City of Burning Snow

Before he stepped into the mansion, he carefully looked at this magnificent and huge building.

Due to the bad weather in Siberia, many cities have empty old buildings that are uninhabited. In the wilderness chosen by Shibusawa, it is too close to the ice field of snow-capped mountains. Not to mention buildings or cities, even creatures are scarce. And single species.But he just took a fancy to such a harsh and uninhabited environment. This wasteland is just like his heart, and he feels the long-lost peace of mind here.

He spent a lot of money and invited the best craftsmen in the world to build his own city of refuge, which has a double-peaked structure similar to Cologne Cathedral and ancient and exquisite Gothic wall decorations.It is taller and thinner than the Cologne Church. This building has only been built recently, and it has long been frozen by the wind and snow into a palace of death built by tens of thousands of skulls.What operate in the temple are lifeless joint dolls. Their bodies flow the blood of people who once belonged to living people but have lost their souls because they are far away from the body.Shibusawa Tatsuhiko walked among his stone gardens, waiting for his beloved dolls to come forward to greet him, but no one came out until he reached the huge main entrance.

Unknown in his heart.Intuition connects certain details, but the mind does not yet fully understand.He quickened his pace, and he pushed open the door, which was empty.The resplendent and resplendent palace is no different, it seems that apart from the mysterious disappearance of groups of puppets, there is nothing unusual here.But his breathing was stagnant, and he walked quickly up the stairs to the collection warehouse on the upper level of the mansion, located in one of the Petronas Twin Towers.The walls are in the shape of a cylinder, gathered high around the murals on the ceiling, and there are countless shelf squares on the walls from the floor to the ceiling.Some grids are full, and a bottle of blood is placed in each grid.Other grids are still empty, waiting for more unparalleled collections to fill them.

— It doesn't look like anything has changed.

Shibusawa's sense of uncertainty has not disappeared.He looked at these blood bottles carefully, and picked up a bottle from one of the grids. The test tube was made of special glass, and the bottle stopper was carefully carved into the shape of a skull. A golden rose wrapped around the cork and spread downward, showing the complete state If it has not been opened.He stared at it, the blood thickened like his own eyes, and just as he was trying to read the signs, someone snapped his fingers lightly—just like he did in the top floor of New Russia, A lively voice came from outside the door far behind him.

"Yeah, it looks like you're going to get up too, Shibusawa-san—how is your sweet dream, how are you doing recently?"

Nikolai Gogol's voice came through.

The walls of his palace began to crumble.The murals depicting colorful clouds and gods peeled off from the ceiling, and bottles of black and red blood spilled from the top, and then the marble relief panels fell to the ground, and the glazed windows made a terrible sound of bursting from the outside to the inside. , the phantom fell like snow at Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's feet.He turned around slowly, not surprised to see Dostoevsky and Gogol enter his hall.Dostoevsky took a bite out of the red apple in his hand and threw it to the ground.

The apple rolled down to Shibusawa's feet, with an incomplete small tooth print on it.

"Fyodor..."

"Wow, totally ignored me again, this man."

Shibusawa Tatsuhiko raised his voice, and overwhelmed the unnerved joking voices of the Ukrainians, he asked brightly. "...Why did you do this? I don't remember ever treating you badly."

There was a slight bitterness in his voice that couldn't be ignored.The palace continued to peel off, revealing its original appearance.The display racks that had been destroyed by the soldiers of the Tower of London were empty, and the puppets were lying all around in a crooked manner. The traces of stubborn resistance appeared on their empty faces, broken necks or limbs. Only these people I am completely loyal to Shibusawa, and the irony is that they only follow the inertia of thinking in their blood, thinking that they are obeying the motherland.

"You really treated me well. If you hadn't found me for your personal freedom and desire at that time, I wouldn't have achieved my goal so many years in advance. I thank you."

Dostoevsky walked up to Shibusawa and took off the isolation coat that Gogol and himself wore together. It was this clothes that allowed them to follow Shibusawa Tatsuhiko back to the mansion without being caught by him. Discover.He untied the metal buckle on the back of the pom-pom, and helped Gogol fasten it on his shoulders again. While fastening it, he continued calmly.

"That day, even though we made an appointment in advance, I am still very grateful to you for taking us in. Being betrayed by Osamu Dazai was not my wish. I was seriously injured and temporarily lost consciousness. If you hadn't taken me and Nikolai in time When we got here, we were probably frozen to death in the garage. In fact, I still have some chilblains on my hands."

"So, Fyodor, your reward is to steal all of my collection?"

"I didn't do this, it was the troops from the Tower of London."

"Aside from me, the only ones who know that they are stored here are you and this Ukrainian. Even Dazai doesn't know about it."

"Speaking of rewards, we have actually fully rewarded you."

