Chapter 505: Who Killed the Robin (2)

"I need to find a way to save him." I frowned toward the Hunchbacked Boy. "Too many kids are crowding around him. Sakurako told me to avoid talking to people in the Dream Realm or getting into conflicts whenever possible, so that complicates things."

I stepped out of the school building. The sky was dark; there was no sun, and it looked to be around six or seven in the evening.

In the northwest corner of the playground, the children played their game over and over until they gradually grew bored. They eventually scattered, leaving only the Hunchbacked Boy kneeling in the very center, still covering his eyes.

'A perfect opportunity!' I crept along the base of the wall, avoided the dispersing children, and made my way toward him.

The playground was packed yellow dirt. The ground was uneven, with sharp stones and freshly sprouted weeds poking through in places.

The other children had already wandered off, yet the Hunchbacked Boy remained kneeling on the ground. He kept his hands over his eyes; it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

The others had scattered, leaving him entirely alone. No one wanted to keep him company, and no one bothered to kindly remind him.

His legs had grown numb from kneeling. Just as I was about to reach him, the boy lowered his hands, and I saw his eyes.

They were beautiful beyond imagination—so clear and pristine it felt like one could see straight to their depths at a glance.

These eyes were completely at odds with his grubby face and frail, hunched body, creating a jarring contrast.

'The eyes are the windows to the soul. How could someone with eyes like these play hide-and-seek with a Plush Bear at three in the morning?' The encounter in the previous Dream Realm still left me with lingering fear. I stopped in my tracks, not daring to approach him rashly. I hid in the shadows of the wall, my gaze locked on the kneeling boy through my mask.

He pushed against the ground with both hands and struggled to his feet. As he dusted off his pants, his face bore no trace of resentment or hostility.

'This kid is interesting.' When I first saw him, I assumed he shared the same childhood experiences as the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends. But after seeing the expression on his face just now, I realized there was a fundamental difference in their personalities.

The Primal Destiny Divine Fiends harbored a tendency toward self-destruction. He hungered for everything he desired, and if he couldn't have it, he would choose mutual ruin and destroy everything in his wake.

But the Hunchbacked Boy was different. Although he was also isolated and bullied with a kind of 'violence' unique to children, I didn't sense any hatred from him, perhaps because he was still so young. He gave off a very strange feeling—an out-of-place resilience, as if he were carrying out an unconventional Redemption for himself in his own way.

Curious about what the boy would do next, I didn't reveal myself.

'The Apartment Building should represent the Hunchbacked Boy's memories from before he entered the orphanage. Did something happen to his family? What caused him to be sent here? Did the adult man who lived with him suffer an accident?'

A child would only be sent to a social welfare institution or an orphanage if their direct guardian died and their remaining relatives refused to take them in.

With this thought, the first act in the Shallow Dream Layer connected with the current Middle Dream Layer. They represented two distinct stages of the Hunchbacked Boy's life.

'Compared to playing games alone with the Plush Bear in the Apartment Building, the atmosphere in this orphanage is at least a lot better.' What the Hunchbacked Boy desired most were friends, and what he feared most was loneliness; in an orphanage, neither of those fears should exist.

'By all rights, entering a completely new environment should have brought about some changes in him.'

Looking at him now, he was no more than six or seven. He was very short and malnourished. Even though his appearance was much worse than his peers', it shouldn't have reached the point where he didn't have a single friend.

I stood by the corner of the wall and followed the Hunchbacked Boy as he wandered around the orphanage. The sky slowly darkened. It seemed as though he was intentionally taking detours to prevent anyone from following him.

'Where is he going?' The orphanage had been converted from the abandoned campus of an elementary school. It covered a sizable area, though most of it was undeveloped wasteland.

After following the Hunchbacked Boy in a circle, I noticed that the entire compound could be roughly divided into four sections. The first section was the playground and the surrounding wasteland, which was overgrown with weeds and dotted with crooked, dying trees. The second section was the school building. The first and second floors of this small three-story building were classrooms, while the third floor housed the offices for the teachers on duty. This area was primarily responsible for providing education to healthy children.

When I first entered the Middle Dream Layer, I saw the orphanage's brochure posted in the corridor. For the adopted children, it outlined a policy of unified upbringing and categorized management. For healthy children, they combined care and education; those in the fifth grade and below were taught in classes held right here, while middle schoolers and older kids were sent to nearby schools as day students.

The third section of the orphanage was somewhat special. It was a semi-enclosed building twice the size of the school building, consisting of three floors. The top floor housed a few abandoned infants. According to the introduction posted inside, the infants were raised by professionals, but due to funding and other issues, the orphanage didn't take in many babies. The second floor housed those who were physically disabled but intellectually sound. The orphanage provided them with rehabilitation therapy to help them care for themselves while also offering vocational education and skills training to prepare them for society. The ground floor took in children with severe cognitive impairments. Their intellects were defective, and some even suffered from mania, so the orphanage placed them on the bottom floor to prevent accidents.

