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Click, clack, click, clack.
Noises emanated from the darkness.
Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.
The faint and chaotic sounds never ceased.
Erald Sparrow stood in an empty hall, looking around in confusion.
Why was she here?
Her mory felt blurry, and her consciousness wasn't very clear, as if she was in an Illusionary Realm, yet the sensations were all so real.
As she stepped forward, the crisp sound of her heels hitting the ground scattered in all directions, the invisible sound waves acting as echoes that dispersed the chaotic noise.
After a brief mont of silence, it was replaced by a sound of whispering.
Erald Sparrow couldn't identify the source of the voices, among which seed to be n and won, old and young, but the only commonality was that they were all laughing.
The laughter rged with the reverberation of footsteps, layer upon layer, again and again, growing sharper until it culminated in a piercing noise.
The noise continued to spiral upwards, assaulting her ears as if to burst her eardrums, causing intense headaches.
This real sensation of pain caused Erald Sparrow to frown and she instinctively used Spell Techniques to try and shield herself from the noise. However, as she began to act, the piercing sound also vanished.
Echoes, speech, laughter—all dissipated, as though they had never existed. Everything returned to the beginning, with only the faint and chaotic sounds in the darkness remaining.
What exactly were those sounds?
Erald Sparrow was sowhat puzzled.
Just as she intended to continue forward to investigate, a light suddenly appeared in her field of vision.
The blinding light ca from behind her, casting a long shadow in front of her on the ground. She could see her dress's slightly shaking hem in the shadow and her Bonnet, which had beco a perfect round shape; there was no doubt that the complete humanoid figure was herself.
That shadow, belonging to her, stood silently in place, just like the person it represented.
What was the source of this light?
She tried to employ her sluggish thoughts to figure it out, but her mind felt like a clump of sticky paste, unable to turn. As confusion grew in her heart, Erald Sparrow tried to look behind her, but she found the shadow in her view starting to change.
Very abruptly, just in the blink of an eye, as if a few fras had been removed from a video, another shadow that overlapped hers appeared. Then, as that shadow flickered and wavered, it began to stretch out with each flicker.
Sothing had appeared behind her.
Erald Sparrow realized this.
But she couldn't turn around.
Every hair on her body stood on end at that instant, her limbs turned icy and stiff, and her innermost instincts were screaming at her not to look back.
At that mont, the shadow that covered Erald Sparrow finally stopped flickering and assud a distinct shape right before her eyes.
It was an insect with outstretched wings.
Or, to be more precise, it was a moth.
It was only at this mont that Erald Sparrow finally realized that the faint and chaotic sounds had long been right by her ear.
She lifted her hand to look at her arm—
——["Attention all passengers, attention all passengers, this journey has now ended, you have reached your destination, Fangting City."]
"...Huh, ha!"
Lin Yun took a deep breath and abruptly opened his eyes, sitting straight up from his seat.
Panting subconsciously for a mont, he looked around in a daze, only to find himself in an unfamiliar cabin.
The noisy surroundings and the announcent overhead gradually brought back the mory of where he was—he was on a landship, on the way back to Fangting City from Bai'an City.
"Did I fall asleep?"
Muttering to himself, he turned to look out the side porthole and saw his face faintly reflected on the reflective glass. It was not until this mont that he realized his forehead was covered in cold sweat.
```
It seed he had only had a nightmare.
Only now could Lin Yun confirm this.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cellphone and checked the ti. He discovered that there were two missed calls showing up in the ssage column. One was from Lin Xiaolu, and the other was from an unrecognized number.
After unlocking his phone, he tapped into the ssage interface and saw the ssage left by Lin Xiaolu that read, "What ti will you get ho tonight?"
That little girl actually knows how to care about this?
Lin Yun couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
After all, he wasn't returning to Fangting City as Erald Sparrow for the holiday, but as Lin Yun. Although the father-daughter relationship with Lin Xiaolu had eased a lot, they often lacked common topics. For his daughter to send such a ssage in advance was already quite considerate.
Feeling sowhat comforted by this, his expression softened as he typed in the reply box, "I'll be ho in an hour."
It was sothing that had been arranged well in advance, considering that today was the Full Moon Festival.
Several days before, Lin Xiaolu had sent ssages asking both her father and Erald Sparrow whether they would co back for the festival.
She didn't realize that both her ssages ended up in front of the sa person, and the difference in tone made Lin Yun wryly smile.
However, he ultimately did not agree to the holiday request as Erald Sparrow. Of the two ssages Lin Xiaolu sent, he only responded affirmatively to one: the ssage sent to Lin Yun.
As for Erald Sparrow, he made the excuse that the investigation was not over, work was busy, and so he casually refused.
The main reason for making such a choice was that Lin Yun still wanted to spend the Full Moon Festival with his daughter as a father. Even though he knew Lin Xiaolu might prefer to spend it with Erald Sparrow.
For the people of the Donghua Region, the Full Moon Festival is a holiday with special symbolic significance, emphasizing the reunion of blood relations and familial bonds.
Maybe it was more relaxed to interact with his daughter as Erald Sparrow on ordinary days, but the Full Moon Festival was different. This was a holiday that should belong to family. No matter what each other's wishes were, he should spend it well with his daughter as a father. This was not just an emotional selfishness, but also a statent of their relationship to each other.
Another reason was that on a rare holiday, he did not want to use his energy on the brain-burning identity ga anymore.
The investigative work in Bai'an City had drained a lot of his energy, and the sequelae from overexerting magic power in the battle against the spider had not subsided, causing him to occasionally suffer from bouts of migraines.
Now, Lin Yun just wanted to return ho and enjoy a peaceful holiday, seeking a mont of tranquility for his soul.
After replying to the ssage from Lin Xiaolu, he followed other passengers out of the airship and officially set foot on the soil of Fangting City. During this ti, he also checked the call history, browsed through the missed calls, and dialed back the unidentified number.
Regrettably, no one answered.
Just as he was about to dismiss it as a wrong number dialed by soone or a simple prank and was putting his phone down, suddenly he felt the vibration of an incoming call.
Upon closer look, it was that sa unrecognized number.
After connecting the call, he lifted the phone to his ear and asked with so confusion, "Hello, who is this?"
The hissing sound that ca from the other end of the conversation made him catch his breath.
He rembered that sound. And the next sentence from the other side seed to be imminent as a result.
"...Be careful."
With the rise of that voice, Lin Yun felt as if he was returned to 5 months ago, during the ti when he first learned that Lin Xiaolu had beco a Magical Girl.
The sa unknown number, the sa indistinct voice. And that sa "be careful."
Despite being surrounded by a noisy and clamorous crowd, he felt like he had fallen into a pit of ice, as if all the hustle and bustle had nothing more to do with him.
"...Is it you?" Realizing the purpose of this call, he imdiately demanded in a grave voice, "What's the situation? Who exactly are you? And what is about to happen?"
"Hiss."
"Hello?"
"Be careful tonight's... Hiss."
The latter half of the sentence from the other end of the phone was drowned out by signal interference, leaving Lin Yun completely unable to understand, so he imdiately asked, "What did you say?"
"Be careful, tonight's..."
[Beep, beep, beep]
However, this ti, the person didn't even finish their sentence before the hissing sound turned back into the busy tone of a hang-up phone call, leaving Lin Yun standing among the crowd, staring at the now dark screen of his phone, his face stern as water.
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