Chapter 19: Meditation

Madame Pualis didn't chat with Aurora for long. Ten minutes later, they walked out of the study.

Lu Mian accompanied his sister and sent Madame Pualis all the way out the door.

He then looked toward Aurora:

"What did she ask you to help with?"

Aurora curled her lips and said:

"Asked me to lead the singing at the Praise Celebration. I refused."

Cordu Village's Lent has three parts: first, the "Spring Elf" blessing parade; second, the waterside ceremony; and third, the Praise Celebration held in the church. The latter mainly consists of playing musical instruments and a large chorus.

In the Dalie region, the lead singer is often the church choir, but Cordu Village doesn't have this condition and can only find someone good at singing to replace them.

As for playing musical instruments, the villagers don't worry about it. In villages with a shepherd tradition, music or musical instruments are indispensable in daily life.

You know, shepherds live in the wild all year round, either living in shacks or digging pits. Besides companions and sheep, the only thing they deal with most is the flute they carry with them.

Besides grazing, playing cards, and chatting, blowing the flute to soothe their inner hearts with music is something almost every shepherd will do.

Precisely because of this, the saying describing a shepherd in difficult and impoverished circumstances is "he doesn't even have a flute."

With so many shepherds around, other villagers in Cordu Village inevitably are influenced to a certain extent. When they gather to chat in the square, there will inevitably be someone playing musical instruments, letting the melodious melody echo.

"Hmm." Lu Mian, seeing his sister's firm will, felt quite relieved inwardly.

Just watching the fun and joining in the excitement for those celebrations is fine. Being the protagonist not only wastes time but also easily attracts some unnecessary covetousness.

In order to protect his eyesight, under the condition that only a kerosene lamp provided lighting, Lu Mian chose to wash up and go to bed after reading for a while, seriously thinking about how to safely test what exactly was special about himself in the dream.

The mysterious lady's suggestions had been incredibly accurate several times, making him unconsciously believe her words completely.

In the dead of night, Lu Mian entered the dream again and woke up there.

He touched every pocket, counted habitually, and confirmed that the harvest of 217 Felkins and 25 Kopeks was still there.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Lu Mian picked up the axe and steel fork, stomped downstairs, and headed straight for the stove.

The stove fire had already gone out.

"When I'm not dreaming, the clocks here still run..." Lu Mian frowned slightly.

In such a "real" dream, where would he have anything special?

—"The clocks still run" is a slang in the Dalie region, meaning time doesn't stop for humans and is always flowing forward.

Lu Mian returned to the bedroom he considered safest, put down the axe and steel fork, and stripped off his clothes.

Then, he walked to the full-length mirror attached to the wardrobe and checked his body inch by inch to see what was different compared to reality.

No abnormalities.

"Mental specialness?" Lu Mian didn't rush to put on his clothes and walked straight back to the bed, learning from his sister, sitting cross-legged.

Previously, in order to make him have lucid dreams, Aurora had taught him some shallow meditation methods that didn't involve mysterious elements. He wanted to try now to see if he could detect any specialness that might exist in his spirit and body in a completely quiet scene.

Step one, regulate breathing.

Lu Mian deepened the intensity of his breathing and slowed down the corresponding frequency.

In slow, long breaths with his own rhythm, Lu Mian emptied his brain bit by bit.

At the same time, he outlined a crimson sun in his mind, concentrating all his attention and thoughts on it to exclude other messy thoughts.

This was something Aurora had specifically exhorted, telling him to choose things that exist in reality and represent light to outline when meditating, to avoid being targeted by some filthy or evil things.

Lu Mian, as a nominal believer of the "Eternal Blazing Sun," had the first reaction of visualizing the sun.

His mind gradually calmed down, and the entire world in his perception seemed to only have that crimson sun left.

Suddenly, Lu Mian seemed to hear some sound.

It seemed to come from an infinitely high place, or it seemed to ring in his ears, making people unable to hear clearly while having the meaning of thunder rumbling.

Amidst the indescribable buzzing sound, Lu Mian's heart raced, and his head felt as if an iron rod had been inserted and stirred forcefully a few times.

Intense pain erupted instantly, and that blazing sun turned blood-red and quickly stained with deep black.

The image in his meditation shattered accordingly.

Lu Mian opened his eyes violently, gasping for air, feeling as if he were about to die suddenly.

A full ten or twenty seconds passed before he recovered from that near-death experience.

He instinctively lowered his head and examined his body.

He saw some strange things on his left chest.

Some deep black, thorn-like symbols seemed to grow out of his heart from within his body, one after another connected together, extending toward his back like a chain.

And above these "thorns" were patterns suspected to be eyes and worm-like twisted lines, all of which were blue-black.

At this time, these things like tattoos were slowly fading.

