The night fell, the moonlight disappeared, and only a few sparse stars twinkled in the sky.
Dean looked out at the long street through the bedroom window on the second floor. The night flowed slowly like a veil, and the dim lights of the distant neighbors flickered on and off.
From their corner, there were no people on the street, and no cars were driving. The surroundings were quiet and depressing, and the air was filled with a permeating coldness.
The tall red maples with shady branches and leaves on the roadside are like silent travelers holding black umbrellas.
But this is a secluded and deserted neighborhood, and they are destined to not be able to wait for the long-distance bus.
…
Dean looked away.
Glancing behind him, Alvin had fallen asleep on his side on the mattress, breathing steadily and falling into a sweet dream.
And thoughtfully left the other half of the bed for him.
But Dean had no intention of sleeping tonight. A dark, unfamiliar house without electricity was the center of a moderately difficult incident.
Dangerous, and there may be unknown factors.
He is not that nervous and completely relaxes his vigilance in a place like this.
"Stay up all night!"
Dean opened the red wooden box next to the bed, rubbed his chin and looked at the strange soul Ouija board, sliding his fingers through the Ouija board, and then the drop-shaped Ouija board.
"It's so sharp."
Dean frowned.
The tip of the board was like a sharp knife, and it almost didn't cut his finger.
After the touch check was completed, no abnormalities were found for the time being, and Dean turned on the God's perspective to observe carefully.
I quickly found a strange mark on the back of the much smaller tablet——
sleepless person
It is as small as an ant, and the black lines are as slender as hair. It is impossible to detect them without looking carefully.
Dean rubbed it with his thumb, feeling a refreshing chill.
"Sleepless One? What's the special significance?"
Dean took this discovery to heart, took hold of the tablet, and then tried to summon the "Shadow".
Then he was shocked. The "shadow" did not leave his body and came to reality. The unprecedented summoning failed.
At the same time, there was a mixture of extreme fear and desire in the body, and the "shadow" seemed to be under some strong suppression.
"A small piece of wood actually suppressed my superpowers?"
He tried it several more times without belief.
fail!
fail!
After repeating it many times, in order to avoid some irreversible damage to his "killer weapon", Dean put down the Ouija board and picked up the larger Ouija board.
Then--
The shadow of the past flew out of his body and hurriedly flew into the distance, trying its best to distance itself from the wooden board on the ground.
"The Ouija board is an ordinary thing, but there is something strange about the Ouija board. It has a huge restraining effect on ghosts like shadows."
Dean's eyes flashed.
This is enough to prove that this tablet is not simple and has some magical power.
As he was thinking this way, he saw that the progress of the incident jumped from 20% to 25%.
"Is this stone board very special and important?"
So is it consistent with the legend and can it be used to conduct psychic rituals to communicate with the dead and summon the ghost of the medium Alexander Raphael?
The dangerous thought came together, and Dean put it out immediately.
"The risk of an event of medium difficulty is unknown. I am operating alone in a quiet night. If I make any noise, I don't know how I will die."
If an evil spirit were indeed summoned, Dean wasn't sure he would be able to see it the same way he saw the Shadow.
"Wait until you have the right opportunity to try summoning."
…
Dean put away the board and began to exercise in the bedroom. Since the beginning of the summer vacation, he has been practicing shooting hard and has never seen Rust, who was accompanying his girlfriend, for sparring.
But he insisted on daily personal physical training.
Sometimes I fight with bare hands, and sometimes I use short sticks and knives at home to practice armed fighting.
He worked hard to digest a large number of efficient, ruthless, and deadly enemy-defeating techniques transmitted to him by his lv1 fighting skills - joint techniques, crossbars, naked chokes, kicks in the crotch, poking eyes, hitting noses, double-peaked ear penetration, and brain attacks. Pillow, attack on the jaw and temples... as well as basic skills such as steps and power techniques.
These moves are undignified, even insidious and dirty, but simple and effective, perfectly in line with Dean's melee strategy.
The proficiency of training alone increases extremely slowly and is boring. It only takes two or three days to gain a little bit.
