At that moment, it was as if someone was holding back the pace of time, preventing it from continuing to move forward in this dark, remote, and dilapidated corner of the shield area.
The three of them faced each other in silence, the stagnant atmosphere fueling their unspeakable emotions.
until
"What are you doing?"
Thales spoke loudly and asked the other two people in disbelief: "Xixer, and you, what are you talking about?"
"Do you know my mother?"
Under the moonlight, the prince's face was full of surprise, and he stared straight at the veteran who was shaking slightly in the wheelchair, and the old man who was leaning on crutches and bowing his head sadly.
"When? How did we meet? Where?"
But they didn't answer.
"How about it, Drew," Hickser sighed slowly:
"Is this reason enough?"
Grivet finally calmed down his shaky breathing easily.
As if a long, long time had passed, the wheelchair immersed in the darkness moved slightly, crushing a few scattered stones on the ground.
The man in the wheelchair exhaled with difficulty and raised his head vigorously under the dim moonlight.
"you can not."
The veteran's voice was stiff, and his eyes wandered between Thales and Xixer.
"You can't, you can't do this..."
Having said this, Grivet's uncertain expression paused for a moment.
But Xixer still looked at him calmly.
"It has been more than twenty years. I am Grivet. I am in Longxiao City. I have my territory, my brothers, and everything about me. They are counting on me. You can't..."
He twisted his face and clutched his wheelchair tightly, as if he was about to rush to the battlefield at the next moment: "You can't just appear out of nowhere like this, and then, and then, bring out a bunch of bullshit 'moving past events' and just demand
I did this and that...that's all in the past, old crow!"
Grivet waved his hand suddenly and seemed to speak more fluently: "What about her son, I don't care..."
He was answered by Xixer's plain but firm old voice.
"Because it's all in the past, Drew."
"That's why it exists forever."
Grivet's words were stagnant, as if he was choked by something.
"It can't be changed," Xixer's eyes were silent: "It can't be escaped either."
Grivet trembled slightly in the wheelchair.
The veteran slowly let go of the wheelchair, clasped his hands together, and gritted his teeth: "Shut up."
Thales looked at Xixer and then at Griwal, feeling confused.
Twenty years ago?
past?
They all know Serangielana.
That...mysterious mother.
He pricked up his ears, wanting to hear more.
"No one wants to recall the nightmare of that year, whether it was before or after."
Xixer, who only heard the vicissitudes of life, sighed softly: "But at least think about it, who brought us struggling people at the end of their lives and a walking zombie like you out of Caligre..."
"...Bring out that bottomless dark cage, bring out that bloody battlefield shrouded in shadow?"
"Calligre..."
This title seemed to remind Grievor of something. He closed his eyes and his chest began to rise and fall.
Thales was filled with doubts.
Caligre?
What is that place?
"Yes, dear Drew," Hixer looked at Griwal from a distance, who was immersed in memories and had an uncertain expression: "This is the debt we owe."
Grivet opened his eyes and took a deep breath with difficulty: "Shut up."
Thales couldn't bear it any longer.
"Sorry to bother you, but..."
He took a step forward, his tone slightly anxious: "Who is my mother..."
Grivet suddenly raised his head!
"I told you to shut up!"
The old soldier was seen gritting his teeth, eyes wide open, and looking at the young prince with a distorted face, as if he was undergoing some kind of torture.
His beard and hair stood on end, and he was suppressing his emotions, forcing Thales' words back into his mouth.
"There are always some things that you can't deny, let alone forget."
Xixer coughed in pain, but he waved his hand and refused Thales's offer to come up and help him.
"Isn't it?" Old Crow calmed down for a while, then slowly opened his mouth and called out a title that was extremely unfamiliar to Thales:
"Blood Spined Lizard."
boom!
Grivet punched his wheelchair.
"Shut up, shut up!"
The veteran leaned forward and looked at Xixer fiercely: "Fuck you, old guy, you will never fucking call me that!"
"You know I fucking hate this!"
His voice was full of hostility and pain, and he slapped his hands on the wheelchair: "You know!"
Thales stared at Griwal like this in surprise.
The prince became more and more suspicious of Selan's relationship with them, and at the same time he was worried about his future.
But Hixer just continued to hold on to his crutches and stood indifferently: "Then send this child away, Drew."
"That's all the past asks of you."
"Then you can go back and be your local gangster with peace of mind, and be your gang boss with all your might."
Grivet fell back on his backrest and took a few deep breaths.
It seemed as if the conversation just now consumed most of his energy.
A gust of wind blew by, and the huge temperature difference between day and night in Longxiao City made Thales flinch and couldn't help but sneeze.
