"So soon!"
Ethan's pupils shrank, and he no longer cared about screws or locks.
He hurried toward the back of the water tank, then didn't even dare breathe too loudly, hoping his mom would just come up, take a look, and leave.
Then… Some faint music sounded in Ethan's ears.
Ethan listened carefully for a long time before he finally made out the few lines of lyrics she kept repeating.
"Suddenly realizing in the early hours of the morning that there's no one to say goodnight to~"
"My bedside is missing that gentle cat, hidden in the dark corner by the wall~"
"Only then do I remember someone telling me that when I'm wasting away, I should remember to look up~"
"Putting on black clothes and dark-red boots, I suddenly like taking walks in the middle of the night~"
"On the streets with only tree shadows left, the quietness of this city makes me throw caution to the wind~"
"I'm used to pulling up the left corner of my mouth and quietly smiling. I really don't want to care~"
"…"
This song was unlike ordinary songs. It was more like muttering to oneself to a rhythm.
But strangely enough, you would feel that it actually sounded pretty good when she sang it.
Only… the longer you listened, the more it made your whole body feel creeped out.
Because Ethan suddenly remembered that the boots his mom had been wearing just now were dark red, the color already close to dark brown, and they looked somewhat dirty.
It was as if those boots had gotten something indescribable on them.
'What exactly is that stuff?'
At this moment, an unbelievable thought suddenly popped into Ethan's mind: to take another look, just one more look, at his mom's red boots and see what exactly had gotten on them.
This clearly wasn't important, but for some reason… once the thought appeared.
Ethan couldn't control himself. He wanted to stick his head out and take a look.
'Just one look!'
'Just one look!'
Ethan couldn't suppress the strange thought in his mind.
It was as if if he didn't go out and take a look, he would be so uncomfortable that he couldn't sleep, so uncomfortable that his brain wouldn't be able to function.
[Half a meter ahead, beneath the brick, there's a small shard of broken mirror. You might be able to use it to take a look.]
Suddenly, half a meter in front of Ethan, a red exclamation mark appeared.
"Hm?"
'A shard of mirror?'
Right, he could make use of a mirror shard. At the very least, it would be safer than sticking his head out to look.
Ethan fought to control his urge to stick his head out and take a look. He lifted the square gray heat-insulating brick in front of him, and sure enough, there was a tiny piece of mirror beneath it, only about the size of a banyan leaf, flashing white in the sunlight.
He quickly reached out and took out the diamond-shaped mirror shard.
Ethan carefully pinched the shard and placed it at the edge of the water tank, letting just a tiny bit of it stick out, about the width of a finger. Then he used its reflection to see what was happening outside the water tank.
"Phew!"
Ethan took a deep breath before taking a look.
The reddish-brown boots were covered in all kinds of unidentified liquid, leaving the original red leather mottled and barely recognizable.
Some of the brown liquid had even flowed halfway down before solidifying on the boots, covering their original red color and giving the beautiful boots a strange, weathered look.
Luckily, Ethan was looking at the back of the boots.
That meant their owner was currently facing away from him.
But the instant Ethan saw the boots, the obsessive thought that had been in his mind vanished as well, as if it had been some kind of strange curse.
He had to look. Ethan suspected that it might have something to do with the song she was humming.
After realizing that this was a possibility, Ethan immediately began reciting the Heart Sutra. Only noise could fight noise.
'Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, saw that the five aggregates are all empty and crossed beyond all suffering and hardship. Shariputra, form is no different from emptiness, emptiness is no different from form, form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is form. Feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are also like this…'
Ethan muttered under his breath while using the mirror to look at the woman outside the water tank, wondering exactly why she had come upstairs.
As the mirror shard slowly moved up until it showed his mom's legs and waist… Ethan finally saw clearly why she had come upstairs. She was holding a mop and walking back, mopping away the long trail of blood she had left on the rooftop while dragging the black plastic bag.
Scrape! Scrape!
Scrape! Scrape! Scrape!
However, after mopping a few times, Mom intended to put the mop into the bucket beside her and wash it.
But what was strange was that although the bucket was clearly not far from the mop, Mom tried several times to put it in and failed to get it into the bucket accurately, as if…
She wasn't looking at the bucket at all, which was why she couldn't put it in.
Thump!
After thinking of a certain possibility, Ethan's heart suddenly jumped.
Then he slowly moved the mirror shard up…
[T/N: A new fanfic is up guys— "Naruto: Transmigrating with a Gift Pack System" so add it to your collections and give some Powerstones. Have a great day, hope you enjoy it~ 🎉🎉]