Chapter 82 – Memory Deviation

Chapter 82 – Memory Deviation
The arrival of a scholar who had somehow ended up teaching history at a “commoner’s school”, a teacher who knew a lot about ancient history and seemed to have a good relationship with Nina, was an unexpected circumstance for Duncan – but it was also an opportunity.

Mr. Maurice’s expertise in his field will certainly help Duncan solve many problems, and if he can make good relations with this kind of professional, there may also be unexpected convenience in the future – an older scholar of higher status is bound to have a certain number of contacts in the city-state.

Nina didn’t know why her Uncle Duncan had suddenly agreed to a home visit, and she didn’t think twice about it, she just felt extraordinarily happy.

This trance even let her have an illusion – as if her life is really changing in the direction of good, in a gradual …… return to the past.

Outside the window the night is getting deeper, the pale and cool light of the World’s Creation is reflecting on the window sill of the second floor of the antique store, and under the quiet night, the whole city is gradually becoming quiet.

In this world filled with strange and weird things, the vast majority of people have little night life to speak of.

“Come and eat,” Duncan greeted his “niece”, who was staring at the window, and brought the fish soup to the table, along with the bread that Nina had bought this afternoon, and the onion rings that he had just casually fried, which was not a very hearty meal in his opinion, but considering the “fish”, it was not a very good one. In his opinion, it wasn’t much of a meal, but considering the special nature of the fish, it might as well have been a feast in this part of the lower city, “I’ve got to get up early for school tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay Uncle Duncan.”

Nina agreed and obediently came to the table, the aroma of the fish soup was already wafting out, she shrugged her nose in surprise and looked at Duncan in disbelief, “It smells so good ah …… uncle when did your skills become so good?”

“Can this also be considered good craftsmanship?” Duncan could not help but lose his smile, searching for his own this cooking ability is afraid that it is only a little better than Alice limited, even there is still evaluated as a time of good craftsmanship, “Could it be that I used to be very bad at craftsmanship?”

“That can’t be described as bad anymore, you used to cook according to the standard of not dying from eating, and obviously your handiwork is so bad that you still want to ambitiously research what new dishes are available, and every time you drag me along with you to test the poison ……” Nina Balabala read up, she recalled the old days, even a bit of a frown, “Once you made something really bad, you could not eat, so you had to throw that thing in the trash, and then dragged me to the next street to solve the problem of lunch in the family restaurant, and then came back to see the neighbor’s dog lying on the door in front of the garbage cans puked all over the ground, and since then the dog saw you all the way to the door, and the dog was very happy to see you, but I was very happy. From then on the dog circled around you when he saw you ……”

Nina’s voice suddenly slowly lowered again as she spoke.

“Forget it, it was years ago, and you’ve never liked hearing me bring it up ……”

Duncan was silent.

There was not the slightest hint of these things that Nina recalled left in the memories that remained of this body – these were for Nina almost the only good memories she had of her time with her uncle, but they had dissipated cleanly with the wayward man’s last breath.

Nina silently broke open the dry, hard bread and softened it a little with the fresh soup.

Duncan suddenly reached out and rubbed the child’s hair.

Nina looked up in surprise, “Uncle?”

“Uncle’s research on a new dish was successful.” Duncan said in a serious voice.

Nina stared at Duncan blankly, her expression changed several times, an unknown number of thoughts swirling and undulating in her mind, but in the end all of her expressions turned into a stifled smile, “Uncle, your serious look is too funny!”

“No making fun of your lord,” Duncan glanced at Nina, and then as if he suddenly remembered something, he inadvertently mentioned, “By the way, I’m going to organize the store properly in this period of time, if you see anything strange and unrecognizable on the first floor, don’t touch it. ”

He was preparing for the next two places, “material” collection and distribution turnover.

With the development of Ai’s ability, he would have to frequently transfer goods between the Lost Country and the antique store, and it would be difficult to hide them from Nina’s eyes – so it would be better to take a precautionary measure in advance.

