No matter how gentle the flow of the river was, it was enough to wash away what had fallen into it three days earlier.

Dolan knew that, of course, but she came anyway.

Under the night, the shattered white moonlight shimmered on the bottomless depth. The air was filled with the smell of damp and cool water, and the smell of reeds and soil steaming up after the sun was shining.

Anything that falls into the river may become entangled in aquatic weeds and sink to the bottom of the river...... Dolan knew that he was just a fluke, and he was afraid that it would be difficult to find anything, so he still told Gaia to go into the water - after all, river mud is also mud, and since it can swim in the land, it can also move freely in the river mud.

The water sounded brightly, and Gaia had jumped into the river with the falling clods of earth.

The weather was not very good tonight, the moonlight was a little foggy, and it was pitch black all around, and perhaps it was for this reason that Dolan inadvertently turned around a few minutes later, and suddenly realized that there was another person beside her.

The shadow had been staring at her in the night without saying a word, for I don't know how long.

Dolan's brain exploded, blood gushing into her temples, and the shock almost caused her to stumble into the river, and just as she swerved and was about to pull out the knife behind her backhand, the shadow suddenly laughed—

"I'm scared, I'm scared!" said the black shadow in a childlike tone, and Doran immediately understood, and asked as if her strength had been drained away, "Are you a fallen spirit who lives in the river?"

To be precise, one of the fallen spirits in the river. Another water-loving fallen spirit doesn't seem to be there tonight.

The dark shadow approached, and a round head the size of the mouth of a well emerged from the night, almost sticking to her face. As it spoke, countless layers of tiny slits on its "face" were crowded together and opened: "yes, what are you looking for?"

No wonder Gaia didn't warn her, this falling spirit should belong to someone in the Celestial Dream, and there was probably no hostility towards her. Dolan suddenly realizes that this is a good opportunity.

"How long have you been in this river?"

"It's been two days. ”

"In that case, you wouldn't know what happened three days ago. ”

"Who said that? It depends on what. The shadow of the wellhead stood up in the night, and when it swayed, it looked like a giant green worm: "I can read the water, and I know what is in the water, as long as it is not too long." ”

Dolan couldn't believe her good luck and hurriedly asked, "That night, something fell into this river. Do you even know that?"

The shadow stopped.

"Let me think about it. It didn't seem to be very smart, and as it thought about it, it whispered a few key words: "Three days...... At night...... Falling into the water......"

Dolan waited for a long time, but did not get a direct reply, and the fallen spirit thought for a long time, and did not know what to remember, and suddenly hurriedly said, "Wait for me for a while, you don't go," and plunged into the river with a grunt, so that she didn't even have time to say a word.

Gaia heard the sound and swam from the riverbank to her feet, but it brought nothing with it but a puddle of water—a result that Doran was not surprised.

"Wait a minute," she whispered, wiping a handful of water from her face, "do you know whose fallen spirit it is?"

Gaia shook her head needlessly for a few moments, splashing a large cloud of mud, and when it finally stopped, the night fell silent again.

Doran sat on the riverbank, her heart hanging in the air, and the longer she waited, the more clear the vague feeling that something was wrong.

It seems like...... It's a little too quiet.

After the falling spirit descended the river, it never made a sound at all, only the gentle sound of water waves in the ears, which was no different from just now. Dolan jumped up suddenly, picked up a branch and stirred it in the place where the falling spirit had entered the water, threw it in frustration, turned her head and asked Gaia in a dumb voice, "The falling spirit just now is gone, isn't it?"

Gaia nodded vigorously, as urgent as before.

Doran cursed in her heart, thought to herself for a while, turned around and rushed back to the castle. The falling spirit suddenly disappeared, eighty percent of it returned to the host, and what it had just done was just a prank?

As a result, not only did she not find anything, but she might have leaked the news, and I hope that the owner of the fallen spirit will not come to inquire about what she is looking for.

When Doran thought of this, she had already walked quickly into the outer court, and when she raised her eyes, she couldn't help but stop suddenly.

"You're in a hurry, where are you going?"

A tall silhouette in the moonlight, which looks like a statue of a god. The shadow stopped right in the middle of the path, and as he took a few steps closer, a pale white glow appeared on his neat and elegant countenance.

Roman stood alone in the empty outer court, as if he had been waiting for her here.

"I'll go for a walk," Doran didn't like her tone, as if she had to give an account to Romandan, and nodded at him with a stiff look in her doubts, "I'll go back." ”

She hurriedly walked a few steps before Romandan asked slowly in that standard aristocratic voice, "Didn't find it?"

Dolan twisted her body violently.

"You-"

"As soon as the fallen spirit returned, its owner told me what had happened. ”

Why?

The thought was probably clearly on Dolan's face, and the tall young man shook his head slightly.

"When you came to me, I thought it was strange, so I took note. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes were so heavy that he couldn't breathe: "Do you know what you're looking for?"

