Peach Blossom Land On Longyin Island Chapter 28

Braised mermaid and braised tortoise soup

The setting sun cast infinite gentleness onto the fields and forests, and the shadows on the ground stretched extremely long. An Xiaojin’s gray-yellow hair shone with a soft golden light, chasing the long shadows on the ground on the path leading to home, but as he ran, he would suddenly stop from time to time and turn his head to see if the people behind him were following.When he realizes that the person behind him is too far away, An Xiaojin will immediately change direction and run quickly, with his head behind An Le’s calf, urging An Le to hurry home for dinner.

An Le walked very slowly, taking every step with great poise. He deliberately extended the journey home and delayed the time to meet An Xiaoyu. In just a short period of time, he felt like there was no end to the journey.

Grandpa Anmu asked him to ask more questions, but he knew he couldn’t ask. He couldn’t open his mouth to ask An Xiaoyu, and he didn’t dare to ask himself in his heart.

A hazy relationship may be more suitable for them.

Anle slowly stopped and looked at An Xiaoyu, who was striding forward towards the sunset.

Anle didn’t move any more, waiting on the spot for An Xiaoyu to approach, while An Xiaojin ran back and forth between the two of them happily.

“How’s the harvest?” An Xiaoyu stopped in front of An Le, and his voice returned to the gentleness it used to show only to An Le, as if what happened today had never happened.

Anle looked at An Xiaoyu intently and said her first words to An Xiaoyu today: “Very good.”

There was no emotion in his tone, just like a daily question and answer.

An Xiaoyu nodded and said, “Go home, the meal is ready.”

An Xiaojin jumped up and led the way, followed by two long shadows. The two walked slowly side by side silently.When I got home, I opened the fence door and saw a strong goose walking majestically in the yard. There were steaming meals on the square tables in the yard.

“What did you do?” Anle spoke for the second time. The note sent by An Xiaojin asking him what to eat was thrown away somewhere.

“Braised mermaid and braised tortoise soup.” An Xiaoyu replied extremely calmly.

“Pfft—-” An Le burst out laughing when he heard the names of these two dishes. He looked at An Xiaoyu, who had a serious look on his face, and said, “Where did the mermaid and the tortoise come from?”

An Xiaoyu pointed at himself without changing his expression.

In the yard, An Xiaojin was chased by the goose and ran away in all directions, while Anle bent over and held her stomach, laughing so hard.

After a while, Anle wiped away the tears of laughter from the corner of her eyes with one hand, stood up straight holding on to the fence gate with the other hand, and breathed in oxygen to calm her pounding heart.

“It must be delicious.” An Le said in a frivolous tone, leaving An Xiaoyu and walking briskly towards the dining table.

Of course, the fish is not a real mermaid, but a silver pomfret; the tortoise is not a real tortoise, but a local turtle whose name I don’t know.

Although the name was not worthy of the name, Anle still enjoyed the meal.

For the sake of delicious dinner, Anle decided to forgive this nasty mermaid.

After the meal, the two of them passed the time on the swing under a star-filled sky.An Le asked An’s father to make a wooden disc wrapped with cloth strips, similar to a modern dog Frisbee.When he had nothing to do, Anle would throw a Frisbee and play with An Xiaojin.

An Xiaoyu was peeling pomegranates aside, with a layer of round and red pomegranate seeds spread on the bottom of the wooden bowl on his lap.Anle threw the wooden plate with one hand and ate the pomegranate seeds from the bowl with the other hand.

“Mom sent it to me during the day,” An Xiaoyu said while carefully removing the thin film on the bottom of the pomegranate seeds with her long fingers, “I said dad picked them when he went to collect herbs today.”

“It’s delicious.” Anle grabbed another handful of pomegranate seeds and stuffed them into his mouth. They were sour, sweet, plump and juicy. Anle narrowed his eyes with satisfaction. After eating, he said again, “What is Susu doing? I don’t seem to have seen her much recently.”

An Xiaoyu said with a smile: “Susu is already six years old. Mom said she can’t just run around the village and play. Dad is teaching her how to recognize herbal medicine. Mom also takes her with her when she goes out for medical consultation. I guess she wants Susu to inherit the mantle.”

“Well…at the age of six, Susu seems to be going to school, but there seems to be no school in the village.” Anle suddenly thought of this and said.

“There is no fixed school,” An Xiaoyu said, “but I heard from my mother that every winter during the off-season, the village chief will teach the children in the village to read and learn simple arithmetic, but will not force the children to go to class. My mother let Su Su go to class last winter, but Su Su was so playful that no one was watching her and ran off to play. When my mother found out, she wanted to scold her, but my father stopped me and said that Su Su was still young and would send her to school again this year.”

An Le said with a smile: “She skipped classes at a young age. I bet she will skip classes this year as well. Then dad will say she will study again next year. Dad is a proper slave to his daughter.”

