In the eerie red light of the basement, Elvis Presley's classic has finished playing, leaving only the rustling sound of the record player's needle, which made the room feel completely silent.
Lin Nian, who was standing in the middle of the basement, looked at the blonde girl on the cashmere bed. It was destined that no third person could know the conversation in this room, or should I say the second person?
“Chu Tianjiao was carrying a box that night.” The blonde girl said, “He carries that box with him all the time.”
“What’s in the box.”
“What Odin wants.”
“What is.”
“‘Cocoon’? ‘Dragon bone cross’? ‘Pure king’s fetal blood’? Who knows, but it is something of great significance to Odin’s plan after all.”
"Odin came to Chu Tianjiao because of the things in the box, and he came to me because of you." Lin Nian said lightly, "Does that mean that you and the things in the box are essentially the same?"
"Why do you have to think so? Just because I guided you intentionally or unintentionally?" The blonde girl smiled, "Maybe the reason why Odin found me is completely different from the reason why he found Chu Tianjiao, or it may be the same. This kind of hurt
I won't lie about the harmony between the two of us, but whether you make wild guesses or not is beyond my control."
"Who are you?" For the first time, Lin Nian looked at the blonde girl with such cold and emotionless eyes. After facing Odin and exploring Chu Tianjiao's former residence, he felt a sense of fear in his heart.
Fear of the unknown and grand destiny.
“You came with this doubt, so naturally I have to answer some questions for you accordingly.” The blonde girl said, “But you think I am the Riddler, so I might as well just be the Riddler.”
“It’s not just once, you have always been the Riddler.” Lin Nian said.
"Okay." The blonde girl shrugged, "You can think of me as a dragon king that sneaked into your head, crawled in through your ears while you were sleeping, and made a nest in your head.
Although your idea is stupid, it also feels cute."
“The last person who could do this was a cockroach.” Lin Nian didn’t understand what the blond girl was being cute about.
"Don't cockroaches also have cockroach ladies?" The blonde girl was about to change the subject again, "You want to use the connection between Chu Tianjiao and Odin to dig out my existence, but I regret to tell you that without my previous help
, you won’t get any effective information at all, you will only know Chu Tianjiao’s life.”
Lin Nian was silent, because the blond girl was right. Until now, most of what he had analyzed and guessed were the clues that the blond girl had provided to him intentionally or unintentionally, saying that he had found the suspected body of the blond girl.
, it would be better to say that the blond girl took the initiative to reveal this news to him, so what is the other party’s intention? If she is really a pure-blooded dragon, shouldn’t she try her best to distance herself from this matter?
?
"It's better to talk about some suspicions in advance, lest you suddenly get angry with me one day and die in a battle with a cat or dog. Don't think that I can save you every time. I'm not your patron saint." The blonde girl.
He curled his lips and said, "At best, I'm the devil making a deal with you."
“But I have never summoned the devil.” Lin Nian said.
"Are you sure?" the blonde girl said softly, "Only by signing the contract, the devil will live in your heart."
Lin Nian paused, because he thought of a colorful little thing hidden in the pale. In an instant, he shook off the cold and suffocating picture, his face was a little unsightly, and under the bright red light
He had a gloomy face, as if he was ready to kill someone anytime, anywhere.
"Don't look so scary." The blonde girl crossed her legs and shook her wine glass. "I haven't done anything bad to you from the beginning to the end, right? On the contrary, I have a terrible conscience. Every time you want to kill someone, I will immediately offer my strength to you.
My word spirit, maybe you will become stronger in the future, and if you want to chop Odin to death, I will cooperate with you and chop up that guy who is pretending to be a ghost."
Lin Nian turned around and stopped looking at him, because he knew that this time he would be able to find out the most about Chu Tianjiao. This girl's background was extremely shady, and she was even talking to the Dragon King and the gods.
After getting in touch, it seems that no more effective information can be found for the time being, so this matter can only be postponed for the time being.
The most important thing now is that he must block Odin's information and Chu Tianjiao's affairs. He can contact the blond girl from Odin and Chu Tianjiao. The secret party may not be able to connect them in the same way, but they don't know that the blond girl exists.
They simply thought that Lin Nian, like Chu Tianjiao, also had what Odin wanted. Once Lin Nian couldn't explain clearly, the secret party would most likely do something to him that would make both parties regret it.
matter.
“Want to burn this place down?” The blond girl looked at Lin Nian with a smile.
