flower and big devil

Luo Xiu was a little surprised that this court musician whose name he didn't even know was more familiar with the environment here than he was.

Of course, Luo Xiu was even more surprised that he didn't know when he became so easy to deceive, but he went drinking with a court musician whose name he didn't even know.

Leaving the chaotic square, the court musician walked in front. His footsteps were steady, which made him look more like a soldier. The shofet he used to play before was hung on his waist and swayed as he walked. shaking.Luo Xiu followed behind him, never taking his eyes off him - this strange person completely exposed his back under his nose without any precautions, and seemed not at all afraid that the people behind him would To surprise him or do something else...

Or in other words, he was so confident that even if Luo Xiu suddenly attacked him from behind, he didn't feel that he would cause any harm to himself?

...Thinking of this, the black-haired young man's head was suddenly disconnected for a moment. After a few seconds, he came back to his senses in embarrassment. It seemed that he was uncharacteristically making up the court musician in front of him into some kind of tall and mysterious identity ...And the court musician is probably also a person who is born with few words. He didn't speak from the beginning to the end. He didn't even ask Luo Xiu's name or introduce himself. He just led the black-haired young man around. I walked to the door of a tavern with a good atmosphere, and when I opened the door, the copper bells hanging on the door jingled.

The "Today's Special Offer: White Wine" hanging on the door plate shook for a while.

The light in the tavern is very dim, but it can be vaguely seen that the business in this place is actually good. All kinds of people are sitting in the shadows in the corner, whispering or simply not talking and sipping the drinks in front of them. There is a candle, and some tables are lit with candles, and the people around the table are seated around the light source that can only illuminate a small circle of the table, while others seem to naturally like to hide themselves in the dark , if you don't take a closer look, you hardly know that there is someone sitting at that table.

Because of this, Luo Xiu almost sat on the lap of a male sheep-headed monster.

Fortunately, the court musician stretched out his hand and grabbed him in time. After the black-haired young man apologized to the sheep-headed monster with a look of astonishment in embarrassment, the two found an empty table in the corner and sat down as waiters. When the wine glasses and jug were placed on the table, the court musician joked in a good mood: "That sheep-headed monster has hairy thighs, and you can smell the smell of sheep from 300 meters away. Isn't your nose worse than a hound's?" Sensitive, what's the matter?"

Luo Xiu smiled awkwardly, and didn't answer this question - he just thought the court musician spoke strangely - the tone sounded as if they were actually old acquaintances.

When Luo Xiu was in a daze, the court musician filled the wine glass in front of him with the wine jug. The black-haired young man was almost in a daze watching the crimson liquid flowing from the mouth of the wine jug, until the wine jug was put back. When he returned to the table, there was a soft "click" in his ears, and he was startled suddenly, and then he blinked as if he had been awakened from a dream.

"Drink," said the court musician.

Luo Xiu picked up the glass, and before he put it to his lips, he put it down again as if remembering something, and after thinking about it, he said, "What's your name?"

"Does it matter?"

"I think so."

"A meaningless question, the name is just a code name, and I'm not used to role-playing." The court musician put his hands lightly on the table, but said in an inscrutable way, "I know your The name is Alice, and I know that you passed the square not by coincidence but because you were really looking for me, now answer my question, Alice, are you looking for me only because you want me to tell you what my name is?"

"..."

Luo Xiu was a little dizzy from being entangled, but before he realized whether he had been entangled, he shook his head obediently.

"Drink," said the court musician, with a satisfied smile, "and then you can ask me questions—I don't want to put on a show, Alice, most of the reasons I'm here are because I've been instructed to help you move forward, That guy likes to put on airs so I can't tell you who he is, but the most frustrating thing is obviously - no matter how annoying this small-bodied behavior is, he is still my boss."

Luo Xiu pinched the cup in his hand and was speechless for a while.

All the things he has experienced before seem to be happening step by step-in short, Luo Xiu always thinks that those NPCs seem to have really melted into this world and completed them seriously, whether true or false. Their respective parts, but so far, none of them has ever approached him so seriously and said, "Hi, I'm an NPC, and I'm acting. Of course you are also acting. Although I don't want to act, I'm waiting for the lunch box distributed by the crew. had to act."

