Chapter 613 Xilin's Dream

“Da-da-da-da-”

The girl held the big hand in front of her tightly with one hand, and grabbed the hem of her dirty, almost gray white clothes with the other hand, following her mother step by step.

She turned her head from time to time, and her bright yellow eyes timidly glanced around. No matter when, her head was lowered, and her thick purple hair fell from her temples, covering her neck and both sides of her face tightly.

There were high-rise buildings of 20 or 30 floors everywhere, and the bright windows reflected the warm sunlight. Maybe the "sparkling" often mentioned on the radio was like this.

The air around was not spotless, and the girl was occasionally choked by car exhaust. The sky that could be seen through the gaps in the building was also gray, not the blue sky mentioned on the radio, but in any case, it was much better than being in a small basement, with every breath full of moldy smell, and struggling to capture the position of the sky from the arm-sized window.

How warm it was. After just two steps on the street, I felt that the musty smell from being in the basement for a long time had disappeared.

But the sunlight was always a little dazzling, and the curious eyes of the people around were the same. The girl could only shyly lower her head.

As she continued to walk forward, the building seemed to become smaller again, and there was an unspeakable smell in the air. It was not smelly, but it was unspeakable. In short, it was a smell that made people feel unhappy.

Electric poles reappeared on both sides of the road, but Xilin didn't find them annoying. Looking at the rough gray-brown surface, she wanted to touch it, or even kick it, to see if the long wires would dance under her power.

"Hu——"

"Dance——Dance——"

Just thinking about this, a cold wind that was about to overturn people swept along the street, and the black wires danced one by one in the wind, but Xilin didn't feel cold, because the person in front of her had turned around and squatted, holding her in his arms, blocking everything for her.

In a moment, the wind disappeared. Her mother stood up again, rubbed her head gently, and turned around to pull her to continue walking before Xilin could see her face clearly.

High-rise buildings gradually returned to the two of them. Without the swaying wires, Xilin felt that the surroundings became unfamiliar again.

However, the experience of waiting for the traffic light, following the crowd, and being carried by the crowd to the other side of the road was still fresh.

Suddenly, when she passed a corner, she saw a white-haired girl standing alone in the shadow of the building at the intersection.

"..."

"..."

The stare lasted for a second. The girl looked at the other's facial features that were exactly the same as hers, and she couldn't help but stop in shock.

"No, that's not right..."

The facial features... are obviously different...

Apart from other things, the sky blue eyes can't match her bright yellow eyes and the X-shaped pupils that are different from ordinary people.

But in my heart... there is a feeling that [she is me, another me]

"Hmm? What's wrong, Xilin? Did you see anything interesting?"

Xilin loosened the hem of her white dress and pointed her finger at the place where the white-haired girl stood, but there was nothing there.

The next moment, her head was gently stroked twice.

"Are you uncomfortable in the sun? It's okay, we'll be there soon. Hang on, Xilin."

"Okay, Mom."

Xilin retracted her gaze, kept the question in her heart, and just nodded obediently.

She still followed her mother, but the force from her mother's hand was a little stronger, pulling her closer. The sun shone directly on her mother's tall body, and the shadow almost covered Xilin.

Holding her mother's hand tightly, Xilin wanted to say something, but her mother stopped and turned back to smile at her.

Probably because she was facing away from the sun, her mother's face was covered by the shadow cast by her heavy bangs, and her eyes could not be seen clearly. Only the faint smile at the corner of her mouth silently soothed the girl's mood.

"Dangdang--we're here!"

Accompanying her mother's words, Xilin looked around blankly, but all she saw were strange people and strange buildings.

Where are we?

No, what are we going to do?

Xilin felt a little confused. But in another sense, she seemed quite clear.

Time seemed to slow down very slowly at this moment, but the flow of people around her did not slow down at all. They passed by her in a hurry, and the light and shadow around her became hazy and changeable at this moment. Xilin felt like a small island in the middle of the river, and was quickly wrapped by the raging river in confusion.

Everything around her did not belong to her, only the warmth in her palm was the only reality.

"Quick! Quick! It's the store in front!"

In an instant, Xilin's time began to flow again, and her mother took her hand and took her to the door of a dessert shop.

"Hello! Happy drinking--"

The last word got stuck in her throat. The waiter standing at the door carefully looked at the dirty white dresses of the two women, one big and one small, and his eyes gradually became suspicious and vigilant.

"Madam..., could you please lift up your sleeves for a moment?"

"Gurgle--"

Xilin heard her mother's Adam's apple rolling, she lowered her head and explained to the waiter in a low voice:

"Um... sir, are you new here? I'm a regular customer of this store, so we don't have to do this..."

