Chapter 1777: Summer in Fool

Harley screamed as she rushed into the bushes, and Barry followed closely behind. Butler Merkel stood outside the bushes, looking quite helpless, watching the two children pushing and shoving each other on the muddy, damp ground, their feet—without wading shoes—covered in mud.

"Dinner will be ready soon. I'll go get you a pair of new shoes. Stay here and don't move." Merkel turned to get the shoes. Harley made a face at his back. Barry nudged Harley with his elbow and said, "Do you feel like Professor Schiller is acting a bit strange?"

"First of all, that's not Professor Schiller." Harley held up a finger and said, under Barry's confused gaze, "That's another one of his personalities. We usually call him 'Morbid'."

Barry turned to look at Schiller, who was deboning meat, and lowered his voice: "It's truly amazing that so many different personalities can live in one person's body. But every Schiller is pretty good, don't you think?"

Harley grinned and said, "This one is especially good."

Pamela wasn't wearing a dress today, which was rare; instead, she wore work overalls and wading boots, walking unsteadily out of the garden's ruins.

It had rained again last night. The dead plant roots were pressed into the mud by the heavy rain, and one would be tripped if not careful. Even though Pamela had the ability to control plants, she walked cautiously; after all, the plants in Cat Getan were the kind that would slap the Green even if the Parliament of Trees came to visit.

The moment Pamela's foot stepped onto the stone path, she breathed a sigh of relief and strode toward Schiller. However, she didn't expect that there was standing water under a loose paving stone. Pamela stepped on the front end of the brick, and water from the side splashed all over her.

Schiller walked out of the flower pavilion and handed her a towel. Pamela took the towel to wipe the water off her arms and neck and let out a light sigh. She looked at Schiller through the gaps in her eyelashes, but there was no other meaning; she just appeared slightly hesitant.

"Your garden is in terrible shape." Pamela stepped on the edge brick with one foot and said, "I just went to check the deeper parts. The situation is much harder to deal with than here, and... I saw it."

"What?" Schiller acted as if he hadn't heard clearly, leaning forward with the posture of taking back the towel, making a more obvious gesture of listening.

"Those things you buried under the trees."

Schiller's expression was inscrutable. Pamela couldn't see a hint of emotion on it. She rubbed her wrist unnaturally and said, "The heavy rain washed away the topsoil. I saw some bones."

Schiller stood inside the flower pavilion and reached out to open the door. Pamela hugged her arms and ducked inside, then relaxed her shoulders and let out a long breath. She glanced at the meat Schiller was processing and said, "I don't have much experience in anatomy, but I can recognize that those are ribs. There are very few animals in the natural world whose ribs are so fragile."

Pamela looked up and stared straight at Schiller, saying, "That's not moose, is it?"

"You don't look surprised." Schiller continued to carefully scrape the bone with a knife and said, "That's trash my butler handled for me. Thanks for the reminder; next time I'll ask him to bury them deeper."

"What exactly is it?" Pamela leaned her body forward, staring intently at Schiller's face, not missing a single detail, pressing her hands firmly on the table, and said, "You told me it was venison, but it's not. What have you been feeding us?"

"What do you think it is?" Schiller looked at her with a smile and asked.

"I don't know." Pamela's throat moved, and she looked away, saying somewhat doubtfully, "I just feel a special power. Could it be Cat Getan..."

"You'll have the answer soon, Miss. For now, let's talk about my garden. What ideas do you have for the picnic area?"

Pamela appeared suspicious and uneasy until Harley, who had changed into wading boots, rushed in somewhat hurriedly from outside. She bypassed Pamela and slipped past Schiller's back in a flash.

Schiller turned to look at her and said, "What are you doing, Miss Harley?"

"Merkel intends to catch us for dinner, and I pretended to run away. I really want to see the expression on his face when he thinks he'll never catch me, only to find out I've been back for a long time."

Schiller tilted his chin toward the shelf under the table. Harley spread her hands and let out a disappointed "Oh."

She crawled under the shelf, hugged a large piece of thawed meat, placed it on the table with a "thud," moved a small stool from the side to stand on, pulled a long knife from somewhere, and stabbed it into the center of the meat.

Pamela stiffened instinctively, looking at the tacit cooperation between the two people—one big and one small—and suddenly had a bad premonition.

Schiller turned to look at Harley while deboning and said, "Where did you and Merkel throw the trash last night?"

Harley looked up at Schiller, blinked with some confusion, then pointed backward with her hand that wasn't holding the knife: "In the garden. Why?"

"Remember to bury it deeper next time." Schiller glanced at Pamela and said, "The heavy rain in Cat Getan will be frequent lately, and our garden needs maintenance. Don't affect the plants' rooting."

Harley nodded nonchalantly. Pamela had just opened her mouth to say something when Schiller looked at her and asked, "Have you had any dealings with people from the magical world lately?"

