It was a land of eternal smoke, red scorched earth and a dusky were the only colors here, and Austin couldn't figure out why he was here, maybe it was a dream, but the smell of sulfur in his nose was so real that he couldn't believe it was a dream.
In a large pit full of boiling water, he bent down and quietly looked at the reflection, his delicate face was clearly reflected on it, mixed with some brown broken blonde hair, and when he looked at things seriously, he would unconsciously squint his small eyes, the bridge of his nose that was slightly raised, and his teeth were quite white, no different from his usual self, but his face was paler.
Didn't the old lady on Broken Neck Street say that you can't see people in the mirror in your dreams? Austen's common sense was broken again. Forget it, don't think about it, anyway, I can't have suddenly come to such a strange place from Oni City, it must be a dream!
But just as he got up to get out of the puddle, the reflection in the water suddenly changed out of the corner of his eye, and when he looked closely, he was startled and almost fell into the boiling water. A huge three-headed ghost suddenly appeared in the water, right behind his reflection!
Austin turned his head in horror, trying to make sure if there was such a terrifying three-headed monster standing behind him, he had already remembered that this ghost was the phantom that appeared in his mind when he was stabbed with the dagger of the female thief!
Fortunately, there was nothing behind him, and Austin let out a long breath.
"Roar~Roar~hiss~"
But at this moment, Austin's ears suddenly sounded a thunderous and deafening roar, right in front of him! Very close! He could even feel a foul breath spurting against him!
Although he had been mentally prepared, when he mustered up the courage to turn his head back, the monster in front of him still scared him and screamed.
What a big beast this is! Austin screamed as he ran backwards, trying to get away from the three-headed monster. He was sure that the monster was bigger than the dragon, and though he had never seen a real dragon, the tavern troubadours often sang that the dragon opened its bloody jaws and swallowed the knight and the horse in one gulp.
But this monster, so big that Austen could have imagined, it was like a hill crouching there! At its feet, it was like an ant!
The monster seemed to be somewhat interested in Austin, raised its claws, and grabbed at him, but it was such a simple action, which directly set off a strong wind, blowing down Austin who was running wildly, and the giant palm that fell from the sky easily pinched him up and brought him to the head in the middle of the monster.
At this moment, Austin was already frightened, and the monster seemed to have lost interest in him again, and directly opened its huge mouth, and swallowed Austin with a slight drop of its claws....
In a humble shop on Hamm Street, the apothecary Jace was dispensing potions from a worn-out parchment, and behind him were two rows of small shelves, one of which was filled with strange herbs, the shells of beetles, the dead roots of old trees, the bloody skins that had just been peeled, and the other was the jars and jars of colorful liquids that Jace had prepared. And behind the two wooden shelves, there was a thin plank bed, which was usually a place for Jace to rest, but today there was another person.
Austen, a gangster who lives on Broken Neck Street in the back, is no stranger to him, and can even be said to know him well. In the first few years, when Austin first became a 'promising' gangster, he had little experience in fighting, and he was injured almost every few days, and then he would come here for treatment.
Jace occasionally persuaded Austen to stop being a gangster and find a serious job, the docks, grain stores, and car dealers were all places where he could make money as long as he had the strength, but Austin firmly believed that he could make a fool of himself and continue his gangster path.
Today this young man came again, but unlike usual, he was carried in, this time the injury was very serious, he was stabbed in the chest, and the time dragged on for a long time, and the wounds began to rot.
The person who sent Austin was very generous, and he made a gold coin to make him heal. With the gold coins on it, Jace did his best, not only took out the treasured silver dagger (he usually picked up the knife to cut the herbs to clean up the rotten flesh on the patient's body), but he also asked his daughter to boil some hot water to help Austin clean his body.
After finally treating the wound, applying medicine, and bandaging, Jace also made an exception to leave Austin in a coma, let him sleep in the store for one night, and then go home when Ming'er wakes up.
Jace's performance was not unrewarded, and Ritter, who had sent Austin, was satisfied with his treatment, and when he left, he gave him a gold coin and told him to take care of Austin for his own life.
