Osha was less than five years old when he met Mo Ying.

At that time, he was just like the little Sandman that Yisi and the others had seen dancing to the Thorny children on the other side of the barrier. He liked to spit and make faces at those "cold-blooded monsters" who always looked at them quietly.

, using all the language and behavior they have learned to perform all kinds of abuse and insults.

Adults will not stop them. Although they will no longer do such childish and useless things when they grow up, their resentment will only become stronger day by day in the difficult life.

But Thorny children usually don't react, as if they don't understand, or can't hear what they are scolding at all. Some little sand people will be more excited because of this, but Osha gradually feels a little bored.

His parents only have one child, and they raised him lively and healthy. He likes to drill around in the sandstone that has not been dug out. There are many large and small holes in it, which is very suitable for a little sand man.

adventure.

And Osha never gets lost—his sense of direction is astonishingly good among Sandlanders.

He found a small secret garden for himself at the junction of sandstone and barrier.

It was a shallow cave that was sunken inward, only big enough for him to lie on the ground alone. Opposite the cave, on the other side of the barrier, was a quiet and uninhabited grassland between tall trees.

This place should be a remote and hidden place on the other side of the barrier. No Thorny Man has ever appeared, so Osha regards it as his own garden.

So close, yet so far away.

At that time, he could not understand the longing and loss in his heart, but he liked staying here more and more, spending a long time, fascinated by how a wild flower went from budding to blooming.

Until one day, a thorny man suddenly appeared and ruined everything.

The Thorny Man was a slender girl, and she didn't seem to expect to see a little sandman here. After staring at each other for a while, Osha jumped up and cursed.

Because he felt that his territory was being invaded, he scolded him more harshly than ever before. He thought that the other party would have no reaction like other Thorny people, or would just leave and never show up again - this would be the best, but the one who was older than him at least had

After a moment of surprise, the ten-year-old Thorny put his hands on his hips and started scolding him unceremoniously.

Although their accents and vocabulary are slightly different, their languages ​​are actually similar.

Osha was scolded stupidly. His feeble words were no match for the other party's various quarrels. In the end, he even cried in embarrassment before finally getting the other party to shut up.

Osha went home crying and didn't mention the incident to anyone.

It took a while before he sneaked over again - he really couldn't bear to leave his little garden.

He thought that the thorny man would not come again, but the other party probably had the same idea.

As a result... their eyes met again.

After a long silence, Thorny Man, who was sitting on the grass reading a book, closed the book and straightened his back.

"Let's discuss it," she said, "about the... use time of this place. Or-"

She glanced at the little sandman.

"Are we going to decide the outcome the same way we did last time?"

She didn't seem to have the slightest pressure to bully children, and had a proud look on her face, "Don't blame me if you get scolded or cry."

Osha's cheeks puffed up and deflated with anger, and he finally had to compromise.

They made an "agreement". However, the two sides seemed to have different ways of calculating time. Occasionally they would still bump into each other, and no one would leave. Gradually, they could start to live in peace.

From peace without communication to simple communication beyond scolding.

The Thorny Girl loves to read books. The books she holds in her hands are always clean and tidy, and some are even very exquisite. They are completely different from the shabby books that the Sandlanders have passed around to each other countless times.

Osha is still jealous of this, jealous and resentful. But occasionally when the girl sees excitement, she can't help but share it with him. Those stories he has never heard before and the descriptions that are difficult to understand make him feel uneasy.

.The forbidden area listened with fascination.

She even used her magical abilities to perform little tricks for him.

In return, Osha would sometimes tell the girl about his life, and deliberately make those difficulties and dangers look like adventures, as easy and interesting as possible.

"Did you know?" One day the girl suddenly told him, "A long time ago, we, the Thorns and the Sandlanders, lived together without distinction."

O'Shea was eight years old at the time. He had heard this - from Gall.

"But," he said, "you betrayed us. You stole the power and vitality of this world, built yourself a paradise, and left us in the desert."

The girl was not angry.

"In our history books, in order to obtain enough energy to leave Sujia, the Sand people used the blood of Thorn people to refine blood stones, which almost wiped out our race... Our ancestors fled underground, where they found Sujia.

