Simon and Sheogorath stood in the even darker corner of the dark room.
Outside, bright white headlights swept by, projecting through the two small glass windows on the door, casting trapezoidal patches of light onto the grayish-white concrete walls, moving, shrinking, and then vanishing.
Not far outside the house was a busy highway; even at night, there were many vehicles passing through. Especially the heavy vehicles heading into the city, they made a massive racket, roaring back and forth, causing the house to tremble faintly.
The winter in Jiangnan was bitingly cold, with the temperature difference between indoors and outdoors being no more than a degree, yet the boy slept soundly. He lay in a comfortable bed, tucked under a thick quilt with a red cover embroidered with mandarin ducks playing in water—an item purchased when his parents were married. To an eight-year-old child, the space between the bed and the quilt was like a brand-new world. He hid inside, poking just his head out to face the outside air, feeling very safe, able to ignore the cold and the noise.
Sheogorath took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Simon often made this gesture as well, though he usually sighed like that when tired, whereas He was savoring the scent of a feast.
"Oh! What a pleasant surprise, my friend from another realm. Ah, you are very calm, and that is correct. I won't do anything to you, will I? It's just a little..." He held up His index finger and thumb, gesturing a small gap, "Trick. No, no, no, don't say that, I'll be sad! It's a joke, just a joke. Why keep such a straight face? Be like me, smile more!" Sheogorath's mouth split open at both corners, blood streaming down like tears, His complexion bone-white like plaster. As He laughed so wantonly, the sleeping boy in the room frowned slightly, as if having a nightmare.
Simon was not angry; he simply watched Sheogorath's performance.
"Next, we have the audience, but we still need a performer. Guess who it will be? Which one of us? Or together?" He rubbed His hands together excitedly, making a raspy, sliding sound.
"I don't want to guess."
"Giving up! Well, alright then, I'll have to reveal the answer—Ta-da!" Sheogorath waved His hand, and a Gate of Oblivion appeared, then vanished instantly, leaving behind a woman wearing a golden evening gown and a purple mink coat. It was Serana.
She seemed unable to see Simon and simply demanded of Sheogorath, "Where am I? Did you kidnap Baishan?"
"Shh, shh, shh... don't be agitated, lovely lady. Your beauty is like a midsummer night's meteor streaking across a mirror-like lake. Since that's the case, let's play a game, shall we?"
"I don't see the connection between the parts of your sentence, though you do have a sweet tongue. Now, hand over my lover, or I'll have to use an icicle to open your eyes on your backside!" It was rare for Serana to encounter a character with so many points to roast, and she even felt like bickering with the Mad God a bit more.
"Augh!!!" The Mad God suddenly flew into a rage. "Silence, you lowly Mortal! Who do you think is standing before you? It is the great Sheogorath, the Mad God, the Mad God! If you disrespect me again, I will flay the flesh from your bones and leave your entrails to bake in the sun!"
Serana was immediately shocked. "No wonder..."
Sheogorath's glare was truly, chaotically insane, spittle flying everywhere, His dull, gray eyes bloodshot. If nothing else, this expression alone was devastatingly potent. He stared at Serana for a moment until Simon kicked Him in the backside. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, He burst into laughter. "Oh, my! Your little boyfriend is threatening me not to scare you. Tsk, how boring!"
Serana's wording became cautious. "Great Mad God Sheogorath, may I ask how you can return my lover to me?"
"Simple, simple. First, guess where you are."
Serana turned her head to survey the surroundings. The room was cluttered with some old wooden furniture, made of pieced-together boards, nothing high-end. The room itself was not spacious; a bed, wardrobe, desk, nightstand, and chair—exactly five items, countable on one hand.
The boy on the bed tossed and turned slightly, restless.
"This is your lover's mind. You are inside his head! As long as you can wake this child up, he can return. But you have no spellcasting ability now. Haha, guess what you should do?" Sheogorath slurped the blood and saliva from the corners of His mouth.
"Please grant me a Revelation." Serana discovered that she indeed could not sense any Demonic Energy; the surroundings were a magical desert.
"Of course... the Wabbajack!!!" The Mad God opened a small leather case and violently pulled out a three-foot-long gray iron rod. It was straight, with a double-faced head at the top that was laughing with its mouth open—it looked exactly like an abstract representation of Sheogorath's face. There was a small round pit on the crown of the head, and the large mouth had been exaggerated, hollowed out to leave a sizable hole.
This was the Mad God's Divine Artifact. Activating the energy within would shoot a red orb of light from one end of the staff, and any object or creature hit by it would undergo various mutations.
Serana took the staff, and just as she was about to ask something else, she saw the Mad God take a step back and disappear into the shadows of the room.
Only the ceaseless sound of passing vehicles remained in the room, distant and lingering.
Serana activated the staff and struck the sleeping boy with the orb of light.
"Poof."
Amidst a flash of red light, the boy turned into a deer head taxidermy.
Serana panicked and tried to cast spells on the deer head with the staff repeatedly, but it had absolutely no effect.
She was slightly bewildered. At this moment, it was dawn.
The door opened, and a middle-aged woman in an apron walked in. She sat on the edge of the bed and gently nudged the deer head. "Kang Kang, time to get up, you're going to be late."
The deer head made no movement.
The woman sighed. "Two more minutes, then if you don't get up, I'm dragging you out of bed!"
She left the room without closing the door. The morning light was neither bright nor clean. Serana walked out of the door to the balcony corridor. To the right was a staircase leading to the first floor. The railing was made of iron, painted green, but much of it had peeled away, revealing rusty iron pipes.
In the distance were low mountain ranges, with the sun still behind the eastern mountains, only just peeking out a little. The clouds in the sky were very thick, leaving the western and southern skies overcast and extremely gray, with the night's darkness still thick and impenetrable. The mountain mist in the east was dyed through by the morning glow, golden and magnificent. The blue sky wasn't actually very blue, but it was still beautiful, and the morning star was shining quietly.
This place was Simon's childhood memory.
Downstairs, there were sounds of a busy kitchen, and the scent of food drifted out within the cooking smoke. Serana didn't know, thinking it might be a delicacy, but in reality, it was just leftovers from last night being reheated in a pot.
In front of the door was a small alley. An old man in a white shirt rode past on a tricycle, shouting, "Selling—gas—!" The sound was drawn out long. Serana couldn't understand it, but that didn't stop her from liking the peddling sound a little bit.
The woman stormed back into the boy's bedroom from the kitchen. She really did drag the deer head out, carrying it by the antlers as she headed downstairs, all the while complaining that such a big boy was still lazing in bed.
Serana followed downstairs with interest. She knew she hadn't messed up, so she would just wait and see what the story would be like next!
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