97. Mysterious Dream Fairy Tale (20)
Humans are really no good toys.
"I can't," the little sunflower answered without hesitation.
Looking down again, I met the beckoning cat's curved eyes, which seemed to be smiling but weren't, carrying a tenderness that made me feel uneasy.
Little Sunflower felt her breath hitch, but she steadied herself, pursed her lips, and continued walking forward.
In the dream, it, which originally didn't like to talk much, actually became quite talkative afterward, probably to change the subject.
"When I first appeared here, Fairy Tale City wasn't called Fairy Tale City. It didn't have a name, and I was the only toy in the city that could walk and talk."
"I tried to walk out, hoping to find more toys like me, but I would soon be plunged into darkness. When I woke up again, I was back in the fairytale city. I couldn't get out of here."
As the little sunflower walked, she spoke in a tender, childlike voice, as if she were slowly telling Qin Fu'an a fairy tale to lull him to sleep.
“I don’t know how long I’ve lived here until one day, when I was sitting there in a daze, I suddenly entered a strange place.”
As the little sunflower spoke, it pointed to the old and worn-out carousel next to it and said softly, "I saw tall buildings, humans who looked completely different from me, all kinds of plants and animals, and... a toy that didn't look like me but could talk."
As soon as it finished speaking, it carried Qin Fu'an to the carousel. It placed Qin Fu'an on a small stool, then climbed up and sat down with Qin Fu'an.
"It was a crystal ball made of glass."
"I was in that strange place, watching it being produced on the assembly line, watching it being transported to stores, unpacked, and displayed for sale, watching it hope every day that someone would buy it..."
"Later, it was actually bought by a human little girl. She bought the crystal ball and gave it to another little girl as a birthday present."
“They have a very, very good relationship.” Little Sunflower looked down at Qin Fu’an and emphasized earnestly, “It’s much better than your relationship with your friends. They can sleep together, hold hands, hug each other, and go to and from school together. They say they are each other’s best friends.”
Little Sunflower teased me. Although she spoke in a serious tone, don't think you didn't hear the deliberate teasing in her words.
The lucky cat raised its paw and lightly patted the little sunflower's hand, as if punishing it, and chuckled, "Then I guess these two human cubs, best friends, will eventually be separated, right?"
Little Sunflower: "..."
The child's head drooped down little by little.
He exuded a bad aura, as if he were sad or confused.
"Hmm." It responded softly: "Two years after the crystal ball was bought and given as a gift, they were still in the same school, but they drifted further and further apart. Later, the best friends became strangers, and she made new best friends and received new birthday presents."
At this point, Little Sunflower reached out and lifted the lucky cat, leveling it with his fingertips. Looking directly into his eyes, she asked with a puzzled expression, "Two days is very, very short for humans, but are two years also very short?"
Before Qin Fu'an could answer, it asked in a low voice, "You said before that toys are different from humans. Humans can't understand the love of toys, they can only understand the love of their own kind. But why doesn't their love last long either?"
The little sunflower blinked slowly and asked the lucky cat it was holding up, word by word, "Mr. Repairman, are you humans always so fickle?"
The sunflower's most profound impression of humans over the years is their tendency to be fickle and easily bored.
This question seems difficult to answer no matter how you look at it.
In the quiet atmosphere of a silent standoff, the green-eyed lucky cat raised its two paws and said innocently, "How would I know what those humans are thinking?"
"I'm just like you, I'm also curious why humans are so fickle. It sounds like they're not much of a toy at all!"
He kept referring to "they, humans," and those two short sentences completely baffled Little Sunflower.
"...You're not human? But you don't seem to be a toy either?" The little sunflower held him up blankly, its big, round head unable to turn around for a moment.
Qin Fu'an thought the bewildered little sunflower looked both silly and adorable. He gently shook his two raised paws up and down a couple of times and chuckled, "Little sunflower, there are many creatures in this world. Besides humans and toys, there are animals, plants, demons, ghosts, gods, and Buddhas..."
"Let me tell you a secret: humans and ghosts are the most cunning, difficult, and unpredictable creatures. It's best to stay far away from both of them."
The lucky cat stopped waving its paws, tilted its head and said, "But I am a demon. Demons have always been devoted to one person and never play with sincere feelings like humans and ghosts do."
In a daze, the viewers in the live stream even felt that the streamer, in just a few words, not only smashed two races to death with a scapegoat, but also manually applied a hundred or so beauty filters to himself.
How can there be such a shameless person in the world?!
What? He's not human?!
Oh... then it's alright.
[If Yuanyuan knew its teammate was talking about it like that behind its back, even if it were covered in metallic feathers, it would probably turn into a fluffy ball, right?]
[Ahem, the prophet from before, some enthusiastic viewers have already gone over there to spread the word: click to see Yuanyuan break down in tears.]
[My god, my grandma, my coat, my jacket! This streamer's skin is so thick it could be used as a city wall! As a human, I'm absolutely furious!!!]
