225: The first victim

Lin Que was holding the bowl of lotus root and pork rib soup when he heard the sound and paused slightly.

He didn't rush to drink the soup but set the bowl down and unlocked his phone screen.

In the pinned chat window, the avatar of the hammer-playing rabbit had only sent a photo.

Lin Que opened the enlarged image, and his eyebrows instantly shot up.

The background of the photo wasn't a piano or any scenery but an antique huanghuali wood table.

A pale, almost translucent wrist lay limply on a deep blue pulse pillow,

Beside it, a hand covered in age spots, dry and bark-like, was pressing on her cun, guan, and chi points.

Those three aged fingers pressed deeply, exuding a sense of gravity.

Lin Que's heart skipped a beat.

Isn't Ye Xi supposed to be preparing for her European tour? How did practicing piano land her in a traditional Chinese medicine clinic?

His fingers flew across the screen as he typed:

[Mu Xia]: ?

[Mu Xia]: Did practicing piano give you internal injuries?

The message had just been sent when the other side replied almost instantly.

But this time, it wasn't text but a fifty-second voice message.

Lin Que tapped to play, bringing the phone to his ear.

"Cough... don't even mention it."

Ye Xi's voice sounded weak, as if she had just run three kilometers,

Or as if half her soul had been drained, carrying a lingering sense of disorientation:

"I feel like my worldview has been smashed with a hammer, and now even the floor tiles at home seem to be spinning and jumping."

Lin Que listened, his eyebrows raised.

Ye Xi's second voice message quickly followed,

This time, her voice had calmed somewhat, but the tremble of lingering fear was still unmistakable.

"It's all that 'Dream Weaver's' fault!"

Lin Que nearly spat out the mouthful of old soup he had just taken.

"I got up to practice piano this morning, thinking to relax a bit, and saw he had updated with a new book called 'cthulhu mythos'.

I thought the name sounded fancy, probably some Western fantasy or adventure story, right? But..."

In the voice message, Ye Xi took a deep breath, as if suppressing some physiological nausea:

"I only read the first chapter! Just one chapter! That 'Call of Cthulhu' thing."

"I stared at that text for two minutes, and the words seemed to come alive,

Turning into unrecognizable musical notes, twisting and crawling on the page.

My mind was filled with that... screeching sound of nails on a chalkboard, and it wouldn't stop.

I felt like vomiting, my stomach churning, and then everything went black."

"My dad was terrified, thinking I had gone mad from practicing piano, and called his friend, the Jinling Traditional Chinese Medicine Master, to our house."

"By the way, Master Lin, have you read it?"

Lin Que listened to the voice message, his gaze falling on the bowl of steaming pork rib soup on the table.

An extremely eerie emotion, a mix of guilt and secret delight, welled up in his heart.

The secret delight was... this blade was sharp enough.

The guilt was that the first known victim turned out to be her.

In this black-and-white world where even art demands logic,

Suddenly being thrust into a mass of illogical chaos would make anyone's brain crash.

This physiological rejection and dizziness

Precisely proved the power of that 'bomb.'

Lin Que took a sip of soup to suppress the corner of his mouth.

[Mu Xia]: Just woke up, haven't had time to read it yet, drinking my mom's ancestral pork rib soup. But, for an artist, your mental fortitude is this weak?

About half a minute later.

Ye Xi sent a text message, no longer using voice.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: It's not about mental resilience [hammer]

[Fugitive Beethoven]: But, thinking about it now, there seems to be a... very eerie beauty in that text.

Lin Que looked at the screen, his eyes sharpening slightly.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Those descriptions were too insane. Even though the text was static, I felt like I could hear low-frequency vibrations from the deep sea.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Even though it made me want to bang my head against a wall, I actually caught a peculiar rhythm in that chaos.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Like a symphony that completely abandoned harmony, had no tonality, only chaos and grandeur. [pondering.jpg]

Lin Que marveled inwardly.

Ordinary people reading 'Cthulhu' feel nausea, fear, and chaos.

But Ye Xi could see through the surface of those mad words

And capture the artistic rhythm from the depths of the universe, named 'the unknown.'

In his previous life, when he first encountered Lovecraft's works,

He had felt this too—a trembling sensation of standing at the edge of a cliff, wanting to flee

Yet unable to resist peering down.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Wait, you said you were drinking soup your aunt made?

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Aren't you in the Capital? [confused][confused][confused]

[Mu Xia]: I'm back in Jiangcheng.

Lin Que replied, casually taking a photo of the view outside Xisheng Mansion's window and sending it.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: ???

Three huge question marks filled the screen.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Are you a rabbit? Running that fast? The awards ceremony just ended last night, and you're already home today?

Lin Que smiled.

[Mu Xia]: No choice, the reporters in the Capital were too enthusiastic, practically trying to shove microphones up my nose.

To save my life, I had to flee overnight, carrying the plane.

Home-cooked pork rib soup is still the best. The air in the Capital is too dry, not nurturing.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Sigh, jealousy is making me undergo plasmolysis [crying.jpg]

[Fugitive Beethoven]: I'm still under house arrest in Jinling.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: In a few days, I'll fly to Vienna. For the next month and a half, I'll be wandering in a place with only cold cuts and vegetable salads.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: Just thinking about eating greens every day makes life seem hopeless. [smashing piano.jpg]

Lin Que glanced at the calendar on the wall.

July 7th was the first stop of Ye Xi's European tour.

For a girl her age, that wasn't just glory but a long and lonely ascetic practice.

[Mu Xia]: Practice well, don't think about unnecessary things.

[Mu Xia]: When you return victorious, I'll treat you to the most authentic street food in Jiangcheng.

That kind of smoky, cumin-and-chili-powder-filled barbecue is definitely more exciting than any Michelin-starred meal you'll have in Europe.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: [star eyes][star eyes][star eyes]

[Fugitive Beethoven]: It's a deal! I want twenty super-spicy lamb skewers!!!

Ye Xi was clearly briefly cured by the word 'barbecue,' her tone much livelier.

They chatted idly for a bit more until Ye Xi said her dad was urging her to take medicine, bringing the conversation to a close.

Lin Que looked at the chat window, thought for a moment, and finally typed a line.

This was both a warning as a friend and a bit of selfish advice as the 'Dream Weaver.'

[Mu Xia]: By the way, about that book.

[Mu Xia]: When staring into the abyss, remember to stay rational. That's a pianist's essential lesson and the only survival rule for reading that book.

The other side was silent for a few seconds.

Then, a cool cat wearing sunglasses nodding emoji came back.

Lin Que put down his phone and finished the last sip of soup from the bowl.

He casually opened Hong Guo Net.

He opened Hong Guo Net, skillfully switched to his reader alt account, and clicked into the 'cthulhu mythos' book review section...