Chapter 166 The beginning of daily life
The warm quilt covered her body, and Chen Xiao'er rolled over comfortably, hugging the quilt. The air was filled with the scent of sunshine, and it was fragrant.
“Hmm…”
She rubbed the pillow twice, her hair making a rustling sound, and she finally regained consciousness.
What time is it now... I still have to go to class. Go, go to class?!
Beep beep beep.
"Wow!" Chen Xiao'er flung back the covers, her hair tangled and tumbling forward. "Oh no! Oh no! It must be 6 o'clock now! I have to hurry—"
She slipped into her slippers, sat on the edge of the bed, and slapped her forehead. "Strange! 6 o'clock isn't too late. School doesn't start until 8:30. Why do I have this illusion of being late?"
She glanced at the small alarm clock on the bedside table.
【2025-0901-06:05】
"Huh~ It turned out to be an auditory hallucination." Chen Xiao'er pressed the button with peace of mind.
The alarm is set at half past six, and the alarm clock at home has a melodious sound so it doesn't make a "beep, beep, beep" sound.
It seems like it was my first day of high school so I was a little nervous and confused my dreams with reality.
Chen Xiao'er took out her school uniform from the closet and put it on meticulously.
The school uniform of Changhe No. 12 Middle School is a stain-resistant navy blue. Fortunately, the style is slim and fashionable, and it feels very crisp when worn.
She stood in front of the mirror and spun half a circle, her pleated skirt swaying modestly, covering her thighs neatly.
"Good!" She clenched her fist in front of the mirror and whispered to herself, "First day of school, I must leave a good impression on my classmates. Come on!"
Chen Xiao'er opened the door. The late summer morning light was just the right brightness, shining through the glass in the corridor onto the floor, making the leaves look as if they were covered with gilded veins.
"Mom," she called out briskly and then stopped immediately.
I almost forgot that Xiaotong also has to go to school. She is... 9 years old this year, and is in the third grade.
The two sisters originally attended a combined elementary and junior high school campus. Now that she was in high school, she naturally could no longer go to and from school with her younger sister.
Mom took Xiaotong to visit relatives yesterday, so she stayed outside. She'll probably drive her directly to school today.
Chen Xiao'er walked down the stairs slowly. Her steps were a little heavy when she first went down, but when she reached the bottom, they became brisk tap-tat steps, and anyone could hear her excitement.
"La la ~ la la, la la la."
She was humming a song she had heard from a TV drama. The lyrics were a bit tragic and even sad, but the whole melody was leaping with her humming.
After brushing her teeth and washing her face, Chen Xiao'er played with her phone on the sofa for a while. Then she took out a lunch box, a sandwich, and a cup of yogurt from the refrigerator, put on her schoolbag, and opened the door.
"Uncle Liang, I'm going out~"
Brush, swish—the warm breeze blows, and the flowers in the flowerbed sway happily, emitting a sweet fragrance.
She took a deep breath, crossed the narrow cobblestone path in her yard, pushed open the metal gate, and burst into the bustling hustle and bustle.
"morning."
"Good morning." The neighbor aunt was carrying a kettle to water the flowers. Behind the house was a cement road leading to the school. It only took less than a quarter of an hour to walk to school.
Chen Xiao'er quickened her pace and passed by people going to work or school.
…
Beep, beep, beep.
The expert group watched the images on the big screen intently.
Probably because the existence of zeroing weakened the limitations of the ritual site, a large circle of scenes around Chen Xiao'er could be easily monitored.
She is like the protagonist on the stage, making the whole world come alive.
Swipe, swipe.
The observers began to draw red circles on the screen. These red circles seemed to surround Chen Xiao'er, but after they were finished, they soon discovered a pattern.
Assuming the entire picture is a square, with Chen Xiao'er as the center point of the square, the farther away from the center, the more red circles there are.
Chen Xiao'er was surrounded by a full moon and blossoming flowers, with no sign of anything unusual. However, the scene within these red circles was...