To be honest, Dolan is still not sure, she is still groping for the truth little by little. She gritted her teeth and couldn't help but wonder how much Romandan knew about this matter, and asked in a low voice after a while, "Could it be that you know?"

"Go and ask Lin Junyou," Romandan threw down the sentence, and suddenly turned around and left, "You come back to me tomorrow morning—if you still feel it is necessary at that time." ”

Doran didn't call out to him—he didn't look like he could be stopped. She stood stunned for a moment in the night, and finally bowed her head and walked to the identical main building on the left.

It's like a moth stumbling in the dark, finally heading towards that glimmer of light.

She met Xiao Wei again on the road, and greeted him almost numbly, not even knowing what she had said. She climbed the stone staircase through a long corridor connecting the main building to the tower, which at the top of the tower was Lin Junyou's bedroom, which was now dark and alone in the cold white mist, with no fire under the crack in the door.

Dolan's heart sank, and just when she thought she had pounced, the door opened.

A shadow silently walked out of the dark room—she didn't move, just glanced at the clear and straight outline, exhaled softly, and exclaimed, "Uncle Lin." ”

Lin Junyou closed the wooden door behind him and walked into the moonlight, his dark pupils glowing with a faint blue luster. She had looked at these eyes for sixteen years, and had seen them change and carry all kinds of emotions, but tonight, when Lin Junyou faced her, these eyes were once again as tender and careful as they were in the snow valley back then—as if she were a rare bird that had unintentionally landed on his fingers.

Doran liked the look, but she was no longer weak.

"Uncle Lin," she asked as calmly as she could, "what does your falling spirit look like?"

Lin Junyou was slightly stunned and smiled bitterly.

"I knew I couldn't hide it from you," he said, his gaze falling from the wall around him, looking at the tall and low buildings below, his black hair fluttering in the mighty night wind. "When did you find out?"

"When I found out that Sister Lianzi lived in a farm outside the city. ”

Dolan lowered her head and didn't look at the look that the name caused on Lin Junyou's face. "I suddenly realized that night, she had been pretending to be an ordinary person, and she hadn't told Tianxiangqu that she also had fallen spirits. Without her, how could the commander still say that there were twenty-two Fallen Spirit Envoys in our village? There must have been someone else who had filled her gap. You say that you did not fall from the spirit, but lived in the castle and attended all the military meetings. But for such a simple matter, everyone didn't seem to expect it, and they all thought it was the reason for the identity of the village chief. ”

"Feng Lian doesn't want others to know her identity, and I don't want the people in the village to know that I have fallen spirits. In this way, I only need to tell everyone that there are twenty-two Fallen Soul Messengers in Ellington Village, and no one will continue to ask questions. Lin Junyou turned his head and looked at the dark night sky in the distance, his voice was so light that it was almost blown away by the wind: "I only gave the commander twenty-one names, and he naturally counted me as well." ”

Dolan remembered the welcome party that had summoned all the Fallen Spirit Envoys—everyone in the village had been hiding and hiding since they knew that Feng Lian had fallen spirits, and almost no one was surprised that she hadn't attended dinner. During the toast, Jie Li said the number "twenty-two" several times, and Lin Junyou sat next to his right hand, his face as calm as a windless lake.

"Why are you hiding it from us?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"You should be able to think of it. Lin Junyou looked at the river of sighs under the dark night and replied.

"Is it because of your fallen spirit?

"You're still so smart. Lin Junyou turned his head to look at Dolan almost approvingly, and Dolan remembered the scene when she was a child and studied with Lin Yuqing, when she was always faster than Lin Yuqing, no matter how angry he was, it was useless.

Dolan was about to ask again, but the night wind blew a faint sound of people from the direction of the main building, and I don't know what happened to the gambling game there, when the conversation and footsteps in the main building suddenly became noisier than before.

"Let's go in and talk," Dolan didn't realize that her voice was pleading, she grabbed Lin Junyou's sleeve and walked towards his bedroom—but before she could fall to the ground, she felt her arm grabbed and pulled back, and Lin Junyou's voice hit the skin of her neck with the exhaled heat: "No!"

The old door creaked, and the wind slowly blew it open.

Dolan was stunned for a moment, looked at him, and then glanced at the open door. There was not even a glimmer of light in the room, and the wooden door that opened inward seemed to melt into the darkness, silently, reminding her of a black hole thousands of meters deep in the Barrier Mountains.

"I ...... Let's just talk about it outside," Lin Junyou let go of his fingers a little, still wary that she would rush in. Before Dolan could utter a "why", the stone floor shook beneath her feet—it was Gaia who slammed into the tower.

As if awakened by the impact, a strange sound sounded in the darkened room, like a deep hole, a bit like the dry friction of some kind of bearing turning.

"Let's go!"

Lin Junyou clenched her wrist again, but Dolan's feet seemed to have taken root, staring at the door motionlessly.

With a "thud", Gaia slammed into the base of the brick tower again, and a few puffs of ash fell from his head.

"Let her come in and sit down,"

A strange, soft voice came from the darkness behind the door.

"You're not going to take care of her like that, are you?

