Spider thread

Crow Reid's aversion to the night is not without reason. In the long night, he got hope and an equal amount of despair.The night is alluring, just like free prostitutes living in remote streets, they look very charming in gorgeous kimonos, but hidden in the hem of the wide kimonos are short knives for assassination.

>> starry night

One

The heavy rain lasted for several weeks, which reduced the work scope of the servants a lot, but greatly increased the workload.Some unlucky little servants had to wring out the wet clothes for the seniors day after day, until the picky seniors finally reluctantly admitted that the clothes could not wring out any more water before they could go back to their dormitories.Craw Reed was one of these unlucky pageboys, and Craw had never been back to his dormitory before nine o'clock in the evening since the continuous rain had hit England.

"Is your hand really all right?" When Kuro dragged his tired body back to the dormitory, he immediately received Lucas' care.He held his hands up to his eyes, fingers that were purple just below the tips of the nails, and the color of the fingers wasn't as vibrant as it should have been.He turned his hands over so that the palms were facing upwards, and his skin wrinkled layer upon layer due to prolonged exposure to water.As long as he rubs his palms together, the skin flakes will fall down like snow.

"Is it cold?" Lucas asked, sitting on the bed with the quilt on his lap, as if he was ready to sleep, "The rain should have stopped by now."

"It's still cold, but I'm used to it." Crow shook his head and signaled Lucas not to worry.

"Don't get used to it," Lucas lay on the bed. "This is not a normal situation. I will find a solution with you."

"No, I think I've…" Craw couldn't finish the sentence.

"Don't say such things, it will bring bad things." Lucas said.

At this time, there was a sharp and harsh bell ringing in the corridor, which was the light-off bell.Then there was a sound of turning the quilt, and the lights dimmed suddenly. The only light source in the dormitory came from the window, and the street lights on the street outside the window flickered, which was unstable.Kuro also hurriedly lay down on the bed, and before he could change into a more comfortable position to fall asleep, the door of the dormitory was pushed open again.He didn't know when the dormitory supervisor came to the door of their dormitory, so he could only rejoice that he didn't make much noise.After a few seconds, the door closed.This behavior is repeated until several minutes later, the sound completely disappears.Kuro listened quietly, when there was a slight sound of closing the door downstairs, he was completely relieved and turned over.The housekeeper has gone back to sleep.

The rain still hasn't stopped. If someone stands on the street at this time, they can see a thin layer of water on the road. Fortunately, the water level is only as high as the sole of a shoe.The raindrops hit the somewhat potholed road, splashing several ripples in a row, and the water droplets continued to decompose into more small water droplets and jumped to the distance, trying to reach the distance that could be reached.

Perhaps because of the sound of the rain, Kuro didn't sleep well, even though his body complained of recent overwork.In the middle of the night, it started to thunder, and Crow seemed to have been awake for a long time when he realized it.His body is still very tired, but his mind is very clear.He shifted his position so that he could see out the window.It was pitch black outside the window, and the thick clouds collided and rubbed against each other, bursting out huge white sparks, illuminating the entire night sky at that moment.The rainwater formed a line and fell straight to the ground.

Just when Kuro was about to fall asleep again, a white light slanted across the window, he stood up suddenly, and looked out the window again.Sure enough, that light came again, it was a thunderbolt, but it turned into an animal, just like the ancient mythical beasts in the myth books he had read by chance in Hong Kong when he was young.

Crow wanted to shake Lucas awake, and wanted him to witness this miracle, but he couldn't move, couldn't control his body to do this behavior, as if possessed.Another thunder and lightning fell, and in an instant, Kuro seemed to see 800 million gods in the endless night.

Ray fell again.

It is always raining in the slums.Crow Reed had lost count of how many days he hadn't seen a clear blue sky—since he moved here.

There are always a lot of people coming and going in the building. The originally spacious aisle is barely passable due to the accumulation of sundries. It seems that someone has been impatient with this for a long time. He can often hear the sound of quarrels in the room, and sometimes the quarrels will It escalated into a fight, and the next day when Kuro went out, he could see the mess in the corridor, and he had already been able to walk by without seeing it.These are just things that he never thought of when he was a student, but now they have become his daily life.

People from various places lived in this low-rise building, and people with different accents communicated with each other. Sometimes someone knocked on Clow's door and asked him to borrow a dozen blank papers.Crow guessed that they might be artists who mainly focused on drawing, so he once asked: "What do you need so much paper for?"

