Manual of the Monster in City

82 A True Wish

"Can't choose?"

    Bai Ling, the owner of Stealing Heaven Pavilion, looked at her and said calmly, as if sighing gently in his voice.

    "Humans are indeed animals that have a hard time facing their hearts and making choices. There are too many things they want, but once they are restricted by the word'most', it becomes difficult to figure out what they want. Because humans will Thinking, when you can only choose the same, you will subconsciously compare the value brought by those desires after they are realized, repeatedly compare and struggle...

    She looked at Zhuang Yan, her deep black eyes seemed to have a strange purple glow in the depths, her sharp gaze was like a precise scalpel, as if she could see through everything she thought of.

    "It's like'I want this one','No, it's better to choose that one', it's like choosing goods on the shelf, even if you finally make a choice, it's no longer the one you thought in the first place. …If the guest’s final choice is not the strongest wish in the heart, but merely the result of weighing the interests…maybe because the guest’s obsession is too weak, I cannot fulfill it for the guest."

    Bai Ling smiled softly, seeming to want to comfort Zhuang Yan who was overly dignified because of her entanglement, so she said:

    "It doesn't matter. There are many customers like this." She paused, "So, in fact, I also have a way to help customers find their deepest desire...the deepest obsession. If the customer wants to try, please Come with me."

    She stood up and walked towards the door of the quaint reception room. She didn't wait for Zhuang Yan to react and judge, but it seemed that everything had already been predicted. Zhuang Yan got up and followed and found that a woman in a black windbreaker with a heroic spirit was waiting at the door like a housekeeper. The woman in black bowed slightly and handed a key to Bai Ling's hand.

    Everything seems to have been arranged in advance. It seemed that they were all within the plan of the mysterious shopkeeper.

    If she was not determined because of entanglement, but stated her own wish, or even if she merely said a wish casually, this scene would not seem to happen at all, this one holding the key like a housekeeper, here the woman in black who is waiting will not appear here either...

    Bai Ling took the key and led her to open an ancient bronze door in the pavilion.

    Behind this bronze door is a stairwell. The surrounding area is empty, without decoration or ornaments, only an old wooden staircase stands alone in the center. The stairs slope upward and lead all the way to the second floor. When I walked up the stairs, the old wooden slabs under my feet made a creaking sound, as if it had been too long.

    The second floor of this store seems to be a whole storey.

    Zhuang Yan looked inward curiously, her eyes full of cabinets and shelves, and she couldn't see the end for a while. Bai Ling led her to the nearest road, and those shelves full of antiquities stood on both sides, like loyal guards, standing on both sides.

    Suddenly, a voodoo doll hung from the ceiling beam, grinning at her with thick stitches, and grinning strangely at her. The rope that bound its body swayed, as if it had just fallen down for some reason.

    But that reason makes people shudder just thinking about it.

    "The items in the second layer, please don't keep your eyes on them for too long." Bai Ling said mysteriously, leading her to move quickly through the channel formed by the shelves on both sides, Zhuang Yan heard This seemed to be a warning suggestion, so I had to put away my curious eyes.

    Soon the two of them reached the end of the road, where there were no rows of shelves blocking them, only a huge cabinet that crossed over.

    It looks like a Chinese herbal medicine cabinet in the Chinese medicine area of a pharmacy, with drawers embedded in it. But there is no label set up for the convenience of searching. It seems that the owner here knows all the contents of these hundreds of drawers.

    Bai Ling put out his fair hands, dragged the low ladder next to him, and climbed the ladder. As if he didn't need to think, he opened one of them, and skillfully cut out a small piece of incense from it.

    The incense stick was held in her hand as white as a beautiful jade, light as if weightless, and as gorgeous as an amber. Zhuang Yan even felt that she was in a daze, as if she saw a few butterflies entrenched in it. It seems that they have been sealed by this amber for thousands of years, sleeping here quietly.

    "Already got it. Please." Bai Ling led her downstairs, Lian Bu took her back to Fang Cai's room without hurries. She put the piece of incense into the incense burner, and the aroma quickly spread in the room with the sound of "chaps" of matches and the scent of sulfur from the tip of her nose.

    At that moment, Zhuang Yan seemed to see a butterfly among the rising smoke, flapping its wings in the room lingering like a fairyland, hovering in this ancient-looking Pavilion.

    "Relax. You will soon fall asleep in the smell of this incense, and then you will enter a dream. And that dream will be a dream controlled by your mind of the guest. What you think will come true. When the guest wakes up When you come, you will naturally know, in the vortex of disappearing dreams, what you most want to grasp... is."

    Zhuang Yan listened to Bai Ling's elegant voice; her consciousness dimmed a little. When she appeared in her dream, Zhuang Yan found that she was in a street she was familiar with on weekdays, and everything seemed extremely real. The weight of the schoolbag on the back, the texture of the shoulder straps on the shoulders, the morning sun...

    Everything seems to have returned to an ordinary morning. She is carrying her schoolbag and walking on the way to school.

