Heartbreaker

The snow covering the permafrost of Vulture City has just thawed, and the splashed mud stains the corners of my clothes.I crossed two short streets, bypassed a small warehouse, and passed the tall and dark "box building".The box building is square and straight, and the square windows cut out on the wall are like mournful eyes under the cover of night.The candlelight reflected people's blurred figures on the old pleated curtains, like ghosts.

I leaped over a wooden fence to take a short cut to Feline's house, but I heard noises from across the street, especially in the quiet downtown night.I saw a group of officers, soldiers and horses stationed there, several burly men wearing cotton coats and gray cloaks, their black high boots polished to a shine.I recognized them as the tax collectors of the Lower Town, huddled around a house.

An older tax official gave orders lazily, "This is the last one on this street, we'll go back after collecting!"

"Yes, sir."

There was a tinkling sound of rummaging in the house, and I heard the piercing sound of the pottery plate falling to the ground and smashing.The woman's begging voice was interspersed with the man's stern cry, and she said hoarsely and fearfully, "Oh, my lords! It's not that I don't want to pay taxes, but I really have nothing to pay at home. Please be merciful, please forgive me." Let me be a lonely old woman! I still have lung disease, and I need medicinal soup every day to survive until now. I really have nothing at home..."

As she spoke, the woman started coughing, tugged at the sleeve of an official, and begged bitterly while shaking her head.At this time, another person came out of the room, held up a bag of coins, and shouted, "Sir! What do you think we found in this room?!"

The woman looked towards the door in horror, and when she saw the money bag, she let out a cry of surprise, and flew towards the tax collector. Unexpectedly, she was pushed hard, and hit the wall on one side directly, and let out a cry. Call.

"More than 190 Soles!"

Those tax collectors looked like they had seen a ghost, with two gleams in their eyes, they grabbed a handful of golden coins, let them slide from their palms, and made the unique crisp and melodious slamming sound of gold coins.A tax official grabbed the woman's hair, shook the purse in front of her, and asked forcefully, "Where did all this money come from? How do you have so much money, a sick old woman in the lower city?!"

Blood was dripping from the woman's nostrils, and her slack pupils followed the purse. As if remembering something for a long time, she grabbed the tax officer's arm and said, "By the way, my lord! Do you know a young man named Luo?! He It should be someone close to a certain noble young master, who was taken to the royal city, I am his mother! The money was given to me by that noble young master!"

The tax collectors were taken aback for a moment, then they put their heads together and muttered.The woman shrank, standing to one side in fear.After a long time, a tax official raised his chin, "What 'Luo'? As far as we know, there is no such person named 'Luo' in the royal city, including their relatives, family members, and even servants!"

Another tax official said bitterly, "I'm afraid this crazy woman is crazy because she wants to get acquainted with the nobles!"

The woman stared wide-eyed, grabbed the cloak of a tax official, and shouted tremblingly, "No, my lords, what I said is true! The one who bought my son was a young red-haired young master, about fifteen Six years old. My son is blind, so it should be easy to see—"

"Fuck you, you crazy woman, try to make up another sentence! There is no red-haired young master in Wangcheng, let alone a blind bastard!" The tax official raised his hand and slapped the woman, slapping her. fell to the ground.The woman's hair was disheveled, and she lay on the ground trembling, "My lords... To tell you the truth, I heard that the finance cabinet is recruiting tax officials... I... my youngest son went to Wangcheng to participate in the election yesterday. He is a clever man." My child, who might be one of you someday. See... for God's sake, please..."

The tax officials looked at each other and burst out laughing, "Hey, this crazy old woman's boy is running for the tax office too! Okay, tell us his name, and then we will show this boy to the finance cabinet." rule'!"

"Did you hear, old woman, what's the name of your youngest son? Say it! Hahaha!"

The woman looked at those people angrily, swallowed tremblingly, and did not say a word despite the insults from the tax officials.Those people searched the house again, only found some medicinal materials, and there was not much left in the rice jar.They smiled and weighed the purse, seemed to be satisfied, kicked the woman and left.

The light in the woman's eyes gradually disappeared with the departure of the purse, and the depths of the pupils were filled with bitter sour juice.For a long time, she lay motionless on the ground, as if she was dead.After the noise completely disappeared, she got up tremblingly and walked into the house.

She is my adoptive mother, the adoptive mother who sold me twice.

I stood silently in the shadow not far away, watching the candles in the small house go out, and fell into a cool silence.I went to a nearby bakery, bought a loaf of bread, held it under my arm, and went back to the house.I squeezed my undead body through the gap in the fence outside the house, tied the bread quietly in front of her door, and left as if I had never been there before.