"No, I'm not new here. I've been working here for three months, but I'm sure I've never seen you once, ma'am. Please cooperate, as long as you let me see your forearm. Okay, as you know, there are more infectious people with purple lines all over the world, and we have to be careful.”

"Then why do you doubt me? Look at my hands. Where are the lines you mentioned? Oh, maybe you think our clothes don't look like rich people, so you are deliberately making things difficult? Do you believe it or not? I will file a complaint against you! "

Xilin stared at her mother's tall back in stunned silence. She could not imagine that her mother, who was so gentle to her just a moment ago, would fight with others without giving in.

She turned her eyes anxiously and blankly, but suddenly she saw the white-haired girl again on a street corner not far away.

"Well……"

The other party had the same expression as hers, a bit confused, a bit hesitant to speak, but just blinked and the other party disappeared again.

"Madam, this is your fault. My job is to serve the guests, which of course also includes protecting the lives of the guests. I must not let in guests with infectious diseases. What I just did was just a routine process. Anyway, it was just a glimpse. Amputating an arm is not an excessive request. Madam, you are trying to make excuses, could it be..."

"Okay, okay! I'll just show it to you!"

Xilin turned her big head back, only to see her mother roll up the sleeve of her left arm to her shoulder, revealing her dazzling white arm.

The waiter blinked and then moved his gaze to the right.

The scene froze for a moment.

Xilin saw her mother slowly raise her hand, pinch the sleeve at her right wrist, and then slowly pull it upward little by little.

She couldn't help but hold her breath. She heard the conversation just now and knew very well what existed five centimeters in front of her mother's right elbow.

Fortunately, the store door behind the waiter was opened, and a strange uncle stepped forward to stop everything.

"Hey! ▆▆▆▆, today is a little later than usual. Is that Xilin behind you? I didn't expect that she has grown so big. It has been ten years..."

For some reason, Siren couldn't recall her mother's name.

The uncle sighed and patted the waiter on the shoulder.

"Okay, okay, let them come in. They are all my acquaintances. This lady comes to my store to buy cakes on this day every year."

"Ah... uh, okay, I understand boss."

The waiter lowered his head and obediently moved away from the door.

Siren saw her mother nodding awkwardly to the uncle and the waiter respectively, while she herself pouted and walked past the waiter arrogantly.

The uncle took the mother and daughter to a seat for two by the window, then looked at Xilin with a smile and asked:

"It's still the same as in previous years, one portion..."

"One chocolate Sachertorte and one butter pie!"

Mother replied quickly.

The uncle's smile suddenly solidified on his face. After a while, Xilin saw him looking at her mother and saying:

"Two pieces of Sachertorte. It's rare for you to come to my shop. I'm treating you today. And today is also Siren's tenth birthday, isn't it? In the past, you always had a butter pie here and brought a Sachertorte. When I go back, I want to try the Sachertorte myself this year. I haven’t had it for a long time.”

"Okay... okay..."

The man quickly returned to the counter, and after a while, he served two plates of chocolate cake cut into fan shapes. But he did not stop, but returned to the counter and brought back a cup of coffee and a cup of juice.

Xilin looked at the juice handed to her and glanced at her mother in confusion. It wasn't until the latter nodded to her that she took the cold juice with both hands.

It's refreshing, a little sour, and obviously not sweet, but it tastes much better than the usual juice mixed with water and sugar.

The net content of the cup was too small, so she drank more than half of it in the first sip. Looking at the little juice left, Xilin turned her head to the window with some gloominess.

"Eh!"

Outside the window, the white-haired girl pressed her hands against the glass and looked straight at her.

Xilin suppressed the urge to scream and rubbed her eyes hard. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing in front of the glass, no one.

"What happened today...I didn't sleep well, I kept having hallucinations..."

Siren lowered her head and yawned slightly. She pulled the plate with the Sachertorte closer to her chest, then grasped the fork with the palm of her hand, imitating other customers in the store, and took small bites.

"It's really unnecessary. It's still delicious if you take a big bite."

Xilin thought angrily, but when she saw her mother acting like that, she could only choose to remain silent.

The uncle moved a stool and sat next to the mother. He probably felt that there were some words that children of her age could not understand, so the two of them had no scruples in chatting.

"When did he leave? We were all classmates, and you didn't even inform us. The teacher told me."

"I just don't want to cause you any trouble..."

"In all these years, you two have never asked us for anything. On the contrary, he has no money to treat himself even if he gets sick. When I opened the store, he even gave me a copy. You guys, how can I do this well... "

"..."

"But are you infected too?"

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it. Are you... afraid of us..."

"No, scientific magazines have written very clearly that this so-called infectious disease does not rely on body fluids and respiratory transmission. Whether you will contract it or not sometimes depends on luck."

