She doesn't reject intimacy, but she rejects this kind of unclean intimacy.
"Be careful."
Li Ang pulled her into his arms, and the two of them huddled behind a pillar.
In less than half a second, a team of patrolling soldiers came out from the corner, complaining that they had to come out to look for someone so early, and walked straight through the alley.
After making sure they had left, Baliu looked up at Leon.
"Our fake faces have been marked as wanted. If we want to go out, we must use our real faces."
"Then use your true face." Li Ang said, "Let me think about it... Theoretically, there should be people from ours in Sara Mansion. The maritime trade between Ivenria and Nanxinze has not been interrupted, and some basic information can still be transmitted. There must be people from ours there."
"The enemy is too sharp." Bariu sighed, "We only showed our faces once in front of that girl, but she remembered our faces. I don't think this is her ability. This is a bit strange."
"It's very strange." Li Ang frowned.
There was something he didn't know whether he should say or not, which was that ever since entering Ivenria, he always had a feeling that he was being spied on.
The sixth sense of an agent is usually very accurate, and even masters of reasoning from the "intuitive school" have been born on this basis. Logically, this shouldn't be an illusion, but after observing for a period of time, Li Ang couldn't find a single scout.
He felt like something was watching him, but he couldn't find what it was.
This is really weird and not normal.
That was why he insisted on staying to investigate. He felt that he and Baliu were already the few "elite fighters" on the ship, especially Baliu. Her treeman form was like a steel chariot, which gave her an agility advantage in the tropical jungle around Ivenria. She was good at both fighting and escaping.
If neither of them can figure it out, the captain may have to take action himself.
In this way, they avoided the patrolling soldiers all the way and returned to the street as quickly as possible.
Once they were on the street, they no longer had to hide.
Once the fake mask is torn off and the stolen clothes are changed, even Ge Lan will not be able to recognize him. He can walk around in front of the soldiers and inquire about the information of the mansion.
"You're asking about the ship at the Cape?" The soldier weighed the money bag in his hand and licked his lips. "You two seem to be in a poor state. Are you asking about this?"
He was very alert, which made the two of them feel a little depressed.
"We are refugees from the south." After thinking for a while, Leon explained, "My grandfather once told me and my father that our hometown is on the other side of the sea. It belongs to a remote tribe called Everett."②
"We heard that there was someone with this surname in the Sara fleet." Baliu took Leon's arm and "pretended" to be a family, "so we wondered if it had anything to do with us..."
"Is that so?" The soldier stared. "Then you are really lucky!"
"……How to say?"
"Sarah's Everey family." The man sighed for a moment, then said, "They are no longer a small family. They moved to the south to develop a few years ago. Now they are one of the most powerful controllers of the South China Sea Merchant Alliance! Even people like us have heard of them!"
The reasons were sufficient, and Ivanreya's political inclination was not focused on the Sara people. The soldiers' vigilance was greatly reduced, and after a few more words, he pointed out the way for them and also told them to "thank him later when there is a result."
"I think he's quite normal..."
Away from the soldiers, Bariu looked back a few times.
Being greedy for small profits fits her impression of all soldiers.
But Li Ang's expression changed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the soldier taking out his water bag and taking several gulps of water.
The moment he drank the water, the feeling of being watched intensified sharply.
"Baliu."
"how?"
"How much water is left in the water bag?"
"There's about ten more mouthfuls left."
"Well……"
"What do you want to say?"
"I'd say we're really running out of time."
Leon grinned.
"How about this."
"I'm going to the mansion to see Everett."
"Try to get outside the palace and find out the news about Aman."
--------
①: An expansion of the theory of the Sea God's Families. The Sea God's Families first appeared in the chapter "Shadow Poison Needle", "Chapter 21: Sea God's Families (II)". Bariu himself explained it.
②: Cape Merchant Alliance and the Everett Family. First appeared in the Forbidden Fruit of Wisdom, Chapter 58: Salon (II).
Chapter 52: The Sacredness of Baliu
After a brief moment of hesitation, Baliu responded: "You are not doubting..."
"Yes," Li Ang admitted, "there is something wrong with the water."
