Shadow trail of the beautiful world

Chapter 3 2. A Midsummer Night's Dream

"I love the food in this restaurant, the taste is awesome and the wine is good."

At noon, the Colson family walked out of the restaurant after a successful dinner.

James Coulson, Merlin's adoptive father, was also Merlin's physical education teacher in high school.

This middle-aged man with a healthy body and a little fat is very happy. He met several acquaintances in the restaurant, so he drank a few more drinks and is now a little tipsy.

He walked with Merlin, and Mrs. Coulson and her young son, Phil, who was in a bad mood, walked behind.

"I said, Merlin, and Phil, what's the matter with you two? You looked sullen during the meal."

James lowered his voice and asked with concern. Merlin didn't want his family to worry, and he didn't want to reveal his inner secrets.So he shrugged, pretending to be relaxed and said to his father:

"It's just young people's troubles, Dad, don't worry about it. I was thinking about one thing just now. After I leave home in August, why don't you close the farm and move to the city with your mother. You can take better care of me. Phil, too, can take better care of himself."

"That farm must not be closed, my Merlin."

James, who already had white hair on his head, shook his head stubbornly, and said to Merlin, who he regarded as his own son:

"The ancestral home your parents left you was demolished, and I failed to keep it for you. Later, I exchanged the money for this farm. This is the only property I can leave you, and it is also my respect for Will Promise to Ton and May, my best friends, we grew up together, I saw you born...ugh."

James thought of the past, he breathed a sigh of relief, patted his eldest son on the shoulder, and said:

"Don't worry, Merlin, go to New York to study hard. Your cousin Mei has already married there, and she will take care of you instead of us. As for the Wisconsin side, you don't have to worry about it. I will find someone to take care of the area. Farm."

"Dad, you know, I don't really care about this."

Merlin held James' arm, he looked back at his mother and younger brother, and said to James:

"I haven't seen my parents since I was born, you and my mother raised me, I don't care much about inheritance or anything, you know, I can support myself and you, I was thinking, maybe Should we move out of Wisconsin, or you'll come with me to New York?"

"New York? No."

James shook his head and said:

"My grandfather's grandfather came to this land from Europe to the present, and every generation of the Coulson family has grown up and grown old here. I don't go to New York, the big city where demons dance. I know you are a good boy , Merlin, you are very good to us, but trust us, child, we can take care of ourselves after you leave home."

"Ok."

Merlin also knew that his proposal just now was just a whim in his head, and it might also have something to do with the mysterious vision he saw this morning.The sudden appearance of that thing disrupted Merlin's 18 years of peaceful life, and also made him, who had always been calm, reveal a trace of panic that he shouldn't have.

But in the end, he is just a young man, and he may have experienced more weird things than other young people, but this does not mean how powerful he is.

"I'll be back to see you often."

Merlin opened the car door. He hesitated whether to drive by himself or continue to let Phil drive, but he didn't hesitate for too long, and sat in the driver's seat. He twisted the rearview mirror and said to his parents:

"I promise, one call a week, as long as I'm on vacation, I'll come back, or you can go to New York to see me."

"I can move into your study as soon as you leave."

Phil sat on the other side, fastened his seat belt, and said to his brother:

"And the garage, you're going to leave Lola with me, right? You're not going to drive it away! Are you?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, my Phil."

Merlin blinked, and he said to Phil:

"I can leave you everything but Lola, and Lola is mine."

"Do not!!!"

The troubles of young people come and go quickly. In just one meal, Phil recovered from the disaster of emotional deceit. He let out a wailing pretending to be desperate, which attracted the three people in the car. lol.

In this happy atmosphere, before starting the car, Merlin deliberately looked to the left and right. This time, that figure did not appear again.Nothing was wrong until he drove onto the road and drove all the way back to the farm.

It seems... It seems that everything that happened before was just a trivial illusion.

This also made Merlin slightly relieved.

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However, at the moment when the Coulson family was enjoying themselves, a mysterious man was standing on a high slope of a grassland a few kilometers away.He reached out to pick up the brim of his hat and looked towards the direction of Colson's farm. Under the lowered brim of his hat, a playful smile flashed in his eyes.

"Little Merlin, are you ready?"

He said to himself, flipped his black-gloved fingers, and a golden pocket watch appeared in his hand. With a crisp sound, the pocket watch was flipped open, revealing a piece that was more than ten times more complicated than a normal pocket watch. precision machinery.

The mysterious man looked down at "time", his mouth moved, as if he was talking to someone he couldn't see.

"Tonight, just tonight, the first 'turn' of the bone dice, it will be projected on Merlin's fate, I will watch the whole process, and then report back to you."

The correspondent on the other end seemed to ask a question, which made the smile on the mysterious man's face even bigger.

He raised his head, glanced at the direction of Colson's farm, and then replied:

"Of course, I guess...Little Merlin is ready. He may even be a little impatient, just like us who have been waiting for a long time. Although, in our opinion, 18 is just an afternoon tea time."

The mysterious man seems to be very chatty, and he really wants to continue the chat, to express his literary and youthful temperament that has nowhere to rest, but after a few words, the mysterious man's gaze suddenly turns to another direction, his The eyes are shrunk, as if observing the power slowly rising under the earth in the distance.

