Chapter 103 Yin Peach Blossom (33) This isn't even breaking the fourth wall...
The Xia family head was stunned. He tentatively tucked his greetings into his words and spoke respectfully. The Black Goat family head's answers were all flawless, and he even understood the secret code they used to confirm each other's identities.
"Don't worry, your friend... is the Black Goat." The head of the Black Goat family said meaningfully. The Xia family head paused, remembering that the little girl had said something similar. It turned out she hadn't lied to him after all; he had been overthinking it!
He echoed their words, praising their extraordinary abilities, how the Xia family relied on them, and how they were fully committed to fulfilling any instructions.
He said it nicely, but in his heart he felt both relieved and a little regretful. The black goat was both a support and a constraint.
But the thought of the endless darkness in the sky made me feel grateful, which overwhelmed my wishful thinking and gave me a sense of security.
So the girl's appearance was interpreted differently. He was initially annoyed by her saying "announcement of death," but now he thought that the crow's appearance was a warning, but it was only because of the disaster that followed that it was misunderstood as an ominous bird.
So the girl was actually sent by the Black Goat after the celestial anomaly, who was worried about the safety of the Xia family amidst his busy schedule. He came to check on them and hinted that the situation was not good and that they should hold back. Seeing that nothing serious had happened to the Xia family, he went to deal with more important matters.
The Xia family patriarch had already prepared his heartfelt gratitude, but before he could speak, he heard a voice from the mirror ask, "By the way, did you encounter anything strange... or anyone?"
The Xia family patriarch shut his mouth. He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to read the unspoken meaning behind people's words—that girl wasn't from the Black Goat faction.
But she still had the black goat's oil lamp... Suddenly, the Xia family head's mind went blank, and he remembered someone.
The Black Goat is a large family. There are capable people, and naturally there are useless ones who are not appreciated. In order to make the most of them, they are raised like livestock, only to eat and drink. They are not even as good as the captured monsters.
The Black Goat secretly controls the Fiddler with his power, and he is very arrogant. Although there is nothing to hide about this, he will not publicize it to outsiders. So, from a certain perspective, it can be considered a secret.
But he was clear about it.
Because he had given it to a black goat.
Since dawn, the ever-present chill of the villa has once again caught up with him, and now he is hallucinating the sound of elegant footsteps right in his room!
He was about to scream for help when a pair of hands wrapped around his neck, and red lace draped down, bringing with it a fragrance—the scent of expensive perfume.
His head was tilted back, his eyes wide, and he couldn't utter a complete sentence, only making soft "ho ho" sounds.
He heard the woman chuckle softly in his ear.
"elder brother……"
In the Summer Garden, all the lights were turned off, and the wisps of smoke from the burnt-out candles drifted away, black in color.
Xie Tan, sitting in the back seat, looked back at the car with a sense of something. The still undeveloped Shengxia Garden was hidden in the lush green of the mountains, but he felt that there was a bright red in that dark green, watching them go.
There was no indication that he was following. So Xie Tan glanced at him once, then looked away and rubbed his temples.
His head started to ache from the moment he saw those hallucinations in the black goat. He thought it would get better after he came out, and even rested at the Xia family's house for a while, but it didn't help much. It was because his pheromones were being secreted due to his disturbed emotions.
Xiao Liu, who had fallen asleep from exhaustion, suddenly opened his eyes, pulled a talisman from his hair, reached forward, and stuck it on the driver's back.
Thinking he had been discovered, Xie Tan had already changed his hand from rubbing his temples to supporting his face, and unexpectedly looked up.
The car veered out of control and was about to crash into the guardrail when it swerved back onto the track and regained stability.
The driver's skin cracked open from the top of his head, revealing a white-skinned monster without facial features. This was not a human at all, and the Xia family harbored the idea of monitoring or killing them.
The moment Xia Wujin appeared, the Xia family was probably doomed. The monster naturally lost control, but now it has been controlled by Xiao Liu and has become a full-time driver.