The words of the court musician finally confirmed what Alicia and Mr. Caterpillar said—someone is really manipulating all this, and Luo Xiu, who is the protagonist of the whole incident, guessed it right, but he found that he was not happy at all. Even when he got up, he didn't feel angry—because he didn't know what kind of mood he should be in order to avoid the other one that was set in the script written by the other party from the beginning.

At this time, the court musician had already poured himself a glass of wine, and then drank it with his head up—after putting down the glass, he began to sing, shaking his head, the same song he played in the square, but when When the tune was no longer played by a musical instrument, but was pronounced from a human voice, the black-haired young man sitting at the table who had fallen silent raised his head in surprise, staring at him as if he had seen a ghost, and was humming softly. court musicians.

Now he finally knew why he felt familiar when he first heard this song in the square.

——Like a bard's little trick, a song changes the position of the syllable dislocation bar or slightly raises or lowers the pitch at a key place, and one song becomes another song, and it listens It looks like another song, but it is still the original one in essence.

What the court musicians were playing in the square and singing at this time was actually the song about Alice that Luo Xiu wanted to know.

It was as if he had grasped something about the other party, and waited patiently for the other party to finish humming for a while, before the black-haired young man said abruptly, "I know the song you sang."

At this time, he was surprised to see the court musician sitting across the table smiling: "I know you know, so I'm singing it, I thought you had fully understood the meaning of the song, I didn't expect you to still chase after it." It, it doesn't mean much, Alice—do you really want no drink?"

Luo Xiu automatically ignored the last sentence of the other party. He sat up a little bit and approached the court musician sitting across the table: "How much do you know?"

"You should ask yourself this question, isn't everything sung in the song familiar to you?" The court musician narrowed his eyes slightly.

"I already know the story of the first Alice."

"I'm afraid you still don't know." The court musician shook his head.

Luo Xiu frowned, but at this moment, he heard the other party say, "This skirt you are wearing is what the first Alice left behind?"

“……………… You said that I was wearing the clothes of a dead person?”

"...If you have to understand it this way, then I'm afraid it is."

The court musician's sincere and completely unbuffered answer made Luo Xiu feel as if he was sitting on a needle cushion. Now he only feels that his whole body is exuding a stench of rotting corpses, and his hands seem to be shaking on the table helplessly. After a while, at the end, he compromised, but angrily undid one of the buttons that had been tightly buttoned under his chin, and said a little irritably, "Then the second Alice?"

"Leaving maggot eggs behind."

Luo Xiu felt that his hair was standing up one by one: "Someone told me that it was a flea egg."

"... Is there a difference?" the court musician asked back.

Luo Xiu silently took off the red string hanging around his neck, on which hung a purple transparent bead and a small yellowed rice grain-sized thing like insect eggs, after a pause , gritted his back molars and said, "No difference—a story?"

The court musician did not speak, he was silent for a long time, picked up the horn flute hanging on his waist, and played it to his lips - the melodious music sounded, especially abrupt in the quiet bar - but strangely, it did not None of the other guests turned to look at them curiously, they acted as if nothing had happened.

After playing for a while, the court musician put down the horn flute, and sang the second verse in tune with his good-sounding voice:

"Moonlight, flustered, hour and minute hands lined up.

Tarot soldiers patrol the path, and a second Alice comes to me.

He is timid, he is sad,

Stopping time, stopping space, unstoppable swallowing,

Tarot soldiers come to the fence,

He's a ball, stuck on the table, the rapier through his chest,

Moonlight, flustered, Alice sleeping on the dining table—”

……

Hearing this song again, Luo Xiu was a little terrified - although he didn't remember how Ladoni sang these songs at that time, but when someone sang it again, he was very sure The lyrics are probably really like this, basically unchanged at all.

"This is the second story of Alice who came to Wonderland," said the court musician. "You should read the first and second sentences in reverse, and the correct order should be like this—exactly the same as what happened to you. , when the second Alice defeated the Goat Monster of the Duke of Darkness, but returned to Wonderland again, he found himself being hunted by Tarot soldiers. He came to the backyard of Mr. Violent Bear for help, but there was no Thought it was a place where time stopped and afternoon tea was going on forever - I remember the second Alice didn't quite fit the bill, in fact I didn't think he should even be brought to Wonderland and we should know he wasn't mine The person the boss is looking for."

