As she walked, she stretched out her fingers to sweep over the colorful leaves, savoring the lingering afterglow of her fingertips, the dust that rose up glistens in the moonlight. Baidu search literature network, more good free reading. She stopped in front of an extraordinarily beautiful flower, its red petals so bright as flames that she forgot to breathe.

Whether with Shurima cinnabar or Pitover ochre, she had never concocted such a lustrous red. Even the Ionian vermilion, which was so expensive that it broke the bank, pales in comparison. She bit her lower lip hard, hesitating, and finally she reached out and plucked a few petals from the nearest flower. The rest of the petals of the flower immediately curled inward, and then the stem twisted to the other side, as if in fear. Maura felt a sense of guilt and looked in the direction of the mansion to see if she had been seen, but the windows were still closed, no light was coming through.

The main entrance was open, and she paused for a moment before the threshold. The letter instructed her to go straight in, but now that Marula was actually standing here, there was a strange sense of resistance. Is this some kind of trap, luring her to some unspeakable fate, and if so, then this trap is too extravagant. The idea was simply ridiculous, and Marula rebuked herself for her cowardice, allowing fear to stop her from what might be the greatest opportunity of her life.

She took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold into the mansion.

The vaulted vestibule is supported by a heavy black wooden frame, and the walls between the wooden frames are decorated with faded frescoes depicting the bloody era of the early Empire. On the left and right sides of Maura, the walls of the long corridors were covered with paintings, but the shadowed curtains obscured the paintings, making it impossible to see who or what was depicted on them. A curving staircase climbs high into the middle level and a wide archway, but beyond that you can't see anything. There was only one object in the empty antechamber that looked like an easel, on which a canvas and canvas might have been set up, but it was tightly covered by a cloth. Maura cautiously approached the obscured panel, wondering if this was the place where he was going to paint.

This was not what she was hoping for. The light here is not suitable for portraits. Where there was moonlight pouring on the fishbone floor, the light was bright enough, but elsewhere it was completely dark, and even the moonlight seemed reluctant to approach those corners.

"Hello," her voice echoed through the antechamber. Baidu search literature network, more good free reading. "I received a letter"

Maura's voice drifted back and forth, and she looked around for signs of the others, but she found that she was alone in the strange mansion in the middle of the night.

"Hello," she said again. "Is there anyone?"

"I'm here," a voice said.

Maula jumped up. This voice reveals upbringing, demeanor, and the mellow aroma of aging. The voice seemed to be coming from above, and at the same time it was like a breathless whisper in her ear. She looked left and right, looking for someone to speak.

Only herself.

"Are you Vladimir," she asked.

"It's me, that's right," he replied. There was a deep sadness in his voice, as if the name itself was a torture. "You're the painter."

"Yes, it's me. I am a painter," she added, "and my name is Maula Betsenya." I'm a painter. ”

She cursed at her clumsiness, then suddenly realized that his last sentence wasn't a question. ァ新ヤ81 Chinese 網

"Good. I've been waiting for you for a long time. ”

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. The letter said that I would wait until the bell rang in the port before I set out. ”

"That's true, and you arrived neither too early nor too late," Vladimir said, and this time Maula felt that she saw a deeper black in the shadows. "Blame myself for having so long delayed finding someone like you. Vanity makes us stupid, doesn't it"

"It's vanity," Marula asked, knowing that wealthy patrons liked to flatter. "Or maybe you're just waiting for the right time to capture your true honor"

There was a burst of laughter from above. Marula couldn't tell if he was genuinely happy or laughing at her.

"It's a different way to say the same thing every time," Mr. Vladimir said. "But to be honest, it's like an irregular festival. By the way, do you like my garden?"

Maula sensed that there was a trap in this question, and hesitated for a moment before answering.

"Yes," she said. "I didn't expect anything so beautiful to grow out of the land of Noxus."

"It really doesn't grow," there was a twisted pleasure in Vladimir's voice. "Only the most tenacious varieties can grow on such a barren land, and they can spread far and wide, crushing all other vegetation. But none of them can be called beautiful. The red flower you killed, it's a flower of the night. ”

Maula felt her mouth dry, but Vladimir didn't seem to care about her actions.

"The Nightflower was once native to an island to the east, a blessed sanctuary full of rare beauty and inspiration." He said. "I lived there for a while until it was destroyed, just as all mortal things are inevitably destroyed eventually. A nursery is tended by a moody spirit of nature on the island, from which I took some seeds and brought them back to Valoran, where I could bake them to take root with a mixture of blood and tears. ”

"You mean the mixture of blood, sweat and tears?"

"Child, what is the use of sweat when cultivating flowers"

Maura didn't answer, but the rhythm of his speech was very seductive. She could listen all night. Maula shook off the velvety texture of Vladimir's blurry voice and nodded to the cloth-covered easel.

"Am I going to paint there," she asked.

"No," Vladimir said. "It was just my first time."

"What's your first time?"

"My first life," she lifted the veil before she could finish speaking.

The painting is so old that it has faded, the light bleached the colors, and time has smoothed out the brushstrokes. But the strength in the painting is still strong, a young man in the prime of life, dressed in bronze plate armor of an ancient style, with a fiercely curved sickle painted in a banner fluttering on his shoulder. Most of the details had been lost, but his blue eyes were still bright. The face was exceptionally handsome, well-shaped, and slightly tilted at a angle, keeping her eyes peeled.

Marula got closer and saw an army behind the man, a group of burly and tall warriors, so large that they couldn't have been human, and the beastly form couldn't have even existed. Their silhouettes and features had faded and blurred over time, and Maura was secretly grateful for the little kindness.

"Is this you?" she asked, expecting him to reveal himself and explain the portrait to his face.

"It was a long, long time ago," Vladimir's voice made Maura feel like frost was mixed in. "I was the superfluous heir to a kingdom long since disappeared in the wars of the gods. Their strife raged all over the world, and mortals were nothing more than cheap soldiers, so one day it was my father's turn to submit to a human god, and I was given hostage of the royal family. It stands to reason that my father's loyalty was threatened by the safety of my life. If he is treacherous and goes to another lord, then I will be killed. But my father's promises were never true. He didn't care about me at all, so within a year he broke his vow. ”

The bizarre and dreamlike story told by Vladimir reminds Maula of the horror myth of Shurima told by Conrad when they were telling each other stories on the rooftop of the studio. It's just that his stories are all veiled moral preaching, and this story has the weight of truth behind it, and it is not polluted by any emotion.

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