Many writers began to blindly pursue freedom, as if writing about things that were suppressed in the past and were not allowed to be published publicly was righteous and was fighting against some evil. For quite a long period of time, the market was full of various chaos, and this trend even polluted a large number of readers. The most popular books sold in 1963 are simply disgusting when read today, and the evaluation of "despicable" by Bariu is considered light.
But that's not what Hitzfeld was concerned about.
She was more concerned about the year 1963, which meant that the story of Baliu and Leon began in the first year of her mission.
But Baliu is a tree man, and 15 years is not a long time for her. Even today, Baliu has just reached adulthood and can still be described as a "girl".
But Li Ang is a human being.
How old is Li Ang today?
Although I didn't ask, Hitzfeld estimated that he was no more than 40 years old. If they met in 1963, then Leon must have been a little kid 22 years ago?
It certainly won’t be very big anyway.
...Hitzfeld felt that she probably knew how this relationship ended.
Baliu is still describing this past event: "I really don't like the trend at that time. Some people came to borrow books. They borrowed classics...but their purpose was not to study the classics themselves, to understand the story, to gain insights from the historical background of the story, and from the joys and sorrows of those characters."
"They just heard that there were some erotic descriptions in the book and wanted to 'broaden their horizons'!"
She was still a little angry when she said this.
"So you can imagine how delighted I was when I received this letter - I wrote him back immediately and gave him a list of some of the books I had read."
"Then he quickly sent me another letter with money in it. A lot of money, which was exactly what he needed to buy books... He said in the letter that it was inconvenient for him to go out, and hoped that we could deliver the books on the list to Corneril Manor, and that the money would be used as the loan fee."
"You did it?"
"It can generate income and make friends who get along well with me, so why would I refuse?" Bariu curled her lips, "That's how it was... We often exchanged letters for fifteen years. I recommended the books I read to him, and he sent me the money for the books. I packed the books and sent them over."
“We quickly became best friends!”
This is predictable.
Hitzfeld thought.
They read the same books, talked about the same topics, and had very similar outlooks. It was hard for her to imagine that they couldn't become friends under such circumstances.
"He knew from my words that I was a girl, and I knew he was a 'he'," said Baliu.
"Our relationship grew stronger as we communicated, and finally, when I was about to finish my tour of duty, he wrote me an extraordinary letter for the first time."
Hitzfeld interjected: "I guess it was a love letter."
"Yes!" cried Barrieu, "it is indeed a love letter!"
"He said he was willing to marry me! He said it would be hard for him to find another girl to accompany him for more than ten years. He was willing to light this cigarette for the rest of his life, and let the aroma of tobacco accompany us until we die!"
Hitzfeld's expression became extremely strange at this moment: "So you promised him."
"I'm serious." Baliu's face also began to darken. "I've made all the preparations, including receiving psychological counseling - about accepting that my human husband died many years before me. I really sacrificed a lot for him!"
"I finished my duty and training, and we continued to exchange letters and arrange a time to meet. Then, on that day, he ran away!"
"He said he never thought of marrying a tree woman. He even questioned my age! He thought the girl he had a crush on when he was a child might have already become an old woman!"
"Pfft-hahahaha!"
Hearing this, Hitzfeld could no longer hold back and burst into laughter.
To be honest, she didn't think about the age issue at first, and she thought this would be another version of "84 Charing Cross Road". But she didn't expect it to have such a dramatic ending.
She couldn't help but think of Li Ang's decadent face as he sat at the bar, and remembered him hesitatingly telling her in a weathered tone, "I just don't want her to be a widow at that age."
Now it seems that this is not enough of an excuse.
Because no matter whether he died early or late, Baliu would be a widow.
Chapter 35: The Restless Beast
Hitzfeld built his happiness on Baliu's pain, and this immoral behavior soon brought retribution.
As she was laughing, she got stuck and began to feel her left eye was "burning", as if it had some intention to act on its own, and even the nature orb could not suppress it.
This scared her, because all along she had been able to live in peace with this thing only because it stayed in her body as an organ. They depended on each other and coexisted with each other, and this thing also needed nourishment from her body to stay alive.