It's not an ordinary problem.
You know, they had already speculated yesterday whether the groundwater here had been tampered with. Based on this premise, Leon actually emphasized for the second time that "there is a problem with the water"... Baliu immediately realized that the problem he was talking about was not just "animal curse."
"Are you talking about that feeling of being spied on..." She frowned slightly, "You should be able to feel it too, right? In the past two days, it seems like something is always staring at us, intermittently, but we can't find any source..."
Leon insisted on splitting up, but Baliu refused. She insisted that he tell her clearly what he had discovered before they would separate.
"It's very simple." Li Ang had no choice but to take her back to the alley. "We can prove it by doing an experiment."
The alley was crowded because there was a well at the first intersection of the alley, and many people wearing robes and turbans were already queuing up to get water.
Leon bought a water jar from a woman for a quarter of a silver coin, and followed the team silently with Baliu.
Finally, it's their turn.
The figure in front of them flashed away, and the two men frowned immediately.
The sixth sense of the extraordinary is more acute than that of ordinary people. They clearly felt that the feeling suddenly increased. Sometimes in front, sometimes behind, as if coming from all directions.
But looking around, there were only people fetching water... The people behind them couldn't wait and started urging them. Li Ang responded in a low voice, walked to the well and pulled the rope.
The water-drawing device was very simple. It was a wooden shaft installed on the top of the well, with a rope wrapped around it and a wooden bucket hanging at the end of the rope.
This thing is not in vain. He was stopped by a bald strong man halfway through pulling it. He asked why he had never seen him before. After a dispute, he learned that water also needs to be paid. Generally, it is paid once every seven days. Within seven days, you can get unlimited water with the receipt.
"New here?" Fortunately, there are many southerners who have fled here recently, so their situation is not uncommon. The bald strong man smiled after receiving the money, and took the rope from Li Ang to help fetch water. While pulling, he chatted with them: "Young couples can run over, but it's difficult for the old and the young... I heard that there are particularly terrifying monsters in the gray fog. Some of those who escaped like you often have nightmares, screaming something, and when they wake up, they find that their companions have become skeletons."
"We heard there's a war going on in the Gray Fog Region?" Leon asked in a low voice, "It seems like it's between two divine kingdoms..."
"The Mechanical Kingdom and the Corrupted Blood Kingdom, right?" The bald man lowered his voice. He frowned and looked around, then warned, "You'd better not ask around. I call it an open secret, but it's not something the refugees are qualified to discuss."
"Who has the upper hand?" Baliu asked.
The bald man was slightly displeased.
Li Ang came over and patted his shoulder, and with his other hand he skillfully stuffed a purse into his arms.
The bald man was stunned, holding the rope with one hand and froze, and reached in with the other hand to pinch the purse to make sure there were more than 30 coins in it.
So he suddenly calmed down, no longer showing any impatience or annoyance, and explained to Baliu in a low voice: "The Corrupted Blood Kingdom is now in the upper hand."
"What's going on?" Li Ang was bewildered. "Isn't it very dangerous in the gray fog? Monsters come out to eat people all the time. How can there be two 'kingdoms of God'?"
"...Don't tell me I said that." The bald man was obviously very loyal. He felt that he couldn't let down the money he got. "I vaguely heard it said that it was not something that should exist in this world."
"What do you mean?"
"God's kingdom!" The bald man bared his teeth at them. "God's kingdom... Think about it, can an ordinary country be called that? Only a country controlled by gods is qualified... Since they are gods, of course they can survive in the gray fog."
Li Ang thought this logic was strange.
Ivanreya... the people of the Plantagenet United Kingdom seemed to be not aware of the dangers of the gray fog. But he couldn't refute it because there was no actual example showing that the Lord God couldn't survive in the fog.
He wanted to ask more, but the urging voices behind him were getting louder and louder.
"Don't ask any more questions. Just get some water and go." The bald man sped up and filled a bucket of water for them. "If you want to make a living, you can go to the south of the city to work, help build houses or something. It's a bit hard, but it's safe... I don't recommend you to take jobs at the shore."
