Chapter 14: Different Monsters

After some searching, Lu Mian found quite a few gold, silver, and copper coins, totaling 197 Felkins and 25 Kopeks.

Among them, there were five gold Louis alone.

As for paper banknotes, he only found some suspected remains.

Besides money, Lu Mian also dug out a small blue book.

This book had a gray-blue cover, was 16mo in size, and was widely present in Intis villages and towns.

Based on a calendar, it integrated almanacs and the religious doctrines of the two major churches, playing a quite positive role in guiding farmers and herdsmen in farming, production, and grazing, as well as enriching their spiritual lives.

Of course, even nearly two hundred years after Emperor Roselle advocated for compulsory education, there were still a large number of farmers, herdsmen, and workers who didn't recognize many words and remained illiterate. They could only rely on the explanations of certain people around them to get the hints they wanted from the small blue book.

Lu Mian flipped through a few pages casually and found that this small blue book was no different from the one in his own home, only that it looked a bit older overall.

"With a small blue book and so many Felkins, this family definitely belonged to the well-off kind in the countryside. There wouldn't be more than five similar families in Cordu Village..." Lu Mian threw away the small blue book and sorted the gold, silver, and copper coins into different pockets—some hidden deep in the pocket of the cotton coat he wore underneath, some placed in his trouser pockets, and some stuffed casually into the pockets of his leather jacket.

Although Lu Mian knew these coins couldn't be brought into reality, he still couldn't help but collect and save them.

These little things, whether gold, silver, or copper-colored, always made it impossible for him to look away.

In his past wandering life, he cherished even a single Kopek or Rick copper coin, often fighting others for them and taking risks to do certain things.

Looking around, Lu Mian picked up the axe and sneaked toward the collapsed building closer to that reddish-brown mountain peak.

He delved deeper bit by bit, his heart pounding every time he passed through the empty area in the middle of the ring, fearing that dozens of monsters would suddenly surge out and surround him in a place with no cover.

Within the faint gray fog, Lu Mian hunched his back and came behind a half-collapsed stone wall, squatting there to hide his figure.

He carefully poked his head out and looked forward.

That was a narrow strip of land between two rows of destroyed buildings, with no trees, no weeds, only rubble, cracks, and dirt.

Suddenly, a figure leaped into Lu Mian's eyes.

"He" was standing in the building opposite, staring at something unknown.

This figure wore a black robe with a hood, and there was nothing weird about his back; he looked just like an ordinary human.

Lu Mian's heart tightened, and he became even more vigilant.

In such a dream ruin, the appearance of a normal person was far more terrifying than the appearance of a monster!

Seeming to sense someone watching him, the figure turned around slowly.

Lu Mian glanced quickly, hurriedly pulled his head back, leaned against the wall, and didn't dare to move at all.

Just from that one glance, he had the illusion that he had arrived in hell or the abyss.

That figure was indeed a person, but "he" had three faces and six eyes!

The face in the front had murky eyes, sparse eyebrows, and many wrinkles; he was clearly an old man.

The left side had distinct features, bright blue eyes, and thick, dark black whiskers, looking like a strong man.

The right side had smooth, delicate skin, like a peeled egg, and a pair of azure eyes filled with obvious innocence and ignorance; one look and you could tell he was no more than five years old.

"What kind of monster is this..." Lu Mian tried hard to control his breathing, not letting his heart race wildly.

Even in Aurora's horror stories, such a monster had never appeared; only in the deepest, darkest, and most absurd nightmares could one encounter it.

Although it wasn't good to judge a "person" by their appearance, just from this look, Lu Mian intuitively felt that the three-faced monster was far more powerful than the skinless monster from before!

Moreover, it very likely possessed supernatural powers.

"Eternal Blazing Sun, great Father, please protect me from being discovered by it..." In such a situation, the nominal believer Lu Mian couldn't help but pray to the "Eternal Blazing Sun."

If not for the fact that one of his hands was still holding an axe and the environment was perilous, he would have spread his arms and made the "Praise the Sun" gesture.

At this moment, time seemed to freeze, and Lu Mian thought he might be hallucinating:

It seemed as if a gaze had penetrated the wall and landed on his back.

His back instantly stiffened, and it felt vaguely scorching.

In just a second or two, the hallucination disappeared, and heavy footsteps moved toward the distance.

Lu Mian waited for a while longer until the footsteps completely vanished before slowly straightening his knees, turning his body, poking his head out, and looking forward.

The monster was further away, behind the building that was intact on both sides but collapsed in the middle, revealing half its body in the faint gray fog.

"He" was still facing away from Lu Mian, as if he had turned into a statue.

Lu Mian quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

Facing this kind of monster, he didn't have any confidence at all.

"Going deep into the ruins directly from here is definitely not going to work... Go around?

"Are there no similar monsters in other places?

"The closer I get to that mountain peak, the more powerful the monsters that appear?"

