Embers of Embers

Chapter 424 The Road to Redemption
"Love? What are you talking about? Mr. Holmes, don't you think that kind of thing is too heavy and too luxurious for us?"
At this moment, Lorenzo also turned into a cute dog in Irene's eyes, but this dog was a little different from other dogs. It had sharp fangs, ferocious eyes, and was full of ferociousness. muscles.
Sometimes you can't even classify him as a dog. It's not so much a dog as it is a monster with the appearance of a dog. But this monster is also very pitiful. It's so pitiful that Irene wants to reach out and touch him. head.
When their eyes met, Lorenzo also realized how ridiculous he was. Irene had completely confused all of this. Whether it was or not was no longer important to her.
"So why did you come back? You can completely escape. With your ability, it won't be difficult to find a place to live anonymously, right?"
Lorenzo remembered something. This kind of dialogue has been repeated countless times, but this time is the closest to the truth.
After tearing apart layers of disguises and lies one after another, Irene has no way out at this moment.
"Before this, there was no need for you to betray the Iron Law Bureau. Ivar's incident was a great achievement. You might even get a promotion or a salary increase... So what's the reason for you to give up? "
"I'm tired, Mr. Holmes."
Erin said with some confusion.
"We are all the living dead, aren't we? We have been walking corpses for a long time. Although we can still speak and breathe, our fate has already been doomed. All we are doing now is just delaying the arrival of all this. That’s all.
Just like you, you are a powerful demon hunter, but will you kill for a lifetime?Or are you destined to die in a battle?In fact, I also know this. I am destined to die in a certain failed action, but if I think about it carefully, I am just repeating everything in this bad life. No matter whether the ending comes early or is delayed very late, this is all. Nothing can be changed. "
Erin looked exhausted.
"Instead of this, it's better to end this as soon as possible."
The room was eerily quiet, and the smoke rose slowly, shrouding the two of them little by little. It was a nice scene, and Lorenzo relaxed a little. Noisy sounds came from outside the house from time to time, and everyone was still working hard to clean up. room.
Under the peaceful atmosphere, the tide of sadness surged.
Lorenzo looked at Irene sadly, and only now did he realize the despair deep in the woman's heart.
Erin understands the so-called emotions too well, and after understanding them too well, she sees through it all. She can easily show others the side they desire, and the masks overlap each other without distinguishing each other.
She was like a drowning person. She was unable to escape from the turbid sea, and she was unwilling to sink and die like this. She was caught in the middle and struggled painfully for a long time.
"I heard that you are still a pastor?" Eileen asked.
"It used to be," Lorenzo replied.
"I haven't been to church yet and many times I wanted to go into the confessional and tell the priest the crimes I had committed, but I didn't have the courage to do so."
Irene seemed to think that Lorenzo was a priest, and started to talk nonsense.
"Some things are too difficult to figure out. Just like you, you have killed too many people. For you, life is just a thing that can be destroyed easily. The same is true for me. The so-called love is just It’s just my tool, I’m so addicted to it that I can’t tell the difference between it and so-called tools.”
"That sounds really bad," Lorenzo said.
"It's okay, I just feel a little sad."
"sad?"
"Yes, it's sad. I may never be able to figure out what 'love' is. To me, this thing is like a simple formula. You also saw the moon. He was fooled around by me. I know very well how to please others and how to capture them, even the violent Ivar has not escaped.”
The cigarette burned out, and Erin placed the cigarette butt on the bedside table and watched it burn out quietly.
"In the end, all this is just an illusion given to us by ourselves. The blood flow speeds up, the heart beats hard, and the brain secretes that intoxicating substance. Sometimes being too sober is a fault."
"You are so perfect, Irene, so perfect that you hardly look like a human being anymore," Lorenzo said.
"I've also realized this. I have a lot of identity defaults. You know, if you like passionate people, I will become passionate. If you like indifferent people, I will become indifferent. Sometimes I I almost forgot who I was.”
Erin thought for a while and said again.
