bacchusnovels Chapter 250 The Feeling of Love
Chapter 250 The Feeling of Love
Chapter 250 The Feeling of Love
After breakfast, Sean received his royalties from Xenophilius, and as usual, he rushed into his bedroom to prepare to write the novel he hadn't finished.
Today marks only three days until he finishes his novel and leaves this place.
In fact, many people think about what they could do if they had three days.
If Helen Keller had three days of normal vision, she might have used those three days to carefully observe the world.
She appreciates things she can only perceive through touch and imagination: the faces of her family, the dew in the morning light, and the starry night sky.
If Sean Phillips had three days, he would probably use those three days to rest and make up for the upcoming adventure with Vivi.
This includes reading, sleeping, drinking black tea on the lawn while gazing at the sky, and also...:
"Novel tutoring?"
Sean looked at Luna, who had just entered the room, and repeated her words once more.
"You mean, you want me to tutor you and help you write a real short story before I leave?"
Luna nodded vigorously.
Tutoring Luna with her novel was not part of Sean's three-day plan.
For the past three days, all he wanted to do was lie down and refuse all educational assignments.
This also includes educating Luna.
Everyone needs to take a break, right?
But Luna didn't think so.
Seeing that Sean seemed hesitant, she slowly said, "Hark, you don't want my father to know that you secretly let me drink whiskey, do you?"
Upon hearing Luna's words, Sean was visibly taken aback. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Luna with some disbelief.
He never dreamed that Luna would use this to "threaten" him.
I don't know who she learned it from.
Drink whiskey.
She drank it secretly on her own; it had nothing to do with him.
But his subsequent actions seem to...have something to do with him...
Thinking about this, he felt a little embarrassed.
At this moment, he was already planning how to give Luna an effective lesson in novel writing within the limited time available.
Luna blinked, a sly smile playing on her lips. "Hark, I knew you'd help me. After all,"
We're best friends, aren't we?
Sean sighed and shook his head helplessly. "Alright, since you've put it that way, how can I not help? But we need a plan. Three days to write a short story is a very tight schedule."
Upon hearing Sean's agreement, Luna nodded excitedly. "I knew you could do it, Huck! Let's get started now. Do you have any suggestions or ideas?"
Sean thought for a moment, then slowly began, "First, we need a theme or inspiration. Have you encountered anything interesting recently, or have any special ideas you'd like to turn into a story?"
Luna lowered her head and pondered for a moment, then her eyes lit up. "I've got it! Whisky..."
"Forget about that damn whiskey!" Sean interrupted Luna without hesitation. "Besides whiskey, is there anything else you want to write about?"
Luna chuckled at Sean's sudden interruption. She winked and said playfully, "Okay, not whiskey. I still want to write about cats."
猫？
Speaking of cats, and then thinking of Luna, the witch, Sean has a good idea.
In European culture, black cats are considered an omen of bad luck and an embodiment of the devil.
Like witches, it was persecuted by the Church in the Middle Ages.
At first, black cats and devils had nothing to do with each other.
For example, in 962 AD, Baldwin III of Belgium converted to Christianity. To show his piety, he abandoned his old customs and created a "Cat Festival" in Ypres: he would find some cats, preferably black cats, and throw them off the top of a tall building as a ritual.
People at the time didn't think black cats were devils, since many people kept cats.
This was merely a ritualistic act, a symbolic way to drive away evil spirits—this cat-throwing activity still exists today, except the locals have replaced it with black cat plush toys.
At this point, it wasn't the black cat that was unlucky, but the witch. As a healer who inherited Roman medical knowledge, she naturally had a strong affinity for Roman folk polytheism.
Ordinary people don't have many such thoughts; they just think that people who can cure diseases must have some kind of magic. So, elderly women who deal in herbs naturally possess some mysterious knowledge.
However, the church preached that one could only believe in one God, and all other beliefs were naturally considered villains, either "heretical" or the devil. Therefore, witches developed a close relationship with the devil.
Humans are very good at making connections. The old witch was very lonely, so it's normal for her to keep two cats.
So people began to think that the witch's cat was also abnormal—the cat walked silently, often dozed off during the day, and ran out at night to do who-knows-what, it must be the witch's accomplice!
