Xia Yibing slept until almost noon. After waking up, Hitzfeld served her personally, helping her wash, dress... until she was pushed to the dining table.
She was a little confused.
The main thing was that Hitzfeld suddenly became less shy, and the girl would even rub her legs against her intentionally or unintentionally while helping her put on clothes.
This...she felt it was a bit magical, and she wasn't quite used to it yet.
"Let's go and tie up the tail end of the ceremony this afternoon."
Hitzfeld said.
"It should have been ended a long time ago. It's my business that kept Alvin waiting for so long."
She was talking about the Secret Keeper Ceremony that had been planned long ago. It only had the last step left more than half a month ago. It only required the three of them to make a blood contract together. It was only because of Hitzfeld's emotional problems that it was temporarily shelved when she became drowsy.
Xia Yibing naturally had no objection. The two of them went to the White Shadow Palace in the afternoon to finish their business. By the way, Xia Yibing also asked the king for a vacation - she was specially allowed to take two months to accompany Earl Xie Yang. As for the safety issue of the Cursed Ice Lake, no one mentioned it at all.
It’s fine if Alvin has no objection, but what about Annual Rings?
On the way back, Xia Yibing was driving and thinking, thinking that the place might have been investigated by the tree people.
After all... many so-called life restricted areas are only for animals.
As for plants - there are still many plants that can grow tenaciously in the harshest environment, so it is not surprising that the tree people can withstand such severe cold and go in to explore.
Thinking of this, she felt relieved, but still decided to retrieve the highest-authority archival materials before leaving.
At first glance, it seems strange that she, as the director, doesn't know this information, but she is also a human being... Human energy is limited. She had no sense of existence before the Cursed Ice Lake, so it was enough for her to maintain the level of "roughly knowing". She really didn't have the energy to look through the files to memorize anything.
She thought there would be no more accidents until she saw a description in the archives in the afternoon.
"Has there ever been an agent who defected in history? And escaped to the Cursed Ice Lake?"
Sitting alone in the small room, Xia Yibing frowned.
It was strange that she had never heard anyone else mention this...
This file doesn't seem to be originally placed here?
After comparing it with the tape code on the file, Xia Yibing was sure that it was not here at the beginning. It was most likely moved from Villefort's private estate after she received it.
This legacy includes some secrets that only the director is qualified to know.
Well……
It seems that there is something strange about this place...
Continuing to flip through the pages, she was surprised to see a note from Batti Villefort mixed in, which was a record of his personal trip to the Cursed Ice Lake.
Xia Yibing was now excited.
She looked at the time and decided to finish reading all the materials before going home.
--------
Damn!
How come I am stuck in the two-in-one pit and can’t get out?
Ugh! Crying loudly!
Chapter 5 Defection (Two in One)
The defecting agent is named Solo Lawrence.
He was a young man, not very old. Xia Yibing had read some information about him before and felt that his childhood and the process of joining the Security Bureau were almost a replica of her own.
Oh... there's actually nothing much to say about this... After all, although we don't see much of it because we live under the protection of Ji Yang, in fact, evil disasters do occur all the time - and it's not just the kind of disasters as big as the Golem Curse that can be called evil disasters. The kind of disaster that Hitzfeld encountered at home as a nightmare larva was already a calamity for an ordinary person.
So this is not surprising... Too many people in the bureau started out this way. Their entire families were killed, leaving only one child, so they were filled with fear for the future and hatred for the gray fog. Sarah needed the power of this hatred, so they were properly settled.
This is a bit cold-blooded, but look at the example of "The Light of Salvation". Why did those people gather together? Wasn't it because the higher-ups couldn't spare enough manpower and energy to distinguish who among the survivors was contaminated and who was not, so they had no choice but to execute them all?
With such a shortage of manpower and the ability to "cut off" to such an extent at critical moments, these miserable orphans can be well taken care of, sent to monasteries and churches, and even their family property and finances will be returned to them when they come of age. Of course, this comes at a price.
I've gone off topic... Mainly because it brought back memories, Xia Yibing immediately focused and quickly got into work mode.
Solo Lawrence was born into a minor noble family, or strictly speaking, a fallen noble family... His ancestors had been barons, and the fact that he skipped the knight class showed that his family belonged to the "real nobility" back then, which meant that even if he showed his family to the old stubborn people among the nobility, they would recognize him.
But by his generation, the family had fallen too far. His mother ran away one day because the family was too poor and never showed up again. His father smoked a lot of low-quality tobacco that day and finally decided to go north to do business.
It's not that he went to the north to do business, but he became a traveling merchant who traveled between the north and Wayne all year round.
Why do we choose this? The main reason is the threshold issue.
As we all know, traveling merchants in the north make a lot of money, but there is a threshold: not everyone can adapt to the extremely cold climate and have the ability to escape from the pursuit of ice wolves and giant bears in the snowfields.
