【Ruined Street】

The woman lying on the bed looked sickly and tired, with her eyes half-closed and her breathing weak.

The little boy - that is, the young Hojo Keiji - knelt beside the bed, staring blankly at the woman, he was still very young, and he did not have a specific concept of birth, old age, sickness and death, but the child's intuition was keen, he knew that something bad was going to happen, so he stayed by his mother's bedside, but there was no sad expression on his face, just uneasiness.

The real sadness is that Keiji Hojo, who went back to the past and wanted to change his life, had tears in his eyes, looked at the woman who was about to die on the bed, and said slowly: "My mother is not the gentle and virtuous person in the novel, she has a bad temper, often scolds me, quarrels with neighbors, and cooks dishes that are unpalatable, sometimes salty as if she is drinking seawater, sometimes as light as if she has thrown the cooked food into the washing machine and washed it, but for me, she is a qualified mother." ”

Hearing his voice, the woman rolled her eyes to look at him and opened her mouth slightly.

But there was no reaction from the child.

"Only he can't hear us?" Zhou Yu asked curiously.

Keiji Hojo nodded: "Because I came, you came with me, only he can't see us." ”

Zhou Yu briefly introduced the setting of this dream to the braised lamb's knee, and the task is not needed, one, two, and three vine dreams, the dream hunter must perform the same task, only four vines and above dreams can appear different tasks, of course, the ultimate goal is the same.

"What's your stand-in?" After the introduction, he asked curiously.

"Sick Angel." Braised lamb knee replied simply, and did not intend to show a stand-in.

Keiji Hojo seemed to be immersed in the memories, and the expression on his face was sad at times, angry at times, and sighing softly.

After waiting for a while, Zhou Yu couldn't help but interrupt his contemplation and asked, "You said that this is a critical point in time, and we already know that the incident is that your mother is about to die, so what should we do?" Bring her back to life? What special medications are needed? ”

Keiji Hojo shook his head: "No, she can't be saved anymore, her internal organs are withered, even if she is forced to survive, she can only lie in bed and suffer, don't save her." ”

"Okay, so what are we supposed to do?" Zhou Yu nodded, agreeing with Hojo Keiji's idea, it is better to die than to live, but if you have to endure physical pain while living, it is better to be relieved as soon as possible.

"Let's go kill my father." Keiji Hojo looked at Zhou Yu and said seriously.

Zhou Yu was stunned, it was too unusual for a person to ask someone else to kill his father when his mother was dying.

The braised lamb's knee also frowned.

"My father was a lazy scoundrel." Keiji Hojo explained: "I went to the hospital to kill him, but unfortunately I was blocked by the stand-in messenger, it was because of his mother that he became ill, but he put the blame on me, indeed, my birth made my mother more tired, but if he could take care of the family like a man, we should live better, after his mother died, he was even more crazy, let alone a father, he didn't even have the qualifications to be a man." ”

"Well, where is he?" Zhou Yu looked at the door of the bedroom.

"He's out gambling and won't come back until he's finished drinking." Keiji Hojo said through gritted teeth.

"It's really a scumbag, we're waiting here?" Zhou Yu leaned against the wall and touched his neck, the strangled place was not healed, and his throat was still scorching.

Keiji Hojo nodded: "Just wait here, we can't leave this place, and even if we can, we can't find him, I just remember that he will come back soon, and when he saw his mother's body, he almost killed me." ”

He pointed to his forehead, where there was a scar that reached into his hairline, and he couldn't tell how long it was, the color of the scar was very light, but it could never go away.

And just then, the ground suddenly shook.

Zhou Yu and Hojo Keiji immediately summoned the sevenfold retribution and the dark castle, and the lamb knee just took her rapier.

The frequency of the vibration became faster and faster, but the amplitude of the vibration did not increase, and the three of them were still able to stand firmly, and they saw that the young Keiji Hojo did not react at all, and knew that this was a stand-in attack.

However, the stand-in did not show up for a long time, and the earthquake gradually slowed down, and finally stopped, and nothing changed.

"Not good!" Keiji Hojo reacted suddenly, took two steps forward and wanted to touch the little boy's shoulder, but his fingers went straight through it and couldn't touch anything.

"It's useless, you can't touch anything, you've been locked up in the 'penumbra', you can only see, but you can't touch it." Suddenly a human face appeared on the wall, too big to fit the whole wall, smiling proudly.

The rapier immediately stabbed the right eye of the human face, and the blade bent into a terrible arc that could not be pierced.

Zhou Yu also punched the wall, and the tip of the sword could not pierce the wall, and the weapon embodied by [Qingmang] could even cut through the walls of Moon City, but the dream realm was equivalent to a complete world, with its own rules, and the ability of the stand-in would not be destroyed by the weapon.