A man suspected of driving under the influence, a woman who slipped and hit the corner of a table at home, a young man fighting a stray dog, a teenager who accidentally fell into the water... Accident? Coincidence?
No, there aren't so many surprises.
"This space is targeting our people." The experts immediately came to the conclusion, because those who suffered accidents were the elite of the church.
Their faces haven't changed much, they just seem to have lost their memory and put on different clothes, playing different roles in the picture than in reality.
The old expert pointed at the man who seemed to be drunk with the tip of his pen: "Look at his expression, he is trying to break free from his current predicament."
"Yes." The recorder had a good memory and immediately added, "He is Xia Li of the Knights. The records show that he has no habit of drinking and is very strong-willed."
The elite of the Knights Templar are of course strong-willed.
Aside from a few individuals with special abilities, everyone involved in this operation possesses an extremely strong will, so the accidents depicted in the video haven't caused any casualties yet.
Before the camera was completely moved away from Chen Xiao'er, the drunk man had already stepped on the brakes and barely stopped in front of the telephone pole at the cost of damage to the front of the car.
The woman who slipped continued to fall and picked up the mobile phone next to her to call the emergency number.
The young man who was fighting with the wild dogs fought and retreated, successfully avoiding the end of being blocked in the alley by the pack of wild dogs.
The boy who fell into the water seemed to have cramps in his legs, but soon another fellow from the church jumped in and pulled him out of the water - even though they had never met before in the illusion.
It was obvious that the illusion created by the Devouring Snake was consciously targeting every member of the church... and perhaps not just the members of the Church of Light.
"Look here."
As Chen Xiao'er continued to move, more "accidents" entered the screen.
The first dead person appeared.
An old man stumbled in a puddle outside a store, fell heavily on his head, and closed his eyes without a shudder.
The analysts at the monitoring center magnified the old man's face and compared it with the photos in the database, and found that he was a mid-level cadre of the Devouring Snake.
"Is this an indiscriminate attack on [outsiders]?"
Squeak, squeak, line by line, the guesses are entered into the surface database.
[The Devouring Snake's Ritual of Power appears to require a large number of sacrifices]
[The power of the Devouring Snake may be able to trigger accidents and affect fate to a certain extent.]
…
"The Devouring Snake must have a large number of loyal followers."
Experts raised doubts: "But instead of allowing these believers to maintain their sanity and cooperate with it in the ritual to eliminate our people, it launched an indiscriminate attack... This is inconsistent with the humanity that the Devouring Snake has shown in the past. It must have a good reason for doing this."
"Could it be that it's impossible?"
Another expert had a flash of inspiration: "Is this space truly created entirely by the Devouring Serpent? Is this truly just a ritual of its power? Look, the accidents it has caused don't seem to involve any abnormalities; they're all just ordinary accidents."
"What do you mean?" The noisy atmosphere in the monitoring center suddenly quieted down, and many people thought of another possibility.
The person just now quickly said, "Suppressing anomalies is a reset ability. The environment around Chen Xiao'er is completely different from reality, so this illusion... could it be Chen Xiao'er's perception of the [real world]?"
Hiss—many people gasped.
The old expert was the first to react. She nodded and then shook her head, "Not completely. I think there must be something abnormal in this illusion, but the camera was too close to Chen Xiao'er so she hadn't noticed it yet."
"Yes." The man nodded in agreement. "This illusion might be the battlefield where Chen Xiao'er and the Devouring Snake engaged in a tug-of-war. It's very similar to the power ritual from last time, both mixing at least two powers."
The difference is probably that this time the power is not a rule power, so the battle process lacks rules and is more like a hunt in the wilderness.
There are no rules, it just depends on who devours the other first.
After clarifying this, someone quickly raised the question: "Why didn't the Devouring Snake directly target Chen Xiao'er?"
This time, they answered in unison: "Because we can't do it." Then they laughed.
An inexplicable feeling of pride spread, diluting the previous tension and slight fear: Look, we humans actually have a trump card, and we also have... hope.
