Chapter 246

Chapter 246: Bonfire, Fireworks, Long Time No See

It caught fire. That mountain-high pile of logs blazed up.

The Little Match Girl flipped it off, and the whole thing went up.

Thick lightless clouds closed over the sky, and an artificial night drew its curtain. Lamps lit one by one in front of the temporary barracks, dotting the Valley with the first sparks of starlight.

Everyone was invited to the Plaza: all the children from the Orphanage, the council employees who had cared for them all this time, and the Special Affairs Bureau Engineering Team that would pull out tomorrow. Hundreds of people gathered by the Bonfire, and outside the Bonfire sat the silent, giant shadows of the Thunder Titans.

A Phantom Door appeared at the edge of the Plaza. Yu Sheng pushed The Door from the inside and stepped out, happily waving to Little Red Riding Hood and the others waiting on the Plaza: “Look who’s here!”

Li Lin and Xu Jiali came out of The Door first. The two of them stared in shock at the scene on the Plaza. Yu Sheng nudged them from the side, and they hurried forward to greet Little Red Riding Hood.

Engineer Sun, the Special Affairs Bureau Engineering Team lead stationed here, seemed to know Xu Jiali. He jogged over with a few people, calling out warmly. The group of “employees” sent by the council, including Teacher Su, also hurried over at the sound, welcoming the new guests.

Two or three seconds later, a cool and distant figure with a gray-white single ponytail and a white suit stepped out of The Door with a trace of hesitation, looking around curiously.

The area fell silent at once.

Engineer Sun stared at the figure walking out of The Door: “Di… Director?”

Yu Sheng glanced over and saw even Rapunzel, who was usually the bounciest troublemaker, snap ramrod straight like a hero ready to die fighting evil. She did not even dare breathe.

That made him grin as he broke the silence: “Come on, Director Bai Li doesn’t eat people.”

“I knew it would be like this,” Bai Li Qing said, a little helpless. She sighed: “Relax, all of you. I’m just here to join the celebration. Pretend I’m not here.”

“Uh, Director, we were just surprised,” Engineer Sun recovered and coughed twice to ease the awkwardness: “It’s great that you could come. It’s just that we didn’t prepare anything…”

“It was a last-minute decision. I didn’t notify anyone,” Bai Li Qing waved that off, her gaze landing on Little Red Riding Hood and the other “parents” standing closest. She drew a gentle breath, and her expression softened: “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Little Red Riding Hood stepped half a pace forward with a faint smile: “You’ve always looked out for us.”

“No more polite words. Everyone relax tonight,” Bai Li Qing nodded, then tipped her face to the sky. After a moment she turned to Yu Sheng: “A very creative nightfall. And then? What’s the first item?”

“Rapunzel, where are your fireworks?” Little Red Riding Hood turned to her roommate at once: “You’ve been shouting about setting them off all afternoon. Now you really can.”

“Oh right, fireworks! Wait for me!” Rapunzel sprang up, shouting in delight as she ran toward the Portal Platform: “I stacked them by the platform. Get ready to watch-Little Match Girl! Little Match Girl, come on! Fireworks time!”

The two girls ran off from the edge of the Plaza. A short while later a sharp whistle cut through the night, and a bright streak shot up from the Portal Platform in the center of the Valley. After a few seconds of delay, a gorgeous blossom lit the night.

At the instant the firework burst, Yu Sheng felt like he heard a familiar voice in his head: “Hey, hey, that blew up in my eyes…”

No one else seemed to see the pair of eyes that flashed and vanished in the sky. One firework after another soared up into the night.

The Cursed Children cheered and screamed.

Irene cheered and screamed too. All three Irenes did.

Then Foxy joined in. She whooped as she fired a burst from a Fox Radish Machine Gun into the sky. Under her careful control, the eerie Fox Fire mixed with the fireworks rising from the platform and exploded together above, blue flames spreading across the heavens and then falling like meteors.

It was called a celebration, but there were no rules or schedule. The Cursed Children just wanted today to be truly loud and alive, to use this wild night as both the end and the beginning of childhood, a “mark” to remind themselves that a new life had begun. Now, the revelry started.

With this many kids around, no one needed to hype the crowd.

