CH 127

Chapter 127: The Dream of the Holy Nun (XVII)

{cw: cannibalism}

“I see,” Su He whispered, walking with the two others in the direction of the night watchmen.

The strength of the field brought the night watchmen into the illusory range, revealing Su He’s figure to the night watchmen. The night watchmen finally realized Qi Leren and others’ presence and looked at them with surprise and vigilance: “Who are you?”

“We’re with the one you just called a foreigner, investigating the cause of the disaster and trying to end this nightmare,” Su He said.

The watchman looked at them carefully, and they were looked at by this deformed strange face. Qi Leren felt very uncomfortable, not because their eyes were full of malice, but because these ferocious and horrible faces were uncomfortable to look at.

“I know that you passed from the outside world through the fog to come here, maybe you’re the key to end all this. If you want to know, okay… This disaster started eight years ago…”

The hoarse voice of the night watchman sounded in the dark, telling the story of the disaster of the new moon.

More than 20 years ago, the Holy City was invaded by demons. It wasn’t known what happened after that, since the whole city was surrounded by fog, but the demons had disappeared and the Holy City was restored to calm. The residents who survived the event found that they could never walk out of the fog, and no matter how far they walked in the fog, they would eventually return to the Holy City.

Since then, no woman had become pregnant and no babies had been born. The city had grown old alone in the fog…

It was not until a night of the new moon eight years ago that the nightmare began.

“At least one in ten people disappeared that night. No one knew what had happened, and the whole city fell into a panic. On the next night of the new moon after that, another group of people disappeared… Slowly, we found the rule. Whenever the night of the new moon comes, we must never be awake before the sun rises, otherwise we’ll disappear. After that, people gradually got used to this kind of life. Whenever the night of the new moon came, they would drink sleeping draughts to ensure that they slept until dawn, and the amount of people disappearing began to decrease. But there were always accidents… For example, the one who almost became food for the demons just now. ”

The young man who was still sitting on the ground shivered, hugging his head and trembling as he sobbed. Knowing the truth of the disaster of the new moon had put him on the verge of collapse. As long as he thought that he might have eaten the living even once, he fell into fear of not going to heaven.

“I’ve been sleepwalking since I was a child. I sleepwalked once on a night of the new moon, but it was strange that during this sleepwalking, I was awake, and I ‘saw’ my wife take off her pajamas, and her body slowly turned into that of a demon. At that time I was scared crazy, but when I looked at myself I saw that I had also become a monster, and I followed her out of the house…”

“That night, I saw a Holy City that was like hell. My wife and the demons searched for and chased prey together. They found a living person who hadn’t fallen asleep, attacked him crazily, and ate him. I’ve never seen such a cruel and barbaric scene in my life. A group of people eating a person like mad dogs. They plucked bloody meat from the screaming living person and chewed it greedily, as if it were food given by God. I tried to stop this atrocity and pushed my wife away. She bumped into the wall and woke up covered in blood.”

A tearful smile appeared on the strange face of the night watchman as he repeated: “She woke up.”

Everyone was silent, and even the sobbing young man held his breath and forgot to cry. In the deep darkness, the horrible night watchman whined: “She turned back into a human being, watching the demons screaming in the dark. I approached her, trying to protect her, but to her eyes I was the demon. She wouldn’t listen to me at all, just screamed and ran away. That group of terrible, inhuman beasts jumped up… I roared, struggling to fight with them, and I wanted to wake up at this moment, even if I died with my wife… I hit the wall with my head, again and again until my skull cracked, but I couldn’t wake up. I was trapped in a nightmare. This dream is too long and too desperate…

"The demons had a good meal. I don’t want to admit that I was as hungry as them. I used my last human dignity and reason to compete with them for my wife’s flesh and blood. Before the sun rose, they returned to their homes in an orderly manner, and some demons even spontaneously cleaned up the traces of their hunting, washed away their blood, and woke up to meet dawn in bed as if nothing had happened. Bleeding out, I lay on the ground waiting to die. As dawn rose in the east, my body changed back to human and all the wounds healed. What happened on this bloody night could only be borne by me alone. After dawn, the neighbours who had eaten my wife recovered their human appearances and asked with concern how my wife and I had slept last night. They didn’t know that they’d just killed her a few hours ago. I couldn’t even say it! I couldn only stay in hell in silence, alone, in hell!