He glanced at the panel:
Dean Lu
Character level: 1 (70/200)
Age: 18
Physical fitness: 11.6
Strength: 10.6
Sensitivity: 12.1
Perception: 10
Spirit: 13.2
Will: 11.2
…
Abilities(3/5):
Fighting lv1(80/200)
Shooting lv1(19/100)
Shadow of the Past lv0(11/100)
Expertise:
Junior Ironman
Event: 1/1
Brother: Twenty-five percent
completed--
1. The death of teenage Dean.
2. Mona’s whereabouts.
3． hunting
System ability: God’s perspective lv0
…
Time passed in the whistling wind of fists.
When Dean's watch read five o'clock in the morning.
Alvin, who was sleeping soundly on the mattress, made an inarticulate sound. His eyes were closed tightly, and the eyeballs under his eyelids were moving rapidly. His face was tense and frightened.
But his hands were tightly attached to his armpits, his legs were stretched straight, and his posture was extremely stiff, as if he was pressed tightly against the bed by something.
"Alvin, wake up!"
Snapped!
Snapped!
Several crisp slaps sounded in the bedroom.
Then there was a long inhalation sound of "Uh-".
Alvin sat up suddenly from the mattress.
Sweat cascaded down his frightened face, and his chest heaved violently.
He was like a drowning man who was trapped under the water, nearly suffocated, and escaped death at the last moment.
"Are you having a nightmare? Is this what you said before about not being able to sleep well?"
Dean held a lighting flashlight in one hand and handed over a bottle of water in the other.
Alvin opened the bottle and took a big gulp, then poured the remaining cold water on his head. As the heat steamed, the fear and panic on his face slowly disappeared.
But sadness overflowed.
"Panon was wearing black clothes... and tied me to the bed board." He stared into the void with a pale face and said to himself, "I can feel that he wants to hurt me."
"My brother wants to kill me!"
"He should hate me because of my selfishness..."
Seeing that he was getting emotional again, Dean quickly changed the topic.
"Panon is wearing black clothes? I remember that in the photos Holden showed us, the psychic Alexander was also wearing black clothes?"
"Yes, they are dressed exactly the same!"
"Then you are lying on that black bed in the attic?"
Alvin nodded, "It's cold and hard. Lying on it is like lying in a coffin. I can't breathe."
"I remember you said you haven't been able to sleep well, and you always have the same nightmare?"
"That's right... As long as I sleep in this house, it seems like something is pulling me into this dream!"
Dean thought, it was so rare to have the same dream repeatedly, so rare that it was weird. This kind of dream was by no means accidental. It had the same mysterious or supernatural factors as the tablet.
Therefore, the content of the dream may have a special meaning.
Panon was wearing a black robe, exactly like the one worn by psychic Alexander Raphael.
And Panon appears in the attic next to the set of soul Ouija boards directly associated with the medium.
Does this mean that his initial idea was wrong?
Panon's disappearance five years ago and Alexander's death two years ago were not two completely unrelated incidents.
There is some unknown relationship between the two parties!
This idea together.
Dean suddenly felt the system vibrate.
The investigation progress suddenly jumped from 25% to 30%.
"Does this mean the inference based on nightmares is correct?"
…
After such a fuss, the two of them could no longer sleep.
Alvin just sat on the mattress and stared at the wall in a daze.
Dean was worried about irritating him again, so he didn't ask further questions and sorted out the thoughts in his mind.
…
Struggling through the night.
It was close to noon the next day, and the sky was overcast with a few dark clouds floating in the air. Some white light filtered through the window, dispelling the gloom and darkness of last night.
Holden returned to the house with a bag of steaming breakfast and several test reports.
"The test is so quick? Doesn't it usually take several days?" Dean opened his mouth and bit into half of the hot dog in one bite. He chewed a few times with his teeth and then swallowed the lettuce, cheese, bacon, and ham. His mouth was full of juice in one bite. !
Warmth surged in his stomach, and Dean suddenly came back to life with full blood.
"I spent a big favor and asked the guys from the LVPD Forensic Department to do overnight testing...but only the first round of testing was done, and I only got a rough result."
Holden explained that Alvin couldn't wait to open the inspection report, skipped the graphic table, went straight to the conclusion at the bottom, and read it out,
"The source of the sample is not related to Alexander Raphael."
