Chapter 34: Idiom

Lu Mi had the intention to observe and walked through the entire process of "getting to know" Lyra and the others, until both sides arrived outside the "Eternal Blazing Sun" church.

He initially confirmed that these three outsiders really didn't "know" him and had no precautions against the corresponding "prank."

Has time really flowed backward... Lu Mi felt a bit dazed.

"We've been here, there's no one," Valentine looked at the magnificent building half-integrated into the night and said the "scheduled" lines.

Lu Mi calmed his mind and didn't follow the process.

He said directly:

"That's because the parish priest doesn't want to respond to you."

He intended to leave the impression of "liking to joke but not having a bad personality" in the eyes of these three suspected official Beyonder outsiders.

"You mean the parish priest is inside the church, just hindered by certain things and not responding to the knocking?" Lyra thought of several possibilities.

Lu Mi laughed:

"Stealing a tryst in the church isn't suitable to be seen by others."

After saying this, he instinctively muttered in his heart: It's a pity, this time I can't hear the classic line "You have destroyed the sacred church's operation."

Of course, after having a further understanding of Lady Pualis, he felt that in a sense, it wasn't entirely unreasonable for the parish priest to say that.

Can't we allow the parish priest to be like the protagonist of Aurora's undercover novels, willing to endure temporary humiliation and sell his body to infiltrate the evil forces represented by Lady Pualis for the sake of an important mission?

"Stealing a tryst in the church?" Valentine changed from his cold attitude and asked sharply.

Lu Mi spread his hands:

"What's the problem with this? For the parish priest, this is a daily activity."

"You don't have to be so excited. Isn't there an idiom that says 'It's the same throughout the ages, men will always steal women'?"

"But this is in the church!" Valentine said sternly.

Lu Mi thought for a moment and asked curiously:

"That is to say, as long as clergy don't steal trysts in the church, it's acceptable?"

"This is blasphemy against God!" Valentine looked like he was about to explode.

Ryan patted him on the shoulder, signaling him to calm down.

At the same time, this most composed outsider asked Lu Mi:

"Do you know who the parish priest is stealing a tryst with tonight?"

Lu Mi shook his head:

"There are too many possibilities. His mistresses, just the ones I know, include Lady Pualis, Madena Bery, Philippa Guillaume, Sybil Bery..."

"Madena Bery, same surname as the parish priest?" Lyra keenly grasped this point.

Lu Mi nodded:

"She and the parish priest are cousins two generations apart."

"..." Valentine was stunned for a few seconds and gritted his teeth, saying, "Is Guillaume Bery a servant of God, or a servant of the devil?"

Do you only have this line? And I haven't seen you go and blow his head off... Lu Mi deliberately defended the parish priest:

"This is actually nothing. In the Dariège region, there is an idiom that says, 'Distant cousins, just sleep together'."

"Why do you have so many idioms?" Lyra couldn't help but laugh, the silver bells on her head tinkling.

Lu Mi spread his hands again:

"The countryside is just like this."

At this time, Ryan asked thoughtfully:

"How do you know we aren't from the Dariège region?"

"Otherwise, you wouldn't say 'In the Dariège region, there is an idiom'."

You told me this yourselves... Lu Mi was quick-tongued and actually treated things that happened "before" as information he already knew.

He had to make up a reason:

"Your temperament doesn't look like locals from Dariège."

He then pointed to the road leading to the village:

"I've already helped you find the parish priest. Next, I have to go home."

"I thought you would follow us in." Lyra glanced at him and smiled lightly.

"I don't dare offend the parish priest." Lu Mi mentioned casually, "The villager who informed last time has been missing for a long time."

Without waiting for Ryan and the others to respond, he waved his hand and ran toward the other side of the square, saying while running:

"Remember to keep it a secret for me, my cabbages!"

The red moon was covered by clouds, and Lu Mi walked on the country road scattered with starlight.

He put his hands in his pockets and thought about the things that had happened recently.

When he was almost home, Lu Mi stopped and looked up at the roof of the semi-underground two-story building.

Sure enough, Aurora, wearing a light blue long skirt, was sitting there, hugging her knees, quietly looking at the starry sky.

In the night, her figure was lonely and distant.

It really repeated... Is there a possibility that the previous things were true, and now I'm dreaming? Lu Mi just had a new guess when he suddenly discovered two differences between the two March 29ths:

He didn't see the lady who gave him the Scepter card and taught him mystical knowledge in the old tavern today.

This made him a bit unsure whether it was a dream or not.

Confirm it tomorrow... Lu Mi collected his mood, walked to the house, and pushed the door open.

He did the same as "last time," used the ladder on the second floor to climb to the roof, and walked to Aurora's side with light steps, sitting down.

"What's good about this?" Lu Mi said deliberately.

Aurora turned her head, sighed, and was about to speak when Lu Mi added:

"I mean, what does looking at the starry sky mean to you?"

