Nightmare's Call

Chapter 494: Fate: Part 3

The three talked until Lin Zhounian and his wife got tired. Lin Xiao, who had been waiting for a while now, finally got the chance to ask Lin Sheng about the Sanctum.

“Sheng Sheng, since you have been in the Sanctum for a quite a while now, do you know a person named Lange?” Lin Xiao asked after chatting for a while.

“Lange? How do you spell it?” Lin Sheng smiled.

Lin Xiao dipped her finger into the tea and wrote on the tabletop. Lin Sheng looked at it and thought for a while.

“It is a rare name. I cannot recall anyone with this name. Why? Is this person famous, or some you met before?”

As the Darksiders and clerics came out from their recluse living and stood in the public eyes, people were no longer as ignorant as last time about the transcendents. As information about the Darksider and clerics was more readily available, it had become more like common knowledge. And people, including this family, learned about it.

“Why are you looking for him?” asked Lin Sheng.

“That person and I met before and told me something I couldn’t make head or tail of.” Lin Xiao said in a low voice. She felt weird about the avuncular-looking, middle-aged man. Not that there was anything wrong with his words or attitude. She just felt something not quite right. It was the way he talked that gave her a familiar feeling. But she was not going to talk about it in front of her parents, lest they would be worried. The man was a stranger, after all.

“We’ll talk about that later.” Lin Sheng shifted his attention to his parents.

“I’m coming back to bring you all moving to Henricqal.”

“Move to Henricqal?” Lin Zhounian and his wife was transfixed.

“Yeah. The place is relatively better in environment and everything, more spacious and comfortable than here.” Lin Sheng said briefly. “Besides, I have some properties there and started some business, which mostly run from there. That’s why I come back for you all.”

Henricqal was so much better than Xylond. The Night Lord and others notwithstanding, the Sanctum’s investment in Henricqal had far surpassed the investment in Xylond. With the existence of many workshops there, life and everything were much more convenient.

“But... I’m not ready...” Gu Wanqiu said in a low voice.

“I’m not leaving. It has taken us a long time to adapt and settle down here since we last left Xilin. It’s too tiresome. I’m not leaving!” Lin Zhounian was adamant. “What’s more, your sister has not completed her study in the university yet. Leaving now will only mess things up!”

“I will take care of that. It’s getting more dangerous outside. Henricqal is safer. That’s why I—”

No matter what Lin Sheng said, he just could not convince them.

Sitting on one side, Lin Xiao told herself not to laugh. Move or not move, she had no problem with that. His young brother was able to stand on her own feet now, so she was fine with moving to Henricqal. But she just could not shake the man she met a month ago from her head. She could not understand a word of what that man said to her. Before leaving, he had even looked up at the sky and mumbled something hyperbolic as if he was prophesying.

Lin Sheng still could not persuade his parents. So he temporarily left, not back to Henricqal, but to sort out some ‘business’ in Xylond.

Lin Xiao had no idea what this younger brother of hers was busy at. When she left home to go to school in the afternoon, she saw the memorable figure again.

She was on her way to school, passing by an abandoned, unfinished building. It was a route she frequently took. It was this place where she met the strange man last time. Now, she was seeing the same man here.

The man wore a gray windbreaker, the corners of his mouth curled up as if he was smiling at the time. He was a man with a strong sense of presence.

He had a striking swept-back hairstyle, long and narrow eyes, face fair, wearing an immaculately pressed suit, looking like a law-abiding citizen and gentleman. But strangely, he had an unsettled air surrounding him. It was this strange aura that attracted Lin Xiao. She could not help but slow down as she walked past, stopping to look at the man.

Time was ticking away, and she had been looking at him for over ten minutes. Just then, the man turned around and looked at Lin Xiao.

“Ahh, it’s you, the girl who is seeing me for the second time.” He had an unique accent, not one that people could emulate or fake, but an inborn feature.

“Why are you here, then?” Lin Xiao smiled, coming nearer. She was curious about this man, who said his name was Lange, a normal person who wandered around. But by the looks of his persona, he was anything but a normal person.

“I’d occasionally walk past here, feeling sorry to see this place is about to be destroyed. So I hesitated and stopped,” Lange replied gently, lowering his head to study Lin Xiao. “You look pretty today, girl.”

“Thank you,” Lin Xiao replied with a smile.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Lange suddenly said.

Lin Xiao blinked her eyes. Before she could react to his question, she saw in his hands two cups of coffee. Still steamy hot, the smell of the coffee wafted over into her nostrils. He handed one of the cups to her.

“It seems someone up there really wants us to meet.”

“I’d agree with you on this one.” Lin Xiao laughed, taking the coffee from him but not drinking it.

“In fact, I reckoned it last time.” Lange gazed at Lin Xiao’s beautiful eyes. “We are destined to meet.”

“You’ve got a sense of humor, though you have attractive eyes,” Lin Xiao said with a smile. She had just come away from a relationship; she was not ready to go for another yet.

“That’s OK. I don’t expect it, too, though you are charming, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from you.” Lange’s voice was soft. “But making such a hasty confession isn’t something I’ve wanted, too.”

Lin Xiao did not know how to respond to this one.

“I have opened a coffee shop nearby. Would you like to come over for a visit? I think you need some gourmet meal to thin out something in your heart.” Lange gingerly held out his hand.

Lin Xiao was hesitating, but she still put her hand in his at last. She could not figure out why she would always want to get close to this man whenever she saw him. She was a person who always followed her feelings and instinct. If it were not for this, she would not have started a relationship with the hooligan regardless of consequences, nearly losing herself in it last time.

“I’m already happy to see you, even if nothing comes off.” Lange smiled.

“You are so sweet.” Lin Xiao pursed her lips and smiled.

Soon, the two slowly disappeared at the end of the road.

Nearby, two bolts of lightning struck down from the sky all of a sudden as two tall men in white combat suits materialized on the top of the unfinished building.

“Is this the encounter of the Night Patriarch and Night Matriarch? They look just like a pair of ordinary lovers. There is nothing special about it.” One of the men sighed.

“Who would have expected that the first Night Patriarch and Night Matriarch would meet each other in this strange world? Now what are we going to do?” The other man asked.

“Just stay put. Even the strength of the Night Patriarch of this time and age is still far too much for us to take. This world should be experiencing its period of disasters. The Night Patriarch usually likes to appear in places with the most sufferings. So he would be staying in this place for now. Let us just observe carefully. If we could find his weaknesses in the Night Patriarch of this age, we might be able to come up with better countermeasures.”

“Why don’t we just kill them now? If the Night Patriarch and Night Matriarch are gone, maybe our world—”

“Shut up! Are you trying to change history? Do you want to destroy the entire world?” The man, who seemed to be the leader, reprimanded. “If we do that, the Temporal Sandstream will suck the power of the Astral Mere dry, and we will vanish in the Sand of Time! Don’t drag me into your suicidal act!”

“But as far as I can remember, there is nothing like the Sanctum in the observation of the Astral Mere. Did our eyes play tricks on us?”

“Maybe there was some interference that affected the observation.”