The golden morning sun has just dyed the sky red, slightly dispelling the chill of the night, and the dim streets gradually become clearer.
The seemingly deserted Shield District has finally become a little more popular, at least there are more people walking around in the streets.
This street in the Shield District was the center of the disaster that year. The houses were scattered, the terrain was empty, and there was almost no cover. There were also many rumors of being haunted at night.
"Look at how listless and careless they are," Griveaux hid behind a low fence, peering at a small patrol post in the distance, stroking his wheelchair dissatisfiedly: "That's it.
Still want to catch the prince?"
"Does Dead Face know that his orders are being carried out this way?"
In the center of this street, several soldiers from the Longxiao City patrol team leaned against the eaves of an abandoned house, yawning and extinguishing the fire, waiting for their companions to come to take over the shift. From time to time, they glanced at the passers-by and met
Acquaintances will also say hello a few times.
"Because this is the sentry post leading to the city gate and the city gate from the shield area, but it doesn't look like this. They can't wait to search the girls' vaginas." He was on the same side of the low fence as Grivet, neatly dressed.
The seamstress Kurtz was biting a piece of grass in her mouth and said angrily.
"And isn't this a good thing? It makes our plan easier," Kurtz crossed his arms and turned to a young man beside him very unhappily:
"By the way, you really don't consider women's clothing?"
The handsome young man in burlap clothes next to her turned red and shook his head desperately.
"I've said it hundreds of times..."
Thales, who was sitting next to a low fence, blushed: "We only have one night, even if we do the best in makeup, the girls' demeanor, habits, behavior, psychology, these things are the long-term changes in life.
It has been developed step by step and is engraved in my bones. Without enough training and habits, how could I succeed?"
Kurtz looked disappointed, the grass in his mouth shaking up and down.
Yes, in the end, under the fierce opposition of Thales himself...
Last night in Kurtz's room, the "suggestion" that he disguised himself as a girl still went nowhere.
"Let's think about it again..."
Kurtz seemed unwilling to give up the last glimmer of hope. Even a few minutes before the action, she still stretched her arms and looked at Thales expectantly: "My father used to be an autopsy examiner, and I have been working on corpses since I was a child.
I grew up in Duili and am very good at putting makeup on the dead..."
"Stop!" Thales reached out resolutely and pushed the seamstress's cheek out of his arms, stopping her from scratching her ears with the grass.
"I have no habit of selling myself to satisfy your bad taste."
Kurtz looked sadly at the young prince who refused to obey.
"Moreover……"
Tails, who was full of vigilance, gritted his teeth: "Didn't we try on makeup last night? It doesn't work at all! You can't even look in the mirror!"
"Rather than pretending to be a 'boy or girl' who takes two steps and reveals her true form..."
I tried makeup...
Thinking of last night, Grievo couldn't help but cough lowly. He and Kurtz looked away as if nothing had happened, but their shoulders shook, as if they were suppressing laughter.
The angry Thales was still immersed in his own world, struggling with the nightmare experience last night. Seeing the two people's reactions, he was even more embarrassed and angry.
He tugged at his forehead angrily: "And my hair...look, I just cut it into a mess last night..."
"And what about the voice?"
Tails deliberately put his hands on his chest, twisted his waist, and said "ah" several times in a drake voice that was in the stage of voice change: "'Sorry, don't look at my thick voice, it was all dug up when I was a child.
The problem with falling mines is that she is actually a girl. What a joke!"
At this point, the prince's face changed drastically, and he looked at the two people with strange expressions around him with indignation.
Grievor touched his nose awkwardly, while Kurtz on the other side shook his head slightly and clicked his tongue.
"If someone tells you that a man who has never received training or daily experience can perfectly disguise himself as a woman, not only will no one recognize him, but he can also be so charming and charming that the same sex will be jealous and the opposite sex will be fascinated," Tai
Else looked furious and shook his fist vigorously in protest:
"Then he must have read too many cheesy knight novels, or he hasn't had a girlfriend for too long!"
Grieve, who was in the wheelchair, and Kurtz, who was sitting cross-legged, both leaned back to their original positions with languid interest.
Thales was left fuming and digesting his grievances alone.
In the distance, a patrol team of ten people came slowly to complete the early morning shift at this temporary checkpoint.
Grewal and Kurtz looked at each other and nodded.
The veteran replied with a serious expression: "Brothers, are you ready?"
"Yes, from the blacksmith shop to the farm, I called twenty people, all of whom were temporarily unable to leave the city due to the blockade." Kurtz rubbed his hands, as if you can rest assured that I will do the work: "Don't worry, they
I thought this was a trap to deal with those brats at the market."
"Actually, that's right." Thinking of last night, Grivet breathed out angrily through his nose: "When this incident is over, I will make them..."
"alright……"
"When the time comes, there will be a fight here," Kurtz looked at the surrounding situation, interrupted Griwal, and showed a rare caution on his face: "Drag that sentry post into it."
