Chapter 2582: Descending Softly (31)
Raven crept silently towards the stairs.
It was late at night, and the light in Shiller's bedroom had gone completely out not long before, indicating that the professor had gone to bed, whereas Raven now wanted to check the fridge.
The strange events that had happened during the day were still fresh in her memory; she would not consider them mere illusions. Having controlled wild forces for many years, she was especially sensitive to power and was sure there was something wrong with the bottom of the fridge; she had to take a look.
Raven knew the professor had many secrets, and it was impolite to snoop blindly, but the problem was, if this had something to do with demons, then it was her unavoidable responsibility, as it could very likely be a plot by the Sanguine Demon.
For a long time, Raven had known that one day her father would arrive on this Earth, and he would use every means to delude everyone into believing they were doing the right thing, but in the end, this would only bring disaster to Earth.
Raven couldn't fully trust anyone around her because her powerful and evil father might be hiding behind them, watching her, observing her, demanding she fulfill her duties as his daughter.
She would never accept all of this, Raven thought. She still had to go to school, to work at the moving company, to go shopping-no one could destroy all of that.
Descending the stairs, she made her way to the kitchen and hesitated upon reaching the fridge; it seemed too ordinary.
She had checked the refrigeration section several times before and found nothing special. It couldn't be that a demon portal was confined to only the freezer section. Could it be that demons had a peculiar preference for colder places?
With doubts in mind, Raven reached out, her fingers touching the edge of the freezer compartment. The faint light through the kitchen window fell on her face, making her expression appear even more solemn.
With a crack, a bolt of thunder from the rainy night startled her, and looking around the room again, the decor seemed terrifying everywhere. The odd-shaped statues seemed to sport wicked expressions in the pale light seeping through the curtain slits.
God, why had she only just noticed? Who in the world would need such bizarre decorations for a housewarming party? Clearly, these items seemed like offerings used for Summoning Demons.
Had the professor been beguiled? Or had everyone around her been beguiled? No one knew the truth.
If her father arrived now, no one would be able to help her.
Raven began to fear facing this reality. The force with which her fingers gripped the fridge lessened; she clenched her teeth and yanked the handle forcefully outward.
Woosh, a surge of power escaped, and she saw a huge black hole inside the fridge, where her father, the fearsome Demon, stood in the center with a triumphant sneer.
Crack, another thunderclap, Raven snapped back to reality with her hand still on the fridge. The door had not opened; it was all an illusion.
But she withdrew her hand as if shocked, constantly stroking her trembling fingertips with the other hand, pressing her fingertips to her lips, unable to resist looking at the eerie shadows under the weak light in the room.
Bang, bang, bang!!!
As lightning flashed, Raven, startled, stepped aside, and when she turned her head, she saw a silhouette in front of the window that had just knocked hard on the glass.
Upon a closer look, it was neither a Demon nor a ghostly figure but a person, a bald man holding an umbrella.
Bang, bang, bang!
The figure knocked on the window again, and Raven, recognizing him as Mr. Xi Wana whom she had seen before at the night market, hesitated to approach. The eerie glow emanated from his right eye in the night.
"Are you all right?" The figure looked concerned as he peered in, then pointed at the door, signaling that he wanted to knock.
Raven paused, then realized that if he rang the doorbell, it would surely wake the professor, and she couldn't explain why she was standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, seemingly dazed.
If the professor was truly involved with a demon, such behavior would certainly spook him.
So Raven rushed forward to open the window and shouted, "Sir, don't ring the bell, it's too late now!"
Xi Wana stopped, turned around, coming back to hold the umbrella over Raven's head, and said, "Of course, I know it's late. I just finished working overtime. My house is just up ahead. When I walked by, I saw you standing alone in the kitchen, dazed. What's wrong? Did you have a fight with the professor?"
"Um, no, I was just hungry and looking for something to eat in the middle of the night."
"But you've been standing there for at least four or five minutes," said Xi Wana, showing concern.
"You have to understand my concern. My car broke down on the way home from work, and I had to walk back, only to see you standing there so rigidly, as if you were reaching for something. You must assure me you weren't trying to grab anything sharp."
"Even though I am the president of Gotham University, I was also a teacher once. If you have any issues with your guardians, don't sulk alone, and don't entertain any extreme thoughts. Maybe you can talk to me about it."
Raven immediately knew he had misunderstood, but on second thought, it was understandable; seeing a girl standing in the kitchen for a long time in the middle of the night reaching for something, it's easy to imagine she was going for a knife or some other dangerous item, and there is no shortage of youths doing just that.
