Zhao Kongcheng was struck dumb.
He truly hadn't expected words like these from the perfectly ordinary-looking high schooler in front of him—hadn't expected thinking this mature...
Only now did he realize how laughable his earlier approach had been: trying to fire up the hot blood and hero-complex every teenage boy was supposed to have.
Lin Qiye was not an ordinary high schooler.
Lin Qiye stood, walked straight to the door, hesitated, and stopped.
"Thank you for telling me so much. The non-disclosure agreement—I'll sign it."
With that, he pushed through the door and was gone.
This time Zhao Kongcheng only sat silently at the edge of the bed. He half rose, as if to catch him—paused—then sank back down, strengthless.
He knew what this boy represented. He knew the mission on his own shoulders was to bring the boy in. And yet...
he couldn't do it.
...
"Xiao Qi! Back at last? Why aren't you in your uniform today?"
"Auntie, I got up in a rush this morning and forgot it."
"You child... Doesn't the teacher scold you for skipping the uniform?"
"Just a couple of words. It's nothing."
"Ai, Xiao Qi—you've only just transferred. You can't be giving your teachers a bad impression. Be more careful with things like this."
"I know, Auntie."
"How are you getting along with your classmates? They're not shutting you out, are they?"
"No. We get along fine. They walked me home—I walked them partway too."
"Good, good."
"I'm going to my room, Auntie."
"Mm. Sleep early."
Thud—!
Lin Qiye shut his door, lay back on the bed, gazed at the night outside the window, and let out a long sigh.
This world was so much more complicated than he'd imagined...
Not that it had much to do with him.
After resting a while, Lin Qiye sat up. He had just started to undress when a hard object tumbled out of his pocket.
Clatter-clang!
Lin Qiye looked down and picked the thing up, puzzlement creasing his brow.
It was a piece of metalwork, like a small crest—only a little larger than a one-yuan coin, made of who knew what material, and faintly cool to the touch.
On the front of the crest, two straight blades lay crossed, their edges glowing pale blue; behind the blades spread a night sky scattered with stars. The craftsmanship was exquisite!
Beneath the design, three small characters were engraved: "Zhao Kongcheng."
"This is..." Lin Qiye's eyes narrowed slightly.
He remembered now—while Zhao Kongcheng was dragging him toward the hotel, the man's hand seemed to have brushed his pocket once.
Had he dropped it by accident?
Lin Qiye turned the crest over in his fingers. On the back were engraved a few short lines.
"If the dark night should fall at last,
I shall stand before the ten thousands of thousands,
blade leveled at the abyss,
my blood staining the heavens!"
"What spirit... Did Zhao Kongcheng write this himself? Or is it the Night Watchmen's creed?" Lin Qiye murmured. "He seems like such a doofus—doesn't look like a man who could write words like these..."
After toying with it a while longer, Lin Qiye set the crest on his desk, changed his clothes, and climbed into bed.
Tonight, he still had important work to do.
He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the Mental Asylum of the Gods.
At this moment, in the asylum's little courtyard, Nyx sat in a rocking chair hugging an armful of bottles and jars, murmuring something to them, a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth now and then.
If you ignored the murk in her eyes and the bizarre collection in her arms, then judging by the noble grace in her every gesture alone, it would have made a painting of absolute beauty.
Before long, a Lin Qiye in a white coat came walking slowly over.
To better inhabit the role of psychiatric doctor, Lin Qiye had dug a white coat out of the director's office—he'd even clipped a pair of plain-glass spectacles to the collar.
At first glance, honestly, he looked the part.
Lin Qiye walked to the rocking chair and quietly studied Nyx's clouded, vacant eyes, sighing softly.
According to the mythology texts he'd pored over, Nyx was indeed one of the oldest and mightiest of the Greek gods, top-tier in both station and power.
But compared to other gods, she had one defining trait...
She loved having children!
By Lin Qiye's count, Nyx had at least twenty-odd children—including the illustrious death god Thanatos, the sleep god Hypnos, and the gods of space, of fate, of doom, and so on and so forth...
With very few exceptions, the great majority of Nyx's children were evil gods who scourged the world from the moment of their birth—and more than a few of them came to miserable ends.
From the scattered fragments in the myths, Lin Qiye couldn't assemble any real detail about the Goddess of the Night. But he could guess: her current illness likely had something to do with her children.
The doctor at Sunshine Mental Asylum had spoken of a male patient who missed his dead wife so badly that he hallucinated her at his side. Was Nyx's sickness the same?
Missing her children so badly that she saw them in every bottle and jar around her?
But what had actually happened to her children, to wring a reaction this violent out of her?
And would an ancient god, possessed of true divinity, even be capable of emotion this fierce? Or had she—before she ever fell ill—already been stripped of her divine body, her godhood torn away?
Lin Qiye had no way of knowing.
"Hypnos, be patient—your older brother will be home soon. He's only lost track of time playing...
"That Thanatos. A troublemaker since the day he was born. When he gets back, he's due a good scolding!"
Nyx stroked the vase in her hands, staring blankly into the distance, a flicker of hope rising in her eyes—then clouding over again.
She paused, and her hoarse voice trembled faintly:
"But...
"it's been three thousand years. Why hasn't he come home..."
Watching this, Lin Qiye felt an unaccountable sourness rise in his chest.
Who could have imagined that the Goddess of the Night, once so far above all things, would one day be this helpless—this humbled.
She was the Goddess of the Night. She was also a mother waiting for her children to come home.
"To cure her, you must start from the root..." The doctor's words echoed through Lin Qiye's mind again. He lowered his head, thinking hard.
The root... The root of Nyx's illness lay in her lost children.
Curing her meant starting with her children. But her children were the celebrated gods of Greece—he could hardly go round them up one by one and deliver them to her feet, could he?
He didn't even know whether the Mist had brought them into this world at all. Where would he find that many gods?
And even if he found them—would those evil gods really trot along obediently behind him?
Lin Qiye frowned in thought—and just then, a spark of inspiration flashed through his mind!
Maybe... that would work?
Lin Qiye stood, gazed at Nyx in an agony of hesitation, and at last set his resolve and stepped forward.
Under Nyx's vacant eyes, he walked to stand before her, step by step...
crouched down gently,
wrapped his arms around her,
and whispered at her ear:
"Mother. I'm home."
In that instant, a light like nothing before blazed up in Nyx's eyes!!
Her trembling hands rose and clutched Lin Qiye tight. It took a long, long time before she managed one complete, quavering sentence:
"Welcome home, Thanatos, my child..."