"I've been to the Underworld a few times, at the invitation of Master of the Night Jim." Pamela wiped the mud off her shoes with a rag and said, "They held a few balls, but I don't like those social occasions, and I haven't been in a long time."

Schiller placed the completely deboned leg bone aside. Pamela couldn't help but follow the movement of his hands with her gaze. She heard Schiller continue to ask, "Do you know that the Earth's magical defense network is nearly complete?"

"As expected." Pamela shrugged and said, "I can imagine the various predicaments the magical world has suffered before, but the hardest part was the lack of backbone. And that mage named Strange doesn't have similar concerns—energy is sufficient, technology is in place, so what are we waiting for?"

"You have eyes sharper than a hawk's." Schiller said. Pamela didn't feel happy because of this; she still stared unblinkingly at the meat on Schiller's cutting board.

"Do you read Dante, Miss?"

"I'm not addicted to the point of starting a club or anything." Pamela said with a hint of sarcasm, clearly implying that Schiller's tone sounded like that of a Dante fanatic.

"Dante stepped on Satan's back to leave Hell. His ultimate salvation lies in his courage to step on the devil and use it as a ladder to ascend, while some people are just the opposite."

"Even if the armor used to protect humanity is sturdy, it needs the human spine to support it. Lose the armor, and everything is over."

Pamela heard a dangerous implication in Schiller's calm tone. She instinctively shrank her neck, and when she looked up, she found she had met Schiller's gaze.

A storm instantly broke out in Pamela's mind. Her survival instinct turned her into a master of linguistic analysis once again. She swallowed and said, "Whatever you just said, it must make sense. I swear I won't say anything."

"And..." Pamela even looked at Schiller cautiously and said, "You will have a beautiful garden, Professor."

Schiller's expression was inscrutable.

"Do you mind accompanying me to pay a visit to someone tonight?" Schiller asked very gently.

"Visit whom?"

"You'll know soon."

This answer again. Pamela furrowed her brows tightly and cursed in her heart. How soon is soon? Is it as soon as before I get stewed in the pot?

Staying here was a stupid decision, but leaving was even stupider. Pamela pressed her hands on the chair, her gaze falling on the leg meat Schiller was pressing, recalling the taste of yesterday's venison risotto.

Deliciousness and power can be had together. Pamela licked her lips unconsciously. She thought, where am I going to visit a deer?

In the car, Constantine poked his head out of the window, looked forward, sighed, and swallowed the curse he was about to utter. He had to learn to be a civilized person; he still had to run a bookstore.

"Traffic jam again. We'll probably have to take a detour."

Zatanna also poked her head out to look and shook her head, saying, "This road usually isn't jammed. Maybe it's the subway construction."

Azazel, sitting in the back row, furrowed his brows, but he said nothing, letting Constantine turn the steering wheel and drive the car in the other direction.

After changing roads, the cars around them became fewer and fewer. Constantine felt a hint of something wrong. He slowed down, and when he looked into the rearview mirror, he found that Azazel, who had been sitting in the back row, was gone.

"Looks like your enemy has found you."

Constantine turned his head following Azazel's deep voice and saw a goat with yellow eyes in the reflection of the car window. Azazel opened his mouth and said, "To avoid misunderstanding, it is not appropriate for me to appear."

"Just say it if you want to see me make a fool of myself." Constantine snorted coldly and said, "Devils and angels are both bound by ancient rules. Without a contract, none of you dare to touch me."

Azazel's deep, evil laughter echoed in the car. The instant Constantine's dangerous intuition arrived, Zatanna let out a scream.

"Boom!"

A violent explosion rose from the highway.

The sunset of midsummer always comes and goes quickly. The orange, purple, blue, and pale pink at the end of the sky sank below the horizon like deep-sea undercurrents. It was a clear night where one could see a moon halo.

The sky was a deep, deep blue, and the stars were hidden behind silk-like mist. Beside the Victorian-style wall lamp at the manor entrance, Schiller stroked the edge of his black leather gloves with his fingers.

Pamela took the gloves Schiller handed over. She stroked the unique, warm texture of the leather and asked, "What kind of skin is this made of?"

"Lambskin."

"It feels like goat skin."

"Perhaps."

Pamela put on the gloves in silence. She already had a premonition of what she was going to do, but she didn't care. What surprised her even more was that the stuffiness she had imagined didn't come. These black gloves seemed to have become a part of her skin.

"Fantastic." Pamela looked at her hands and said, "Can I look forward to you introducing a goat to me?"

"Soon, Miss."

Schiller watched the car driven by Merkel stop slowly at the entrance. He opened the passenger door and sat in, while Pamela sat in the back seat. The car kicked up a series of splashes as it started, then disappeared into the night.

"Where are we going?"

"To attend a banquet."

"Without an invitation?"

"Destruction usually doesn't require an invitation."

"Destruction?"

"We destroy one, and then give them another." ===== CHAPTER 1778 =====