Dimensional Bookstore

Le Jing walked forward a few steps, then stopped as if he remembered something, "Oh, right." He turned his head and looked at Yu Qishi and the others with a smile, "I forgot to tell you something."

"Please be a good child." The devil lowered his voice with a curved eyebrow: "Please."

Zhu Xia swallowed his saliva and asked carefully: "How can you say he is a good child?"

The devil's eyes flashed with sharp clarity, and his smile remained unchanged. He answered earnestly: "A child who has all the advantages and disadvantages of a child and never crosses the bottom line is a good child."

Zhu Xia opened his mouth and was about to ask something else, when he heard a "creak" sound of the door, and the door of the candy house was pushed open, and a kind-looking old lady walked out. She wore a big hat covered with flowers on her head and a silk dress embellished with jewels. She didn't look like a witch who eats people in a fairy tale, but rather like an old lady from a noble family.

"Hello, children." She showed everyone a warm and friendly smile: "You must be frozen now, come in and warm up." The devil raised his head and said in a baby voice: "Good evening, grandma, we are so hungry, can you give us a piece of cake?" The old lady leaned down slightly and smiled warmly and kindly: "Of course, children, there is a freshly made cake in the room, come in and have a good meal." Le Jing turned his head with a smile and looked at the four people behind him who were vigilantly keeping a certain distance from him, and asked: "So, do you want to go in?" Malena glanced at the basket on Selma's arm, and a flash of enlightenment flashed in her eyes, and the smile at the corner of her mouth It was bigger, but the smile was no longer as warm and kind as before, and it looked chilly. "Little Red Riding Hood asked you to come to me." She raised her head arrogantly and snorted coldly: "Want cake? Of course you can." She said with a fake smile: "Just you have to play a game with me. If you win, I will give you the cake."

"What game?"

"It's very simple." The old witch said with a strange smile: "I named it "Don't touch my candy."

※

Le Jing sat on the branch, tossing the candy in his hand boredly. Zhu Xia under the tree looked at him enviously and sighed silently in his heart. He was destined not to be as calm and composed as the devil now.

Maybe it's because he doesn't care, so he can't be afraid.

It was a very beautiful candy, wrapped in pink and gold glass candy paper, shining in the sun. If you get close, you can smell the rich chocolate sweet fragrance, which makes people salivate.

The reason why Zhu Xia knew so clearly was because he also had such a candy in his pocket. Each person has one of these candies, which is the key item in the game "Don't Touch My Candy".

They are now in an alternate dimension created by the witch Marlena. According to Marlena, the forest in the space is about ten square kilometers in size, and the game will be played in this closed space.

In the game "Don't Touch My Candy", the old witch plays the role of a ghost, and they have thirty minutes to hide in every corner of the forest. When the time is up, the old witch will run into the forest to catch people, and those caught by her will have to hand in their candy and be eliminated. This alternative hide-and-seek game will continue until the last person is left. The last person who has the candy is the winner, and the prize is the witch's cake. The eliminated people will be considered to have failed the test and will be subject to mysterious punishment.

Thinking of the witch licking her lips with saliva in her mouth, Zhu Xia knew what the punishment would be without thinking.

This is undoubtedly a cruel game. Only one person can survive to the end, and the rest will be eaten by the witch as food.

The only thing to be thankful for is that, whether it was out of pursuit of fairness or sheer arrogance, Marlena announced that she would limit her strength to a level similar to theirs in this dungeon, which undoubtedly greatly enhanced their competitiveness and increased their success rate.

But even so, only one of the four of them could survive, and this fact made the atmosphere between the four of them tense - in comparison, the leisurely, calm, indifferent, and even bored devil seemed out of place.

There were only ten minutes left before the witch was captured, so they had to formulate a preliminary plan within these ten minutes.

Yu Qishi took a deep breath and decisively ignored the devil above his head. A hint of viciousness flashed in his eyes: "For now, we only have one way - kill the witch."

Selma looked at him and nodded in agreement: "This is the only way."

Zhu Xia asked hesitantly: "Is this really feasible... The witch can also think of the problems we can think of, and she won't be stupid enough to dig a pit for herself."

Eden sighed, and the wrinkles on his face looked deeper: "I have thought about this problem, but this is our only chance - if we don't kill the witch while she is limiting her strength, we will have no chance of winning when the game is over. By then, the three of us will really be stuffed into the witch's stomach."

He was very self-aware and didn't count Le Jing, and the others didn't object. In their view, the devil, as a native of the forest, is in the same group with the witch. Even if he loses his candy in the end, the witch won't do anything to him. After all, the reason why this devil came here is just to join in the fun.

Zhu Xia also understood the truth behind what Eden said, but he always felt uneasy in his heart, and he smelled a dangerous signal from it.

However, his super intuition was only 30% accurate. What if his intuition was wrong this time and this rare opportunity was wasted? After a brief hesitation, Zhu Xia looked up at the devil sitting on the branch doing nothing, with expectations in his eyes that he didn't even notice: "Can you protect us?" Fearing that Le Jing would refuse, he quickly added: "After all, we are now members of a small team. If we all die, you will lose the guide to the main god space."

Le Jing yawned and told the cute child honestly: "But I can't beat Grandma Marlena." He sat cross-legged on the tree, supported his chin and said silently in a volume they couldn't hear: "Although...even if I can beat her, I won't beat her."

Zhu Xia cast his eyes on the fairy on Le Jing's shoulder. Before he could speak, Le Jing answered in advance: "Although Xiao Lingdang is very powerful, she won't help you. She won't take the initiative to harm you, but she won't help you either."

