Invasion [Toward the Outpost] Chapter 16

Lin Yuan’s home was vast, surrounded by walls of gray bricks and white plaster, with intricately carved gates. The courtyard was lush with verdant plants, intertwining branches and vines bursting with life, climbing over the walls. From afar, beyond the deep garden, the pointed roof of a vintage-style attic peeked out beneath a canopy of trees.

No one came to open the door. Lin Yuan took out her keys and let herself in.

The creak of the door breaking the stillness of the cool, empty night sounded abruptly.

Closing the heavy gate behind her, she stepped inside. The plants in the yard loomed dark and dense, growing so vigorously that there was almost no room to step; she had to follow a barely cleared narrow path through the center.

The main house rose five stories high, crowned by a pointed-roof attic. All the windows of every room stood dark and silent deep within the garden, as though the mansion had long been abandoned.

Only the entrance hall on the first floor emitted a faint, dim light, piercing the dense silence.

Lin Yuan entered the hall, shedding her cumbersome ivory coat under that faint glow.

From some shadowed corner of the roof, beyond the reach of the light, a pale female arm extended, taking the coat from her.

“Everything went smoothly?” a voice came from somewhere unknown.

“Mm, very smoothly. All the paperwork is done,” Lin Yuan said without looking up, bending to untie the laces on her boots. “I can live here permanently now.”

“Sorry,” the voice said timidly, “It seems the cleaning lady who came by saw me accidentally. She screamed and ran off; she probably won’t come back.”

“That’s fine. I’ll ask her again. If she doesn’t come back, we can hire someone else. Maybe the house needs a gardener, too.”

Lin Yuan finally freed herself from the troublesome shoes and tossed them carelessly aside. The shoes were caught by a pair of white arms.

She had shed her heavy travel clothes, wearing only a thin silk slip, barefoot, and ran up the oak staircase.

Halfway up, she seemed to remember something and tossed down an apple. “Here’s an apple for you. Bought it on the way.”

The arm stretching from the shadows caught the apple swiftly.

The white apron of a maid’s uniform fluttered briefly in the air.

“Thank you, Miss,” the voice hidden in the dark said.

“Ah, it’s so sour.”

Lin Yuan’s bedroom was in the attic at the very top.

The room was small, with a soft bed by the window.

The headboard and all the cabinets were crammed with all manner of strange objects, filling the tiny room to the brim.

There were wind chimes made from strings of energy stones, glowing signs from ancient ruins, broken heads of android replicas,

and various dolls and stuffed animals of all sizes.

It resembled a child’s room belonging to someone with a peculiar collecting obsession.

The large window on the wall revealed a view of the white tower in the night, houses at varying heights, and streets lit by lamplight.

On the cobblestone street below, the family who had just sold apples was walking home.

The mother carried the daughter, the father pushed a cart, and the three shared the apple Lin Yuan had left, each taking bites and savoring it sweetly—so sweet, it seemed as if the apple in their hands was not the same as hers.

Lin Yuan pressed her fingers against the cold glass, standing behind the window, gazing down at the small trio from her lofty attic.

A drop of rain struck the glass at her fingertip. Without her noticing, a fine drizzle had begun.

The father took off his coat and draped it over his wife and daughter’s heads.

The small family huddled closely together in the rain, pushing the cart swiftly forward.

Lin Yuan stood behind the glass, watching them until their figures were swallowed by the rain and vanished from sight.

Why did those three look so happy?

Lin Yuan thought the people in the White Tower were right—she suffered from emotional deficiency. Most of the time, she felt nothing, neither joy nor sorrow.

An emotionally detached guide.

After a moment of daze, Lin Yuan recalled something, climbed onto the bed, and rummaged through the toy cabinet by the headboard for a long time.

She pulled out a palm-sized, slightly worn plush killer whale.

“I thought so. I must have seen this somewhere before,” Lin Yuan said, a little pleased. She lay back, holding the round plush toy, toying with it.

She couldn’t remember when she had acquired it. This room was filled with countless things she couldn’t recall.

Lin Yuan had no memories of her childhood.

They told her that when she was very young, her family had suffered a great fire.

Her parents died in that blaze, protecting her as a child.

But no matter how much she tried to recall, she could not remember the fire or her early years.

That time was a blank.

Like a veil of white mist clouding the past, always hazy and impossible to see clearly.

All she knew was she had been raised in the White Tower, where her spiritual power was measured to be very high from a young age, leading to her early engagement to a prestigious fiancé.

Only recently had she been allowed to return to this long-abandoned home.

Lin Yuan toyed with the small killer whale plush; its tail had a seam split open, with some white cotton spilling out. She poked the cotton back inside.

The plush was chubby and adorable, with a black back, white belly, and white eye patches on its head that seemed to be smiling. It seemed ready to emit a soft whale’s call at any moment. It was springy to the touch.

But it was quite different from the killer whale she saw earlier in the spiritual sea.

Lin Yuan opened her palm, made a grasping gesture, recalling the sensation transmitted by the tentacles then.

That fish had been too thin; it felt bony and emaciated when curled up, its skin crisscrossed with scars.

Not particularly pleasant to touch.

Lying on the bed, fiddling with the soft plush in her hands, thinking about the day’s events, Lin Yuan slowly fell asleep.

In her dreams, she seemed to be back beneath the sea.

Wearing a white dress, she stood in a strange room, outside the window the deep ocean water flowed, and a gigantic whale swam past.

The whale emitted soft calls, as if reminding her of something, or singing a sad song.

“Xiaoyuan, Xiaoyuan,” someone called her name.

Lin Yuan turned her head as a couple, their faces indistinct, rushed into the room and lifted her up.

“At least get Xiaoyuan out,” she heard someone say.

Somewhere around them, a fire had broken out, blazing fiercely.

The End.