Looking out, it was filled with strange buildings and a scenic landscape.
In the distance, there were small black dots in the sky, in amidst the scenic landscape, one could see some scattered figures.
Nie Shen was stunned for a long time and pointed to the figures in the landscape, “humans?”
“Yes.” Lin Mu nodded, “now, the existence of monsters isn’t a taboo, and neither are half-monsters.”
Nie Shen stared blankly at the sight of a harmonious coexistence between a group of monsters and humans, opened his mouth then closed it again, and his whole person excluded confusion.
“Why?” He said.
“Because in the 700 years that you’ve been asleep, humans have gone into the universe.” Lin Mu simply sat down at the top of the mountain.
In the beginning, it was just to ensure that the infrastructure of the Great Wilderness kept up with humans — at least their level of enjoyment must be the same.
As a result, most monsters in the Great Wilderness looked down on human civilisation, and they tried to organised it here and there, but in the end, only Qingqiu Country and a few great monsters engaged with it.
These forces had developed extremely fast in the first two hundred years, and countless weak monsters that were trying to survive poured in, which caused these monsters to have no choice but to expand their territory, in order to accommodate these monsters.
At first, they were wildly ridiculed, because in the Great Wilderness, you could get as many little monsters as you wanted, and nobody had ever cared about protecting these useless fellas.
Not to mention giving them welfare and encouraging their growth.
In the eyes of the monsters of the Great Wilderness, this was no different to raising a poisonous monster to kill yourself.
But the forces headed by Qingqiu Country didn’t care, and after tasting the benefits of universal education and welfare, they only wanted to keep quiet about it and make a fortune.
A good number of the ownerless lands were divided up and collected, and a few monsters within their territory had risen up after they had gotten access to resources, and became potential great monster.
By the time other forces reacted, over the past two hundred years, the several forces led by Qingqiu Country have produced several loyal great monsters, and they had long lost the ability to compete with them.
And next, what had made their scalps tingle was that humans had broken through too.
They broke through the cage of this planet, and thoroughly stepped into the interstellar age, and the monsters in the Great Wilderness returned to their senses, realising that humans were no less powerful compared to them.
Although just based on their body, human beings could easily be crushed to death like an ant, but they
had weapons, armour, and vehicles that could instantly cross the stars.
And brains that made monsters feel inferior.
It was quite chaotic when humans had entered into the interstellar age, but after it was stabilised, they encountered a lot of other intelligent life.
Those creatures had strange shapes, and their abilities and talents were also weird, and they came in all kinds of forms.
So monsters weren’t unusual anymore.
Mixed bloods also weren’t unusual.
“Afterwards, Yan Xuanjing and I went to the human side to discuss, and prepared to open the Great Wilderness to the outside……” Lin Mu muttered, “then, there was a fight.”
Nie Shen had been in a deep sleep for seven hundred years, and they were quietly developing for the first two hundred years, and in the next two hundred years they were openly expanding. In the last three hundred years, two hundred of them was spent engaged in a full-scale war.
For most monsters, the Great Wilderness was the only place they could live in the open.
In their whole lives, they would never leave the Great Wilderness or get in touch with the outside world.
There wasn’t even a need to mention how humans had developed. In all of the monsters in the Great Wilderness, if they could find one of out a thousand that would care, it would be considered not bad.
But some of the great monsters who had been in contact with the outside world were very clear about it.
Humans had entered the interstellar age, and had many things that in a monster’s whole life — hundreds and thousands of years, could never have.
But many monsters didn’t understand.
In their eyes, human beings were still the objects that could be killed at any time.
Even if they stepped into this sea of stars, a human was still weak.
So, they ended up fighting.
And from this result, the side who wanted to open up had won.
A hundred years had passed since then, and the Great Wilderness had opened its doors.
A lot of interstellar products flowed into the Great Wilderness, and all sorts of weapons that could kill a mid-level monster with a single blow had slapped their opponents faces until they were all swollen.
After all, great monsters were still in the minority.
There were only fourteen named great monster that had appeared in the past 700 years, and this was already considered a very high probability.
Mediocre and ordinary monsters were the real majority.
And give human babies a weapon, all that was needed was a button, and most monsters would die in an instant.
So those monsters didn’t dare to object any more.
— They didn’t think that everything would be fine if they simply closed their door. The universe was vast, and who knew if there was any weapon that could tear apart space?
“In addition to humans, there are plenty of aliens.” Lin Mu pointed to the black dots that were flying around, “there’s a lot of things you have to learn again.”
“……” Nie Shen looked at the buildings in the distance in pursed his lips.
Lin Mu turned his head and looked at him, “what’s wrong?”
“Where’s the Marsh of Dreams?” Nie Shen asked, “my…… my mother’s Marsh of Dreams, is it still here?”
“Yes, we’ve brought the Marsh of Dreams into our territory and left it for you.” Lin Mu said, then asked, “do you want to go and see it?”
Nie Shen nodded.
So Lin Mu stood at the top of the mountain and shouted, and after he told Di Xiu where he was going, he pulled Nie Shen and directly jumped off the mountain.
Led by Lin Mu, Nie Shen crossed the landscape and entered the place he thought was a town.
But Lin Mu told him that this wasn’t a town.
