The people of Sara only know the harm of nightmares, but they only have a vague understanding of how to prevent nightmares and how to effectively fight against them. The most they know is "go to the cult if there is a problem."
"Do you think there's something wrong with the protagonist here?"
Hitzfeld first read the serial again, thinking that there was nothing noteworthy, and then looked up at the black-haired woman: "...What's the problem?"
It's rare that she also has moments of slow reaction...
Facing the girl's half-confused, half-inquiring gaze, Xia Yibing's eyes flickered, and she felt that the face became more and more charming.
But she quickly regained consciousness - what Hitzfeld overlooked here was probably not because she was slow to react, but simply because she had not accumulated enough experience.
Her insomnia had not yet been cured, and she could only sleep once a week. Moreover, most of her dream time had to be devoted to public classes, so it was naturally impossible for her to have the same rich experience of exploring the gray fog in the dream world as she did.
"Haltham knows too much he shouldn't know."
Xia Yibing said.
“Yes,” Hitzfeld nodded quickly, “but all the authors here have that problem.”
"It's different." Xia Yibing denied her, "Other people...their writing skills, knowledge, and experience can at least be obtained from conventional channels, but the scenes and experiences described in "Dream City" are impossible for people who are not in this circle to know."
Hitzfeld frowned slightly.
She already understood what Xia Yibing meant, but——
"Perhaps Bella Haytham is a hidden supernatural being."
"That doesn't explain it." Xia Yibing still shook her head, reached out to her to return the newspaper, and waved at her: "Come, I'll show you."
Hitzfeld hesitated for a moment, made sure that she was serious, and approached cautiously.
Xia Yibing really didn't have the intention to play flirtatious games while talking about serious matters. He just enjoyed inhaling the fragrance wafting from the girl's hair, and then seriously wrote a paragraph with his fingernails.
"Here...'Hailsham hid in the deepest part of the gray fog, listening to the noise of the giant creature passing by. He didn't dare to breathe, for fear of alarming this monster that was more terrifying than the star jellyfish.'"
"Anything...a problem?"
"Of course, because the star jellyfish does exist. And even if we want to access its information within our organization, we need level 6 clearance."
"Varied--"
"And here..." Xia Yibing continued to give examples, "'The Dream Fairy has high hopes for Haytham, believing that he will be able to kill the Black Snake and save Danluo City from the bloody shadow'... The two things he mentioned here correspond to the 'Dream Fairy Case' and the 'Ouroboros Case' respectively."
"... Could you please give me more details?"
"Of course~ The former happened in West Grant on October 1963, 10. A being who called herself the 'Dream Fairy' invaded the dreams of many people and told them that she could fulfill their three wishes. These people were overjoyed and thought they were blessed by fate, but in fact all their wishes were fulfilled in the dream world. In the process, they were squeezed into mummies by a mysterious force in reality. After the investigators arrived, similar incidents disappeared and became an unsolved case to this day."
"The latter one is even more exaggerated... It was still in 1963, if I remember correctly, it was December 12th, and it was still in West Grant. A 6-year-old youth named Laques reported to the police, claiming that he encountered a huge... a huge black snake that was big enough to surround the entire city of West Grant in the nightmare of the eternal night. This strange snake opened its bloody mouth and held its own tail. As the tail was eaten more and more by it, its body surrounding the city was gradually tightening. Laques warned the local police station to kill the snake as soon as possible, otherwise the city would be crushed and destroyed in the process of its self-eating. All his warnings were initially regarded as insanity because people did not believe that there would be such a terrible disaster, but everything that happened later showed that-"
"What does it mean?"
Hitzfeld was listening with great interest and couldn't help but ask more questions.
"Have you seen the Sara map?" Xia Yibing's voice became lower and lower.
"of course."
"Do you remember there's a city called 'West Grant' on it?"
"I--"
Hitzfeld's eyes and cheeks twitched violently.
Pulling the Sara map from her memory bank and looking at it again, she realized that the city was indeed not marked on it.
"On the first morning of 1964, when the sun rose again as usual, West Grant was completely wiped out from the world."
Xia Yibing's tone was almost like a whisper.
“This all happened little by little over the course of nearly a month.”
"Disappear a little every day, disappear a little every day..."
"The locals were completely unaware of this. It was as if they were blinded and didn't think anything was wrong. At that time, both we and the Wheel of Fortune sent people to try to stop the disaster, but no matter who we sent or how many people we sent, none of them returned."
“We had to give up on saving West Grant.”
"Now if you go to Grant Plains, you will find a piece of empty land at the foot of the mountain on the west side. There is no grass or trees growing on it. It is completely barren."
"That's the only trace of it left."
"…Are you kidding me?"
Frowning deeply, Hitzfeld glared at the black-haired woman with bared teeth.
She already knew a lot about the Eternal Night Disaster.
But, but it's a city!
Even if the cult recognized it as a power of the "evil god" level, at best it could only kill and pollute people in the city.
She couldn't imagine what kind of power it would take to wipe a city out from the world.
“These are all confidential documents.”
Xia Yibing spread out one hand.
“You can listen to it as a story.”
"I believe your ghost!"
Hitzfeld stared at her with his right blue eye.
"Then you're telling me the secret now, aren't you afraid of breaking the rules?"
"Because they are now involved in the case." Xia Yibing shook the newspaper in her hand. "According to Article 172 of the Confidentiality Code: If the investigation involves unauthorized information, investigators have the right to ignore the authority restrictions and retrieve relevant information from nearby channels... So it's okay to tell you, just write a report later."
"..."
Hitzfeld fell silent.
She also realized the problem.
