Lord of Mysteries: Yao Guang

Everyone's life is changing, and "getting better" is just a relative concept.

Some people make friends with similar interests because of their studies, some people master the secret of promotion due to talent or adventure, and some people continue to fall into the abyss due to temptation without knowing it.

Destiny is a very wonderful thing, and it has its own rewards.

Esther was so convinced that she walked out of the warm night church, wrapped her scarf tightly in the light snow, hugged the new notebook she bought yesterday tightly in her arms, and brought the animal-shaped baked cookies to Ms. Langsa today. It made her quite happy, which gave Esther an extra sense of accomplishment.

She has been studying with Ms. Langsha for almost a month. If we look at the original earth's time, it would be around Christmas these days, so the cookies Esther baked were all decorated with raspberry jam.

Starting this week, Wendy paid Esther a salary for her hard work. Although her weekly salary was only three soles, which was far less than Fiona's twelve soles, it was already a surprise to Esther. Very happy. As soon as Esther got the money, she went to a blacksmith shop, added her own small treasury, spent five soles to cut a few small pieces of iron sheet to make molds, and then took Fiona. And Wendy baked cookies with this stuff.

Of course, this thing will become another feature of Slim Bakery in the future. Esther happily imagined that the store would sell more and more things, which would make both Fiona and Wendy happy. Esther felt that This is the best reward she can give.

Even if she suddenly disappears one day, these products of Slim Bakery can continue to be sold, allowing Wendy and Fiona to make more money and improve their lives...

disappear suddenly?

Esther's eyes were blank for a moment, but she quickly regained consciousness.

"Did I just do something?"

Esther didn't expect to receive a response, but the lining of her collar vibrated, and the little bug conveyed a very strange thought.

"No, don't think about letting me use that kind of power again. I always feel that if I use it too much, I will crash. After all, it's not you who's in pain. I hate pain!"

"What does downtime mean? It means that my physical strength is not enough to support my continued activities and I have entered a forced rest state."

"They are some expressions from my hometown. These special local words are also the characteristics of my hometown."

"Where my hometown is... I don't know. Anyway, I don't know now. Maybe I will know in the future."

"You are just a little bug. How could you have been to all the countries in the continent? There will always be places you don't understand, right? Just treat it as words coming from there."

Esther was talking to herself as she walked towards the intersection of Daffodil Street.

There are more and more snowflakes, and the chill lingers on the streets, eroding the body temperature of pedestrians. According to Wendy, this winter is extremely cold.

Esther spent this New Year with Wendy. Fiona came to the bakery with her son, daughter and husband, so Wendy prepared the food with extra care. Esther piled a beautiful circle of white bird decorations with cream on the huge cake base. So the two children happily pestered her and asked Esther to cut out the animals they wanted on the cakes they gave them.

Before returning to the bedroom, Esther cut off the remaining cake embryos that were only about the size of her knuckles, rolled them in cream, dipped the tip of a fork in chocolate sauce, and spent several minutes to barely paint a black bird on the top, at least barely visible. out of shape.

Esther moved the small piece of cake up to the attic, being careful not to damage the pattern on the top, and then she placed the cup and saucer next to the bug's nest.

The little bug crawled out, stared blankly at the cake for a moment, and conveyed an incredible emotion to Esther.

"Happy New Year," Esther rubbed her frozen hands and smiled happily, "It's just for you! Look, it's the crow you mentioned. Have my painting skills improved?"

The little insect looked at the dark pattern, and it was rare that he didn't laugh at Esther's stupidity.

After the girl fell asleep, the little bug slowly ate the cake. Compared with the various things it had eaten in its past life, this cake was not very delicious. There was too much sugar and the cream was very It’s rare, but it makes it feel special.

Of course, this is far less than the pleasure and satisfaction of eating extraordinary characteristics, so why?

It never expected to receive anything from Esther, not this humble nest, nor this cake.

——

Esther didn't think there was anything wrong with this ordinary life.

She loved how Fiona and Wendy smiled at her, and how they responded to and helped every customer in the bakery made her feel at ease. Esther also loved being praised by Ms. Ronsa for her learning progress, and she could now recite the Dark Night in its entirety. The canon of the church and most of the church stories have almost exhausted all the books in the church school.

"Esther, you can graduate now. This expense is no longer necessary for you."

Ms. Langsa persuaded Esther in this way, but Esther was still reluctant to come to the church school to visit her: "But I still have questions that I don't understand, and I'm looking forward to seeing you."

Ms. Langsha shook her head amusingly: "You can come to church at any time. You can believe in the goddess and come to worship. You don't have to come to study, right?"

But Esther didn't want to believe in the goddess of the night, so she was always silent about Ms. Ronsa's proposal. It was hard for her to say whether scientific atheism was at work. Even if Esther knew that there was a "true god" in this world, she didn't want to believe in anything. She always felt that it would be dangerous for her to know more about it.

This is all Esther's wonderful intuition guiding her. Ever since she came to this strange world, her intuition has never been wrong. It even allowed her to go from the kitchen to the store at the right time and solve several difficult problems for Wendy. rogue guest.

Since the New Year, the frequency of communication between that little bug and Esther has obviously increased, but most of them are concentrated at night when Esther is alone, which reminds Esther of the feeling of chatting with her roommates in the middle of the night in the high school dormitory.

The memories of the modern city are gradually blurring, but the feeling of nostalgia is too deep. At this time, Esther can't help but chat with the little insect. She didn't care whether she could express what she said clearly in Rune language, she just talked about it in one breath, treating the little bug as a "tree hole".

Esther also likes to hum songs. In the memory, Li Xing was a person who was very good at singing. She even had the dream of becoming a singer when she was a child. Most of the time, she would blur her words and only hum the tunes in her memory, so that even if Wendy and the others heard her occasionally, it wouldn't be strange.

The little bug often asked Esther about the name of her song after she finished humming. Esther would tell him the name of the song translated into Runen language, and the little bug would secretly write it down.

There are too many doubts about Esther, which makes the little bug's miserable "captive life" a little more interesting. If given a chance, it will definitely incite a clone above the demigod to try to parasitize, and connect the things in Esther's mind with the world. All the vastly different memories and knowledge were dug out.

But now it is still trapped by the invisible force, and can only barely maintain the form of the insect of time. It can't even move too far away from Esther, otherwise the force will swallow it completely in an instant. This feeling of being used as a "reserve food" makes this little bug always want to say bad words to Esther. It has never felt such a threat, and even the connection with the main body or other clones has been cut off.

Even the term "reserve food" was learned from Esther.

The little bug tried to instigate Esther to abuse her abilities. If the extraordinary power of thieves appeared frequently here, other clones would naturally be attracted. But Esther is extremely stubborn in this regard. She would rather save money like a clumsy ordinary person and maintain a minimum of food and sleep than use the abilities of a thief to improve her situation.

Some kind of extremely stupid human nature. Since you have the ability, why not use it?

Esther's answer was: "Others are also working hard to live, and I cannot appropriate the fruits of other people's efforts."

She is indeed quite stupid. The little insect thought so.

People who are capable should live better and take themselves further. This is the instinctive pursuit of biology.

It wasn't until the weather got warmer and spring arrived that Esther was shocked to realize that she had been living in Slim's Bakery for several months.

When Dai Li walked into the store, Esther was pouring the newly fried sweet potato balls into the woven basket. The bread crumbs on the surface exuded a rich aroma of oil, which made the green-eyed young man behind her sniff.

Esther greeted the two of them warmly. Over the past few months, Daley has become a regular customer of Slim Bakery.

"Today's new product! I didn't make it that sweet. Do you want to try it?"

The young man looked at Dai Li expectantly, which made Dai Li very funny: "If you like it, let Esther help you decorate it. The new products she studies will never taste bad."

Esther directly scooped up two pieces with a shovel and handed them to the two of them: "It's okay, just treat this as a treat from me!"

Wendy winked at Dai Li from the side: "If it's delicious, don't forget to advertise it for us, Miss Dai Li."

The moment the young man threw the croquette into his mouth and bit it, his expression was sluggish for a moment. Soon he returned to normal, chewing a little weirdly. Dai Li picked up another one in confusion, the crispy outer layer and the soft inner layer combined Together, they have a rich and sweet taste, which is quite delicious.

"Leonard, don't you like this?"

The young man looked at Esther with a little embarrassment: "I...can I have another one to try? I didn't taste much of it just now."

Esther couldn't help but snickered. Seeing that Wendy had no intention of stopping her, she scooped out another croquette and said, "It's not bad for this one. If you want to eat it, you have to buy it."

After eating the croquettes this time, the young man showed a very satisfied expression: "I want half a pound!"

Esther choked on her words: "Half a pound? Half a pound is too much. Fried food like this won't be fresh the next day. If you eat too much, you'll get tired of it."

Dai Li waved her hands indifferently: "It doesn't matter, we will take it back to the captain...our colleagues to eat."

Wendy happily urged Esther to pack the bags, but Esther didn't insist. It was all about business anyway, and everyone would be happy if they sold more. Dai Li then ordered the store's signature lemon cake and a pack of cranberry animal crackers. The young man stood by holding a bag with croquettes and ate several more while waiting.

The young man's eating movement suddenly stopped in mid-air. He stared at Esther, who was helping to weigh the biscuits and calculate the price. Esther's right hand subconsciously rubbed the center of her right eyebrow while she was calculating.

But the sense of déjà vu at this moment was like an illusion. The old voice in the young man's ear said "Huh" and then stopped talking.

The young man covered his mouth with his hands as if stealing food: "Old man? What's wrong?"

"Be careful with that girl, something's not right with her."

The old voice didn't give any explanation after that, leaving the young man full of questions. He could only wait for Dai Li to finish paying the bill and leave the bakery with her. Although the young man tried hard to observe Esther and everything around him, he did not notice anything strange. Instead, Daley gave him a strange glance.

When Esther returned to the kitchen, she felt the inner pocket of her clothes squirming, and the little bug popped up again. It rarely communicated with Esther during the day.

"What's the matter?"

Esther sensed it carefully, and the little bug reminded her that there was something abnormal about the young man, which made Esther immediately worried: "Is he dangerous? That won't hurt Ms. Dai Li and her colleagues, right?" "

Then she was disliked again.

Only then did Esther realize that Ms. Dai Li, who she had always thought was very handsome in gothic makeup and black skirt, was not an ordinary person.

"Are there many extraordinary people in this world?"

"If there aren't many, why would Ms. Daly and her colleagues be?"

"Have I seen that young man? Why don't I remember him?"

"The church...is what it is."

Esther felt that her mind was working rapidly, connecting many small traces. In fact, she did not have to go to the Church of the Night to study, but at that time she happily accepted Wendy's proposal, and did not even consider anything else. Local enlightenment education courses.

After she arrived at the Church of the Night, nothing special seemed to happen except for her increased affection for the church staff. During that time, her life was quite stable. No, that night, Esther was stopped in an alley. After using her strange extraordinary ability, her head almost exploded with pain. At that time, she ran away randomly, running in the direction of the Vulture Bar, and then met Arrived Ms. Daly.

Something about Ms. Daly soothed her.

"Esther? What are you in a daze? Help me go to the warehouse to bring a new bag of flour." Fiona suddenly came over and patted Esther on the shoulder hard to bring the girl out of her daze.

"Okay, I'll go right away!"

Esther managed to calm down. She rubbed her uncomfortable eyebrows and walked towards the warehouse behind Slim Bakery, trying to put away the uneasiness in her gut.

"I don't know, but it shouldn't matter. The night won't hurt me."

After blurting out these words, Esther felt more and more something was wrong.

Dark night? Who does the night refer to?

The little bug shook his head and retracted into Esther's pocket.

"Yeah, I think I'm... weird too."

Esther's voice was soft, with a subtle smile.