[Fellow fans, does anyone understand? I was just watching a live stream out of boredom, who knew such a huge accusation would fall from the sky? I'm totally crushed! Streamer, pay up!!]
[Host, yellow card warning! Racial attacks against viewers are strictly prohibited in this live stream!]
[You're all condemning it, but I'm different. My notebook is already full of lines from streamers on how to coax their wives.]
[+1, the underachievers are all complaining that the questions are too difficult, while the geniuses are already applying what they've learned to other problems. They'll go and smear my rival after the stream.]
[…Master, I understand! Who needs shame or teammates when you have a partner? Keep your wife happy and you're a winner in life!]
[Damn, those words woke me up! I'll pay this tuition fee in advance!]
Little Sunflower's head was already filled with question marks from Qin Fu'an's words.
Demon?
What is that?
Are both humans and ghosts cunning and fickle?
Although she didn't quite understand what it was saying, the little sunflower still nodded obediently into the beckoning cat's gentle, curved eyes.
"Okay, I've got it."
It remembered the repairman's instructions and what he said: he was not a fickle and cunning human or ghost, but a particularly devoted and unique demon.
Although the little sunflower still doesn't know what a demon is.
The concept of "demon" simply doesn't exist in its mind.
The doubts in her heart seemed to have been resolved by Qin Fu'an, but it also seemed that more doubts were secretly emerging.
But Little Sunflower did not forget her original purpose in bringing the repairman into the dream.
It hugged the lucky cat back into its arms, slid off the little horse stool, and continued walking into the fairytale city.
"During those two years, the crystal ball went from being placed in the most conspicuous place every day to being touched and hugged, to having less and less contact with the girl. In the end, the display case where it had lived for two years was taken over by the girl with another cute and pretty rabbit doll."
"The crystal ball was casually placed on the cabinet by the girl, and then she moved it to another place. After moving it around, one day the girl stuffed it into the dark cabinet."
The little sunflower walked slowly, and said slowly, "I saw that it was very sad and wanted to comfort it, but it was just a dream. When it was accidentally rolled out of the box and smashed one day, the dream of the crystal ball ended."
It stopped and looked ahead.
Qin Fu'an followed its gaze.
Just two meters away, on a faded and mottled bench, a crystal ball covered in cracks sat quietly on the stool.
Little Sunflower carried Qin Fu'an over.
“Mr. Repairman, look.” He placed Qin Fu’an next to the crystal ball, pointed to the dense cracks on the crystal ball, and whispered, “I picked it up from the dream and pieced it back together little by little, but it was smashed too badly, and many parts of its body could not be put back together. So I could only enter its dream again and again and retrieve different fragments and debris.”
At this point, Little Sunflower seemed very tired and sighed softly, her voice muffled: "But the fragments that are fished out are always the same, and I don't have the same amazing ability as you, Mr. Repairman, to make it more complete, more beautiful, and more powerful than before."
So during that time, the little sunflower would run into the dream of the crystal ball every day to retrieve the fragments and debris that had been scattered all over the ground.
Just as it finally exerted all its strength to make the crystal ball as good as it could, before it could even breathe a sigh of relief, it entered the dream of a new toy.
“Each dream re-experiences all the memories it once had, again and again, and then, in the brief time before its end, it seizes the opportunity to make them more complete.”
“One after another, I experienced 174 different dreams, but I can’t remember how many times I’ve relived them.”
The little sunflower reached out and gently touched the fragile crystal ball covered in cracks. Its head drooped slightly, and its cold, childlike voice betrayed its weariness and bewilderment.
"Because human babies love toys, stories, and fairy tales the most, I named my home Fairy Tale City. My home houses 174 toys that were once loved by human babies. Through their eyes, I have seen 174 stories of being loved and being abandoned."
"But I've noticed that, I don't know when it started, everyone has become different from before."
As soon as it finished speaking, it gently poked the crystal ball, and the next second, many tiny, densely packed, warm little suns slowly emerged from inside the crystal ball.
They are like paintings that are unfolded and played automatically, constantly showing the crystal ball's memories and experiences in the fairytale city.
Some of the little suns had completely dimmed; the originally golden and warm yellow suns had turned pitch black. The scene playing on the screen, however, was a moment of wonder and emotion when the crystal ball first arrived in the fairytale city.
But in the warm, golden little suns behind, the screen plays images of the crystal ball growing increasingly agitated, becoming angry and hateful, and even constantly self-destructing and attacking other toys.
[Author's Note]
Anzai: Neither humans nor ghosts are good toys. Little Sunflower, don't play with either of these creatures.
Yunzai: What is a demon? Do demons have beautiful green eyes and speak sweet words?
Yuanyuan: (frantically flipping through the Book of Life and Death) Qin Fu'an, the King of Hell wants you dead at midnight, I can't wait any longer, I'm here to take your dog's life now!
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