"This is a ridiculous statement." The man with the gold ring said, "Babies, they are just primitive animals. How can you say he is crazy? He doesn't know himself? He cries incessantly? Pees and urinates randomly? That's just a baby. That's what it is. The way you put it, every baby is crazy."
"There's something special about that baby, sir. When he was born, he didn't cry or struggle. He opened his eyes and stared at the corner of the roof. Sometimes he smiled as if he saw something, but then he was lost in his gaze again. He never made a sound, did not eat or drink, and required almost no care. All the experienced midwives, nurses, and doctors tried their best to find out what kind of disease he was suffering from. The child was cursed by a demon and was doomed. He cannot live long - so they asserted. Of all the people, only the mother knew his secret. She pitied him but was also afraid of him, so she hid him in a corner where no one could see him."
"so……"
"The son of a demigod," the old man said. "When the twin stars began to intersect when he was born, dreams replaced his mortal life, making everything he knew and felt surrounded by dreams. The dreams became his reality, so his mind could not He did not understand what was going on in the outside world. Day after day, his mother locked him in a secret cabin in the corner of the garden, keeping all outside objects away from him to ensure that his dreams would not be disturbed."
"what does that mean?"
"His dreams will change reality once he realizes it exists."
The man wearing the gold ring twitched his cheek. "That sounds ridiculous," he said, half-sarcastically.
"That's how the story always goes, sir."
"That means he can make anything he wishes come true, right? Women, money, crowns...everything is just a thought away."
"Indeed. But, for a baby living in a dream, I don't think any of this is useful."
The man began to scratch his lips with those golden rings again. He squinted his eyes, cold light flashing in his pupils.
"Then tell me something that interests the baby," the man said. "If he suddenly becomes interested in the sky of the kingdom - like a kid who smashes the windows of an abandoned house just for fun - what will happen next? ?”
"The sky will be a broken window."
"Everyone will die?"
"No, I think the kid is going to die."
The man wearing the gold ring pursed his lips silently. He motioned for the old man to continue.
"The country is protected by a powerful spell," the old man said. "All the mountain people are obliged to maintain the operation of that spell. They cover it up in the depths of history and language, portraying it as some kind of ancient There is a natural thing, a cleverly disguised lie, whose end is guarded by successive leaders they call 'The Master'. They believe that when the final time comes, the working spell will keep them from the abyss. , retaining the last spark of fire, and they do whatever it takes to do so. Whenever the curse needs to be adjusted, the leaders among them will choose a suitable successor and then add themselves to it. There have been times when the curse has been threatened, and they have taken the most Severe means to eliminate it... Ah, a set of moral theories presented to mortals, but in fact it is just the shell of that huge lie."
"The dreaming child is a threat."
"If he dreamed that the sky was broken, I think it would be inevitable."
The night above the willows grew redder. The peasant girl raised her head and looked up at the light of hellfire above the sea of stars. She imagined that the aura-filled ocean would be evaporated by hellfire, and that day and night would no longer exist, and the sky would disappear. Although she imagined this, she had no fear in her heart, because she knew that the light of creation was enough to restore everything. When she takes back all her glory and returns it to its original owner, the disaster of hellfire can be eliminated.
"It seems best for him to be shut up in that room forever," said the man with the gold ring.
"His mother planned this. And Zhuoyi, although he did not understand the meaning of it, finally obeyed his wife's decision. So the child grew up in silence and darkness, never communicating with the outside world, only his parents came occasionally Visit. If outsiders saw him at that time, they would only think of him as a statue of his mother when she was young. A dead object like a puppet, unable to move, with a broken mind and never uttered any meaningful words. Year after year He was lying in the deepest corner of the house, deep in an endless wild dream - but suddenly one day, he woke up."
The flames on the pyre danced. A few sparks jumped out and landed among the dead weeds. The peasant girl glanced there. She saw that the dry grass blades had been ignited, and then turned dark again in the blink of an eye. The shadows of the weeds swayed in the wind, as if they had a consciousness of their own.