Xiao Lingdang responded loudly: "Good children should complete the test questions by themselves and not cheat! Those who cheat are bad children!"

Zhu Xia was even more terrified.

Even the devil can't beat the opponent, can they really beat it?

‘But if you don’t kill her, you will die.’ It was as if another self was talking to him in his mind.

‘…She is too strong, we can’t beat her.’ He retorted fearfully.

‘No matter how strong she is, she is only one person, and she has suppressed her strength. With the skills you exchanged in the main god space, you may be able to kill her.’

‘But…’ Zhu Xia felt that something was wrong, but he couldn’t put it into words.

‘There is no but, do you want to die? Don’t you want to go home? Don’t you miss your parents? You are only 8 years old, you haven’t had time to grow up yet, are you really willing to die?’

‘No… No, I don’t want to die!’

‘Kill her, and you can survive.’

‘Kill her, and I can survive…’ Zhu Xia lowered his head, his eyes were obscure, and he just chewed this sentence over and over in his heart.

Selma's murderous voice floated into his ears: "Kill her! We have no way out!"

Le Jing looked at the four murderous people below, his eyes were calm and sober in contrast to them. The voices in his mind were noisy, but his heart was as calm as water.

He picked up the candy and held it in front of his eyes, sneering at it, and stuffed it into his pocket.

'...It's not that easy to grow up successfully. '

The young man opened his eyes and got up from the ground.

The dream was awakened.

The old witch looked at him with a smile, stretched out her hands and opened her arms to him: "Welcome to grow up, child."

※

Zhu Xia didn't expect things to go so smoothly.

Selma easily angered the witch and led her into their encirclement, and then they hit the witch at the same time and knocked her to the ground.

This witch, who was extremely powerful in the devil's mouth, was lying on the ground with her eyes closed, and her chest was slightly rising and falling, proving that she was still alive. Her flower hat fell to one side, her fluffy white hair spread on the ground, and her shriveled body looked particularly petite under the gorgeous big skirt.

She didn't look like a witch, but just a weak and ordinary old man.

Should I kill her?

Zhu Xia hesitated.

'Kill her! ' The voice in his mind roared: 'Only by killing her can you survive! This world is so cruel, you are not young anymore, you should learn to abandon useless weakness and become a qualified adult! '

There are no children in the reincarnation space.

He has been hiding behind Selma for too long, and it is time to try to learn how to kill.

He had a knife in his hand, and he slowly walked towards the witch lying on the ground with the knife raised.

"This is a world where people eat each other." He told himself: "If you don't kill others, others will kill you."

He stopped and raised the knife to the chest of the old man on the ground, and the tip of the knife slowly moved down.

"Really?" A clear voice suddenly came from the sky above his head, "Do you really want to kill someone for a piece of candy?"

"No, it's not about the candy." Zhu Xia instinctively retorted: "If I don't kill her, she will kill me!"

"Is that really the case?" The clear voice continued to question: "Did she say that?"

"No need for her to say!" Zhu Xia said loudly with a pale face: "Anyone with eyes can see that she wants to eat us! She is an old witch who likes to eat people!"

"Sometimes, people's thoughts and actions are not synchronized." Le Jing looked down at the boy who was unconscious and trembling on the ground: "You want other people's beautiful clothes , doesn't mean you will rob; you are jealous of the rich's wealth, doesn't mean you will become a robber; you curse your enemy to death, doesn't mean you will kill him with your own hands. "

"We are all mortals, with all the weaknesses of mortals. But even if it is easier to do evil than to do good, most of us humans have become adults who are neither good nor bad, all because we have a bottom line as human beings. "

The young man's eyes swept across the other three people who were in a coma, his eyes were as firm as the morning star in the night: "There are only two things in the world that make us in awe, one is the brilliant starry sky above our heads, and the other is the eternal moral law in our hearts. ①"

"If you are controlled by fear here, lose yourself, and kill Malena, then you will never become a qualified adult."

You will become a bad kid without rules, wandering in the fairy tale forest forever.

Only good kids with rules can grow up and leave the fairy tale forest.

To use a very popular sentence in modern society: "I have tattoos, smoke, drink, lie and swear, but I know I am a good kid. The real bad kids ignore life, commit crimes, and have no principles or bottom line."

And this is the evaluation standard of the fairy tale forest for good and bad kids.

Such a twisted and absurd darkness. The cruel test of the fairy tale forest is to select good kids who can grow into qualified adults. It is really a great irony.

Perhaps this is the original intention of all fairy tales.

Tell children what they can do and what they cannot do, what is good, what is evil, what is good, and what is bad, so that children can one day be able to hold their heads up and become an upright adult.

The author has something to say:

①Kant's famous saying.

I was not a traditional good kid when I was a child. I also lie, don't like to study, pass notes in class, talk, and even bully boys in the class. But this does not prevent me from becoming an adult who is neither good nor bad.

Everyone has a period of being a naughty child, but the naughty child will grow up one day and become an ordinary adult who will never do evil. Because we have a bottom line, conscience, and reverence, which prevent us from becoming bad people, so many people can only work hard to learn to be a good person.

But being a good person in this world is a very tiring thing, and no one can always do good things without doing a bad thing (and the helplessness of the world is that the impact of a bad thing is enough to erase the credit of a hundred good things.)

So my dream in this life is to be an adult who is neither good nor bad.

Admit that I am a mortal, admit my meanness, weakness, ignorance, selfishness, and all the weaknesses unique to human nature. This is what I am slowly starting to try to do now.

A person's life is a process of reconciliation with himself. I hope I can become a generous adult sooner.