Dostoevsky paused, he could clearly see a moment of disappointment on Shibusawa's face, and even a little hurt, the most ordinary emotions.He knew that all of this could continue, and many speculations were true.He went on.

"I agree to your follow-up request and plan the rest of the theft on your behalf. Before I left New Russia, I originally planned to withdraw peacefully. To tell you the truth, you are grieving for my betrayal. I I also regret your impulsiveness? Nikolai would not have met Belinsky prematurely, but your words intensified his prejudice, although of course, Nikolai himself should also reflect on—"

He glanced at the person next to him, who scratched his head pretending to be shy without reflecting at all.

"—But there is no doubt that you took advantage of his character, seduced him, made him who didn't understand the whole situation mistakenly think that I was going to be arrested immediately, and made him react... It seems that you are yourself, Shibusawa-san."

"I've been urging you for a long time, but you've been procrastinating and making excuses for not coming back from the battlefield. While waiting for you to start acting, I still have a little fantasy: what if Fyodor is indeed planning?"

Shibusawa's eyes were endlessly gray, his white hair, his pale, unhealthy skin, following his words, finally revealed the cause of his anxiety frankly.

"While waiting for you to return to Moscow, I walked into the interior of New Russia several times, and suffered from not being able to get the opportunity to enter the sample library. Now that I think about it, where is the bad luck every time I mix in, it is because you ordered someone in advance to do it for you I was hindered by the delay... in your change log, I finally saw the clues."

Scarlet eyes fell on Gogol coldly.The latter has already heard the cause and effect on the road, so he responds to this hostility very clearly and unscrupulously.

"In the final analysis, you dragged it out for a month or two, just trying to find a way to bring this Nikolai Gogol out of the tower. Too much time was wasted by you...you may also Are you waiting for my death to come early? Fyodor, when you are anxious about Nikolai Gogol's right eye, I understand your concern about the decline of life, the difference between the albino of the Sentinel and death Not as indifferent as you've shown."

——I am on the side of the living, punishment.

Gogol quietly faced Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's gaze.His right eye has permanently lost sight, but it is like a price, a catastrophe that his stupidity, impulsiveness, his blind protection of Dostoyevsky have wrought--a catastrophe just enough to match the things that are exchanged for equivalent value.It is precisely because he lost this eye that he no longer thinks about problems as simply as his past self.He began to realize that when the two came together, his body no longer belonged to him alone, Dostoevsky's body, his fate, all their dignity that belonged to him...all these, They should be guarded more carefully, and the standpoint of guarding is trust in the other party, not suspicion.

New Russia did not fully trust Dostoevsky.My past self didn't trust him either.Dostoevsky is like the Son of Man who voluntarily accepts the mission and walks into Jerusalem. He does not excuse himself, and his love can stand the test from beginning to end.Can stand the test, but often can't integrate into the rules of the world.Just like Gogol himself, he is the creation of God, and he should live in the world dignifiedly, but because of his own fault, he must be punished and have one eye gouged out, so that he can become like ordinary people, able to grasp Tighten Dostoevsky's hand.

"Why did you hand over those samples to others? Fyodor, don't you insist that the world has gone into evil ways, and that the transformation and use of the human body and nature are against the will of God?"

"—Really? So I told you."

Dostoevsky spoke smoothly, and as he said these things his eyes became a little more serious.

"These words tell you that we want to make our cooperation more harmonious. Indeed, I agree with some of the views until now...but generally speaking, I am not comprehensive."

Shibusawa frowned. "All ears."

"Just as when I was working with you, I told you that the genetic research they were developing was going astray—and when I talked to Mr. Belinsky, I told him that it was too loopy and not Does not meet the real needs of the new Russia."

Do you know?What a person regards as destiny is actually just a coincidence.At certain times, I was used as a restrainer, controlling the progress of this world; at other times, if history was at another stage, I might be a revolutionary and a promoter again...

"It's an interesting thing to chat with you. Few people, like you and me, can really be in a position of interference and control, but still regard this world as something far away, so far away that you can talk to others about things .”

Dostoevsky smiled flatly.

"You can keep up with my thoughts, but you also have a personal desire that fascinates me. I don't have this kind of fresh desire, Shibusawa. Sometimes you are like these countries at war, always being challenged by yourself. Leading by the nose."

Gogol lowered his head and drew a circle on the marble floor with his toes.Fascinated fascinated fascinated.In the spiritual world he rocked Dostoevsky like a child.Is it almost time to finish?Wow, change me to play change me to play!Dostoevsky smiled in his heart, wait a little longer, it will be fine soon.

"You are, after all, a friend of mine. I am honored that you think so yourself. You are a pathetic creature, but one of the rare ... living beings."

I am not waiting for your death, do you need someone like me to wait for your death?Your death has already run through your life, and your vitality is shining in death.

"You are not like me, who redeem or kill people for the benefit of others, nor for yourself."