"The source of the sample is father and son, or brother, to Alvin Garcia."
"Alvin is not related to Alexander."
There was no surprise on Alvin's face. He seemed to have expected this result.
Then he leaned back on the sofa slumped.
Closed his eyes.
"So, the sample found on the bed came from Panon?"
…
"Well, thanks for your reminder, otherwise we would have missed an important discovery." Holden took a sip of Coke,
"Now let's figure it out. The bed and soul Ouija board in the attic are directly related to the psychic Alexander, and Panon's biological samples were left on this bed."
"It can be inferred that Panon has entered the attic and has some kind of intersection with Alexander. If we figure this out, maybe both the disappearance case and the murder case will make progress."
Holden's face lit up, and Dean nodded, he had reached the same conclusion based on Alvin's dream last night.
This shows that changes in the progress of events in the system are of great reference value, no less than scientific analysis methods.
He chewed the sausage in his mouth and played the same old tune again,
"Do you think it's possible that after Panon killed Alexander, he fled to another place to hide in order to avoid legal punishment?"
"I said, it's impossible."
Alvin stood up suddenly, pinched the hot dogs all over emotionally, and retorted vehemently,
"Pannon is not a killer. He is not that cruel. How could he kill Alexander if he disappeared three years before the murder?"
Huhu——
At the right time, the cold wind howled outside the window and the sky was covered with dark clouds.
Dean looked him straight in the eyes;
"He can hide."
"And don't forget the nightmare you had during this period. Panon wanted to hurt you. And people will change. After so many years, he was often bullied by the children in the neighborhood. He may have harbored resentment for a long time, and it has become no longer what you remember. My kind brother."
"Please, man, don't say that."
"Wait, what nightmare?"
Holden interrupted the argument between the two and turned to Dean suspiciously. Dean recounted the nightmare in the early morning and the mark of the Sleepless Man found on the teardrop-shaped slate.
"Sleepless One? Is it a brand of Ouija board? I've never heard of it."
"As for the recurring nightmares," Holden patted the food residue on his hands, a light of wisdom flashed in his eyes, "most likely it is not due to mysterious elements, but psychological effects. Yes, I have seen similar cases."
"Dreams occasionally reflect a person's true inner thoughts."
"Alvin, because you have felt guilty about Panon for many years, you will have frequent nightmares when you return to the old house where you two live together and is filled with a lot of memories."
"You were so ashamed that your subconscious created such a scene, which appeared in your dream - Panon tied you up and hurt you, and after you were punished, your mind could feel better from the strong sense of guilt. Liberation."
“Ask yourself, do you expect redemption in pain?”
Dean looked at the serious Holden and took a sip of coffee to calm down.
If he hadn't known that there were ghosts in the world, he would have believed in this psychological theory, but now... he believed in the supernatural theory more.
Alvin was stunned, and he was deeply entangled and thinking, muttering imperceptibly.
"No, the time is wrong... When I first had the nightmare, I didn't even know there was an attic in the house, and I never saw the bed board. How could they appear in my dream?"
"Are you sure?" Even Holden couldn't help but straighten his face this time, repeatedly dreaming about things he had never seen before, predicting the future, and being psychic in his dreams?
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Then I'm sorry, I can't think of a reasonable scientific explanation for the moment." Holden tapped his knees with his fingers and pondered, "Why don't we talk specifically about what kind of person Panon is and what happened between you brothers to make you like this? Guilt.”
"If you tell us, we can judge Panon's possible whereabouts and his relationship with the psychic."
Holden walked behind Alvin, who had a troubled face, and pressed his shoulders steadily with both hands.
"The choice of escape is like an eternal maze. Once you enter, you will never reach the end. Only by going back the same way and facing the memories of the past can you overcome the psychological barriers and see the sunshine again."
"Is that true? Saying it will make you feel better?"
Alvin looked at Holden anxiously,
"I guarantee this with my experience over the past ten years."
Holden nodded heavily.
Alvin rubbed his rough face and took a deep breath.
"Okay...I'll tell you everything."
Dean quietly gave Holden a thumbs up, this guy is still deceiving people.