But if it was "alive" - she meant the real "alive", that is, with independent consciousness like a living thing, she was not mentally prepared for how to face this body in the future.
"Do you think pretending to be in pain can cover up your bad behavior just now?"
The tree girl stood beside the bed with her hands on her hips, looking at her angrily, thinking that her troubled expression was all fake.
I told her some of my things with the idea that we had become friends, but the response she gave me was as if I was listening to a joke.
Baliu felt offended. She had already made up her mind that if Aisuen-Hitzfeld's current pain was really fake, she would definitely try the so-called tickling torture on her.
But it doesn't look like he's pretending...
Baliu didn't have much experience in this kind of mission, but she had worked as a front desk clerk in the library for fifteen years. In those fifteen years, she had talked to countless book lovers, and even though humans were not of the same species as her, she could probably see through their expressions.
She had never seen a performance like the one Esun Hitzfeld was doing now... one that could make sweat appear on the forehead and neck.
After thinking about it, she leaned over and pinched the girl's face, but found that she still didn't respond. She poured some water, lifted her back and fed her.
Hitzfeld's reaction was as if he had been crawling in the desert for at least a week, and he drank two large glasses of water before raising his hand to refuse.
Seeing her face relax and her body sliding back into the bed, Baliwu leaned over and asked, "Feeling better?"
Hitzfeld nodded. She didn't even have the energy to speak now.
God knows how she managed to endure the tearing pain just now. It felt like her entire skull was about to split open, and something was eager to come out from inside.
After resting for a while and eating some raisins that Baliu brought, which were more suitable for quickly absorbing sugar and energy, she was finally able to speak.
“My left eye wasn’t right,” she said. “It felt like it was alive…it was trying to break away from me and do something.”
"Are you serious?" Baliu's face turned serious.
This was no ordinary incident. She knew a little about the other party's situation. Her left eye had been purified by the blood of the Sun King. It couldn't be suppressed to this extent, so how could it come back to life now?
The two of them talked about this for a while, with Bariu doing most of the talking and Hitzfeld responding with nods and shakes of his head.
Occasionally, when she needed to speak, she only uttered a few words. Baliu kept observing the process and felt that her face was as pale as a dead body.
"This situation, as well as your abnormality as a God Devourer, basically only occurred after you spied on that green mist, right?"
She also took a page and a pen to take notes.
Hitzfeld nodded slightly.
"I think there's a high chance that you've been cursed. After all, the black flame created by the dead soul's marrow fluid... can travel through space and affect that person. You've seen it, too."
She was referring to the living attacker brought back from the opposite floor of the Red Leaf Hotel. That person was possessed by the black flame and burned to death. There is a high possibility that this thing can possess and curse people.
But Hitzfeld also had the Orb of Nature, so she felt that she could more or less find out her own condition, and she was sure that she was not cursed by the black flame.
So she shook her head to deny the possibility.
"Isn't it?" Baliwu raised her eyebrows. "Then how do you explain this situation? There has never been a case of... the organs of the Devourer fusion rioting on their own before?"
"I think..." Hitzfeld said in a low voice, "It might be that Doctor Mechanic."
"Doctor Mechanical?" Bariu was dumbfounded.
Only then did Hitzfeld realize that she had been in a coma since she saw the scene in the green mist, and had no chance to tell others what she had seen and heard.
She had to try her best to suppress her discomfort and told Baliu about those things in a disjointed manner.
"That's a district leader!" Bariwu's face changed halfway through, "How is it possible... Does Nirikui want to make a big fuss in Kuroki?"
"District Head..." Hitzfeld savored her description, "The basis for your judgment is..."
"The number of evil followers that can be mobilized." Bariu explained, "There may not be many people in the picture you see, but the mechanical horse - that thing wants to be hidden until it is successfully manufactured, and even transported to Blackwood City as a semi-finished product without anyone noticing. During this period, he can mobilize at least 200 people. Only the district chief has such power."
"But I feel like those evil followers aren't that difficult to deal with..." Hitzfeld recalled facing those people from the perspective of Doctor Mechanic.
"Except for those men in black who may all be carrying black flames, I think the others are very weak..."
