Slaying God: I, the insane and witty god

Chapter 729: Remembering the Kindness of Parents in Front of the Monument

The branches of the old locust tree cast spider-web-like shadows in the moonlight.

Lu Baoyou's fingertips slowly stroked the words "Tomb of Daxia Martyr Lu Qiu" on the stone tablet.

The dot on the character "烈" (lié) had been worn dull by wind and rain, but it still felt like a fine needle piercing his palm—it turned out that all the paper money he had burned at the mass grave during festivals over the years had been in the wrong place.

It turns out that every time he squatted at the alley entrance waiting for the man who always said "bring candy next time",

The other party had already been lying in the back mountain three kilometers away from him, using a bluestone tablet to guard his worldly affairs.

"When a Night's Watchman goes on a mission, even his ashes might not be left behind."

Liu Qi's voice was like old tea soaked in morning dew, with an indescribable melancholy.

"The last time your father did that, he blocked the demon pill explosion for the team."

"My comrades only managed to recover half a tactical badge and...a scrap of your mother's red dress."

He squatted down and knocked the photo under the monument with his knuckles - the red skirt with the corners rolled up trembled in the wind.

It looked very much like the last time Lu Baoyou's mother went to the market.

"The stele was carved by Lao Zhou, who was on the same team back then. He was clumsy with his hands, and it took him seven tries to get the dot on the character '烈' right."

"Your father always laughed at his crooked handwriting when he was alive. This time, I have to carve his name straight."

Lu Baoyou's Adam's apple moved.

He recalled that when he was punished in the training camp last month, the squad leader called him a "bastard without a father".

With red eyes, he pressed the other man into the mud and beat him; he recalled that last winter when he was moving bricks at the construction site, the foreman overturned his lunch box.

He clutched the tile knife and said, "My father is not dead" - it turned out that he was not not dead, but died so cleanly that he didn't even have a grave to burn paper for.

"The team has a martyrs' cemetery at the 066 base,"

Liu Qi stood up, the metal badge on the collar of his military uniform flashing a cold light.

"I'll take you there tomorrow. Your father's name is carved on the third wall, next to the brothers who joined the team with him."

"No." Lu Baoyou suddenly took a half step back, crushing a few wild chrysanthemums with his boot heel.

He stared at the toes of his worn shoes, which sounded like sandpaper.

"Who am I? A loser who couldn't even make it through the training camp. How can I be qualified to stand before the Martyrs' Wall?"

The wind lifted the strands of hair on his forehead, revealing a light pink scar behind his ear - it was caused when he was ten years old and was running after his father's suitcase and was hit by a stone pillar at the entrance of the alley.

At that time he cried and shouted "Dad, please don't go".

The man waved without looking back, the sound of his tactical boots on the bluestone slabs louder than his crying.

Liu Qi didn't respond, but took out a blue marble from his pocket.

Moonlight filtered through the glass beads, casting a faint blue spot on the monument. "Your father always stuffed this thing into your marble box before he went on a mission."

"He said, 'Xiaoyou, if you miss daddy, just hit the wall with this. Daddy can hear you from heaven.'"

He paused, "Last year during Qingming Festival, Old Zhou came to visit the grave and saw a pile of burnt marble ashes in front of the tombstone."

"He said some idiot must have burned the whole box of marbles, saying he wanted them as toys for his father in the underworld."

Lu Baoyou clenched her fingers suddenly.

He recalled the rainy Qingming Festival when he squatted in front of the mass grave.

Throw the marbles you have saved for ten years into the fire one by one.

Sparks splashed on the back of his hand.

He wiped his tears and cursed: "Dad, you didn't keep your promise. You said you would play marbles with me, and now you won't even tell me where your grave is!"

"Do you think being expelled from the training camp is a bad thing?" Liu Qi suddenly said.

"I've seen your training records."

"He broke camp records in three physical fitness tests, and got two of the monster identification questions wrong—both about the 'Mirror Monster.'"

He tapped his temple with his knuckles.

"Because your mother was killed by the mirror demon, right?"

"When I saw the words 'Mirror Demon', my hands started shaking so much that I couldn't hold the pen."

Lu Baoyou looked up suddenly.

The mountain breeze lifted the corner of his clothes, revealing the training camp student badge on his waist that he had not had time to take off - the word "eliminated" on the metal badge that he had polished to a shine was so sharp that it hurt his eyes.

"The Night's Watch are not desperate machines."

Liu Qi took out a cigarette, but paused in front of the stele, then put it back.

"You have great talent, but there's a stone weighing on your heart. If you try to push forward, you'll only be crushed."

He pulled a brown paper bag from his briefcase.