Xiao Liu handled it perfectly, without needing to help Xie Tan jump out of the car and escape. Xie Tan then asked, "Aren't you asleep?"
Xiao Liu nodded, then, still half-asleep, leaned closer to him and muttered, "Finally out, I don't want to have nightmares anymore..."
Xie Tan lowered his head: "Do you often have nightmares?"
He stayed by Xiao Liu's side these days. She was only disturbed once or twice by the clansmen and ghosts passing by outside the door. The rest of the time she slept very peacefully.
"I won't do it when you're here. Before... I kept having strange dreams." She snuggled closer to him.
Xie Tan patted her skillfully and said softly, "Do you want to tell me?"
On the way down the mountain, Xiao Liu recounted the dreams that had been haunting her. She tried to make it sound lighthearted and even joked, but Xie Tan couldn't laugh.
Xie Tan was all too familiar with her dreams; they were all things he had witnessed firsthand… those repeated “illusions” of escaping the black goat.
Those weren't illusions at all, so what were they? Parallel worlds?
Are the stories in the "Dream" and "Stormy Day" series all from parallel worlds of the main storyline?
No wonder she was more timid and cautious than she was in those hallucinations, and hesitated to find other sacrifices to help her escape.
She had this dream every day, seeing herself and others die over and over again, witnessing her repeated failures in her pursuit of freedom, as if denying her desire to leave, mocking her wishful thinking, and becoming her nightmare.
She wasn't entirely indifferent when she saw the black goat carcasses.
They each kept their composure, not wanting the other to notice anything amiss or worry about them, so neither of them noticed the other's unusual behavior immediately.
After Xiao Liu vented her frustrations, she slowly calmed down with his silent comfort. She also looked back at the buildings on the hillside that were no longer visible, a hint of worry in her eyes.
There were so many people there, including two little children...
"Where do we go now?" Xiao Liu asked, turning around.
Xie Tan's head was throbbing, but the more he felt this way, the less she could tell from his expression. He said gently, "Let's go shopping. What about the leather cord and the doll we agreed on?"
Xiao Liu was stunned for a moment, then cheered.
Before arriving at the shopping street, Xie Tan started telling stories again. He remembered that they were originally going to go to the secret room to finish reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but Xiao Liu said she wanted to hear another story now, which was not finished either.
The story of "Alice in Wonderland" is not long, and listening to stories was Xiao Liu's only form of entertainment during his time in confinement. Xie Tan's offline storage was simply not enough, so he told every fairy tale he could think of. Finally, after much deliberation, under Xiao Liu's still expectant gaze... he opened the comic app.
The comic app has the entire "Strange Tales" series. He found a collection of episode stories outside the main storyline in the forum. Most of them are more fantastical themes. For example, the theme "Museum Horror" has 12345 episodes. It tells some short stories about the dynasties that the artifacts are from. He picked those to talk about. There are also more nonsensical and fictional ones, such as stories with science fiction and apocalyptic elements.
Indeed, he also told several episodes from the "Dream" and "Stormy Day" series.
Oh my god.
He finally remembered it.
If, according to the latest speculation on the forum, those stories are not purely fictional outside the main storyline, but are also buried within the main storyline as huge foreshadowing, then telling these stories within the main storyline's worldview... this is not just a matter of breaking the fourth wall; he doesn't even dare to imagine how the forum readers will analyze it.
Even Xie Tan, who believes in going with the flow and is ready to die if things don't go his way, is having a headache. This is different from other guesses. This is too big. Is there really any possibility of making it work?
If they had known they were going to talk about SpongeBob SquarePants and Pleasant Goat, they could have called it an IP collaboration and used it as a reference, and let Daoshen and the comic's producers negotiate it themselves.
It's just that those few stories were drawn very well. He's an uninteresting person with no interesting experiences, so he can't make up any exciting stories. He didn't want to ruin her ears, which were finally able to hear something new.
If Lu Jinzhao were here, he probably wouldn't be able to finish telling his story.
