Chapter 911: Chapter 104: Following in Anna’s Footsteps
Forest cabin.
The wind rustles through the woods, a whisper like the sound of waves.
Or perhaps it’s drifting into the strait from the coastline.
The wooden door silently opens.
“ow—”
The elegant black cat sitting by the door looks up and softly calls.
A silhouette of a girl stands behind the door, as dark as the cat, as mysterious as the night.
“I’ve found a way…”
The girl lowers her gaze.
“He can’t co back…”
“But I will bring him back.”
…
The big sister stopped translating.
The narration was rough, and the big sister did her best because the Flowing Cat couldn’t express more details.
It seed Anna had sunk into the ground with Lu Li, silent for twenty-four years.
The oil lamp cast shadows over everyone, seemingly frozen.
The Flowing Cat didn’t know where she had gone either.
After a brief silence, Lu Li asked the priest if anything peculiar had happened in Vig Town today.
“Indeed, there was one… Moni’s deceased daughter ca back to life.”
The priest recalled the funeral he hosted half a month ago.
…
“The noble Flowing Cat protects our bodies and souls. Even if the body decays, the soul will remain immortal…”
At a makeshift funeral at the foot of the Hillevig Mountain Range, the priest presided over the ceremony under the open sky.
“Bebe Si, who dedicated her life to the mountains, will be guided by the Flowing Cat to the land of the resting dead…”
With a population of less than a thousand, Vig Town had many elderly and few young people, who were rare and precious.
But today, a young life withered.
No one wanted this to happen.
Except for Bebe Si’s father and the Flowing Cat Church hosting the funeral, so townspeople whispered about the deceased at the edge of the clearing.
“Poor Bebe Si… she never had the chance to taste the sweetness of love…”
“She was too careless, getting her wound touched by a mycelium blanket…
“Poor Moni, he nearly cried himself blind…”
The hushed whispers drifted like the rustling wind through the forest clearing.
And the cries of wild cats.
Many wild cats gathered around, waiting for sothing.
“The Lord’s ssengers have arrived!”
The priest suddenly raised his arms and shouted, “They will take her soul—”
The middle-aged man nad Moni cried even more painfully, needing the support of believers.
The crowd was infected by the sadness, and no one noticed the elegant black shadow walking among the footprints in the torch-lit dirt, slipping into Moni’s shadow.
Moni stopped crying, the believers supporting him thought he was tired, but they wouldn’t notice the panic that surfaced deep in those eyes.
The panic quickly lted, filled his eyes, crept up his face, and then Moni found himself regaining his body.
Then he saw his daughter, wrapped in flesh like a mycelium blanket in the rough coffin, open her bloodshot, murky eyes.
The priest and believers saw this too, sothing they had never encountered before. But their identity as believers kept them from screaming and fleeing, and the distant townspeople couldn’t see what was happening, preventing the chaos from spreading.
“Who am I?”
“I am Moni.”
“I am not Moni…”
“I am Bebe Si.”
A few ambiguous and eerie self-murmurs, the head turned towards Moni.
“Daddy…”
Moni recognized this phrase, filled with not only joy but also more terror.
“Who, who are you?!”
“Daddy, I am Be—”
The body calling itself Bebe Si began to dissolve, turning into indistinct gurgles in an instant, becoming a mass of red and white flesh in the coffin.
…
“Moni not only cried himself blind but also went mad. Vig Town lost two citizens in one day…”
The priest sighed, he had practically watched Moni grow up, and little Bebe Si too…
Lu Li remained silent.
The outside beca gray and misty, dawn was approaching.
Knowing that Lu Li and the others hadn’t rested all day, the priest arranged a few rooms for them, but Katerina refused, asking for only one large room.
The priest personally took them to the large room in the center of the town, respectfully watching as the Flowing Cat followed them inside.
Bang.
Katerina, who was at the back, latched the door.
Katerina and Puxiu had many questions, and it seed like now was the ti to finally ask.
“The Anna you’re looking for is the Shadow of the Maiden… a… an evil spirit?”
“Hmm.”
“Can humans beco evil spirits as well…”
“They’ve always been transford from humans.”
The snide and piercing voice of the Evildoers rang out.
Katerina ignored the Evildoers, looking at Lu Li and asked, “The funeral the priest ntioned… was it her?”
“Perhaps.”
That didn’t seem like Anna’s ceremony—she wouldn’t leave behind a pile of flesh but would rge into a shadow, consuming it all.
“Unimaginable…” Katerina whispered.
Not knowing if she was saying that Lu Li searching for an evil spirit was unimaginable, or if the cruelty of the evil spirit was unimaginable.
Then she suddenly recalled at the hunter’s cabin, Lu Li loading the Spirit-Calling Gun
“Do you… still want to continue looking for her… Miss Anna?” Puxiu asked.
“Hmm.”
“But where would she go?”
The clues seed to have ended, yet it also seed like there was still sothing to follow.
If Anna’s shadow was in the Bebe Si incident, she wouldn’t just stop there.
“What’s the next stop after Vig Town?”
Katerina suddenly asked.
“Let check…”
Puxiu began searching for a map in the suitcase.
“Haoge Town,” Lu Li said.
“Evil spirit… I an, maybe Anna went to other towns as well.” Katerina finally seed to have a clever mont.
The possibility was high.
But the steam locomotive wouldn’t arrive until the afternoon, so it was rest ti now.
The Mist of Strangeness quietly receded, and they lay on the single beds sent by the priest, using tiredness to wash away the shock of traveling all day and learning the secrets.
Lu Li didn’t sleep, he had more questions for the Flowing Cat.
And whether it intended to leave with them.
The Flowing Cat refused to leave, it wanted to stay and resist the evil spirits.
The Frog Fish People seen last night in Niss Town.
If not stopped by the Flowing Cat, they would land at the Hillevig Mountain Range, occupy it, and perhaps one day cross the mountain to reach Vig Town.
The last part of the railroad would be permanently missing a piece.
In the afternoon, the sleeping people awoke, and amid the steam locomotive’s whistles, they bid farewell to the Flowing Cat and the priest and boarded the empty train.
Today’s train had no passengers.
After a mont of waiting, the steam locomotive left the platform at a speed slower than walking; platform staff were chasing off wild cats lying on the warm tracks.
Katerina watched for a while, then withdrew her gaze, yawning and leaning against the soft seat, ready to take another nap.
Lu Li still didn’t sleep, trying to understand what Anna was doing.
This wasn’t complicated for others, even simple and easy to grasp: the evil spirit was conducting its ritual.
Approaching noon, the steam locomotive stopped at Haoge Town platform, far from the Hillevig Mountain Range.
Haoge Town was sowhat more prosperous than Vig Town, at least not as lifeless.
They inquired if any strange occurrences happened recently in town, confird by the townspeople, and similar to what happened in Vig Town—
It seed Anna’s presence had left traces here.
Reviews
All reviews (0)