Chapter 96 Yin Peach Blossom (26) As if afraid of disturbing a dream. ...
"Have you ever paid close attention to your friends?" That annoying mouth let out an exaggerated "Oh," "By the way, you couldn't see them clearly before, but now it's very clear, isn't it?"
Chang Mingai looked up. The sky was dark and gloomy. Of course she had seen rainy days before, but there had been too much rain lately. There had been several haunted rainstorms alone. She didn't know where God got so many tears.
But the rain wasn't enough; it was like a storm was about to break.
Those dark clouds drifted casually through the white clouds, as if teasing, deliberately delaying the storm's arrival, treading on the spiritual threshold of all things, leaving only the collapse of heaven and earth.
It didn't have the low-hanging feeling of dark clouds; it was high above, looking down on everything in the world.
However, the people passing by her were oblivious, and she even heard a passerby say that the sun was very strong today.
She thought to herself, "It's like a hellish joke, which sun?"
Our sun is probably different. She hoped the sun she could see wouldn't appear in the sky, otherwise...it would be too terrifying.
Her gaze followed the black smoke swirling in the air and landed on the convenience store across the street.
Inside the unobstructed glass wall, a handsome young man was scanning merchandise at the cashier. He was saying something with a squinty eye, easily making the customers laugh.
Black smoke poured into the convenience store from all directions, flowing continuously toward him, but it couldn't obscure the bright gleam in his eyes.
The scene made Chang Mingai very uncomfortable. She pondered why and quickly concluded that it was like smearing ink on white paper or trampling a clean sunflower into the mud.
Beautiful things are being tainted by filth... Anyone would frown and feel a strange sense of dread.
She thought of the cult leader's words again.
I don’t know what kind of extraordinary encounter your friend has had, but he has the power of the same origin as the sun god. As long as he is nearby, he will automatically attract the surrounding solar power and bring it back to the source.
All other forces or whatever you might think of as 'impurities' can be assimilated by him.
Hmm... "Solar receiver" is a more accurate term than "filter".
It seems your other friend has been caught up in the human sacrifice altar, but don't worry, it's full of cult members there, she won't get into any trouble. What you need to do is prevent this friend from going there.
The human sacrifice ritual at the ceremony has strict requirements regarding the amount of solar energy. If he comes, the solar energy will riot, and not only might your friend self-destruct because he can't withstand it, but the whole group will also perish there... It's convenient, though, to just bury him directly.
Chang Mingai certainly wouldn't believe him completely.
Based on her experience working with her superior, since the Dog Cult Leader needs her, he won't be stingy with a promise. He will send someone to protect Xia Wujin, but he might have other motives.
Fortunately, Xie Tan went with us. With him there, I can rest assured... right?
As long as he doesn't have any ulterior motives, she won't be able to handle burning the mountain like Observation Two did.
...Probably not.
Since Xia Wujin was entrusted to him, she naturally had to take good care of Lu Jinzhao as well.
She pushed open the door and called out to Lu Jinzhao, then took him away for two days under the pretext of a cult's exorcism request.
However, the leader also said that in order to maximize the recovery of solar energy, the solar energy receiver would be kept nearby during the human sacrifice ceremony.
Her colleague, whom she had never met, had concealed the existence of the tomb. She had also set up a maze in the desolate area. When she brought Lu Jinzhao there, the black smoke converging on him was indeed even thicker.
Xie Tan, who was reading the comic, was astonished along with the forum users.
[Wow, an energy recovery device! Lu Lu really does have a connection with solar energy.]
[Scroll back, where there's black smoke, the end is often where Lu Lu is. The expert in the Lu Lu character thread next door listed it before, amazing...]
[No wonder Lu Lu was the first character to appear in the entire series; the power reclamation has been underway since the very first story, hasn't it?]
[In the Sleeping Beauty arc, wasn't the "Sun Falling" theme constantly mentioned? The mystery is the answer; is the black sun in a state of twin death and slumber?]
[So the cult has been collecting the solar power scattered across the monsters in order to revive the sun, bring it down again, suppress the rampant monsters, and return the increasingly chaotic world to the rule of a single god?]
I was also quite concerned about Yun Song's hallucination. He said that the temple looked familiar, and it had appeared in the previous series "Storm Day".
He was originally a monk at Jin Guang Temple. He and his fellow monks went to the Guanyin Temple for a Dharma assembly and exchange, but they encountered a storm and were trapped in the temple. The monster that was living inside the Guanyin statue affected the minds of all of them, and they all went mad and died that night, except for this little monk who had been drinking and had fallen into a coma and escaped.
So after he escaped, he joined the cult, grew his hair long, changed his religious name, and looked much older; many years must have passed in the timeline.
[I remember that series, like the Dream series, was probably the most unique series in the Strange Tales series. The time and place would often jump around suddenly, and the Stormy Days series was full of extreme weather. Most of the stories that deviated from the main storyline came from these two series, such as that apocalyptic story about the extinction of insect people, which was actually just a dream seen through the eyes of ancient insects in the Dichu City Museum, haha.]
Yes, I reread that story a few days ago. In the final scene, it was a cloudy day outside the museum.