Nina didn’t have the slightest doubt, she quickly nodded her head, while Duncan followed and added: ”In addition, I also plan to add manpower to the store, so that in case I go out in the daytime there will also be someone left to take care of it – of course, this is just an initial plan, and it may not always be possible to realize it, it is just to tell you in advance, so that you will not suddenly see a person in the store the other day. One day you’ll feel strange if you suddenly see a stranger in the store.”

For once, he was laying the groundwork for Alice’s arrival – and just that, of course.

There were still a lot of things that needed to be considered in order for the doll lady to enter the city-state, and teleporting her here was only the most insignificant of them; he also had to think about how to avoid the truth of Alice’s “doll” from being found out – Alice’s appearance was almost the same as a real person’s, and as long as she wore a long glove to cover her hands, she would not have to worry about the truth of her “doll”. Wearing long gloves to cover the joints of the hands will not be a big problem, at most wear a veil to cover her face that is even more delicate than the real person, this is a small problem, the real big problem …… is the head of that thing. He got Alice over to give himself a favor, that bastard all day long in front of people to perform a head hugging can not be.

Nina, on the other hand, looked at Duncan in surprise: “Uncle you even want to recruit clerks for the store? This is a big deal …… you have a candidate? What kind of person ah?”

Duncan thought for a moment, trying to filter a long list of not-so-good adjectives out of his mind, before he grimaced, “There’s an initial target, a …… hardworking young lady.”

On second thought, “hard-working” seemed to be the only positive word left for Alice.

Then he saw a subtle expression on Nina’s face.

The girl looked her uncle up and down several times, and finally couldn’t hold back, “Young lady? Uncle did you ……”

Duncan was a person who had been there before, one look at Nina’s appearance and he knew what she was thinking, and immediately tapped the table with his finger, “Eat properly! What are you thinking about!”

Nina immediately stifled her laughter and let out a “whimpering whimpering” sound, and continued to lower her head to eat, after tasting a bite of the fish her eyes widened in amazement, “It’s so delicious!”

Duncan laughed and spoke up as he casually broke off some bread and tossed it to Dove who was pacing next to him, “Eat more then, there’s more in the kitchen.”

That was how Nina and her Uncle Duncan ended up having a simple and long overdue dinner on the tiny second floor of the antique store.

And after dinner was over and everything was cleaned up, Duncan called out to Nina who was about to go back to her room to rest.

There was something he wanted to confirm.

“Nina,” he looked at the girl who had just cleared the cups and plates from the kitchen, “there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Huh?” Nina was a little curious, “What is it?”

“Do you remember …… when you were a child?” Duncan deliberated on the point of entry as he recalled the information he had heard at that cultist party, “It was when you were six.”

Nina frowned, she wasn’t sure why her uncle would suddenly bring up an old story from eleven years ago, but followed the thought anyway.

It had been eleven years since the incident, and she was even only six years old back then, so she couldn’t really talk about too much sadness in her heart as she recalled the past.

“I was still young then, there are a lot of things that I can t remember, but I just remember that day was very chaotic …… There were messy adults everywhere. Some people said that there was a factory leak near the Crossroads neighborhood, some people said that there was a collective frenzy on Lower Third Street, and some people even said that there was something going on in the Uptown area …… A lot of things I didn’t have an impression of at the time, or I listened to the adults talk about it later before I could get the right number …… “

Duncan thought for a moment and looked Nina in the eye, “So do you remember a fire? I was fleeing from the fire with you, and your parents …… were in that fire …… “

He also just tentatively mentioned it, but did not expect Nina to steeply widen her eyes, “A big fire? Uncle you really do remember that there was a big fire at that time as well?!”

“…… Of course I remember,” Duncan took a look at Nina’s reaction to know that there is really something wrong with this matter, “I remember what’s wrong with the fire?”

“I also remember there was a fire, a big, big fire,” Nina was a little excited, she said quickly, “but then I told the adults around me about it, but none of them remembered the incident, they all said that I was scared silly, and that there was no fire anywhere… …And then after I grew up a bit I even went looking for the newspaper from back then ……”

Speaking of this she paused, shaking her head slowly with an odd expression, “But even the newspapers didn’t mention that there was any fire …… All the records only said that there was a factory leak at the time, and that the chemicals caused widespread hallucinations… …”

(End of chapter)