After leaving the Military Control Office and saying goodbye to Roy, Lin Yuan boarded the bus home.

She leaned against the car window, tilted her head, and watched the scenery outside the window receding.

The car window reflected a delicate, cold, and bored little face.

The shape of the bus is very strange, like a weird doll that was patched together with various messy materials.

It swayed and grunted all the way, making all kinds of noises as if it was unable to bear the heavy burden.

In this era, the level of human technology production has seriously deteriorated. If you want to get most of the spare parts of machinery, you have to look for them in the relics of the past. It is impossible to get a complete one, and it is normal to piece together a piece.

The sun hung in the sky like a salty egg yolk that was about to melt, dyeing the bloated and huge imperial capital a light orange-red.

Even in such a remote suburb, you can still see the white tower from afar.

Standing in the center of the city, it is the symbol of the entire empire.

The whole body is pure white and towering into the clouds.

"Mom. Look, it's the White Pagoda." A young boy in the car pointed out the window excitedly.

He opened a huge atlas in his arms and began to compare the White Tower recorded in the album.

"Mom, this book says that hundreds of years ago, it was the White Tower and the King who saved humanity from the great catastrophe."

His mother, who was sitting next to him, reached out and touched his head perfunctorily.

The tired mother didn't care about the king and the White Tower, she was only worried about tonight's dinner and tomorrow's life.

"This book says that in the past the clouds in the sky were white. The same white as sugar."

"The book says that at the beginning, there were the same number of sentinels and guides. They walked hand in hand to the battlefield together."

"The book says..."

The tender voices of children kept ringing in the carriage.

The passengers in the carriage all smiled tolerantly.

Children are innocent and what they say is very funny.

How can the clouds in the sky be white? Everyone knows that clouds are either purple or green.

How could a weak guide possibly fight? It was simply unrealistic.

The bus picked up and dropped off passengers along the way. It took a long time to get there. The sides of the road, which were initially crowded with adobe, shanties and wooden houses, gradually became neat, imposing and luxurious.

The White Pagoda also becomes huge and holy in the field of vision and cannot be ignored.

The White Pagoda is the center of the capital. The closer to the White Pagoda, the more wealthy and noble people live there.

Lin Yuan got off the car here and walked slowly up along the clean and tidy stone road.

It was already very late, and the light of street lamps was only sporadically lit up on the sparsely populated streets.

In a corner by the road, there was a couple with a young daughter, running a small fruit stall.

There were only three green apples left on the worn-out cart. They were huddled together listlessly, not looking very good.

Even so, the apple selling family was still reluctant to close down their stall.

Fruits are very expensive these days. They wait for customers in the deserted night, hoping to sell at least one more fruit.

Lin Yuan had no interest in Apple. She walked forward in standard small steps, lifting her skirt.

[This must be the most delicious apple in the world] I suddenly heard this voice in my mind.

It is not a sentence made up of concrete language. It is just an emotion that comes from the superficial consciousness.

But because the expression was too strong and pure, even if the tentacles did not deliberately capture it, the sound was still clearly transmitted to Lin Yuan's mind.

Lin Yuan looked towards that location and found that the voice in his mind came from the skinny little girl behind the apple stall.

The little girl, about four or five years old, stared at the green-skinned apple in front of her with sparkling eyes.

It seems as if it can turn the dry little apple into some kind of delicacy.

Lin Yuan glanced at the girl, then looked at the apples, and continued walking forward.

[If you take a bite, the sour and sweet juice will burst out, flowing through the gaps between your teeth and across your tongue]

【It quenches your thirst and is very enjoyable. 】

Lin Yuan paused.

【Can fill your stomach】

[It can still be sweet to the heart]

【I want to take a bite】

[I really want to eat it]

…

One sentence after another, clear and loud.

The tentacles raised their heads one after another and looked towards the apples.

Really, is it that delicious?

Lin Yuan stopped, turned around and walked back.

