"Besides you, are there any other creatures here?"
"Many, but I haven’t been able to see them since I got stuck here. I recognized you because an ant can’t stay still for so long without moving. It’s just abnormal, which is why I guessed that you must also be some transformed creature."
Lu Yin looked at the leaf. "Some creature? So you know of more than one species that’s come in here?"
"I do. I even spoke with them, but ever since I was stuck here, I haven’t been able to see anyone again," the leaf lamented.
The leaf had spoken with many creatures, but it had likely not met any humans. If it had, it would not be ignorant of the word “people.” Actually, it would be more accurate to say that it had not met any creatures that were aware of humanity.
Che had mentioned throwing many different creatures into the city. Perhaps the creature which had transformed into a leaf was one of them.
For Che, it had only been an experiment, but for this leaf, it was endless torment.
Lu Yin could never forget that Che was also someone who had exterminated cosmic civilizations. He might be polite and speak about returning Manifest City to humanity, but that did not mean that he was merciful.
There were no truly merciful creatures in the cosmos.
That thought suddenly reminded Lu Yin of the master of the Willbound Spire. That being yearned for truth, goodness, and beauty. Could they be merciful?
He did not follow that thought further. He also did not rush to save the leaf. He could still hear the vendor’s conversations from his new position, so he would wait until he confirmed the location of the gate.
"By the way, do you know where the city gate is?"
"I think so..."
"That’s enough," Lu Yin cut it off. It thinks so? That won’t do.
He had the body of an ant. If he ran far enough to find the gate, only to learn that he had gone the wrong way, it would mean crossing the entire city for nothing. Who knew how many dangers he would have to face or how much time he would waste? Listening was safer.
During this time, he was not idle. He began chewing through the bamboo. Once it broke, the leaf would be freed. The leaf said many things, but Lu Yin had no way to take it with him. An ant carrying a leaf would be too conspicuous, so he could only let it drift away on the wind.
It was not at all easy to chew through the bamboo. It took more than ten days for Lu Yin to barely gnaw through half of it.
He persisted, and several more days passed. One night, flames flared up, and many people ran about as if chasing something.
Lu Yin watched a slipper frantically hop down the street. He fell silent for a long time.
"It definitely won’t escape. It will be burned as well," the leaf commented.
Lu Yin realized that Manifest City was too terrifying a place. A creature could even be transformed into a slipper. What kind of personality, what kind of species, could that creature be?
He actually started to panic a bit.
Crack.
The bamboo snapped and fell to the ground. As it fell through the air, the leaf broke free of the bamboo, just as a gust of wind happened to blow. The leaf was carried into the distance.
It was overjoyed. "Thank you, thank you!"
Watching the leaf swept into the sky by the gale, Lu Yin had no idea what its destiny might be. He would continue waiting.
Another half month passed before Lu Yin finally heard the answer he wanted: the location of the city gate. It was to his right, at the end of the street that he was on.
He ran along the cracks at the base of the wall. After more than ten days of running, he finally saw the city gate. Keep going.
Lu Yin finally appeared outside of Manifest City and was greeted by the curious gazes of Master Qing Cao and Kang Tian.
"How was it?" Even Qing Cao was curious to learn what Lu Yin had become.
He calmly answered, "A titan."
Master Qing Cao stared in confusion.
"An ant."
The man was left speechless. Who could have guessed that? Still, an ant did fit, after a bit of thought.
Kang Tian said, "Better than being a snail like me."
Lu Yin shot it a glance. Kang Tian was incredibly lucky that it had not been stomped dead. Even Lu Yin had nearly died. Compared to a snail, an ant was much more capable of surviving, as it was both small and fast.
Qing Cao said, "Now, we wait for Ba Yue."
Lu Yin asked how much time had passed and learned that the time inside Manifest City passed at the same rate as outside.
He did not know what Ba Yue had become.
Days passed, and in the blink of an eye, two years had gone by, but Ba Yue still had not emerged. Could she have died?
After the first year, Lu Yin had taken Master Qing Cao and Kang Tian back to the Human Trio. Who knew how long Ba Yue would be trapped inside the city for? That leaf had been trapped for a very, very long time, outliving multiple generations of the house’s occupants, which meant several hundred years at the very least.
Lu Yin had not even asked about the average lifespan of the people living in Manifest City, but even if he assumed it was around 100 years, the leaf had still been stuck for several hundred years.