Chapter 289 Family Event : Witch Night (Part )
October 7th, : p.m., snowing, old Jingmai district, abandoned train station, platform .

Ke Mingye walked from the entrance, slowly approached the locker, took off his Blue Owl helmet, revealing a pale face. His hair, wet with sweat, hung down in clumps in front of his forehead, covering his eyes.

He stood there in a daze, then tilted his head back slightly and took a deep breath of cold air.

Then he sat on the public wooden chair behind him, bent over, and stared at the falling snow above the track in thought for a moment.

"Sure enough, Bai Zini has been captured by them. Why didn't she discuss it with me before going to find He Yinlu? No... I should have told her earlier that He Yinlu is still alive and has turned into a witch."

Ke Mingye opened his mouth slightly and exhaled a puff of white mist.

He was originally worried that Bai Zini would do something impulsive after knowing that the witch Black Rose was her "dead" friend He Yinlu, just like on the day of the Witch Night, when Bai Zini saw Black Rose, she would rush up to her recklessly, causing the whole thing to collapse.

Because of this, they hid the matter from Bai Zini, but the final result was counterproductive - those witches took advantage of the relationship between Black Rose and Ashes to transfer her away from them.

Thinking of this, Ke Mingye slowly lowered his head, his eyes moving.

"Even Xiziyue doesn't know where the witches' meeting place is located, so we can only wait... In five days, the Witch Night will come, and then we will have a chance to bring Bai Zini back."

As he was thinking, a bright red bubble appeared on the "Chat System" icon in the upper right corner of his vision.

Ke Mingye immediately raised his eyes, thought for a moment, moved his index finger to pop the bubble, and then a chat panel popped up in front of him.

The name on the panel was familiar; it was his dog-headed military advisor.

[Anti-Dog: As usual, we will leave this city before October 10st. Given the average strength of the current player group, being involved in this battle will result in death or injury.]

Ke Mingye glanced at the message, typed with his mind, and replied quickly.

[Failed Man: I understand, but don’t leave in a hurry on Witch Night. Lend me a paper figurine.]

[Anti-dog: Paper man? ]

[Failed Man: You said before that the paper figures you created with the "Door of Humanity" can still use skills even if they are far away from you.]

[Anti-Dog: That's right. Theoretically, even if I'm in Russia, as long as the paper man is with you, I can use my skills to help you.]

【Failed Man: That's enough, this way you won't be dragged into this. 】

[Anti-Dog: Which one do you want? Although my skills have been enhanced, I can only designate one paper figure at a time, and the rest are randomly refreshed. ]

【The failed man: Freud. 】

[Anti-Dog: Of course I can. But are you sure you don't want to come with me? The scale of this time is much larger than the blood hunters'. Maybe the Round Table will show up. It wouldn't be surprising even if the whole city is destroyed. I don't recommend you to stay here.]

【Failed Man: No, I won’t leave. 】

[Failed Man: You take Paranoia, Qingmeng, and Orange Peel with you and leave here. By the way, let the top gigolo use the travel voucher to return to Japan. I will be the only one left. ]

[Fanquan: Really... I understand. Come to the train station in the old Jingmai district to find me. I'll give you the paper figurine and leave on the train.]

【Failed Man: OK, I’ll contact you then. 】

After sending the last message, Ke Mingye closed the panel, slowly stood up from the wooden chair, took off his combat uniform and put on a thick cotton jacket.

He put his hand into his cotton-padded jacket pocket and took out his cell phone.

Ke Mingye raised his eyebrows slightly. As soon as he opened his phone, he found that Bai Wenna was cursing in the family group. He looked through the message records to see the reason, and then he found that Ke Youqing had sent a message in the group half an hour ago.

It was a voice message. My father said in a muffled voice that he drank too much and fell asleep last night. He had to work in another place with his colleagues for the next few days and might not be able to reply to messages for the time being. If there was anything, please contact him after he came back.

Then, Bai Wenna bombarded him crazily in the chat group, saying something like "Bai Zini is missing, where have you, the father, gone?" "You were not seen during the last zombie siege" and so on.

But Ke Youqing did not respond, and calls to him were always unreachable.

Ke Mingye listened to the voice message from his father twice, took a deep breath, and raised his hand to rub his red nose.

"I don't believe it. I know it was a pre-recorded voice message. He probably set it up so that when something happens to him and he doesn't have time to go home, he will automatically send this voice message to the group..."

He thought to himself, put his phone back into his pocket, and then walked out of the platform.

October 26th, 1:00 p.m. Beijing time.

Bai Zini had a dream.

