Chapter 101: Give Me Your Eyes, Okay?

Let him run if he wants to. Saul didn’t care about an old lunatic.

He just thought the old lunatic had some secrets—secrets that might have something to do with Grinding Sound Fruits.

He walked back to Ada’s house.

Every time Ada left, he would lock Penny inside. One lock, one whole day.

Eating, drinking, relieving herself—everything had to be done inside.

Saul approached the door. With a soft click, the lock automatically released, and the fallen lock landed perfectly in his palm.

As if hearing the sound, the wooden cabinet door inside was pushed open from within.

Saul stepped inside and saw Penny crawling out.

"Brother Saul!" Penny climbed out, sat on the bed with her legs dangling, and flashed a big, bright smile.

Saul dropped the playful grin he usually wore outside and sat next to Penny, his face blank.

"How did you know it was me? Are you really blind?"

On the wooden cabinet were a kettle of water and a few green flatbreads.

None of them had been touched.

The little girl’s lips were pale and cracked, yet she stubbornly refused to eat or drink.

She no longer wanted to handle her bodily needs inside the room.

"I'm really blind. But I recognized Brother Saul’s footsteps."

"You seem very familiar with me." Saul turned his head to look at her. "When we parted, you were only three, right?"

Penny absentmindedly tugged at the corner of her clothes, the fabric already fraying with loose threads.

"Yes. But Ada always dreams of Brother Saul."

Dreams? Nightmare Butterflies?

Saul’s expression shifted. His gaze fell on Penny’s silver eyes with renewed seriousness.

No matter the angle, those eyes were incredibly beautiful.

But to an ordinary person, beneath their beauty lay something eerie.

"You can see your brother’s dreams? You always could?"

Now it was Penny’s turn to be surprised. She turned her head, her eyes facing Saul’s face. After a brief pause, she giggled, "Ada doesn’t believe Penny, but Brother Saul does. You’re so nice."

"Ada always dreams of the day we fled the village. He carried me on his back, sometimes turning around to see you trapped in the flames. His ears were filled with your cries for help."

"He dreams of it all the time."

I cried for help?

Saul slowly blinked, suddenly understanding why Ada had taken him in.

"It was your voice, Brother Saul. The day you came, I recognized it immediately." Penny pursed her lips into a proud smile.

Saul was fourteen now. Due to malnutrition in the past, his voice hadn't changed yet.

Saul had never heard of Nightmare Butterflies, but upon learning that Penny could see others' dreams, he was immediately intrigued, completely forgetting about Grinding Sound Fruits for the moment.

"You can see in dreams?"

"Mm-hmm! I can see! In the dreams, I am Ada."

So that’s how it is.

No wonder Penny never called Ada ‘brother.’ Considering the age at which she started dreaming, she probably couldn't even distinguish whether she was Penny or Ada anymore.

Ada had said Penny went blind when they escaped at age three. If that was true, she had likely been sharing Ada’s dreams since then.

This could easily cause cognitive confusion.

But there was something even more terrifying...

Saul asked, "Penny, besides Ada’s dreams, have you entered anyone else’s dreams? Do you know those experiences are dreams?"

Penny tilted her head. "At first, I only saw Ada’s dreams, but later, I could enter the dreams of nearby people. Like the old lunatic—he always dreams of the village being destroyed by barbarians. Or Uncle Jayce—he always dreams of his daughter’s death, how she was cut into pieces. And Aunt Joan—she dreams of killing her husband. First, she beheads him, then separates his body, then slowly hides the pieces in a vegetable basket to throw them out."

As for the second question, Penny didn’t answer. She seemed to have forgotten it.

"Do you know they’re dreams?" Saul repeated.

Only then did Penny remember. "At first, I didn’t. But after dreaming and dreaming, I figured it out."

"Were you scared?"

Penny grinned, showing her teeth. "Not at all! Ada says dreams aren’t scary. You just wake up, and it’s over."

Saul gazed at the little girl, silent for a moment.

Although Penny could converse with him fluently, with the innocence of a child, it was clear her understanding of the world had blurred between dreams and reality.

When she spoke of painful memories that haunted others, she showed no emotion.

She had the calm of someone accustomed to life and death.

Because she was accustomed to it.

"Penny," Saul finally spoke. "The reason you can see other people’s nightmares is probably because of your eyes. If you had the chance to get rid of them… would you?"

The room fell silent.

After a while, Penny covered her eyes with her small hands.

"No!"

Saul stood up. Penny heard his movement and, still covering her eyes, tilted her head up.

"No!" she repeated firmly.

Saul placed a hand on Penny’s hands.

Black tendrils slithered out from behind his neck, slowly coiling around the little girl’s arms. With just one command, they would pull her hands away, leaving her at his mercy.

"If you take things from children, you’ll turn into a little dog," Penny warned.

Saul slowly withdrew his hand. The tendrils, disappointed, retreated as well.

"These eyes are dangerous for you. I hope you change your mind soon."

Penny heard his footsteps move toward the door. Then came the sound of stepping over the threshold.

Forgetting that Saul had just tried to take something from her, she hurriedly dropped her hands and propped herself up on the wooden cabinet, slightly anxious.

"Brother Saul, where are you going?"

"To find work."

Then came the sound of the main door closing and locking.

Penny sat still, wondering if Brother Saul was angry. His emotions were harder to read than Ada’s.

She touched her eyes.

She just thought… if there were only two empty holes here, wouldn’t she be ugly?

Before long, she started feeling bored again.

If Brother Saul could play with her more, then… turning her eyes into black holes wouldn’t be so bad.

Her hand brushed against the kettle. Though she felt thirsty, she had no desire to drink. Pouting, she pushed the kettle away.

Time passed.

Someone knocked on the window frame.

"Little Penny~" Uncle Jayce’s voice called.

Penny instinctively crawled back into the cabinet, pressing her face against the window. "Ada told me not to talk to you."

"Don’t listen to that idiot brother of yours."

"Mm, Penny also thinks Ada is an idiot."

…

Saul wandered around Grindstone Town again, piecing together the relationship between the Holy Fruit and its foster mothers.

It seemed Grinding Sound Fruits was similar to the Wizard Tower’s parasitic flowers, both feeding on the essence of the dead.

Except Grinding Sound Fruits seemed to favor the scent of fresh young girls.

He recalled a senior named Peggy, who once lured a malevolent spirit onto him using a piece of freshly cut thigh skin to create a sensory-disrupting mask.

Could Grinding Sound Fruits share the same taste as evil spirits?

As he roamed, Saul slipped near the Grinding Sound Fruits fields. The strongest town guards were still stationed there, but the girl taken that morning was nowhere to be seen.

Did the Grinding Sound Fruits not need to be nourished in the fields?

Then he noticed the old, three-story tower—sealed shut the night before—now had its door slightly ajar.

The structure, made of wood and stone, seemed ancient, on the verge of collapse.

Yet at the same time, it felt unbreakable, as if it would stand forever.

No guards patrolled nearby.

The half-open door seemed to be… an invitation.

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