An Xiaoyu also smiled and said, “My mother said the same thing, but when I said I would teach her, Susu happily agreed. So starting from tomorrow, I will teach her literacy and arithmetic for an hour every morning.”

“Susu really likes your sister-in-law very much,” Anle sighed and shook her head, “I don’t even hate going to school anymore. I heard from my parents that I cried for several days when I went to kindergarten when I was a child.”

“Kindergarten?” An Xiaoyu asked doubtfully.

“It’s a school for children.” Anle explained casually while chewing a pomegranate.

“Well,” An Xiaoyu nodded slightly and said, “Your hometown seems very interesting. Here, I can understand what they say. When they mention pomegranates and bows and arrows, even if they have no memory, the image of pomegranates will naturally pop up in their minds, and they know how to use bows and arrows. But many of the things you mentioned, I can’t imagine what they look like.”

“Because I come from your future, and they are your past.” Anle said, “Your world has all of them, but not all of my world. So you can understand all of them, but you cannot understand all of me.”

An Xiaoyu said with a gentle smile: “The time travel thing is really incredible. No wonder you doubt the authenticity of this place.”

“Well, but now I’m sure that all this is true,” Anle shook his head nonchalantly, “In other words, I don’t know whether this is true or not.”

“Don’t care?” An Xiaoyu was slightly stunned and asked.

“Well, I don’t care.” An Le shrugged again. An Xiaojin seemed to be tired of playing, so he jumped onto the swing with a wooden plate in his mouth, and lay down with his front paws on An Le’s legs.

Anle touched An Xiaojin’s soft hair and said: “In our world, there is a famous philosophical conjecture experiment called the ‘Vat in the Brain’. A person’s brain is taken out of the human body and placed in a nutrient solution to maintain life, and all the nerve terminals of the brain are connected to a supercomputer., this computer simulates the electrochemical signals that a normal, healthy body can receive and transmits them to the brain, intercepts the nerve signals sent by the brain, and gives corresponding feedback signals, so that the brain body has exactly the same experience as a normal, healthy person.”

An Xiaoyu looked at Anle blankly, expressing with confusion that he didn’t understand, and wanted Anle to explain more.

An Le smiled and said, “If I want to explain the vat in my head to you, I have to correct one of your perceptions first.” After saying that, An Le pinched An Xiaoyu’s arm, and An Xiaoyu subconsciously hid his arm, frowned, but made no sound.

“Does it hurt?” Anle asked.

An Xiaoyu hesitated for a moment, shook his head resolutely, and then handed his arm over: “It doesn’t hurt, just pinch it.”

“….”

An Le was speechless for a moment. Although he didn’t use much strength, it didn’t hurt at all. Besides, he clearly saw An Xiaoyu hiding. What was An Le hiding from? It was obviously An Xiaoyu who was lying.

An Le was speechless for a while, hesitating whether to use more force to force the tough-talking fish to surrender, but after taking a look at An Xiaoyu, who had his arms outstretched and a serious look on his face and even rolled up his sleeves, he silently shook his head and chose another method.

Anle took a pomegranate seed from the bowl and stuffed it into An Xiaoyu’s mouth.

An Xiaoyu was startled and looked at Anle with wide eyes. He was stunned with the pomegranate seed in his mouth, as if he was holding a land mine, not knowing what to do with it.

Anle was amused by An Xiaoyu’s reaction and said, “Why are you standing there in a daze? Eat.”

“Huh? Oh.” An Xiaoyu blinked slowly and stiffly chewed the pomegranate seeds slowly.

“Is it sweet?” Anle asked with a smile.

Sweet and sour, plump and juicy.

An Xiaoyu nodded dullly.

An Le smiled even more: “Then let me ask you, is the feeling of sweetness produced by the tongue or the brain?”

“Tongue.” An Xiaoyu said subconsciously.

“No, it’s the brain.” Anle corrected.

An Xiaoyu reacted from his daze, shook his head and said firmly: “No, it’s the tongue. The tongue felt the sweet taste, so I knew it was sweet.”

An Le had known that he would get this answer, so it was not surprising. It was really difficult for an ancient person to think that sweetness, bitterness, and spicyness were feelings produced by the brain. Fortunately, he didn’t even think about making An Xiaoyu understand without using a pomegranate seed.

Anle continued to explain: “The tongue sends a signal to the brain, and this signal is transmitted to the brain. After receiving the signal, the brain produces a sweet feeling.”

An Xiaoyu opened his mouth as if to refute, but Anle raised his hand to interrupt him, and then said, “Have you ever heard of the story of looking at plum blossoms to quench thirst?”

