[Comprehensive British and American] Family Matters

If Jason had to find a few people he didn't dislike in Mystic Falls, he felt that Mrs. Pearl and her daughter Annabelle could be number one and No.2 on the list.

Although both of them made Jason feel strange, and Mrs. Pearl was also a close friend of Catherine, but the temperament of the mother and daughter and Catherine were completely different. It was hard to imagine why these two completely different women became friends.

Mrs. Pearl opened a herb shop in Mystic Falls Town. Although it has a name of medicine, in the eyes of the female group in the town, this is a good place to find raw materials for herbal tea.

This is also one of the few stores in town that does not exclude people of color.Jason has seen many times dark-skinned and old-fashioned women leaving through the back door in a low-key manner holding a small bag containing herbs.Even though they walked through the back door, Jason didn't see the pained expressions on the faces of those people who had to bow their heads and be humiliated for the herbal medicine.

"Mom told them that they can go out directly through the front door, but they insist on going through the back door." Annabelle folded her hands on her chest, frowned and looked at Jason with a tilted head. Such a reason to 'pass' by our door all day, because you want to know why the servants leave through the back door?"

"Actually, I'm even more surprised why your mother let them into the store. Isn't this...I don't know, it violates the established rules?" At least according to Jason's observation, most of the stores in the town are not very welcoming of colored people. Race, there are a few stores that don't care about skin color, but the target customers of those stores have never been "ladies" like Mrs. Pearl, but ordinary working people.

What Jason didn't say was that he wanted to know why a little girl would find him observing the herb shop, just like Mrs. Pearl would directly target him on the busy street before and invite him to ride in the carriage.It seems that the five senses of the mother and daughter are much sharper than ordinary people. His stealth skills have been double-trained by Batman and the big caste, not to mention that the saboteurs are all desperadoes in the galaxy. The skills of hiding from the police and bounty hunters have been tested many times.

He can vouch for the fact that anyone who can easily catch the Batman vigilantes is either metahuman or non-human - personally leaning towards the latter, given that he's never felt that way around The Flash or any other Justice League member in the past. A strange "warning".

"Mom doesn't care about that." Annabelle shrugged, lowered her head and kicked the little mud at her feet, and muttered nonchalantly, "We're not born to hold our heads up."

"What does this mean?" Jason is really curious about the origins of Mrs. Pearl and Anna. Although there was a wave of immigrants in the 1860s, most of them came for the gold rush. The difference between gold diggers and ladies and ladies is not. A star and a half.

Mrs. Pearl poked her head out of the store, as if looking for Anna. When she saw Jason and Anna standing together talking, she first showed a surprised expression, and then smiled gently at Jason. Nod.At the same time, when she and Anna looked at each other, their eyes changed, causing Anna to shrink her neck, turn her back to Mrs. Pearl and make a face at Jason.

"It means, uh..." Anna said, secretly looking back at her herbal store, and quietly explained to Jason when there were customers coming to the door, "You know we are Asians. We're no better than blacks or other immigrants in the country. You don't want to know how hard it was when we first arrived, so Mama doesn't think white people are so noble, no matter how gentlemanly they behave, sorry, I know you're also...well...half white, don't take it too seriously, I'm not targeting you."

Jason raised his eyebrows and didn't say much. After chatting casually with Anna for a while, the girl ran back to the store with her skirt on, leaving Jason standing there alone until Anna came out of the store again. The head waved to him, mouthing: "Stop peeking!" Jason waved to the girl and replied: "See you tomorrow!".

Anna smiled and replied, "I invite you to drink flower tea."

Now Jason can be [-]% sure that they are not human—

When Anna told Jason that she and Pearl had suffered in this land, she always paid attention to the movement of Pearl in the store, but in fact, it was impossible to hear each other's conversation from the distance they were standing. That's why Jason chose to "observe" Mrs. Pearl's herbal shop at that location.

And the short three-sentence conversation with Anna at the end deepened his conviction.

Although Anna waved goodbye to Jason from the store, but if Jason couldn't read lips, he wouldn't be able to hear what Anna was saying, at most he would wave goodbye, let alone reply.But after Jason replied, Anna took up the conversation smoothly, saying that for her, it is normal for her to be able to hear what others are saying at such a distance.

Coupled with the accents of their mother and daughter, Anna looks like a girl in her teens. Assuming she came to the United States at a very young age, it is not surprising that she can speak American English without an accent.But Mrs. Pearl was an adult when she came here. It is not easy for adults to change their accent, and this era is not like 100 years later. The whole body transformation is not an example that will happen in reality casually.

However, once the label of supernatural beings is added, everything "abnormal" in them becomes "normal".So far, Jason is [-]% sure that Pearl, Anna, and Catherine are some kind of supernatural creatures that have lived for an unknown amount of time.