Neither of them had time to answer him, because the moment the bucket of water was drawn up, they both felt a strong sense of alarm.
It was a sense of crisis that was not far from "fatal danger". The hairs on Leon's arms stood up and he got goose bumps all over.
"Click!" As the lid of the water jug was closed, the bald man handed it over with a smile.
Baliu took it before Leon, bumped into him as a reminder, and the two left the alley together.
When there were no more people around, they stopped and pretended to be tired and sat down to rest.
This is not noticeable. As the temperature gets hotter during the day, the streets and roadsides are filled with similar pedestrians.
Li Ang frowned and looked around, and saw a group of women across the street. They must have just fetched water and were setting up a "water stall" on the roadside, selling water to passers-by at a low price.
Before he could say anything, a carriage stopped behind him. Two men in formal suits paid their bills and went into the inn behind. After counting the money, the driver took out his water bag and took a sip. The sound of him smacking his lips seemed to be right beside his ears.
They are everywhere…they are everywhere!
Leon felt dizzy and his vision went dark. Then he suddenly woke up and remembered that Baliu seemed to have drunk the local water.
"Lee?"
When he looked at his wife, he found that she had just closed the pitcher and looked like she had just finished an inspection.
"I can't say." Baliu whispered.
They had to speak quietly so that the things in the pitcher wouldn't hear their conversation.
"It could be some extraordinary magic here, such as using a magic potion to contaminate the groundwater and attach surveillance to it."
"Isn't this difficult?" Li Ang asked.
"It's difficult... Aisuen told me that the extraordinary people here need to be far beyond... According to their standards, they must have the ability of level 5 to have enough energy to sustain the consumption."
"My instinct tells me that you don't think that's possible."
"There is another kind." Baliu nodded and licked her lips gently. "There are extraordinary things above level 6, which are completely distorted and corroded by taboos..."
"If it is large enough to fill several underground waterways, and its form is similar to some kind of liquid... it can mix its clones in the well water and control most of the city at the same time."
The hair is creepy.
Although this conjecture is exaggerated, it currently seems to be the closest to the truth.
"You've drunk this stuff... is it okay?"
"You underestimate the Tree People." Bariu smiled, "Let me tell you a secret... Do you know what species the earliest Tree People were, the first Tree People in history?"
"It's the Netherworld Fruit Tree." She answered her own question without waiting for Li Ang to speak, "It's the family chosen by the Dark Lord Severin herself."
"Severin...?" Leon stared.
He looked at his wife and suddenly felt that she was a little strange.
It wasn't a bad kind of strangeness, but suddenly, Baliu seemed a little sacred, like a priest praying devoutly in a church, with an otherworldly temperament.
"Severin betrayed her original camp and was killed, but the Netherfruit Tree Clan was not abandoned." Bariu continued, "A greater god accepted them."
"Is it the Goddess of Jiyang?"
"She helped us to continue our tribe." Bariwu nodded. "Under her blessing and permission, the original Nether Fruit Tree began to reproduce with other species of tree people. It can be said that all tree people today have the power of the Nether Fruit Tree in their bodies - including my Devil Ivy."
"And the Netherworld Fruit Tree..." She paused.
"It is a magical plant that specializes in drawing filth from the deepest dark abyss and transforming it into the purest and most luscious fruit."
"No filth can pollute the Nether Fruit Tree in the form of 'nutrients'. Similarly, they cannot pollute me in this way."
“The sanctity is preserved.”
"It is the last blessing that the Sun Goddess left for the Tree People."
Chapter 53: Developing Potential
"No... How long will it take to find out if we keep investigating like this..."
In the gloomy library, Xia Yibing threw away the book in her hand and leaned forward on the table. She didn't even have the strength to drink water.
It's no wonder she felt sick. After Hitzfeld had gathered the crew for a meeting, he dragged her here to work. She spent the entire morning staring at the densely packed characters - and this was not just ordinary "staring". She was required to "use her strengths" and look at these books again from multiple angles such as cryptography, linguistics, and data analysis. She must find more ciphertexts that Alwin might have left behind, without any omissions.
