Chapter 112: This Is So Unfair, I Was Here First (5k).
The sky darkened, and the bl**d-like evening glow from the western horizon spread across the entire street.
The once bustling street gradually became deserted, no longer as crowded as it was during the day.
Although this era had the rudiments of electricity, technological development had almost stagnated since the Catastrophic Era. Nighttime lighting was still inconvenient, naturally making it impossible to achieve the bright, never-ending spectacle of a modern city that never sleeps.
Only now did this city truly begin to feel like… the “Underworld.”
Helen walked down the street, holding a skewer of meatballs in her left hand and a bag of pancakes in her right, taking small bites. Rast followed behind her, carrying the unfinished grilled fish she had left earlier.
“So, how’s the taste of the street food?” Rast asked.
The next moment, he noticed a line of delicate, ice-blue script appearing on his collar: “These meatballs are slightly burnt, but the pancakes are quite good.”
With fewer people around, the risk of being noticed by others was significantly reduced, so Helen and Rast’s method of communication became much more casual.
Rast’s collar, cuffs, palms, and pant legs… all became surfaces for Helen to write on.
Once, Rast even noticed Helen quietly drawing a small turtle on the back of his hand. When she realized he had noticed, she hurriedly erased it.
“Anyway, they’re all delicious,” the delicate ice-blue script on his collar paused.
“Better than the palace food, OvO.”
“Your Majesty’s high praise is truly an honor for them,” Rast chuckled. “But if that’s the case, the royal chefs might just have their hearts shattered…”
“All their decades of effort, using the finest ingredients and culinary skills… only to be outshone by street food in Your Majesty’s eyes.”
Helen gently shook her head: “Those, I’ve grown tired of.”
She ate the last meatball on the skewer, and her violet eyes showed a hint of lingering desire as she looked at the empty stick: “These, I’ve never had before.”
“The flavors are new and special, QwQ.”
After spending time together and with Rast’s patient communication, Helen’s ability to communicate through writing had improved significantly.
She no longer just used a few simple words or phrases, forcing others to guess her true thoughts… Now, she could express complete sentences like a normal person.
Under Rast’s guidance, Helen had even learned to use emoticons, though she was still inexperienced, often making them seem a bit out of place.
She carefully picked up the empty skewer and solemnly held it in her hand, along with the other empty wrappers.
In the palace, Helen would simply toss things aside after eating, as Rast or other maids would clean up.
But during this outing, Rast had told her that as a member of the royal city, she needed to take care of her own trash when outside, as littering was irresponsible to the city’s environment and hygiene.
So, throughout the day, Helen had been very careful, collecting all her empty wrappers to bring back to the palace for proper disposal.
“But, why…” Helen finished her meatballs and took a bite of the pancake in her right hand, her violet eyes showing a hint of confusion:
“That pancake vendor messed up five batches before finally succeeding.”
She tilted her head, a strand of ice-blue hair falling from her forehead: “Is that vendor sick? If he keeps doing business like that, he’ll lose money, right? (╯°口°)╯”
“Maybe, or maybe he’s been cheated on,” Rast nodded, ignoring the irrelevant emoticon. “But who knows, maybe that pancake vendor is actually an undercover cop on a special mission, and selling pancakes is just his cover.”
“So that’s how it is.”
“That pancake vendor is amazing, Σ(°△°|||).”
Helen’s eyes showed a hint of surprise as she carefully examined the pancake in her hand.
Seeing that she didn’t dwell on the topic, Rast also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
These street vendors were all temporary hires; it would be strange if they were skilled.
Otherwise, why would a vendor miraculously appear just as Helen and Rast got hungry during their stroll, with no need to wait in line?
But failing five times at such a simple task as making pancakes… that vendor truly was something else, making Rast wonder how he had even passed the Guardian’s assessment.
…
The sun gradually set, and endless darkness rose, covering the fiery sky.
They walked down the street dyed red by the sunset, their elongated shadows stretching infinitely in the evening light.
“Circus, opera house, adventurer’s tavern, detective agency… we’ve been to all those. Next should be the Divination Club, right?”
Rast recalled the first half of the “Chronicles of Silver Wings,” where the male and female protagonists took turns traveling the continent.