    Even before dreaming, the feeling of hunger after the evening get out of class disappeared. There was some warm food in the stomach, like a soft and rich breakfast, digested with the slow movement of the stomach.

    The sensation of the body has been completely replaced by another extra-real touch.

    Dreamland?

    ......A dream that can be controlled by yourself.

    ——What you think will be realized.

    Bai Ling's gentle voice seemed to echo in her mind.

    So Zhuang Yan tried hard to think about what she wanted:

    She wants her boyfriend Zhou Ming to return to her side...

    To return to the life of a good student who can easily solve everything in the face of the test paper...

    To...satisfy parents who strictly demand oneself.

    ...As she was asked since she was a child.

    After arriving at school, Zhuang Yan still subconsciously went to the small shop on campus. The uncle of the small shop knew what she was going to buy, and asked "still the same?" Then she helped her get what she needed. On one side, the bag is expertly packed. It is a carton of milk and a bag of red bean bread. The milk is not heated.

    Then, she will send these to Zhou Ming's class...

    This is a habit she has cultivated for a long time.

    Unlike Zhuang Yan, who is accustomed to getting up early and going to school in the morning, her boyfriend Zhou Ming comes to school late every day, and almost always comes to school on the line of being late.

    Because he is more lethargic in the morning, he usually chooses to get more sleep, and then go out without breakfast.

    Similar to many adolescent boys.

    So Zhuang Yan will deliver breakfast to his class seat every day. Of course, in her opinion, this has another purpose, which is to establish her own "gentle and considerate" image, especially in Zhou Ming's class. Forming such an image, in her opinion, is very beneficial to their relationship.

    When he arrived in Zhou Ming's class, he was naturally not in the seat. She put the bread and milk on Zhou Ming's table, and all the classmates who saw her knew her, with the kind of gossip-like smile from the school days, she said with a smile: "My sister-in-law."

    Then she blushed in response to the classmate who said hello.

    This is her very simple happiness, and it is also the reward for her efforts.

    This world looks very warm and extraordinarily real, just like usual, unlike in the real world, she has not dared to face the eyes of Zhou Ming’s classmates these days, and she feels like a thief whenever she has to pass by. Hastily accelerated the pace.

    This feeling made her feel at ease.

    It seems that everything is back on track.

    When she walked along the corridor to the door of the classroom, she suddenly found a tall boy sitting in her seat in the classroom. It is Zhou Ming. He smiled and waved at her, lifted the plastic bag in his hand, and shook it towards her. The transparent bag contained the same one she had just bought a bag of bean paste bread and a carton of milk.

    The sunlight on his face seemed to melt the world.

    During the journey towards Zhou Ming, Zhuang Yan felt as if she was walking on a soft cloud.

    "this is……"

    "Bought it for you." Zhou Ming smiled slightly. "The milk has been heated up for you specially. Knowing that you will come to school at this time." As he said, he took the milk out of his pocket, plugged her in the straw, and handed it to her gently.

    The milk that had been heated in the microwave oven in the supermarket was held in her hand, and the carton exuded warm heat from the contact surface. Zhuang Yan felt that she blushed. She just sat next to him and quietly ate the breakfast Zhou Ming had prepared for herself. Not hungry but feel surprisingly warm.

    This is a dream... Yes, this is a dream. In reality, she is still in the "Wish Realization Shop" known as Tooting Pavilion, and the owner Bai Ling brought her here through incense...

    Brought to this, a dream that can be completely controlled by her conscious and subconscious mind.

    But why is there such a scene?

    Zhuang Yan enjoyed this feeling, but she couldn't help thinking about it in her heart. If this dream is controlled by her, why would...the idea in her heart is just to make everything return to normal, right?

    She looked at Zhou Ming's side face. The morning sun was flowing along the outline of his cheeks. He carefully tore open the bag of bread and passed the soft red bean paste into her hand.

    Zhuang Yan bit the bean paste bag, and she had a warm feeling... an unprecedented warm feeling flowed in her heart, like hot honey. She had never experienced this feeling before, as if it was another life.

    Perhaps in her subconscious, she is looking forward to such a life, right?

    This was just the beginning of happiness. In the afternoon, he personally took her to the training ground. He went to the store with her to buy mineral water before training, unscrewed it by himself, and handed it to her.

    He went to training with her, holding her hand, as if walking into the auditorium with her.

    There she saw Lin Ting, who hated her, and saw him bring her to the training ground himself, only standing far away. She feels like a princess in a fairy tale, and Zhou Ming is her prince...

    No, the current situation...It seems that Zhou Ming has become a knight who bows his head to her, holding her in his hand completely, for fear that she will be a little unhappy.

    Even he was training on the playground, he stretched out his hand to her after running a few laps, and ran with her on the playground, as if he was afraid that she would be bored looking at it like this. He personally guided, personally adjusted her pace, and taught her how to breathe while running.

    The teacher in charge of training physical education students in the distance saw this scene on the playground and didn't say anything. He just smiled warmly at her and smiled at them, as if they were blessing.

    Yes, this is a dream. Zhuang Yan knows.

And it was the best dream she had ever seen.