"You have two choices now: one is to follow me back to the team and join the preparatory class for another two years. Once you have overcome the difficulties in your heart, you can wear this suit again;"

"Second, take the pension and find a stable job—your father has earmarked most of the pension for you."

"Enough to buy a small house in the city and open a car repair shop or something."

The moment the brown paper bag was opened, Lu Baoyou saw the heading on the top piece of paper - "Confirmation of Pension for Martyrs' Families from the Daxia Special Affairs Bureau".

His eyes swept down and stopped at the "designated beneficiary" column: Lu Qiu's signature was still so sloppy, exactly the same as what he wrote on the parent-teacher meeting sign-in sheet when he was ten years old.

"Your father left a letter before he left."

Liu Qi pushed the paper bag over and said, "If Xiaoyou is willing to go,

My journey has allowed me to see all the world's fireworks; if you don't want to, then live a good life for me.'

The moment Lu Baoyou's fingertips touched the letter paper,

Suddenly he smelled a familiar smell of gunpowder - the same smell he smelled when he was a child and rummaged through his father's old suitcase.

He suddenly remembered that the suitcase always contained half a box of damp matches and a crumpled family photo.

It turns out that it’s not that my father doesn’t like to clean up, but before every mission,

He would touch these things to confirm that his son was still waiting for him in the world.

"Can I...can I stay a little longer?" His voice was as light as the moonlight falling on the monument.

"Just... talk to my dad."

Liu Qi didn't say anything, but just bent down and rearranged the white flowers.

The fragrance of wild chrysanthemums mixed with dew filled the air. As he turned, the hem of his military uniform swept through the weeds in front of the monument. “Those who can stand here have all been raised under protection.”

His back blended into the night, but his voice floated over clearly.

"You have this life now because someone tore down your spine and paved the way for you."

Lu Baoyou watched Liu Qi's back disappear at the bend of the mountain road, then slowly squatted down.

He took out a marble from his pocket - it was the day when he was eliminated from the training camp.

It fell out from the seam of his pants when he was hiding in the toilet crying.

At that time, he thought he had collected them himself, but now he could see clearly that the blue pattern in the glass bead was exactly the same as the one under the stele.

"Dad," he whispered to the stone tablet,

"I used to blame you for walking so hard."

"Now I understand that you left in such a hurry because you were afraid that if you looked back at me, you wouldn't be able to leave."

When the mountain wind picked up again, the wild chrysanthemums in front of the monument swayed gently.

Lu Baoyou placed the marbles next to the photo.

Watching the moonlight string the three blue glass beads into a line - just like when his father held his hand,

When walking past the row of old locust trees at the entrance of the alley, the shadows overlap.

The barking of wild dogs was heard in the distance, and this time, Lu Baoyou heard it clearly.

The voice did not have the desolation he had thought before, but rather sounded like someone was speaking for him, and he softly replied, "Hey."

Liu Qi's footsteps gradually faded away on the mountain path, and were finally swept away by the mountain wind into the pine waves.

Lu Baoyou touched the two words "Lu Qiu" on the stone tablet, and the coolness of the stone tablet still lingered on his fingertips.

The night dew grew heavier, wetting his trouser legs, but he didn't care.

I just stared at the three blue marbles in the moonlight - left by Liu Qi under the stele.

The one he found out himself and the one he had just placed next to the photo looked like three crushed stars in the night.

"Tsk tsk, what a touching filial son drama."

A sinister sound suddenly rang out behind my ears, like someone scratching a copper basin with fingernails.

Lu Baoyou turned his head suddenly and saw only the branches of the old locust tree swaying in the wind, with no human figure anywhere.

"Don't look for it, you little fool."

The voice came again, this time from his temple.

With a sweet smell of decay,

"Do you really think you're the only one talking to a broken rock in this desolate mountain?

The hairs on the back of Lu Baoyou's neck stood up.

He remembered what the instructors in the training camp had said about the "ear demon," which would burrow in and bite people when they were at their softest.

But before he could open his mouth, the voice came back again, sticky and lingering: "The people from the Ancient God Church are waiting for you at the foot of the mountain. They say you are born to be a good material - a discarded demon slayer reserve."

"The orphan of a martyr, filled with resentment, has the blood of the Night's Watch in his veins."

"They say that if you accept this fate, you can avenge your mother and make those who called you 'waste' kneel at your feet..."

"Shut up!"

Lu Baoyou clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.

"My father said that everything in the Ancient God Church is evil!"

“Your dad?”

The voice suddenly let out a laugh, "Your father is a brainwashed idiot! Night Watchmen? Ha, they're just ants used as supplies for Daxia."

"Did I ever think of you when I was blocking the demon pill for someone else?"