He just needs to determine their species.

Dick and his garlic helped a lot with this, and of course Jason wasn't about to tell Dick about it.

A guy who couldn't even memorize the exorcism spell and was almost hypnotized, fooling around and following to beat some thousand-year-old demon, isn't that killing him!

***

When it comes to the birthplace of vampires, most people will think that it is Romania, because of the famous "Piercing Lord", but in the few books Jason dug out from the bookstore, he even said that the town of Mystic Falls is the vampire. There is even a legendary story about the birthplace of the city.

The story tells that a Viking warrior took his wife and young children across the ocean from Europe to this "promised land" on the American continent, which is now the town of Mystic Falls, next to the tribe of werewolves live here.The warrior's wife is a powerful witch. In order to prevent her husband and children from being killed by diseases and physical injuries, she performed extremely evil witchcraft, distorted the laws of birth, aging, sickness and death in nature, and created the first batch of witches. vampire.

Jason 100% believes in the existence of vampires, and the Winchester family of three guarantees that this kind of creature does not shine in the sun like the one described in "Twilight".In all fairness, Jason would rather believe the story of Duke Impaler than the legend of Mystic Falls. After all, Duke Flash did exist in history. Who knows if this family of Viking warriors was fabricated.

However, every few days in the small town, there will be rumors that the bodies of travelers eaten by wild animals are found in the suburbs. People like Catherine, Pearl, and Anna make Jason feel strange. Catherine's hypnotic ability is also different from Anna With ordinary people's hearing, coupled with Dick's indirect information from Tifan who was suddenly severely anemic, vampires are indeed the most likely option at the moment.

If Catherine Pierce is a vampire, does the Salvadoran brother who maintains a close relationship with her know that in the eyes of the beautiful goddess, they are just more beautifully packaged lunch boxes?

Besides Catherine and the other three, are there any other vampires in the town?

How much do the townspeople know about the existence of vampires?

There were too many problems to solve, and Jason worried that he wouldn't have enough time to unravel them all.They are now relying solely on Mr. Salvador's kindness to live "idly" in the town like this, and Jason is not sure that such kindness will be taken back one day, but the Justice League heroes they know, the one who is proficient in magic A few haven't been born yet... well, except for Wonder Woman, but her whereabouts are hard to track down, especially before the Internet and ubiquitous surveillance cameras.

"Well, the road is made step by step, let's go and see." Jason took a deep breath to encourage himself, turned a corner and planned to go around the bookstore where the vampire legend was once dug up, and said It may be possible to dig out some local secrets about vampires.

And then... It seems that it's time to have a drink with Damon again.

***

It was not difficult to invite Damon to have a drink together. After a few times of mutual tree holes, a strange friendship seemed to have sprouted between Damon and Jason.

For Damon, Jason was one of those rare people who didn't see him through colored glasses because of his status as a deserter.

For Jason, Dimon is also one of the few contemporary weirdos who doesn't take skin color as a standard of communication.

Jason likes the rebellion in Damon. For Jason, this unreasonable town is the one that will end sooner or later, and Damon's "rebellion" is just because he doesn't want to follow the rules of the town. How could it be such a big deal for his father to arrange his life according to rules and regulations?Two centuries later this character was still called active and adventurous, and was encouraged.

"...so when our teacher, oh my God, I still remember her expression at that time, it was so classic, anyway, she wanted to name me to express my experience, because I forgot to bring the assigned reading to class that day, I still want to get away with it.” Jason and Damon were walking together in the woods not far from Salvador’s house, Jason was telling Damon about the interesting things that happened at school, and Damon also He listened with gusto, and laughed together from time to time, "Then I stood up in the sight of the whole class and asked her: 'Ms. Tracy, do you really want me to talk?' And she nodded very definitely, ready to ask Listen to me stuttering and speechless, and then take the opportunity to criticize."

"What's the result?" Damon, a good listener, lived up to Jason's expectations and asked enthusiastically.

"As a result, I spent the entire second half of the class talking about the fear of aging reflected in "King Lear", hahahaha, I still find it super funny when I think about it now, you should really see her expression Although now that I think about it, I was still wrong, I should have brought the assigned reading to class, or at least I should have admitted my mistake and read it with other students, but... I can’t control myself!" Jason laughed Then he brought the wine bottle to his mouth and took another sip. If there is anything worth remembering in this era, Damon and his good wine must be one.

"I totally understand, brother, I totally understand." Damon nodded in a serious manner while patting Jason on the shoulder, "So you're a Shakespeare fan?"

"Not really. I basically read all kinds of books. I'm interested in literature, history...even local legends." Jason pretended to be casual and steered the topic in the direction he expected, "For example, I've been watching the legend of vampires recently, speaking of which, you know that your town claims to be the birthplace of vampires!"