This time, An Xiaoyu nodded, and then there seemed to be a flash of realization in his confused eyes, and then he frowned again.Anle saw An Xiaoyu’s brows furrowed, as if he was thinking hard in his mind, so he didn’t rush him. Instead, he took the wooden bowl from An Xiaoyu’s legs, leaned back on the swing and ate pomegranates one by one.

Not long after, An Xiaoyu reacted. He turned his head to look at Anle and said with a smile, “I understand, it’s the brain that creates the feeling.”

As expected, he was very smart. Anle curled up his lips and said, “How did you figure it out?”

“In the story of looking at plums to quench thirst, Cao Cao used people to think that the acid of plums would make people salivate and temporarily relieve the soldiers’ thirst.” An Xiaoyu said, “But in my opinion, this example is not appropriate, because the reason why the mouth secretes saliva is not because the brain feels the acid, but because the brain thinks of the acid of plums.”

Anle nodded without arguing and continued to listen to An Xiaoyu’s explanation.

An Xiaoyu continued: “But when I was inquiring about information in the village, I talked to a villager who accidentally lost a leg. He told me that when he first lost the leg, he sometimes felt pain in that leg. He felt that the leg still existed, but that leg obviously no longer existed. I think this is what you want to say that human feelings are generated by the brain.”

“That’s good. This example is indeed more suitable. That’s what I want to say.” Anle praised and handed the wooden bowl to An Xiaoyu. “Now that we understand this, we can continue. It’s still the story about looking at plums to quench thirst. You just said that Cao Cao used the acid of thinking about plums to make the mouth secrete saliva and temporarily relieve the soldiers’ thirst. So the soldiers did not eat plums. In other words, the brain can control the tongue to secrete saliva without eating plums, right?”

“Yes.” An Xiaoyu nodded.

Anle asked again: “So the brain can control our body, right?”

An Xiaoyu nodded.

“So how does the brain control our bodies? How does the brain make the mouth secrete saliva, and how does the brain control our limbs?”

An Xiaoyu thought for a while and shook his head.

“By giving commands,” Anle said, “or, we call it ‘electrical signals.’ The brain issues commands to the body through electrical signals, and the body also feeds back to the brain through electrical signals, causing the brain to produce corresponding pain and sweet sensations.”

An Xiaoyu’s expression looked confused again, but he didn’t ask questions, and Anle didn’t explain too much. He just said, “Just remember, it’s very complicated, and I can’t understand it. But in our world, it has been proven that all human feelings are generated by the brain, so as long as the correct signal is sent to the brain, the brain can be deceived into thinking that the body has really experienced what it is. For the sake of convenience, we call the machine that can send various messages to the brain a supercomputer.

“Therefore, someone has put forward a conjecture: Since everything we feel is brain activity, does it mean that we only need the brain?Hence the conjecture of “the vat in the brain”.As soon as this conjecture was raised, it immediately triggered countless speculations.For example: Are we real, or are we just a bunch of brains hooked up to a supercomputer?Is everything we see, experience, and experience real?”

An Xiaoyu frowned. He still didn’t seem to understand, but he was thinking hard.

Anle didn’t speak again. On the one hand, he wanted An Xiaoyu to think for himself. On the other hand, he didn’t know how to explain it better.

After a long time, Anle heard An Xiaoyu sigh softly.

“What?Anle asked.

“‘Brain in a Tank’ is still a bit difficult to understand,” An Xiaoyu said honestly, “but I should understand what you said at the beginning about not caring.”

Anle looked at An Xiaoyu in surprise,

An Xiaoyu smiled slightly and said, “Zhouzhuang Mengdie.You want to say that you don’t care whether this is real or fake, you don’t care whether you are a real and complete person or a bunch of brains in a vat. You want to say that you don’t care whether you are Zhouzhuang or a butterfly, right?”

An Le was startled, then a big smile appeared on his face, and he said: “Yes, that’s what I want to say, I don’t care if I am a butterfly or a human, I don’t care if this is reality or a dream.So do you know what I care about?”

An Xiaoyu looked at Anle with a smile and said, “It’s experience, it’s feeling.”

An Le smiled even more, and suddenly he kicked hard with his toes, and the nearly stagnant swing suddenly shook violently with two people and one wolf. An Xiaojin, who was resting on An Le’s lap, was shocked. He sat up straight and looked at the ground that was far and near in horror, and screamed.

Anle laughed happily for a long time.

The swing was swinging higher and higher, Anle rode the evening breeze, raised his head and said to the clear breeze and bright moon in the sky: “That’s right, I don’t care about my own form of existence, and I don’t care whether the world in front of me is real or fictitious by countless electrical signals.What I care about is the refreshing wind, the warmth of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, the uncertainty of the weather, the uncontrollable beating of the heart, the experience of the moment, and the happiness of this moment.If this is all just a dream before I die, then all I have to do is enjoy it.”