"He left a letter and died cleanly, leaving you to be burned in the wrong grave in a mass grave for ten years - if he really loved you, why didn't he save his life and spend time with you growing up?"

"Shut up!" Lu Baoyou's voice was trembling and his eyes were burning with pain.

He stumbled to his feet and bumped his back against the old locust tree, the bark pricking him painfully.

“You don’t even know my dad!”

“Of course I do.”

The voice suddenly became sinister, "I also know what he was thinking before he died - regret!"

"I regret taking that crappy mission, I regret not hugging you one more time, I regret sacrificing half my life for the empty title of 'martyr'!"

"If he knew his son was kicked out of the training camp,"

"If you squat on a desolate mountain and cry, you might as well crawl out of your grave and slap yourself..."

"enough!"

A loud shout scared the chickadees so much that they flew away.

Lu Baoyou's pupils suddenly flashed with blood, and two balls of dark red mist exploded behind him. The mist surged and condensed into translucent wings.

Each feather is like a steel needle dipped in blood, sweeping across the

The wild chrysanthemums were minced into pieces, and the word "烈" (lié) on the stone tablet was scratched with several deep marks.

The whole mountain was shaking, the stream in the distance suddenly stopped flowing, and dense clusters of dead fish floated on the surface of the water.

“My dad is not a loser!”

Lu Baoyou gasped, and the sound was like torn rags.

"When he was blocking the demon pill, he was holding the family portrait I drew when I was ten years old!"

"The letter he left behind said, 'Xiaoyou's marble box should be replaced with an iron one, as wooden ones always attract dampness'—he even remembered that my marble box was damp!"

He wiped the tears from his face, and the blood on his wings became more intense. "He was afraid of looking back at me, so he couldn't bear to leave!"

"He risked his life so that I could wait for candy at the alley entrance, carry bricks at a construction site, and live a good life even when people called me 'uneducated'!"

The mountain wind suddenly stopped.

Lu Baoyou's wings folded together with a "swish" and dissipated like a punctured balloon.

He staggered and held onto the stone tablet, resting his forehead on the cold stone surface.

A suppressed sob came from his throat: "What do you know... You don't know at all. The night before he left, he squatted by my bed and tucked me in seven times."

"I pretended to be asleep and heard him say to my marble box, 'If Xiaoyou knew Daddy was leaving, she would cry like a kitten.'..."

The moonlight was obscured by dark clouds at some point.

Lu Baoyou raised his head and looked at the dim lights at the foot of the mountain - there was a small house with a small courtyard.

He had just paid the down payment with the money he earned from the construction site.

On the windowsill stood a second-hand radio he had collected, and in the kitchen hung a blue-rimmed bowl he had found at a flea market.

These are all what he imagined his father would use together after he retired.

"Do you know warmth now?"

The demon boy's voice came out again, but without the previous frivolousness.

"The Church of the Ancient God can give you something more tangible—power and authority, making all those who look down on you kneel down and lick your shoes."

"Your father's spine?"

"Oh, when you stand on the top of the mountain, who will still remember a broken stone tablet?"

Lu Baoyou took out the letter from his father. The letter paper was wrinkled by his fist, but he could still smell the familiar smell of gunpowder.

He squatted down and gently pressed the letter next to the marbles. When he looked up, the bloodshot in his eyes had faded away.

Only a clear mind remained: "My father used his spine to pave the way for me. If I crush his spine to climb up..."

He laughed, and his nose felt sore.

"Then what's the difference between me and those monsters that feed on the flesh and blood of the Night's Watch?"

Suddenly, a car horn was heard at the foot of the mountain.

Lu Baoyou suddenly looked up and saw two car lights lit up at the bend of the mountain road - was it Liu Qi's car?

Or... Before he could think about it, the demon boy's voice suddenly shrieked: "You will regret it!"

"When you are overwhelmed by life, when you can't even pay the rent of the auto repair shop..."

"Get out!" Lu Baoyou grabbed a handful of wild chrysanthemums and threw them hard in the direction where the sound came from.

Wild chrysanthemums scattered in the air like golden rain. He looked at the two characters "Lu Qiu" on the stele and said softly, "Dad, I've made up my mind."

"Tomorrow, I'll go to the Martyrs' Cemetery with Liu Qi and make your name shine. Then..."

He touched the scar behind his ear and said, "Go to the preparatory class and take the test again."

"This time, I will wear the uniform of the Night Watch and stand in front of your tombstone."

The dark clouds split open, and the moonlight once again shone on the marbles.

The three blue glass beads glowed with a warm light, like three pairs of eyes, looking at him tenderly.

In the distance, the sound of car engines is getting closer.