"Uh... Really, really?" Damon's voice and tone suddenly stiffened, as if someone had stepped on the brakes on his originally relaxed and happy mood. "I don't know this part."

"Not only that, after thinking about it carefully, even though I haven't been in town for a long time, I also found that there are many unusual deaths recently." It seemed that Jason was talking to himself, but from the corner of his eyes Out of the corner of his eye, he could be sure that Damon was paying attention to every word he said, so Jason decided to give him a strong dose of medicine, "I'm pretty sure that's what vampires do."

"How to say?" Damon suddenly became active. Although he tried his best to make his attitude look relaxed, Jason could still see through his disguise at a glance. The gangsters or mentally ill criminals who had fought against Jason For one thing, the acting skills of the young master in a small town in the countryside are too tender, "Those bodies that were found have been...God bless, they are fragmented."

"Even so, you only need to look at the distribution of corpse spots on the remaining parts, and you can roughly understand whether these corpses have been sucked dry of blood." Jason casually stuck the wine bottle in a slightly lower place. On the branch of the tree, he grabbed Damon's hand and began to explain to him the reasons for the formation of corpse plaques and the impact of moving corpses on corpse plaques, "...so we can use these elements to roughly evaluate whether the dead were drained of blood first. died, and then moved to another place to abandon the body, or he died at the place where the body was found, and was simply killed by a wild animal attack."

"Oh, wow, you know so much." Beads of sweat appeared on Damon's forehead, and Jason could feel the rapid heartbeat on his pulse. Damon definitely knew the inside story, "This How do ordinary people know this kind of thing? Don’t you also say that you learned it from reading?”

"Of course not. Our family has a wide range of friends. I have a friend whose family specializes in hunting such monsters and ghosts. My father's friend is the sheriff of the city. His daughter used to have a good relationship with Dick." Jason's tone became more and more relaxed, and he even stretched out his hand to hook Damon's neck, whispering in the other's ear deliberately in a gloomy tone, "I assure you that these evil creatures exist beside you and me..."

Damon stiffened all over.

"Don't worry, they are not immortal like in ghost stories, there are still ways to kill them!" Jason deliberately interpreted Daemon's reaction as fear of vampires, and he even patted Daimon vigorously. Meng's back, it has the meaning of "I will cover you if something happens".

"Really? Thanks." Damon's response seemed perfunctory in comparison, and with a turn of his eyes, he took the topic a thousand miles away, "Let's not talk about this, it will be in the town You and your brother should also come to the founder’s dinner! The beautiful ladies in Mystic Falls will definitely dress up beautifully to attend the ball.”

"Oh, no. No girl would want to dance with me." Jason cooperated with Damon kindly, pretending that his nerves were so thick that he didn't notice the other party's abrupt change of subject at all, "Of all the skills I know, none of them The item has to do with dancing."

Dimon laughed, and actively continued to focus on the founder's dinner. As long as Jason stopped talking about vampires, he was willing to do anything: "What's so difficult about this, I can teach you! Basically as long as The footsteps are not wrong, the timing of changing the partner is well grasped, the dance at the dinner party is very simple. You can ask your brother, I will call Stefan, it is better to practice with more people."

"I don't think it's a good idea. This dinner sounds like a big day for the town. I'm not from your town. It's better to stay in the house and have fun." Jason said to the dance. No interest at all, this kind of occasion where the whole town gathers to have a party, no accident, usually when the information is flying all over the sky, he would rather go around to collect useful information than to go around in circles with the music with other people.

In the eyes of the unreasonable Damon, Jason's refusal was the ironclad proof that he was still having trouble with Dick (and he was right).

"Do you still remember what I told you last time, when I was 12 years old, my father burned me with a cigarette?" Dimon suddenly mentioned something that had nothing to do with the prom, and Jason was rarely stunned After a while (changing the subject so soon?), he frowned and responded.

"Remember. You said that Mr. Salvador thought you stole his money, but in fact you didn't." Jason made no secret of his contempt for Mr. Salvador when he said this. Apart from money, it’s no different from those cowards in Crime Lane who beat their wives and children to vent their anger when they can’t get along outside. “You took the blame because you were afraid that Mr. Salvador would turn the blame on your brother.”

Jason paused, repeated the movement of opening and closing his mouth several times, and finally decided to speak his mind honestly: "Steven is lucky to have you as his brother."

When Damon first told the story, Jason didn't comment much (although he did have a hundred ways to kill old Salvador in his head), but that didn't stop him from thinking that Damon was a Good brother, at such a young age, he wanted to protect his brother, not like someone.Although Wayne and El Salvador's situation is different, Jason sincerely believes that someone's behavior did not even meet the most basic passing grades...

