bookbashuk Page 104
Page 104
It felt like falling into hell...
"Didn't I just say that you shouldn't sit in front of the canvas and doze off, which is quite ambiguous?"
Ugh... that devil is chanting again...
very scary……
I really want to just die like this...
"Speaking of which, when we first tasted tea, as I was chewing your compressed food, you seemed to have a nagging doubt about me—did I go hungry as a child?"
"?"
"Is it really that hard to accept that the devil can hear the thoughts of humans?"
Eileen nodded silently, once again accepting the new fact—that the devil could read minds.
"Since the game started, you've asked yourself questions like, 'Why me?' and 'Why is He torturing me like this?' so many times that I'm almost tired of hearing them. Besides, you seem to have reached your mental limit, and you can't continue without a nap. So, as a bonus during this intermission, I'll tell you a bedtime story, Princess Snow White."
"……story?"
Yes, the story—
The story of a gray rat living in the gutter, dressed as Cinderella, driven to desperation, who ultimately sells its soul to the devil in exchange for the glass slipper/magic.
……
Chapter 157 Cinderella and Snow White (Part 6)
In a corner of the star realm, there is a special star.
It is located in the material world at the bottom of the Tree of Life, yet it is also at the top of the material world.
In the distant past, that star was given a special mission by the gods—to become an arena for their amusement.
Not so long ago, two supreme deities residing at the top of the Tree of Life had a dispute. They were brothers in law, but their conflict escalated to the point of death.
Later, the Black God knocked the White God off the top of the Tree of Life, and they both fell to the top of the material world—that star became the site of the final battle.
The Black God utterly killed the White God in that arena, using the White God's finger bone as a pen and divine blood as ink to write a new divine oracle, and then disappeared without a trace.
The new oracle was reverently called the "Blood Sea Covenant" by the gods—it decreed that all the high and mighty gods, upon descending to the arena, would be demoted to the material world, along with their status.
From then on, the unfortunate star was freed from its tragic fate in the Colosseum, and the fifteen divine creations were able to break free of their shackles and embrace a new life.
The death of the White God triggered a series of collapses in order, nearly destroying everything on the star.
The Black God reconstructed most of the order in a short time, but was forced to abandon repairing the minor details due to his weakness.
For example—the only drop of divine blood He shed in His struggle against the White God.
That drop of divine blood eventually fell to the far north of the star, leaving behind a terrifying scar that almost reached the star's core, and a bottomless abyss.
An endless etheric storm swept across the surface of the abyss, all because that drop of divine blood had utterly destroyed the local elemental order.
About a hundred years later, a group of exiles passing through the area, trying to escape the pursuit of alien races, accidentally got lost in the endless white wind. The endless white wind repelled the pursuit of alien races, but also cut off their path to continue.
There are a total of twenty-eight such groups. Apart from the one that crossed the sea to the east in the early years, the remaining twenty-seven groups are on their exile journeys only to find the "Eternal and Immortal Garden of Eden" indicated in the last divine revelation of the White God.
The bishop in the group told everyone that they had arrived at the Promised Land, at the eternal and indestructible Pure Land of Eden. The white wind was a miracle of the White God; it was the White God's divine power that made the alien races retreat, and it was the White God's divine grace that allowed them to survive.
Therefore, everyone in this group listened to and believed in it. They devoutly thanked the gods for their grace and settled down in the only windless zone in the white wind, which was the shallow abyss in the center of the eye of the storm.
The abyss is inherently devoid of intelligence and knowledge; it is merely a natural geological feature.
But the remnants of the heavenly kingdom on earth brought it order, religion, social classes, and everything that should exist in the world of human intelligence.
As time passed, many years went by, and the remnants of the Heavenly Kingdom developed a steam civilization that was neither magical nor scientific.
The abyss had long since become a ditch, a freezing ditch.
This sewer is divided into two levels, which are called the Upper District and the Lower District respectively.
The Upper District maintained a respectable level of passability, while the Lower District was a veritable sewer.
The Lower City is actually a more elegant way of saying it; to put it bluntly, it's the area where the lowest of the low live, the bottom of a ditch. All of the city's light and heavy industries are located there, and the fragile supply chain is frequently disrupted. Intermittent food shortages, severe cold, industrial fumes, water pollution, and violent conflicts have tormented the residents of the Lower City, leaving them emaciated, crippled, and even born with birth defects. Natural births and healthy growth are no longer a given, but rather a luxury.