"Woking, Austin is really going to be developed, and he has such a big friend!" Jace couldn't help but sigh as he held two gold coins, he even felt that the profession of gangsters was also quite 'promising'. The nights in Oni City are quiet, and Jace's favorite thing is to start dispensing potions after everyone else has gone to sleep, when no one disturbs and there is no need to worry about others stealing his craft from outside the window. But tonight's silence was soon broken by Austin's helpless screams, and Jace hurriedly put down the bottle of purple potion that had not been prepared in his hand to help people fall asleep, and ran to see Austin.
The patient on the bed, who seemed to be in great pain, was puzzling to the old pharmacist, who had been running a pharmacy for twenty years, and who had already added a sufficient amount of analgesic Hoan grass to the medicine for wound dressing, and that the patient should continue to be in a quiet coma until noon tomorrow.
But looking at Austin's appearance, although he was covered with bruises in pain, and there were large drops of sweat rolling down his face like beans, his eyes were not opened. Could it be a nightmare? But what kind of nightmare can make people so painful?
The screams in the store also woke up the pharmacist's daughter, who lived in the backyard, and the girl with some freckles on her face ran over in her pajamas in a panic, thinking that something had happened to her father.
"Oh, Krynn, you're just in time, go get a bucket of cold water from the well, I think he needs some help. Jace saw his daughter running and quickly commanded.
Kelin, who helped in the pharmacy every day and was considered an assistant, immediately carried out her father's instructions, fetched a whole bucket of cold water from the well in the backyard, and then carried it to the store with great difficulty. Without Jace's instructions, Colin consciously picked up a piece of cloth, threw it twice in the bucket, wrung it out, and began to wipe it for Austen.
The cold water seemed to have played a role, Austin's struggle was no longer so violent, but the bruised muscles all over his body were still extremely hideous, Jace frowned and observed quietly for a long time, then turned around and went to the shelf to get a bottle of viscous green potion.
"Crack his mouth!" Jace said.
Colin expertly cracked open her aching teeth with a stick in the shape of a duck's tongue, and Jace poured the potion into it. The potion helps comatose people regain consciousness sooner, and Jace believes that the root of Austin's pain is that he has fallen into some kind of nightmare that must be regained consciousness.
"Go boil some more water and pour some water on him slowly when it's cool. Jace himself rolled up his sleeves and began to use his hands to help Austin massage the muscles all over his body to help relieve his pain.
Finally, after most of the busy work of the father and daughter, Austin gasped for breath before dawn, woke up, and saw the familiar apothecary, the familiar pharmacist Jace, and his lovely daughter Collin, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the whole person was paralyzed, and he couldn't even lift a finger.
In the dream, he was eaten, torn to pieces, crushed into minced meat by the three-headed monster again and again, and then returned to his original state again and again, and was teased and killed again. Sometimes the monster would let him run for so long that he was exhausted, so far away that Austin no longer felt huge when he looked at it, and then he would easily catch up with him and crush him with his claws, with the steps that would make the earth move and the mountains shake. Whether it was the severe pain he felt when he was torn apart, or the horror caused by facing death again and again, it made Austin feel that he was about to go crazy, and he didn't know how long this cycle of terror would last, until he was numb, he stopped thinking, and let the monster torture him like fate....
"Thank you, Uncle Jace, and of course Klin. After being fed a bowl of broth in the morning, Austin finally regained some strength and thanked the apothecary master and daughter.
"Just thank the friend who paid for you, and he paid him for what I did for you. And you rest again, just get up and go home, the wound should be fine, eat more good food in the past two days, and move less to heal. Jace waved his hand, which was already sore from massaging Austin, and said that he wouldn't be able to do that without gold.
"That's... Uncle Jace, you see that there is no one in my family, and it is inconvenient to do anything, can I stay with you for the next two days? Don't worry, I will pay for your room. "
"Kid!" Jace suddenly raised his serious elder shelf, and then said to him in a serious tone, "Fear lingers because of avoidance, and cowardice follows like a shadow, I don't know what you dreamed of last night, but I want you to face it and overcome it like a real man." "