Doran seemed to have lost the ability to blink, her eyes were painful, and she still couldn't see through the thick darkness. Although the voice was soft, the slight vibrations in the air filled the darkness everywhere, indicating that the thing that made the sound must be much larger than that of humans.

"She'll be gone right away—"

"That's not what I heard. The little girl still has a lot of questions to ask. ”

The voice softly interrupted Lin Junyou, and a white shadow faintly emerged from the darkness. Just as Doran tensed up, a hot white vapor as shallow as a ghost floated out of the door, and in the darkness, two white fingers as wide as a dinner table slowly poked out. They held a teacup that was as small as a grain of stone between the edges of their fingernails and placed it in the doorway.

"For example, she hasn't asked you where Feng Lian has gone. ”

Lin Junyou's silhouette suddenly stiffened, as if it had been turned to stone by a sentence.

"Where did she go?" Doran asked, dumbfounded. "What happened three days ago?"

Bloodless, pale skin, stopped behind the dark door. "It's a misfortune. Before I tell you what happened, I must first tell you that I am a poor person who cannot absorb spirit stones. The spirit stones you worked so hard to find are of no use to me, and I still have to starve and suffer every day. However, I was glad to have found such a kind host, and even after arguing with me for days, he finally let me solve my needs. ”

Lin Junyou's hands trembled slightly uncontrollably, and Dolan realized that the hands of the two had been clasping tightly.

"Little girl, you said it yourself, people like Feng Lian are useless, aren't they? She won't do anything, and she won't let people know that she's a fallen spirit envoy, and she's of no use to anyone—but it's different for me. The white fingers, which were too big to look at, slowly retracted into the darkness, and the voice laughed, "She is my precious food." ”

Dolan spent a few seconds, still feeling like she didn't understand the sentence.

"Eaten. Absorbed it. Whatever you say......" the voice sighed faintly, "I have no appetite for humans, but if I want to eat their fallen spirits, I have to suck them dry first. ”

So, Uncle Lin's falling spirit ate Feng Lian?

Dolan's fingers trembled. For a moment she couldn't remember anything, and even felt that everything was unreal. Only this sentence stirred in her mind: Uncle Lin's falling spirit really ate Feng Lian?

"You go back!" Lin Junyou suddenly whispered to the door behind the door, calling her back to her senses. "You can't touch Dolan, it's better to die of this heart!"

"Aren't you uncomfortable when I'm hungry?" the voice carried a kind of contrived grievance, and quickly laughed, "But don't worry, I don't want to eat her at all." It's not just because I'm not hungry yet, or that she's important to you...... I'm probably crazy. I think this little girl might understand me and help me. ”

"You have to eat other fallen spirits to survive?" Doran asked in a trembling voice, looking up.

"yes, I can't help it. ”

Doran felt her veins tremble and itch, and she kind of understood what it meant to "be helpful"—but she never thought it would be this way.

"You can only survive by killing innocents, how can you expect Dolan to help you?" Lin Junyou's voice rang in his ears, and the tail trembled, as if he was struggling to spit words, but somehow, it reminded Dolan of his steady hands when he bandaged the red lynx. "If I had a way to die with you, I wouldn't have allowed you to live until now!"

"But you can't do anything to me, can you?" the voice chuckled lowly.

"That nobleman, the one named Angel," Doran asked suddenly, a little sharply, "when he died, his body withered, and you did it?"

"Of course, it was a big meal. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to wait until now to eat my next meal. ”

For a moment, Dolan seemed to be back to that night, holding Uncle Lin's hand stained with hot and humid blood, and heard him mutter, blankly, "I killed someone." Before she could clear her chaotic thoughts, another thought struck her like lightning.

"If Feng Lian is dead, what fell into the river has nothing to do with you?" she asked, staring at the darkness behind the door after a few quick explanations of Xiao Wei's discovery.

The word "you" made a trace of pain flash on Lin Junyou's face. The falling spirit raised his voice and asked, as if showing some interest, "Fell into the river? I couldn't find her body after eating the falling spirit, could it be her corpse that fell in?"

How could the corpse walk out of the castle and jump into the River of Sighs by itself? It is even more impossible for the corpse to tell Romandan about Lin Junyou after it was fished up—just as a layer of cold sweat broke out on Dolan's body, a voice suddenly sounded "Sister Dolan!" in the distance behind him.

She twisted her body sharply, and saw Xiao Wei's pale and uncertain little face at the top of the stairs.

"Go down, don't come here!"

Dolan and Lin Junyou drank almost at the same time, she glanced at the darkness behind the door that suddenly fell silent, and quickly retreated to Xiao Wei's side, "What's wrong?"

"Didn't you tell me that I would come to you whenever I had something?" Xiao Wei's eyes swept around the door of Lin Junyou's bedroom, as if he also felt something, and his face turned even paler: "That...... Big Brother Joey, they were all called away, and I didn't find out until now...... Yes, the Commander sent Romantan to call him away. They're all downstairs now......"