However, just as rats and cockroaches thrive in the dirtiest sewers, seven generations of children in the Lower Town have stubbornly grown up over the past few centuries.
That gray mouse dressed as Cinderella is one of them.
Unlike the aristocratic gentlemen in the upper city who barely maintained their civilized glory and decent life.
Thanks to the harsh living conditions in the lower city, the reserves of humanity to embellish the brilliance of civilization are extremely low.
Human nature and animal nature are like an hourglass standing upright; if one end decreases, the other end increases.
The inhabitants of the sewers are more like animals than humans.
In general, the lower districts are full of scum, including the father of the gray rat.
He was a mediocre boiler worker with a meager income. After his partner died in childbirth, he became an alcoholic and a compulsive gambler.
Whenever he returned home drunk and having lost money, he would start beating the gray rat and cursing her for being born—because if she hadn't been born, his partner wouldn't have died in childbirth.
He even complained that Gray Rat wasn't tall enough. Although he was already thirteen years old, he still looked like a seven-year-old kid, thin and short. His frail physique was unsuitable for being sent as a child prostitute to earn him gambling money. Even if he were used to pay off debts, the creditors wouldn't want him.
But in that kind of place, in that hellish place where even a meal a day is not guaranteed, just surviving is already an exhausting task, so how could they possibly grow up as naturally as the children in the upper districts?
Is life always this difficult, or is it just childhood?
The gray mouse once asked a schoolteacher this question and received a loving reassurance and the answer, "You will be happy when you grow up."
She knew it was just a kind lie told by the gentle female teacher out of compassion, even though the other children believed her.
She has lived in a world of lies since childhood, and is good at both seeing through lies and weaving them.
She knew she wouldn't be happy growing up; her scumbag father would just send her to other men to be played with and sold for money. She understood that from a very young age, so she always controlled her food intake, eating only the bare minimum, so she could grow up slower, much slower...
At its coldest, the temperature in that freezing ditch can drop below minus 150 degrees Celsius.
In that kind of environment, just being able to laugh is already unconventional enough, so how can you expect the warmth of that smile?
So even many years later, the gray mouse's smile still lacked warmth.
The gray mouse disliked snow from a young age and also loathed anything related to snow.
For residents of fertile lands with distinct seasons or those in the south where it's spring all year round, snow may mean a bountiful harvest, a charming atmosphere, a good omen, or even a romantic feeling.
But for the gray rats, snowfall only means cold, hunger, bloodshed, plunder, enslavement, and death.
From a very young age, she wore a gray cloak that she had taken from the body of an adult who had frozen to death on the side of the road in the lower city, just to make herself look less conspicuous.
She smeared her face with ash from the heating boiler and used cheap pigments to cover up her blonde hair, which was too conspicuous in the downtown area.
It wasn't because the Little Prince disliked the golden snake scales, but because in that filthy place, platinum blonde hair would only bring disaster.
If we had to pinpoint any obligation that scumbag father had fulfilled, it would probably be through one of his few positive connections: a police officer who frequented the Upper Town. Thanks to that officer's mercy, a gray rat from the Lower Town was able to attend school in the Middle Town.
Zhongcheng District is a rather ingenious name.
First, it does not exist in the official urban zoning of the sewers;
Secondly, its actual location lies between the ceiling of the lower city and the sewers of the upper city.
In conclusion, it was merely an unofficial district plan conceived by a group of relatively well-off lower-class citizens in the city center, who were simply indulging in self-satisfaction.
Hmm, Central District, that sounds wonderful.
In extreme environments, even the most compassionate mercy can sometimes become the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
In retrospect, the gray mouse was simply pushed from one hell to another by this act of compassionate kindness—in fact, she wished she had never gone to school there at all.
The gray mouse's teacher was a kind and gentle lady, but because she was too kind, she could only be an old-fashioned person who talked a good game, sought solace in her conscience, and remained indifferent in action, selectively blind.
The gray mouse's classmates were a group of uneducated human cubs. Uneducated human cubs are no different from wild beasts; they are all young animals who do not know what good and evil are.
The gray mouse was a little small, but fortunately, her brain developed normally, and she quickly achieved good results at school, winning the lady's praise.