"..."

"Hey! Could it be that Siren also..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"How long do you have?"

"Who knows? It has already reached the torso, maybe ten days and a half month, or if you are lucky, half a year. In short, there is not much time left."

"Nasi Lin..."

"Although I'm sorry to say this, there's nothing I can do about it. ▆▆▆, Sirin, can I trouble you in the future..."

"Wait▆▆▆▆, don't give up so easily! Well...just wait for me, I'll find that thing for you."

Xilin watched the uncle run away in a hurry, and not long after, he ran back with a few pieces of paper.

"▆▆▆▆, look at this!"

"This is... Tianming Medical?"

"Yes, the world's largest and most authoritative medical institution has been dedicated to studying these weird diseases in recent years. He and I both dreamed of entering that place... Forget it, let's not talk about old things. Take a look. Well, Tianming Medical has built a large-scale sanatorium named [Tower of Babel] in Siberia. The hospital recruits patients with these weird diseases every year. As long as they sign this voluntary form, they will be admitted to Destiny Medical for free treatment. If they are lucky, they will be sent to the Tower of Babel to enjoy the most top-notch treatment. Of course, in this process, it is necessary to Cooperate with the doctor to try some new drugs, but there is always hope of survival, right? "

"this……"

"▆▆▆▆, you have to think about it, this is not just your problem! Look at Xilin, she is only ten years old! Even if I adopt her for you, people with this disease will not survive... …Uh, I’m sorry▆▆▆▆, that’s not what I meant.”

"I understand, just...just let me think about it again, and I'll try my best to give you an answer in the next few days."

"Well, I sincerely hope that you mother and daughter can live well."

"Birth, old age, sickness, and death are your destiny. Asche zu Asche, Staub zu Staub."

The mother suddenly let out a low sigh, and then at the same time as the uncle's expression suddenly changed, she stuck out her tongue playfully:

"But it's better to die than live!"

"You..."

The man soon smiled bitterly.

"You always liked to tease people like this back then. Now I'm just a cake shop owner, so I can help you get here. Anyway, I wish you mother and daughter good luck. Well, I won't disturb your time anymore. , let Xilin have a happy tenth birthday."

"Thanks."

After the uncle left, Xilin saw her mother's face gradually turn gray.

She didn't know what was going on, but her mother was still joking naughtily just a moment ago...

"Tower of Babel..."

She heard her mother whisper the term, so she repeated it too.

"Tower of Babel...Mom, such a familiar place name. Have we been to this place before?"

"No."

Mother smiled.

"It's from the story I told you."

"Eh...oh..."

"The Tower of Babel fell into disrepair, so Marduk ordered Naboreshah to rebuild it. He asked Naboreshah to build the foundation of the tower firmly on the chest of the earth, and the spire to reach into the sky. Neboraxer's son Buchadnezzar continued to raise the height of the tower, reaching the height of the sky...but this is not a good name..."

"Huh?"

The mother stroked Xilin's head lovingly, and then quickly lowered her head sadly.

"Ci Lin, after a while...after a while, you can go to school like a normal child."

"I can learn from my mother!"

"But you just pester me to tell stories every time, right?"

"You can learn something from stories!"

"Then tell me, what did you learn from the story of the Tower of Babel?"

"Eh..."

"Sirin!"

After being patted on the head, my mother softly explained:

"At that time, everyone in the world spoke the same language and spoke the same language. As they moved eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there. They consulted among themselves and said, 'Come, let us make bricks and lay them down. "They took bricks for stone and stone for ashes." They said, "Come, let us build a city with a tower whose top reaches to the sky, so that we may not be scattered abroad." ' All over the earth.

"The gods came to see the cities and towers that men had built. God said, 'Look! They have become one people and speak the same language. Now that they have done this, there will be no other things they will do in the future. It won't work. Let's go down there and confuse their speech so that they can't understand each other.'

“Then God scattered them from there over the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. Because there God confounded the language of the people in the world and scattered them all over the face of the face of the earth, so the name of the city was Babylon, which means Confusion meaning.”

"Huh? But it's obviously the gods who prevented humans from building that tower... Ouch!"

Xilin covered her forehead with her hands, one eye widened, the other narrowed, her cheeks puffed up like a little pufferfish.

Mother retracted her hand with a smile, and her expression suddenly became serious:

"No matter how you understand it, Siren. In the general public's perception, in the singing of history, in metaphors and symbolism, the [Tower of Babel] is the embodiment of arrogance. Humanity's attempt to build a giant tower that reaches the sky, this The arrogant act finally brought division and turmoil to mankind. They lost the same language and were at war with each other. In the end, the Tower of Babel collapsed in the war. This is a classic in the doctrine of destiny. I don't understand why they gave a sanatorium such a name. If it was intentional, it would be too arrogant... so arrogant. Just like the ancient humans who built the Tower of Babel... Is destiny so unafraid of destiny..."

