Lin Xi never imagined that she would dream of that exhibition on the first night after the jump failure.
If he could retain his ability to think in reality even in his dreams, he would attribute the dream to that bizarre Sunu sculpture. That thing was just too ugly; Lin Xi admitted that he was frightened by it.
Of course, some of the blame can also be placed on John Brunson; if it weren't for that old man's madness, not many people would have remembered Taran Ida's obscure Sunu ancestry.
Or the problem could be attributed to Bronson, who firmly refused Lin Xi's request for sleeping pills and tranquilizers, and kept nagging Lin Xi that he should break his dependence on such drugs...
But in any case, he dreamed of that exhibition from many years ago.
Oh, and it's worth emphasizing that the Sunu cultural exchange exhibition itself wasn't a bad thing.
Lin Xi and Bryson had a great time at the exhibition. Occasionally, Lin Xi would inadvertently recall that afternoon from her childhood.
Perhaps time itself lends a beautiful filter to human memories, or perhaps the Sunu people were just that adorable back then. In Lin Xi's memory, the exhibition was like a strange, magnificent, and wonderful dreamscape, with every detail exuding an incredible and dreamlike atmosphere.
However, Lin Xi and Bryce, who were having a great time at the time, did not know that the Sunu cultural exchange exhibition was the last event in which the Sunu people directly interacted with Earthlings.
The Sunu people, who remained on Earth at the time, were unaware that a madness without any reason had already erupted within their own community. However, shortly after that event, the Sunu people who remained on Earth also began to fall ill one after another. Their madness and morbidity ultimately led to their tragic deaths on the alien planet, much like cockroaches.
oh……
Wait, let's get back to Lin Xi's dream.
Let's go back to that Sunu cultural exchange exhibition.
In her dream, Lin Xi stared blankly at the clubhouse, which was decorated like a termite mound.
A line of crooked characters hung outside the guild hall, written in Sunu language. He stood on tiptoe, trying to see it more clearly, but was bumped and knocked off his feet, almost losing his balance.
A large crowd surrounded him, and the excited screams and laughter of children blended into the noisy background of this dream.
Lin Xi's vision was low; in this dream, he was still the same quiet and shy child he once was.
"Lin Xi, look—I'll tell Teacher Anna about this after summer vacation—it's so interesting—"
Then, Bryce's crisp voice rang out.
Just like back then, he pulled Lin Xi's arm and walked quickly toward the exhibition entrance.
Lin Xi staggered forward, while Bryce's face was as obscured as melted ice cream in the sunlight.
But his expression, his movements, and his voice were so real, as if the past were playing out in his mind.
Lin Xi felt a little out of breath.
A subtle fear gripped his mind.
He wanted to leave; he didn't want to be as eager and impatient as he was as a child to enter the clubhouse.
However, the dream wavered slightly, and he was already standing in the exhibition hall of the cultural exchange exhibition.
There were still many people, but when Lin Xi looked around, those people, like Bryce, had blurred faces, were not handsome, and even their bodies seemed bloated and careless, so blurry that they had almost no outline, like a half-baked painter who had carelessly dabbed paint on a canvas.
In contrast, the Sunu exhibits at the cultural exchange exhibition quietly guarded behind their glass cases, their decorative patterns as fine as hair clearly visible.
Lin Xi wandered through the vast exhibition hall with a feeling of extreme confusion and fear.
Sometimes Bryce would stay by his side as he remembered, but most of the time, it was just Lin Xi alone.
The exhibition halls, filled with Sunu household items, stretched one after another, connected by short corridors. In my dream, the exhibition was like a vast maze, enough to trap a person there for eternity.
Lin Xi felt as if he had been walking through those never-ending exhibition halls for ten thousand years. He almost fainted, of course, assuming he could faint even in his dreams. When he came to his senses, he had arrived at a corridor—yes, the organizers had deliberately used several display panels to divide the originally spacious hall into a winding corridor.
Lin Xi looked at the display boards, several of which were blurry, but one of them—a sign—was exceptionally clear.
It said "Sunu Star Butterfly" on it, and below that line of English, someone wrote in a very childish way: I love Star Butterflies the most!
