Primal liquid!

The liquid that once ‘saved’ its life! The liquid that ‘changed’ its life!

Lao Sha knew what this was. There was no way it wouldn’t. This was the liquid it drunk when it was once an ‘ordinary’ dog!

The mysterious primal liquid!!

Somehow, this mysterious mountain had a body of primal liquid collected in it!

Lao Sha pounced at once towards this small crater and the primal liquid it held. Its tongue was already dripping with saliva—the memories of Lao Sha was reminding the dog of just how wonderful this liquid was. This liquid was without a doubt a powerful and most wonderful thing.

But then it paused before it could lap at the liquid. A thought occurred to the shar-pei. It turned around to look at Bai Yunfei… 

Lao Sha was faithful dog. It stood to good reason that this liquid be shared with its ‘master’, Bai Yunfei. It wasn’t as though the human could eat the tasty stones here in this cave, so the dog could at least have Bai Yunfei drink the liquid… 

“Hm? What is it?”

Bai Yunfei snapped out from his stupor from seeing how ravenous Lao Sha had been moments before. He saw how the dog was looking at him and then to the crater. It nodded its head several times at the crater as if to say: “Drink some…”

As confused as he was, Bai Yunfei stepped closer to the small hole where Lao Sha was. Kneeling down, he stared curiously at the liquid resting in it.

“Gulp…”

He swallowed. Bai Yunfei didn’t know why, but just staring at the liquid made him feel uncharacteristically curious—and thirsty. Something about this liquid was screaming for him to drink it. His mind was yelling at him as if to convince him this liquid was something good. Something that had to be taken in as soon as possible!!

It wasn’t just his mind that was screaming for the liquid. His eyes were practically glued to it and his hands were already starting to reach out for the beautifully transparent primal liquid… 

He couldn’t resist the commands his mind was giving his body. His head dipped down closer to his hands as he cupped a small portion of the liquid into them for him to sip… 

From the palm of his hands to the interior of his lips, the liquid rushed down his throat and into his body where it immediately circulated throughout the rest of his body. It felt like his entire body had been touched by the liquid he had just swallowed.

His hands dropped to the side of his body. Bai Yunfei was no longer aware of his surroundings as the sensation of taking in the primal liquid seized control of his mind… 

His body began to tremble and shake. Tottering, Bai Yunfei swayed unsteadily where he was before he…fell to the ground.

Lao Sha yelped at once and moved to see what was the matter with Bai Yunfei; then it stopped. Lao Sha remembered falling asleep once before when it drank the primal liquid. Bai Yunfei wasn’t in any danger.

Now that it knew Bai Yunfei wasn’t in any danger, the dog looked back to the pool of liquid they were next to. It dipped its head to lap at the remaining liquid in the crater and quickly drank it all up. There wasn’t anything stopping it from doing so now.

“Aoooo….”

It let out one final howl before falling body first onto the ground next to Bai Yunfei… 

Within this cavern of orange light, the human and dog laid there on the ground and slept.

———————

Fog covered the entire place. Nothing else but a series of blurry images could be seen within this fog, though a faint murmur of non-distinctive noise could be heard. 

The body felt comfortable as it was. It felt like it was in a dream-like state with only the occasional gust of wind to blow across the place… 

The first perspective was starting to take shape now. It was a rather narrow sight like the crack between the curtains in a window, but it was still enough to see. Behind this ‘crack’ was an elegant and gentle figure hugging ‘oneself’ into her arms and whispering softly into the ears. Whatever this person looked like, however, had yet to be seen.

The perspective changed. Disappearing into the mist, it blended away with the whiteness before taking on the shape of a kindly-looking old man… 

Again, the scene changed. One by one, the scenes were starting to take the form of several places that seemed familiar, but none that could have a name placed onto it. Some of these scenes were changing so quickly that it seemed almost impossible to keep up with, like trying to count the individual droplets of water when it rained.

None of the scenes had either the woman nor old man from earlier now. They were long gone, and the scenes were now filled with a series of unfamiliar and ‘cold’ figures. Sometimes, there was no one but the very picture of loneliness… 

The scenes with no one there were now more common than the ones with someone. Day and night could be counted one after another with how the lighting in these scenes changed before finally one more scene of a dark alleyway appeared. A person was walking down the alleyway by themselves.