Even within Shadow Lion, those who have level 6 clearance are required to access this information. Even though Bella Haytham, the author of "Dream City", is an unregistered transcendent...how did he know these terms?
He must not be a Shadow Lion agent, otherwise they would not have been notified.
So where does this knowledge and experience come from?
"Another point."
Xia Yibing raised the "Horn" again.
"He chose to use his last name directly as the protagonist's name... and also wrote the protagonist as timid, cautious and neurotic."
"I think there is an important message in it, and it is most likely a psychological suggestion."
Chapter 9 The Wicker Bar
"You mean," Hitzfeld lowered his voice, "that he is using the behavior of the novel's protagonist, 'Hailsham', to convey his own fear and anxiety in real life?"
Xia Yibing didn't say anything, just nodded.
"Let's make an assumption," she said softly, taking out a pen and writing something on the other side of the newspaper - a useless, outdated news item.
"Assume that all these newly emerged novelists are influenced by some unknown existence, so that they can break through their original 'mediocrity' and write these stories that they should not be able to write."
"Then they are most likely under a certain degree of control. I think this corresponds exactly to the strange behavior of Haytham in the story."
Hitzfeld thought she had a point.
The performance of "Hailsham" (from now on, characters in quotation marks are characters in the novel) in this story is indeed abnormal, and it does not seem like the mainstream adventure novels on the market.
In mainstream adventure novels, the protagonists are either brave and strong, or have handsome looks and special skills.
"Hailsham" has nothing. Although he is young, he is "plain looking", "can't do anything", "cowardly and often hysterical about insurmountable difficulties".
For example, when he first entered the Dream City, "Hailsham" did nothing but starve himself to death out of anger so that he could return to reality. It was only after the tragic death of the forerunners that he woke up and realized the horror of this place that he began to calm down a little.
This is all anti-market and anti-law.
The reason why this novel was published was probably because it played a different tune, and the atmosphere was really well rendered, so readers could barely tolerate such a useless protagonist.
But from another perspective, I wonder why Larson designed such a story and such a protagonist.
Why would he name such a protagonist who is out of touch with the laws of the market after himself?
Could those panic and hysteria be his personal experiences in real life?
If so, where did he get this feeling from?
These are all worth exploring.
"Okay." Hitzfeld sat back on his bed, "At least we have a goal now."
Nan Xinze hadn't even arrived yet, but she had already decided who to investigate first when she got there.
It is very simple to confirm Xia Yibing's guess. Just find Haytham himself and ask him whether he is afraid of something... and whether he is mentally disturbed.
The train started again and after another 4 hours of driving, it arrived at Nanxinze North Station in the evening of the fifth day.
When we got here, there were almost no people in the entire carriage and on the platform.
One reason is that the time is relatively late, and the other is that North Xinze is separated from South Xinze by only the Xinze River, making travel convenient, so few people would choose the train.
Most of those going farther choose to travel by water. People getting off the bus now either do so to get cheaper tickets or because they hate the sea breeze as much as they do.
Karl was a local boss. He was originally on a temporary assignment in the Xinze Diocese and was the head of the Flintstone Knights of Xinze. So after getting off the car, they were not surprised to encounter the welcoming team of the Order.
They were escorted by a group of tall men who were obviously plain-dressed knights and got into the car. After driving for nearly 40 minutes, they arrived at a street corner across from a square and stopped at the intersection of an alley on the street corner.
Wicker bar.
Through the car window, Hitzfeld could vaguely make out the illuminated words above the sign.
On the curved corner between the archway and the alley entrance, there is a simple sign and a narrow door.
As expected, this is their office location in Nanxinze.
"You will live here from now on."
Get off the car and enter the bar.
There were almost no people here, except for a waiter who was taking a nap on the counter.
Before Hitzfeld could observe the deserted hall, Karl came over and handed her an extremely old brass key.
"Room 2 on the second floor. Here's the key."
Hitzfeld frowned slightly.
Considering the danger Xia Yibing was in now, she was actually not very willing to live in the same room with her for a long time.
But... think about who Xiaomila Karl is. It's a pipe dream to expect him to spend twice as much to get her an extra room.
What else can be done?
Anyway, the hotel rent is public funds of Xinze Parish, so don't be picky and just stay here.
Carl was rude, but at least he showed chivalry and helped them carry the boxes upstairs.
He was indeed very strong. He lifted the huge box that Hitzfeld had difficulty lifting with both hands, but he did so by supporting the bottom with one hand - he even weighed the box in mid-air, which made Hitzfeld doubt his life.
I walked up the creaking wooden steps, entered the dark, old corridor, found the second room door from the front, inserted the key, and put all my things in and arranged them.
Hitzfeld looked at the bed.
In the spirit of saving space, this is a bunk bed. The sheets, pillows and quilts are all new.
There was a cabinet against the wall opposite the bed. The cabinet was in the corner, with a window in the middle and a locked fence welded around the outside.
The wooden floor, under the bed is a gray-white wool carpet. Dark red curtains are hung on both sides of the window, and a painting is hung on the blank wall next to the bathroom, as if the artistic atmosphere it contains can fill the wall and make the already small room look more substantial.
It’s okay, at least you don’t have to worry about being crowded together.
Hitzfeld is quite satisfied with his living environment.
“The bathroom is nice.”
Xia Yibing poked her head out from the small door on the side.
The red brick floor was scented, the toilet and washing area were separated by wooden boards, and with hot water, it was really good.
After putting their things away, the three of them returned to the corridor, and Carl began to explain the precautions.
Hitzfeld had a rough idea of the limitations of the case.