"So...Mom, are you going to send me there..."

Siren saw her mother's lips move upward, and then she closed her eyes with a smile.

"There is no way. Your uncle is right. People have to find ways to survive, especially you are only ten years old. If we want to survive, we can only sign a voluntary letter to get a chance of survival... But don’t worry, mom will go with you. I hope mom can survive until that day... and I hope mom can be chosen to go to the Tower of Babel with you.

"But Siren, even if your mother separates from you one day, you must always, always, always, always remember this sentence——"

Mother suddenly stood up and leaned her upper body forward, crossing the entire table, so that their foreheads were touching.

Feeling the cold warmth of each other, Xilin saw her mother's lips moving slightly, saying the words that would wrap around her life like a spell:

"Ich liebe dich."

Xilin's pupils suddenly shrank, and she realized that the [Mother] in front of her was just a gray-white doll with no facial features or hair color, and even the smile was fake.

The surrounding area is not a city at all, not a dessert shop, just empty white.

There was a stabbing pain in my heart, and my vision was blurred for some reason.

But with blurred vision, the doll named [Mother] suddenly gained color again.

Her short hair became snow white, her eyes were blue, and her smile was so gentle.

Siren's lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.

Seeing her like this, [Mother] squinted her eyes and her smile became warmer.

But her words are still chasing Sirin like a curse——

"Ich liebe dich."

"Ahhhh! Stop talking!"

Xilin covered her ears - she really wanted to tear the dream in front of her into pieces, but why couldn't she move her hands...

Mother's brows furrowed upward, and her smile became forced and sad, as if there was not enough time to talk anymore.

She looked at Siren, then cast her gaze behind her, trying to make her smile warm again.

Then, the blessing she said was no longer a curse:

"Ich liebe euch alle. I love you."

Siren... No, the Second Herrscher turned around, and she saw the white-haired girl again, but it was different from the dream, she had already remembered her name.

"Kiana..."

Her eyes became complicated in an instant, and even the original sharpness was lost.

But in the next moment, she suddenly started to tremble violently, her long hair flying, and an eardrum-piercing scream sounded in the empty space:

"Human, get out of here!!!"

"Ci Lin, you..."

"roll!"

The pity in Kiana's eyes inadvertently hurt the Second Herrscher——

She hated people looking at her like that.

She hated people looking at her like this.

She hated people looking at her like this.

"Ci Lin, I..."

"Get out of here!"

Staring at Kiana with bloodshot eyes, the Second Herrscher pushed her hands, and Kiana, who was about to say something, disappeared into this space.

Very good……

Finally alone again...

The Second Herrscher, or Siren, covered her face weakly and collapsed on the ground.

"Ich liebe dich."

She muttered this sentence subconsciously.

"Ich liebe dich.Ich liebe dich.Ich liebe dich..."

The unconscious repetition soon turned into a whisper like a mantra, and the whole body was shaking with these words. The heart was constantly broken and reorganized, and distant and vague memories washed over and over again in the brain that was almost collapsing.

Suddenly, Siren felt a little more relaxed. It was as if some of the restraints on her body were loosening.

"Kiana..."

She whispered the name she envied so much, and tears fell from her fingers.

"Cecilia..."

That warm embrace vaguely remained all over her body, and it was not a false embrace in the fantasy world - since she was ten years old, it was the first time someone was willing to put trust, kindness and love in front of her, bringing her a warmth that she would never be able to understand. The forgotten smile, even if the next moment is the end of life, that kind of warmth has traveled through countless time and is deeply imprinted in the body's perception.

"If it had been earlier...if I hadn't done that kind of thing, Cecilia might have discovered the Tower of Babel, and then..."

The tears flowed out of control.

Do you regret it? She has always regretted, but she has never had anyone to talk to about her regrets.

Bella, Aurora, Agata, Galina... they were all dead, before they could feel that embrace.

Kiana said that she was the evil in Sirin's heart, but she was not born with darkness, nor was she born with anger, nor did she want to destroy the world as soon as she revived...

But apart from destruction, apart from destroying this completely dirty world, what else can she do...

She didn't even dare to imagine the happy life in Yu Duchen's environment anymore. Whenever she thought of that, her heart would feel a tearing pain. It should be regarded as a beautiful memory, but what was left was only deep pain.

"God..."

Since being betrayed, she has never prayed to the gods again, but this time, she couldn't help but ask in her heart:

"God...how on earth, how can we...be saved..." (End of Chapter)