In contrast, more people choose to do business in other places, and most of them choose to go south, along the coastline from Wayne all the way to Nanxinze. Because no matter what era, the water route is more profitable than the land route. If you consider it purely from a data perspective, whether it is profit or safety factor... the land route will be blown up.
But his father had no money, not enough to support their family's dream of becoming a maritime merchant.
The information also mentioned that the man named Dave Lawrence seemed to have a serious skin disease. He could tolerate the cold but could not stand the sun for one more day in the hot summer. Xia Yibing felt that this must be the reason why he chose to go to the north.
In short, when little Solo was still a child, his father had already started doing business.
At first, Dave Lawrence joined a chamber of commerce. Although he had been to a northern city because of his skin disease and considered settling there, he had a lot of experience in the north. But obviously, that little experience was not enough to cross the snowfields and wild mountains.
He must have hidden his thoughts, secretly followed the Chamber of Commerce, learned from their experience on the road, and then when he felt that he could work alone, he paid a large sum of money to the Chamber of Commerce - almost nine out of ten of the profits he made that day, and transformed himself into a solo trader.
Going north, it is more profitable to be a solo trader. This is because there are fewer human settlements in the north, and the purchasing power and demand of local residents are quite limited.
Imagine that there is only a village with less than 300 people in a snowy mountain range, and your caravan alone has more than 100 people and more than 100 horses. You have tried your best to find that village - then what can you do?
Even if it's just the cost price, assuming that the villagers can afford it, you won't be able to sell many goods.
Because they don't need it, there is only such a small demand. Why should we mobilize so many people in the form of a chamber of commerce - in the form of such a large team?
Therefore, the Chamber of Commerce team does not go to the north often. They go there occasionally, sometimes once a year, sometimes once a year and a half, or even once every two years.
Only in this way can they accumulate enough "demand" and "money" over a long period of time, so that they will not lose out on this trip and can make a good profit.
But just think about it and you will know how great the risk is. For example, there are multiple chambers of commerce at the same time. Chamber A chooses the place that Chamber B originally planned to go to without knowing it, and Chamber A arrives ahead of time. Then, after the local residents have purchased the goods they have been waiting for a year, when Chamber B arrives, they will be ignored.
This was absolutely unbearable, so soon the chambers of commerce involved in going to the north jointly signed a "Northern Transportation and Sales Agreement." The content stipulated that each chamber of commerce had a fixed "territory" and could only sell goods in the designated territory, and it was best not to interfere with other people's territories.
Moreover, it is easier to negotiate with the settlements by uniting, just like the example of Orwater. When Orwater was ordinary, not many merchants were willing to go there. But when it transformed into the Ice Crystal City, the caravans going there were in great demand.
Xia Yibing undoubtedly understood these rules, so when she saw this, she immediately determined that old Lawrence's plan would not be smooth sailing.
Again, because caravans are noisy, consume too much energy and carry huge risks, they choose to travel only once a year or so.
But is there no demand for goods in the North during this year? Of course there is, and this demand is usually met by individual small vendors.
They are the guys with the most experience and courage, and even that is not enough, they also have to have a unique ability... that allows them to avoid interference from the Northern Business Alliance.
In addition to the personal risk, the profit of small vendors is actually higher, in extreme cases it can be much higher! This is because they can only carry a limited amount of goods, and because the market is far from saturated, they can sell the goods as long as they bring them to the place.
But this will undoubtedly destroy the "local ecology" in the eyes of the Northern Business Alliance.
The reason is very simple. Oh, you all go to be small vendors, and some even form groups of three or five to sell things. If there are more people like you, what profit will we make from our trip at the end of the year?
So these two sides are naturally opposed.
Individual traders have always been suppressed by the Chamber of Commerce, and they hope that all small traders will join the Chamber of Commerce. If everyone acts together and gets a share of the profits in proportion, they can firmly control this way of making money.
How can that person fight against the collective? So it is conceivable that many small vendors did not disappear in the wilderness due to wild animals or snowstorms. The most fatal thing might be a backstab driven by money.
Xia Yibing had also heard rumors that when Naris was the prince of Trielred, he was vigorously rectifying the chaos here.
It's really messy.
The North... If there is no centralized diocese like Amiren, where all rules are under unified jurisdiction, then each place will have its own rules, and it will be a mess.
Back to the topic, Dave Lawrence will definitely encounter similar troubles.
The chamber of commerce he joined was called "Slo". Like other chambers of commerce, the Slo Chamber of Commerce had requirements for its members. Once they withdrew, they would have to pay almost all the profits they had earned during the period of joining.
This is precisely to prevent people like old Lawrence from taking advantage of loopholes, joining in to gain experience, and then flying solo when they feel they have grown strong enough.