Especially black cats, isn't their all-black appearance enough to tell the story?
By this time, it was the late Middle Ages, and the Church was facing various crises. Hunting witches became the best way to "shift the blame"—all the blame was placed on the witches, and the black cat was dragged into it as well.
In 1326, Pope John XXII issued an edict defining witchcraft as heresy, marking the beginning of the witch hunts in Europe.
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a decree stipulating that witches and their cats should be burned at the stake—and from then on...
The witch was in trouble, and her cat was even more unlucky.
So in the beginning, any cat that belonged to the witch had to be killed, regardless of whether it was a black cat or not.
However, the scope quickly expanded, and people began to believe that black cats were the embodiment of the devil and witches. Regardless of whose cat it was, they would be killed if caught. Therefore, Europeans began to kill cats, especially black cats, at various festivals and ceremonies.
The most common method was to put the black cat in a cage and throw it into a fire to burn it to death.
Or they might take it to the top of the tower and throw it down to its death—because some cats are agile and might not die from the fall, which further convinced people that cats were the embodiment of the devil.
Because of the fear brought by the Black Death and famine, people also scattered the ashes of afflicted cats in fields and houses to drive away evil spirits.
Until the 18th century, the King of France personally participated in the cat-burning ceremony.
Killing black cats became a means of praying for God's protection; people even caught black cats and rammed them into walls to pray for the stability of the building. In 1950, workers repairing the Tower of London discovered some of the cats that had been harmed in this way.
The more cats were killed, the more rats proliferated; the more rats proliferated, the more people died from the plague; and with so many deaths, people believed it was the work of demons, so they killed cats even more frantically.
This is one of the reasons why rats are rampant in many parts of Europe.
The reason Sean made this connection is that Luna and the black cat share the same trait—they can both see things that others cannot.
Of course, there's also her tragic fate, just like the black cat's.
He was mentally unstable, misunderstood, and ostracized as an outsider...
In this way, everything makes sense.
However, before proposing this idea, Sean felt he needed to hone Luna's writing skills.
So, he looked into Luna's eyes and slowly said, "Luna,"
Hearing Sean's words, Luna blushed, seemingly lost in thought.
A moment later, some obscene sounds came from Sean's bedroom.
"Harker, when you say you feel the emotions of the characters you're writing about, is this how you feel?"
"Yes, move your hand down a bit more."
"This...location?"
"Yes, yes, right there... press harder..."
"Won't it break?"
"Don't worry, this is normal..."
When Pandora knocked on Sean's door, she saw the following:
Sean had somehow found a small television set, and the two of them were squatting there, sweating profusely, trying to figure out how to use it.
For some reason, no matter how the two of them tried to fix it, the TV screen kept showing static.
"Mr. Hack, Luna, I've cut some fresh fruit for you, apples, bananas, and your favorite strawberries," Pandora said with a smile, holding a plate full of colorful fruit.
"Thank you, Mom!" Luna replied with delight, quickly getting up to accept the fruit platter Pandora offered.
Sean also stood up and politely thanked Pandora, "Thank you for your hard work, Mrs. Lovegood."
When Pandora left and closed the door, she leaned against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief.
How could one possibly doubt Mr. Harker?
He is clearly such a good person.
I really messed up my potion-making skills.
With these thoughts in mind, Pandora swayed her head as she walked toward her potion-making room.
She recently found a crippled potion recipe in an ancient book.
The most difficult potion ingredients were collected in the Forbidden Forest a few days ago; now all that's left is to keep experimenting.
Find the optimal ratio for the potion and concoct it.
Only after Pandora left did the two who had been sitting on pins and needles finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The two exchanged a glance.
"Should we continue?" Sean asked hesitantly.
"Of course, we can't give up halfway!" Luna waved her little hand, encouraging herself.
"Alright then..." Sean said, raising his hand high and slapping Luna's buttocks hard.
"Ouch, that hurts!" Luna couldn't help but scream softly from the sudden pain. She quickly covered the spot where she had been hit with her small hands, and tears instantly welled up in her eyes.
"Luna, I'm sorry, I didn't expect it to hurt this much." Sean apologized quickly, his voice full of guilt.