“Compared to before, my body’s a lot stronger now. If I can just carry a few more sacks of rice every day, I should be able to earn a few more coins and repair mom’s and grandpa’s graves….”

Words could finally be heard for the first time these scenes started to play. It seemed like someone was talking to themselves.

Then came a stab of pain from the ‘back’ of one’s ‘head’. Something was attempting to drill into oneself. The scene then disappeared into the darkness.

Then the oneself stopped thinking… 

“Ah!!!”

Bai Yunfei bolted upright as he woke up from his dream.

“I…I…”

He sat up. Feeling a little hazy, Bai Yunfei noted that his entire body was slick with sweat. Feeling something wet around his eyes, Bai Yunfei raised a hand to wipe it.

He was surprised to see that it wasn’t just sweat that he wiped, there were tears as well.

“Why was I crying?”

It was a rhetorical question. If he didn’t know why he was crying, who else would be able to answer that?

“Oh! I was ‘dreaming’!!” Bai Yunfei jolted as he ‘remembered’ the dream he just had!

The things he saw in his dream seemed familiar; he saw those scenes before! He just couldn’t remember then when he woke up the first time, but they were definitely familiar to him now!

Fearful that he would forget about the scenes a second time, Bai Yunfei concentrated as hard as he could to think about them. He was nervous. At last another clue to who he was had appeared!

“I…I think those were ‘memories’ of someone growing up? Were…were those my own memories then?!

“But…it still doesn’t tell me the most important thing!!”

Bai Yunfei clutched at his head in frustration. Those memories definitely felt familiar to him, but it was lacking in a detail most crucial to him. Without being able to ‘identify’ who the person was, there was no way to know if these were even his memories. He had no idea who those two people were or what his name even was… 

“Am…am I really Tang Long?”

Another question popped up in his mind. The disparity in the scenes he saw was making him doubt things now. He had memories of two different worlds, so to speak, and the memories he related to ‘Tang Long’ seemed almost foreign to him now. These newer memories felt more ‘true’ to him.

“If I’m not ‘Tang Long’, then…what even is my name?”

His hand ran through his hair. The pain in his head was making things hard for him to think. He was feeling dejected now that he had even more things to ponder about.

“Aooo…”

A deep growl arose from the ground next to Bai Yunfei and snapped him out from his train of thoughts.

His body trembled once as he realized where he was. Looking down, Bai Yunfei saw that Lao Sha was steadily rising back up to its feet.

“Lao Sha?”

Blinking, Bai Yunfei looked around himself and then to the now-empty crater in front of him.

“Was…was this all because I drank that strange liquid!?”

He didn’t remember the reason why he had so easily succ.u.mbed to the desire of drinking the liquid, but the loss of control when he did scared him. He took a moment to look over his own body to see if anything was wrong.

Upon seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he sighed in relief.

“What…what is this thing?”

He looked to Lao Sha as if expecting an answer, but he knew there was no way the dog would be able to.

Bai Yunfei sat there in the cave for a while. He didn’t know what to even do but wait for an answer to come to him. When none did, Bai Yunfei gave up and stood up. If he couldn’t find an answer, then there wasn’t a point sticking around here. It was best that he return to the village as soon as possible.

“Let’s go, Lao Sha.”

When he called out to the shar-pei, Bai Yunfei noticed that the dog had been right next to the walls and staring at the glowing stones. The dog looked reluctant to leave the place and the look it was giving him told Bai Yunfei all he needed to know. The dog wanted him to take these stones with them.

“Hm…” Bai Yunfei fell into another confused stupor as he tried to figure out the way why Lao Sha was like this.

“You want me to bring this with us? Well…I guess I can bring a few, but I probably won’t be able to bring back a lot of them…”

He knew these stones were strange, it was probably worth a try bringing back a few of them to ask if anyone knew anything about them. Stripping the outer layer of his robes, Bai Yunfei walked up to the walls to try and excavate a few of the stones.

But when his hand touched upon a fist-sized stone…

A never-before-seen notification suddenly popped into his head the moment as he touched it!