The mermaid island in the deep sea, the floating sky island, the land of dwarfs, the city made entirely of chocolate—these were all places that only existed in fairy tale fantasies. They couldn’t possibly visit them.
Even the elite Guardian team couldn’t just conjure a floating island out of thin air for them.
But other than that, they had visited every real-life location today, though most of them were hastily set up by the Guardian team members.
Now, only the Divination Club remained.
Rast had secretly passed on the locations mentioned in “Chronicles of Silver Wings” that Her Majesty the Queen might want to visit to the Guardian team through code. However, he wasn’t sure if they had managed to finish setting everything up in time…
He could tell his teammates were running ragged, as several places had shown signs of being hastily arranged, and it was only thanks to Rast’s quick thinking that they managed to cover it up.
Now that it was getting late, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to suggest returning to the palace.
With that in mind… Rast noticed the young girl beside him suddenly stop.
She looked up at a sign hanging nearby that read “Stargazing Diviner.”
“The shop is about to close.”
“But since you’re the last guest, we’ll give you a free divination.”
“Please, those who wish to have a divination may enter… others should wait outside.”
A clear female voice came from behind the curtain, quite pleasant to the ear.
But to Rast, the voice was all too familiar—
Grey?
According to the Shadow Servant, hadn’t he left Grey at the rear command post?
So, had the plan changed, or had Grey volunteered to come?
But a Diviner, a Sequence of “Fate”… this was indeed Grey’s profession.
Though Grey’s rank was negligible compared to the Queen of the Underworld, Helen.
But the “Fate” Sequence was inherently mysterious, difficult to comprehend through normal reasoning.
Long before Grey truly became a supernatural being, her subconscious use of fate’s power… had entrapped a pollutant of the Evil God Zhuyue in an endless loop of time and space.
If not for Rast and Hiltina’s arrival, which broke the endless cycle of Frozen Water Town, even ordinary third or fourth-tier supernatural beings would have been lost forever.
Such was the terror of the unique “Fate” Sequence.
If Grey’s timing, state, and inspiration were just right… she might even have the chance to foresee sixth-tier or legendary fates in her current form.
As these thoughts raced through his mind, Rast felt his right hand being gently tugged.
He looked up to see Helen’s expectant, eager gaze looking back at him.
It seemed the Divination Club was also an important location in “Chronicles of Silver Wings.”
Rast nodded.
The next moment, the queen with ice-blue hair stepped through the curtain with light, hurried footsteps.
And walked inside.
…
The interior of the divination hut was simple, with only a wooden table.
On the table lay a crystal ball, and behind it sat a girl with her face hidden under a hood.
The walls were made of planks nailed together with rivets, a sight any experienced carpenter would recognize as a temporary structure.
But Helen clearly had no such experience—
So she simply walked into the hut with light steps, then sat across from the crystal ball as described in “Chronicles of Silver Wings,” placing her hands obediently on her knees.
“Esteemed guest, what aspect would you like to have divined?”
A faint female voice came from behind the crystal ball, still with a hint of youth, sounding quite young.
Helen tilted her head in thought, then picked up a pencil and began writing in her notebook… she didn’t want to accidentally reveal her identity and ruin this long-awaited divination session.
After a moment, she held up the notebook: “Can you divine my favorite color?”
The voice behind the crystal ball paused, then softly replied: “Blue.”
“What about the fruit I eat most often?”
“Grapes.”
“What time do I usually go to bed?”
“Normally at eleven at night… but you often stay up late to read storybooks by candlelight, so it could be as late as two or three in the morning.”
…
The notebook was continuously filled with new questions.
After several questions, the pace of writing gradually slowed.
Looking at the questions on the notebook, Helen’s eyes lit up with a faint glow.
Every time, the diviner was able to answer her questions fluently.
And the answers matched Helen’s own reality perfectly.
Though Helen had never seen the outside world, she had her own thoughts… “Chronicles of Silver Wings” had also described cases of fraudsters posing as diviners to swindle money.
Thus, despite the joy and excitement of seeing a real-life diviner from the book, Helen remained cautious, suspecting the diviner might be a fraud.
But after several questions, Helen dismissed this suspicion in her heart.
Her writing carried a hint of hesitation.
After a long while, the delicate script finally reached its end.
“May I…”
“Ask about my own future?”
“That question is too broad and vague.”
“A diviner can only catch glimpses of the flow of fate, a corner of the future.”
