Brother Jack, don't kill me!

"Lotte." An Li smiled, "Let's feed the bug cat."

When eating together on the school's rooftop, An Li said this to Lott.

Lotte clenched the chopsticks in his hand, he was stunned, then he raised his eyes and stared at An Li carefully.

An Li stood in front of him, with her ponytail tied up, she was smiling, no different from other students, an indifferent smile, a smile like watching a theater.

"An Li..."

Lotter said in a trembling voice, "They're already dead."

An Li smiled and said, "I know, but maybe there are new bug cats running into the school."

"They died from being fed junk food," Lott said. "We can't feed them junk food."

An Li stood up, and she said, "So what?"

An Li said emphatically, "It's what they want to eat!"

"What does it have to do with us?"

An Li still had that indifferent smile on her face, and she said in a nonchalant tone, "That's not our fault."

"An Li—"

An Li turned her head, she restrained her smile, and her tone suddenly became cold.

"Lotte, you've been absent-minded recently."

"Is it because of Vincent?" An Li said.

Vincent is the name of the body that C possesses, but Lott prefers to call him C.

"Do not……"

Lotter said: "Although I am a little worried about C."

"C gave me the story he wrote, and it's not finished yet." Lott whispered, as if he was remembering something, "but he has—"

Is C really gone?

This question still haunts him to this day.

"Then why?" An Li said, "Is it because you went out and stayed with Xia Youjie for two weeks?"

"I--"

Lott's words were interrupted by An Li, the girl stood up, and she looked down at Lott with a look of disgust on her face.

"You know what they say about you, Lott?"

An Li said, "I'm so stupid to want to be your friend. You don't care about me at all, do you? Did you ask me what I did for the past two weeks?"

Lotte lowered his head, fiddled with his lunch box with his chopsticks, and said, "I'm sorry, An Li."

"I've had enough of you."

An Li laughed again, but this time, it was mockingly.

She said: "You only care about your crush, and maybe that C and that Natsume who is gone, you know, the nonsense stuff you talk about, what kind of worms, what aliens, oracles, Ink, I don't even want to hear it."

"Listen up, Lotte." An Li said, "I've had enough of you."

It seemed that the anger accumulated for a long time broke out at this moment. She pointed to the tip of Lotte's nose and said, "Everyone wants to teach you a lesson, but you always don't know how to repent."

At this time, the discarded schoolbag and medicine bottle, the dead insect cat, and the words on the cabinet all seemed to have a reasonable explanation.

Lot was stunned, he didn't speak, and didn't know what to say at this time, he just sat on the bench, as if stunned.

An Li was so angry that she turned around and left.

The door was slammed shut by her.

In this case, Lott lowered his head, he thought, and lost his last friend in town.

But it's okay, he comforted himself, I still have Xia Youjie.

Lot lowered his eyes. He fiddled with the lunch box with his chopsticks. The rice inside had been made out of shape. At this moment, his eyes suddenly felt sore.

At this moment, there was a knock on the door of the rooftop.

"Mr. Wiltshire," said the man outside, "may I come in?"

It was an unfamiliar voice.

Lott walked over, he opened the door, and saw a black-haired boy of his own age with golden eyes.

"Ah, are you crying, little Lotte?" the visitor asked with a smile.

Lotte's throat was blocked, and he softly called out the man's name, "The Umbrella Man."

"Did I do something wrong again?"

The Umbrella Man followed him to the bench and sat down.

The golden-eyed boy raised his legs, propped his chin, and said with a smile: "It's nothing serious, is it? As your bamboo horse said, the trial is over."

"It's not about the trial. It's about losing friends."

The Umbrella Man said, "It doesn't matter much."

"They will always go, every timeline is like this." The Umbrella Man said, "Can you understand, just like a puppet being manipulated, they have to go when the time comes."

Lot lowered his head, he was pulling the lunch box without saying a word.

After a while, he said, "Umbrella Man, you said you were very busy and didn't have time to chat with me."

The Umbrella Man waved his hands helplessly and said, "Actually, my employer gave me a long vacation, and I've been doing nothing for a while."

"Oh." Lott said in a muffled voice, "Are you passive and sabotage?"

The Umbrella Man laughed.

Then he went back to himself, "Most of the people in the house had parasites in their heads. The bugs changed their minds, manipulated them to serve themselves, to reproduce. But—"

"The bug's goal is not limited to disturbing the interior of the house. If it wants to spread more widely, it will leave the house, go to the outside world, and go to the real world. Then there must be a medium."