She stood in front of the stall, looking at the three apples that were neither green nor yellow for a long time. Finally, she took out a few imperial coins and put the three apples into the bag.

The moment you pick up your bag and leave.

The sound of giant slobbering saliva suddenly came to my mind.

Too clear, too strong.

So Lin Yuan had to twist the apple stem, lift one out, and put it into the little girl's hand.

Lin Yuan, who was walking on the road, was tempted by the sound of swallowing saliva. He took out an apple, wiped it on his clothes, and took a bite with anticipation while walking.

It’s so sour.

…

Lin Yuan's house is very big, with a blue brick, white wall and a carved gate.

The vegetation in the yard is lush and green, with branches and vines intertwined and climbing over the walls with great vitality. From a distance, you can see a triangular retro roof behind the towering tree canopy deep in the courtyard.

No one opened the door. Lin Yuan took out the key and opened it himself.

The creaking sound of the door opening suddenly echoed in the silent and cold night.

I closed the heavy door and walked inside. The grass and trees in the yard were shadowy in the dark night. They were growing too lushly, and there was almost no place to stand. I could only walk along a path in the middle that was barely cleared.

The main building has five floors, with a pointed attic on the top. All the windows in the rooms are dark and stand quietly in the depths of the garden, like a house that has been uninhabited for a long time.

Only in the entrance hall on the first floor, a dim light was on, breaking the thick and dead darkness.

Lin Yuan walked into the entrance hall and, turning on the dim light, took off her cumbersome ivory coat.

From a corner of the roof, where the light could not reach, a pale female arm stretched out and took Lin Yuan's coat.

"Is everything going well?" a voice came from somewhere.

"Yes, it went smoothly. All the formalities have been completed." Lin Yuan bent down to untie the laces on his boots without looking up. "From now on, I can live at home forever."

"I'm sorry," the voice said timidly, "I was careless today and I think the part-time cleaning lady saw me. She screamed and ran away. She probably won't come back again."

"It's okay, I'll ask her again. If she doesn't come, I'll hire another one. Maybe the family needs a gardener."

Lin Yuan finally untied the troublesome shoes and threw them away. The shoes were picked up by a pair of white arms.

She took off her heavy clothes and ran up the oak stairs barefoot in just a thin silk skirt.

As if remembering something, he threw down an apple. "Here's an apple. I bought it on the way."

An arm stretched out from the shadows and nimbly caught the apple.

The white apron of the maid costume swayed in the air.

"Thank you, miss." said the voice hidden in the dark.

"Ah, so sour."

Lin Yuan's bedroom is in the attic on the top floor.

The room is not big, and there is a soft bed by the window.

The bedside and all the cabinets were filled with all kinds of things, big and small, strange and wonderful, filling up the small bedroom.

There are wind chimes made of energy stones, fluorescent signs that can only be found in old ruins, and a broken simulated robot head.

There are also dolls and stuffed toys of various sizes.

It's like a kid's room with a weird collecting habit.

The windows on the wall are very large. Through the glass, you can see the White Tower in the night, the tall and short houses, and the road with street lights on.

On the bluestone paved road, a family of three who had just sold apples were walking on their way home.

The mother held her daughter in her arms, the father pushed the cart, and the three of them took turns eating the apple that Lin Yuan had left behind.

The apple tasted so sweet, as if the apple in their hands and the one in Lin Yuan's hand were completely different.

Lin Yuan placed his fingers against the cold glass as he stood behind the window, staring at the three small figures from the high attic.

A drop of rain hit the glass in front of my fingertips. I don’t know when it started to drizzle from the sky.

The father took off his coat and put it over his daughter and wife's heads.

Three small figures huddled together in the rain, pushing the cart forward quickly.

Lin Yuan just stood behind the glass window and watched.

Until their figures were covered by the rain and could no longer be seen.

Why do those three people look so happy?

Lin Yuan felt that what the people in the White Tower said was right. She had a problem with emotional deficiency. Most of the time, she had no emotions, and could neither feel particularly happy nor sad.