Lu Mian pulled his body back, thought for a while, and decided to end it for tonight.

He planned to ask the woman who gave him the Tarot card after dawn to see if there was any way to deal with the three-faced monster. If that really didn't work, he would consider taking a detour.

He hunched his back, left the wall, and headed toward where he came from.

At this time, he had an idea:

"If I fall asleep in these ruins, will I also be able to leave the dream?"

Considering the many monsters around, he temporarily suppressed the urge to try.

On the way back, he quickly searched every destroyed building he passed, but found no useful written information, and even the coins were only a few.

After retreating for a while, Lu Mian thought about it and decided to take a slight detour, approaching from the side the burned-down house he had arrived at first—the place where he had buried the skinless monster.

He wanted to observe whether the death of that monster would be sensed by its kind and whether it would lead to any changes.

Finding the location and hiding his body, Lu Mian poked his head out from the side and looked toward the target area.

The next second, he saw another "figure."

That figure was half-human, half-beast, with its legs folded forward, squatting there and examining the skinless monster's corpse.

It had already moved the bricks and wood Lu Mian had piled on top.

It was wearing a dark jacket and relatively tight, muddy trousers, with messy, greasy black hair draped to its neck, and a hunting rifle strapped to its back.

A hunting rifle!

Lu Mian hurriedly shifted his gaze and pulled his head back.

"These monsters are truly outrageous!

"They even know how to use hunting rifles..."

At this moment, Lu Mian had a sense of absurdity, disillusionment, and loss, as if he were a hunter who had gone up the mountain with weapons and partners to hunt, only to find that the rabbit opposite was setting up a water-cooled machine gun and aiming at him and the others.

Time ticked by, and he waited patiently for the monster with the hunting rifle to leave.

Finally, he heard a slight sound, which gradually moved away.

Lu Mian carefully poked his head out again and looked at the half-human, half-beast monster.

"It" was moving in the posture of a cat, heading toward the back of the building.

Lu Mian first let go of the heart that had been hanging, and then his eyes widened.

He discovered that the path the monster was taking completely overlapped with the route he had taken when he went deep into the ruins earlier!

"It's tracking me!

"It has a very strong tracking ability that surpasses the normal!"

Lu Mian subconsciously made a judgment.

He was incredibly glad that he had a sudden whim on his way back and took a detour; otherwise, he would definitely have bumped into it, or even been ambushed!

As soon as the monster's figure disappeared, Lu Mian quickly got up and ran wildly toward his home.

The crimson stove fire reflecting on the glass windows on the ground floor of that building was like sunlight that could dispel the darkness.

Lu Mian ran all the way to the outside of his two-story building, pulled open the slightly ajar door, and rushed in.

After locking the door, he looked toward the ruins through the window.

In the distance of the gray fog, at the edge of the ruins, a figure was vaguely standing, but it didn't approach this side.

Phew, Lu Mian exhaled, preparing to extinguish the stove fire, go upstairs to sleep, and leave the dream.

He glanced at the still-burning stove fire and muttered in his heart:

"It can still burn for quite a while...

"I can experiment to see if it continues to burn until it goes out after I leave the dream, or if it freezes at the moment I leave..."

Lu Mian had already confirmed through the rain that the wilderness where the ruins were located presented a state of natural development, which had nothing to do with whether he was dreaming or not. But whether the same situation applied inside his own house, in the so-called safe zone, remained to be verified.

He did as he thought, added a few more pieces of coal to the stove fire, poked it, and then picked up the axe and steel fork to go to the second floor and enter the bedroom.

…………

When Lu Mian woke up, the sky was just beginning to brighten.

He checked his shirt-like pajamas and, unsurprisingly, discovered with some disappointment that those gold, silver, and copper coins hadn't followed him into reality.

Rolling out of bed and stretching his body, Lu Mian walked to the desk and reached out to pull open the curtains.

With a screeching sound, soft and clear light flowed in.

And as the window opened, fresh, natural air drilled into Lu Mian's nostrils, making him unable to help but stretch, feeling that waking up early was sometimes quite wonderful.

Of course, this was also thanks to the "Patriotic Health Movement" strongly promoted by Emperor Roselle. Even if the impact on the countryside wasn't too great, it had ultimately brought about some improvement—at least feces had become a treasure and weren't everywhere. He was also grateful to the later rulers who kept it, just under a different name.

His gaze wandered around, sometimes looking at the distant mountains and forests, sometimes gazing at the orange-red clouds on the horizon, and sometimes observing the weeds outside the house.

Suddenly, Lu Mian's gaze froze.

He saw a relatively large bird perched on an elm tree not far away.

The bird had a sharp beak, a cat-like face, and fine spots scattered on its brown feathers. Its brownish-yellow whites paired with black pupils looked very bright.

This was an owl.

It seemed to be looking at Lu Mian.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 15 =====