"Chu Tianjiao spent almost a lifetime clarifying these things, just like he created a puzzle for himself and for future generations. Once he solves this puzzle, he will probably be able to figure out the ultimate secret of these hundreds of years.
Lin Nian paused and said, "Nidhogg's return."
"No one wants Nidhogg to reappear in the world. You don't want it, and neither do I." The blonde girl said, "With your memory, you should have remembered all these things, right?"
"Stop joking, you have always had the best memory." Lin Nian said lightly, "Every time I recall something, those memories will flow in front of my eyes like a slideshow. You are the master of playing with memory. You
I recorded everything I saw and replayed it when I needed to."
"But didn't this also help you memorize pi and the dictionary very well?" The blonde girl said hypocritically, "But I still have to correct you. Your memory is indeed very good. I just don't want to see you die.
You only have so many brain cells to help you cheat occasionally. Your 'S' level bloodline is genuine, more real than gold refined by fire. There is really no one in the Cassel Academy who is better than you. Even Ang
That old guy's bloodline has to be passed down in front of you. After all, he is not an ordinary person and I really don't intend to live in his head."
Your bloodline is better than Angers?
Lin Nian paused for a moment, but ignored her anymore. He turned and walked towards the workbench in the center of the room. Since the blond girl had already half-shown her cards, he couldn't find out any more reliable information, so he simply turned his attention again.
I put my energy back into this unexplored room.
The silver-plated bullets are neatly arranged on the workbench, and each bullet is engraved with lush patterns. Next to it is a professional engraving machine. Chu Tianjiao is not only a super hybrid, he is also proficient in some alchemy.
Knowledge! Lin Nian picked up the large-caliber bullets. Just by touching the patterns, he could almost feel the terrifying power they would burst into the bodies of deadpools, dragons and even hybrids.
"If you want to learn, I can also teach you." The blonde girl lay lazily on the bed and said, "The things that the secret party plays now are just the leftovers of real dragons. The real alchemy works in reality.
But the power of the word spirit is enough to protect the entire city of Rome! The real secret of alchemy is to convert the 'word spirit' into 'words' and store them on the 'carrier'. I am an expert at this. The four great monarchs came to me.
You have to study hard."
Lin Nian ignored the blond girl's statement about self-destructing the Dragon King. Although he did not rule out this possibility, the reality he had experienced for more than ten years told him that usually the more joyful the shouts were, the more it seemed like they were using a blindfold to hide something deeper and more terrifying.
the truth.
Next to the workbench is a sink for developing photos. It’s no wonder why this room has such a dim red light. Photographic paper is not sensitive to red light, and the photosensitivity speed is very slow. Under the condition of red light and low brightness,
Basically, the impact on exposure is negligible. This room is probably often used as a darkroom for developing photos.
Lin Nian glanced at the cork board next to the pool. After just one glance, he didn't want to look at it. It was covered with nails and photos. They were all stolen, but the angles were excellent. Each photo could outline the beauty of the woman inside.
You can occasionally find the baby face of Chu Zihang when he was a child. Children with facial paralysis are always unlovable, but if there is a man who loves him enough, he can be seen in every photo.
I captured his various movements to capture his childishness and emotions.
Lin Nian scratched the picture of a woman and a child on the beach with his hand. He could probably imagine that the man's emotions when he was hiding in the grass and pressing the shutter button must have been warm and sad at the same time. The camera captured the shadows of those two people.
They were very, very close to him, but after pressing the shutter, there was no trace of him, so he felt that they were so far away from him.
Sony's SLRs are stacked one by one on the shelf, and various lenses are stacked together. This man not only likes vinyl records, but also plays SLRs, smokes cigars, and drinks island whiskey. The most manly man has the most manly things.
Men's hobbies, if women are not blind, they will not leave this kind of the best of the best.
Unless he leaves voluntarily.
Lin Nian sighed softly. He could almost imagine what Chu Tianjiao, who had been lurking in the coastal city for more than ten years, was looking for. He was exhausted from running around for the fate of mankind. There can be dozens of decades in a person's life.
Years? But he was willing to devote all the remaining ten years to such a grand theme as the destiny of mankind. When he was almost numb, someone gave him a ticket to the musical, and he met the person named Su Xiaoyan.
woman, and he fell in love.