"No."
Grivet's painful but firm voice came to his ears.
"Don't even think about it."
"I won't take this business."
Thales was shocked.
What?
"that's all?"
"No answer?" A cold light appeared behind Hickser's monocle, and he said calmly: "Is this your answer? Grewal?"
Grivet's chest swayed visibly.
"that's all!"
The veteran in the wheelchair raised his head again, gritted his teeth and said angrily:
"you……"
"roll."
He squeezed out a few words through his teeth: "Get out of my territory!"
"At once, now!"
His rough voice sounded in this remote corner, going back and forth between the broken walls and ruins.
But Hixer said nothing, just looked at Griwal silently.
The contorted Griwal and the cold-faced Xixer looked at each other in the moonlight, tit for tat.
This atmosphere made Thales quite uneasy. It temporarily overshadowed his curiosity about the mysterious mother, and made him even more confused about his way of escape.
After a long time, Xixer slowly sighed: "That's it..."
The veteran sitting in the wheelchair stared at the old man in front of him, his eyes filled with meanings that Thales could not understand.
"Old boss?"
In the distance, Kevin, who heard the roar, approached in a truck and asked anxiously: "What's wrong?"
Grivet took a few breaths, adjusted his breathing, and restrained his out-of-control emotions.
"Kevin," the veteran said stiffly to the young man on the carriage: "Where did they come from..."
"Send them back wherever you go."
Kevin was stunned for a moment: "Huh?"
Grivet closed his eyes and opened them again.
"Damn it," the boss of the shield area gritted his teeth stiffly and banged the wheelchair: "Let them get on and get out!"
He has a rough voice and a cold diction.
Thales sighed in his heart.
Kevin was startled by the boss looking like this. He trembled slightly at first, and then nodded immediately: "Okay, okay..."
Grivet snorted coldly.
He gave the still silent Hickser an unceremonious look, as if he was his sworn enemy.
The next moment, the veteran suddenly moved and turned his wheelchair in the opposite direction to Xixer.
On the way, he roughly pushed aside a corpse blocking the road, then glanced in the direction of Thales with a complicated expression, but he quickly withdrew his gaze the moment before meeting the latter's eyes.
"Fuck you, old crow."
Then, with the sound of wheels rubbing against the ground, Grivet's figure in the wheelchair disappeared into the night.
Leave without delay.
It ran over countless gravel along the way.
The sound of the wheelchair gradually faded away, and Thales silently looked at the direction in which he was leaving, doubts and disappointment coexisting in his heart.
"Um, old gentleman, and this one..." After confirming that Grievor had left, Kevin rubbed his hands with a headache, looked at Old Crow and Thales in embarrassment, and remembered the boss's attitude towards them just now,
Pointing to the carriage, he thought about what tone he should use:
"Maybe we should..."
Xixer knocked on his crutches and showed a friendly smile:
"It'll be alright in a moment. Young man, please come to the front and wait for me... We have to say goodbye."
Under Hixer's polite and friendly smile, Kevin drove the carriage into the distance with suspicion.
Thales looked at his teacher slightly dejectedly.
"You saw it, Thales," Hixer turned his head and looked at Thales apologetically: "I'm sorry."
"I'm afraid I can't help you."
"And you can't just follow me back to the Ax Zone. It's too dangerous."
Thales looked at him silently.
He shook his head, shaking off the slight regret in his heart.
In fact, Thales found that his emotional ups and downs were not as great as he imagined.
Worries about his own safety were largely diluted by the information revealed in the conversation between the two.
Seran.
There's that name again.
Thinking of this, Thales couldn't help but sigh slightly.
"Xixer."
"Mr. Hickser," the prince took a breath and looked at the old crow steadily: "You are willing to travel a long distance and travel thousands of miles to come to Exeter to be my teacher..."
"Is it really just because of Putilai and Gilbert's recommendation?"
The old crow paused slightly.
"Who knows," Hickser reacted quickly. He smiled softly: "Maybe it's for the generous salary?"
"Xixer!"
After all, the prince could not help but wonder: "About my mother."
"Don't you have anything to say?"
Of course, the biggest doubt in his mind goes far beyond that.
Xixer's figure stopped in place.
There was silence between the two for a while.
After a long while, the old man slowly opened his wrinkled mouth.
"About her," Xixer said slowly, "shouldn't you be more familiar with her than me?"
Thales' breathing was stagnant.
"I...I have never seen her," he said with a slight embarrassment, while recalling the few memories of Seran in his mind: "There are only descriptions I heard from others."
Yes, Thales said silently.
Anomalies inherent in oneself.
