The Green Mountain Cloud Hidden Sect was really in the middle of a green mountain.
The road leads to the road, but the fork in the road doesn't have any signposts, and ordinary people won't idly walk in. Before going deep, it will be stopped by a gate between the mountain passes, and regular social vehicles can't go in quickly.
If you want to rely on your legs to quietly feel your way into the mountain, it is more likely to be bad luck. This mountain was a private territory, with many visible and invisible surveillance and traps arranged; if one accidentally stepped in, it would be a real call to arms. Even if he managed to escape before the Cloud Hidden Sect found out, he would most likely be tainted by the miasma in the mountain or some unseen formations and spells and would be in a lot of trouble. When the attack occurs, it can only be too late to regret.
And it is even dark late at night in the mountains; most places can not even see five fingers. In addition to the occasional night bird cries, the mountain forest will be a burst of leaf-rubbing sounds. I can't tell if it's the wind blowing or what beasts are travelling through, but it's always shivering.
Where the wind can not blow but also gradually gathers a thick mountain fog.
The fog in the dark night seems to have turned black, it is spreading, it is pervasive, it is silent. Those who lived in the mountains had long been accustomed to the rich humidity of the mountains and would not care at all. The defence traps and formations spread throughout the hills would not be unleashed against these light and untouchable things.
The black mist rolled over the mountains and roamed into the manor where the people of the Cloud Hidden Sect lived.
The Cloud Concealment Sect was also quiet at the moment; the lights were out in all the houses, and only some of the night lights along the paths were still on. The mist surged forward along the roots of the walls in the dimness. It passed in front of the windows of sleeping people, in front of the noses of little dogs lying under the eaves of houses, and in front of the grass where the dew had begun to condense without touching a single piece.
Finally, the black fog poured into the porch of a small two-storey building.
On the backlit side, the black mist, indistinguishable to the naked eye, worked its way up the wall. Soon it diffused to the first-floor window. The window was closed, and no light came through inside; everything was so silent.
For the black fog, this kind of wooden window is also closed as if the portal is wide open. The fog quickly soaked into the cracks of the window, and if it could get through a sliver, it could get through all of it. Pieces of the fog tumbled downward like a waterfall, settling to the floor. But it does not continue to spread to the house, just group in place, quietly dense wandering.
Seconds later, the black fog moved; it returned the same way.
It still diffused outwards first, then as if it were a piece of fine silk, the weight outside the window slid down, and the inner part of the window was drawn out. It withdrew much faster than it had come in, and in just a breath, it seemed to have gone clean.
"Come to see me on purpose; why take one look and run?"
A male voice suddenly broke the silence, and the room lighting flared with it - it was Eli.
He was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, next to a quaintly shaped but electrically powered standing lamp from which the light was coming. There was also the bed in the room, but judging by the bedding arrangement, Eli hadn't touched it at all.
Eli's pressure finally came down when a thin line of black smoke, indiscernible to the naked eye, drifted up again and was about to close between the window's cracks.
The black fog "froze".
"No running." Eli stood up and walked towards the window. He opened the window dryly, glanced at the fog that was extremely difficult to distinguish in the shadows outside, and whispered, "Come back."
The black mist shifted in place, and when Eli withdrew his pressure, the black mist obediently squeezed all the way through the window and into the room. It was so thick and massive that it directly filled the entire room when it came in like it had swallowed a person straight into the belly of a giant beast. Even if Eli had a light source in his hand, he couldn't see anything two metres away with just his naked eyes. Now that the black fog has isolated the vertical lamp, Eli's periphery is entirely black.
Eli, however, was calm as he closed the window, then surveyed the fog around him and asked, "You got this big?"
As he spoke, the black fog began to compress and soon turned into a ball of black fog about two metres in diameter. The colour of this ball of black mist was even denser, and Eli's hand was immediately invisible when he stuck it in.
This was because the black mist wouldn't hurt him. If it were someone else with such a low hand, it wouldn't be a hand that couldn't be seen but a hand that was directly missing.
"Very impressive." Eli commented, then withdrew his hand and continued, "How did you become human? I want to see."
The black mist hovered again.
It seemed to have an absorbing sleeve in its centre, and the mist rapidly contracted and settled inwards. When the black fog condensed a hand, the next moment, the black hand turned into a standard skin colour; when the black fog shrank a foot, the next second, that foot was fitted with an equally black shoe and changed to a normal colour with the foot and the shoe, both of them. It again condensed the torso, the head, and the rooted hair. When the skin colour of the face also turned to skin colour, the eyes slowly opened. The dark brown pupils were outstanding, and their reflections were flawless.
Middendorffi stood before Eli.
"Beautiful." Eli sighed heartily. It wasn't how good Middendorffi's face looked that he sighed; it was the flawlessness of the mimicry. He grabbed Middendorffi's hand and looked closer at the other man's fingers, "'Collector' has to go in with fingerprints, you even modelled this?"
"I copied it exactly as his physical appearance." Middendorffi returned lightly, "The parts that were injured to the point of being completely unreplicable were referenced to some other video."
Eli sniffed and lifted his shirt to look at it.