The tree seed left by God Jia, and praying to it with blood and tears, made the tree of life grow and give us eternal shelter."

She let out a long sigh before Osha angrily said that was a lie.

"I want to know which statement is true," she said, reaching out and touching the invisible barrier - it actually felt a bit like water, but was indestructible.

"But, with this in the middle... the 'truth' will only get further and further away from us. Because compared to survival, that is probably the least important thing."

The sadness and melancholy in her tone made the little sandman's anger inexplicably go away.

Osha began to think hazily about some issues that he had never considered before, some issues about the past and the future. But before he could think of anything, his parents died in a sandstorm with other settlements.

In human conflict.

This is really an ironic thing. Their biggest enemies are not outsiders - as long as they can give them enough benefits, outsiders have no interest in their lingering settlements, but other people who are about to survive

The people in the sand who can't go down, have been eyeing this land that still has some life.

With nowhere to vent his grief, Osha, four years later, once again cursed the Thorny Girl even more viciously than before.

The girl was extremely shocked, but she did not directly scold him like before. She listened quietly until she figured out what was going on from the unscrupulous curses from the people in Xiaoshadi, and then she left in silence.

Osha cried for a long time after she left, for her parents who could no longer go home... maybe also for something else.

He finally sobbed and fell asleep in the cave that was getting smaller and smaller for him and he could hardly squeeze in. When he woke up, he saw a bouquet of wild flowers lying quietly on the grass on the other side of the barrier.

He stared at the bouquet of flowers for a long time and left silently.

After that, he didn't go to that cave again for nearly two years. Now he has to support himself, even if he is only eight years old - eight years old, to the sand people, he can already learn to fight... and kill.

age.

His excellent sense of direction allows him to make some different choices. Gall and the others have been exploring the underground, trying to find a way into the barrier, and Osha's ability, in the absence of instruments, is exactly what they want.

needed.

The first time Osha discovered the crack in the ground, he did not go into it. He only stopped for a moment because of the dried blood there. But that time they made a more important discovery and ignored the dark traces.

In three generations and decades of exploration, Gower and the others discovered some rules about the blood tree, such as the period of weakness, such as the impact of the Thorny people's once-a-decade sacrifice on the blood tree - that will restore the weakened blood tree to life.

.

They know that destroying the sacrifice may weaken the blood tree and eventually destroy the barrier, but they have no way to interfere with the sacrifice on the other side of the barrier. They just discovered during the last sacrifice that the roots of the blood tree will not only spray out water during the sacrifice

...and some roots will have blood flowing out.

Not the sap of the blood tree, but real blood. The blood of the Thorn that can be condensed into blood stone.

When Oxia knew and figured this out, his blood ran cold.

He secretly ran underground, found the crack again, got in, pried off some condensed blood from the smooth surface, and brought it back to Goyle.

He got a definite answer - that is Thorny's blood.

But when Gall asked him where he had found them, he lied, as if by some strange coincidence.

He knew what their long-term efforts were for. The Sandlanders would do everything possible to stop the sacrifice, but that was not to save those Thorny people who might be used as sacrifices. Once they could enter the barrier, they might even kill all the Thorny people.

Kill them all, or keep them in captivity... and feed them to the tree.

There seems to be nothing wrong with this. They were originally mortal enemies. But...but...

He returned to the cave and went there many times before finally seeing the girl again.

He told her what they had discovered and asked her if she knew what the Thorn people's sacrifices were like.

He felt that he originally wanted to ridicule their "sacrifice", but he swallowed his words when he saw the girl's pale face.

"Is that really the case..." the girl murmured to herself.

Then her unfocused gaze returned to Osha.

"We had suspicions." She said, "...Thank you. If we can be sure...we will find a way to stop the sacrifice. Such a thing, no matter what the reason, should not happen."

Osha knew he shouldn't stop it. It would be best if the Thorn Man destroyed the sacrifice himself.

"But," he said, "if the barrier disappears..."

The Saudis will not let you go, no matter what you do.

"Maybe," he racked his brains, "maybe you can destroy the tree. Goyle said that if the blood tree is destroyed, everything may return to the past... Although the barrier will disappear, the vitality of the tree will also

Scattered throughout the earth, and you, you..."
Chapter completed!