"He is also a human being, and he also wants to give himself a chance." The blonde girl chuckled and whispered, "He is also a human being who can love and want to love. When he loves to the point where he can no longer control himself, he will burst into tears.
It’s an illusion, as if I can forget the heavy fate on my body and simply live my whole life with that woman.”
It might have been a spring or summer, a season when everything is heating up. When the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the beach red, the charming woman wearing a dance skirt and stepping on the water in the afterglow suddenly took his hand and let him go.
He promised, let him say that we are willing to give up everything in the past to accompany you forever, so he said that we are willing to give up everything in the past to accompany you forever. He said it so decisively that he nailed a family to the rest of his life with one spit and one nail.
in life.
He got married, had children, and started running around for a living. But when he reached the pinnacle of happiness, fate still found him. By chance, one day he found something, maybe it was given to him by someone else, it was a black
There was a silver nameplate on the suitcase, engraved with the half-decayed World Tree school emblem. He knew how dangerous the contents were, like a time bomb. It was so dangerous that he didn't dare let anyone get close, but he couldn't let it leave him.
Proportionate.
So he pulled out the nails one by one, and blood flowed from the dark hole of each nail he pulled out. The family nailed to the board began to fall apart.
He could have given them a better life, but he could only choose to leave with the black suitcase.
It is true that he could live more freely after leaving his beloved and without eyes and ears around him. He was not afraid of being asked about the source of the huge amount of money he obtained. He found this unknown third-floor basement and used his true skills to start it.
A small world belongs to men. As a newly divorced, he felt that he needed to be chic. When the chic is too much, he can forget the sadness, so the strongest island vodka and the most expensive vinyl records were piled up in the room, but there were still too many in the center of the room.
A pool for developing photos contains photos of the past that cannot be returned to.
“This is the first year since you left me, and you look good.”
“This is the second year, please don’t be so haggard.”
“In the third year, you gained weight.”
“In the fourth year, I have less time to think of you.”
“In the fifth year, the number continues to decrease.”
“In the sixth year, I still miss you.”
Lin Nian gently touched the words written with a red marker pen on the cork board. Cigars and spirits could not make him forget women and children. He smoked while developing photos, and when he was deeply in love, he exhaled all the cigar smoke in his mouth.
Come out and look for her face in the hazy smoke.
"Maybe he also wanted to bring a better life to the mother and son, but when he was ready, fate sent the suitcase in front of him again." The blonde girl said, "Economy has never been a factor.
His pressure, his pressure is that fate that is like a gangrene on the bones. I don't know what his temper is, but he has to pretend to be a useless middle-aged man in front of the woman he loves to death, forcing the other party to follow him.
Divorce yourself? I can’t do this.”
“I can’t do it either,” Lin Nian said.
"In a way, you are very similar to him, but you are still younger. Don't follow his old path." The blond girl sighed softly.
Lin Nian knew what she was referring to and said nothing. He left the workbench and walked to the side of the huge cashmere bed. On the bedside he found a heavy aluminum alloy box with no combination lock and only a card slot.
He had seen a box of this style. When he turned it over and looked at the front, he saw that there was indeed a World Tree that was half lush and half withered carved on it.
The equipment box of the executive department.
“Chu Tianjiao has a deep relationship with the academy.” Lin Nian said in a low voice.
“Perhaps he is from your executive department,” the blond girl said.
Lin Nian suddenly remembered the phone call he had with Schneider on the Monyach. He had two missions in this coastal city this time. One of them was to find a potential student. Logically speaking, such a mission would not be possible at all.
It's impossible to fall on him. It's not that he is not qualified, but that he is now an 'S' level in the executive department, the ace among aces. It would be a waste of money to let him waste time on such a task that the admissions office should be busy with unless
The person who gave this task has enough selfishness and intentions.
It turns out that this is the reason why Schneider must ask him to pick up Chu Zihang. If he refuses this task, Schneider will probably pick him up himself, right?
It is most appropriate that the heir left behind by an 'S' class should be extradited by another 'S' class.
Lin Nian took out his pure black student card from the pocket of his windbreaker and swiped it through the card slot. The box opened with a 'click' and he opened the lid with one hand.
The Beretta 92F, M4supe shotgun, and SW_M500 revolver are dangerous gadgets that can kill people. The bottom of each bullet is painted a dangerous red, and the thread-wrapped shells with traces of alchemy. Equipment boxes of this level can only be used by private individuals.