A moment later, he said to his correspondent at the other end:

"Let's not talk for now... It's watching this side, it's coming soon, I'm going to hang up, I don't want your bossy breath to scare it away."

"That's it, wait for my good news."

The mysterious man stretched out his black-gloved finger, and tapped the air in front of him. The light around his body danced like a closed curtain, covering the strangely dressed mysterious man in an instant. into it.A gust of wind blew away all the traces he left on the ground, as if he never existed at all.

The mysterious man himself is actually still standing there, but he seems to be standing in another dimension.

Letting the blue cloak behind him be blown by the ethereal and pale wind, he looked at the Coulson farm, and saw the dark red aura beneath the land, like mist, rising slowly in the sight invisible to mortals. Like a mist looking for prey.

It is irritable, greedy, arrogant and angry, as hungry as longing for the caress of a lover, and has the gluttonous desire to devour the entire earth, it is jealous of all this, everything under the sun, this favored by the Creator The world, which looks out from its own hell all the time, echoes with dark whispers like something from the indescribable abyss.

That is obviously an evil force that does not belong to the human world.

"Sannomiya..."

The mysterious man shook his head, staring at the unusually precise pocket watch in his hand, and whispered:

"It's been so many years, you still haven't grown. But how to put it, you are still very welcome to join this game."

"May you...have fun."

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Merlin didn't notice anything unusual.

He didn't know the eyes that were watching him from behind, just like he didn't know that after tonight, his fate would turn to another road.

After dinner with the family, everything was normal for the entire afternoon, and there were no weird scenes in those nonsense superhero comics that Phil liked to read.

The ground is not split open, the water is not reversed, the livestock are not dying, everything is so beautiful, so normal.

Until the night came, with the help of Phil, Merlin changed the last spark plug for his soon-to-be beloved car, Lola, and now he only needs to fill up the oil. This classic red convertible sports car in 1962 can start again Galloping on this land.

Thinking of that scene, Merlin couldn't help feeling relaxed and happy.

His adoptive father, James, loves cars very much. Although limited by his financial ability, he can't collect those really good cars, but Lola is definitely James' best collection, and now, this real "lady" will belong to Merlin is gone.

"Phil, get me a pipe wrench, Phil?"

Merlin, who was busy with the final inspection under the car, called his brother's name, but there was no response. The whole garage was very quiet, which made Merlin's heart skip a beat. He hurriedly got out of the car, only to find that Phil was lying in the corner of the garage on the shelf.

The young man fell asleep at some point.Judging from his expression, he seemed to be having a sweet dream.

"Ok."

Merlin didn't disturb his brother's sweet dreams. He brought the pipe wrench himself, cleaned the bottom of the car thoroughly, washed off the oil stains from his fingers, and sat in the driver's seat of Lola for the first time as the owner of the car.

His fingers rubbed against the clean car, as if touching the perfect skin of a beautiful woman, and finally put his fingers on the steering wheel. Merlin smiled, full of satisfaction with pride.

What man doesn't like cars?

Especially when it's still yours.

"what..."

Merlin leaned on the seat, stretched his body, and stretched his waist. He raised his arms and looked at the watch on his wrist. It was dusk.The beautiful sunset is shining into the dim interior of the garage along the gap of the garage.

It's all so quiet, so quiet that people want to sleep here beautifully.

So he closed his eyes...

"boom"

A soft sound suddenly awakened Merlin from his rest. He opened his eyes, and he was still sitting in Lola's driver's seat, while Phil was still lying on the shelf and sleeping soundly.But in front of Lola, a man in an ancient black dress and with long white hair was tapping Lola's car hood with his fingers, making crisp knocking sounds.

Merlin looked at this uninvited guy, he had never seen this man around before, he noticed that on this man's cheeks, there were some dark red lines similar to scars, which looked abnormal, and there was a strange a feeling of.

"Don't touch Lola!"

Merlin opened the car door, and he instinctively scolded.

Behind him, his left hand quietly grabbed the pipe wrench at hand. Once this heavy thing is swung, it can easily blow a man's head off.

In a weird environment, the solid feeling of holding a weapon in your hand can always make people feel at ease.

Merlin stood a few meters away from the man. Under his scolding, the weird man stopped tapping on the car hood. He looked back at Merlin, as if looking at a rare item. .

It was only then that Merlin noticed that this man's eyes were dark red, and apart from these eyes, as long as he moved his eyes away, this man's face would be immediately forgotten in his mind...

This is clearly not normal!

His fingers gripped the pipe wrench again.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir."

Merlin tried his best to make his voice sound calm, as if he really ignored the weird marks on the man's face, his creepy eyes, and his hazy temperament that was incompatible with everything around him .

"Have."

The man replied, his voice was very deep, like the sound of swinging a warhammer and letting it fall, although it was not sharp, it hurt people's eardrums.

He looked at Merlin, and he said:

"I'm here for you, mortal."

The man stretched out his finger, and a dark red flame danced at his fingertips. He tilted his head, looked at Merlin in front of him, and said expressionlessly:

"Sign a contract with me..."

"Then take all the glory you can imagine in your barren mind and become my "son"."

Merlin's expression, at this moment...

Completely solidified.

(End of this chapter)