"Okay, everyone, pay attention, number 0 appears!" The expert knocked on the screen, and everyone's attention was focused again.
…
Ling looked at the waves on the lake, and ripples began to appear in his peaceful heart.
“I must have something to do.” She was so sure of it.
Because since I woke up in the morning, my heart and brain have been aching.
My eyes wanted to cry, but my overly calm mind stopped this meaningless impulse and allowed my brain to continue thinking about what I had forgotten.
Parents? Working overtime.
Friends? They're doing fine.
Homework? Finished.
Exam? I got full marks on my last exam, and I’ve memorized all the knowledge points in the book.
Sports? Sports aren't important, and I'm pretty good at running, long jumping, fencing, and... ancient martial arts?
Zero eyelashes fluttered, as if grasping some vague sense of dissonance, unable to find any mutual inconsistency between the messages. They were all normal, perfectly logical.
Her nerves were throbbing, and she slowly covered her ears: It was too quiet, this quietness was wrong.
Common sense told Zero that hearing other people's voices frequently in one's ears was considered auditory hallucination. But she just felt like someone must be whispering in her ear, telling her what to do.
Now that her ears were so quiet, she was actually not used to it.
She finished her breakfast as usual, changed her clothes, declined the driver, and walked towards the school in a serious manner, but stopped on the bridge.
Because [I hate this river].
Even when she thought of "hate", she did not have much negative emotion. She just leaned on the railing and continued to look at the river that she had seen countless times in her memory.
Why do I hate it? The river is dead. I can't kill a river, but I really want to kill it. Is this strange thought due to mental disorder or some subconscious feeling?
"......" Time is almost up. Zero doesn't need to look at her watch or count silently. She has a strong sense of time and knows that she should go to school now.
Maybe what I care about is school? She loosened her fingers and tucked the stray hair behind her ear.
[It seems like someone is also...]
When Ling turned his face to the side, his previous thoughts instantly dissipated.
Because a black-haired girl came into view, her hands covering her chest, her front teeth gently biting her lower lip like a little rabbit, and her round eyes drifting to the left.
bite.
The ears are still quiet, the river is still annoying, but - so what.
Zero took a step forward, walking faster and faster until he was running, as if chasing an approaching shooting star.
…
The morning sun was not glaring. Chen Xiao'er crossed the street and prepared to walk across the bridge* to the other side.
There is a winding ancient river next to Changhe No. 12 Middle School. The river winds like a long snake, so there are two bridges across it.
One bridge is wider and can accommodate vehicles, while the other bridge is narrower and only allows pedestrians to pass.
Big bridges, small bridges, chuckle. Hey, why am I laughing?
Chen Xiao'er touched her lips as she walked onto the small bridge. She was a little confused about why she was laughing just now. Maybe it was just because of her mood, right?
Click.
She stopped quietly and stood by the bridge, letting pedestrians pass by on both sides.
Because a tall figure came into view, the breeze blew the girl's flamboyant silver hair, bringing a strong throbbing.
Her ice-blue eyes and the curve of her lips tore through her daily life, making the trivial scenes of getting up, going to school, eating... and so on fade away, leaving only one clear emotion.
【I want to meet her】
How lucky we are that we are wearing the same school uniform and standing in the same place on the same day.
Should I just walk by as if nothing happened and try to find another opportunity to approach him later? Or should I just rush over and start a conversation and see if there's anything I can do...
Chen Xiao'er tugged at the bow tie on her chest and mustered up the courage to turn her ankles towards the silver-haired girl.
As she was extremely conflicted, wavering between wanting to charge and flee at any moment, the silver-haired girl also turned in the wind.
The moment their eyes met, the girl's ice-blue eyes lit up instantly, shimmering with light.
She opened her lips, but the name that was about to come out was nowhere to be found. But she did not give up, and her originally indifferent expression became more vivid.
Chen Xiao'er could see the burning will in those eyes: unlike her own hesitation, vacillation and slight inferiority, she - would definitely come towards her.
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