On the afternoon when she sent the seventh photo to Viscount Rich, Hestad once again took the book and sat alone in Ava's glass room to read.
After about two or three pages, she dozed off.
In her dream, some chaotic and bloody pictures appeared alternately in her mind. There were some severed limbs of men and women, some body parts whose parts could not be identified, some pools of blood, some distant or near screams... They appeared and disappeared like a montage sequence, and like traps one after another, tempting Hesta falls.
Sometimes, she is like a third person who has nothing to do with anything, just passing through these scenes quickly, without even casting a single glance at this miserable scene;
But in the blink of an eye, she suddenly became a victim bound by iron chains. She felt that someone was secretly watching in the shadow not far away, approaching slowly. She tried to break free, but her hands and feet could not move.
The second before the danger came, Hesta finally woke up from her dream, and the book on her lap fell to the ground with her convulsion.
In front of us is still a glass house with a steady autumn rain.
Hesta let out a long breath, closed her eyes, and pressed her eyes hard with both hands.
"Having a nightmare?"
Hesta looked up blankly, only to realize that Ava had sat diagonally opposite her at some point.
"……Um."
She turned sideways, picked up the book that had fallen on the ground and put it on the coffee table nearby. Ava looked at the name on the cover - "Common Misunderstandings in Genre Creation".
"Why are you looking at this?"
"Just taking a look..." Hesta replied in a low voice, "and looking for some inspiration."
"Inspiration for the crime?"
"So," Hesta sighed softly, frowning and pinching the bridge of her nose, "I feel like I've left some clues obvious enough, but the police department just can't seem to understand them. I want to know where they are. Something went wrong..."
Ava laughed and said, "Will this book be helpful to you?"
"...It's a bit hard to read, it's too boring." Hesta answered truthfully, "I originally thought, maybe this is similar to the foreshadowing of "The King of Love". I am the one who has the overall situation, so I think everything seems clear enough. But 'readers' aren't... Maybe I buried the clues too deep from the beginning and I should have dropped more hints."
Ava raised her eyebrows, "Interesting metaphor."
"...I've given them nineteen photos and a corpse, isn't that enough?" Hesta murmured in a low voice, leaning back in her chair, "By the way, I need to borrow your underground printing room for the night. , it will take about two hours.”
"Okay, remember to put down the sound insulation layer before use." Ava smiled, "Apart from this, is everything else going well?"
"It went very smoothly. I never thought it could be so easy..." Hesta murmured. She looked up tiredly, "Thank you."
Ava's eyes were still on the book in her hand, and she turned another page.
Only then did Hesta realize that Ava was also holding a thin book under her hand. The corners of the pages were a little yellow and looked very old.
"It's nothing, this kind of thing is not worth wasting five years on," Ava looked at the book with a calm expression, "But you don't seem to be in good condition these days?"
"It's okay." Hesta shook his head, "I'm just a little tired... I have to run around every day, so I didn't sleep well."
"Just physically tired?"
"Um."
Ava smiled, "I originally thought you would be very excited and happy every day during this period...but it seems not."
Hesta did not respond. She was like a swamp that was slowly drying up. She was tired of paying attention to these insignificant questions.
"…Have you ever killed anyone, Ava?"
"Me?" Ava snorted, with a kind of certainty in her voice that didn't require an answer, "What do you think?"
"I don't mean chelates," Hestad curled her legs, "but people."
Ava didn't speak, but Hesta got the answer from her unchanging gaze.
"...When was the first time?"
"Very young," Ava recalled, "Maybe... twelve or thirteen years old?"
"Why?"
The old man fell silent for a moment, but she quickly smiled, "The feeling of killing a 'person' makes you feel very different from killing a 'chelate', doesn't it?"
Hesta nodded.
"What's the difference?"
Hesta fell into deep thought, "'People' will beg and beg, and their hearts will be broken. They will choke, sob, and even confess... Chelates are never like this. Chelates can only scream and laugh... They are noisy. Until death.”
Ava looked at Hesta, her left hand gently pressed against her left forehead, "Then how did you feel when they begged?"
This time, Hesta was silent for a long time.
Her brows wrinkled and then relaxed, as if with some uncertainty.
"I'm confused?"
"Puzzled?"
"I originally thought that since these people dared to do evil, they must have thought about the price they might pay in the future... So, I knew from the beginning that when I appeared in front of them, they would be very scared.
"But I didn't expect that when facing me, both Fernand and Hoffman were dumbfounded, as if my appearance was an accident, as if they... they had never thought that they would also... fall into the hands of others. A day for the dead."
Hesta spoke very slowly, and her voice became softer and softer. In the end, a few words had almost no real sound, leaving only a shallow flow of air.
She looked at the Monstera deliciosa behind Ava, her eyes straight.
"Actually, this is not surprising, because someone has told me a long time ago... Karma is not the 'iron law' of this world. All rewards and punishments need to be implemented by people. Without anyone's blood and sweat, the guillotine of justice will not fall. …
"But I don't understand. Have these people never... suffered retribution before me?"
Hesta trembled slightly. She looked up at the roof of the glass house and slowly opened her eyes.
"Not even once?"
Ava looked at Hesta in front of her quietly, "Is this issue important to you?"
"It's important."
"Why?"
Hesta frowned.
"Because I don't understand...I don't understand why...why this revenge will..."
She breathed deeply, each breath like the rising tide of the ocean.
"...Will it be so painful?"
Ava didn't speak. After a long silence, she took off her glasses, stood up and walked to Hestad, hugging her trembling shoulders while sighing.
Hesta almost broke her teeth.
"These people... these... orders... I don't like any of them."
"Who would like it?" Ava whispered.
The old man pulled the fleece blanket behind Hesta and wrapped it up, but the warm blanket did not make her feel better - the cold sweat from the previous nightmare made Hesta's close-fitting clothes She felt a little damp, and now that it touched her flesh, she felt cold.
Close your eyes, the remains of the previous dream are still lying in the darkness.
