hotmtlnovel 110 Mirror Pupil
110 Mirror Pupil
"If I had known, I wouldn't have moved those furniture back then; I would have just left them to you," Caesar sighed, looking at the empty Norton House.
"I still remember the last night, you were on the second floor directing others to move, insisting that everything be moved out in one night," Nono said.
"I remember you sitting on the windowsill looking at the stars, completely ignoring me," Caesar said.
Nono snorted and fell silent.
"I suggested you move in a while ago, so you can stay away from Fingel and I won't have to be gossiped about by Selma every day." Zero looked at Norton House, seemingly quite satisfied, and once again advised Lu Mingfei not to stay in the dormitory.
"It feels too empty for just the two of us. I'm used to living in a small room," Lu Mingfei said.
"More people can live here."
"I want to stay! I want to stay!" Nono quickly raised her hand.
Zero nodded and looked at Lu Mingfei, signaling him to express his opinion.
"We've settled in here now," Lu Mingfei said. "Speaking of which, training in the Norton Hall on how to deal with Norton feels a bit like destiny."
"The whole world is a giant stage." Caesar picked up a broom and mop from the storage room. "Time to get to work."
"Actually, I've been waiting for you to snap your fingers and call a bunch of people to do the work, while the four of us just drink tea," Lu Mingfei said.
"I'm carrying out your training plan, 'Living together in life, adapting to each other's rhythm.' That's what you said before, isn't it?" Caesar handed over the tools.
The campus was deserted during the winter break. Most of the students at Kassel College had already left, with only some faculty and staff, or students with other reasons, remaining on campus.
The winter sun was clean and bright, illuminating the hall. The four people chatted as they cleaned, their voices echoing between the walls, filling the empty villa.
Zero walked to the corner on the second floor, where there was a huge full-length mirror. She picked up a rag and gently wiped the dust off the mirror. A girl who looked about fourteen years old was standing in the mirror, looking at her.
Her hair and face were dusty, and her blue eyes were like deep gems, their sorrow capable of piercing through anything hard.
Zero gestured with one hand, greeting the girl in the mirror, "Hello."
The girl in the mirror also made a "hello" gesture.
"I am zero."
"I am Renata," the girl gestured.
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Renata Yevgeny Chicherin was a girl who lied habitually and was also a crybaby.
She used to have a family. She vaguely remembered that her father liked to drink and her mother was very beautiful. One day, someone suddenly came to her house and took her away. She kicked her feet, cried and shouted, but her father and mother were gone. There was no one on the street, and the neighbors' doors and windows were tightly closed, with the curtains drawn.
Renata's voice was hoarse from shouting, and her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Perhaps the person who captured her had become impatient and took out a syringe to prick her neck. When she woke up, she found herself in an experimental base, where the nurses gave her a number—38.
This is Black Swan Harbor, and there are other children like her locked up here. Renata was terrified; she wanted to run away, but she knew she had to learn to survive here first. Fortunately, she learned quickly and was good at reading people.
The nurses in Black Swan Harbor liked to physically punish the children here, but the nurses were too lazy to punish her. They felt that Renata was like a paper doll, expressionless, without even a heart, and wouldn't cry even when she was beaten or scolded.
Renata does feel pain, but she's more gifted at lying than anyone else. She lies without a trace of emotion, her eyes remaining completely still; even the nurses are fooled.
She didn't remember when she came here. She was too young then and didn't remember much about her childhood. She only remembered the afternoon when her family didn't want her. She was very short then and had to climb onto a chair to eat. She didn't even know her full name.
Renata was thirteen years old when she first met Zero.
Zero's face was covered by barbed wire, so his expression was not very clear, but he could convey a lot of information to Renata just by looking at his bright eyes.
"What... is your name?" Renata had no experience in talking to strangers, so she could only ask awkwardly.
"Me? I don't have a name yet," the boy said. "I live in room zero, you can call me Zero."
"Hello, Zero, I am Renata, number 38," Renata said.
"What are you looking for?" Zero asked.
Renata hesitated for a moment: "Find...find a friend."
"If I'm looking for friends... can I?" Zero rolled her eyes. "We can be good friends."
Renata hesitated for a long time before reluctantly nodding, "Okay."
Zero was her first friend, or perhaps just a friend, since Zero herself said they could be good friends, and she agreed.
Renata has never had any friends, and her family doesn't want her. She doesn't know how to get along with friends. Ever since she met Zero, Renata thinks about him every day, and whenever she has the chance at night, she sneaks out to see him.
Later, Zero told her her full name: Renata Yevgeny Chicherin. It was strange; Zero herself didn't have a name, yet she knew someone else's.
Zero asked her if she had any wishes, and she said she wanted to go home or die. Zero didn't want her to die, so he wanted to give her freedom.
On Christmas Eve 1991, Renata was fourteen years old. Black Swan Harbor was engulfed in flames, and she was free.
On the boundless snowfield, the railway tracks, like parallel black snakes, sometimes disappear under the snow and sometimes are exposed, stretching intermittently into the distance.
Zero carried her along the railway tracks. Renata walked 120 kilometers, her feet blistered, and Zero carried her on his back. But in the end, they couldn't escape together, because the whole world was hunting them, and where could they find refuge?
So when Zero told her to leave, she left, her footprints changing from two lines to one. Renata left her name on that railway track, and walked alone along it into the distance.
She traversed the long winter, crossed the borders of the collapsed empire. She learned a new language, and a deeper silence, living expressionlessly; she no longer cried, nor did she lie.
Nineteen years.
Enough for a snowfall to melt, enough for railway tracks to rust, enough for a girl to grow from a young woman into an adult. And enough for a boy to grow from an infant in swaddling clothes into a nineteen-year-old teenager.
Her loneliness would last as long as his life.
"Renata Yevgeny Chicherin, would you like to escape with me? We will not abandon or betray each other along the way, until the very end." Zero stared into her eyes.
Renata gazed at the magical boy for a long time, his eyes seemingly shimmering with faint golden ripples, his gaze stretching back thousands of years.
"Zero?" Lu Mingfei walked over and saw Zero staring blankly at the mirror.
"I do," she whispered.