Wednesday wanted to use her sharp tongue to mercilessly attack Victor as she always did.
But looking at the boy before her—eyes hazy with drink, hair a mess, yet showing a rare, straightforward concern—those biting words swirled on the tip of her tongue but simply wouldn't come out.
The feeling was unfamiliar and irritating.
"You're drunk."
Finally, Wednesday spat out those dry words, attempting to find a logical, acceptable explanation for this inexplicable stagnation and Victor's unusual candor.
Victor managed to roll over, burying his face deeper into Wednesday's black pillow, which carried a cold, faint fragrance, and mumbled unclearly, "Probably..."
His voice was muffled, heavy with sleepiness and a nasal tone.
The atmosphere in the room fell into a subtle silence for a moment, punctuated only by Victor's gradually steady breathing and the faint sound of the wind outside.
This quiet wasn't the kind of all-controlling silence Wednesday usually enjoyed; instead, it was permeated with a thick sense of unsolved riddles and unspoken words.
"Why do you say I'm being targeted by them?" Wednesday was the first to break the silence, her voice returning to its usual coldness, though a hint of carefully suppressed curiosity could be detected if one listened closely.
Victor seemed to be pulled back to a shred of consciousness by the question. He wriggled his body, trying hard to roll over and sit up.
After a few attempts, he gave up and simply lay on his side, looking at Wednesday with bleary, drunken eyes.
"That attack in the woods... I had my suspicions..." His speech was slow as he struggled to organize logic in his alcohol-soaked brain. "At first I thought it was aimed at me... but thinking about it carefully, it wasn't right..."
He paused, seemingly recalling details. "They clearly knew the weaknesses of Venom and me... yet they only prepared one Flashbang... that doesn't fit their style of total extermination... So, I might not be their main target... at most an incidental one..."
His gaze focused on Wednesday's face. Though his eyes were dazed, they held an unusual seriousness. "Wednesday... you are their target. That monster killed Rowan... but turned a blind eye to you... why?"
He answered his own question, his tone gradually becoming clearer. "Because that monster's purpose... was actually to save you. And that monster is clearly under the direct or indirect control of the Plague Doctor... so I reached a conclusion..."
"For some reason... those Plague Doctors need you for a certain purpose... or something on you. And until that purpose is fulfilled... you can't die yet."
He gave a beer burp and continued, "I've been wondering what their goal actually is... until today... when I smelled their scent in the Crackstone Crypt..."
At this point, Victor suddenly struggled to stand up. The ropes on him had long since loosened and fallen off; perhaps he had untied them long ago, or perhaps Wednesday hadn't tied them tight enough to begin with.
His steps were a bit unsteady, yet he suddenly approached Wednesday with abnormal precision.
Wednesday only felt her sensitive waist being brushed extremely quickly and lightly by fingertips, bringing a faint itch.
The next second, the deep purple book with the elegant dragons breath symbol on the cover had appeared in Victor's hand.
Wednesday's pupils contracted slightly, and a strange sensation—a mix of shock and thin anger—rose in her heart.
Damn it! She had carefully tucked that book inside her clothes! How did he dare... to move so precisely and... so boldly!
Victor's expression remained normal, as if he had naturally picked up a book from a table.
He flipped open the cover and precisely found the page containing the other Prophetic Drawing.
"And then... you found this Prophetic Drawing." He pointed to the left half of the drawing, which depicted a pilgrim holding a scepter.
"Put together with the other Prophetic Drawing, it shows the two of you in a final confrontation."
"Joseph Crackstone..." Victor's fingertip pointed at the pilgrim on the left half of the drawing. "This is a guy who died hundreds of years ago. If the prophecy is true... this guy will be resurrected one day in the future... and duel you."
He looked up at Wednesday, a light of deduction flickering in his drunken, hazy eyes.
"Resurrecting this guy... might be the goal of those Plague Doctors. Of course... someone else might want to resurrect Crackstone too... but those Plague Doctors are definitely involved... at least they're playing a role in pushing it forward."
"About Joseph Crackstone... I know very little..."
His voice began to mumble again, his head nodding. "All I know is he's the founder of Jericho Town... this weekend is Outreach Day... if you're lucky enough to be assigned to 'Pilgrim World'... you might find something related to him there..."
Having said all this, Victor seemed to have exhausted all his energy, and the drunkenness surged back violently.
His body swayed, and finally, he leaned forward softly, his head landing squarely on Wednesday's slightly thin but straight shoulder. His breathing became deep and even; he had actually fallen asleep just like that.
There it was again.
That familiar, upsettingly strange sensation struck again.
Feeling the sudden weight on her shoulder and the warm breath passing through the fabric of her clothes, Wednesday instinctively clutched her chest, trying to calm the heart that had started to beat disobediently fast again.
She gritted her teeth and, with a trace of imperceptible panic, reached out to push Victor off her shoulder.
Victor fell back without resistance, sinking into the soft bed. A few blurred sleep-mumbles escaped his mouth, but his arm instinctively reached out, wrapping tightly around the metal railing of the headboard like a vine, as if it were his last lifeline.
Wednesday stood in place, taking several deep breaths before she managed to push that unfamiliar emotion back into the frozen layers of her heart.
She looked at Victor, who was sleeping soundly on her neat black bed, even hugging her bed railing, and her brow furrowed tightly.
"This is my bed," she announced coldly, as if delivering an ultimatum to a sleeping person.
Wednesday took a step forward and grabbed Victor's arm, trying to pull him up.
But Victor's hand was wrapped so tight it was as if it were welded to the railing. No matter how hard she pulled, he remained motionless, only grunting dissatisfiedly in his sleep.
Wednesday panted slightly from the exertion and finally had to give up on physical eviction.
Looking at the sleeping Victor, Wednesday's finger unconsciously brushed the fabric of her shoulder, which had been warmed by the moisture of his breath.
"The deduction was surprisingly accurate for someone so drunk... considering the value of this information," Wednesday thought coldly, "my sheets can endure one instance of contamination... as an investment."
Casting a disgusted glance at Victor's messy little bed right next to the bathroom door, Wednesday immediately looked away.
Finally, her gaze landed on the only remaining bed in the room—Enid's.
Fortunately, at least this Little Wolf Girl's sheets and duvet covers were a relatively plain off-white, adorned only with a few small, not-too-obvious golden paw prints, rather than the eye-searing rainbow style she had expected.
Otherwise, she might have died of an allergic reaction—both physically and psychologically.
Wednesday walked unceremoniously to Enid's bedside, looked at the sleeping blonde girl, and commanded succinctly: "Enid, move over."
Enid mumbled some incoherent sleep-talk and instinctively wriggled toward the inner side of the bed, leaving a narrow space just large enough to fit in.
Wednesday squeezed in expressionlessly, her back to Enid, occupying the very edge of the bed in an attempt to maintain maximum distance from this overly warm, overly "vibrant" sleep zone.
She closed her eyes, trying to banish everything that had happened tonight—the dragons breath symbol, the Prophetic Drawing, Victor's drunken words, and that mind-disturbing proximity and touch—from her mind.
However, Victor's words, "you are their target" and "resurrecting this guy," echoed repeatedly like a cold incantation.
And there was his mumbled hint about Outreach Day and 'Pilgrim World.'
It seemed that this weekend, she had a destination she must visit.
The night grew deep, and silence finally returned to the dormitory.
Only three sets of breathing rose and fell—one sleeping soundly on a large black bed hugging a railing, one squeezed onto the edge of a small off-white bed trying to maintain a cold barrier, and one who, in her dreams, unconsciously embraced her low-temperature roommate.