Custom-made, at least for now, except for Lin Nian, who is the current 'S' class, no commissioner is allowed to carry this small arsenal around during missions.
“It’s no wonder that Chu Tianjiao mentioned Kassel College to Chu Zihang.” Lin Nian said.
"It's right to let you pick him up, but maybe Schneider didn't expect that you would meet 'Odin' and find these things, right?" the blonde girl said, "So, what should we do next? Put all this together
Report it to Kassel College and risk exposing me to shirk responsibility, or should you keep this secret alone and take over Chu Tianjiao's responsibility?"
Lin Nian did not answer him, but gently closed the equipment box without locking it, then turned and walked towards the steel pillar of the exit.
“Are you leaving now? Or do you have a better choice and are you anxious to meet someone?” The blond girl smiled.
Lin Nian ignored the blond girl behind him. When passing by the wooden board, he paused and took a photo from it. Then he walked to the steel pillar and jumped up, grabbing the floor of the second floor with one hand.
He left the room filled with red light.
Returning to the empty room on the second underground floor, Lin Nian walked out of the room, locked the iron door, and walked through the corridor back to the first floor. The middle-aged man in the office heard the noise and immediately came out:
"Have you finished reading? Are you ready to leave?"
“I want the key to room ‘062’.” Lin Nian said.
The middle-aged man was stunned for a moment, but when he saw Lin Nian's indifferent gaze, he took out an old key from the key chain and handed it to him: "Did you find any relics of Lao Chu?"
"Absolutely." Lin Nian put away the keys, took out his mobile phone and made a call. When he turned to leave, he glanced at the middle-aged man and said, "Sorry, you may have to find another place to work in the future."
While the middle-aged man was still dazed, Lin Nian walked out of the three-story gray building and left without looking back.
The light rain outside has stopped, and the entire factory area is damp. The road covered with coal slag is full of wet sheen. Occasionally, you can hear something howling deep in the factory area. It may be a wild dog that has strayed in and wants to escape, or it may be a stray dog that has strayed in and wants to escape.
He is a poor man who is desperate and wants to escape.
“Hello?” The call was answered, and the voice that rang was a familiar girl’s voice.
Lin Young breathed softly and said: "Su Xiaoqiang? Sorry, I have another favor that I need you to do for the bankrupt Media Asia Group. Some of the properties in Babaoshan are tradable, right?"
“Nothing happened to me, I just bought a building suddenly.”
"This is a low-rise building that should be used by the bankruptcy and liquidation team of Media Asia Group. You don't need to ask me why I bought it. I have a need to buy it." Lin Nian looked back and glanced back at the gray-white sky, which almost blended with the sky.
"Don't worry about money. I have recently saved some money abroad. It should be enough to buy it. If not, you can also get a loan."
“Okay, thank you.”
Lin Nian hung up the phone and prepared to make another call without hesitation. However, this time his finger fell on the dial button and he paused for a moment before pressing it directly. No other person would know about anything he discovered today.
, but once he makes this call, it means that he may put himself in a dangerous situation that may occur in the future.
But after a pause of less than a second, he pressed the dial button.
“Hello.” The call was connected.
“Chu Zihang?”
"yes."
“Are you free?”
"What's wrong?"
"I want to give you something, come to Babaoshan." He paused and said softly, "It specifically involves your entrance training and some things about your father."
The call was hung up. Lin Nian put down the phone and took out the photos he took out of his windbreaker pocket.
It was taken when Su Xiaoyan, who had cut her hair short, and Chu Zihang, who was eleven or twelve years old, were watching the sunset by the river. The golden afterglow shone on the woman's black hair and also on the boy's cool face. That
At that time, the women had not yet remarried and the men had just left. They were looking at the river, and the water was flowing at their feet as if they were waiting for someone to come back.
There is also a line of scrawled words written on the edge of the photo, as if it was left by a drunk person. He hid it in the grass and left behind the beauty of that moment. When the photo was developed, it was murmured into the viewfinder.
The ungrown boys and women said:
"That's it, don't cry, just look into the distance."
Under the hazy sky, Lin Nian raised his head and looked at the bridge across the river in the distance of the city. Schneider wanted him to lead Chu Zihang, an 'S'-class descendant, into the world of hybrids, but he felt that compared to
There should be a more suitable person to tell him everything, even though this person is no longer around
It’s time to tell the grown-up child in the photo that there once was such an awesome man who loved you and that he loved you until he died.