“This is the haunted house opened by my father.” Lin Mu said, “if you’re brave, you can even play inside for a month before coming out, it’ll definitely be exciting.”
Lin Mu pointed to another group of gorgeous buildings in the distance, “that’s the free exchange centre opened by Yan Gui.”
“Over
there, it’s a fluffy paradise, and the ones working are all fluffy monsters and aliens. It’s very popular.”
“That’s the Great Wilderness’ spiritual plants exhibition.”
“That is……”
“……”
Lin Mu introduced all the buildings along the way, and when they reached the now barren Marsh of Dreams, he said, “we left the Marsh of Dreams for you, so you can do whatever you want.”
This wasn’t the first time Nie Shen came face to face with a strange world.
When he first went to the Central Plains, he was as confused as he was right now.
But no one was with him at that time.
He glanced at Lin Mu, and then his eyes fell on the Marsh of Dreams’ original form.
Since he left and returned, thousands of years had passed.
The Marsh of Dreams’ fog had dissipated, and the water marsh had completely disappeared.
There were many overgrown weeds, and he couldn’t see the slightest trace of magnificence in his memories, or sense the slightest aura of the Shen.
Nie Shen stood in this vast expanse of wild grass, and his entire face showed complete confusion.
“You don’t have to decide what to do so quickly.” Lin Mu simply found a stone and sat down, took two packs of snacks out of his fabric bag and said, “you can take your time to think slowly. Don’t worry, have a snack first.”
Nie Shen looked at him with a startled expression, looked at the bag of fancy snacks, thought for a bit, and also learned from Lin Mu and sat on the ground, then tore open the snack bag.
He slowly took out a piece of meat from the snack bag, took a bite, and couldn’t tell what meat it was.
But he had no intention of asking, and just watched this flat wasteland with wild grass, and said, “I don’t know this place anymore.”
Lin Mu thought it was normal, “it’s been so long, and this is your house, we don’t feel good cleaning it up, so it became like how it is right now.”
Nie Shen thought for a bit, and felt that it was true.
Then he looked at the land which couldn’t be considered a marsh anymore, and didn’t know what he was clinging too.
This was true of everything in this world.
Pushed by time, even if you don’t want it to change, it would always change regardless of people’s wishes.
Rivers would dry up.
Plants would wither.
Life would pass.
Hardships and prosperity, in the end, would become a memory covered by layers and layers of heavy filters.
The resentful energy that had almost killed him was almost completely dissipated, and he had vented enough.
After that?
After, he should atone for this sin.
But after atoning?
He never knew what to do after he survived.
His mother was gone, the Marsh of Dreams was gone, and his object of hatred was gone.
Nie Shen slowly ate the snack in his hand, then squeezed the bag for a moment, causing crackling sounds.
After some time, Nie Shen looked towards Lin Mu and said, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Ah.” Lin Mu was holding the meat in his mouth, and paused for two seconds, “if you don’t know what to do, then just do what your mother did.”
Lin Mu understood this kind of confusion, since he had experienced it before.
When his mother had just died, and left him alone, he also didn’t know what he could do, or what he should do.
All of his previous efforts were to let his mother have a better and happier life, and when his mother was gone, his whole person became flustered.
Nie Shen was probably a little more confused compared to him.
“You should remember a lot of things, right? Try to remember what your mother did, or what she wanted to do, and keep on living. As long as you live on, happiness would come sooner or later.”
Lin Mu had become extremely open-minded over the years, “it’s hard for those who always think about the past to have a future.”
Whether it’s resentment or just pitying yourself, most of them would be things that trapped yourself.
Lin Mu laid lazily on the stone and basked in the sun, looked that the sky covered with a light reddish mist and said, “I’ve been so busy recently, that I haven’t seen the blue sky for a long time.”
Nie Shen heard his words and paused, flicked his fingers, and the light reddish mist of the sky quickly faded, leaving behind a clear blue sky.
“……” Lin Mu turned to look at Nie Shen, flipped over and got up, patted the grass off his body, “I’ll go and find a construction team to help you get rid of the grass here first, afterwards, you can do whatever you want to do.”
Nie Shen watched as Lin Mu walked away, carefully packed the snack bag in his hand, and turned to step into his grassy home.
After a thousand years.
In the Great Wilderness’ Marsh of Dreams that had long been dried up, once again, had a soft and misty fog.
The translator has this to add:
Happy Lunar New Year everyone! I’ll be extremely busy the next week or so, so updates will be more sporadic, but still happening.
Nie Shen heard his words and paused, flicked his fingers, and the light reddish mist of the sky quickly faded, leaving behind a clear blue sky.
Nie Shen is very lonely, because he has no more attachments in the world. I hope he could find his own Lin Mu like Yan Xuanjing did.
Both half monster babies are grown up ;w;
Welcome home Nie Shen :3
Thx for the ch \(≧▽≦)/
A (mostly) happy end! Thanks for the chapter! 🙂
Thanks for the update
Nie Sheeen TvT)/ baby you did well and to all of them gahd.. 700 years T.T
Thanks for the chapter!!~ 🙇🙇🙇 happy lunar new year to you too 🙇🙇
I love how everyone here got a happy ending. I feel at peace.