The old man's eyes turned to her, gently and lovingly, like a grandfather looking at his granddaughter. He said: "It was such a beautiful day... One late winter morning, in the huge garden owned by a famous family, all the plants grew wildly and bloomed overnight, climbing up every false stone and beam. The pillars, the sound of the wind turning into music when passing through the corridor, the frozen lake water as warm as spring... all these signs were regarded by the family as some kind of auspicious hint, and they were attributed to a mountain man who came to teach. When the team When he left the house in a grand manner and went to greet the preacher, the door in the garden that had never been opened from the inside was knocked open. The child, who was already ten years old at the time, staggered as if he had never learned to walk. Stumbling away from his long dream of eternal darkness, he entered another strange world. He wandered alone in the flower garden, without any adults present. Only the gardener's granddaughter discovered him. So he learned from that girl Language, running, shouting, eating... When the adults came back from outside, he was playing in the garden, and on the surface he looked like an ordinary child."
"surface?"
"Have you ever dreamed that you turned into something else, sir?" the old man said. "In the dream you would go back to your childhood, or become a bird, a fish...but you would still be you, in all the forms of dreams. Above, that is the lie you told yourself. When the child of the dream enters reality, it is like us entering a dream. The reality he sees is always slower than ordinary people, and the things he remembers cannot be retained for a long time, but the knowledge of dreams is Hidden in the heart. Even so, if you see some kind of horror in your dream, such as falling from a height, then you will wake up from the dream. What he needs to maintain is a hazy and safe consciousness to avoid falling back into the dream again. middle."
The man wearing the gold ring tilted his head and listened. He thought aimlessly, knocked the gold rings in his hands, picked one off and threw it into the fire. His restless look made others afraid to speak. After a while, he stood up suddenly, holding the long handle of the machete in his right hand.
"That's a very strange story, old man," he said.
"I'm not done yet, sir."
"No, no, that's not necessary. I've heard enough. I appreciate the details, but most of them are just nonsense. I've never been a fan of dreaming, do you understand?"
The man's tone became stern. Those eyes stood out in the firelight, looking cruel and fierce. The old man had to stop talking and reminded carefully: "You promised not to hurt us."
"You old fool," the man said, "I made a promise to the gods - but where are the gods? You just told lies about the kingdom, and now I tell you what lies are. Gods! Either they from Does not exist, or is the most vicious beast, bitch, plague... I have completely seen through you. No matter who you are, which king you served under, now you are just a worthless old thing, making up some Ridiculous lies to fool the world. But I will give you some mercy, old man, and I will tell you so that you know at the hands of who you died."
He lifted the machete and turned it over. On the other side of the bright blade are engraved gorgeous runes, which are three clusters of blooming holy halberds, and there are three prayers of praise engraved on the outside, shaped like the wings of a horse eagle. The man held the old man's neck with this exquisite blade, and then said: "Can you see this knife? It has been passed down to me from my ancestors and is said to be protected by the Valkyrie. My father once used it to fight against the barbarians and protect him. All the temples of Mulunen. But when the great earthquake occurred that day, and the priests screamed that the pillars of earth collapsed, I saw his head being thrown on a pile of horse dung and burned... Where is Milada riding the eagle? Where? Or Enshania? Yemenno? Or that Veloo who never shows up? Those priests have told us from generation to generation how they fought alongside us, and now I see with my own eyes the temple collapsed, the plague is rampant, and the fire from heaven is fast Burn us all to death. We, barbarians, everything in this world, and you dare mention the gods in front of me! Now I have decided to throw your head to the wolves to gnaw on, and your granddaughter will be our entertainment , until she dies! Do you think the gods will come to rescue you?"
"How sad," said the old man.
The man looked at them with pleasure. The animality in those eyes was unforgettable for the peasant girl. He raised the hand holding the knife, ready to swing it down at the old man's neck. Then the fire suddenly burst into flames, and his entire arm fell from his shoulder.