In the dream, she, He Yinlu and Lin Jiaqi were walking on an overpass at dusk. The setting sun shone on their figures. They leaned on the railing of the overpass and watched the traffic on the road coming and going.

"Being a magical girl is so tiring. I have to do homework when I get home with injuries all over my body, and my parents scold me." He Yinlu held her face with both hands and looked down at the street. "Sometimes I really want to jump off here and get hit by a car and die."

The girl's face was shrouded in the faint afterglow, and her eyes were filled with sorrow.

"No." Lin Jiaqi said, "What will we do if you leave?"

Bai Zini put her hands behind her back, her back against the bridge railing, looking at the scene opposite to the two of them. The setting sun slowly fell from the corner of the horizon, and the last afterglow burned the clouds red, like rosy wine.

She stared at the setting sun, silent, not knowing what she was thinking.

He Yinlu said: "It's just a joke."

Lin Jiaqi said: "Even if I'm not kidding, if you really jump off the building, I will definitely use magic to catch you, so that you can't die; if you die, then I will become a witch and master the witchcraft of resurrection to save you."

He Yinlu said: "Are you cursing me?"

As she spoke, she looked at the silent Bai Zini: "Xiao Ni, what about you, don't you feel tired?"

Baizini came to her senses and shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

He Yinlu said, "Why? You are the one who works the hardest. When we were slacking off, you were out there fighting those nasty criminals. Oh - I see. Because you wanted to secretly protect your brother, you didn't feel tired."

Lin Jiaqi said: "It's so touching, this is the love between brother and sister."

"No way--!" Baizini blushed and stared at the two of them sideways.

"When can I meet your brother?"

"He has a terrible personality. Everyone hates him." Baizini muttered.

"Good good."

Bai Zini was silent for a while: "Sometimes I feel very tired, but I don't feel tired when you are around."

"Me too." He Yinlu raised her lips, "The three of us will be together and be magical girls for the rest of our lives."

Lin Jiaqi rolled her eyes at her and said, "In a few years, when the comet falls, you will be obedient. By then, we will no longer be magical girls."

He Yinlu said calmly: "That's nothing, we can still become magical girls in a few decades."

"How to become one?" asked Bai Zini.

"When we get dementia, we'll meet in a nursing home and become magical old ladies together."

"what"

Bai Zini was so angry that she laughed.

The girls leaned against the bridge railing, smiling softly in the sunset, their figures reflected in the puddles on the bridge. Soon, the dusk gradually faded, and the night quietly enveloped their heads like a curtain.

The traffic under the overpass gradually became brighter, and from a distance it looked like a bunch of hazy lights or tiny fireflies speeding through the city.

Baizini looked down at her phone.

"I should go back now. If I don't, my mother will scold me."

Hearing this, He Yinlu turned her gaze away from the traffic passing through the city and turned to look at Bai Zini.

"Okay, be careful on the road." "I'm leaving?"

"Wait a moment." He Yinlu stopped her.

Bai Zini looked back.

"Xiao Ni, if you can't hold on any longer one day, remember to tell me. After all, you like to keep your worries to yourself."

"okay, I get it."

"good."

He Yinlu raised her hand and rubbed her hair with a smile.

At this moment, the dream shattered quietly.

Like a video tape played in reverse, the setting sun rose from below the horizon in a strange trajectory and hung upside down in the dim sky. The figures of the two girls in front of me walked backwards, returned to the stairs of the overpass, and then went down.

In the end, Baizini could no longer see their faces.

She just stood there blankly in the sunset, her face dull, the afterglow burning every inch of her skin.

"...Where did you all go?"

She murmured in fear but could not hear her own voice.

On the cross of the altar, the girl in the Gothic skirt slowly opened her eyes, her vision a little blurry.

The first thing that caught his eye was a lazy face with a trace of ink at the corner of the eye - Huijin remembered this face. Little Red Riding Hood, Feng and Hong were attacked by this magical girl some time ago.

After a moment, as her hearing returned, intermittent voices reached her ears.

Someone said, "Witch of Sloth, you stay here for the next five days and make sure she doesn't commit suicide."

"How could she commit suicide when her whole body was tied up?" asked the person known as the 'Witch of Sloth'.

Another person thought for a moment and said, "Bite your tongue to commit suicide?"

Hearing this, the Witch of Sloth said dejectedly, "Oh, then I'll tear her tongue off first, so she can't bite her tongue to commit suicide."

The other figure was silent, looking down at the Witch of Sloth with an expressionless face.

She said, "You can try, but I warn you, the Puppet Witch said that the ashes have a powerful effect. If you touch her casually, you will be turned into a puppet."