****

I didn't say hello in advance, and directly knocked on Feilin's door.When she saw me, she wasn't surprised or dissatisfied, she just smiled and said, "Come in, Luo."

I want to say "thank you", but I feel that this seems too much.For a while, I couldn't find the right words, and I followed her into the room dryly. Neither of us spoke. The atmosphere was cold and tense, and I couldn't find anything to say.

Feline threw a piece of charcoal into the stove and leaned against the stove to warm up.I racked my brains to figure out how to bring the topic up, but she spoke first, and said, "The red-haired boy from that day, who is now His Majesty the King, is your master, Luo."

I was startled, and said, "This—Feline, you..."

She said, "You don't need to panic, I won't say it. In fact, it's easy to guess. Ordinary people would rather harm their souls than summon the undead. It's not surprising that King Sol has the hatred of destroying his country. I think I should also thank you for not telling the sober king that I beat him."

Feline laughed, and I could only smile wryly.I also only recently heard from Chichikov that Lemon rarely drank alcohol, and once he was drunk, he was worse than a pig or a dog.The old man said that what Lemon did to me that night was still the result of cherishing me, which made me feel complicated for a while.

Feilin smiled and said suddenly, "You love him. As an undead, you fell in love with your master."

Oh, God.I wanted to relax and chat with her, but found that I couldn't catch her words at all.I was stunned on the chair, Feline said, "Your face turned red, Luo."

"I...I...Lemon..." I covered my face subconsciously, took a deep breath and said, "He...he plays the lyre very nicely, and occasionally is very gentle, I..."

Feline sneered as if hearing the most incredible thing in the world, "Gentle?"

God, I seem to be getting worse and worse.I stammered, "Yes...I...I love him, Phylline."

"As an undead held in his palm?"

"...Not only that. I admit that at the beginning, my gratitude for his rebirth was more than emotional distractions until..."

Until I walked into Huapai Town, on that quiet and gentle night, I stood by the window and heard him playing the lyre and singing poetry and music on the roof.The melody is melodious and the singing is mellow and beautiful.At that moment, I was jealous of the silver moon and stars in the sky, thinking why they had such a pure voice.At that moment, I felt the love from the bottom of his heart, maybe it was because of the soft moonlight that night, maybe it was because of Princess Yangtao sitting beside him.His love is like a clump of seedlings growing in the cracks of the rocks, protruding out of the hard rock mass for the first time, touching the sunshine and hope, like a dream that is so evocative and evocative.

Although Clement would always pull out the roots of the tender young shoots afterwards, and then burn them up.

I whispered, "Many people can't see the soft side of his heart, but I am fascinated by it... Maybe he is a cold-blooded and ruthless villain in the eyes of others, but I am willing to believe that he is only tortured by pain and obsession Too long and too deep, I prefer to believe that one day he will be worthy of all the good things..."

"Okay, stop talking, Luo. I believe you really love him, so much that you are blinded." Feline stared at the flickering flames, and said coldly, "I don't know him as well as you do, and I don't know his past. I'm not interested in what happened. But I know that he is cruel and irascible. He is not a kind and generous king. He cares about us - the people no more than pigs and sheep in the fence. He regards human life as nothing , crushing and trampling what others cherish, just based on this, I don’t believe he has love in his heart, at least love for others and the world. He just kills, and uses you to force you to kill people.”

I said in a deep voice, "He used to be a prince, the orthodox heir to the throne of the Wanjiang Empire. Now that he is enthroned in Vulture City, the Kingslayer will definitely do something. I used to be a citizen of the Wanjiang Empire. I should also be loyal to the king of the Wanjiang Empire, which is also for my country."

Feline said lightly, "The undead don't even think about which country they belong to and which position they stand on. That's something that humans will consider. The connection between the undead and the world has long been severed, and the one who reconnects the two is the so-called 'master' .You are only for the king. It’s just that now you have a more suitable identity, ‘Subject of Wanjiang Empire’, which provides a seemingly just reason for your decision.”

"Even if you are right. But what about watching the army of the Twilight Empire attack and wipe out the last vestiges of the old kingdom?" I said, "I don't regret it, Feline. A monk once told me , There is no right or wrong for many things in the world, and not all problems have perfect solutions, all we can do is to find a support point based on our own cognitive principles, so that we can have a clear conscience."

"Monk?" Feline said. "It really sounds like something said by a heretic who advocates freedom of thought. The monastery beat him out."

I don't want to defend myself, this conversation is exhausting.The two of us were relatively silent for a while, Feilin laughed in a low voice, and said, "Actually, you are really not good at doing this kind of thing, Luo—I mean 'killing'."