"I'm not Irene, I'm not Irene Adler."
Irene's voice slowly dropped, and only then did Lorenzo notice that she had been staring at him closely. Then she slowly approached and reached out her hand to brush Lorenzo's face.
"But I haven't tried to tame a monster yet."
"I suggest you better not do this," Lorenzo warned.
"You're kidding, I'm tired of this kind of thing," Eileen retracted her hand and smiled, "After Ivar, it's hard for me to be interested anymore. I've killed many people like this, but this time it's different. I suddenly With some so-called guilt, I felt very sad and wanted to save Ivar.
It's not for love or profit. I think you understand what I mean, right? "
Erin asked.
Lorenzo didn't answer, he saw himself in Irene, the self chasing the demon.
"You're trying to redeem yourself, but is this really possible?"
Lorenzo tried to kill all the monsters. No one told him whether doing so was right or wrong, and whether he could achieve the future he wanted, but he still did it because he thought he could complete his dream in this way. desire.
This is like a weird ritual, just like drinking hot water will make you feel better when you have a cold. There is obviously no necessary connection between the two, but many people just believe that drinking hot water will make you better.
The same is true for Irene. She feels that if she can rescue Ivar, maybe she can end this life like a living dead, and she can get the so-called redemption. As for the result, will it really be what she wants?Lorenzo didn't know, no one knew.
"But if you don't try, who knows what the answer is?"
This is Erin's purpose, a pure and somewhat ridiculous purpose.
"I'm going to save Ivar. I'm going to say goodbye to this damn life. As for what happens next, who cares?"
Irene said frankly that this was a secret hidden deep in her heart. At this not-so-bad moment, she told all this to Lorenzo, who had some relationship with the clergy.
A woman who has sinned the most, and a priest whose sins are obviously no less serious than hers...?
Erin smiled when she thought of this. This was a pretty good confession. Although it was very simple, it was enough.
"I became interested in that guy Ivar. A guy who can make you lose your way and find your way back must also be very interesting." Lorenzo said.
"Ivar? There's nothing special about him. He's just a puppy without any disabilities. It's probably because he looks weak. He likes to roar in order to appear powerful. He rarely trusts a person. , but he is willing to walk behind my ass, even though it is very difficult for him to walk."
Erin said slowly.
"What about Hebold? You still haven't explained why you are so afraid of Hebold. Why?"
Lorenzo asked at this moment.
This time Irene did not dodge. After hesitating for a while, she spoke slowly.
"As for Haybold, I'm just making a guess here... Will you believe my guess? I just almost killed the moon. I don't think you will trust me anymore."
Thinking of this, Irene said with some sadness that she didn't know what would happen next. Now her life and death completely depended on Lorenzo.
"I even said that you will feel that everything just now is just my performance. I am trying to make you relax your vigilance, and then attack again at a certain time and kill all of you."
He was so gentle just now, but now his words are harsh again.
Lorenzo lowered his head and asked after thinking for a while.
"Then why didn't you kill Kestrel? Are you afraid of completely offending me? In fact, if I hadn't replaced the bullet, with Winchester's power, Kestrel would have been dead.
No, to be precise, if I change the bullets, you can still kill the kestrel. After all, there are so many weapons placed in the piano case. "
"Then I want to ask you, do you want to kill the moon? You have already anticipated my potential actions, and you also..."
Irene thought of something, her words stopped, and her pupils narrowed slightly, reflecting Lorenzo's mysterious pupils.
"Yes, the question comes back again. I gave you the opportunity to kill the kestrel, why didn't you do it?"
Lorenzo asked in a low voice.
"Or is it that Miss Irene Adler is a sentimental person who wants to rub the head of everyone she meets?"
Irene's expression was stiff for a long time before slowly relaxing. She was completely defeated in front of Lorenzo.
"I'm starting to hate you."
"I thought everyone would like the bad guy." Lorenzo disagreed.
Erin's eyes were a little dazed, and she stretched out her hand as if to grab something, but she found nothing and could only take her hand back with some loss.