The line of crayon writing looked strange and out of place, as if it were embedded in the display board.
However, the passersby around Lin Xi seemed completely oblivious to her presence.
Lin Xi stared at the words "Sunu Star Butterfly," his heart pounding. He felt like an animal being watched by a wild beast, panic and unease gnawing at his soul like tiny insects, bringing a slight stinging sensation. But he couldn't control his behavior in the dream.
The surrounding environment melted away, and Lin Xi had arrived at the Sunu Star Butterfly exhibition area.
People were packed together, shoulder to shoulder.
This spacious hall is like a gathering place for all of humanity on Earth.
An overwhelming sense of awe and wonder washed over the exhibition hall like waves, and combined with the figures of people melting together, the whole scene looked like some strange experiment.
Amidst the noise, Lin Xi heard a peculiar sound, strange, high-pitched, and with an indescribable quality.
"Yes, that's right. What you see now is the most precious and sacred Star Butterfly on our planet Sunu. It is also our totem and spiritual symbol. This particular Star Butterfly is an individual that has remained active for a very long time. We usually respectfully call it 'Your Majesty,' because its form and status are second only to the Queen Butterfly in the entire butterfly nest..."
Lin Xi walked towards the sound without thinking.
Well, a dream is just a dream, and he always gets what he wants.
Lin Xike remembered that the actual situation was not so smooth. It took him quite a while to squeeze in front of that extremely rare Sunu Star Butterfly.
But the guide was still there, just like always.
The tall, slender Sunu man stood there, his limbs incredibly long, his skin deathly pale, so pale you could almost see his veins through it.
Every now and then, he would bend down and speak kindly to the children around him. Whenever he spoke, the children who were closer would exclaim in surprise and giggle as they hid in their parents' arms behind them.
That Sunu man looked so strange, but Lin Xi's attention was completely focused on him.
Right behind the Sunu people stood the largest birdcage Lin Xi had ever seen in her life—or rather, it only looked like a birdcage. If the Star Butterfly were just an ordinary exhibit animal, people could easily confine it in such a cold and crude contraption. But the Sunu people certainly wouldn't do that. They decorated the cage as beautifully as possible; even the metal objects looked large enough for several people to ride motorcycles inside. Their decorations made the creature inhabiting the cage appear as luxurious, noble, and exuding an air of superiority, like a human aristocrat.
However, the fact that it exists in an exhibition aimed at Earthlings creates an absurd contrast with its nature.
The star butterfly named "Prince" looks slightly similar to butterflies in human perception, but that's about it.
Its carapace, gleaming with an unnatural sheen, was almost as tall and sturdy as a 1.8-meter-tall strongman. It possessed enormous, bubble-like red eyes and a distinctly structured body; its carapace shimmered like a polished mercury mirror, its curved surfaces reflecting the faces of the onlookers. Behind it were two enormous, flowing membranes. Lin Xi was completely mesmerized. These membranes, like fairy gowns, shimmered with rainbow-like iridescence, moving gently without wind behind the star-butterfly's ferocious body, lazily changing shape and color.
The combination of that gigantic, insect-like body and those exquisitely beautiful wings was so bizarre, yet at the same time possessed a beauty that defied human description—the kind that could give you goosebumps.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Just as Lin Xi was looking up, gazing intently at the giant star butterfly, the Sunu man suddenly appeared beside him like a ghost.
"..."
Lin Xi looked up at the Sunu man's pale face, which was very different from that of Earthlings, and remained silent.
But the Sunu people didn't seem to care.
It speaks fluent English, but its heavy Sunu accent makes its speech very difficult to understand.
It stared intently at Lin Xi, then suddenly grinned and revealed a smile.
Immediately afterwards, Lin Xi saw it turn its head and let out a long, hissing sound towards the birdcage. At the call of the Sunu man, the lazy, seemingly dazed Star Butterfly landed.
It was standing almost right in front of Lin Xi.
The Sunu man reached out and grasped Lin Xi's wrist.
"Do you want to touch it?"
The Sunu asked.
Lin Xi still did not answer it.
