On the bronze tree, Wu Tianzhen was saved by Zhang Qiling, who descended like a divine soldier in a moment of crisis!
The Black Gold Ancient Saber pierced through Li Wang's skull. The moment it was pulled out and shaken to flick away the blood, the blade's energy had already passed, cleanly severing the withered blood vessels connecting Li Wang's head and body.
Deep within Snowman Peak, with no more Man-Faced Strange Bulls to offer themselves up, Li Wang could only retreat with regret, forfeiting his unknown nth chance to open his eyes.
The aura of Qilin's blood spread, and the emerging one-eyed worms vanished without a trace.
Before Wu Tianzhen could catch his breath, he noticed this anomaly. He had just supervised Zhang Qiling wrapping his hand tightly, ensuring not a drop of blood was exposed, so why was the smell of blood still so strong?!
Upon closer inspection, he indeed found that the bandages on Zhang Qiling's left hand were gone. Fresh-looking wounds lay on his palm, crossing over old scars, slowly bleeding.
Wu Tianzhen: ?!!!
"No, what exactly were you doing just now?" He scurried a few steps to Zhang Qiling's front, pulling out bandages while questioning him. But as he spoke, he realized something was amiss.
"Wait..." He continued bandaging, but his voice was filled with deep confusion.
"Weren't you going down the sewer to be Mario?"
"How come your clothes are still dry after coming back?"
Zhang Qiling, facing this question, slowly lowered his head to look at himself. His calm, watery eyes also showed a hint of bewilderment.
He seemed to ponder for a moment but couldn't recall what he had experienced. Finally, he just shook his head slightly.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?! You—" Wu Tianzhen was about to continue questioning when he suddenly heard a dull explosion from the pool below. For a moment, he thought the pool had exploded, but looking down, a huge, turbulent vortex had appeared on the calm water surface.
...This meant the sewer was cleared?
But...
He looked again at the innocent-looking Zhang Qiling and asked hesitantly, "Little Brother, did you also set up a delayed outlet for the clearing?"
Although the idea was bizarre, if not for this, why would the sewer only be cleared long after Zhang Qiling had returned?
Just then, Fatty shuffled over from a nearby branch, catching sight of Zhang Qiling lowering his head in silence for a long time, then looking up to say "I don't know" again.
Wu Tianzhen and Fatty exchanged glances, their expressions turning increasingly panicked.
...Did Little Brother go down, take a turn, and then completely lose his memory?!
With their excellent interpretive skills, they could easily tell that although Zhang Qiling still had a blank expression, his pupils were indeed widening in shock. Fatty quickly stepped forward and patted his hood.
"It's okay, Little Brother, this is nothing!" he said reassuringly, then paused and asked cautiously:
"Uh, Little Brother, what do you remember?"
Zhang Qiling opened his mouth hesitantly, "I remember going into the water pool..."
"There were monkeys in the water..."
Wu Tianzhen and Fatty craned their necks, expecting the water monkey to become the protagonist of the story, but Zhang Qiling's voice suddenly stopped, and he simply ceased speaking!
"Uh..." Wu Tianzhen tried to prompt him, "And then? Is that all?"
Zhang Qiling nodded, indicating that his last memory was of the flailing water monkey.
"Good heavens, truly a knife slicing the butt—it opened my eyes!" Fatty exclaimed, patting the trunk of the bronze tree beside him.
"Why does this tree have more and more outlandish operations? Fatty really doesn't understand. It's like a toad sleeping on a frog; ugly but plays fancy!"
"Alright Fatty, stop showing off your allegorical saying skills," Wu Tianzhen said, his mind in turmoil.
Fatty, unaware of Wu Tianzhen's thoughts, was in a good mood because he only cared about Zhang Qiling's safety. Seeing Little Zhang standing there intact, he felt everything was going smoothly.
But Wu Tianzhen was different.
This difference wasn't because he didn't care about Zhang Qiling's safety.
It was because...
Only he knew that in that moment of crisis, he had thought of some wild and nonsensical things!!!
Thinking about it carefully, Zhang Qiling's appearance seemed too coincidental...
If the basis of the bronze tree's materialization was a person's subconscious, then if he had accidentally materialized a Little Brother in his panic, that Little Brother's entire composition would have come from his true impression of Zhang Qiling!
This meant...
His clothes were dry because Wu Tianzhen's primary impression was still of Zhang Qiling's sharp and proper demeanor.
And his hands were covered in fresh wounds without bandages because, in Wu Tianzhen's impression, he was someone who constantly self-harmed and didn't take care of himself.
And his lack of memory underwater was because when Wu Tianzhen materialized him, he had just reached the part about seeing the monkey!!
Wu Tianzhen: ...Suddenly everything made sense, but I'm so flustered.
He looked over, wanting to say something but hesitating. The oblivious Fatty had already started chatting with (Zhang Qiling), putting an arm around him and boasting about taking him to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor specializing in memory loss once they got out.
The (Zhang Qiling) listened attentively with a hint of disdain, exactly as Wu Tianzhen remembered.
Wu Tianzhen couldn't say anything at all. Honestly, he might have suspected all along that the people materialized by the bronze tree were not normal beings, possessing an inherent malevolence.
But if something like this happened to Zhang Qiling, he couldn't bring himself to doubt it.
This materialized Little Brother came entirely from his subconscious. If that were the case, he only needed to worry about (Zhang Qiling) playing himself to death due to excessive self-sacrifice, and not about any danger from him.
And even if we take a step back...
Honestly, looking at (Zhang Qiling), Wu Tianzhen couldn't bring himself to say, "You are a fake."
Zhang Qiling's past was a mystery. He and Fatty had privately speculated that he might have had some unpleasant experiences.
Although it sounded like bragging and being thick-skinned, both he and Fatty knew they had become important people to Zhang Qiling.
Under such circumstances, if he were to say that to the oblivious (Zhang Qiling), he didn't know what (Zhang Qiling) would think.
...It's better to wait for the real Little Brother to return.
Wu Tianzhen could only put the matter aside for now, but he didn't know that the real Little Zhang was about to bravely embark on the path of becoming a zoo director.