The Witch of Sloth smacked her lips, sat down quietly on the stone steps of the altar, and sighed softly.

"I know. I don't want to die. It's just a joke."

"I'm leaving."

Following the voice, the girl in the Gothic skirt on the cross turned her face slightly, raised her eyes from under her messy hair, and looked at the figure who was about to leave.

She frowned slightly, her eyes were a little empty, and she couldn't see the man clearly.

But after a moment, the vision slowly became clear.

Then, a cold and stern face appeared in her pupils. It seemed that she had not yet woken up from the dream. The profile in front of her slowly overlapped with the face of He Yinlu in her memory.

The witch Black Rose turned around and was about to leave, but suddenly stopped.

She was silent for a long time, then she slowly turned her head and looked sharply at the ash tied to the altar, "Oh, so she has woken up."

Hearing this, the Laziness Witch Schnaian glanced at Ashes from the side, then curled her lips, thinking that the senior was really a good sleeper. She was too lazy to look up to pay attention to Ashes who had woken up. She faced the floor with both hands and sighed, thinking that now we are in the same boat.

Looking at Black Rose's profile, the girl in the Gothic skirt opened her eyes slightly and whispered a name.

"...Lu?"

The witch Black Rose tilted her head, glanced at her sideways, and remained silent.

"It's really you..."

The girl on the cross opened her eyes slightly, stared at her motionlessly, and murmured in a trance.

Black Rose nodded slightly, her eyes hidden under her black hair.

"It's me. You didn't recognize me before, but I'm the most hated and annoying witch in your eyes." She said sarcastically, "But it's also true... After all, in your eyes I've been dead for half a year. If you don't forget me, how can you start a new life and play happily with new friends?"

The girl in the Gothic skirt stared at Black Rose's profile, lowered her head slightly, and tears welled up in her eyes.

Her consciousness was not yet fully clear, and she seemed a little incoherent. She opened her mouth, her lips trembling slightly, as if she was trying hard to say something, but only a few pale words slowly squeezed out of her mouth.

"Let's... go back," she said.

Black Rose took a deep breath and said, "You still take things for granted. You are so stupid that it is unreasonable."

"Let's go back."

The girl in the gothic skirt repeated the same words, her tired, red eyes filled with tears.

"There's no going back..." Black Rose said, "You're not like me. You didn't see it with your own eyes. Qi was chopped into two pieces... Her face still had a stunned expression. Her body was just like that. In my eyes, it was split in half, like a pig in a slaughterhouse..." She sneered, "The Ghost Hand Buddha and the Abyss Swordsman grinned and stepped on my head. I still remember their laughter until now.

She paused. “They let her blood flow over my face so that I could smell her blood.”

The girl on the cross seemed to have no extra energy to make any facial expressions. She just listened to Black Rose's narration of what happened with a dull look in her eyes.

It was as if she was tired of even expressing her sadness. No tears could come out of her red eyes, and her eye sockets were only trembling slightly.

After a long silence, Black Rose asked, "Do you know why I am still alive?"

"……Why?"

"Because those witches saved me, but you didn't come."

Hearing this, the chains on the cross trembled violently. Amid the crisp sound of metal colliding, the girl in the Gothic skirt leaned forward and shouted in a hoarse voice at the top of her lungs.

"I went... I went to save you, but I didn't--"

She tried desperately to defend herself, but Black Rose just lowered her head and interrupted her: "Yes, you didn't have time..."

Ashes was stunned and made no sound anymore.

At the same time, Shi Naian, who was sitting on the stone stairs, was slightly stunned. She had never seen Huijin look so embarrassed.

In silence, Black Rose slowly turned around, walked towards the altar, passed through the barrier, and looked up into Ashes' eyes.

The two looked at each other.

Black Rose raised her right hand wrapped in thorns and gently stroked Ashes' face. The sharp thorns scratched a hideous scar on the fair face of the girl in the Gothic skirt, and blood slowly flowed down her cheek.

But she seemed not to feel any pain. She just stared at the pair of quiet eyes in front of her with an almost pleading look.

There was a moment of silence, and then Black Rose leaned close to Ashes' ear.

She whispered, "Everything you cherish, the people you tried so hard to protect, are about to be destroyed, just like the day Lin Jiaqi died in front of my eyes... You can't do anything, just smell what their blood smells like."

After a pause, he emphasized: "Finally, open your eyes and take a good look at how you became an unforgivable sinner, just like me."

After she finished speaking, Black Rose turned around and left without looking back.

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(End of this chapter)