Lu Mian was startled first, then had many thoughts.

He rushed out of bed, headed straight for the full-length mirror, and faced it with his back.

Then, he tried hard to turn his head to the left to check the situation on his back.

He barely saw the chain composed of black "thorns" drilling back into his body at the center of his back.

In other words, this "thorn" chain locked his heart and the corresponding body in the form of a ring.

"The black ones and the blue-black ones are two different symbols. These blue-black ones feel a bit familiar, hmm... they are very similar to the ones on the old man I helped when I was wandering... It was from that time that I started having dreams with large patches of fog..." Lu Mian analyzed the "specialness" on his body that was different from reality until they completely faded and disappeared.

Seeing this scene, Lu Mian felt quite disappointed.

Although he found the specialness, he felt it was meaningless.

Because the process of inducing them to appear made him extremely painful, close to death.

In such a state of being about to faint, what was the difference between facing that monster with the hunting rifle and sending it food?

And if he waited until he had the strength to fight again, the "specialness" would be about to disappear.

The climate in the dream was quite cold, like early spring in the mountains. Lu Mian wasn't very comfortable being naked, so he quickly put on his clothes again.

Just by doing such a simple thing, he was exceptionally exhausted, and his head hurt a bit again.

Clearly, the impact brought by the meditation just now couldn't be recovered in a short time.

Under these circumstances, Lu Mian decided to give up exploration tonight, make no attempts, sleep well, and recuperate seriously.

…………

When he woke up, the sky hadn't brightened yet.

Looking at the darkness in the room and the slight crimson near the curtains, Lu Mian carefully recalled what happened in the dream.

"I've meditated many times in reality before, and I never heard that strange sound, nor did I feel any pain...

"Only in that dream does the specialness exist?" Lu Mian sat up suspiciously, intending to confirm it.

He followed the process again and tried to meditate.

That crimson sun quickly appeared in his mind, and the clutter in his heart gradually settled down.

This was the meditation experience Lu Mian was familiar with, without strange sounds, without intense pain, and without near-death experiences.

After a while, he ended the meditation, unbuttoned his clothes, and lowered his head to examine his heart position.

There wasn't a single symbol there.

"Sure enough, that specialness belongs to the dream and can't affect reality..." Lu Mian didn't know whether he should be happy or disappointed.

He raised his head, looked at the window covered by the curtain, and his thoughts scattered, thinking about whether that kind of "specialness" in the dream could be utilized and how it could be utilized.

Just at this time, he saw a black shadow appear outside the window, a small black shadow.

Lu Mian's pupils dilated, and his whole person became highly tense.

His most instinctive reaction was to call his sister, but then he thought that he was at home, and Aurora had said she would watch over this side. She should have already sensed it, so he carefully got out of bed and approached the window slowly.

During this process, Lu Mian was constantly waiting for his sister to call off the action.

Aurora didn't appear.

Lu Mian came to the window, grabbed the curtain, and carefully pulled it open a crack.

Outside the window was the quiet and deep night, with the crimson moon hanging far away on the horizon.

On the elm tree gently shaking its leaves not far away, an owl stood quietly, facing Lu Mian's window.

It was a circle larger than most of its kind, its eyeballs weren't dull or stiff at all, and the gaze looking at Lu Mian carried an indescribable sense of condescension.

That owl!

It came again!

Lu Mian's heart hung up instantly.

This owl, like last time, after staring at Lu Mian for ten or twenty seconds, did nothing and spread its wings, flying toward the depths of the night.

"..." Lu Mian was speechless for a moment.

After a long while, he pulled open the curtain and cursed:

"Are you sick in the head?

"Coming to look every time, looking once, and leaving without saying a word!

"Are you a mute, or is your IQ problematic? You haven't learned human language after so many years?"

Actually, Lu Mian had his own guess about the owl's actions, believing that it was his sister's existence that made it dare not do anything. After all, Aurora had said that as long as one didn't leave this building at night, one could guarantee safety. If he had acted impulsively just now and poked his head out the window, that owl probably wouldn't have flown away quietly like it was doing now.

After cursing for a while, Lu Mian decided to pull the curtain and sleep for a while longer.

His gaze swept outside casually, and suddenly froze there.

At the edge of a small forest more than ten meters away, a figure was walking slowly.

She was wearing a dark long dress made of coarse cloth, with sparse and pale hair.

"Naroka..." Lu Mian recognized this figure.

It was exactly Naroka, whom he had asked about the wizard legend before.

Naroka's face seemed to be half-merged into the darkness, her eyes reflecting strange light under the faint crimson moonlight, and her whole body's movements were exceptionally stiff, like a wandering ghost.

PS: Thanks to Black Night Ghost for the Silver Alliance donation.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 20 =====