discovery could rescue the old monk from his mundane existence.

"Master, you won't believe it, but I've found a clue about the impending catastrophe for humanity," Morlin exclaimed.

The old man seemed not to have heard Morlin's words as he gently smiled and asked, "Would you like some tea, benefactor?"

He poured hot water into a clay teapot and patiently waited for the jasmine tea to bloom in the water for two minutes, as if nothing could be more important than this.