### Chapter 122: Settling Down (Part Two)
By a “chance” encounter, Aili met the Romani Doctor.
It was a rainy day, and Aili clearly remembered that it was nine days after the funeral ceremony of Pope Knight Silvya. During the last private worship service, her choir had just sung the twenty-eighth blessing for the fallen hero. After getting off the stage, she and a few kids took shelter under an eave, hoping the rain would lighten up a bit.
The woman who had suddenly stepped in to conduct their choir, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that covered most of her face, approached Aili.
“The coffin buried in the Temple Church is actually empty,” she said, handing her umbrella over to Aili.
Gentle, serene, and elegant.
She didn’t quite feel like a clergyman but rather like a noble lady from a big family, with a smile that felt very warm and inviting.
That was Aili’s first impression of the Romani Doctor.
And it was an impression that lingered in her heart for a long time.
After a while, Aili gradually understood what it meant for a woman to be a “conductor” for the entire Choir of Saints.
For nearly half a month after the last worship service, Aili always saw the woman praying devoutly in the little prayer room of the Temple Church.
What a coincidence—right during that time, Aili was assigned to clean that very room.
“You say the coffin is empty. How do you know?”
After tossing and turning for several sleepless nights, Aili finally couldn’t hold back and asked the woman.
And the woman’s answer was quite shocking, leaving her wide-eyed and struggling to sleep for several nights afterward.
“She said, ‘The child lying inside is the culmination of my life’s work.’” The girl told me this with barely a hint of emotion, but I noticed she seemed to be observing my reaction intently.
I maintained a poker face.
After pressing her about it, I confirmed that the girl still had no idea about the Abyss and the experiments, nor did she know what the “main task” of the Choir of Saints was.
She couldn’t even be considered part of the Choir yet, let alone a “reserve.”
“I thought I was favored…”
Aili recounted her “luck” to me, how she went from being a displaced, clueless orphan girl to a “Divine Seeker”—a specially groomed candidate for the clergy within the Holy Church. Looking back, she said it still felt surreal.
After a few brief conversations, the Romani Doctor noticed Aili’s exceptional talent for faith—though from what I could see, the woman was probably more interested in her status as a “survivor of the orphanage incident” and her friendship with me. Aili, however, naively believed she was recognized for her character and talent, just like back in the Royal City.
Of course, she had no clue that “talent” just meant her body’s ability to accept Gidales’ flesh and bl**d.
The Romani Doctor told her to leave her current choir and join a new soul choir, which was one of the real training choirs for the Choir of Saints.
Throughout the spring of the year 1188, the Romani Doctor stayed in the Holy City, personally teaching the soul choir about faith and their mission.
“In the dark corners unseen by the Deities, the most resilient purifiers of filth exist—this is the mission of the Choir of Saints.”
That’s how she explained it to Aili.
These so-called “candidates for the Choir” had not even gone through more stringent screening, still in the observation stage, needing years of indoctrination with the concept of “sacred principles” to slowly reshape their understanding of “the Deity.”
In the end, maybe only a very few, or even just one, would fully embrace the truth, receive the “Book of Odes,” and become a formal member of the Choir of Saints’ first or second voice. Otherwise, they would end up as auxiliary personnel, like the three unfortunate guinea pigs back in Stag Town.
And Aili wasn’t even considered auxiliary; she had no access to the Choir’s real “business.” What the Romani Doctor and the others were doing was entirely beyond her comprehension. My judgment after listening to her was that she still didn’t know anything.
But she didn’t believe that.
Once in her new environment, Aili officially started learning to harness her faith. It was then that she heard from others that the Romani Doctor was a member of the Temple Church’s Council, rivaling Saint Margaret with her innate miraculous talent and outstanding healing abilities—she was the Church’s best healer.
With an identity as lofty as a mountain, yet approachable and caring, Aili gradually began to take the Romani Doctor’s words as gospel.
“Do you know why I never like to hide things from you?”
One night, while Aili was cleaning the little prayer room and stumbled upon the Romani Doctor alone, the woman took the initiative to talk to her about me.
“I know you are the survivor of that incident with Teresa, the child who made it out of Cataloma.”
That night, the woman appeared to be obviously downcast—Aili described it to me. She said the Romani Doctor seemed to be sharing something, speaking a lot, like she knew about Silvya confronting Teresa in the orphanage and saving Aili; how, although she hadn’t seen me since, she thought about me every moment.
“Her life is what I saved; I also gave her—a girl who could only think about dying—another chance at life, a chance to run free.”
This was the most shocking thing the Romani Doctor had told Aili that night.
She told Aili that she had cultivated me all by herself, yet was now waiting for the “flower” to bloom, only to see it snatched away at the moment of its impending blossom.
“That child belongs to me.”
“But unfortunately, someone else shares the same idea.”
She said that the person who took her “flower,” in trying to make it bloom bigger and prettier, ultimately ruined everything and regretted it while forcing her to produce another one.
Who this person was, the Romani never clarified for Aili.
“No one knows her better than I do—not even her biological parents.”
The Romani Doctor told Aili that there was no body in that coffin and that there couldn’t be one because the battle in Woodward Forest obliterated everything that could burn in a colossal explosion and infernal fire.
All that remained was the most refined essence of the spirit after being tempered by the infernal flames.
Yes, the Romani firmly believed I could not be dead, but it seemed she hadn’t told anyone other than Aili.
That night, the grand conductor of the Choir of Saints and a member of the Temple Council, a high-ranking figure, made a promise with an inconspicuous girl who had lost her parents in the quiet, dark prayer room.
“The Church is no longer the Church; although the Choir is still mine for now, it may not be for long. Perhaps in a few years, I, too, will d*e in some unknown place.”
“Before that day comes, little Aili, I will transfer you out of the Holy City. After you leave here, find a way to find her, your Sister Peilo, and tell her—”
“I left something for her, something very important.”
Over a year later, in June 1189, Aili suddenly received a command from the first voice minister of the Choir of Saints. She and her soul choir were all transferred out of the Holy City, picked up by a War Chariot, and sent back to the Kingdom of Ethanbel to lie in wait in a certain town outside the Rabellier Valley.
