Chapter 1467: Chapter 1467
It was late into the night, but a light still burned in Audrey's home on the outskirts of Nolan. Jenkins sat on the sofa, a forlorn expression clouding his features. The diviner beside him offered a gentle caution.
"Jenkins, I may not know your precise reasons for asking me this, but I must remind you that traveling through time is an exceptionally dangerous act—not only for you, but for the entire world. You may continue with your nightly tales; I will not stand in your way. But please, do not entertain any thoughts of altering history to bring that diviner into our time."
"I understand. And I only think of her as a friend, nothing more... Rest assured. Each story I experience is set in an era older than the last. There will be no opportunity to change history, and I will have no chance of ever seeing her again." ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel※fire.net
He returned to his bedroom in the Black Town church, his mood a tangle of emotions. He scooped up Chocolate, settled the cat on his lap, and stroked its fur for a moment before reaching for the book. He turned to the ninth story: "The Wishing Flower."
"This title sounds like something out of a fairy tale."
Jenkins mused. After a few minutes of reading, he drifted off once more, falling into a deep slumber.
This was clearly a time before the Thirteenth Epoch. When Jenkins looked up at the town's night sky, he saw only a single blue moon peering from behind the dark clouds. Even during the moon's smallest phase, it was impossible not to see a trace of the red moon. Evidently, the red moon had not yet risen into the sky in this age.
The tale bore a striking resemblance to the seven-colored flower Jenkins had written about in his Stranger's Story Collection. The only difference was that this flower could only grant a single wish—and in the end, no one had used it.
It was a story steeped in desire and contradiction, where the townsfolk, lured by the promise of the wishing flower, committed terrible deeds.
He strode onto the empty street. Unlike the dilapidated state of Black Town in the previous story, the town in this era was as developed as the one from the end of the Eighteenth Epoch, though the architectural style was vastly different.
His plan remained the same: find the church, introduce himself, and gather information before deciding his next move. But he had barely taken a few steps when he spotted an uncannily familiar figure at the dark intersection ahead—a little girl carrying a basket.
Her hair was wrapped in a dark cloth, and she wore a neat, fitted dress with small black leather shoes on her feet. She clearly noticed him too. Turning, she offered him a smile from the shadows before taking a single step back and vanishing into the night.
Though her clothes were a far cry from the tattered rags she'd worn when they first met, her aura and appearance were etched into his memory forever.
"A-01-2-0198! The Young Flower Seller!"
Surprise rooted him to the spot. He felt little fear; in fact, he wanted to speak with her. But seeing a familiar face in such a distant era filled him with a sense of dislocation, an absurdity that left him momentarily at a loss.
"How could she be here? So she's been active in the material world since at least the Thirteenth Epoch. But after tens of thousands of years, she still hasn't collected enough Sin Coins to ascend to godhood? It seems this path is even more difficult than I imagined."
Questions swirled in his mind. He hurried forward, hoping to ask the flower seller, but she had already vanished without a trace. Jenkins was certain he hadn't been mistaken. He also knew that their meeting here was no coincidence. Perhaps the master of the Prosperous Forest was involved in this story as well.
He searched the town but was surprised to find no church. He didn't know the time, but dawn was clearly a long way off. With no other choice, he headed for the forest outside of town and spent the night huddled in a large tree.
The next morning, Jenkins was awakened by the chirping of sparrows in the branches. Two of the small birds looked as if they were about to land on his stomach, but the moment they realized he was awake, they fluttered away in a panic.
He entered the town to investigate and, after some effort, learned that in this era, Black Town had no established Orthodox Church. Setting one up in such a remote place would have been pointless. Meanwhile, rumors of a wishing flower were already circulating among the townsfolk. No one knew where the flower came from, or how the stories began, but everyone was eager to believe.
That evening, a group of hunters returned from the woods, carrying the body of a companion on a makeshift stretcher of woven branches. Many people saw the body as it was brought into town, and they also saw the small white flower blooming from the dead man's chest.
Jenkins confirmed it with his own eyes. The flower was indeed rooted in the corpse, drawing nutrients from it to grow. The flower's spiritual aura was a mix of green and black, unlike the aura of the Fantasy Flower. But even in this different era, the meaning behind those colors was the same. This was another kind of powerful plant.
The rumor of the wishing flower had been circulating for some time, and it described a flower that bloomed from the chest of a corpse. The color, size, and petals of the blossom on the dead hunter matched the legend perfectly.
This caused a stir among the townsfolk. While Jenkins tried to find out what had befallen the hunters, the atmosphere in the town subtly shifted, and within a few short hours, it erupted into violence.
It was eight in the evening, a time when most people in a rural town would already be in bed. But tonight, the town was unusually bustling. A crowd had swarmed the town constable's home, where the body was now being kept in the backyard.
Jenkins watched the spectacle from a distant rooftop. He saw the beleaguered constable standing before his home, shouting something to the crowd. Then, he let a few of the ringleaders inside with him, only for them all to emerge again a few minutes later.
The clamor was too loud for Jenkins to make out what the constable was saying, but he saw someone suddenly lash out. The middle-aged constable was struck down, and the scene instantly dissolved into chaos.
By the time the townsfolk came to their senses, three more bodies lay on the ground, the constable among them.
"This story is a bit different... but I think I know how it ends."
Early the next morning, news spread like wildfire through the town: wishing flowers had sprouted from the chests of the three new corpses as well. The townsfolk moved all four bodies to the square. They crowded together, arguing over how to divide the four flowers. Everyone was convinced they were the real wishing flowers.