The final section of the compound was the residential building. The orphans and some of the physically disabled but intellectually sound children lived here.

After taking a huge detour, the Hunchbacked Boy finally stopped at the main gate of the orphanage. He still stood entirely alone at the entrance, his head tilted back. Taking a deep breath, he slowly straightened his back and gazed up at the three words above the gate.

"Heaven's Gate."

His pious expression made it look as though he were praying. I was standing too far away to see his movements clearly. I only knew that he hesitated for a moment, as if preparing to run out the gate.

A few seconds later, the boy turned around and ran back into the depths of the orphanage. By now, the sky was pitch-black. I put my phone away and used the Judging Eye; it was the only reason I didn't lose track of him.

'Where is he going?' Traversing the dark night, the boy's courage seemed to have grown significantly. He ran to the school building in one breath, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and finally stopped outside a certain room.

'The director's office?' I narrowed my eyes and observed carefully. 'The director of the orphanage at that time should have been Elder Chen. Perhaps I can use this opportunity to learn what kind of person he truly was from the child's dream.'

It didn't seem to be the Hunchbacked Boy's first time here. He hunched over and slipped into the office like a rat stealing grain.

The door was left half-open. I quietly followed him inside and hid behind a bookshelf. The boy didn't notice me. He padded the chair with his jacket, stepped up onto it, and leaned against the windowsill.

A birdcage rested there. Inside the cage was a lithe little bird. Its chest was marked with a striking touch of vibrant red, while its downy feathers were a pale gray. It looked rather plain, like a dusty little sprite.

'This bird isn't native to Jiangcheng, is it?' I had never seen such a tiny, agile bird before. Coupled with the fact that the birdcage on the windowsill looked quite extraordinary, and Jiangcheng had no rare native bird species, it was an easy conclusion to draw.

The little bird grew incredibly excited upon seeing the boy. It hopped around inside the cage, letting out crisp chirps.

The Hunchbacked Boy revealed a long-lost smile. His smile was just like his eyes—pure and untainted.

The boy reached out to close the window, then opened the birdcage. The pale gray bird darted out with a whoosh and fluttered around him.

'This memory is engraved within the Middle Dream Layer. Is this bird that important to the Hunchbacked Boy?' My question was soon answered. The door to the director's office was pushed open, and two boys—one tall, one short—walked in. The moment I saw them, my pupils abruptly shrank.

I had seen them on the playground. They had been the ones playing the game around the Hunchbacked Boy. At the time, their builds and appearances had been exactly like those of normal children.

But now that it was dark, crossing paths with them again, their bodies had undergone an astonishing transformation.

Their limbs and torsos had shriveled and shrunk, while their heads had grown to more than two or three times their original size.

'Their appearances differ between day and night?' Looking at these two terrifying children, I stayed hidden behind the bookshelf, even less willing to make a reckless move.

Knowing he had been discovered, the Hunchbacked Boy was utterly terrified. He jumped off the chair and snatched up his grubby jacket.

"We've been keeping an eye on you for days, sneaking into the director's office. Caught you red-handed this time, didn't we?" The short boy was about the same age and height as the Hunchbacked Boy, but his voice was rather shrill.

The Hunchbacked Boy said nothing. The little gray bird landed on his shoulder, not spurning him for his cowardice or clumsiness.

"The director's bird? Bring it over and let us have a look." The tall boy was older. His heavy head pressed down onto his shoulders. Whenever he spoke, his hair shifted along with it. No matter what angle one looked from, it was a horrifying sight.

The Hunchbacked Boy clearly wasn't willing to hand the little bird over to the two deformed children. He gently tapped his shoulder, prompting the bird to take flight within the room.

Children had inherently 'playful' natures; when they saw something fun, they instinctively wanted to snatch it in their hands.

The two of them grabbed a broom from the doorway and began chasing and swatting at the little bird around the room. Gray feathers drifted down from the ceiling as the bird fled with shrill cries. The Hunchbacked Boy clutched his jacket tightly, making no move to stop the other two children. It wasn't until the bird flew slower and slower that he suddenly tossed his jacket aside. He shoved the shorter boy to the ground, scrambled directly onto the chair, and reached out to push the window open.

"Robin! Fly away!"

The window opened, and the vast world lay just outside.

But at that exact moment, the broom struck the little gray bird. The tall boy viciously swatted the bird to the ground and grabbed its body with his shriveled, deformed hand. He pinched the bird's head between his thumb and middle finger, his fingertips digging deep into the red downy feathers on its chest.

The little bird must have felt the pain, as it furiously pecked the tall boy's fingers bloody. Stung by the pain, he forcefully twisted the bird's neck and then smashed it hard against the floor.