"Susan, my wife, had become a person who disappeared in the disaster of the new moon, forever.” The night watchman who witnessed all this had chosen to keep it a secret.

“Later, I saved a few living people, one of whom was a pharmacist. He prepared a draught that can make people lose a short period of their memory and mixed it with the sleeping draughts. We let the people we rescue choose whether to join us or drink the draught and forget all this. Most of them chose to drink the draught and forget this horrible experience. Those who choose to stay will become one of us and keep this secret together. Together, we study the method of lucid sleepwalking, the cause of the disaster of the new moon, and how to appease this group of demons who keep hunting the living. The more you insist, the more desperate you are…

"This city, once full of devout believers, may have no souls left to go to heaven.”

There was a spasm in his stomach, and Qi Leren pressed his hand on his abdomen. The confused and desperate narration of the night watchman drew him into that same horrible feeling. Sleeping people became demons, killing the waking people who knew the truth. In order to protect more people, they could only cover up these crimes and keep their mouths shut. On this evil night, this tragedy had been repeated for eight years, which is so long that it was desperate.

They desperately kept the secret that would have made everyone fall into hell, but it was too late. In the first few disasters of the new moon, too many people had committed unforgivable crimes. What was even more frightening was that no one knew whether they were innocent or not, and those who knew the truth always thought about their missing relatives and friends, and questioned whether they once mourned those who were in their stomachs.

“Take it and let him drink it.” The night watchman threw a bottle of medicine at him and Ning Zhou caught it and handed it to the man kneeling on the ground. Trembling, the man took the draught, so panicked that he couldn’t open the bottle after several times. He bit the cork with his teeth and drank it without question.

The man who’d drank the draught sat on the ground absently, looked at the silver cross embroidery on Ning Zhou’s gloves, and murmured, “Can God forgive me? Can I still go to heaven?”

The medication had begun to work, tiredness welling, yet he looked up at Ning Zhou with desperate eyes full of tears.

Ning Zhou’s fingers curled and the feeling of grief swept over him. He recalled Maria on her deathbed, leaning against her pillow, holding his hand, tears flowing in her blue eyes.

“I have to go back…” she had said angrily. “Once I die, the power there will be completely out of control. If there are demons lurking there, everything will be done for.

"But I can’t go back. In the past thirteen years, I’ve tried every means to open up that dead field. But it’s dead. It’s no longer a door that can be opened and closed at will, but a locked door that cannot be opened without a key… Behind that door, what evil forces have begun to move?”

Maria, whose face was gaunt with sickness, shed tears silently: “My self-righteous salvation may be the greatest evil. You must… You must save them… Promise me…”

Half kneeling in front of the bed Ning Zhou had taken her hand and nodded wordlessly.

Eight years later he’d really come here, but the Holy City that Maria had guarded with her life was already a hell on earth.

“In the name of God, I forgive your crimes and give you peace of mind.” Ning Zhou’s hand was on the man’s forehead and the white gloves gave off a faint light.

The man smiled happily and closed his eyes slowly.

With his deep sleep, his body began to change: his face twisted, his body swelled, and the clothes he wore were torn. He let out a low roar and opened his inhuman eyes.

The sound of the night watchman’s flute soothed his appetite. He jumped off the roof, fell heavily on the ground, and then walked into the distance, returning again to the demon’s side.

The leading night watchman sighed heavily and whispered, “Sometimes even we doubt whether we’re saving mankind or demons. Or maybe we’re just saving ourselves.”