"Hey, you," Grewal nuzzled towards Thales: "And let's take advantage of the chaos to go to the Black Path."
Thales glanced into the distance, glanced at the loose sentry post, and nodded.
He suddenly noticed that their destination was the Sky Cliff under the row of cliffs further away.
This is where King Nun died.
Thinking of this, Thales's mood suddenly turned cold.
"After this incident, many people will be imprisoned." Kurtz sighed.
"Were they imprisoned less before?" Grewal licked his lips and his eyes flickered: "It's just right to avoid the limelight."
"I understand," Kurtz shrugged. She glanced at Thales and said helplessly:
"What a pity."
Thales, who was worried, glared back at her fiercely.
He was sure that compared with the "male princess" who could not see the stars, what the seamstress regretted was definitely not the group of people who were about to be imprisoned.
"Where is the black path you have been talking about?" Thales asked curiously, looking in the direction of the cliff.
Kurtz snorted softly and flipped the grass in his mouth: "That is your only way to escape from Longxiao City."
"Why is it called this name?"
Griwal turned around and said, "It's been called that since my grandfather's generation. He said that his grandfather also called him that. As you can see, one of the entrances is at the bottom of Sky Cliff. The passage is complicated and it's impossible to find it unless you are an acquaintance.
Less than.”
"We used to use it to transport contraband, but it was too narrow and inefficient."
Cliff bottom.
Thales frowned and looked at the familiar high cliff. He followed the outline of the mountain and saw the giant statue of Nekaru without surprise.
Six years ago, it was there...
"So the Black Path is a... path that goes through the heart of the mountain? Leading to the outside of the city?"
Thales squinted his eyes, trying to see more clearly: "Is it natural or artificial?"
"God knows."
Kurtz looked at him with disdain: "The tunnel that cuts through the cliff in the sky and connects the inside and outside of Longxiao City may be dug by the giant dragon."
Thales clicked his tongue and said nothing.
"People of the older generation are in awe of that place and don't dare to approach it easily," Kurtz hummed. "They say it is a forbidden area in Longxiao City, where even the nobles don't know where the Lord of the Mountains is."
"But...eighteen years ago, all the men followed the king to fight in the stars. The fight lasted for more than a year. No one farmed, no one hunted, no one grazed, and taxes and military donations became more and more heavy."
"Not to mention the farmers and hunters outside the city, even the old, weak, women and children in Longxiao City couldn't survive. The winter that year was extremely cold, and there wasn't even enough firewood. We had to give priority to the nobles, even the gifts from the mountains.
'Not enough."
Thales fell silent.
Eighteen years ago...
Go to the stars and fight...
"Grevor first defeated the shield district order officer who was colluding with the nobles and bureaucrats, and then masked himself and opened the warehouses of several unscrupulous businessmen..."
"Then, he broke the tradition and took us into the dark trail, and started transporting contraband, transporting everything you can imagine, such as Li Jing, Eternal Oil, arms, even cannabis grass, as well as food looted from the front-line supplies.
, firewood and medicine.”
"Only by relying on these did the women and children in the Shield and Hammer Districts survive the winter that saw countless deaths."
Kurtz looked at the silent Griwal with complicated eyes: "This is the black path, and it is also the history of the slum boss's fortune."
Thales felt very uncomfortable.
He looked at Grivet.
But the veteran just snorted coldly, seeming to be dissatisfied with Kurtz's words.
He coughed heavily.
"After entering, put your eternal lamp and watch your feet and your head," Grivet said with a steady expression, as if he was recalling some bad past: "The passage there is too old, and six years ago, the disaster and the hydra were
We made a big fuss together in the city, the earth shook, and almost half of the black path collapsed."
“I don’t know when the rest will collapse.”
Thales was shocked.
Disaster.
Another disaster.
The three people behind the low fence were silent for a while.
"Disaster," the prince said angrily: "It has brought a lot of disasters, hasn't it."
Grivet's hand holding the wheelchair suddenly tightened.
"You can look around," the seamstress's face turned cold:
"But you can't imagine what it was like that day."
She kicked a piece of gravel away from her feet: "Son of a bitch."
Thales lowered his head and did not look at the surrounding rubble and broken wood, the ruins accumulated with dust and waste materials, the abandoned houses, the dusty wells, the collapsed rotten wood, and the ground that still had cracks.
There was still a faint stench in my nose.
This is the shield zone.
"I can," Thales whispered, "I said, back then... I was here. I saw how the Shield Zone was destroyed, and I also saw those who died..."
But before he finished speaking, he felt his ears itching.
Thales was startled and subconsciously sat up, avoiding Kurtz who scratched his ear with a grass root.
"There should be a limit to bragging," the seamstress waved the grass root in a funny voice: "How old were you six years ago?"
Thales was stunned: "I..."
"Still 'saw the destruction of the Shield Zone'?"
