Endless Debt

The large library has enough space to accommodate other people. Everyone sits in a position they feel comfortable, flipping through the first draft of Irwin's new book. Apart from the gentle breathing, the only sound left is the rustling of pages, which is rare. The peace soothed the soul, and the impact of the crazy and twisted freak show gradually faded away.

While others were reading Irwin's first draft, Irwin moved a chair and looked leisurely at the sea of ​​flowers outside the window. In this strange space, time seemed to have been frozen. It should have passed since entering the big library. It has been several hours, but the sky outside has not changed at all.

Irwin began to wonder how this was done. Could it be that like a stage play, a curtain beyond imagination covered everything.

The orange-red light ignited everything that was illuminated by it. Irwin liked this gorgeous fiery red scene very much, so he picked up a pen and described this scene in his notes.

Irwin has been writing, from entering the Happy Garden to the attack of the Dread Devourer, he has never stopped writing. As he himself said, every character recorded will make his new book perfect.

Bologg put down the first draft, which had many pages. Bologg only read the first part, from when Irving left home to when he boarded the train that changed his destiny.

Judging from Irwin's behavior, the contents written in the first draft are all real events. Of course, this may also be part of Irwin's hoax, but Bologo did not dwell on it for too long.

If this was really a scam, Boluogo would admire Irwin. In order to deceive others, he wrote the first draft in advance, spent a long time maintaining this false illusion, and completely alienated himself into another person, just another person. Thinking about such psychological contradictions, Boluoge felt like he was schizophrenic.

This reminded Bologg of an enemy he had fought against a long time ago...

Regardless of the authenticity of the first draft, based on what was written in the first draft, Bologo understood the reason for all this in Irvine, which surprised him.

"This isn't the first time you've been to the Happy Garden, is it?"

Bologger stood beside Irwin and looked with him toward the sea of ​​burning daisies.

Turning over a page in the first draft, Boluogo revealed a large section of text, "Thirty-three years ago, the train came from the wilderness..."

In the first draft, Irwin did not write much about what happened on the train. He only briefly described the experience on the train, but in this brief content, Bologo could detect the existence of some clues.

Irwin deliberately omitted the story on the train, and it was on this train that he met the woman who appears throughout his works.

"What a beautiful color."

Irwin ignored Boluogo's words, took out a bottle of wine from somewhere, bit open the cork, and drank by himself.

Under the pure orange-red light, the sea of ​​​​flowers is mixed with light yellow and bright green. The gorgeous colors are softly mixed together, like large tracts of solidified gems, and the refracted afterglow of the sun is as beautiful as an oil painting painted by a famous artist.

Irwin said, "My favorite thing is to sit here in a daze at sunset in the afternoon. I can usually sit there for a long time until it gets dark."

"Thirty-three years ago, you suffered many setbacks and were abandoned by fate. In this desperate situation, you boarded the Happy Garden, and by some means, you actually left alive."

Boluogo narrated in a cold tone, "Since then, you have begun to pursue the extraordinary world... What you are really chasing is the Garden of Joy, the eternal life hidden in the Garden of Joy. What writing inspiration did you tell Nolen? , are all lies.”

"It's not a lie, these inspirations did help me write a good story," Irwin looked away, "I just didn't tell the whole truth."

Irwin continued, "Sometimes I leave out things that don't really matter."

"Listen, Irvin, you don't understand, the devil..."

"Bologo."

Irwin's voice became stern, and he interrupted Boluogo's words. When Irwin continued, his serious expression suddenly became gentle again.

"I know what you want to say, and I also know what I have to face... Don't try to persuade me. I have been planning this trip for thirty-three years. Do you think your few words can stop me?"

"Is eternal life so important to you?"

Boluogo felt a sense of powerlessness. He didn't understand why everyone was so stubbornly pursuing immortality. The rebellious elders, Sere who spent his years in the undead club, and the deformed and crazy White Oull.