It's not that she confused her perspective and mistook the strength comparison between these people and Dr. Mechanical as her own achievement, but - her skills are not weak now, and her vision is even stronger. In her opinion, those people's actions are full of flaws. Not to mention comparing with agents like Leon, they are even inferior to small police officers like Mike.
"When the grassroots evildoers first joined, they were just ordinary people who were deceived." Baliu said, "Don't underestimate them, they can do anything."
Hitzfeld said nothing.
She really had no say in this matter - she had hardly encountered grassroots evildoers, and had always fought against elite troops.
"It's troublesome." Baliu was pacing around the bed anxiously.
"The district chief is leading the way... I didn't expect them to take Aman so seriously. A team of tree warriors only has 88 people. If they can mass-produce that kind of people, we'll have to send more people."
"Not enough time."
"It would be best if they arrived before tomorrow night...what did you say?"
"I said there's no time."
Hitzfeld repeated in a low voice, shook his head slowly, and tried to shorten the words as much as possible: "They attach so much importance to it... It confirms the speculation that Aman is nearby."
Baliu couldn't believe what she heard.
"Are you serious?" She slammed down on the bed and stared at the girl on it. "Arman Angelo - is he nearby?"
"I'm a little tired."
But Hitzfeld closed his eyes at this moment.
"If you would please, bring Mr. Yoderal to me."
"I have something I want to ask him."
After that, no matter how Baliu shook the bed frame or even tried to interrogate her, she would not speak again.
The tree girl was helpless and said she would go out to talk to Leon about the matter and come back in 30 seconds, and told her to call for help if she encountered any problems.
Hearing the sound of the door closing, Hitzfeld suddenly opened his eyes.
She basically lied to Balyu, because when her left eye was rioting, she actually saw some flashbacks intermittently.
The picture shows the more than ten years when Baliu was on duty. Sometimes she was writing letters, and sometimes she was running upstairs and downstairs, organizing books with the help of puppets.
When she saw this process, she suddenly had a sense of déjà vu.
Those books...the bookshelves filled with huge tomes...when Baliu carefully sorted them out, took them out one by one and wiped the dust off, she felt as if she had done something similar.
That was at Hitzfeld Manor.
In her previous life, she would occasionally help those kind elders with some chores, including but not limited to cleaning.
The source of the sense of déjà vu is a book - a thick-covered book called "Deciphering the Aristocracy - 1000 Most Respected Ancient Clans".
So she probably knew what was wrong with the scene she saw before waking up.
The mystery is filled with weirdness and contradiction. Although it doesn't look like a nightmare at all, the sixth sense is filled with suspicion and warnings for no reason.
It turns out it didn’t happen in this world at all.
It turns out that the seal that looks like an “l” is actually an “l”.
Chapter 36 Rand Standard
"Leon——"
Hearing the call, Li Ang almost threw the cup away.
Ignoring Ashley's excited smile, Agent Shadow Lion wiped his face and turned around with a half-confused and half-helpless look, "...What can I do for you, Ms. Treeman?"
"I can't come to you if I don't have anything to do for you?" Bariu glared, "Is this how a human male talks to his fiancée?"
"Hey!" Li Ang's face changed, and he immediately hugged her. He took her into the corridor amid the cheers and whistles of other people in the tavern hall, and whispered to her fiercely: "What do you want? I said I'm not interested in marrying you!"
"But the Tree People always keep their promises." Bariu shook off his hand. "We are different from you. Anyway, I will pursue you for the rest of my life!"
"But that's not why I came to you." She glanced at the clock in the hall, and without waiting for Leon to retort, she quickly repeated what Hitzfeld had said.
Some deletions and optimizations were made, but she confirmed that no information was omitted.
"Why didn't she tell me about this earlier?" Li Ang's eyes widened unconsciously, "What did she mean by no time? Is A'man nearby? Is she sure?"
"I don't know... Actually, I think that should just be a guess..."
"You haven't read the materials in detail, have you?" Leon interrupted her. "Aisun Hitzfeld - if you read the details of her previous cases in detail, you will find that the probability of her guessing the truth is surprisingly high."
"The sixth sense of the Devourer?" Bariu was surprised.