All your desires are directed towards the purest thing, which is the beauty of life.

"I am happy that our paths overlap. I also regret the conflict that will follow. May you sleep forever in this withered city of skulls, as an indispensable puzzle piece on my path..."

Also as a friend, Shibusawa.

"I've come to fetch your head."

Sadness exists like a poem in Dostoevsky's deep purple eyes, and the wind blows past his ears.Gogol happily picked up a few circus knives from his waist and threw them over.Shibusawa Ryuhiko's mental power exploded and condensed, and he remained silent all the time.

"I am willing to bear this karma, and may we transcend the barriers between life and death, between humans and gods. If I can help you fulfill your desire..."

Dostoevsky smiled slightly, and he left the words he didn't want to say any more to himself, and also to Nikolai Gogol who would always accept his wishes.If you can fulfill a wish deep in your heart and give you the ultimate supreme happiness——

What does it matter if we stain the hands of our sinners red?

Shibusawa supported Gogol's blade with his bare palms, and his skin strengthened rapidly, revealing a taupe luster like dragon scales.Gogol had been reminded in advance that the other party had injected part of the sentry's blood into his body, but he was a little surprised to see this weird reaction.He was a little distracted, Shibusawa slapped his face with a palm, and his sharp fingertips passed through, drawing a bloody gash on his closed left eye, Gogol suddenly turned over and backed away , Dostoevsky maximized the synesthesia between the two in time, and Gogol saw the battle situation clearly again in his blood-stained vision.He wiped the blood near his left eye.

"...It seems that I am not the only monster in the world."

"You have disqualified yourself as a monster, Nikolai Gogol. No...you never had that dignity."

Shibusawa Ryuhiko followed his pace and slashed and slashed. Gogol narrowly avoided a blow and was kicked aside by the opponent's more rapid movements.Reflexively jumping up, he spat out a mouthful of blood, and Dostoevsky opened his thinking tentacles to share part of Gogol's pain, so that the other party could enjoy the battle more freely.

"You have no shining points at all. Do you think he will really regard someone like you as his equal? ​​There has never been anyone who can really stand with Fyodor Yes, people who can be equal to us have never existed."

Gogol smiled extravagantly at Shibusawa's contemptuous stare.

"I would rather enjoy the mediocrity of human beings than stay in a lonely tower like you, holding on to the pathetic dignity of some monster or genius. You want to say that Fedya and you are both monsters? That's strange— —”

A knife was stabbed into Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's back, and he turned his head in surprise.The air tore open the huge eye-shaped vortex, and Gogol's hand protruded from it. After pushing the knife handle hard into the white-haired youth's wound, it waved it friendly and then retracted.Dostoevsky's tentacles of thinking are integrated with his and Gogol's common abilities, and that part of the phantom system swallowed by the spiritual body has been freely used in this synaesthesia.

Gogol rubbed the elbow that appeared randomly across the space just now.

"—I don't think my Fedya is at all strange. Isn't he a rather lovely and ordinary man?"

The air burst open again, countless eyes, more mouths, ears, and a little black crocodile walking slowly around him on the ground that Gogol couldn't understand, all Dostoevsky's initiative The created illusion gathered around Shibusawa Tatsuhiko, and released the gem-like tentacles of thinking. The bottom of the tentacles was stained with Gogol's chaotic spirit, and the outside of each tentacle was covered by Dostoevsky's powerful and The thoughts glowing with white light were strictly controlled, and they stabbed Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's body at the same time, forcing him to have nowhere to go, piercing through the wall like a prisoner with a broken neck on the gallows.The white-haired sentinel, who was already at the end of his life, had very little body energy to use, and his scarlet eyes were gradually losing their luster.

"Feo...dor..."

Dostoevsky manipulates the phantom's physical tentacles to slowly lower the person back to the ground.The blood flowed down Shibusawa's arm and soaked into the broken head of the puppet next to the wall.The transformed blood control puppet trembled briefly, staring at its puppet-like eyes, staring at its former master lying in a pool of blood.More fragments of dolls were stained red by Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's blood. They couldn't move, just as Shibusawa himself was helpless. They watched this lonely treasure house that was affected by the war and destroyed at will.

Gogol pretends not to see the guide's outstretched hand.

"Nikolai."

He looked to the side with his head in his arms, and muttered cruelly, "You can die with bloodletting like this..."

Dostoevsky watched him silently until the other party sighed and lent him one of the circus knives in his pocket.Dostoevsky crouched down and plunged the knife into Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's throat, which was muttering as he tried to say something.The knife was sharp, blood splashed from the throat and splashed on his clean face.

Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's consciousness gradually disappeared into the white world.His puppet saw a man with a stubble beard and one-sided glasses in his broken vision, sitting in the corner of the mansion surrounded by dry mountains and rivers, putting his calf into the cold pool water.

