old dream

Chapter 17 The Dream of the City

Because of her constant coughing, Ji Lian's voice was always soft.

But this did not detract from the girlishness in her original voice, but added a certain psychedelic flavor, just like the soliloquy emerging from a dream.

Her throat often hurts, so she usually speaks in a breathy voice, and only uses her vocal cords slightly for individual syllables, like a sweet breath at night.Usually people use this voice to whisper in their ears, so you have to get very close to hear what she is saying.The timbre is slightly vain, gentle, and weeping.

And her series of hasty words just now obviously didn't take into account the condition of her throat.Reminiscent of some bird that screams and sings with a branch piercing its throat.After that, she suddenly fell into silence, maybe the words caused a violent cough, but she covered it with her own hands.

Or, she suddenly felt that she shouldn't have said those words.

For a person like Colin, it was already difficult to have any strong emotions about death.

Not to mention having died once.In the first ten years of this life, I grew up smelling gunpowder smoke and the smell of incontinence after the death of soldiers.The last ten years were spent in the underground world of Nanstadt.Sometimes people die with just one look.It was him yesterday, you today, and me tomorrow.It's like queuing to go to the toilet, casual and fair, full of surprises but not mysterious.

Some people rumored that the previous "big boss" of Five Hands died for the family in a duel, and left unwillingly with his unfinished grand plans.People are always more willing to believe a gorgeous story.But Ke Lin knew that the old man was just shot and killed by a few thieves who happened to see him when he was squatting in the latrine.

Life and death are not about falling into the abyss, nor about getting rid of the filth.It's just the fruit falling to the ground, the dust rising, the clouds parting, nothing special.

So it is not worthy of praise, nor worthy of fear.

But after thinking this way, it becomes easy to accept death unconsciously.As soon as hope faded, the struggle was meekly stopped.

Just like Colin now.

He began to ask himself why he got to where he is today.

Maybe others can die peacefully, but what about you?Are you entitled to leave so easily.

"...I'm fine." Ji Lian's voice came from behind the secret door, and seemed to have settled down.

"You should have something to prepare."

"Ah."

After confirming that she was okay, Ke Lin stopped talking and left Ji Lian's residence silently.

……

……

Mr. One wanders the streets and alleys of South Stadt, avoiding the eyes that attract him as soon as he steps on the street.

The Sindhili children peeped from holes and coverts, mocking his baggy robes trimmed with raven feathers.What they speak is Anhe, mixed with a Sindhili accent, and with a habitual sense of cowardice.Although he couldn't understand it, he knew it was all dirty words.Those children were yellow and emaciated, lost their dignity in poverty, and lost their traditional upbringing.

They can't remember what this kind of clothing means in the eyes of their ancestors.

The children called him the Feathered Monster, and they threw stones at him, broke the clay jug he carried, and wet the hem of his tattered robe with fresh water.

Mr. One uttered aloud only once at the very beginning, in an ancient and incomplete language of Cincilian.The previous lampkeeper had used this call to identify himself, but this time no one understood, so he fell silent again.

Seeing that he did not resist, several older children rushed forward, half-humiliated and half-plundering his clothes, tearing off the cloth and feathers, cutting off the simple ornaments on his body, and trying to knock him unconscious and poke him s eyes.

Then the kids all fell to the ground and no one fell.The children found that there was nothing in front of them, as if what they were chasing just now was just a shadow in a dream.

It is obvious to have similar blood but not from the same way, but you have to be in a foreign land to understand it.Mr. One decided never to speak in that language again, lest it be humiliated again.But it didn't make him sad, because the lampkeeper was supposed to live alone, watching the lonely light on the coast all the time.

The coast, the long and rugged black coast of Cincily, is also the coast between reality and the abyss.The abyss, or what people like to use today to call it another hypocritical term... the imaginary world.

When you step into it, you lose your proper posture.The lampkeeper stops at the boundary between human and non-human, and sees through the light the truth of all things that cannot be perceived by ordinary eyes.At the same time, in order to avoid being deceived by themselves, they castrated all their desires.Without the focused mind, without the ego, those things can do nothing.

This also makes the light in their consciousness become more and more sharp.It is said that the Ankh made some kind of lamp from this mirror image, stealing a little of the potency of the coastal lights.But they obviously don't realize that if human beings want to see things in the virtual world clearly, the most important thing is not tools and forms, but the perspective of the observer's heart.

If there is no self, there is no omission.

He walked in a dark corner like a silent intruder, but the light in his consciousness illuminated the dreams of the entire city.

Where did the tingling pain he felt when he was looking for the hotel come from.

Then he found that everything was crying.

He saw men on the Seber dredging up swollen floating corpses, shooting hooks through the hands of the corpses, and hauling them into boats with reels like fishing.Several detectives shone lanterns into the man's eyes.

Insect slaves are still working, and complex pheromones are exchanged in the dark and narrow space.The male, which was about the size of a human, carried the cargo on the ship, and was accidentally crushed by a female who was more than two people tall.

But these were not what he was looking for.

He asked about the dirty windows with gaslights, the traces in every brick of the old city walls.Know what happened to this land.Through those traces he saw hundreds of witchcraft duels, where the Holy Spirit and the evil spirits led everything into chaos, but no one helped to make the land weep.But it's not about him.

He saw those tiny elves like fireflies entering reality through countless metaphysical loopholes.Some formless and ancient giant tried to speak to him, stretched out inviting tentacles, but passed only through his body.

He was looking for the eyes of the other lampkeepers, the source of the tingling deep in his consciousness.

Then he saw those lighted churches in the Sindhili community.

There is enshrined the only ancestral god they respect.

The Ankh are tolerant of pagan beliefs that have been explained, so they are allowed to worship in Stadt.

That god is not without an exaggerated name. It is just the ancestor of the Sindhi people in the legend, and the first lampkeeper who discovered the lamp.

Women, carved very young, have a soft halo like a mother.

The Virgin with the Lamp, Valeria.

Mr. One looked at the statue in bewilderment.

Then, as if stung by a needle, he suddenly closed his eyes.

(End of this chapter)