[The Bubble and Spell episodes in the new series are also set on cloudy days.]
[Could it be that some of the previous overcast days weren't truly overcast, but rather the black smoke from the smoke goggles obscuring the sky during the recovery process? Wow, buried that deep!]
[A storm like this would probably be even more chaotic.]
After seeing their hallucinations, and considering the stories in the previous series... I can actually understand their thoughts. If I lived in this world, I wouldn't want everything to be so chaotic, and to be constantly on edge.
Rui Rui is quite right. Knowing that you're living in constant danger, you can no longer deceive yourself and act like a fool.
[What exactly is Lu Lu? Does she possess power originating from the Sun God? Could she be the "good" side of the sun? Is she one with two souls, an angel and a demon?]
[I agree with this theory, but here's another speculation: the sun's origin is evil, but Lu Lu unexpectedly merged with the Smoke Mirror. Because of his kindness, he became a safety device for this power?]
Using the smoke mirror as both a recycle bin and a safety device is too dangerous. We definitely can't go near the tomb chamber. What if the angel dog blows up and really turns into an angel? Xiao Ai, tie him up!
Unfortunately, in the comic, Lu Jinzhao's expression suddenly turned bad, and Chang Mingai realized that Xi Rui was injured because the talisman she left on Xi Rui broke. In a moment of distraction, she missed the best time to control Lu Jinzhao.
They chased each other into the tomb.
Xie Tan speculated that the talisman broke just as Xi Rui was struck by Su He.
Meanwhile, in another tomb chamber, Xia Wujin heard his own voice.
Actually, it doesn't sound like her at all. The natural tone of that voice might be aloof, but when she speaks in a charming and seductive way, it has absolutely nothing to do with her.
But inexplicably, she felt that it was her own voice. Her mother held her tightly, her hands filled with hostility towards the voice. She then knew who it was, the source of her name... According to seniority, it was her great-aunt.
Perhaps because of their intertwined fates, she alone could hear its voice.
She came here because this old lady wanted to possess her body. She wanted to lay everything bare because she had already implicated enough people.
But upon hearing the word "husband," she forgot everything else and went completely numb. The first image that flashed through her mind was Lu Jinzhao's bowed head during the power outage.
Her intuition seemed to be warning her... that this might be more terrifying than being possessed.
No, Xie Tan is in danger! He's been captured by the female ghost!
She approached the source of the sound, when suddenly her mouth was covered and then released. Turning her head, she saw the witch girl grimacing and waving her hand, which had black handprints of a ghostly hand on it.
Xia Wujin looked at her warily, but heard her say, "Alright, hurry up and hide with me. Who knew your ordeal would be so great?"
Xia Wujin remembered that this was the word she got from a local shaman's divination at the shimmering scenic area.
The witch was behind a curtain and wearing a cloak, so they couldn't see her clearly, and her voice was hoarse.
She chased after me all this way? Xia Wujin looked her over and asked, "My friend is..."
“It was your friend from that religious group who asked me to do this; I’m just doing this for money,” Miss Qi sighed. “He found me after you guys, heard about your divination, and then commissioned me. If I’d known it would be this difficult…”
She held up a talisman, the unique incantation on which was indeed drawn by Xi Rui.
Xia Wujin's vigilance subsided somewhat, but he quickly changed the subject, breaking free from her grasp and returning to the main point: "I was talking about another friend. The female ghost who was supposed to capture me took him instead. Since this is my own calamity, I shouldn't involve innocent people..."
"Innocent?" The wizard interrupted her in a strange tone, covering her mouth again, and retreated deeper into the room, whispering, "I cast a divination for him before I came, and the verdict was 'set on the right track'... Are you sure he was forced?"
Xia Wujin was taken aback.
Just then, Chang Mingai, separated by only a wall, was also affected by the fog.
She saw Xi Rui nearly die at the hands of a monster during high school, and she saw how her friends and family outside the dream were in pain and despair after she fell asleep. In the dream, she struggled to deal with the strange town and the obviously scheming cult leader... Fear and a sense of crisis gripped her heart, making her eyes dart around like clock hands. She absolutely... could not let anything happen to Jin Zhao.
She entered the central burial chamber first.
With the last gear in place, Xie Tan, the only one high up, felt a slight tremor in his eyelashes—the real ceremony had begun.
The chaos and the worship were frozen in time, the ideals and anxieties were buried in the fire, and only the ticking of the clock, moving backward, remained unquestionable.
Black flames engulfed him.
The scene before them had changed; a slender but lively girl looked curiously at the person who had suddenly appeared.
"Wow... are you my fairy godmother?"
The boy hadn't recovered yet, but upon hearing the voice and seeing her for the first time... his gaze froze.
The indifference hanging high on the Sunstone melted away, and an unreal mist rose in his eyes, making his gaze exceptionally deep and moist.
He seemed to suddenly come back to his senses, displaying a range of emotions.
Those eyes, which seem to see nothing, reflected her small figure; only her.
He looked at her, as if he couldn't get enough of her, until it was a long time before he found his voice and, following her naive and confused words, earnestly replied, "I am not a fairy godmother."
The sound was too soft.
As if afraid of disturbing a dream.
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