"Ivar is very smart, so smart that he is willing to deceive himself. The Moon is a stupid thing. The result of being too stupid is... he is very pure."
"purely?"
"Yeah, don't you think it's great? He is different from us. He doesn't wear any mask. You can directly read his terrible heart from his terrible expression."
purely?Or do you have a big heart?Lorenzo couldn't tell the difference, but he remembered the scene on the train when he came. In fact, everyone was under great pressure, but only the lunatic Kestrel kept banging the triangle, cursing and trying to jump off the train.
This... is also an advantage?
"This is a clear and pure person. If there were more people like this, the world would not be so bad. But you also know very well that such a person does not live long. He is probably really lucky to be alive now."
"Is that so? I hope Kestrel can learn a lesson from you." Lorenzo said.
"He can't learn. If he really learned the lesson, then he should kill me directly instead of letting me live. This is what he should do." Irene replied.
The rising smoke gradually dissipated, and as the effect of the medicine faded, Irene faintly felt the pain that was coming. Lorenzo also noticed this, he said.
"This stuff can become addictive if you use it too much, so just bear with it."
He thought for a moment and said again.
"Eileen, I can trust you, but it requires you to pay a price."
"What price?"
Erin asked curiously.
Lorenzo didn't answer. He stood up, walked to Irene, lowered his body, and brought his face very close to her.
"Let me see inside your heart. Then I will know whether your guess about Haibold is true or false."
The gray-blue eyes were close at hand, like mirrors, and Irene saw herself in it, in a state of embarrassment.
"In your heart? Yes, but will you believe it?"
Irene obviously misunderstood Lorenzo's meaning. She had opened her heart to many people, but everyone was miserably deceived by her.
"Yes, there you have nothing to reserve, there is no so-called mask at all."
As Lorenzo said, he stretched out his hand to hold Irene's face, and forcefully opened her eyelids with his fingers, forcing her to look at him. Irene felt vaguely uneasy, and then she saw it.
In the eyes that were like the deep sea, in the deepest darkness, there was a firelight, the white and pure fireworks, as if there was a scorching sun hiding in it.
"It's so beautiful..."
I don't know whether it was the stinging eyes or the sincere remorse. Irene looked directly at the scorching sun and shed tears. It was also at this moment that Lorenzo felt it.
Countless emotions impacted his will, and he saw the shadow of a woman, from child to adult, from innocence to wearing a mask.
Everything is presented in his eyes, no reservations.
"No! Lorenzo! Stop!"
Irene suddenly struggled. She didn't know what Lorenzo was doing, but she felt that someone was tearing away layers of masks, trying to peek into the deepest secrets in her heart.
But it was too late.
Erin's struggle gradually stopped, and everything became peaceful.
Waves of cool sea breeze hit Irene's face, and she looked around confusedly. She found that she was on a fishing boat, and not far away Lorenzo was lying on the railing, looking at the sea. The beautiful dusk at the end of the plane.
"I remember this place..."
Erin's hand brushed gently across the cabin, the real touch confusing her.
"Yes, it is here, the end of Ivar and I's journey. After nightfall, the Iron Law Bureau's ship intercepted us..."
She looked at Lorenzo, and Erin couldn't figure out how this could happen again before her eyes.
"Where is this?" Erin asked.
"The depths of the soul, you can call this place [the gap]."
Lorenzo didn't look back, and his voice came slowly.
"So you saw it all?"
Erin asked again.
"Well, I saw it all."
Lorenzo said and slowly turned around.
He did not destroy Irene's will, so under this incomplete [Gap] invasion, the memory Lorenzo saw was also incomplete.
It was just the refraction of one glimmer of light after another, but it was from the remnants of each corner that Lorenzo saw everything clearly.
The dusk light illuminated Lorenzo's face, and Irene was stunned, her emotions intertwined. Lorenzo looked at Irene expressionlessly, but tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.
"I believe you, Irene Adler."
(End of this chapter)