Chenzhou Bridge was built in the previous dynasty, a wooden and stone structure with eleven arches and twelve piers. It was heavily renovated a few years ago, with bridge houses added to the surface, forming a covered bridge.

The outside of the covered bridge is painted red, and the inside has long benches on both sides for pedestrians to sit on.

The flower girl sat on one of the benches, resting her feet.

In her bamboo flower basket, there were only one or two flowers left, still dewed with moisture. It seemed that with the Qixi Festival approaching, she had managed to sell quite a few.

One copper coin, two copper coins...

Her fingers, tucked into her sleeves, gently fiddled with the coins in her purse, careful not to make any crisp sounds.

The flower girl breathed a sigh of relief, tightened her purse,

Turned slightly to the side, rested her hands on the railings of the covered bridge seat, and looked at the quiet flowing river below the bridge, her face showing a warm, happy, and satisfied smile, like a weasel that had stolen a chicken.

Calculating it, she had finally saved a little money.

Well, today she would buy half a portion of roast duck for her younger brother and sister. They had been clamoring to eat it for a long time.

She could also buy her mother a portion of Liufangzhai's osmanthus cake—her father used to buy it when he was still around. It was so sweet, just a little sticky.

Hmm... she also had to thank Daoist Luo. He helped them find a place to stay and cured her mother's old illness. She really didn't know how to thank him enough...

Thinking of Luo Siyuan's smile,

The flower girl inexplicably felt her face burning.

She turned around, lowered her head slightly to hide the temperature on her face, and hugged the flower basket back into her arms, her feet gently swaying back and forth.

"You're here."

A low, hoarse male voice sounded next to the flower girl.

She subconsciously turned her head and saw a young man dressed as a fortune teller, speaking in a deep voice to the middle-aged man sitting next to him while holding a banner.

The fortune teller, or rather, Li Ang, said indifferently to Wanli Fengdao, "Thirty seconds later than planned."

"There was a slight delay on the way."

Wanli Fengdao exhaled a mouthful of stale air and said in a low voice, "Old Xing went upstream to disperse the civilians on both sides of the river. Miss Liu is already on standby on the city wall. Now, we're just waiting for them to come."

Disperse the civilians?

The flower girl was a little puzzled. She glanced at the two men's attire out of the corner of her eye. They didn't look like government officials. Could they be Jinyiwei in plain clothes from the Wu De Guard?

Eavesdropping on people's conversations was not a good habit, especially eavesdropping on two suspicious individuals.

If the content of the conversation involved secrets, it could lead to death.

The flower girl's heart skipped a beat. She stopped swaying her legs, her expression was calm, and she silently gripped the flower basket, ready to get up and leave naturally as if she had rested enough.

Wanli Fengdao sat on the long bench of the covered bridge, leaned back, rested his arm on the railing, and crossed his legs, as if there was no one else around, lazily sighing, "So much like..."

Li Ang casually asked, "Like what?"

"Like reality."

Wanli Fengdao nodded his chin towards the passersby in the covered bridge and said lightly, "Peddlers, scholars, young ladies, children, old people,

Everyone in this world has their own joys, sorrows, and angers. It's too vivid and alive."

Li Ang poked the banner. "Weren't the previous scripts like this too?"

"This time is different,"

Wanli Fengdao shook his head. "The previous scripts were either a complete world in themselves,

Or a narrow space with invisible barriers that you couldn't get out of.

Unlike this time, it's just a simple dream.

It gives me a strange feeling. I always feel a bit of inexplicable fear."

"Are you worried that the real world might also be a dream of some higher-dimensional being?"

Li Ang grinned indifferently. "There's nothing to worry about. It's just that fools are troubling themselves.

Anyway, you can't prove that you're not a brain in a vat—this paradox itself can be infinitely nested.

What's more, even if reality is really a dream or an alien reality show,

You're probably just an insignificant extra outside the camera,

You won't be subjected to mental manipulation."

Wanli Fengdao raised an eyebrow. "Why do I have to be an extra?"

"Do you think your life is so interesting that it can be the main character?"

Li Ang calmly asked, "I don't think there are any higher-dimensional beings

Who would like to stare at a rough man who doesn't wash his hair for two or three days, doesn't change his underwear for a week, only orders takeout for meals, and lies on the sofa picking his feet and smelling his fingers when he has nothing to do?"

Wanli Fengdao opened his mouth, his face showing the classic expression of "Although I'm very upset, I can't find any reason to refute it."

Li Ang smiled casually, raised his head, seemingly looking at the sky through the arch of the covered bridge, "Alright, they're here."

He put down the banner and cracked his knuckles.

Under the flower girl's curious gaze, he took out a black cloak from the void and put it on.

The sneaky-looking man next to him (Wanli Fengdao's eyelids twitched) took a deep breath and silently drew the long sword from his waist.

His act of drawing the sword immediately caused the surrounding pedestrians to scream.

Wanli Fengdao ignored the gazes of the civilians on both sides, stood in the middle of the bridge, gripped the hilt of his sword, and stared at the river in front of him.

What was he looking at?

The flower girl carried her basket and retreated with the panicked crowd, but a question arose in her mind.

Then, she knew the answer to the question.

Buzz—

A slight tremor came from the far end of the river.

It was like a herd of ten thousand horses, forming a single unit, treading on the river,

Or like rolling thunder, transmitting its sound along the water's surface.

"What is that!"

Someone on the bridge shouted in surprise, only to see a layer of darkness floating on the distant river.

The darkness flowed along the river, wriggling up and down.

Even just looking at it from a distance, one could feel an extremely strong visual impact, and a sense of discomfort arose from the internal organs.

"That is..."

The flower girl couldn't help but shiver.

As the distance closed, the blackness on the river became higher and higher, thicker and thicker,

Like constantly rising waves,

Taller than the spires and buildings on both sides of the river.

The people on the bridge finally saw clearly what was on the river—

It was an endless stream of faceless, legless, jet-black human-faced tadpoles.

They were densely packed on the surface of the water, squeezed together, unconsciously waving their arms, rising and falling with the current.

"Wah!"

The human-faced tadpoles slapped the river and each other, smelling the rich scent of living people on the shore, and issued sharp infant cries.

All the sounds were superimposed together, soaring into the sky, deafening, overwhelming the screams and cries of the mortals on both banks of the river.

Blood, life, soul, slaughter,

The tadpole monsters couldn't suppress the throbbing in the depths of their souls, trampling on each other, waiting for the tide to fall, slamming them heavily onto the shore, to massacre the terrified and helpless people of Chenzhou.

"I have to say, it's truly spectacular."

Wanli Fengdao sincerely sighed, his lazy eyes instantly becoming incomparably sharp.

He raised the long sword in his hand, cutting open the eaves of the covered bridge, stepped on the railing, and plunged down towards the river.

He did not crash into the river.

At the moment of plunging into the water, a platform composed of green vines rose from the slightly turbid bottom of the Ling River, steadily carrying him.

"It's been too long since I drew my sword to cut something,"

Wanli Fengdao slowly straightened up, gripped the hilt of the sword, and pointed the blade flat towards the vast waves in front of him, his expression stern, and muttered, "I'm about to forget that I'm a swordsman..."