Chapter 803: Chapter 640: Is the Liya City Flower of Royal Blood?
Under the old lady’s guidance, Chun’s power slipped through the barrier as smoothly as flowing clouds—and as leaky and sneaky as a guy with a weak bladder.
Only then did Chun realize the City Beauty really hadn’t come back.
Those four pots of flowers were still dim, mixed inconspicuously among the rest of the greenhouse.
But the old lady recognized them at a glance: "That’s right, it’s these four pots. Each flower has over a thousand years of heritage, but the bigger problem is actually the four flowerpots. They look totally ordinary, yet they surpass every current appraisal standard so we can’t identify them at all... mm, simply put, they’re extremely ancient and high-end Ancient Divine Artifacts. These Ancient Four Divine Artifacts plus the four Thousand-Year Flower Spirits together form a huge, complicated Array. So I’m afraid the first rescue plan I mentioned yesterday—just smash the tribute—won’t work."
Chun was stunned: "Ancient Divine Artifacts again, Thousand-Year Flower Spirits again, what the hell is going on? I’ve been in the Black Iron City Beauty’s bedroom, and her room wasn’t this complicated at all!"
The old lady asked, "Do you think the five City Beautys are all on the same tier?"
Chun froze for a moment: "Everyone agrees it’s Gem City’s genius Eve at the top, Silver City’s Remia second. Liya’s main class is Physician and she rarely fights; her strength should be around the same tier as Black Iron Fafnir and bronze Tifa. But Oak City is filthy rich in Divine Artifacts so they should have lots of stuff. So Liya should be ranked third."
The old lady sighed: "From what we’re seeing now, that public ranking is wrong. The strongest one should be this Liya. She might not be human to begin with; this Array could be suppressing her Divine Power and hiding her true strength."
Chun was shocked: "A goddess?"
The old lady said gravely: "The City Lord’s Empire rank is Duke Level, not King-level. For a Duke’s daughter to enjoy tribute at this Royal Family level is way over the line. So... unless she has pure Royal Family blood from the Emperor’s own line. Only then is it possible to give birth to a goddess."
Holy Shit, Royal Family bloodline! Could she be a Princess? If she’s a Princess, then I’m not just a simple Five Cities son-in-law, I’d also be an Empire son-in-law!
But Chun immediately felt something wrong: "I heard the Empire has five Princes all chasing these five City Beautys. If Liya has Royal Family blood, wouldn’t that blow everything up?"
The old lady chuckled: "So you know about that too?"
Chun remembered the fish hanging on the hook and his mood tanked: "I even lived through it in person."
The old lady sighed: "Who’s to say it isn’t all just an act put on for outsiders? Besides—"
Her expression darkened: "Some nobles have that tradition. They worship pure bloodlines, believing only pure blood can birth the most noble offspring."
Chun’s scalp practically crawled, then he thought of that Slime Monster Tifa’s Mother down in the Bronze City sewers. Might as well use the chance to bring it up.
"Grandma, I ran into something in Bronze City. I’m guessing the Empire’s order for the Five City Lords to pick City Beautys totally stumped them. The City Lords’ own sons are mediocre; how are they supposed to guarantee they’ll have daughters who are Magic geniuses and beautiful on top of that? So they probably resorted to pairing with powerful Female Mages, or secretly adopting talented girls from among the commoners, and that’s how we ended up with the current five City Beautys and a whole bunch of rejected, eliminated City Beautys."
Honestly, Chun even suspected that Jenny from Gem City was one of those eliminated City Beautys.
The old lady looked even more surprised: "You know quite a lot, don’t you?"
Chun was rather proud: "The public seems totally in the dark, right?"
The old lady said in a low voice: "With the massive propaganda, no one can question it, and over time people just take it for granted. In my view, there are three goals to establishing City Beautys. First, to boost the image of the City Lord and the city, which benefits the City Lord. Second, to strengthen ties and communication with the Empire, preventing the New World from breaking away and going independent. That makes the City Beauty basically the Empire’s eyes and ears planted beside the City Lord. Third, no matter how strong a woman is, deep down her nature is to admire strength; that makes it easier for the Empire to control them."
Even though this was basically review, Chun still felt a chill: "So to control them even more absolutely, they added that Golden Divine Throne’s Heroic Spirit Hall on top."
The old lady sighed: "If Liya has Royal Family blood, that makes it even easier to tighten control over the city. Her goddess-level power could suppress any rebellious plot at any moment. So if my guess is right, then our operation this time isn’t saving her at all; we’d actually be exposing her secret. And that would be trouble."
Chun’s heart tightened: "But isn’t there another possibility—that she has no idea these seemingly ordinary flowerpots are tribute, that they’re traps deliberately planted in her bedroom by enemies who want to harm her?"
The old lady sighed: "Any enemy who can get their hands on this kind of tribute is definitely no small fry. Let’s wait till she comes back to sleep and observe."
Chun actually fully believed the old lady’s speculation. But Fafnir and Remia had clearly shown rebellious intentions; those two definitely weren’t willing participants. Would Liya really be willing? For the sake of my dream of being the Empire’s son-in-law, I have to observe no matter what!
Just then, they heard the steward’s greeting from the front gate downstairs.
Looks like Liya was back—good, I was worried she’d be busy all night. But it sounded like she wasn’t alone?
The bedroom door opened, and it was Liya and Ten Lords Gabriel!
Holy Shit, what the hell is Gabriel doing here?
"Miss Sage, please, come in!"
Gabriel exclaimed delightedly: "Wow, so this is Lady Liya’s bedroom. It’s so beautiful, it’s practically a garden!"
Chun froze. The hell? Weren’t these rooms custom-designed by her family’s Consortium? She’s never been here before, doesn’t know her own bedroom?
Okay, eliminate one possibility: these flowers probably weren’t placed when the Ten Lords designed the game. They must’ve been auto-generated by the game later as the plot unfolded.
Liya shut the door and smiled faintly: "It’s not that pretty, really. Just some calming, fragrant herbs that help you sleep—I’m very fond of them. This place is absolutely confidential, we can talk freely."
Gabriel said, "Miss Liya, about the Crow Master—I’ve acquired intel that’s absolutely reliable. Oak City’s Evil God Secret Cave has warped space, and there’s a pile of century-old furniture and tools inside. An Evil Spirit Puppet was born from the furniture and calls itself the King of Oak City. The Crow Master sent a Clone to capture the puppet, and that’s what triggered his personality change. That shows this puppet’s mind-control power has reached Divine-level Evil God standards. Otherwise, it couldn’t possibly affect the Crow Master."
Chun was shocked! So that’s what they came to talk about! But he also wanted to laugh—so this is how the Ten Lords analyzed it, huh?
Liya was stunned: "What about the puppet?"
Gabriel replied, "If it controlled the Crow Master, then it definitely wasn’t captured by him. It’s most likely still somewhere in the city. And if it can control the Crow Master, then controlling Adventurers is even easier. I suspect the puppet used threads to control the world’s No. 12 Adventurer—he was the first one to come into contact with it. Even though that Adventurer is desperately trying to hide the fact that he’s under thread control, from now on all we have to do is monitor that Adventurer."
Chun couldn’t laugh anymore.