Damon smiled self-deprecatingly, raised his head and squinted his eyes to meet the sunshine from the shade of the trees, "Sounds like a good brother, right? But you know? I have wished Sis more than once since I was a child. Tiffan never existed. Sometimes...a lot of times...I think I hate my brother."

Jason waited silently for Dimon to continue. He knew that the other party wanted to say far more than that.

“I hate him because he is the kindest and perfect son that my father and mother hold in their hands, and I can do nothing but discredit Salvador’s name. He is a baby boy in everyone’s eyes, and he says he will Want to be a doctor and everyone applauds him, what about me? All I get is 'like you how will you give the family business to you, you're going to ruin El Salvador, look at Stefan, You can’t even compare to your own younger brother, you really are shameless!’ Ha! It’s as if I’m begging to inherit the family business.”

Damon took a deep breath and showed Jason a charming smile that he reserved for the girls in the town: "So... that's right, I hope that my brother who is a compatriot of my own mother does not exist, and I even regard it as It's been a birthday wish for years. It's not a childish wish, and a lot of times I think everything will be fine if Stefan is gone."

"But... I didn't feel hostility towards you from Stefan? It should be said that I didn't feel hostility towards anyone." Jason thoughtfully recalled the interaction between the El Salvador brothers, "I remember in He also spoke for you about the deserter."

"Look! Isn't he a perfect, kind and good brother!" Dimon opened his arms dramatically and made a gesture as if he was about to show off the merchandise. "He just needs to say 'I think we should respect Dimon's decision', and he It’s the caring little brother, and I’m that ungrateful bastard—oh, Damon, your brother treats you so well, how can you despise him? Do you still have a conscience!”

Despite some extreme and cynical elements, Jason still felt that he could understand Damon's mood.During his brief Teen Titans period, whenever he showed a little dissatisfaction with Dick in front of Dick's friends, even if those people didn't directly point his nose and scold, they would tell Jason in a roundabout way but firmly: "You must What a mistake, Dick is so nice!"

"Family disputes are painful. They are not like pain or trauma, but more like cracks on the skin that are difficult to repair." Jason smiled wryly and shook his head, shaking those unpleasant memories out of his mind.

"Interesting metaphor, has anyone suggested that you become a writer?" Damon thought carefully about Jason's words just now, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this metaphor was very vivid-although pain and trauma are sad, but as long as time passes, it will be better In fact, medication can shorten the process even more.The cracks on the skin will almost never fully heal. As long as the seasons come, they will recur and can only be suppressed by soaking in potions, just like the repeated disputes between him and Gisep, The quarrels are due to those reasons. After a cooling-off period, they will explode again, and there is no day of recovery in sight.

"What? I didn't say that, I was just quoting." Jason hastily said that he didn't have the habit of stealing famous lines, "This is a sentence from F. Scott Fitzgerald, he is a writer ..."

"Really, tell me what books he has written, I have to read them." Damon really wants to know what kind of works are created by people who can tell such subtle metaphors.

"The Biography of a Tycoon is a classic." Jason threw out a recommendation without hesitation, "The lives of these two writers, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, are very interesting. Hemingway was famous when he was alive, but when he died After Fitzgerald's reputation was in full swing, it was the shortcomings of Hemingway's writing style that people began to raise."

"That's really amazing." Damon nodded, remembering the two names, "I must remember to find the books of the two of them and read them."

"You won't regret it." Literary youth Jason sincerely recommends it.

The small gathering starts and ends with the topic of literature. These are the two paragraphs that most people remember most about a conversation, the beginning and the end.Even if someone asked Damon what he and Jason talked about today, the first thing he recalled was the topic of literature, instead of opening his mouth and saying, "We talked about vampires."

Satisfied, Jason stamped "Excellent" on this conversation, and an important question suddenly flashed in his mind:

"Wait, the era of Fitzgerald and Hemingway... The Lost Generation (LostGeneration) seems to be the time of the First World War... No, it is the time of the First World War!" Close your eyes and try to remember 19 , The chronological arrangement of famous writers in the 20th century, Jason feels that his current mood is completely in line with "like a person jumping happily to see the rainbow, but was struck by lightning." As expected of Mark Twain, look at this A penetrating metaphor.

"Damn it!" Jason bit his lower lip, wailed silently from the bottom of his heart, and knocked his head regretfully at the same time, "Should be quoting Mark Twain or Dickinson, you are so stupid, Jason! Why didn't you Think of the era of Hemingway! The book has been read into the dog's belly!"

Richard Grayson, a man of science and technology, quietly closed the door of Jason's room, rubbed his hands and shrugged his shoulders, and decided to leave temporarily.

As a writer in the [-]th century, he only knew that Dosyetovsky wrote the masterpiece "Anna Karenina" and then there was nothing. The exams that year were all passed by Barbara's cram school.

I don't really understand the world of your literary youth.