Chapter 32 pigeon on the door

It's a long way to go to Eagle Cliff, and Jiji once smelled smoke in the woods at the foot of the mountain.Gigi was afraid of walking this long distance, especially when he found that Brian insisted on following them despite Aegas's efforts to stop him.Gigi's worries were forgotten, though, as soon as they hit the trans-plain road below.The warm sunshine shines on the verdant farmland without any pollution, which makes Gigi feel how monotonous her world is for the first time.The landscape would be complete without the presence of socks.There were not many socks in the village, but there seemed to be many socks on this road, more than he had seen on the way from the Chamber of Secrets to Dolles.He wanted to ask about Aegas socks, but he had to ask more important things first.

"I still don't quite understand what immortality is," he asked. "If you live forever, then you should never die." "No," replied Egoas. "If we were in your world now, and a bus came speeding around the corner, it would kill me as easily as it could kill you." He struck With a shudder, he added, "I hate buses." "Me too," Gigi said, "especially these days, it's always late." "It's not surprising at all," Aegas said, "There is a reason why you have misunderstood immortality. We don't go back and forth between the two worlds as often as we used to, at least," he waved his arms in the air, "until Up until the time of the leak. But, in your 'some time in the past', we were free to travel between the two worlds. So there is a situation where you meet someone in that world and come back here, Thirty or forty years have passed in that world by the time you see them there again."

This made Gigi uneasy, but he was too curious about many things to think about it. "You say you have an agreement with us," he said, "and we won't allow you into our world." "We cheated," Agas said. "We had to." "why?" "Because we want children. Most of us want to procreate, and that takes advantage of your world." Aegias's pipe was almost out, and he stopped blowing on it for a while, then continued, "We love This world, anyone who has been here loves it, but this world has its faults. If you are my age, of course, life without time constraints is perfect, but if you want to grow up, it is feasible in this world No way."

"I know what you mean," Gigi said, "If you don't have time, you never grow up." "You're on to something," Agas said. "Pregnancy and childbirth take time, and more importantly, babies need time to grow." "So if you want kids, you have to live in our world, right?" "Not exactly," Agnes said. "Theoretically, but who wants to age fifteen or twenty years if they don't have to?" "So what do you do?" Gigi asked. "Have you ever heard the story of elves swapping babies?" Gigi nodded. The story gave him the creeps.

"What have you heard?" Aegas asked. "Goblins... goblins steal other people's babies and put their own in cradles." "You think it's all legends, don't you?" said Aegias. "Of course." Gigi said.When he was in elementary school, he did a research: collecting folklore told by the old people in the village and nearby farms.He has collected dozens of stories, including several about baby swapping.To him, it was just a fantasy, and he still doesn't want to believe it. The word "elf" puzzled him. "Ok." "Of course, it's not easy to do that now. People are going to the hospital to give birth, and the hospital has security bells and baby monitors and things like that. But we can still get them," Agas said.

"Does your baby look special?" Gigi asked, "From the stories I've heard, they're all ugly and small." "Everyone thinks their own child is the cutest, and everyone else's is ugly." Aegas said, "But once things happen, what can they do? Even if they make a big noise, who will believe it? In any case, the children still have to be raised. They have to accept the reality and raise the children. .” Gigi hesitated for a moment before asking the next question, fearful of the dire answers he might hear. "What do you do with the stolen babies?"

"It's easy." "We'll put them in a basket, take them to a distant country, and drop the basket on the doorstep of a house," Agas said. "I don't understand." Gigi said, "After all your troubles, you might as well just leave your children at someone else's doorstep." "Because we pay attention to the details, we are very selective about the foster parents of our children. We don't want to give our children to just anyone." "But you don't care about the life or death of other people's children." Gigi said excitedly.

"We're not good at caring about people." "We don't have the experience of caring about other people, any more than we don't experience anxiety," Aegas admits. But he seemed to care about Brian, because he stopped every hundred meters or so to let him catch up.Now he stopped again, and at the same time began to look at the many socks hanging on the nearby bushes, especially a dark green sock. "This one is not bad." He took off the sock and compared it with the socks on his feet.Gigi noticed that the socks on his feet were not only in different styles, but also in different colors.

