deformed bone

After a while, the tall Reverend Albert walked towards the children.For an old man of this age, his hard work can be considered handsome, his back is not hunched like other old people, and he doesn't have the cloudy eyes that are typical of old people, and the edges of his lips are clean and there is no reflection of saliva.His back was straight, like a javelin, fine wrinkles covered his face like a net, and his robe was carefully starched, much neater than that of Reverend George.

"Friend George."

He stood beside George and called his name warningly.George's lips quivered, and he took a quick step back like a frightened fat rat.

Albert's figure barely covered most of George, but Isa could feel that with the disappearance of that hot and disgusting gaze, all the children present breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you for the glory of the Children of Light... You are the fourth batch of children to come here, this is very lucky, you should feel happy because this luck is obviously the angel's preference for you. However, with all due respect, under this gift , you should be more cautious in your words and deeds, you must not be complacent, and you must not be arrogant. You must recognize your own situation, you..."

Pastor Albert stretched out a finger and pointed it right at Isa's forehead.

His thin, bloodless lips opened and closed: "It is a crude product that has not been selected. Gold miners need to wash in the dirty and dirty sand in the river for half a month before they can get a small piece." Gold—and now, each of you may be the shining treasure, or, of course, the vile river sand."

He didn't say a single bad word, but all the children were silent after Albert's words.

Afterwards, Albert looked straight at Isa, his cold eyes flashing with disgust.

He turned his head quickly, and whispered in George's ear: "...why is a red-haired whore in the selection process?"

His just right voice just allowed Isa to hear this sentence, and Isha's face turned pale at that moment.

If Isa's hair must be strictly judged, it probably cannot meet the requirements for the selection of the Holy Child.Compared with other children's natural platinum and blond hair, her hair will have a faint carrot color under certain lights.Presumably as she gets older, those erratic pigments in her hair will gradually darken, and maybe she'll turn into a redhead... but that doesn't mean that after hearing the word "redheaded bitch" Isa able to accept it.

She took a deep breath violently, staring at Albert mercilessly.

[If he said one more word—one word!I get out of here!I'd spit in his face and walk away! ]

She heard a voice in her heart screaming violently...

In a sense, she even looked forward to the insults that Albert would say next.

However, at this moment, Pastor George took out the small book from his pocket in a panic, squeezed his fingertips, quickly flipped through the papers, and then he put a certain page in Albert's in front of you.

Pastor George's words were so low that Isa could only hear the voice of "Madeleine".

Pastor Albert's face became very ugly. When he looked at Isa, it was as if he saw a toad in his bathtub.However, from that moment on, he did not say any harsh words as Isha wished.

He took the children to the third floor in an orderly manner, and prepared their rooms, like a real, competent priest.

Isa and Bread were assigned a room—a room that was far superior and more comfortable than the room they were assigned in the Adventist Sisters' House.The doors and furniture are all made of heavy oak, the walls are snow-white, on which is nailed an extremely exquisite cross of an angel, below the cross is a small prayer table, the height is completely customized according to the height of the child, the ground The upholstery on the ceiling is made of high-grade latex, and it is wrapped in a thick velvet cover that feels like human skin. On the ceiling is a glittering golden chandelier. The light is very bright but also very soft, which is completely competent. All the lighting in a not-so-small room - oh, by the way, this room has no balcony, no windows, just four solid, stone walls, and the only door is small and narrow, allowing only one person in and out at a time , and the hinge of that door was unexpectedly rough. When they walked into that room, without the help of the priest, Isa and "Bread" couldn't even push the door open.

Although the room is quite high-end, its new residents have no way to enjoy it to the fullest... The two little girls are extremely nervous and restrained, especially "Bread". After entering the room, she shrank to the corner, within a few minutes, Isa heard thin, frightened weeping from under the quilt.

Isa sat in front of the altar, her fingers scratching at the uniforms the priest had assigned them to wear—white robes as loose as flour sacks.

She hesitated for a few seconds, then covered her ears with her hands, ignoring "Bread" who was crying until he was about to twitch.

Her ginger hair fell loosely over her thin shoulders.

Isa looked at the reddish hair color on the white fabric, and kept murmuring in her heart.

【It will end soon... soon...】

She knew that she would never be valued by that group of people, no matter her age or appearance, yes, and her precocious personality-the last point is simply the culprit of the group of priests, if it is not for the rules, probably A few days ago, Isha's eyeballs were directly gouged out by them.

Madeleine's sacrifice may allow her to stay in this room for a night or two, but after the real selection begins, Isa knows that she will be the first to be eliminated... and after being eliminated, she will You can go home, back to Madeleine's side...

Isa sketched Madeleine's face over and over again in her mind, not the later Madeleine who was wearing a black robe and looked like a mummy, but the one who always drank herself dizzy, with eye shadow and Madeleine who smeared her face with lipstick, threw herself on her bed in the middle of the night to wake her up, forced kisses on her face, and yelled "Issa my little baby".