"I'm guessing the videos you watched, those guys were in good shape," Eli said as he did so, reaching out and running his hand over Middendorffi's abs. The feeling was genuine, causing Eli to crush his fingers. Middendorffi didn't see anything in him lifting, looking, or touching so much and just stood there for him to handle.
Eli looked at his calm demeanour and jabbed his finger at the side of his waist again, "You should react a little."
"Ticklish, are you? I would be." Middendorffi looked at him, "Want one?"
"No need." Eli dropped his clothes and straightened them. The clothes were condensed out of the black mist but felt nothing like skin. Eli sighed inwardly and asked again in detail, "You replaced him, so where did he go? What did you do with it?"
"Swallowed." Middendorffi paused, "It was the body. He was dead then."
"I don't care how he was then; you swallowed it clean." Eli looked at him, at the unbroken human face, and suddenly asked, "Did you weight simulate it?"
"Sure ... hmm?"
Eli suddenly wrapped his arms around Middendorffi's waist and picked him up, feet off the ground.
"Let me weigh it." Eli's head rested on Middendorffi's shoulder, not looking at him but feeling the other's heartbeat through the pressed chest. Middendorffi's heartbeat was also simulated, steady and without ripples, but Eli didn't find it eerie.
"The weight, it does kinda make sense," Eli commented so, but didn't put Middendorffi down right away; instead, he just held him like this and stood in silence for quite a while. Middendorffi didn't struggle or move as if he had turned into a large doll.
Finally, after several moments of silence, Eli spoke again.
"What did you go to such lengths to simulate such a perfect human form for?"
Middendorffi didn't answer right away, and after two seconds of silence between the two, Eli suddenly smiled and answered the question himself again, "It was for me."
He didn't even add a "right", which showed his certainty. He really didn't need Middendorffi's answer either. He was prepared to retort if Middendorffi said anything else. As it turned out, Middendorffi remained silent, and Eli increasingly confirmed the answer.
And indeed, Middendorffi didn't retort after Eli said what he thought.
He continued to be silent for a long time before finally venturing, "You only want to be friends with humans."
Eli was a little taken aback, "What makes you think that?"
"You said it yourself." Middendorffi's tone clearly had a slight rise or fall to it, but Eli seemed to be able to hear the hidden aggravation in it, "You said to me, 'If only you were a human,' more than once."
"..." Eli choked on the reply.
He remembered the scenes Middendorffi had said were indeed as described. But again, these conversations had antecedents and consequences that had to be put into context to figure out what Eli really meant. Middendorffi just singled it out and said it, leaving Eli at a loss as to how to explain it.
"You can be so ... I don't want to call you stupid, but you sometimes seem a little stupid again and stupid about me." Eli walked over to the bed with him in his arms and put him on the bed again, "So let me explain something to you. I didn't mean this literally. You also tell me what you've been through since we parted ways?"
Middendorffi sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him, "Then you will also tell me where you went and what you did?"
"Of course." Eli sat down next to Middendorffi, watching videos together as they often did at home, shoulder to shoulder, and pulled out an ore the size of a fist, and already jade could be seen between the stones. He didn't say much about what it was, just handed it to Middendorffi, "Open your mouth."
Middendorffi looked at him silently, not moving.
"It's okay, and there's no need to enforce the human image in front of me." Eli added, "That's why I asked the Cloud Hidden Sect for you, to see if you like it."
Middendorffi opened her mouth at this. When he said he opened his mouth, it was actually a sizeable gaping mouth that misted out of his mouth, and at first glance, it looked like a human's mouth had split to the point of horror. Eli just threw the fist-sized ore into the black fog, and then in the blink of an eye, Middendorffi's mouth was regular again.
Eli asked again, "How was it?"
"... average." Middendorffi answered truthfully, then added, "I ate the brat you gave me."
"Just grabbed it for you as a snack and ate it." Eli said, "You didn't think you were coming to my rescue, so a supplemental point is a point, did you?"
Middendorffi nodded once.
Eli was helpless, "With my powers, do I have to be backstabbed to get to a place like this?"
Middendorffi says, "I don't know. You just went out of your way before, I didn't know if you were in danger or if you just wanted to go ..."
"It was an accident; how could I go out of my way with you?" Eli said, "I'm going to explain this to you right now; don't get me wrong."
Middendorffi nodded again but then looked at the clock above the bed, "Well, explaining it now may not be enough."
"What?"
"I'm here without permission." Middendorffi said, "I was going to take a look and leave; I didn't want to be exposed yet."
"Why do you make it sound like you stole ... it." Eli whispered, not waiting for Middendorffi to ask in detail, and added, "Then the Cloud Hidden Sect starts the morning class at five o'clock, so you'll go back later. You've been to the Cloud Hidden Sect, so you can rest assured that they won't hurt me, right? Wait for me at home, don't go anywhere, understand?"
"Good."
Eli sighed softly in his heart once again as he watched him say whatever he wanted and slowly said, "Also, there's one thing I haven't had a chance to say since we met again, and now I can finally say it-
"I'm back."
Back to you.
Middendorffi blinks once, a thin smile slowly appearing, "Welcome."