But the Sunu didn't care about that; it just grabbed Linxi's hand and forced him to feel his way into the birdcage.
Lin Xi touched the star butterfly.
He originally intended to stroke the Star Butterfly's wings, which were as soft and beautiful as clouds, gauze, and mist. However, the moment his fingertips reached out to the Star Butterfly, its wings suddenly trembled and unfolded in front of Lin Mao's eyes.
Whoosh—
In that instant, the entire world was filled with the wings of the Star Butterfly.
The wings, which were originally as hazy and dreamlike as smoke and clouds, turned into a bewitching golden-red color after unfolding. Fleshy veins gushed out from the Star Butterfly's body, forming countless curled, trembling spirals.
Lin Xi's hand was pressed tightly against Xing Die's hard, rough sternum.
The star butterfly's scarlet eyes were fixed on him.
"...Wow, that's quite rare, little Earthling. Star Butterflies only fully reveal their wings in front of someone they really like, hahaha, I never imagined they'd show their wings to an Earthling...*&……￥&t%$…"
The Sunu seemed startled; it looked at Lin Xi in shock and then spoke.
In the brief moment when the Sunu man was distracted by Lin Xi, the dense tentacles behind the Star Butterfly began to slowly wriggle towards the frail yet warm human child.
One of them had already touched Lin Xi's fingers.
From the outside, those tentacles look like some kind of jelly, translucent, moist, and elastic, like some kind of children's food.
But when they touched Lin Xi, she realized it was just an illusion—
Those beautiful tentacles were as tough and powerful as pythons, and the force with which they wrapped around his wrists was so great that they almost crushed his wrist bones.
Lin Xi's face turned deathly pale.
He wanted to cry—to scream and sob like any ordinary child.
But he was not an ordinary child.
Orphans like him are used to quickly shutting up, becoming quiet, and remaining motionless when experiencing great pain to avoid worse things from happening to them.
Even though he had become a member of the Bryce family, this nature remained stubbornly in his body.
So he just instinctively froze.
No one knew the panic he felt in that instant. Lin Xi even heard people's friendly laughter and exclamations full of admiration.
Oh no, perhaps not everyone...
The Sunu man knew something was wrong.
Lin Xi even heard him speak a long passage in Sunuxing language.
With a fake smile, it reached its hand into the cage as well. It was very close to Lin Mao, so Lin Mao could clearly hear another sound—a sound like something rough rubbing against itself—coming from the Sunu man's chest.
The star butterfly made the same sound.
But from beginning to end, Xingdie never intended to let go of Lin Xi.
Finally, the Sunu shouted to his companions.
Lin Xi, who was just a child at the time, could not possibly understand these words, but now he can understand them to some extent—provided, of course, that these words of Sunu Star language are not words he imagined in his dream.
The Sunu man said...
There's something wrong here, I need help... He admitted his mistake... He mistook this child for his mate! He's capturing Him... This Earthling is going to die... Trouble... *...%
The Sunu language began to become blurred and indistinct.
They didn't even sound like Sunu; they sounded more like a high-frequency flapping of wings.
This is...*&%...%...you...like...*&%￥species...
Only a few words were barely recognizable.
But they sounded even stranger and more obscure than that rubbing sound.
While the Sunu man was trying to get help from his companions, Lin Xi was still staring at the star butterfly.
Star Butterfly's appearance is slowly changing.
Its eyes, with their scarlet, bubble-like pupils split in two.
However, it changed from two to four...
Finally, his eyeballs turned into a dense cluster of red compound eyes.
Hiss...
Lin Mao heard that voice again.
"No……
Lin Ximing knew it was a dream, but the feeling of panic still vividly reappeared in his body.
He looked in alarm at the Sunu man beside him, but the man had already vanished.
In fact, at some point, Lin Mao's surroundings became completely empty, with no one else around.
The exhibition hall in my memory has become rugged and damp without me even realizing it.
The smell in the air changed from the dry, mixed smell of popcorn, perfume, and human sweat that was typical of convention centers, to a thick, moist, and sweet-smelling odor.
The bright incandescent bulbs dimmed—no, they disappeared.
The glowing things were just moss covering the ceiling.
