Bobcat Dream Eater
"Did you kill him?"
Liu Jingyu picked up the teacup and took a sip, then heard Jiang Jingzong next to her ask curiously.
"No." Liu Jingyu smiled.
The sunlight grew brighter and brighter, casting a faint, cold shadow inside the pavilion.
Jiang Jingzong curled his lips upon hearing this and muttered, "Hypocrisy."
Liu Jingyu smiled again. This time her smile was generous and bright. She no longer looked weak, and the aura around her rose unconsciously.
Inside the dim tower.
Hearing the words spoken by the clear female voice, Liu Jingyu's head buzzed, and countless fragments of memories from the past four days flashed through his mind.
——She seemed to have pieced together a story about the mountain city.
The story of the mountain city begins when a hunter brings a mountain cat back to the city.
That day, the hunter shouted to his children at home to come and see the mountain cat he had hunted. In his memory, this mountain cat looked like a cat, but he had never seen one before. He wanted to bring the cat back for his children to play with.
His loud voice called out to the children and also attracted the curious neighbors to come out to see this wild cat that they had never seen before. The hunter opened the sack and looked inside. He was so frightened that he dropped his hands and fell to the ground, shaking.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, a pale figure slowly crawled out of the open sack. Feeling the terrified gazes from all directions, the figure raised its head.
It has a human body, but a furry cat-like head is strangely placed on its neck. Its orange-yellow pupils, which occupy one-third of its face, are looking at the hunter who is slumped on the ground in front of it.
The fangs protruding from its lips were tightly gripping a piece of skinned venison, and a low growl emanated from its throat. It was as if the flesh had been torn from the deer's body with its teeth, and blood was dripping, the deer's blood smeared on the brown fur with black stripes. The blood and stench of decay instantly spread from its body, splashing all over everyone's face.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Suddenly, terrible screams broke out in a corner of the city, and everyone ran away screaming.
In just one stick of incense, the news that the hunter had brought a monster with a human body and a cat face spread throughout the city. For a time, people were in a panic, and almost everyone in the city fled in fear.
Panic spread, and people outside the city looked at the city gates, not daring to return. Until night, howling sounds rang out in the city, like a cat howling at the top of its lungs, or a baby crying at the top of its lungs.
Everyone went crazy.
They cursed and cried, twisted and struggled in pain on the ground, or desperately banged their heads against the rough trunks of century-old trees.
This is God's punishment! It is the mountain city that bears God's wrath—
I can’t live, and I dare not die.
Everyone in the city was in constant fear.
finally--
It is unknown who suggested it, but the extremely frightened residents of the city decided to kill this sudden "divine punishment".
They entered the city in fear and anger, and found the dying "Wild Cat" in front of the hunter's house. They chopped the "Wild Cat" with axes and hatchets.
But in the end, everyone panicked even more——
Can't be killed!
Everyone thought of retreating, but it was quickly dismissed - if they couldn't kill it, then they would trap it!
They tied the "Lynx Cat" to the tower originally used for offering sacrifices to the gods, and nailed its limbs tightly with long iron-black nails. The residents pointed the nails at the "Lynx Cat"'s head, their hearts filled with anger and sadness for themselves:
God, that's all.
Punishing us for no reason——
The iron-black spikes pierced into the head of the "Lynx".
The "Bobcat" stopped struggling and moved.
People reached out to check its breath with trembling hands, only to see the pupils of the "mountain cat"'s eyes split into two, like snake pupils. Simultaneously, hot and humid air sprayed onto their fingers.
Without exception, people fled in terror, never daring to approach the tower again.
At night, the residents of the city suffered from tormenting dreams, and during the day they trembled in fear... Within three days, all the residents of the city died suddenly without knowing it.
But strangely, they still had consciousness and could even touch objects and continue to live in the mountain city. They realized that this was the effect of the "mountain cat".
But soon, they found that their memories were fading and they no longer had dreams.
That’s right, how can ghosts have dreams?
The "Lynx Cat" eats dreams. Without dreams, the "Lynx Cat" will fall into a deep sleep. It wakes up once every six months, and this time the "Lynx Cat" must eat dreams.
Soon, many outsiders came to the city, and the "Bobcat" woke up and had a good meal.
But the residents of the mountain city began to worry——
Could the "Bobcat" have escaped into the dreams of outsiders?! The "Bobcat"'s spirit had left, leaving only a corpse-like human body with a cat face in the city. Could these people still survive?
The residents were anxious and determined to keep the outsiders, so they set fire to all the inns in the city and burned the outsiders to death.
Closing the city, setting fire... this can kill countless ordinary people, but for monks, it is just a matter of a talisman.
Finally, the residents of the city learned various spells from nowhere.
At night, the "mountain cat" silently devours the dreams of outsiders sleeping in the inn. Meanwhile, outsiders attending celebrations outside the inn are caught in the residents' illusions, their real bodies numbly following the residents' strange assimilation rituals, gradually transforming into city dwellers.
Over the past hundred years, all outsiders who entered the mountain city ended up dead without exception.
Five days, just five days—
Outsiders either die suddenly after their dreams are eaten by the "mountain cat" and become wandering souls before becoming city residents, or their thinking gradually becomes dull, and they become city residents in a daze, and finally become wandering souls completely.
"How is it? It's very simple, right? Kill the wandering souls here and you can leave the mountain city directly."
"This is much easier than killing the 'Bobcat.'"
In front of the gray-white stone door in the tower, the teasing female voice sounded again.
Liu Jingyu came back to his senses and turned his eyes to look at the countless people in front of him.
