Ash spent more than a month in the small cell.
Bart said that was because Rachel didn't need him for the time being.
Ash, who was ignored except for the meal delivery, meditated and constructed spell models alone in the cell. When he got tired of sitting, he would get up and jump to exercise his body.
Bart thought Ash had come to terms with it and had a positive attitude, and he was very relieved.
He often fainted, especially after coming back from the lab. He was often too weak to speak, and Ash could only hear his deep, shallow, short breaths. But as long as he regained some energy, he would lean against the wall and tell Ash about what was happening outside.
"I heard that the elves' homeland is in the Land of White Moon. There is a huge tree of life there, and the first elves were born on the tree."
Ash asked him where the White Moon Country was in Iluv.
He said, "I don't know. But it is mysterious enough that no one has discovered it. It is like a paradise."
He was extremely envious: "You elves are so lucky to have such a peaceful homeland isolated from the world. After you leave here, you must find the entrance to the Land of the White Moon."
He knew a lot about elves.
He described to Ash longingly the scene he had seen.
"They have the most dexterous hands, and each elf can turn his or her tree house into a top-notch work of art."
"Their dance was so loved by nature that nature gave them unique abilities."
"They are extremely arrogant, but they are willing to bend down devoutly in front of love. They are loyal to their feelings and will only have one partner in their life - elves. Do you have someone you like?"
Ash said yes.
Bart smiled and said, "Elf, you may be able to build a beautiful tree house for yourself in the Land of the White Moon, and then dance a beautiful and passionate dance for the person you like. Finally, invite him to live in the tree house with you, live together, and love each other. Until the end of time, you will sleep together under the tree."
He kept telling Ash about the world of elves. Some of the stories he had seen with his own eyes, some he had heard from others, and some he had simply made up in an attempt to inspire Ash to live.
Ash told him many times that he would not give up his life easily, but Bart still stubbornly told him legends and stories one after another, painting a beautiful future for Ash.
Finally, Ash reluctantly gave up explaining and sighed, "You really like elves."
That’s why I understand it this way.
Barthes did not deny: "They are blessed with beautiful looks and talents, and are loved by nature... Who wouldn't like them?"
Ash no longer tried to dissuade Bart from thinking that he would kill himself if he wasn't careful, and sometimes he would have a casual conversation with Bart.
Bart was delighted with Ash's attitude.
"Yes, keep it up like this." He said excitedly, "You will definitely get out of here!"
The weak voice is also full of the power of hope.
The day after he said this, Ash saw his appearance for the first time.
This was also the first time Ash was taken out of the cell, through the dark corridors of the wizard tower, and came to Rachel's laboratory.
Saw him in the lab.
There was nothing like the hopeful and high spirits he had shown when he spoke the day before.
He was lying in an empty and spacious room, with a huge and complicated magic circle painted with dark red inscriptions beneath him. He was naked, with his limbs spread out helplessly, his pale skin cracked inch by inch, revealing the bright red flesh inside, like broken white porcelain, with dark red lines on it like spider webs, shocking to the eye.
Blood gushed out of his body in large quantities and soon merged with the dark red inscriptions on the floor.
The mysterious and bizarre magic circle looked even more eerie and cold.
Bart is about to die.
That's why Ash was taken out of the cell as the next substitute experimental material.
The magic circle had stopped working, and Rachel stood beside Bart, busy casting dozens of detection spells on Bart, and then quickly recording the feedback information from the magic in the notebook in her hand.
He knew that Bart's experiment had failed and he would die soon, so he raced against time and made use of this last short and precious time to record Bart's death process as a basis and reference for the next experiment.
When he looked at Bart, he was not looking at a dying life, but at cold data.
He looked serious and focused, and occasionally when he was concentrating on thinking, he even looked knowledgeable and wise. However, at this moment, he was even more frightening than the most vicious criminal in the King's Throne Prison.
But Ash only glanced at him once, then looked away - his eyes stayed on Bart, and incredibly, he didn't blink for a moment.
Dark green hair, emerald green eyes.
And pointed, delicate long ears.
He was surprised and hesitant: "Spirit?"
Bart is... a forest spirit?!
Bart, who has always been called an "elf" and always says "you elves are like this and like that", is actually an elf himself!
Bart rolled his eyes with difficulty and looked in Ash's direction.
"No... I am no longer an elf."
As he entered his last moments, his eyes were exceptionally bright. Only his voice was as weak as a candle in the wind, inaudible.
"Ah, so you look like this." He curled the corners of his lips, "Moonlight Fairy, you are really... pretty."
Ash pursed his lips. Although it was just a strange "dream", the more than one month of companionship and companionship was real. Bart's gentleness and concern for him were not fake.
Seeing someone familiar approaching death, Ash couldn't help but feel sad, even though he knew that all this had either already happened or never happened.
He moved closer and squatted down not far from Bart.
"You are a forest elf, and you are also very beautiful."
He said, glancing at Rachel.
Rachel didn't stop their conversation. Perhaps as long as it didn't hinder his testing and recording, he didn't care about the friendship between a dying person and a material that probably wouldn't live much longer.
Bart denied Ash's words: "I am not, elf."
His bloodshot face was blank. “I’m not an elf anymore.”
He really believed this, and his tone was extremely firm.
Ash was stunned for a moment, and finally understood why Bart always talked about elves from an outsider's perspective like "you elves".