The blond man was stunned, "What else can I do?" He smiled, "Painting, exchanging money, making a living. This is what I do day in and day out." Seeing that Kuro didn't want to reply at all He said something, and the person who shared the basement with him left.

A few seconds later, Kuro heard chatter from the next room.He discerned the voices in his head, and it took him a long time to remember their names and faces.Wolfgang who came to take the blank paper just now, Alice, Linus, Emil, Barbara, Isabella, Antonio who lived with him... There was a burst of cheers outside the building, fighting with the raindrops. The voices on the ground mixed together, interrupting Craw's contemplation.

He walked out of the room, walked up the stairs to the first floor, and looked out the window.The group of people, people you can often meet in the corridor, are forming a circle, and in the center of the circle, a blond man is messing with something.It's Wolfgang, Craw thought.The blond stood up, "Okay!" he shouted.

Everyone was drenched, their hair stuck to their cheeks, and water dripped from their clothes, mixing with the raindrops.But they all had smiles on their faces, excitedly looking forward to what was about to happen next.

"Crow! Get me a box of matches! Do it! Remember no, do it!" one shouted at him.Craw couldn't tell who it was, but he found a match from the corridor, and walked straight into the rain curtain before he even had time to prop up his umbrella.The rain was really heavy, just as he expected, and after a few seconds, his hair was all plastered against his face.He handed the match to Wolfgang, who was holding up a fallen billboard to cover something.He said something to the person next to him, and let go of his grip on the board.He hid under the board and lit a match.

"Okay," he said.

The planks were thrown aside, and Craw saw what they were doing.It's a firework, and they don't know where they found it, but this group of people is trying to ignite it.The sparks flickered in and out of the raindrops, and almost everyone was staring at it, as if praying, but it must not be extinguished.

Then there was an explosion, and the white light rose rapidly against the raindrops, and finally exploded in mid-air, turning into more points of light.Craw heard them cheering, someone put his shoulders, shaking.The last dots of light also exploded and turned into flowers, fleeting, bright and gorgeous fireworks in the night sky.

The rain still didn't stop.The meandering light was reflected in the sky, and several thunderbolts fell together, hitting the ground directly, almost illuminating the entire street, and all shadows disappeared.Under the strong light, an animal glowing from head to toe descended in front of Kuro.After a few years, Kuro saw him again. He couldn't help but bent down and stretched out his hand, touching him with trembling fingertips. A tingling sensation spread from his fingertips to his whole body.There were loud cheers in his ears, very noisy but reassuring to him.

This is the festival of madmen.

Second

Weeks of torrential rain made the streets muddy, until the rain stopped, the wet rainy season finally left the place, the water on the streets slowly receded, and people could still see waves on the facades of the buildings Shaped light brown imprint.

Crow Reid stood in front of the door, feeling a little at a loss in front of the letterbox, which was so full of letters that it was almost overflowing.After thinking for a few seconds, he opened the mailbox, discarded some useless paper advertisements, took out his own letters and put the rest on the cabinet next to the hall.Wishing they could take it themselves, Crow sighed.The wooden letterbox hadn't survived the onslaught of the rainstorm and smelled of decay.He closed the lid on the top of the letterbox and looked across the street, where the low spots where water had remained a few days ago had all dried out.

Crow went down the stairs and collided with Wolfgang, who was going upstairs and was communicating with others. This reminded Crow of the scene when he first met the blond central European, and he couldn't help laughing stand up.At that time too, Crow and Wolfgang bumped into each other on the stairs, Wolfgang looked at Crow, and finally said "Wolfgang" as self-introduction.Crow picked up the scattered things and put them back into the cardboard box in his hand, "Wolfgang?" he asked, looking at the stranger.

"Wolfgang, just Wolfgang," said the Central European, and walked past him.What a strange man, Craw thought.It wasn't until he stood at the door of his room that he realized that he forgot to tell him his name.

"Why are you laughing?" Wolfgang picked up Kuro's dropped letter and handed it to him.Only then did Kuro come back to his senses, and quickly took it over. "Your friends wrote to you?" Wolfgang continued. "What did they think when they knew you lived in this place?" He smiled playfully.

Kuro looked at him, somewhat unable to understand what this smile represented. "I have no opinion." Even so, he answered seriously, "I think you are all pretty good." After saying this, he looked at Wolfgang's blue eyes, a little surprised Suddenly found that the other party's eye sockets were slightly red, which made him feel at a loss.

