A dim basement, damp walls, a strange, almost disgusting environment.
The skinny, alien-like old man was laughing, a smile that contained dark joy, a pleasant, stomach-churning smile.
Bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs...
There are bugs everywhere.
Eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults.
Wriggling, crawling, flying.
A dense swarm of insects, more disgusting than the old man’s smile, filled the gloomy basement and rushed towards the shivering girl in the corner like a tide.
This is a girl who is still in kindergarten. She has short black hair and big gemstone eyes. She is a girl that most people feel pity for. However, this majority of people does not include the owner of the basement, the old man who lives in the same room with the girl.
The old man ignored the girl's cries and pleas, and drove the swarm of insects closer to the girl with wild laughter.
"Come on, Sakura. Only in this way can you become a member of the Matou family and my real granddaughter."
At this time, the girl could no longer hear what the old man was saying. Her heart was filled with great fear. She huddled in a corner, trembling, and whispers that only she could hear escaped from her moving lips from time to time.
"dad... "
"Mother... "
"elder sister... "
"Help me..."
However, her voice could not even be heard by the old man who was laughing wildly, let alone reach the person she was calling.
"Who will... "
The swarm of insects approached, just a hair's breadth away from the girl's delicate skin, so close that the insects' liquid-covered mouthparts and bamboo-like compound legs could be seen in the girl's dim eyes.
The girl subconsciously closed her eyes and finally let out a desperate whine.
"Someone... save me."
Perhaps Gaia did not want to see the girl's life, which had just begun, lose its luster, or perhaps Alaya unconsciously felt compassion, or perhaps the world had slightly shifted in front of the quantum fixed band.
The door of this sealed basement, which no one wanted to and no one dared to approach, was kicked open with force. A thrilling edge cut through the dim light, the girl's fear, and the swarm of insects that filled her vision.
A childish but sunny voice sounded in the girl's ears.
"It's okay, I'm here, I'll protect you."
The girl opened her eyes a little and vaguely saw a boy who was a little taller than her standing in front of her. He had short dark blue hair with natural curls, a short but straight body, and a temperament that was out of tune with the whole environment.
The girl recognized the boy, the one who was following the man named "Matou Tsuruno" who should be called "father", the one she should call "brother".
The girl inexplicably recalled the scene when they first met a few hours ago.
"My name is Matou Shinji, and you must be Sakura. From today on, you are my sister and I am your brother."
"Brother...Brother." The shy girl lowered her head and weakly called out this name she had never called before, like a fragile little deer.
The boy squatted on the ground and greeted the girl's evasive gaze with a bright smile: "Well, from now on, your brother will protect you."
At that time, the girl didn't take it to heart, but now she believes it.
Leaving her warm family, her father, mother and sister, and coming to a strange environment, changing her last name from "Tosaka" to "Matou", the girl's pure heart was filled with confusion.
Just when the girl finished dinner and was sitting in a daze in her new room, the head of the Matou family, Matou Zouken, whom she should call "grandfather", brought her to this uncomfortable basement.
Soon, the nightmare began.
The one who broke the nightmare was the brother who said he would protect her the first time they met.
Standing opposite his brother, in the sea of insects, Matou Zouken was angry and surprised.
Angry that the ceremony was interrupted before it even began, surprised that the one who interrupted the ceremony was that ordinary, common, talentless, and waste grandson.
"Shinji, what are you doing here? I should have said that no one is allowed to come in here." The old man's already small eyes narrowed into a slit, and his pupils, which looked more like insect eyes than human eyes, focused on the door that Shinji kicked open. The man who was supposed to be guarding the door was nowhere to be seen.
"Don't look for him anymore. Father has been knocked down by my uncle." Shinji said calmly.
"Uncle?" Zōken's face wrinkled, and an ominous shadow emerged in his mind, "Kariya? The idiot who abandoned his family? How could he?"
"Uncle has come back, just now -" Shinji said sarcastically, "-I invited him back, are you surprised?"
"You?" Zang Yan's pupils shrank, and for the second time in his life he looked at this grandson whom he regarded as a waste. "What do you want to do?"
"Nothing, just cleaning this dirty house." Shinji's face became colder and colder, completely different from when he comforted his sister. "I finally have a lovely sister, how can I let her be scared by disgusting bugs? Especially an old bedbug that has been alive for five hundred years. The smell of decay is disgusting just by smelling it."
Yes, just as Matou Shinji said, his grandfather, or more accurately, his grandfather in the household registration, Matou Zouken, was an old monster who had lived for 500 years. And the reaction of this old monster was worthy of his age. After the initial surprise and anger, he had completely calmed down.
"How do you know all this?" There was murderous intent hidden behind the calm tone. The plan he had carefully prepared for many years could not afford any mistakes.
"Guess?" Shinji chuckled, but there was no smile on his face.
The little bit of patience that Zang Yan had left to speak was worn out. If he wanted to know something, he would first catch this kid and then slowly ask him. As a magician, a great magician, it was too easy for him to get things from someone's mouth.
In contrast to the old man himself, the cane that exuded a woody scent tapped the ground lightly, and the insect swarm that had been accumulating for a long time broke out again.
"Although I've been mentally prepared enough, I still feel sick when I see the real thing with my own eyes." Shinji's face was livid, and he tried hard to suppress the discomfort in his stomach. "Sakura, close your eyes and cover your ears. It will be over soon."
After saying that, Shinji raised his left hand, and a pair of eyes suddenly appeared in the palm of his hand. The deep pupils were elongated into ovals, emitting a strange golden color, just like the eyes of the legendary winged snake.
Everything captured by these eyes, whether living or non-living, is coated with a layer of gray and is forbidden to move.
The reptiles on the ground froze on the spot like statues, and the insects in the air fell down and shattered into rubble.
"Petrification... Demonic Eye!" Zang Yan, who had escaped the disaster by hiding behind the insect swarm, looked very upset, "You... How is it possible?"
A flash of enchanting cold light flashed across, splitting the skinny old man in two.
In front of the old man, Shinji held a faintly visible long-handled sickle blade and issued a death declaration:
"You should die, Matou Zouken, no, Machiri Zorgen."
PS: The new book is released, please collect and click to recommend it.