The stand-in immediately began to attack, and the sevenfold retribution was dozens of punches against the wall in an instant, and the power of the blow was completely absorbed, and the dark castle distorted the space, but it was also impossible to pass through the wall, and it was not the wall that trapped them, but the ability of the stand-in.

Keiji Hojo was in a hurry, messing around, if he couldn't kill his father here, there would be no chance, and at the next critical point in time, his father would not appear.

Zhou Yu and Braised Lamb's Knee both dodged, distorting the space is very terrifying, because it is the space that is twisted, so there is no problem of strength, if their bodies are touched by the distorted space, they will be immediately twisted or torn, and the resistance is ineffective.

Closing his eyes and using [blindness], Zhou Yu saw that there was a living room outside the bedroom door, the house was very small, a family of three lived a little crowded, the living room floor was very dirty, toilet paper, barrel boxes, and empty wine bottles were thrown all over the floor, probably since Keiji Hojo's mother was in bed, and he never cleaned it again.

There was a person sitting on the sofa, with his eyes closed and Erlang's legs crossed, he should be the stand-in messenger in the penumbra, but if he couldn't go out, he couldn't attack him.

The penumbral also doesn't have any offensive capabilities, and is purely for trapping people.

When Keiji Hojo gave up his efforts and sat down on the ground, the woman on the bed had closed her eyes and stopped breathing.

The little boy noticed this and gently pushed his mother's arm, but received no response, he did not cry, but his eyes widened and he looked scared.

Gu Qi and Braised Lamb Knee glanced at each other, and slowly walked to the door, the huge face on the wall looked at them and showed a disdainful smile.

The bedroom door was slammed open, and a man in his thirties in a messy suit walked in with the smell of alcohol, and Zhou Yu and Braised Lamb Knee pounced on the open door at the same time, but they failed to reach the door, passed through the person's body, and hit the invisible wall.

The man was Keiji Hojo's father, and he glanced at the woman on the bed, shook his body and pointed at the little boy and said something, staggering on his feet and leaning against the wall.

The little boy shook his head and said something.

Zhou Yu and the others sat on the ground and could not hear their voices.

The man suddenly pulled out the belt, folded it, and raised his hand at the little boy, who sat down on the ground in fright and retreated to the wall.

The man pulled the collar and chased after him, tripped his right foot and left foot, and fell forward, the belt smashed down, and the metal buckle smashed on the little boy's head, scraping a long gap, and blood flowed.

"From this day on, I lived like this every day, he beat me when he was drunk, went to sleep when he was tired, woke up and went out to drink, it lasted for more than a year, and I finally couldn't bear it and left this house." Keiji Hojo said suddenly.

"More than a year? Aren't you only six or seven years old? Zhou Yu asked in surprise.

Keiji Hojo nodded: "A little over six years old, can you imagine?" A six-year-old child lives on the streets, and this is still a place like a slum, the police don't care, I stole my father's money, but on the first day I was robbed, I can only pick up something to eat, I can't grab the money, those hooligans on the street will beat me, but the hand is much lighter than my father, when I grab the money, they will throw me some food, without them I may starve to death on the street, I am really grateful to them. ”

Zhou Yu and stewed lamb knee listened quietly.

"I came back to them when I was older and wanted to say thank you." Keiji Hojo smiled self-deprecatingly: "But those people are no longer found, some are in prison, some are dead, some have left, and the slum has become a ruin." ”

"And then? You've always grown up on the streets? Zhou Yu asked curiously.

Keiji Hojo shook his head and said: "I didn't stay here for long, and then the bubble economy era began, and it was demolished and rebuilt, and I saw people kill people here for a pair of shoes, and people sold their bodies for a dinner, I saw corpses, bloody knives, men and women partying in the alleys, I stayed here for about a year, and I learned enough for a lifetime, I didn't go to school, and the only teacher was this ruin." ”

After saying that, he stood up and let the dark castle a little on the wall, and the light door appeared again: "Let's go, there is no point in staying here any longer, let's move on to the next critical point in time." ”

The three of them walked into the light gate and came to a place where there were many children.

This is a shelter, which is often referred to as a reformatory and juvenile detention center, and the children in it have criminal records, most of them more than once, and there is basically no parental discipline, and before they reach adulthood, the children must stay here to be educated, from bad children to good children, or learn how to pretend to be a good child.

Keiji Hojo was the youngest child here, and he was nowhere near enough age to enter the shelter, but he was sent here after stabbing someone with a knife and no one cared for him.

[The emaciated child walked alone on the chaotic streets, survived for a long time, understood the darkness of the world, learned the skills of survival, and closed his heart. - Dio Brando]