Mother of Insects

Chapter Nine

Draft
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Lin Xi never thought that he'd dream about that exhibition the first night after the failed leap.

If he could retain the ability to think in reality inside a dream, he'd attribute this dream to that weird Sunu sculpture. It was just really too ugly, Lin Xi could admit that he's been frightened by it.

Of course, part of the responsibility can also be thrown to John Bronson. If it weren't for that old man's madness, not many people would think of Talan Ida's obscure Sunu ancestry.

Or to Bryce, who firmly refused Lin Xi's innocent request for sleeping pills and tranquilizers, and kept nagging and telling Lin Xi that he should quit relying on drugs...

But anyway, he dreamed of that exhibition from many years ago.

Oh, and it's important to emphasize that the Sunu Cultural Exchange Exhibition in itself wasn't a bad thing.

Lin Xi and Bryce had a great time at that exhibition, occasionally, Lin Xi would inadvertently think of that in the summer of his childhood.

Maybe the passing of time endows human memory with beautiful filters, or maybe the Sunu displays at that time were too cute. In Lin Xi's memory, that exhibition was as strange as a fantasy, magnificent and wonderful, no matter what the details. Everything exuded an unbelievable dreamlike atmosphere.

However, Lin Xi and Bryce, who were having a great time at the time, didn't know that the Sunu Cultural Exchange Exhibition was the last event where the Sunu people ever communicated directly with Earth again.

The Sunu people, who were still on the Earth at that time, didn't know that a madness without any reason had already erupted in their home planet. However, not long after that event, the Sunu people staying on Earth also fell ill one after another. Their madness and sickness made them die like cockroaches on a foreign planet.

Oh...

Wait, let's go back to Lin Xi's dream.

Back to the Sunu Cultural Exchange Exhibition.

In his dreams, Lin Xi stared blankly at the hall decorated like a termite's nest.

A line of crooked characters hung outside the corridor, in Sunu language. He stood on tiptoe to get a better view but got bumped and stumbled, almost falling to the ground.

There was a crowd of people around him, the excited screams and laughter of children merged into the noisy background sound of his dream.

Lin Xi's point of view was very low. In this dream, he's still the taciturn and shy child from back then.

"Lin Xi, look— I'll tell Teacher Anna about this after summer vacation's over— it's so interesting—"

Then, Bryce's crisp voice sounded.

Just like back then, he pulled Lin Xi's arm and quickly walked towards the gate of the exhibition.

Lin Xi staggered forward, Bryce's face was like melted ice cream under the sun, and his features couldn't be clearly made out.

But his demeanour, his movements, and his voice were all so real as if it was a videotape running in his mind.

Lin Xi felt a little out of breath.

A subtle fear seized him.

He wanted to leave here, he didn't want to enter the hall as eagerly or urgently as his child self.

However, the dream flickered a little, and he was already standing in the exhibition hall.

There were still a lot of people, but when Lin Xi looked around, those people were like Bryce, with blurred faces and dropping features, even their bodies looked bloated and sloppy, blurred to the point where there were almost no outlines, like an indistinct memory, a third-rate painter's hastily dotted paint lumps on the canvas.