Wolfgang obviously didn't expect this answer, he took a step back, turned his head, and finally whispered: "That's good."

"What are you going to do?" Crow asked.

His words were taken by Wolfgang as a signal of "wanting to join", he tilted his head, "Come together?" he asked.

After that Craw was forcibly pushed off the street.As night approached, the temperature dropped again, and the sweltering heat of the day was completely gone.Kuro sneezed involuntarily. It was too thin to wear only a shirt at night.Wolfgang smiled as he took off his coat—it was scarlet—and put it on Crow. "Look, you're a proper Dracula now," he said.Linus, a friend who was traveling with Wolfgang, walked around to Kuro for a look, and then laughed, "No, no, no," he waved his hands, and said pretending to be serious, "I want to be Degu You have to change into a black coat."

"Okay, Master Vampire, then please donate your coat." Wolfgang said, looking at the black coat Linus was wearing.

Linus handed the things he was carrying to Kuro, motioning him to help him carry it for now, then he really took off his overcoat, put it on Kuro's shoulders, and put it on Wolfgang's coat.Before putting it on, he shook it deliberately, as if to show that he would do what he said.

Kuro lowered his head and looked at the road under his feet. He felt itchy in his heart, as if raising a newborn chick.Then he put his free free hand on Wolfgang's shoulder and laughed with them.

Then Kuro knew what the two of them were going to do. They were going to the gallery to sell their paintings to the owner of the gallery.After that—"Come on, let's enter Wonderland!" Wolfgang said softly, and pushed open a wooden door in front of him.Kuro didn't know where it was, and when he realized it, he was pushed and pulled to the counter by his two friends.

"New friend?" The waiter standing behind the counter wiped the cup without looking up.

"Yeah," Wolfgang said, indifferent to his indifferent tone, "as usual, serving for three." He leaned against the counter and folded his hands.

Crow took off his coats (Wolfgang's and Linus's) and put them on his arms. He didn't know how to define the place he was in, and he was at a loss among the noisy crowd.He turned his head and looked around. The window panes were covered with translucent papers of various colors, red, green, yellow, and blue. He thought that if it was daytime, the sunlight projected through these windows onto the ground would probably Forms a nice color.Kuro stared straight at the window, and for a moment he saw that the window was covered with diamonds, rectangles, and triangles, forming various strange patterns and rotating.

"Crow?" Someone called him, which brought him back to his senses.Craw looked again at the window pane before following up with his friends, and sure enough, the windows were just ordinary windows.

"What are you looking at?" Linus asked.

"It's nothing, it's probably just a mistake." Crow sat next to them.

The cup was poured with a wonderfully colored liquid, and a few minutes later, after it had been added to other things in a bewildering variety, it was delivered to Crow's hands.After a while, or just for a while, the store suddenly became very lively, people cheered, and Wolfgang became very excited, I don't know if it was due to the effect of alcohol.

"What's that?" Craw asked, taking off his glasses, and now he could only squint at the double image of the reveling crowd not far away, "I can't see clearly."

"Put on your glasses." Linus suggested with a chuckle.

"It's flat, it's useless." Crow said, a little disdainful, and he didn't know who he was targeting.

Linus laughed, and Crow, infected, started laughing too.He lowered his head, looked at his own shadow reflected on the counter, and with a weird but very good-looking smile, he stretched out his hand to the counter, touching his own shadow and the cold tabletop.He raised his hand, as if laughing at his meaningless action, but put it down after a few seconds.He put his palm on the table, and then lifted it up, as if trying to pull something up, and he did hold something, like a hand, a black blur, the reflection of his own hand, It is his own shadow.

"Everyone has his own shadow and cannot be separated..." Linus spit out this meaningless sentence.

There was a warm voice in Kuro's ear, and the magical tune weakened and suddenly rose.Crow suddenly started to sneeze, and he didn't stop until several times in a row. For some reason, he felt a little relaxed.

"He's drunk," Wolfgang said, with a perverse smile on his lips, tapping his knuckles on the table to something only he could understand.

"No," Crow said, reaching for the glass and passing through it, and in a second the glass was gone.

"Look at the band, you'll like it," a voice said to him, Wolfgang or Linus.

Craw turned, he saw, and a terrifying beauty was born.