I write obituaries for the gods

"Would a normal orphanage have such a secret passage?" Li Zhanyi coughed twice.

"After all, this is not a normal orphanage."

Lucy turned her head and looked at the charred classroom.

"Those trained here... are those who have awakened their psychic consciousness."

"No...it shouldn't be called nurturing..."

"It's manufacturing."

......

Chapter Forty-Four: Fire (6000 words)

Fire, Lucy only remembers fire.

As the heatwave hit her, Ms. Matilda grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the front desk:

"Run! Lucy, run!"

She heard screams and her teacher shouting, but the fire showed no signs of stopping.

"Over here!"

When Lucy came to her senses, she saw Matilda pull open the hidden door of the bookshelf and lead her inside.

"Suppression of psychic awareness fails, repeat, suppression of psychic awareness fails!"

Matilda pulled Lucy along as they walked through the dark, narrow passage, trying to send out distress signals as they went.

"We're trapped," she said anxiously. "Please hurry..."

"..."

“When psychic suppression fails, it generally means that the experimental subject is suppressed by the anomalous entity, thus leading to the phenomenon of subspace erosion.”

In the narrow passage, Lucy led the way, explaining to the people behind her as she went.

"The core business of St. Peter's Orphanage is to cultivate enough psychic awakeners for the Mercury Society to strengthen its organizational foundation."

“Spiritual Awakeners… normally they can’t be trained, right?” Lin Chen frowned.

Professor Jürgen explained to Lin Chen that, generally speaking, psychic awakeners are born unexpectedly after resonating with abnormal entities in some way.

This process is virtually impossible to reproduce, since who would have the time to go up to an abnormal entity and ask, "Can you resonate with me?"

Isn't that just asking for death?

"Therefore, they used unconventional cultivation methods."

Lucy spoke softly, her eyes fixed on the narrow passage ahead.

Soon, she saw the familiar iron ventilation shaft.

"Don't worry... Lucy... just stay behind me..."

A pair of warm hands pulled Lucy back a little.

Lucy turned her head and saw that her teacher, Matilda, was smiling and watching her.

"Teacher..." Lucy asked timidly, "Why did Banshee become like that?"

"Bansi... Bansi must be sick..."

Ms. Matilda's eyes dimmed slightly. She shook her head and forced a smile.

"The professor will handle it, okay? What we need to do now is figure out a way to get Lucy out of here. Only if you're safe and sound can the professor go back to help..."

“Okay…” Lucy said softly.

"Sweetie," Matilda gently patted Lucy's head, "If anything happens outside, don't make a sound, just follow me..."

"Yes." Lucy nodded vigorously.

Teacher Matilda stepped forward, took out a bunch of keys, and inserted them into the keyhole of the vent.

"Clap."

Lucy pushed open the vent, this time kicking it open with her foot.

She was the first to crawl out, stood up, and looked around the familiar laboratory.

What comes into view are still those sets of equipment: the anomalous entity is contained in a container, and the surrounding data graphs rise and fall.

Next to the containment tanks were beds, with equipment such as tweezers and scissors piled haphazardly on them, and bloodstains on the bed sheets.

“Children are best suited to anomalous entities,” Lucy said softly. “Their experience is still shallow, and they haven’t yet left a deep shadow on the warp, so they are easy to reshape.”

“Every child from every orphanage has come here; some have left, and some haven’t.”

"Sister Lucy...is she a survivor of the experiment?" Li Zhanyi asked cautiously.

Lucy made no attempt to hide anything and immediately rolled up her sleeves.

There was a bright red barcode mark on her arm.

"To be precise, it's a commodity."

Lucy's gaze was cold:

"We are the merchandise of the Mercury Society."

"Damn it! What are you saying! Children are not commodities, they are innocent!"

Beside the landline in the lab, Lucy watched as Professor Matilda growled into the phone.

This young teaching assistant rarely showed this side of herself; she was usually gentle and lovely, and kind to every child.

“You can’t do this!” she said anxiously. “Sealing off the orphanage…do you know how many children will die here? No…absolutely not!”