Grill racks went up right beside the big Bonfire. The masters from the Engineering Team worked busily with a bunch of teenagers. The little Cursed Children dashed back and forth between the Plaza and the Portal Platform to beg Rapunzel for smaller fireworks or to deliver food. The Plaza and the platform were close, only a hundred or two hundred meters apart, but King waved a paw and Summoned a patrol of Knights and watchmen with oil lamps to walk the “carnival path” up and down that short stretch.

A Pumpkin Carriage flew out from the rooftop of the “Castle” at the edge of town, swept through the sky between the Bonfire and the fireworks, and scattered colorful confetti over the Plaza.

Yu Sheng caught a bright scrap of paper and saw a sentence written on it in watercolor, big and bold:

“I want to be Teacher Su when I grow up!”

He showed the paper to Little Red Riding Hood, pleased. Her expression turned complicated for a moment, a silence made of many feelings he could not read. Then she smiled and pointed toward the Bonfire.

“Look, King Summoned its Court Jester.”

A Court Jester in gaudy motley, wearing a clown Mask and a pointed cap, performed hard by the Bonfire. Even though it was only a Summoning with little mind of its own, it seemed to sense how different tonight was. The exaggerated smile under the Mask looked sincere and eager. Then traveling village musicians and bards stepped out of thin air and began to play a tune no one knew.

Among the older kids, a girl with smooth Rapunzel-like hair and a light blue dress walked out when she saw the musicians King had Summoned. She hummed along, matching the lively rhythm with ease.

Her voice was not loud, yet it floated evenly through half the Valley.

There were no special effects, but it was beautiful. Truly beautiful.

Yu Sheng quietly edged backward.

With the Mermaid’s song as his backdrop, he left the busiest part of the Plaza without anyone noticing and reached an Open Ground at the edge of the barracks.

Bai Li Qing stood there with her arms folded, watching the Plaza from afar with a faint smile.

“You’re hiding this far out?” Yu Sheng asked casually as he walked over: “You do smile, huh?”

“I’ve stressed this many times. I’m not frozen-faced. I just have to stay serious at work, and it became a habit,” Bai Li Qing sounded especially helpless: “Also, I’m not hiding. I’m not used to noisy places, and everyone else is not used to playing while the Special Affairs Bureau Director is staring from the side. So I found a Clear Tranquility spot.”

“Fair enough. You’re not the only one who likes Clear Tranquility,” Yu Sheng waved: “Where’s your sister? Is she okay?”

Bai Li Qing pointed to the air behind and to her side: “Here.”

Yu Sheng looked. A pair of huge phantom eyes floated in the night, blinking hard and crying. But as soon as the tears left the eye rims, they vanished into thin air. It was as if everything of “her” had been erased except those eyes.

Yu Sheng: “[Uh.]”

“It was a huge ball, and it exploded right into my eyes.” Bai Li Xue’s voice still had a mechanical flatness, but Yu Sheng felt thick grievance in it.

“I warned you not to stick your face into everything,” Bai Li Qing sighed: “You’ll have to recover on your own. I can’t find eye drops big enough for that.”

The eyes faded out of the air.

A rustling came from the grass nearby.

Yu Sheng was not surprised. It was like he had been waiting for it. He crouched just as the sound reached him.

A small red-brown figure hopped from the bushes and leaped up to Yu Sheng’s shoulder in a few nimble bounds.

“The Squirrel is here!” the tiny voice chirped happily in his ear: “The fireworks are so pretty!”

Yu Sheng gently tapped the Squirrel’s head with a finger, then looked toward another patch of darkness.

A hollow figure draped in a Hunter’s Garb stood there, still and silent, separated from him and Bai Li Qing by a short distance.

“Good evening,” Yu Sheng smiled and nodded to the Hunter: “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I wanted to come a long time ago. The Hunter kept dawdling,” the Squirrel muttered as she clung to Yu Sheng’s ear: “First it was the clothes aren’t ready, then the hunting rifle has problems. What do you need a rifle for at a Bonfire party?”

Yu Sheng said nothing and turned to Bai Li Qing.

She stepped forward a few paces and stopped in front of the Hunter, calmly facing that empty Garb and hood as if seeing faces and eyes that had long since turned to nothing.

“Long time no see.”

The Hunter’s hood shifted, and a hoarse, blurry voice drifted under the night: “Yes, long time no see, Director.”

Yu Sheng had only been watching with mild curiosity, but he froze and then understood.

[This Hunter, formed by the fusion of the Deep Dive Squad from seventy years ago, also calls Bai Li Qing “Director”? And says long time no see?]