“This… How can this be possible?!”
"It only adds to the sin of killing, and goes against the will of heaven!"
The expressions on everyone's faces changed a lot, with a hint of sadness between their brows and hesitation -
It’s okay to kill one person, it’s okay to kill ten people, it’s okay to even kill a hundred people if there’s a legitimate reason, but killing the people of an entire city… these are the people of an entire city!
How can you kill someone without any hesitation?!
People are like this. They can turn weapons against their own kind to fight for treasures, but they are too soft-hearted when facing ghosts.
"snort……"
The female voice laughed.
She said calmly, as if she was watching a good show from the sidelines:
"waste."
Her tone was nonchalant, without any dissatisfaction or indignation, and she spoke lightly as if she was stating a fact.
"you!"
Everyone instantly became furious, their eyes wide open with anger.
Unable to see the person who was speaking, and not knowing where to direct their anger, they could only take out their anger in their hands, smashing the swords, axes and hammers at the residents of the city, with a continuous clanging sound.
"Who the hell do you think you are?! If you have the guts, just leave the mountain city. After all, you're still stuck here like the rest of us!!"
"What's the point of hiding behind people? If you have the guts, come out and show us real weapons!"
"You talk so easily, but you come and kill me! I don't even know where I'm hiding. It's all talk and no action, who wouldn't do that?!"
For a moment, everyone was outraged, and their attacks became even more brutal.
"Leave her alone!" someone suddenly shouted, "Our people have just pushed the stone door open! Let's go in quickly!"
"What?!" Suddenly, the anger in everyone's hearts was extinguished, and they turned their heads hurriedly to look in the direction of the stone gate.
Avoiding the crowd coming and going in the melee, I only saw the heavy gray-white stone door that was unguarded. I didn't know when it was pushed open a crack, and I could see a corner of the dark blue behind the door.
"Quick! The door is open, let's go in!"
Everyone was very excited, holding various weapons in their hands. They no longer looked at the residents who were fighting before, but rushed towards the stone gate with gleams in their eyes.
"Damn outsiders! Outsiders!!"
"They opened the stone gate. Outsiders! Outsiders, how dare you disturb the peace of the 'Mountain Cat'—!"
"Kill, kill! Kill!"
The outsiders smiled broadly, revealing their white teeth. Some even glanced provocatively back at the residents chasing them, laughing heartily, "Death brings peace. Let's kill the 'Bobcat' and give it a true cleansing..."
"ah!!!"
In everyone's sight, in front of that person, a huge cat face opened its mouth and bit down -
"Plop!" The man fell to the ground, dark red blood gushed out from his broken neck, and a pool of blood formed in an instant.
"'Bobcat'!!!"
"It's the 'Bobcat'! How did the 'Bobcat' come out?!!"
"What did you do?! Why did you let the 'Bobcat' out--!"
"It wasn't us! We just walked in and hadn't seen anything yet, and the 'Bobcat' came out!!!"
Amidst shouts and hurried footsteps, the lynx with a human body and a cat face crawled on the ground. A huge, illusory cat-faced head condensed on its head, and it crawled quickly along the way, opening its mouth and biting the fleeing people in front of it.
Outsiders and city residents alike ended up in the same place, falling into the bloody mouth of the "mountain cat".
For a moment, the howling of ghosts and wolves resounded throughout the ancient tower.
Blood splattered everywhere, broken limbs flew everywhere——
Liu Jingyu stood in the corner, unconsciously holding her breath. She immediately applied several Breath-Suppressing Talismans to herself, her gaze scanning the surroundings, but mostly focused on the Mountain Cat.
"Who was it? Who released the 'Bobcat'?"
Blood splattered on the hem of her clothes. Liu Jingyu was sweating profusely and thinking silently.
There is no way that the "Bobcat" could have escaped on its own. Someone must have let it out - was it the owner of the female voice?
This night was filled with chaos and blood.
Liu Jingyu's eyes were covered with patches of bright red. She heard a majestic and solemn "dong" in the distance, like the sound of a bell from the sky. She suddenly came to her senses and found that a sea of fire had burned in front of her.
"Look, everyone! The city gates are open."
A figure walked out slowly from behind the gray and white ancient stone door, his red robe swaying in the firelight, and a wanton smile on his lips.
She walked step by step into the sea of fire, but was not hurt at all. Even the hottest flames bowed to her.
She slowly raised her bare hand and grabbed at the air—
Amidst the shrill howls, the "mountain cat" with a cat face and a human body, which was pouncing on the sea of corpses and blood, was pulled backwards by a powerful suction force. It had no power to resist, and its head was firmly grasped in the hands of the woman in red.
The firelight reflected in Liu Jingyu's eyes. Liu Jingyu didn't dare to move. With his eyes open, he saw the red-clothed figure holding the "Mountain Cat"'s head in one hand and holding a long iron-black nail stained with black and red blood in the other hand. He lightly stabbed the nail into the top of the "Mountain Cat"'s skull.
The "Bobcat" stopped struggling.
The body of the "Lynx" dragged weakly on the ground. The fiery red figure easily grabbed the "Lynx" head and walked down the tower step by step...
"What a lunatic..." Liu Jingyu felt cold all over, and this was the only sentence in his mind.
What didn't she understand after seeing this scene?
That person, instead of killing the "Lynx", trapped the "Lynx"'s soul in her own dream and brought it to the tower, then took the complete "Lynx" away and used it for her own purposes...
How powerful must one be to be so confident that they don't fear being attacked by ghosts one day...
"You will never guess who that person is." The girl in the pink dress in the pavilion said with a faint smile.
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