“Not even for humans, whose paths are infinitely complex… even the life of a butterfly cannot be fully seen by a diviner.”
From behind the crystal ball, the thin girl in the hooded robe softly spoke.
“If you truly wish to know your future, it’s better to add some specific terms and conditions… such as whose future, or the outcome of a certain event.”
“Then—”
Helen’s fingers holding the pen trembled slightly.
“I want to know, Rast and my future.”
“And the ending… of our story.”
The Queen of the Underworld’s delicate handwriting trembled slightly.
And because of this, she didn’t notice that when she wrote Rast’s name…
The figure behind the crystal ball also stiffened for a moment.
But the diviner quickly regained composure and spoke in a calm voice.
“Rast… who is he?”
“What is his relationship to you? These are all necessary conditions for the divination.”
“I’m not sure…”
Hearing this, a hint of confusion seemed to seep into Helen’s delicate writing.
“Rast suddenly appeared in the palace, by my side.”
“But for some reason… his appearance is identical to a clay doll bound to my soul.”
“And when I see Rast, I feel an inexplicable closeness.”
“As if we had met long, long ago, as though we were kindred spirits who could lick each other’s wounds… When I see Rast, I instinctively want to protect him and help him.”
“Even… to satisfy my own protective urges, I want to turn Rast into the ‘specimen’ he mentioned, to keep him by my side forever…”
As she wrote, the confusion in her violet eyes disappeared.
In its place was a barely perceptible hint of joy.
“This might sound selfish… but after meeting him, I began to look forward to every day of my life.”
“Rast, he tolerates all my whims in the palace, even when I draw turtles on the back of his hand, he just laughs… Even when I make such a troublesome request as wanting to leave the palace to play outside, he does his best to fulfill it.”
“Today is the happiest time of my life. I saw so many sights I had never seen before, and ate so many foods I had never tasted.”
“It’s like a fairy tale I once read, where the Plague Witch, hated by the world, only met a young knight after losing her memory… Then her dull, monotonous life regained its color.”
“I love that story… because the heroine’s experience resembles mine, and I also love the time I spend with Rast.”
“Every day with him fills me with joy, o(≧口≦)o (erased).”
“If I am the heroine of the story, the Plague Witch… then Rast, he is the young knight who met the amnesiac witch, the male protagonist of my story.”
Her pen paused on the paper, crossing out the last line.
It seemed she had found a confidant, as her words were laced with the newly learned emoticons.
“So…”
Helen stopped writing, her gaze fixed on the petite diviner before her.
Her violet eyes showed a hint of timidity and fear.
But in the end, she lifted her head again, her expression becoming serious and solemn.
“I want to know, the future of Rast and me.”
“Will we… be able to reach the end together like in the fairy tale, embracing the perfect conclusion of our story.”
The girl with ice-blue hair looked serious, appearing very earnest.
Her deep love for “Chronicles of Silver Wings” stemmed from how similar its heroine’s situation was to hers.
On countless starless, sleepless nights… Helen would use that well-worn fairy tale book to imagine herself as the heroine of the story—-
Embarking on countless adventures, traveling the continent, experiencing myriad strange events, and meeting all sorts of people.
In “Chronicles of Silver Wings,” the heroine, the Plague Witch, once encountered a wandering, omniscient diviner.
The diviner prophesied that she would eventually find salvation, ending her long suffering.
Trusting in this prophecy… at countless moments when her power nearly spiraled out of control, dragging her into the abyss, the witch managed to return to herself, awaiting the male protagonist’s rescue.
And so—-
When a real-life diviner truly appeared before her, Helen was filled with an intense desire to know the answer.
She wanted to know if she and that young man could reach the end together.
And welcome the happily-ever-after, like in the fairy tale.
Seeing the words on the paper, each letter radiating fervent emotions…
The petite diviner’s figure clearly stiffened for a moment.
“This is so unfair…”
“I was here first…”
She unconsciously clenched her fist, muttering words only she could hear.
But in the end, the petite diviner’s fist slowly relaxed.
“I understand, let me help you see.”
“Whether the story of you and Rast… reaches a good or bad end.”
As the girl murmured these words—-
The crystal ball suddenly shone with a bright silver light, illuminating both pairs of grey eyes.
(End of Chapter).