"En?" Luo Xiu raised his eyebrows.

"He looked cowardly and sad, like the humblest maggot in the world - and the man the boss was looking for was a complete idiot, he wasn't cowardly or even a little impulsive, and he wasn't sad, because idiots don't It’s an emotion.” There was not much emotion in the court musician’s tone, but one could easily feel his contempt—not against the person they were looking for who had been despised from beginning to end, but against The second Alice, "The second Alice probably saw the truth about Violent Bear and Mr. Squirrel, but he didn't expose it, just tricked himself into sitting at the table like Violent Bear - as if he was in the real world As he always did, he deceived himself that everything was fine. He had afternoon tea with Violent Bear that would never stop until his belly was round and he was fixed in the middle of the dining table and chairs. At this time, Tarot soldiers found He, then threw the sword over the fence, and the second Alice died, at the dinner table."

The tone of the court musician was very calm, as if telling a cruel fairy tale that didn't really exist.

Luo Xiu moved his lips, but did not speak.

The court musician smiled: "By the way, the maggot eggs I'm talking about were taken out of his mouth, and later Alice could turn the eggs into weapons of various shapes - No.3 Alice used My weapon is a long sword—I didn’t expect it to become a living thing when I came to you, it shouldn’t be like this.”

In the dark light, Luo Xiu looked at the opening and closing of the other party's lips, but found that he couldn't understand what the other party wanted to say - now - his mind was full of facts, for example: everything on him came from Everything from the dead man, from this set of clothes with weird taste, to the meat dumpling that can only grunt.

Luo Xiu said blankly: "...I don't think I agree with this method of inheritance."

"You yourself know that it's too late to resist now, don't you?" The court musician looked at the black-haired young man with a paralyzed face sympathetically, "Don't worry, you smell okay."

“……………………”

The black-haired young man who was not comforted at all did not speak, but stretched out his hand and pointed suggestively to the purple crystal ball hanging on the red string on the table. Alicia called it "Moonlight Grape" , but now Luo Xiu feels that judging from the urgency of the story development, the origin of this thing may be sorry for such a girly manga-style name.

At this time, the court musicians began to play the third piece of music.

"The moon emits light, the shadow shakes, and the twins are a pair.

Alien flowers bloomed beside the lotus pond, and the third Alice came to me.

Blonde with long eyelashes,

Teenagers with weapons in their hands,

Stepping on the bloody road to pass through the barriers, you will become the king of the fairyland,

The moon emits light, the shadow shakes, and the king disappears beside the lotus pond. "

……

Putting down the croissant in his hand, the court musician glanced at the purple crystal ball in the hand of the black-haired young man, and then continued unhurriedly: "The third Alice is very beautiful, her golden hair is brighter than the sun , eyes as green as a lake and almost blue, holding a long sword in high spirits, brave and fearless all the way through."

And fucking blond again.

Luo Xiu couldn't catch his breath.

At this moment, the court musician's tone sank, and he suddenly said in a low voice: "It's a pity that the hero is sad. He was dragged into the depths of the pool by the mermaid raised by the Duke of Darkness. This bead is probably the mermaid's intention to kill his lover. Jewels of tears left behind."

Luo Xiu found that he was very happy to hear the ending - of course, it had nothing to do with the death of the "blond man", it was just because he thought the other party would tell him that it was the third Alice's eyeball. Under the circumstances, he learned that it was only the tears of a mermaid, and he felt the "beauty" produced by "comparison".

"Livia and Livini?" The dark-haired young man became a little more active, "I thought they... um, the one they love is the Duke of Darkness, and each other."

The expression on the court musician's face was blank for a moment—for a moment, Luo Xiu felt that he seemed to be recalling some unpleasant past, and after the resolute and handsome face twitched quickly, he gulped down With a glass of red wine, he took a long breath and said, "That's the truth. You know a lot about women's narcissism."