Then, on that very day, her few personal belongings became tattered, and even the gray cloak she had taken from the dead man had several large holes that were difficult to mend.
Rumors about Gray Mouse quickly spread throughout the school. In these rumors, she was portrayed as a bad kid who never came home at night, a "flower girl" who sold "flowers" to adult men, a thief who stole money, a worthless child born without a mother, and so on.
When another alcoholic teacher slapped her in front of everyone during math class because of Gray Mouse's silence, unruliness, and bad reputation; when she forced herself not to shed a single tear and simply stared at him silently; amidst whispers, Gray Mouse gained another identity in the rumors—a painless, bloodless, and tearless "devil."
"Demon" was a new word at the time. The gentle female teacher had only taught the students the word the day before, and they were able to use it fluently the next day. The lady must have been moved to tears.
Later, when the lady was swayed by a clever student in class who applied what she had learned, she said something like, "Good children go to heaven after they die, while bad children go to hell."
When the gray mouse came to its senses, the whole classroom was as lively as a festival and as warm as spring.
The young animals, as if by prior arrangement, cried out devoutly, fervently, and sincerely, just like the choir members of the Highland Church singing hymns in unison on every prayer day—
Did you hear that? Even Lady Vanessa has admitted that bad children don't go to heaven after they die;
Those scoundrels don't deserve to go to heaven;
Gray rats only go to hell after they die;
Go to hell;
Go to hell, go to hell;
Go to hell, go to hell, go to hell...
It's cruel, it's evil, but it's also childish.
Amidst a sea of childish "badness," the gray mouse suddenly realized why it had always been disliked.
Actually, she didn't do anything wrong from beginning to end.
She was wrong from the very beginning.
Her mistake was appearing in a place she shouldn't have been.
An old-fashioned female teacher who only finds spiritual self-satisfaction and consolation cannot change her situation.
A group of immature "bad" individuals did not rise to the level of "evil" that would be punished by "justice".
After figuring this out, the gray mouse never went to school again.
Later, shortly after running away from school, she also ran away from her family.
Later, the gray rats, just as described in the rumors circulating in the school,
He became a bad kid who never came home at night, a thief who could pick locks, use tools to scale walls, and steal money.
Ironically, almost everyone in that sewer who knew Gray Mouse jokingly referred to her, this gray mouse, as "Cinderella."
In fact, it was only long after she stopped being a gray mouse that she had the chance to read the story of Cinderella.
But this did not prevent her from understanding the irony and mockery behind that title at that time.
Cinderella was a hardworking and kind-hearted girl. Even though she was abused and neglected by her stepmother and stepsisters, and had to do heavy housework every day while wearing the most worn-out gray clothes in the house, she never changed her kind heart. So she was granted magic by God, put on glass slippers, rode in a pumpkin carriage, and met the only light in her life, her prince. Although there were many twists and turns afterward, she finally got a good ending and ushered in a happy ending.
But the gray mouse was never a hardworking and kind-hearted Cinderella from beginning to end.
If lying could save her from a beating, she would lie without hesitation.
If stealing could prevent her from going hungry again, then she would steal meticulously.
If she has to kill someone to survive, then she will force herself to kill.
No matter how you look at it, as a fairy tale heroine, she is utterly unqualified.
This gray rat is definitely not Cinderella from beginning to end.
Therefore, until the very last moment of her life, she never met her Little Prince, let alone had a happy ending.
However, just like Cinderella, the gray mouse also learned magic.
In her most desperate moment, she sold her soul to the devil in exchange for magic.
Later, just as those naive "bad" people had initially predicted, she really did go to hell.
Later, the gray rat turned into a gray dragon.
He transformed into a bloodless and tearless "devil".
……
"The story of this fake Cinderella ends here, Miss Eileen Scherney. Now do you understand why I have such a particular fondness for tormenting Snow Whites like you?"
Inside the gray little house, the devil, who was lounging on the sofa with his legs crossed, clapped his hands, announcing the end of a past story.
Eileen remained silent, perhaps because of the story, or perhaps because of her still depressed state of mind.
"Ha, to be honest, it really infuriated me to hear you holding your paintbrush and wallowing in self-pity. Is this the kind of affectation only a Snow White born with a silver spoon in her mouth would have? It's unbelievable that someone would be troubled by their own talent and think that being proud of their talent is a shameful thing."