Luna shook her head, trying to hold back her tears. A stubborn smile appeared on her lips as she looked firmly at Sean: "It's okay, we'll continue. We can't give up halfway."
Seeing this, Sean had no choice but to continue fighting.
Indeed, this is the method Sean describes for feeling the emotions of the characters he writes about.
Whether it's writing or acting, without the corresponding experiences to support it, it's indeed difficult for a person to genuinely convey the emotional depth of a character to the audience.
If you haven't experienced pain and don't know what pain feels like, how can you express the emotions you want to convey through words?
Performers can convey their feelings through their body language or facial expressions, but writers can only rely on cold, hard words.
The latter is, in some respects, far more difficult than the former.
Just as someone who has never experienced love, hate, joy, or sorrow tries to describe these emotions in words, it is like the blind men touching an elephant, unable to capture their true essence.
It might even give readers the impression of "Why don't they eat meat porridge?"
After all, based on some people's experience, the worst suffering they've endured is simply not having meat to eat... But they don't know that in this world, a large portion of the lower classes have never seen meat.
Of course, these situations are exceptions for geniuses.
But according to Sean's observation, Luna was hardly a writing genius.
To put it bluntly, she was also somewhat foolish.
This may also be why Xenophilius didn't want her to spend too much time on writing.
Moreover, at her age, these feelings are too far removed from her reality.
Therefore, Sean tried to help Luna truly feel the profound emotions behind these "adjectives" by putting his own actions into practice.
According to Muggle terminology, this school of thought should be called the Practitioners.
At that moment, under Sean's patting, Luna's face visibly flushed.
Luna finally called for a pause just as Sean's hand was about to strike for the seventh time.
"Wait a minute!" Luna looked up and stared pitifully at Sean.
Sean's hand remained frozen in mid-air, somewhat at a loss. "What's wrong, Luna?"
"I think... I understand what pain is now..." Luna's voice trembled slightly. "And hatred."
After saying that, she stood up, turned her head, and bit Sean's arm hard.
Sean winced in pain and gasped, but instead of getting angry, he smiled with relief.
"It seems my method is still effective," Sean thought to himself, letting Luna bite his arm without offering any resistance.
It wasn't until Luna herself opened her mouth that tears welled up in her eyes again, but this time it wasn't because of pain, but because of a complex emotion surging in her heart.
"Hack, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," Luna apologized, sounding flustered.
Sean shook his head and smiled reassuringly at her, "It's okay, Luna."
"But... how do you feel love...?" Luna said, looking at Sean expectantly.
Sean was also helpless when he heard this.
Experiencing the emotion of "love" may be more difficult than experiencing "pain" or "hate".
Because feeling love is a more complex and profound emotion.
"Love..." Sean repeated softly, seemingly considering how to explain it to Luna, "Love is a warm feeling, like sunshine on your skin, making you feel safe and comfortable. It is also a selfless emotion, a willingness to give everything for the other person, even your most precious possessions."
Luna listened to Sean's words, her eyes sparkling with curiosity and longing.
She seemed to want to understand this emotion more deeply, to experience it firsthand.
Sean saw the longing in Luna's eyes, smiled slightly, and then gently embraced her.
His embrace wasn't tight, but it was full of warmth and comfort.
"Can you feel it? This is a manifestation of love. It doesn't have to be dramatic, but it's always warm and reassuring," Sean whispered in Luna's ear.
For some reason, Luna's ears suddenly turned red.
She suddenly broke free from Sean's embrace, biting her lip as if she had made a decision.
"Well... I'll give it a try now!" Luna said, taking a step forward and gently wrapping her arms around Sean's neck. She brought her red lips close to Sean's cheek and slowly pressed her soft, moist lips against his.
Sean was startled and froze on the spot. Luna's gentle breath sprayed on his face, and her two warm, soft lips gently sucked on him like velvet, sending a jolt of electric tingling sensation through his body.
The sudden kiss caught Sean off guard. His reason told him he shouldn't do this now, but his body responded honestly.
His breathing became rapid, and his heartbeat quickened. His hand, which had been on Luna's waist, had somehow slipped to her hip.
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