Aurora looked him up and down a few times:

"So direct today?"

She then looked toward the starry sky again and said in a faint, lingering tone:

"You know, I'm not from Cordu, nor am I from Dariège."

"I don't know if you've heard an idiom: the hometown is the one you can't go back to..."

Lu Mi didn't joke and looked at the starry sky as well.

After Aurora flew into her bedroom to write a letter to her pen pal, Lu Mi didn't expose that he had become a Beyonder, returned to the second floor the same way, and communicated with his sister about the pen pal matter for a while.

Then, he helped Aurora close the door and walked back to his bedroom.

Looking at the bed with white four-piece bedding, Lu Mi suddenly felt a stir in his heart, walked over, and lifted the pillow.

Under the pillow lay a card quietly, the Tarot Minor Arcana card representing "Seven of Scepters"!

Looking at the man on the card with a firm face, wearing green clothes, and holding a scepter to resist the enemy's attack, Lu Mi thought of the lady's interpretation of this card:

"Crisis, challenge, confrontation, courage..."

The more Lu Mi thought about it, the more he felt these four words truly revealed his current situation.

Before drawing the card, he had likely already fallen into a crisis and was facing a challenge!

What needs to be done next is to summon courage and confront the problem? Wait, hasn't time already flowed backward? I haven't even met that lady, haven't even drawn the card, why would it appear here? Lu Mi was shocked and wasn't very sure about his previous guess.

All kinds of thoughts and inferences emerged rapidly in his mind, like bubbles rising in boiling water.

This made Lu Mi's head ache, and he felt like he was going crazy.

In the end, he temporarily set the lady and the items she gave as "exceptions," which prevented his thoughts from exploding.

Given the mystery and uniqueness the lady showed, it was a normal development for her to be unaffected by time flowing backward!

If I can find her tomorrow and she still recognizes me, it means my inference is correct... Lu Mi exhaled, feeling a mental exhaustion.

He went to the washroom to wash up simply and lay

…………

In the familiar, faint gray fog, Lu Mi woke up, rolled over to sit up, and saw the wooden table and the chair placed at an angle in front of the window.

He had come to this special dream again.

After discovering that the Scepter card was still there, he knew he would definitely be able to enter again.

Lu Mi subconsciously touched the inner pocket of his clothes, his expression suddenly freezing.

The gold coins were gone!

All those gold coins were gone!

Lu Mi hurriedly jumped off the bed, searched his entire body, and then looked for the place where he had just been lying, but he still couldn't find the money he had worked so hard to collect.

Not even a 1-coppé copper coin!

"Has time here also flowed backward?" Lu Mi suddenly had such a guess.

He looked around and didn't see the hunting rifle, axe, and steel fork that should have been placed there.

Lu Mi calmed his state of mind, left the bedroom, passed through the corridor, and arrived on the first floor.

The nearly two-meter-long steel fork and the iron-black hand axe were placed intact in their original positions, just as they were when Lu Mi first explored the dream ruins.

Likewise, the bucket of corn oil had not yet been placed next to the stove.

As for the hunting rifle, Lu Mi searched everywhere but didn't find it.

He was increasingly inclined to believe that time here had also flowed backward.

"Go to the ruins and take a look, see if those two monsters are still there..." Lu Mi muttered to himself silently, picked up the axe directly, and opened the door to leave.

Not long after, he crossed the wilderness full of cracks and barren of weeds, arriving at the edge of the ruins.

Unlike his first exploration here, as a "Hunter," he discovered quite a few traces left by living creatures with just a casual sweep.

When he concentrated his mind, he could even distinguish that two creatures often haunted this place, and the shallow footprints of one of them circled behind the house that had partially collapsed due to fire.

If I had such supernatural abilities before, how could I have almost been ambushed during my first exploration? Lu Mi carried the axe and entered the building.

He headed straight for his "destination" and arrived in front of the broken ceramic jar.

A touch of gold shone through from inside.

Lu Mi bent down and picked up this gold louis.

Its luster was exactly the same as when Lu Mi first picked it up.

Indeed, time has flowed backward; except for a very few exceptions, everything else has returned to its "initial" state... Lu Mi sighed.

Suddenly, he rushed forward two steps, twisted his waist, and turned his body halfway to the right.

Accompanied by this exertion, the axe in his hand slashed out.

The skinless, blood-colored monster had just pounced from the roof when it lost its target, and what greeted it was an axe.

Pfft!

Its head flew off directly, and the headless body fell heavily to the ground amidst the scattering blood droplets and pus.

PS: I've revised two places. When writing about the last cycle, I was thinking of a vague date, so I only wrote "early April" in general. Now that I've confirmed the specific date, I feel that March 29th has more aesthetic appeal. No, anyway, there was a slight error, so I added "late March" to the previous "early April." Actually, if I really wanted to argue, I could find a reasonable excuse to pull it back, but there's no need.

(End of chapter)