Regularly arranged holes appeared on the wall, each about the size of a basketball, with milky white or beige translucent insect eggs embedded in the center of each hole. They were bulging and wriggling with a peculiar rhythm.
Lin Xi could even see those disgusting, maggot-like things turning, trembling, and whispering beneath the translucent membrane.
Hiss... hiss...
Then that awful high-frequency noise came back.
Lin Xi felt that the noise was like an invisible knife, almost able to pierce directly into his body through the vibration of the sound waves.
Wake up—
This was a truly terrifying nightmare.
Lin Xi desperately told herself in her dream.
But the dream was still so viscous, so realistic, and so...dark.
hiss……
The sticky, tight sensation on her wrist made Lin Xi whisper involuntarily.
Of course, by the time he turned his attention back to the thing in front of him, he had no time to panic about the pain in his wrist.
Star Butterfly.
More precisely—that thing that used to be Star Butterfly—
It was gradually transforming before Lin Xi's eyes.
The black breastplate shattered, revealing the grayish-white armor underneath!
Countless spider-leg-like things emerged from the Jia 5 pasture award ning pay zhi wu mother chimney fa recovery shell servant men imitation possessed invading stunts cicada widow possess mother together Jun
Lin Xiguang almost burst into tears when he saw that thing.
But at this moment, he couldn't even make a sound—excessive fear had completely choked his throat.
He could only stand there blankly, like a small, weak animal in the forest that could only play dead to escape, standing there motionless.
He let the appendages that "thing" extend and touch his body.
Then, they slowly pulled him into the darkness.
A more wicked, more viscous, and more intense dream slowly enveloped us.
It was pure darkness where even fear or crying no longer existed.
There, there is no passage of time, no reason, only something deep black that can completely melt away human consciousness.
And that thing was gnawing at Lin Xi's soul.
...
"Beep beep...beep beep...beep beep..." Being pulled out of a deep, unconscious dream by a communicator is a terrible experience.
Seeing that the summons on the communicator came from Taran made the experience even worse, adding another ten points to the overall experience.
Lin Xi woke up in that narrow bed, which was exceptionally uncomfortable. He grabbed the communicator, glanced at it, then slammed his hand over his face, letting out a low groan of pain…
Lin Xi had never felt so agonizing when he was awake. The intense headache almost made him faint again the moment he sat up.
Lin Xi staggered and struggled for a long time before finally managing to get off his bed. He glanced back at his sheets unconsciously, then froze at the mess on the bed.
His pillow and sheets were soaked.
The pillow was soaked with tears, and the sheets were stained with his own cold sweat, leaving a vivid human-shaped imprint.
There were even some suspicious stains on his blankets.
Lin Xi endured her headache and stared at the last thing mentioned for a long time.
He couldn't quite understand what was going on.
Crying, cold sweat, and what else?
He vaguely remembered that he seemed to have had a nightmare.
But upon closer reflection, that dream seems so vague and distant.
—But the fabric itself proved that, at least last night, the dream was quite terrifying for him. However, this also makes it difficult to explain the stains on the blanket.
Lin Xi doesn't remember being the kind of person with unusual tastes.
"Beep beep—beep beep—"
Just as Lin Xi was staring at his bed, his damn communicator rang again.
"Fuck it."
Lin Xi cursed and grabbed the communicator to take another look.
Very good, this time in addition to Taran's summons, there is also a message from Elisa.
Lin Xi hesitated for a moment, but in the end he opened the message from Elisa.
We found something in the sealed container of the statue; I think you probably need to take a look. —Message from: Elisa
"statue?"
Lin Xi felt that her thoughts were quite chaotic.
It took him a while to realize that Elisa was referring to that eerie fossil statue.
Elisa's message was very vague, but Lin Xi felt even more depressed because of it.
After all, Elisa knew his personality.
Unless something truly dire has arisen, she would have revealed some detailed information before he was summoned by the Great Demon King Taran so that he could handle the situation smoothly.
But now, Elisa simply brushed it off with a vague "we found something".
Lin Xi already had a premonition.
"New trouble. Ha, I knew it—"
He murmured to himself.
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