They are all pursuers of immortality. Some get what they want, while others fail, but regardless of success or failure, the results of all this seem to be tragic.

"Actually, sometimes, I don't even understand what I want."

Irwin's eyes were full of confusion, and he shook his head, "I'm different from you, I'm not an immortal, and I don't know what the world looks like in your eyes.

From my perspective, I am like a clay figure made of mud, and time is like a stream caressing my body, eating up my body bit by bit. "

Irwin paused and smiled, "When I look back on the past, only a small part of me is left in the stream, and the rest has disappeared with the flowing water."

"What exactly do I want...who knows? That was already thirty-three years ago. Looking back at it now, it feels like looking at another person's life."

Irwin asked, "Can you understand this feeling? Bolog, as an undead person, you should feel it, right?"

"You and he have the same name, the same body, and have experienced the same things, but you understand that you are not him anymore. Under the erosion of time, you have become a completely different person.

In the end, you even begin to doubt the authenticity of the past. Was that really me? Did I really go through this? Or is this just a brief dream one afternoon? "

Boluogo fell silent. Irwin's words reminded him of Redwood Town, which should have been the most familiar thing to him, but it was cast with a lingering sense of strangeness.

"See, you feel the same way, right?"

Irwin noticed Boluogo's micro-expression, like a child who discovered a secret, and laughed excitedly.

“It’s not just for eternal life, it’s not just for the perfection of the work.

I came back here to confirm the authenticity of my past life, to make sure that I had actually been here, and to make sure that what I experienced was not a nightmare on a winter day. "

Irwin put the wine bottle next to the chair and stared blankly at the sea of ​​burning flowers.

"Thirty-three years ago, I lost something here. I don't know what it was, but I always feel that when I come back here, I can find it again."

There was silence between the two for a long time, and Boluogo felt that his thoughts were wavering. He began to believe Irwin's words, those sincere and sincere words.

For a long time, Boluogo felt that Irwin was moving forward with some kind of profit purpose, but now it seems that he felt a sense of romance in Irwin.

To Borogo, such romantic feelings seemed a bit silly, but he didn't hate it.

"The devil is contradictory."

Suddenly, Boluogo talked about the devil, "Just like what we are facing now, the witch of pleasure."

“She will send blessings to her followers, which will convert all strong emotions into happiness, and the simplest and most efficient form of conversion is to feel pain.

Sounds great, right? All the complex emotions are eliminated and only absolute joy remains. "

Bologg recalled the enemies he fought against, and their painful and joyful expressions appeared in his mind. Through those tired and tired eyes, Bologg could see the numb and indifferent souls.

"Pleasure has a threshold. A little pleasure is enough at first, but as you absorb more pleasure, the hole in your heart will become extremely huge."

Just like the mania that plagues all soul-impaired people.

"So they begin to seek stronger sensory stimulation and more intense pain in order to obtain more intense pleasure. As a result, the threshold will be infinitely raised. Under the endless cycle, only hollow numbness is left."

"It's very funny, isn't it? As a believer who seeks pleasure, what he ends up with is pale numbness."

Irwin said, "Are you trying to say that deals with the devil often end up not getting what you want?"

"Probably," Boluogo was not sure. "I don't know much about the devil. I don't know if this kind of undesired gain also affects the devil.

After all, if the devils can be satisfied, they will not try their best to use such deformed means to satisfy their own pleasure and obtain the souls of mortals. "

"It sounds like the devil is no different from us mortals. They are all driven by some kind of power and become slaves to something."

Irwin continued, "Are you trying to say that I will get what I don't want in the end?"

"No, who knows what will happen next?"

Boluogo said frankly, "I was confused for a while and even doubted myself. Unlike your pursuit of nobility, I don't have such high requirements for myself. I don't even expect to become a good person based on worldly values."

"Then who do you want to be?"

"A man who will not disappoint himself."

Boluogo continued, "But I became an undead...I have been thinking, what did I do in that memory that I lost?