However, she still harbored wariness toward Xi Wana. She pointed at Xi Wana's eye, and Xi Wana touched her own eye, saying, "Years ago, I lost my right eye in an accident. This is my prosthetic eye. Did it scare you?"
Raven instinctively felt something was off. When she was at the night market before, she could sense a subtle power flowing within that eye, but now she felt nothing.
Could it have been an illusion? But the explanation seemed plausible; the neighborhood had only one main road, and one must pass by here to reach the houses ahead.
This was a wealthy district with no all-night parties and conservative local customs, so coming over to check on a little girl standing alone in a house in the dead of night was normal.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way," Xi Wana said. "Tomorrow, during the day, I'll talk to the professor about your situation. You really should go to school."
"No, don't..." Raven said instinctively. She didn't want Shiller to know she had gotten up in the middle of the night, attempting to open the fridge he didn't want her to.
She had enjoyed her limited time with the professor thus far, considering him a good person who could teach her many things. So even though she now had the means and ability to survive on her own, she wasn't keen on leaving the house.
"Are you really okay?" Xi Wana asked with concern. "You seem to be in a daze. Has Professor Shearer said anything to you?"
Raven was well aware of her hazy mental state; she had just witnessed a terrifying illusion, and the atmosphere in the house wasn't exactly peaceful, much different from the daytime. The strange and ancient decorations scattered throughout the space were distracting her greatly, and she felt that the Batman puppet lying next to the bookshelf was staring at her.
"What's your name?" Xi Wana asked.
Still maintaining a degree of caution, Raven didn't want to reveal her name, only mentioning her mother's surname—"Ross."
"So you're a relative of Professor Shearer, but your last name isn't Rodriguez. Are you related to his mother's side?" Xi Wana deduced.
Raven didn't want to talk anymore; she just wanted to go upstairs to sleep, pretending nothing had happened tonight. But she had to make sure this meddlesome man wouldn't tell Shiller about it in the morning.
Should she use magic?
Raven could sense and even consume the emotions of those around her, to some extent, twisting their thoughts and altering their memories, but she had never used this approach.
He might not be an ordinary person, and if he had any resistant powers, a fight between them could surely destroy the house.
But if she just walked away, this meddlesome fellow would surely discuss her situation with Professor Shearer tomorrow.
Now unsure of what to do, Raven's anxiety made her clutch the window frame tightly, but Xi Wana seemed to misunderstand that gesture for something else.
"You seem to be afraid of Professor Shearer. Has he treated you poorly?... Oh, I see. There are some things you can't talk about here. No worries, here is my business card. If you need help, call me or come to my office, and I will do everything in my power to assist you."
Xi Wana looked at Raven sincerely, and she knew he wouldn't leave without taking his card, so she hesitantly accepted the business card, slipped it into her clothes, and said, "Alright, good night, sir."
"Good night, Miss Ross."
Watching Xi Wana leave, Raven exhaled a sigh of relief, but she wasn't sure if it was just her imagination—she thought she saw a shadow in the alley he had just passed through, and it seemed to follow him using the darkness of the street.
Raven went to sleep. Before heading to bed, she made sure to glance at Shiller's bedroom; the light hadn't turned on, and it was silent. The professor must be sleeping soundly, which was good news.
As the evening set in, Shiller was in the backyard assembling a barbecue grill and a tabletop football game. It wasn't an easy task, but it was preferable to listening to Jonathan and Valentine in the kitchen making hellish jokes derived from the anatomy of cows and sheep, which to him were utterly cold.
The barbecue grill was relatively easy to assemble, supported by a frame with a grill placed on top, but the tabletop football was too complicated. He had to put together the table board first, then prop up the legs, and finally string up the little players.
The preliminary steps were complete, but he ran into trouble with the players. Shiller wasn't clueless about football, but tabletop football was a different system entirely from real football.
The spacing between the players seemed adjustable, but Shiller didn't know the correct setup for fairness to both sides. Without an instruction manual for this antique, Shiller studied it until it was completely dark, deciding to finish it in the morning.
But as he headed back into the house, he heard a noise outside the wall. Pushing open the back door of the yard to look, he found a smiley face painted on the corner of the exterior wall.
Shiller sighed. Of course, he knew who was behind it; it wasn't his imagination that he was becoming more like Batman, even the Joker seemed to haunt him.
Later, around 10 p.m., after seeing the lights go out in Raven's bedroom and ensuring the girl had gone to sleep, he grabbed an umbrella, jumped from the balcony to the yard, and left through the back door.