"Why don't you just say it," Kurtz said with a sarcastic look on his face: "It was you who single-handedly and bravely killed the Blood Disaster and saved Longxiao City. Doesn't it sound more impressive like this?"
"His Royal Highness Prince?"
Thales's face turned green and red.
"I..." He slid down against the short fence like a deflated rubber ball, "It's nothing."
At this time, Grivet spoke quietly.
"It was never a matter of destruction."
Both of them were startled and turned to look at the veteran.
"It's not the people who died who were harmed by the disaster. They were lucky to some extent and left forever in an instant."
The man in the wheelchair had eyes like iron, staring straight ahead: "They... those disasters left behind are torture to the living."
Grivet slowly raised his left hand with three fingers missing, his eyes wandering.
Tails and Kurtz both turned their heads subconsciously.
"Last night, that yelling driver, remember?"
Thales paused lightly.
"His name is Kevin," Grevohun hummed nonchalantly: "Six years ago, he was an apprentice in a blacksmith workshop in the Hammer District."
Kurtz sighed: "Cripple..."
But Grivet ignored her and continued to speak on his own.
"That day, the day when disaster occurred."
"Kevin came to the Shield Zone happily, bringing a bouquet of flowers and having a private meeting with his lover."
Grivet stared in fascination at an abandoned well in the distance that only had its outline. Next to it was a collapsed stable, with dried excrement vaguely visible.
"They were discovered by her father. I know that old guy. He used to serve in Glacier Watch. His skills are not outstanding. What's worse, he has a bad temper and he values his daughter very much."
Having said this, Grivet smiled softly, and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes were natural and smooth.
Thales and Kurtz listened quietly.
"Poor Kevin screamed as he took the belt and whipped him all the way from the shield area to the hammer area."
"People in more than a dozen streets knew about it. Their laughter was so loud that even the big yellow dog with the big leash chased him for several hundred meters."
Grivet's laughter was pleasant.
"Kevin came to me and told me a bunch of aggrieved nonsense about how much he liked that girl, and how he wanted to be a good blacksmith, open a workshop, save enough money for the bride price, and then have a showdown with his lover's father...
"
The veteran shook his head with disdain on his face: "Hey, I still remember how stupid he looked when he said that..."
"I also remember the way Big Belt came to him angrily to settle accounts..."
"I still remember that after I tricked the big belt into taking away, Kevin came out of the back cupboard with an angry and ambitious look on his face."
Griver paused for a few seconds.
"However."
The smile on the veteran's face slowly faded.
Like ice meeting the sun.
Griwal stared at the empty distance, silently lost in thought: "Kevin, when he returns to the shield area the next morning..."
"Gone."
In the distance, the characteristic loud voices of the Northlanders when negotiating prices could be heard, and a rooster crowed angrily against the sky. Together with the birdsong in the early morning, the shield area seemed extremely peaceful.
Grivet's teeth trembled slightly: "The girl Kevin likes."
"He hates his 'future father-in-law' with itch."
"Including the people in the North who were watching his jokes on the street."
The veteran's eyes were dim and his voice was hoarse: "Including that annoying big yellow dog that barks for twenty hours every day."
Grivet looked at the lit sky distractedly and said subconsciously: "It's all gone."
Thales and Kurtz leaned against the low fence motionless, as if time had stood still.
"The entire Shield Zone."
The veteran lowered his head and picked up a piece of gravel from the ground, and could vaguely see its material: "This is the only thing left."
"This is what they...are what those disasters left behind for the survivors."
Thales exhaled slowly, his expression stiff.
"When you see Kevin laughing again in the future," Grewal's eyes became serious, and a long-cooled fire burned in his eyes: "Don't forget, this is the story behind him."
Grivet snorted coldly.
"So, when you meet people who survived the disaster, help them. Don't say you can imagine, don't say you understand their pain, don't say you feel the same way."
"Even if you really are the savior."
The veteran turned his head slightly and looked at the silent Thales with a cold expression:
"Because that's hypocritical."
Thales opened his mouth to speak, but in the end he couldn't say anything.
Snapped.
Grivet clasped his shoulders.
"Also, if you really become a king in the future," Grieve's expression was very serious, Thales could even feel his hands shaking slightly: "Become one of those high-ranking 'adults'..."
"I know what you nobles know. Whether it's those disasters, I don't believe they are the legendary messengers sent by God to punish the world, or those legendary anti-demon armed forces, you must have methods and means to deal with them..."
Thales stared blankly at the veteran in front of him.
Griwal's expression was ferocious: "Remember, gather all your manpower, all your strength, all your weapons to find those disasters."
"No matter where they are hidden, we have to find them, find them all, find them all!"
The prince's heart was in chaos, with all kinds of emotions welling up at the same time, which was quite unpleasant.
At that moment, Grievo gritted his teeth and felt a chill: "Take them from top to bottom..."