If someone really quits the association... If Xia Yibing's guess is correct, they have special staff to verify what the other party does after quitting the association.
If you change your career, then everything will be fine.
But if you want to work on your own, I'm sorry, you'll have to learn all the tricks in a short period of time.
From this perspective, old Lawrence may not have died in the evil disaster of Trielred.
After all, the control over the north was much weaker back then than it is now. The mountains are high and the roads are long, so they only recorded what was reported. As long as Shadow Lion itself was short of manpower, few local officials would help confirm the authenticity of the reported information.
Xia Yibing shook her head, skipped this part, and began to look through the personal notes left by Villefort.
[It's a pity for Lawrence, because he has great talent, better than anyone else in some ways. This is related to an ancient plan... In fact, I really hope to restart the plan through his existence.]
[So I was very surprised to hear that he defected, especially to a place like that... I don't think he was necessarily... there might not be people from the Eclipse Church who were instigating him here. He might have heard some news on his own. The most likely possibility is that his father, Lawrence Sr., is not actually dead.]
Here we must mention the mechanism by which Shadow Lion identifies defectors.
Although there seem to be no restrictions on communication now with the advent of telegraphs and telephones, this was not the case in the early years. The telegraph system was very prone to failure and people mostly communicated through letters.
The timeliness is definitely incomparable. Since the timeliness cannot be guaranteed, the headquarters must naturally consider it - if I receive information at this moment that a certain agent has lost contact for no reason, should I determine that he is missing or has defected?
The general process is this: first contact other people to understand the situation of the agent's jurisdiction. If there is a disaster, it is temporarily listed as missing. If it can be confirmed that there was no trouble during the period of loss of contact, it is temporarily listed as defection.
It's very hasty, but there's nothing we can do. Delayed communication must be given in advance. If there is no such forecast, what should we do if someone really defected?
Shadow Lion has done its best to prevent anyone from defecting, including requiring people to have hatred when selecting them, but it is not a panacea.
Solo Lawrence fits this situation. His jurisdiction - according to his own request, is in Trierred, the city where his father died. After he lost contact, Shadow Lion verified the information of Trierred during that period and finally determined that he was a defector.
Villefort seemed to be very optimistic about him, and he actually chased him to the north alone?
Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows, feeling a little unhappy.
And he is very talented, so talented that he really wants to restart "that plan"?
What is that plan? Could it be that Solo Lawrence's talent is better than mine? Why have I never heard him talk about these things to me?
This feeling was very strange. Xia Yibing knew it was called jealousy, but she had also received comfort from Hitzfeld. She was already a mature adult and a mature leader, so she immediately suppressed this feeling and continued reading.
[It’s really cold in the north!]
Villefort's notes were a bit messy, and there were more than a dozen sentences expressing the feeling of "it's so cold".
And that was basically the only thing he said that day. At most, he mentioned what he had eaten, but he was too lazy to remember anything else.
This is why it looks real... and you can tell it's really cold over there...
If I want to go there with Aisuen, I'll probably have to bring enough warm clothes.
[There is good news today. I got some information about someone who seems to be Lawrence.]
The content of the notes also began to change here.
[I am now in Ice Lake Town, the human settlement closest to that damn place... Of course, there are no Ice Lake Warriors anymore. They are either truly extinct or all the stories about them are just legends. Anyway, this is Ice Lake Town. They claim to be the descendants of the villagers who lived near Valtina Ice Lake. If you go deeper than this place, you won't find anyone else. This is basically the last stronghold of humans in the North.]
[As for Lawrence... the intelligence only mentioned that Lawrence went to the Ice Lake, but after all, it was not accurate information. It was just a "suspected" sighting of a similar figure. But I did find his overnight record here - someone told me that there was indeed a guy with the same features as him who stayed in the guest room.]
[How careless! Does he think no one here cares about him? He doesn't even pretend!]
You can see that he is very angry.
He really cares about him...
Xia Yibing narrowed her eyes and turned the page.
In fact, she had thought about it before watching the ending.
I wonder...will Villefort go deep into the Arctic ice field for Solo Lawrence, or even go to the legendary cursed ice lake to look for him.
Although this happened in the past and she had never heard of the existence of Solo Lawrence afterwards - this consequence alone was enough for her to guess what really happened afterwards, but she still felt uncomfortable when it was described in this tone by the person involved.
[I can't go any further.]
The handwriting began to become sloppy.
[I would like to... I would like to go in and take a look. It's not like I don't have the means to withstand such severe cold. I can stay there for a few days at least.]
[But I can't... I was already irresponsible by leaving the others behind and coming to Binghu Town. I can't be willful anymore.]
[I can stay here for one more day at most.]
[If he doesn't show up before time runs out, then he really has no chance.]
Does the “opportunity” here refer to returning home after clearing the wrongs?
Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows, feeling that there was more to it.