"how do you feel?" Aegas asked. "It doesn't fit any of them." Gigi said, "Well, tell me the story about these socks." "Oh." Egeas said, put the sock back on the bushes, and tried another one, "This is another leak, a sock leak." Gigi couldn't believe it and laughed loudly: "Socks leak too?" "Then what do you think?" said Egoas excitedly. "We worked so hard to steal socks from you and throw them around?" "No, it's not." Gigi said, "But..." "It's all a good thing the washing machine does."

"Maybe it's the dryer, who knows," Agas said. Gigi recalls pillowcases filled with mismatched socks in the dryer at home.It took a long time for some of them to find another one.Helen planned to throw away these socks, but Hillary disagreed.As soon as he threw it away, the other one would pop up right away, he said. "It's the law of fools," he explained. "Why did you leave them here?" Gigi asked. "Who's going to pick up these socks?" said Aegas, "unless they want to change them." As if to demonstrate to Gigi, he hopped on one foot and changed a sock himself. "And," he continued, "they're an icon for us."

"What sign?" Gigi asked. "There are so many new houses built in your world that we can hardly remember them. If our people go through and find that they are in someone else's kitchen, it will be too dangerous, or something more dangerous will happen .But socks can tell us where new houses are, so we don’t care about throwing them around.” Brian catches up and plops down on the side of the road, but has to get up right away because Aegas and Gigi are on their way again.Before long, they arrived at the intersection of Moore Road and the Shinkansen.Aegias stopped, looked around, and listened attentively. "What are you looking for?" Gigi asked. "Nothing special." "Intersections are easy places for leaks to happen, and you never know what you're going to find," Aegas replied. "Is that why we always have dances at the Crossroads?" Gigi asked. "yes." Aegas said, "You finally understand." He took Gigi through the Shinkansen and up the mountain road leading to Coleman Church and Eagle Bluff.Gigi's house should be right around there.Crossing the field from where they are now, they can also reach the fork of the Shinkansen and the main road, and it will not take much time, and he can just take this opportunity to see what his home looks like in this world.Regarding his proposal, Aegas shook his head. "There's nothing wrong with going that way," said Agas, "but I don't want to waste time." "Yes, you've improved," Gigi said. "Maybe you should teach me how to be anxious." The road before them passed through hazel woods, and there seemed to be many woodpeckers in the woods. "We don't have so many over there." Gigi said. "So many what?" Aegas asked. "A woodpecker." Gigi said. "Are there any woodpeckers here?" Aegas asked. "Didn't you hear?" Gigi said. "It wasn't a woodpecker I heard." As he spoke, Aegas took off the violin case from his shoulder and handed it to Jiji, "Can you hold it for me for a while? I have something to do." "What's up?" Gigi asked. "a piece of cake." Aegas said, but his eyes warned Gigi not to ask, "Don't get off the road, you hear? No matter what happens, don't go into the woods." "why?" "There are leprechauns here, and this is their place." "Leprechaun?" Gigi realizes it might not be the sound of a woodpecker, "What are they going to do to me?" "I have no idea." Egeas said angrily, "Maybe take off your shoes and beat you or something. Just go along the road, okay? When you see a pigeon sitting on the door, stop and wait for me." "How did you know there was going to be a pigeon on the door?" Gigi said. "Because..." Aegas hesitated. "Good question. It's different now, isn't it? Then wait for me at the oak tree. I guess the oak tree doesn't run around." He quickly disappeared into the woods.Jiji originally wanted to follow him and discover the secrets of the leprechauns by himself, but he thought about it, those sharp and thin beating sounds like machine guns were still a bit scary, if he got into trouble, he would not be able to find the leak of time Well, it's better to stay in a safe place. He walked slowly so that Brian could follow, and he was still trying to climb the hill.If the baby-swapping story about Aegias is true—of course it sounds true—but are the other stories true?Do the elves dance at the Ring Castle at night?Is it also true that people went to sleep after listening to leaked music and woke up seven years later?Will Aegias and the others punish those who took the stones from the castle and those who built houses in their path?Or will it punish those who don't save some milk for them as usual? milk?Gigi couldn't imagine Aegas getting mad over a bottle of milk.He looked at Brian, who was struggling to follow.If its story is also true, then there is indeed a Finn McCool?And do the Fenrians with beards and swords walk among the gray hills?Gigi had read all the old tales when he was a child, but now he can't remember any of them except the one about Delmurd and Greine, his favorite.In the fields, there are everywhere the beds where the lovers, Dalmud and Greine, have slept. Is it possible that they are still wandering outside for life because of the curse of Finn's fury? ①