"I don't want to know that," Lott said.

The Umbrella Man lowered his head, looked over with his golden eyes, and said with a smile at the corner of his mouth, "That's it."

The Umbrella Man thought for a while, then he laughed and said, "Then, let's talk about that Xia Youjie. You are always interested in his affairs, right?"

"What happened to Jay?"

The umbrella man said: "When I came here, I took a look at it. It seems that I have been seriously injured."

"Oh——" the Umbrella Man dragged out his tone, and said, "Are you in such a hurry?"

He narrowed his eyes, watching Lott hastily open the door and run out.

……

The phone beeped.

Endless echoes sounded in the room.

Lotte's palms were covered with sweat, he bit his lower lip tightly, and the repeated voice from the microphone made him even more anxious.

until the phone is connected.

"Jay." Lott took a deep breath and asked, "Are you okay?"

The person on the other side of the microphone smiled, his voice clearly tired.

"I'm very good."

Lott thought for a while, and he said, "The Umbrella Man told me, you're injured, how can you get better?"

At that moment Lott heard a heavy breathing.

Xia Youjie said, "I'm fine. Nitro has treated me."

"Ah."

Xia Youjie turned to ask, "Lotte, I—"

Xia Youjie's voice paused, and he asked, "Is everything I did correct?"

"Huh?" Lot asked, "What's wrong?"

Lott smiled and said, "Of course what Jie did was right."

Lott said: "You are amazing, you can't go wrong."

Xia Youjie said, "Yes."

The topics that followed were not much different from usual, and after exchanging pleasantries, Xia Youjie hung up the phone.

What he saw in the Panxing Sect came to his mind at this moment.

Facing Riko's body, the Panxing Sect people smiled happily, indifferently, as if what died was not a person, but an object, a stumbling block that hindered Master Tianyuan's evolution.

When he thought of this, he felt the nausea surge up in his throat and eyes again.

Am I really doing the right thing?

Conjurers exist to protect non-conjurers, this is something he has always believed in, but at this time, he began to doubt and waver——

Are those people really worth protecting?

Is protecting those ugly, ignorant...monkeys really the value of the existence of conjurers?

No, it's pointless to worry about this kind of thing now.

Xia Youjie closed his eyes, held his throat, and took a deep breath.

Nothing unusual.

That was just a common thing that would happen, he kept persuading himself that human nature always has weaknesses, and there are always such ugly people.

When he chooses this path, he should know what he will see ahead.

and--

The bell rings.

Xia Youjie turned his head, and he saw the phone call again.

Xia Youjie lowered his head, and he connected the call again.

"Is there really nothing?" Lott said, "I thought about it for a long time, and Jie's tone doesn't sound like nothing."

Xia Youjie gave a short laugh, and asked, "Lotte, can you tell me that fairy tale from childhood again?"

"Of course you can."

Lott said, his voice from the microphone was very soft, and he began to tell the story of the ink princess and the paper princess.

Xia Youjie relaxed, he seemed to let go of all the burdens he was carrying at this time, childhood stories are indeed a good way to relieve stress.

Xia Youjie exhaled, and he calmed down.

"Frey said that there will be no more after that. I have to write it myself."

Lott said: "My version, I told Jie before."

Xia Youjie was silent for a moment, then he asked.

"Since Princess Ink taught them language and writing, why did the people of the Paper Kingdom put her in prison?"

"Just because she's not their kind?"

"Why, I don't think it's what Jay said. It's all," Lott said, sounding distressed, "because of what—"

Because there was no follow-up to Lott's, he hesitated and said, "I don't know either."

"If it was Jay, how would the story be written?"

"No need." Xia Youjie said calmly, even slowly, "There is no need to protect those people."

"Even if it's protection, as long as you protect the one who saved her, that's fine."

Lotte laughed and said, "Yeah."

"What you said is very similar to what Frey said." Lott thought for a moment, and he said, "But Frey is more like saying in my ear that free will does not exist."

Xia Youjie clenched the microphone, lost in thought.

After a while, he listened to the sound of breathing on the other side, and asked, "Is what I did right?"

Lott seemed a little surprised why he asked such a question for the second time, but Lott didn't think much about it, so he replied, "Of course it's right."

"Jie is the best, so what Jie does is right."

Xia Youjie took a deep breath, and he gave a soft "hmm".

Not that bad.

At least for now it's not that bad.