Hey, I said Shibusawa.Mishima laughed loudly in his memory, if you don't put your legs in, you will never know why I am happy now.The owner of the angle of view sighed brokenly, squatting beside him, his fingers slapping his pulse.You waste too much time on sensory experiences, Mishima.

Hey, that's not a waste.Look, you said that, didn't you also laugh a little?

That's different.

What's the difference...

In the mirrored world, Dostoyevsky closed Shibusawa's eyes just as he had closed Nikolai Gogol's nightmare, stood up, sighed, and put his hands together. They were all stained with bright red blood.The light in the puppet's eyes gradually disappeared, and a faint and continuous sense of sadness penetrated Dostoevsky's spirit from Shibusawa's blood.He felt cold, and at this moment Nikolai Gogol gently pulled his bloodstained finger.

"?"

"Fei Jia, he said just now that I used to be a monster, but I'm not anymore."

"...Well. But I don't feel you are sad. Actually, you like this change, don't you?"

He is dragged by Gogol out of the room occupied by death.Slowly walking down the spiral staircase in the high tower, the orange sunlight reflected the snow, soaking their holding hands through the cracks of the broken glass windows.

"Although I like it... It would be perfect if I could handle it better at that time. You were still angry at the time, right? It was when I just found out that my eyes couldn't see."

"No."

In the obvious banter of the other party, Dostoevsky sighed.

"I just feel a sense of frustration. After all, it's my mental body, but it's not under my influence. Anyone who changes it will feel a little lost about this kind of thing. It would be great if the plan could be more foolproof."

"Why did you have to kill Shibusawa Tatsuhiko? Even if you leave it alone, his physical condition can't last long! After cutting off the chip by mistake, the poison he was infected with has already dyed his whole body into snow white Don't you? Why bother to get your hands dirty..."

Facing Gogol's slightly distressed gaze, he blinked his eyes.That's right... If you were an ordinary person, it would be best to just let it go.

"We are friends."

To betray and assassinate one's savior, this kind of thing is just a generalization, and perhaps no one can accept it.But in other words, if a person's life longs for death so much, his long suffering cannot be relieved for a long time.

Shibusawa Tatsuhiko, who calls himself a monster, sinks deeper and deeper in the deep pool of desire, so painful for Mishima's death, but still can't believe that he is not a monster, but just an ordinary person who can be sad and lonely ——As Dostoevsky himself, the limited mercy he can do is to let this person die, and believe the theory of monsters.

Gogol looked at him with a complicated expression. "Speaking of which, you also said I was a friend at first."

"What are you talking about. Are you not my sentinel?"

"Not really. It's just that when I heard this word suddenly, I suddenly felt a little far away... Haha, it's been a long time since I've seen it. In fact, it's just a short time in the past. It's so strange!"

"Are you troubled?" Dostoevsky said suddenly. "A fool like you who has always yearned for freedom is suddenly forced to combine with someone like me. You will also be watched by me at any time in the future. I will see through all your disguises."

Stupid... Gogol can't laugh or cry.The blond hair was shaking in front of his eyes in fragments, their footprints left traces of blood behind them that were becoming more and more imperceptible, and the steps in front of them went deep into the snow, and they walked all the way to the bottom, to the prepared, bundled of firewood and kerosene near the fuse.yes.He was indeed a super stupid who only knew how to find freedom, but didn't know that he was free.But at that time, even at that time...wasn't he also under Dostoevsky's perception?

Each of them took a handful of lit firewood and threw the flames into the mountains of hay.The fire first spread out ashes that were about to be extinguished, then flickered, and finally managed to burn.They backed away and looked at the Skull House that Shibusawa had lived in for a few days, which Shibusawa regarded as the last refuge in the world.Some of the dolls were also mixed in the flames, and they ignited this mighty building, just like igniting a city of hell full of desires, sorrows, hopes and memories.Let Shibusawa regain his city on the other side of death. Presumably by then, the other end of the tower will no longer be lonely, and Mishima's laughter will definitely erase all the sighs in the flames.

"It's nothing to worry about!" Gogol imagined the question Dostoevsky just said. In his opinion, such a question is basically not a question.He put his arms around each other's shoulders and said carelessly, "Anyway, for me, it seems that whether I marry you or not is all uncontrollable. After all, I would rather choose the soul than happiness. free……"

"Oh." Dostoevsky looked at him with a slightly complicated mood, what kind of classification method is this.He asked in a false manner, as if he was by the car window a few days ago. "Then am I happy or free?"

"Pfft, you..."

The golden sunlight hangs down from his trembling shoulders, staying for a while between the messy nails bitten by the guide, and the sunlight sleeps in Gogol's soft and bright pompom hair accessories.He bent down and gently kissed Dostoevsky's slightly cold lips.Before the snow was completely eroded, Gogol laughed.

"You are my soul, Fedya."

tbc.