For example, when the weather was like this at the beginning, Yamabuki Otome, who had just arrived at the shrine, would lean against the window, look at the sky with a sad face without saying a word until it cleared up, and occasionally sing a few Japanese songs in a low voice, which was also full of melancholy.
mood.
However, now she can smile and say that she wants to experience different feelings.
Qiao Xi was very happy to see her change.
——Originally, there is nothing that cannot be solved.
Even if you can't solve it now, time will always give you the best and most appropriate result.
And it just so happens that as non-human beings, time is the least important thing to them.
While thinking about various things in her mind, Qiao Xi smiled and dug out her sleeves, and took out a palm-sized boat.
It is said to be a small boat, but it is actually more like a simple raft - a miniature one.
He threw the small raft onto the water, and the raft gradually grew larger under the eyes of the two people, until it reached the size commonly used by humans before stopping.
——Although using a raft on the sea sounds like a suicide attempt, they are not real humans. They are just doing it as a formality. It is impossible to really cross the sea relying on this raft.
Yamabuki Otome looked at the raft floating with the waves in front of her with surprise and novelty, and exclaimed: "Is this the legendary ship used by humans? Human beings are indeed a kind of existence full of imagination."
Qiao Xi jumped onto the raft, stood on the shore and stretched out her hand towards Yamabuki Otome. Hearing her emotion like this, she couldn't help but laugh:
"Although human beings are indeed beings full of imagination, this is not a real ship."
"Eh?"
Yamabuki Otome smoothly held Qiao Xi's hand and jumped onto the raft. When she heard this, her eyes widened and she asked in surprise: "Really?"
Qiao Xi smiled and nodded: "Really!"
As he spoke, he raised his eyes and looked around. He originally wanted to find a large fishing boat used by humans to give his divine envoy a long view, but after looking around, he saw nothing.
He tilted his head in confusion: "Hey~ Why can't I see a single ship? It can't be such a coincidence that all the ships nearby have gone to sea."
When Yamabuki Otome heard what Qiao Xi said, she couldn't help but look around. After finding nothing, she couldn't help but make a guess:
"Maybe they came back late today."
Qiao Xi tilted her head and thought for a while, then said, "You're right. I heard that humans often go to sea for dozens of days to two or three months. Maybe we can meet on the sea. In this way-"
Qiao Xi said in her mouth but did not stop moving her hands. She put a paddle in Yamabuki Otome's hand and took one herself, gesturing for her to imitate her actions.
Yamabuki Otome touched the oar for the first time, and it felt very novel. After a while, the raft started to spin a few times on the water and it already took shape.
Just as they were preparing to set off, a series of calls suddenly sounded from the distant coast.
"Hey-hey-wait-wait-"
Qiao Xi stopped and looked in the direction of the sound, and saw a boy in his teens and a half jumping across the rocks and running over.
Not long after, the young man ran up to them, held up his knees and took a few breaths before looking up at Qiao Xi and Yamabuki Otome.
The moment he saw the two people, the young man was obviously stunned for a moment, his pupils shrank slightly, and the original anxiety in his eyes was suddenly tainted with a hint of fear:
"Well, you, are you going to go to sea?"
Qiao Xi did not miss the boy's emotional change for a moment, but she just replied calmly: "Yes. What can I do?"
The young man bit his lip and opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. He looked a little entangled. Qiao Xi was very patient and did not rush him. She just smiled and waited for him to sort out his emotions.
After a while, perhaps his overeagerness overcame his fear, or perhaps it was because the aura on Qiao Xi's body could easily make people feel trustful. The young man mustered up his courage and gritted his teeth and said, "Are you - are you monsters?"
Qiao Xi was so amused by the boy's frankness that she couldn't help but laugh: "Is there any other way to ask directly like this?"
He smiled and touched his chin, stared into the boy's eyes with interest, and asked: "So - so what if it is? What if it is not?"
When he said these words, the various emotions that flashed through the young man's eyes were so interesting that he couldn't help but laugh loudly "Hahaha".
Yamabuki Otome couldn't help but shouted helplessly: "Sir."
The young man was stunned by his laughter for a few seconds, and then he realized that he was not angry, but relaxed.
——He probably thought that someone who could joke like this must not be a monster.
Even if it is, it's not a harmful monster.
"Well, if you want to go to sea, can you take me with you?"
Qiao Xi stopped laughing and turned to look at Yamabuki Otome.
It was about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun was very strong. He thought for a moment and jumped off the raft, and the three of them sat down behind the shady rocks.
Qiao Xi took out her onmyoji's vest again, so the young man repeated his request with some excitement and apprehension, and told the reason why he made such a request.
"In nearly half a year, more than thirty people have been hidden here."
The coastal villages have always made a living from fishing. Although technology has advanced somewhat these days, it is too remote here. They have only heard of steam fishing boats being built, but they have never seen it with their own eyes.
One time, when a passing tourist mentioned various scenes on the other side of the sea, several young people who were eager to change followed the tourist out to the sea.
——At first, everyone else was waiting for them to come back with a mixture of expectation and hopelessness, and occasionally there would be some cynicism.
But this wait took a long time.
One year, two years.
Everyone felt that they had probably disappeared into the sea - after all, sometimes this sea is really not a good-tempered one.
It wasn't until the fifth year that the young men who went to sea with the travelers came back.
Six people left, but only one came back.
That man came back on a nearly rotten ship. When he got off the ship, no one even believed that he was one of the young men who went to sea five years ago.
The shape of the ship was no different from when it went out to sea, but the ship that came back looked as if it had been eroded by decades and nearly a hundred years, and then an old man with white hair came out of the boat tremblingly on crutches.
When we got off the boat, we talked about the fantastic, strange, and terrifying stories that happened at sea.