I! Cleaner!-Chapter 968 - 897: Leon!
"Leon!!!"
Emma's tightly shut eyes suddenly opened. After taking several deep breaths, she shivered all over, unable to resist raising her arm to laboriously push away the dirty ebony lid above her head. She sat up from the worm-eaten coffin, her back drenched in cold sweat.
What was going on? Why, in her nightmare, was Leon pushed off a cliff by a beast with an indistinct face?
"Eh?"
Seemingly hearing the sound of a coffin lid being opened behind him, the square-headed old man, who was scrubbing pots not far away, couldn't help but glance back. Then, with a face full of displeasure, he said:
"You've already entered the coffin, why are you sitting up again? Have you forgotten what I told you before?"
"I... I'm sorry..."
After calming her pounding heart a little, a frightened Emma hurriedly apologized:
"Master, I just had a nightmare..."
"Stop! Cease immediately!"
Raising his hand in a "STOP" gesture, the old man interrupted Emma, saying with a face full of annoyance:
"All of you were tormented over in the City of Regret, and now you've entered the [Wise Man's Coffin] that affects the soul. It would be strange not to have seventeen or eighteen nightmares... Look at them, aren't they dreaming as well?"
As if to prove his point, the old man waved towards the chaotic, pit-filled graveyard. Old coffin lids sprung open in response, revealing the murmuring cleaners beneath.
"Boohoo... I was wrong, I was really wrong!"
"Please, let him go, please!"
"This marriage can't end! Or we can be together, all three of us!"
"No! No! How could this happen!"
"..."
"See? Aren't they dreaming too?"
Pointing at the coffin under Emma with his hand, the old man said:
"Hurry and lie back down! All you little weaklings can't even beat the True God. You've stayed in the City of Regret for several weeks now; your souls are beyond spent. After returning to the present world, you'll need at least a year or so just to be able to walk, and it's certainly going to take three to five years to fully recover.
And although having nightmares in the [Wise Man's Coffin] is unpleasant, it's also repairing the cracks in your souls, even offering a tiny bit of wisdom enhancement. You're making a big gain, understand?"
"Thank you, sir..."
Having already heard about the old man in charge from the red-haired director's discussions, Emma didn't dare slack off in front of the "host" who had "taken them in." She quickly expressed her thanks, then hesitated:
"But the nightmare I just had seemed a bit off."
"There's no such thing as 'off' or 'not off,' what's unusual about a dream? There's no need to make a big fuss."
"But..."
"No buts! Go, go, go! Hurry back to lie down, don't make trouble for me!"
Taking a scrub brush with a wooden handle as bright as a mirror from a pot, he pointed to a group of deceased beings tied to a tree, saying impatiently:
"See that green-haired old man? His hair was blond before it turned moldy. He was once a once-in-a-millennium great playwright, every hair he lost while writing scripts was collected by people as real gold.
And that old lady across from us, though her chest now sags to her knees, she was once a dancer known for elegance, drawing crowds of at least ten thousand for a single performance. People eager to meet her could line up over a kilometer.
The rest, bundled over there in heaps, are mostly scholars from Crolock, City of Machinery. Many of the things you use now were invented by them. Each one taken individually is a hero of humanity!
And to free up coffins to repair your souls, I dug them all out from burial mounds! If not for that boy delivering you, I'd have no interest in whether your soul had issues or not, don't take it for granted!"
"I... But I just dreamed of Leon, he..."
"Aren't you his lover? What's unusual about dreaming of him?"
"..."
Choked by the old man's matter-of-fact question, Emma's face turned slightly red after holding it in a moment, and she said:
"Not that kind of dream! I dreamed of Leon hugging a naked man, and they fell off a very steep cliff together!"
"Ah???"
After hearing Emma's words, the old man was instantly shocked, incredulity spreading across his face as he said:
"He has that kind of interest?"
"No..."
Realizing the old man's thinking was a little off and feeling unable to explain herself, Emma licked her lips, trying hard to organize her thoughts before explaining again:
"Leon and I have a very close connection... Listen to me!"
Raising her hand in advance to halt the old man from speaking, Emma, with a somewhat anxious expression, quickly explained:
"Leon once carried me back from the Realm of the Dead to the present world. Our souls are very close, and since then, there's been a faint connection between us.
So I think my nightmare wasn't just a simple nightmare, but rather Leon's soul fragment that remained in the Realm of the Dead might have encountered an issue, and as a result, my soul felt the situation!"
"I see..."
Upon hearing this, the old man's face turned grave, his brows tightly furrowed as he said:
"So according to your analysis... did that boy's soul and a naked man embrace and jump off a cliff together?"
"..."
This old man must be out of his mind!!!
Faced with the old director's constantly off-topic pretentiousness, Emma, profoundly uneasy, couldn't help but stomp her foot, saying with a slightly irritated expression:
"Master! Leon might be in trouble! He's our Bureau's most outstanding cleaner these past years! Plus, you're his teacher! You..."
"That's nonsense!"
The square-headed old man couldn't suppress his rage, hopping and yelling in response:
"You are his teacher! Your whole family is his teacher! I... damn! Don't spout nonsense! I've never taught him anything! I'm not even familiar with him!"
"Teacher, what you're saying is a bit guilty."
"?!?!!!"
Upon hearing the voice that nearly drove him to ruin, the old director couldn't help but shrink his neck slightly, his expression becoming tremendously complex as he looked back.
A heap of rare materials... no, a familiar black-haired, black-eyed figure reached out from the pot, flipping the pot edge to pour out the scrub water. Then, crouching, they emerged from the pot polished to a shine, with a face bearing an irritating smile as they spoke:
"Three..."
"Leon!"