Because he doesn't feel that he still belongs to the elf race.
Ash noticed that his emerald green eyes were mixed with a hint of dark red, and that his canine teeth, which were much sharper than those of an ordinary person, were exposed when he spoke.
Because of these changes, Bart no longer recognizes himself as an elf.
He denied being a spirit.
His blood was still flowing out. Ash was not wearing shoes, and his feet were soaked in sticky blood, and he seemed to feel a little warmth.
"Elf." Bart murmured to him.
Ash responded.
"I'm...dying." Bart closed his eyes slightly, "I'm sorry."
He spoke softly, just as he had been muttering to the wall for many days and nights in the past.
"I'm sorry, forget what I said to you before."
"Hold on, don't give up... Forget all these words."
"I said I would stay with you...but I just want you to survive and stay with me..."
"I'm afraid you're dead."
"If I'm the only one left, I won't be able to hold on any longer."
"That day, you suddenly passed away. It really... scared me..."
"It's great to have you."
"It allowed me to hold on for so long."
His mind gradually became blurred, he was driven only by obsession, and he kept talking.
"But in the end, we still have to face reality."
"Blue sky, forest, family and friends... I have been using them to paralyze myself, trying to grasp hope. But I really... can't hold on any longer."
"I'm not an elf anymore."
"There's no hope anymore."
"Even if I am free, I will not be able to appear under the blue sky openly, nor will I be able to see my family and friends again."
"As vampires, we can't survive successfully."
"Elves who become vampires cannot even return to the forest with their souls."
"Elf, give up."
His breath gradually weakened: "I have given up."
He closed his eyes, and there was not a single drop of extra blood left in his body.
He died disheartened.
Ash stared at him blankly, his eyes slightly red. "I won't give up." His voice was slightly hoarse, but extremely firm. "Bart, I will definitely persevere and leave here alive. I will go find the White Moon Country, build a tree house, find someone I like, dance for him, invite him to live in my home, live together, love each other, until the end of time, and sleep together under the tree."
As soon as he finished speaking, the empty room, the huge magic circle, the gloomy Rachel, the dead Bart - everything in front of him was twisted and shattered in an instant.
There was nothingness in front of him, only a sharp, furious voice broke through his eardrums: "This is impossible! This is impossible! Why is your heart not shaken! Why is your heart flawless! Spirit! Reliving the death of your friend, how could your heart remain calm!"
"Because he is not the elf you know." A familiar, slightly cold voice sounded beside him, "He has never experienced that period of time, so it is not a revisit."
Ash's head snapped to the side, "Sigourney!"
Sigourney is still Sigourney herself, with silver hair and dark red eyes.
Ash looked down subconsciously and found that he had returned to his normal appearance.
But the voice lingering in the void seemed unable to distinguish between him and Sigourney, and roared in disbelief: "Why are there two elves! Why do you have exactly the same aura!"
"That's a good question." Sigourney stretched out her hand towards the void, "You can take this question and go back to your abyss to think about it for thousands of years. You won't be bored in the endless years."
"No, no, no, stop! Please, please stop!" As if sensing danger, the originally exasperated voice suddenly became flattering, "Please let me go, I can satisfy all your wishes. Money? Power? Beauty? What do you want--uh!"
The flattering voice stopped abruptly.
"Devils are good at making sweet speeches and seducing people." Sigourney slowly withdrew her hand and taught Ash, "The first rule to deal with them is not to give them a chance to finish their words."
While Sigourney was speaking, the surrounding scenery changed again, returning to Ash's familiar spiritual world.
The quiet dark space is intertwined with bright lights.
Seeing the scenery in front of her, Sigourney raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise.
"Devil?" Ash finally asked the question that had confused him until now, in a peaceful environment. "What happened? What happened?"
Sigourney looked around but didn't leave in a hurry.
He first asked Ash to tell about his previous experience in the "dream".
Ash didn't miss a single detail. After he finished, he looked at Sigourney's slightly absent-minded face and asked softly, "Have you met Bart before?"
Sigourney lowered her eyes: "He is my friend."
"You've been through what I've been through," he said, "except for one thing—"
"When the real Bart died, he didn't let me give up."
"He said that everything he had said to me was for his own comfort."
"The blue sky, the forest, the freedom, the family and the friends, the beautiful future he described... those words were meant for himself."
"Even if you become a vampire, as long as you are still alive, you can hold on. This is all for himself."
"He said it was a pity that he couldn't convince himself in the end. So he couldn't hold on any longer."
"He couldn't even convince himself, but he hoped to convince me."
“He placed his hopes on me.”
"He failed, I hope I can succeed."
"So when he died, he didn't let me give up." Sigourney's eyes fell on Ash's soft eyebrows, and she vaguely recalled that day ten years ago.
In the room smelling heavily of blood.
The alienated elf looked at him expectantly for the last time, as if looking at another self, another stronger, tougher, ideal self.
"You will definitely succeed. Successfully transform and successfully survive."
"Hold on, elf! Even if you become a vampire, you must live!"
The elf with smoky grey eyes answered him seriously, "I will definitely persevere and leave here alive. I will go to the Land of the White Moon, build a tree house, find someone I like, dance for him, invite him to live in my home, live together, love each other, until the end of time, and sleep together under the tree."
When the words fell, the alienated elf stopped breathing.
He left peacefully with a smile, with sincere wishes and hopes.
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