In the Mindis Hall, the king and Gilbert told him the strange-sounding name with certainty.
There is also the stern chief priest Li Xiya.
The insane Queen Keya in the Year of Blood.
The incomparable majestic queen of the sky descended from the sky.
Every bit of information about his mother made him more and more puzzled: Who is Seranthelana? What kind of existence is she?
"That's right."
Xixer looked at him and sighed slowly: "What a pity."
Thales cast a questioning look at him: "So."
Xixer looked at him for a long time before smiling slightly.
"When I was neither that old nor that young, I was quite unlucky for a while..."
Xixer sighed as he recalled the past: "The process was too complicated. Anyway, the result was that I was robbed and sold into the desert as a slave."
Thales was startled: "Great desert?"
Xixer smiled and nodded.
"Yes, that's where you are going."
"The great desert," the old crow sighed quietly, looking past Thales as if looking elsewhere: "It's such a big place."
"There, there are only three things left in the whole world: you, sand..."
The old crow narrowed his eyes: "And sand."
Thales couldn't help but frown.
"No matter how far you walk, how long you walk, or how fast you walk, you will never reach the end."
"All the rules of the world, morality, order, fairness, strength and weakness, and even time lose their meaning there."
"As for slaves," Xixer clapped the back of his hand and said with emotion, "Haha, it's hard to imagine that this kind of system that disappeared since the ancient empire still exists in the desert."
"You can exaggerate and imagine my miserable situation at that time," Xixer's eyes were indifferent as he recalled the past, but his tone was thought-provoking:
"A group of people who have lost all hope, all dignity, and most of themselves: prisoners of war, criminals, drunkards, cripples, prostitutes, beggars, lunatics, exiles... just like that, like wild beasts and livestock, they are locked up in filth.
In a dirty, cruel, desperate and painful animal cage, they were given various slave names and endured all the hells that people can imagine..."
"Waiting for death."
Thales listened attentively, resisting the intention of asking questions, and searched for suitable information in his heart.
Xixer coughed slightly, and a strange light shone in his eyes: "And that's where I first met your mother."
"Selan Zelana."
Xixer's voice was very soft, as if coaxing a cute child.
Thales watched him quietly.
The old crow sighed: "I still remember Selan's fiery red waist-length hair, her delicate and translucent skin, graceful lips, and the same light gray eyes as yours."
Fiery red hair.
Thales frowned: This is the only description of Seran's appearance that he has obtained in the past few years.
"But that's not what's most impressive about her."
Xixer smiled helplessly: "Selan, I still can't forget it: the way she turned her head to look at people was full of confusion and mystery, but the way she grinned and snickered made people feel playful and hateful."
"Sometimes that girl is as passionate as fire and quirky, and sometimes she is as calm as water and wise and insightful."
Thales paused and asked curiously: "What?"
"Yes, I know this is contradictory," Xixer seemed to understand Thales's doubts. He waved his hand and said with a smile:
"But I just have this feeling: in her rare pair of gray eyes, there is madness and rationality at the same time, but they blend perfectly, like the same kind of people similar to us, but also like beings above us.
That is Seran, the charming, mysterious, elusive Seran."
I saw Xixer shaking his head helplessly and in despair: "I am quite confident in choosing words and sentences, but I have to admit that when it comes to that girl, my vocabulary is pitifully poor and I cannot describe what she is like."
Thales was stunned.
Madness and reason?
Like our kindred…
Or like beings above us...
What are you doing?
Who is Selan...
The more Old Crow continued to talk, the more misty his eyes became, as if shining on corners invisible to ordinary people.
"'The Miraculous Seran' is the nickname given to her by the cage owners. She is the only slave who can still retain her real name."
Thales's heart moved.
"slave?"
There was surprise in Thales's eyes: "You mean, my mother is a slave in the desert?"
How can it be?
Doubts arose in his heart: If you follow what the Sky Queen said...
"It used to be," Xixe seemed to be unwilling to continue thinking like this, and Xixer raised her voice: "Until she proves that she is not."
slave.
Amazing Seran.
Thales thought about it and answered subconsciously: "How to say?"
Having said this, the old crow breathed a sigh of relief and paused briefly.
He closed his eyes gently, with a warm smile on his face: "Your mother...she is very smart and persuasive. That girl spent two or three years turning the hopeless slaves who lived like zombies from
Pulled up from the abyss, from hell, from the quagmire, from despair..."
"Bringing us together..."
Thales listened carefully, feeling the countless past memories contained in the simple words from the old crow's slowly rising and falling emotions.
A few seconds later, Xixer, who was immersed in memories, opened his eyes, sighed longly, and ended his words in a few words: