The warden who guards the witches

In a suburban bungalow, Professor Dodge was sitting on the bedside, reading a story from a magazine.

"…So they threw the statue of the Happy Prince into the furnace to melt it, and the mayor held a meeting to decide what to do with the metal.

'We need to cast another statue.' He said, 'It must be my statue.'

'It should be mine!' Every councillor said, and they quarreled about it.

At this time, the foreman of the statue foundry was surprised by one thing: 'It's so strange, the broken lead heart in the statue can't be melted, we can only throw it away.'

So they threw the broken heart of the Happy Prince into the garbage dump, and the body of the swallow was also thrown there."

After reading, Professor Dodge raised his face while holding the book: "The story ends here."

"The stories published in this issue of Watcher are also very exciting." Tony Dodge, the sheepdog lying on the bed, said in a strange voice.

Attached to the animal, it is difficult for him to turn the book with his claws, so sometimes Professor Dodge will read short stories to him personally.

"Yes." Professor Dodge nodded in agreement, and glanced at the title of the story in the magazine: The Happy Prince.

This is a fairy tale published in this issue of "Children's Dreams", and the contributor is "Watcher", a topic contributor of this magazine.

Tony is already 19 years old, and he is no longer old enough to read this kind of magazine.

But Tony likes the stories submitted by "Watcher". Professor Dodge understood the reason after reading it once or twice - the fairy tales submitted by "Watcher" are indeed very wonderful. Not only children can read them, but adults can also read profound meanings from some stories. The creation of such works requires a lot of skills.

The story of "The Happy Prince" tells that after the prince who did not know what sorrow was died, the world made a statue of him decorated with gold foil and gems and stood in the city. Here, the prince saw the poverty and ugliness outside the palace that he had never seen before.

He asked the swallow to distribute the gems on the statue to the sick seamstress, the impoverished playwright, and the match girl, and distributed the gold foil to other poor and hungry children.

However, the final ending is that the swallow ran for the prince and missed the season of departure, kissed the statue's mouth in the cold winter, and then died at the foot of the statue.

The statue of the Happy Prince became ugly because it lost its decoration, so it was melted down and recast by the mayor and the councillors, and his broken lead heart and the swallow lay in the garbage dump together.

Ironically, the statue of the Happy Prince, which was decorated with gold and gems at the beginning of the story, has always been praised by the residents. But after giving everything for the poor, he was despised by the world.

For children, this is just a sad story. But Professor Dodge read it himself and felt a chill.

The maid and lover favored by the queen complained that their dance skirts were too slow and the seamstress was too lazy, but at this time the seamstress had to rush to work overnight to embroider passion flowers on the dance skirts. Her child had a high fever and shouted for oranges, but she could only feed the child a few mouthfuls of river water.

The rich people roasted bonfires in the western-style buildings, and the children of the poor hid in the bridge hole and huddled together to drive away the cold.

When reading these plots, Professor Dodge's eyes were filled with refugees who had lost their homes and were wandering around the square.

Then he heard the screams of the refugees in his memory, coming from the core test site of the "Infection" plan, and the voices of the demonized refugees begging for mercy in front of the gun of the final execution - as a special consultant for the Kingdom's military's "Infection" plan, he certainly inspected the most core experimental site.

In a world where people eat each other, the reality he lives in is even more cruel than the tragic story.

Whenever he met begging refugees, he would give them some change. It was hard to tell whether it was because of guilt or something else. He actually knew clearly that doing such things could not compensate for even a little of his sins.

He was also a cannibal, and unlike the rich people in the story who unconsciously eat people in class, he ate people with blood on his hands and lips, eating those refugees without even spitting out the bones.

He was willing to bear these sins in order to save his kind and upright son. If possible, he would like his son to be as sorrowless as the happy prince in the story, but the child has tasted pain and regret that most people have never tasted since birth.

"Will you read another story?" Professor Dodge took out the "Explorer" magazine, which is also Tony's favorite magazine.

Tony was about to answer when there was a knock on the door outside the room.

"Mr. Cage, our old friend is here and said he wants to see you right away. Are you free?" The man shouted outside.

Professor Dodge thought about it for a while and reached out to touch Tony's head: "Child, wait for me."

The voice outside came from the officer who contacted him. He had been lying to Tony that this man was his old friend here.

"Our old friend is here" is one of the codes they use.

The old friend refers to troubles and problems. When it comes to seeing you right away, it means that the problem is more urgent. Professor Dodge is an external consultant for the "Infection" plan. Usually, when the experiments there encounter difficult problems, they will come to him for consultation.

"It's okay, go ahead, Dad. I just want to sleep for a while." Tony replied calmly.

Professor Dodge nodded and left the room.

The officer waiting outside saluted him and invited him to walk out of the house and come to the tree in the courtyard.

"We are in trouble." The officer said straight to the point. "Someone is sabotaging the base, and the plan may have been leaked!"

"What did you say?" Professor Dodge's face darkened.

"The Intelligence Bureau received a warning from other departments that a religious group called the Resurrection Society is spying on the Kingdom Intelligence Agency's confidential information." The officer's face was also quite serious, "There were three officers at the base the night before yesterday. Strange disappearance. Just today, another person disappeared while patrolling. You may remember that before, a person in charge of "replenishment" was reported to be suspected of rebellion and was suspended from his job - this incident. It was also revealed by that department.”

"Can a religious group do this?" Professor Dodge frowned, "Which department did you receive the warning from? Is it reliable?"

"The meaning conveyed by the superiors of the intelligence source is not convenient to say clearly, but it is absolutely reliable." The officer replied, "Judging from these 'accidents' that have occurred now, I'm afraid... this is indeed the case."

"Then just ensure the safety of the experimental site——"

Just as Professor Dodge was mid-sentence, the officer raised his hand and interrupted: "No, the experimental site has been invaded once."

"This is impossible." Professor Dodge was stunned.

"It was indeed invaded, although it was only for about ten seconds." The officer said firmly, "Someone broke into the 'balanced space' without us noticing."