Xiao Liu noticed his hesitation and changed the subject: "But the fake turtle one is also very interesting. I've been thinking, if it's not a turtle, then what is it? What's its story? If we keep dragging this out, I'll forget what happened before. Let's just tell it all at once, Xiao Qi~"
Xie Tan could tell that she was still very interested in Alice's story, but at this moment, she really wanted to hear the sequel to another story... probably because that story from the Stormy Days series also took place under the cover of night.
"No, let's talk about another one first."
Xie Tan thought, "I've already said half of it, what's the point of being pretentious now? I might as well stick to my usual style, let things take their course, and just drift along for as long as I can."
He leaned to one side, his eyes slightly lowered, opened the app, flipped to the long story segment called "Eclipse," and continued to recount the disaster in the apocalypse in a low voice.
Xiao Liu leaned against him, listening attentively.
When they left, the Xia family wisely provided them with travel expenses, so they booked a hotel in the city.
Xie Tan couldn't be seen, and it was too unsafe for a little girl to walk alone on the street... Although it's not necessarily the girl from the Black Goat family who is unsafe.
Fortunately, the Xia family thoughtfully provided a driver. Under Xiao Liu's spell control, the monster in human skin did whatever he was told. It pretended to be Xiao Liu's father and even helped carry bags while they went shopping.
The Xia family has a close relationship with the Black Goat and their keen sense of strange events and disasters is beyond the reach of ordinary people. So when they left Four Seasons Mountain and arrived in the city of Diqiu, the atmosphere of terror was much less because of their "ignorance".
Some intellectuals say this is a special astronomical phenomenon called a "solar eclipse," but due to a lack of information, rumors are rampant. Some say it's a super weapon from another country, or a test of new weather equipment, while others are related to religion and deities, using the incident as a pretext for speculation.
Especially in Diqiu, a place considered "spiritual," more than a dozen religions emerged in just one morning. Xie Tan and Xiao Liu received flyers and pamphlets discreetly handed to them as they walked down the street.
The doctrine was probably recently compiled and contained many typos, so Xie Tan took away Xiao Liu's copy, as she was currently practicing calligraphy.
In this era, information was not readily available, and there were no smart devices to push emergency intelligence. People would hear on the radio during the evening news broadcast that "an unprecedented continuous super total solar eclipse and geomagnetic storm phenomenon have been observed," and were told not to panic and to trust science.
People's curiosity outweighed their fear, and they were quite happy. They felt that this was a special few days and hoped it would last longer so they wouldn't have to go to school or work, go out to play, and wander around the streets and alleys. This was a sudden holiday!
You should also look up at the sky every now and then to admire the spectacle, which is "unprecedented" and "once in a thousand years"!
Xiao Liu had a newly bought strawberry hair tie on her head, cute smiley face stickers on her face, a newly bought doll in her left hand, and an ice cream in her right hand, which she licked with care like a little animal.
They had just gotten off the carousel in the park, and she was still enjoying herself.
"What else do you want to play?" Xie Tan asked.
Xiao Liu was still able to play, and everything was too new and exciting for her, but she could tell that Xie Tan was tired.
He seemed to get tired easily, yet he stayed up with her for a long time.
So she said she was tired and wanted to go back to rest.
Xie Tan remained expressionless: "Let's go to the bookstore again." He noticed she kept looking towards the bookstore.
As for the headache and the increased pheromone secretion compared to usual... while she was choosing a doll, he secretly injected himself with an inhibitor.
The key, cell phone, and inhibitor were things that accompanied him through time travel, completely belonging to him, and also the "blank space." The Joker card couldn't travel to the past, but these things are still with him.
He thought he didn't know how much longer he could stay, maybe he would stay here forever as a ghost, but even so, it didn't mean they wouldn't part ways.
He dared not speculate on how much time he would have left with someone who was constantly dying in a seemingly parallel world and was already destined to die in his future, and as for his own life and death... he had no way of knowing.
At least for now, he didn't want to spoil her fun.
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