An emotionally absent guide.

Lin Yuan was stunned for a while, then remembered something, climbed onto the bed, and rummaged through the toy cabinet at the head of the bed for a long time.

He dug out a palm-sized, half-new killer whale stuffed animal.

"That's what I knew. I seem to have seen this thing somewhere." Lin Yuan became a little happy. She lay on her back and picked up the chubby doll to play with it.

She couldn't remember when she got this toy. There were countless things like this in this room that she couldn't remember.

Lin Yuan has no memories of his childhood.

Those people told her that when she was very young, she and her family experienced a fire.

Both her parents were burned to death in the fire, leaving only her as a young child.

However, no matter how Lin Yuan tried to recall after growing up, he could not remember the fire or the events of his childhood.

That period of time was blank.

It was like the years were covered with a layer of white mist. Whenever I tried to look, everything seemed blurry and I couldn't see clearly no matter how hard I tried.

She only knew that she was taken to the White Tower and raised. Her mental strength had been high since she was a child, and she was matched with a fiancé of distinguished family background at an early age.

Only recently was I finally allowed to return to this home that had been abandoned for so many years.

Lin Yuan was playing with a small orca doll. The doll's tail had a thread loose and a bit of white cotton had come out. She reached out and poked the cotton in.

The killer whale puppet is chubby and very cute, with a black back, a white belly, and white eye spots on both sides of its head that look like it is smiling. It seems like it can make a whale sound at you at any time. It is very flexible when you poke it with your finger.

It is somewhat different from the killer whale I saw in the spiritual sea today.

Lin Yuan opened his palms and made a grasping gesture, recalling the feeling he had felt from the tentacles at that time.

The fish was so thin that when it wrapped around him, he felt extremely bony, with his skin covered with crisscrossing scars.

Not particularly nice to touch.

Lying on the bed, fiddling with the soft doll in his hands and thinking about what happened during the day, Lin Yuan slowly fell asleep.

In my dream I seemed to be back at the bottom of the sea.

She was wearing a little white dress, standing in a strange room. Outside the window was the deep sea, and huge whales were swimming by.

The whale made a whimpering sound, as if it was reminding her of something, or singing a sad song.

"Xiaoyuan, Xiaoyuan." Someone was calling her.

Lin Yuan turned her head and saw a couple whose faces she couldn't see clearly rushed into the room and picked her up.

"At least send Xiaoyuan out." She heard someone talking.

I don't know when the fire started all around, and it burned very fiercely.

Lin Yuan was protected by two pairs of arms, tightly held in a warm embrace.

It turned out that they were his father and mother.

Mother is a strong sentinel and father is a gentle guide.

The fire was raging all around. Her mother held her in her arms and ran along the sea of ​​fire with her long legs.

Little Lin Yuan curled up in his mother's arms, but he didn't feel afraid at all.

She felt neither the heat nor the pain, only peace in her heart.

Her father, who served as her guide, blocked her senses and reduced her five senses.

It made her feel no pain and no terror.

In the blazing sea of ​​fire, her mother protected her body and her father guarded her spirit.

Time seemed to pass very slowly, and they seemed to be running in the flames for an infinite time.

Lin Yuan heard his father's gentle voice.

"Xiao Yuan, come here, Dad will teach you how to control the world of Sentinel."

She couldn't see her father's face, but his gentle voice rang directly in her mind.

"Xiao Yuan, you are a genius, you can do it."

"You and mom will walk the rest of the way together."

No!

Lin Yuan suddenly opened his eyes.

The dream disappeared, and most of the memories in the dream also disappeared.

She lay on the bed, feeling her heart pounding.

I don't know when the sound of rain outside the window became so loud, and the night was as thick as ink.

The cold rain hit the glass, leaving countless winding water marks on the glass.

Lin Yuan sat up blankly, looking out the window at the dark rainy night, and was in a daze for a long time.

Suddenly she thought blankly,

That fish,

No, that sentry, is he still sitting in that alley?