[I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I can't help...]

Unknowingly, Isha also shed tears.

I have to say that the precocious Isa is indeed quite smart - if it hadn't been for that accident, everything would have continued according to that plan.She will be sent out of this church in the desert in a week, and Madeleine will scream and cry for years, but she will slowly come out of the darkness, a child like her, always It is to know how to survive in a harsh environment.

However, Pastor George knew about the existence of "bread".

That night, after the sumptuous dinner, among the children who filed back to the room, there was no "bread".

Isa felt extremely flustered. She kept asking about "bread", but she could only get an indifferent answer from the nun of life—the cute little girl with plump cheeks that looked like baked bread was taken away by the priest for a night out. Lesson counseling.

Isa's attitude suddenly became so bad that she was put in the brig for this reason.

When she returned to her room late at night, "bread" had already returned to her bed.

It's just that the little girl didn't have any expression on her face, and she couldn't even cry anymore. Yisha walked over in fear, she was afraid that the "bread" lying there was dead—but when she saw When they arrived at the "bread", they found that the little girl's eyes were open.

It's just that.

Those two pupils were inlaid on the childish cheeks, without soul, without sanity, just two old glass beads, her breathing was hot, and her small chest heaved slowly.

Bread had put on a new uniform, not the one she wore out the door.

A faint fragrance emanated from the rough fabric of the uniform. Isa remembered that it was the smell of "White Lion" laundry detergent... Before Madeleine joined the Adventist party, she would take her to the street corner every weekend laundromat to wash clothes.

The laundry is always full of noise, humming, the air is very warm, and the aroma of detergent is intertwined, very strong.

Madeleine likes the "White Lion" brand laundry detergent the most. It smells like lavender. The freshly washed clothes are warm on the face, which can dilute the lingering wine and cheap perfume on Madeleine during that time. odor.

……

Isa trembled violently, and she didn't know that she was crying unconsciously.She stroked "Bread"'s cheek with her hand and forced her to sit up.

"We've got to get out of here... we've got to get out of here... it's not right... Mrs Moriton told me it's not right..."

She muttered nervously, circling back and forth in the room.

"This isn't going to end if we're still here... those old assholes won't let you go... we're going to run away! run away!"

As Isa chattered, the pupils of "Bread" gradually became brighter, as if she had accidentally picked up some fragments of her soul.

"Mom...would...be angry..."

She spoke hoarsely, with visible wounds at the corners of her mouth.

The red was like a hot iron burning fiercely in Isa's soul.

She dropped to her knees - right in front of the cross - and vomited violently.

"Bread" stumbled up from the bed, and she grabbed Isa in horror.

"Isa?"

She spoke in a low voice, fearfully.

Then he saw Isa turned her head suddenly, her pale face, her eyes were bloodshot, and her pupils were as bright as burning coals.

"Mom was just deceived... After knowing the truth, they will not scold people... We are good children, those people are bad people."

Isa said hurriedly.

She searched the room several times before she found her shoes. A pair of cloth shoes that were only a little thicker than socks. These were also given to them by the pastor when they checked into the room. Their own shoes had already been confiscated.

She took the dumb "bread" and tried to remove the cross on the wall. After that, Isa pulled the door open a little bit with all her strength. She stuck the cross in the crack of the door and pried the door open. There is a gap that people can barely drill out.

She let Bread get out, and then herself.

The interior of the church in the dark is as intricate as a tauren's maze. Isa pulled the "bread" at the fastest speed and ran lightly in the corridor.

They passed one after another portraits, all of which were the perfect faces of the "Children of Light". The portraits drawn by famous artists are so vivid, at least at night, they smiled and looked down at the two children in the frame, His pale face suddenly appeared in the darkness (in the portraits he was always wearing a black robe), like the heads of dead people suspended in mid-air.

"Pound thump... thump thump... thump thump..."

Isa's heart has never been beating so fast like today, and the moon drew countless twisted shadows on the ground when it shot through the carved fence and entered the window.

In the extreme tension, Isa felt that those shadows seemed to be distorted like monsters.

1 minute? 2 minutes?Still more than ten minutes?One hour?

Yisha couldn't judge how long the time had passed. Anyway, in the constant running, she finally found the door leading to the outside in her memory...

mother--

She ran quickly towards the door.

then……

"Crack..."

The golden light, so bright that it almost blinded Isa's eyes, suddenly lit up.

"What are you doing?"

Isa heard a grim voice behind her.

At some point, she bit her lip. At this second, the sweet fishy smell in her mouth permeated and became particularly strong.

Isa turned her head slowly, like a cheek robot that was about to run out of power.

Reverend Albert stood by the light switch, staring straight at her with gray eyes.

"What are you doing, Isha?"

He repeated it again.