"Hello! Can you hear me? Hello!"

Ms. Matilda pressed the phone onto the landline, panting heavily.

She turned her head and smiled again the moment she saw Lucy.

“It’s alright, Lucy,” Ms. Matilda bent down and gently patted Lucy’s head. “I’ll take you to the headmistress. She’ll help us, okay?”

"Mmm." Lucy nodded gently.

At that time, she didn't know much. At first, she was in class, and then Banxi suddenly said some strange things, and then she got all worked up.

Burning, Lucy hates the feeling of burning.

From as far back as she can remember, she was always asked to "light up what's in front of you!" She tried countless times, but never succeeded.

She hated fire, and the intense heat that came from contact with abnormal entities.

"Let's go, this way."

After searching the laboratory, Matilda found a small jar that seemed to contain some kind of anomalous entity.

“Evidence…evidence…” Matilda murmured.

She found another scalpel, hid it in her sleeve, and then stood at the door of the laboratory.

"Oh!"

Lucy kicked open the lab door, only to be met with a burst of bullets—

"Da da da!"

“I knew someone was hiding,” Lucy said, hiding by the door and looking at Oswald on the other side. “Oswald.”

"Ah."

Oswald raised his pistol and suddenly rushed out the door:

"Boom!"

"Bang bang bang!"

"boom!!!"

Flames erupted from Lucy's palms, burning all the enemies in front of her to ashes.

Amidst the screams of the enemy, she ran, her jaw clenching tighter and tighter.

"Run! Lucy! Run!"

"Oh!"

As Lucy rushed into the stairwell, Ms. Matilda slammed the door shut, keeping the flames outside.

"Bansi...was that Bansi just now?" Lucy asked timidly.

"Don't look, little Lucy, don't look."

Ms. Matilda locked the door from the inside and pulled Lucy upstairs.

Behind them, flames pounded against the door, as if a ferocious beast was roaring behind it.

"Dad, the fire at the orphanage is out of control!" Lucy heard Matilda on the phone. "I can only run as fast as I can... Listen! Don't forget our promise! Those things must be made public! If I die, those things will be what I risked my life for!"

"Dad, listen to me! Don't argue with me... I..."

Lucy saw that Ms. Matilda was crying.

"I'm sorry, Dad, but I can't... I can't pretend none of this happened..."

"..."

As soon as they pushed open the fifth-floor stairwell door, the view of the corridor came into Lucy and Oswald's eyes almost simultaneously.

The same.

Just like that classroom, it's exactly the same as it was years ago.

The difference is that this place remains magnificent after reconstruction.

There were no guards, no people, and not even a sound in the corridor.

"That fire really couldn't destroy the Mercury Society's power," Lucy murmured with a sigh.

"What was the cause of that fire?" Li Zhanyi asked softly.

Lucy turned her head and looked at Li Zhanyi.

“Someone didn’t want what happened in the lab to continue,” she said. “Someone made a choice, and someone else… chose to bury their choice.”

A hand rested on Lucy's shoulder, and she turned to meet Oswald's gaze.

“It’s not your fault,” Oswald said in a low voice.

Lucy's shoulders trembled slightly. She placed her hand on Oswald's and chuckled softly.

"Stop trying to comfort me..."

Immediately afterwards, Lucy picked up the machine gun and took the lead in walking forward.

She walked straight to the door of the dean's office and kicked it hard—

"Boom!"

The moment the door to the dean's office opened, Lucy saw the dean sitting behind his desk.

Lavoisier.

Whether in the past or in the present, she saw him.

Good evening, Matilda.

Lavoisier, behind his desk, flashed a charming smile.

"There's a fire downstairs, why aren't you running towards the door... instead of running this way?"

"Dean..."

Matilda looked at the dean in front of her, her fists clenched.

Then he let go.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered. “The child is innocent.”

"The child is innocent, of course."

Lavasis stood up and slowly walked to Matilda, looking into the girl's eyes, which darted around like those of a startled gazelle.