****

My original goal was to want Feilin to get her happiness, but I didn't expect the topic to be completely off topic.To my surprise, Feline knows more about the undead than I imagined.She said, "After learning that you are an undead, I specifically looked up a lot of information about undead... although those paper records seem unreliable."

"……I am sorry."

"Why are you sorry, Luo? I am very happy to see you like this." She looked at me and smiled. "As an undead, you have learned to think with human thinking. It is probably a very remarkable thing."

"Feline..."

"Although I don't like your master." She said, "but maybe I should be grateful to him for bringing you back to this world and making you more and more like a 'human'."

"Feilin, actually, I came today because I want to tell you..."

"I know." Feline smiled lightly, "You don't have to feel guilty about that promise in the past, Luo. The comfort you once brought me is real. Even though things are different now, you let me see the best in the world. side."

Her voice suddenly dropped, "The best side..."

The girl sent away the undead.

Feilin closed the door, blocking the other party's last sight, leaned against the wooden door, and rubbed her moist eye sockets.She went back to the room and simply made the bed, a quilt that had been patched a lot, old sheets and damp pillows.Feilin sat in the room for a while, waiting for the charcoal in the stove to be burned to ashes, then got up and walked through the small courtyard and opened the gate.

There was no one behind the door, the other party should have already left.

Feline walked quickly back to the house, changed into a dark fleece sweater and trousers, put on a coat that could cover her ankles, and wrapped her head and neck with a thick scarf, only revealing a pair of cold eyes.

With a click, she locked the door and walked along the dark street, sticking to the mud walls on both sides of the road.At night, there are only some homeless people left on the street, as well as sneaky people with good intentions.Feeling a pair of squinting eyes staring at her, Feilin turned around to take a look, and immediately covered her mouth and nose with a pair of wide palms, and forcibly dragged her into the alley.

After a while, a man's mournful wailing came from the alley.Immediately afterwards, a slender figure quickly emerged from the alley, with blood on his hands.Feilin wrapped the scarf tighter, came to a dilapidated farm house, pushed aside the withered grass on a secret door, and opened the cellar door.

"Jane?... Rich?..."

The girl whispered their names and sealed the door carefully.The cellar was completely invisible, and Feline walked down the steps, and the deeper she went, the more she smelled a strange smell, like rotten fruit and vegetable leaves, and stinky seafood.She groped for the lantern on the wall, lit the wick with a match, and peeped into the cellar——

As a result, she only saw bloody corpses all over the floor!

"Fortunately I left late."

A chuckle suddenly rang in my ears!Feline turned around abruptly, but the lantern in her hand was knocked over in the blink of an eye!She was about to run towards the entrance of the cellar, but one hand grabbed her by the back of the collar, and at the same time a heavy blunt knife lay across her neck, and the cold blade licked her skin.

The laughter became more and more arrogant in the darkness, "The white lion flag is flying high, His Majesty the King is laughing... It's really clever, my dear."

Feline struggled a few times, feeling that the blade cut her throat neatly, and blood gushed out from her throat.She only saw a dull red in the mist, which was more evil and terrifying than the fire of hell.

****

"next."

On the second day, several candidates for tax collectors who had been screened through layers of screening were waiting outside the door, preparing for the king's final face-to-face.Jeremy sat nervously outside the door, his eyes fixed on the carvings on the opposite beam and pillar, and his chest heaved and heaved.

"The king is calling for you."

"Ah!" He was patted by the servant, and jumped up like a cat whose tail has been stepped on.Seeing the strange expression on the other side, Jeremy scratched his head in embarrassment, straightened the wrinkles on his clothes, and smoothed his hair to make it shiny.

He cheered himself up in his heart.Don't be nervous, Jeremy...it's going to be all right, Mom is still at home waiting for your good news.When things are done, maybe you can find your brother in Wangcheng... You are "lucky Jeremy", you must be fine...

He pushed open the door, "Your Majesty, hello! I'm Jeremy, and it's my honor to accept your interview!"

The young man shouted angrily, and before he could see the king's face clearly, he was shuddered by the warm air in the king's office.He blinked several times, and as soon as his dizzy vision recovered, he saw a blond boy sitting on a mahogany chair behind the table, carelessly twirling a red wig in his hand.

"what?!"

Jeremy's jaw dropped, but fortunately he caught it with his hand just in time.He widened his eyes and covered his mouth desperately so as not to let himself scream out, and more effectively suppressed the words that were about to blurt out!

"Hello." The other party said with a smile, putting a red wig on top of his head.His Majesty interlocked his fingers, crossed his legs, and said sarcastically, "Lucky Jeremy, isn't it?"