Was it really because I was afraid of death that I made the wish to become immortal? If not, is my immortality also the result of something undesirable, a distorted wish? "

Burlogo took a deep breath. He rarely discussed these things with others. "I'm afraid of disappointing myself, just like you are afraid of losing your dignity."

The conversation unknowingly fell into silence again, which reminded Bologna of holiday afternoons, when he and Palmer would often sit on the sofa like this, chatting wordlessly to kill time.

"Thank you, thank you for talking to me about this," Irwin broke the silence, "Does this mean we are beginning to trust each other?"

"That's it, just some resonance."

Boluogo narrowed his eyes and recalled the past, "I once participated in the Wrath of the Scorched Earth. I made a group of friends during the war, although most of them have passed away now."

Irwin didn't show too much surprise. He roughly deduced Bologo's age from when Bologo mentioned his 100th birthday.

"One of my friends, his name is Dennis. He and I come from the same town. We are not too different in age. I have always regarded him as an older brother. When the war came, he joined the army with me. During a casual chat, he and I talked about something similar."

Boluogo thought of the days when he was huddled in the trench. Dennis would follow him no matter what, saying that he had promised his parents to protect himself.

"Dennis said that in the past twenty years of his life, he had been an idle gangster in a small town, beating children for fun every day, but now he has become a soldier, strict with himself, and for some noble reasons. Things dance with death, it’s like two completely different lives.”

"I think this is inevitable. As time goes by and experience increases, we will always become completely different."

Irwin praised himself as he spoke, "In the face of this situation, it is even more precious to be able to maintain the foolish stubbornness of youth."

Boluogo finally saw Irwin's stubbornness, "Have you always been so good at comforting yourself?"

"I can only say that my world view has been completely finalized," Irwin said very satisfied with this, "so I am invincible."

Boluogo smiled helplessly. He seemed to have no other choice but to witness all this to the end. Not to mention, after talking with Irwin, Boluogo actually had an idea of ​​what Irwin was about to do. curious.

He wanted to know the end of the story.

Borrogo asked, "Don't you need some treatment?"

"I'm not injured," Irwin shook his head. "It's time to rest, Boluogo. There's still a long way to go."

Boluogo paused and asked reluctantly, "Irwin, what exactly did you experience in the Happy Garden thirty-three years ago?"

Irwin smiled and shook his head. This was a secret that only belonged to him.

The big library was quiet. During the conversation between the two, the others had fallen asleep due to exhaustion. Seeing this, Boluogo stopped asking too many questions and stepped into the bookshelf.

Irwin shifted his gaze to the sea of ​​flowers again. He liked the gorgeous colors. He rubbed his fingers slightly, and there was a faint pain on them. During the battle with the monster, Irwin was accidentally scratched by the monster, but The strange thing is that apart from the pain, there are no wounds on his hands.

A rustling voice sounded from behind. From the corner of his vision, Cinderella sneakily touched over. Irwin knew that she was hiding behind the bookshelf and eavesdropped on his conversation with Boluogo.

"He is really an unromantic guy."

Cinderella peeked in the direction where Boluogo was leaving, and then she winked at Irwin, looking weird.

"You've made your intentions so obvious, hasn't he noticed yet?"

"Perhaps my idea is too stupid, so stupid that even if Bologo thought of it, he would simply ignore it."

Irwin looked at the girl, and he was not surprised that Cinderella could guess his thoughts, "This feels so bad, like someone has discovered my little secret, but I didn't expect this time, I still feel ashamed...

I shouldn't have told you so much. "

Cinderella completely ignored Irwin's complicated thoughts. She held the first draft, tried hard to suppress her shocked emotions and voice, and screamed softly in Irwin's ear.

"Oh my God! Irwin, you're in love with a devil!"

It's over. The fever reached 40 degrees in the middle of the night. My whole body felt like a molten core. I'm afraid it wasn't sent, but the antigen was negative. I'll keep an eye on it for a day.