"..."

"What about the third Alice?"

"Women are fickle creatures, let alone mermaids—haven't you heard that the memory of a goldfish is only seven seconds? You only have one purple crystal in your hand, which means that the mermaid only left such a symbolic tear—— Because she killed her lover with her own hands."

"and then?"

"Then? Then the lover becomes the ex-lover, and she happily enjoys her lunch of fresh human flesh underwater."

"..."

"what happened?"

"Headache."

"Sure, although it has nothing to do with me—but as a man, I must admit that it is absolutely tragic to fall in love with such a woman." The court musician sighed and shook his head. At the same time, he poured the wine glass in his hand Xiu pushed over there, "Drink."

This time, Luo Xiu took the wine glass and took a sip without doubting him—then he unexpectedly discovered that the wine was actually not strong, in fact it tasted so sweet that it was very approachable, it was more like After the juice mixed with cranberry, strawberry and other similar fruits enters the throat, the sweet smell fills the whole head from the root of the neck to the top.

This tastes good.

Not bad until the black-haired young man couldn't help sticking out the tip of his tongue again, and greedily licked it again, concealed by the glass wall.

He could almost hear the tip of his tongue lifting the surface of the liquid in the glass to make a slight splash of liquid.

His movements were quick, almost for an instant—before he realized that his movements were a bit like a cat or canine drinking water, he had put down his glass calmly, pretending that nothing was wrong with him. It didn't happen.

Watching the black-haired young man remain silent, the court musician raised his horn flute again and started the fourth song——

"The moon is covered by clouds, the snow is vast, and the walls of the orphanage block the light.

Dark clouds overwhelmed the city, clouds fell frost, and the fourth Alice came to me.

She carried the bamboo cage eye, and the bird was in the middle of the cage,

The caged bird flies before dawn, but only hears the wind whimpering,

Covered by moon clouds and boundless snow, empty bamboo cage eyes, buried in loess in the backyard. "

……

In the slow and deep singing, no one noticed that the copper bell hanging on the door of the bar rang lightly at this time, and the door of the bar was pushed open by a person from the outside—the person who came was tall and the armor on his body made him He looked even taller, and people couldn't see his face clearly when he was behind the light, but when he silently took off the helmet on his head, a pair of different-colored pupils appeared extremely bright.

The waiter at the bar was stunned, and stared at the Tarot soldiers standing at the door, blocking most of the natural light from outside the door, and almost forgot to come forward to entertain them.

At this time, the court musician finished singing the fourth verse of the lyrics. Unlike before, he found that the black-haired young man sitting across the table was not in a hurry to ask questions.

Of course he didn't know, and he didn't rush to ask about the fourth Alice's story. In fact, it was because Luo Xiu had almost already told him the story about "Pregnant Alice" and "Bird in a Cage" when Latoni told him. The fourth lyric and the related stories are almost guessed, and at this moment, the black-haired young man is holding the wine glass with one hand, and accidentally fiddled with the red rope he put on the table with the other hand thoughtfully. The two "predecessor Alice's relics" hanging...

Clothes with weird taste come from the first Alice.

The strangely shaped eggs come from the second Alice.

The oddly used crystal bead comes from the third Alice.

Every time Alice dies, she will leave an item for the next Alice—so after many, many Alices, the last Alice will be armed from head to tail to teeth with the things left by the dead—think of this At the time, the black-haired young man entertaining himself was almost overwhelmed by his sense of humor, but before he could laugh out loud, he was taken aback suddenly and suddenly felt that something was wrong.

After thinking about it, he raised his eyelids, glanced at the court musician sitting opposite him, and suddenly asked a strange question: "How many paragraphs are there in the lyrics?"

"Four Alices, you are the fifth, and you are still alive," said the court musician, "so there are only four verses for now."

Luo Xiu's face was blank for two or three seconds.

A few seconds later, he felt himself from the beginning to the end as if he suddenly fell ill—of course he didn't find anything, he just put his empty hands back on the table, and asked after a pause, the black-haired young man was full of With a blank face, he asked the court musician sitting opposite him and buried his head in drinking: "No, where is the thing left by the fourth Alice?"