In the afternoon.
Yosena was soaking in a naturally formed puddle within the limestone caves of Shilang Bay.
She was listening to another girl, who sat on a nearby reef, speaking to her.
“Life is unpredictable. Honestly, sometimes when I think about it, why live such an exhausting life?”
“Yosena, do you think if I hadn’t let go back then, maybe my lover and I would have had a chance to be together?”
“…”
Having been pestered by her for too long, Yosena was too lazy to respond to her best friend, who frequently suffered from bouts of being love-struck.
“Suo Liuxiang?”
A familiar male voice prompted Yosena, who had been dejectedly rubbing her nails since she couldn’t find the mole, to look up.
At the same time.
The slender girl sitting on the reef, who had been sighing indecisively while feeling the sea breeze, also turned to look at him.
This was the first time Lin Nuo saw what Suo Liuxiang looked like.
Her complexion was sickly pale, and the corners of her eyes were slightly upturned, giving her a somewhat fierce look at first glance.
Her arms and her entire body were so thin that it seemed as if she could be blown away by the sea breeze.
This created a slight sense of contradiction when paired with her facial features.
She sat on the reef hugging her knees, an instinctive move that suggested a lack of security.
It made one feel that a sense of loneliness and desolation seeped from her very core, yet her gaze was neither humble nor arrogant.
If he had to describe her, it would be just as Yosena said: the girl named Suo Liuxiang looked like a blank piece of paper inscribed with some hidden secret.
“Eh, what are you doing here?”
“The things your friend says sound quite romantic, so I came over to get to know her.”
“She… Is her idiocy romantic?”
“…”
Lin Nuo ignored Yosena and walked closer.
He felt the sea breeze for a while before casually asking, “I’ve heard you mention your lover many times… You sound very devoted.”
Lin Nuo asked, “Is he perfect?”
“Yes.”
Suo Liuxiang thought seriously, then looked away from Lin Nuo and hummed again.
“She is perfect.”
***
In the evening.
The fishermen of Shilang Bay were generally accustomed to staying between the shoals and the tidal zones.
Using the exposed reefs as a foundation, they built elevated platforms with supports.
The wooden houses, the fishermen gathering their nets, and the children playing on the boats were all shrouded in the orange-red glow of the setting sun.
“Squeak—”
The sound of a door being pushed open echoed in one of the many stilt houses.
Suo Liuxiang heard the movement of the door, but she did not turn around.
She continued to sit quietly in a spot where she could see the entire sea, exactly like how the Princess had guarded Shilang Bay in the past and present.
She watched as the seawater reflected the deep blue of the evening sky amidst the shimmering golden ripples of the sun’s last rays.
“Xī told me just now that a long time ago, Granny Whale told her that since she had renounced her position as the Sea Goddess, she, as an ancient magical creature, could only act as a deterrent. She could not directly interfere with the disillusionment and the ups and downs that Shilang Bay must experience.”
“However, eight years ago, Granny Whale was forced to violate that rule. She used her magic to swallow 50,000 cultists.”
“Xī said that some living beings in Shilang Bay would surely bear the curse of the Evil God because of Granny Whale’s actions. Moreover, it was highly likely that she, the Princess, would be the one to carry it.”
“So, Granny went looking for a way to break the curse, but she only found Rongxin Grass. Its effect is only to suppress a hundred poisons and barely restrain the curse of evil things, and it wasn’t even used on her.”
Closing the door, Lin Nuo looked at the back of the slender girl.
His voice carried no discernible emotion.
“Before I came to your place, she said she never expected that the person bearing the curse would turn out to be someone else.”
“…”
Suo Liuxiang’s open palms resting on the table were as pale as when Lin Nuo had seen her stroking the Magic-Breaking Gauntlet on her wrist in the cellar.
Her wrinkled, light brown dress—washed until it was nearly white—swayed in the wind.
In this moment, her back did not make her look like the indecisive person who frequently mentioned the word “lover.”
She didn’t look like the coward who would frantically hide and scream “help” because of the arrival of a magical creature.
Nor did she look like the love-struck girl Yosena thought she was—someone with a secret and an abstract way of thinking.
She looked like a completely different person.
Suo Liuxiang’s voice was cold, “How did you find me?”
“…”
Her identity was actually very easy to deduce by now.
Yosena said that since Suo Liuxiang arrived at Shilang Bay as a child, she was the most cowardly of them all.
She said the girl would even crouch by her bed and weep all night just from hearing the sound of waves hitting the reef…
So why would a girl who clearly hid in the bushes as soon as she saw a magical creature attack come back at the most dangerous time and refuse to leave?
Furthermore, just as Xī had previously pretended to dislike him in order to get close to him…
Would Suo Liuxiang, who had a certain obsession with Xī, fabricate a fake “lover” to make herself look less suspicious?
Moreover, she had never said who the “lover” she always talked about was.
“You told Yosena that you came from a certain monastery. That monastery has a very long name, and it sounds like a small place that would be hard to find. So, you thought that by using this location, no one would find a flaw in your background.”
Lin Nuo said, “But this was also a misdirection for yourself. With a little investigation, one would know that you actually never went to that monastery.”
“Is that why I was exposed?”
“No,” Lin Nuo looked at her thin back and said, “I didn’t have anyone check. I just felt that if I used this to bluff you, there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to answer.”
Silence.
She indeed could not answer.
“Do you think I’m a mole planted by the Bloodpact Servant?”
“Do I think so? I think there was never a mole from start to finish. If I’m not mistaken, the one who was cursed is you. You are the Bloodpact Servant, and you are also Blaineau.”
During that time in the Illusory Realm, as soon as Suo Liuxiang left, Blaineau appeared.
Although Suo Liuxiang was seemingly with Yosena that night when the iron chains linked the ships to fight the cultists, the footage recorded by Yosena’s Soulstone only showed Suo Liuxiang covering her head and shouting “help.”
The more important information Lin Nuo saw was that she never showed her face during that battle.
Besides all that, the female voice heard while fighting Blaineau had already proven everything.
Suo Liuxiang was both Blaineau and “Delusion.”
“I really never imagined… Did the Princess hypnotize you and send you here to say these things to me?”
“Lin Nuo, you should hate the Princess. It was she who changed your thinking, which led you to fight me desperately that night… Was it her idea to link the ships together?”
“It must be! You have no courage or wit to speak of! You defeated me, but you are still a useless waste…”
“Maybe so.” Lin Nuo didn’t offer a defense, “Yosena said that the obsession of Delusion could clearly only be born from someone who loves Xī. That person’s goal should be to possess Xī.”
“But I don’t think so. If I’m not mistaken, your deeper obsession is to protect her. That is the only reason I am speaking with you peacefully right now.”
“Suo Liuxiang, I should be honest with you.” Lin Nuo said, “In many cases, when a hypnotized person hears a question from the one who gave the command, they won’t choose to lie. Just a few minutes ago, Xī asked me if I had guessed who that Bloodpact Servant was.”
“My answer was ‘no’.”
Suo Liuxiang snapped her head around, her pale face filled with faint shock.
Lin Nuo’s voice continued, “Then there’s Yosena. She treats you as her best partner and told me many things about you.”
“She said that when you first arrived here as a child, you were so afraid of the dark that you only dared to hide in a cupboard and sob quietly. If I told her, she would never believe that the person capable of commanding 200,000 magical creatures could be that weak version of you. Or perhaps… your weakness is a thing of the past.”
Lin Nuo turned around, leaving one final sentence, “Yosena also doesn’t know any of the things I just said. Go say goodbye to her, as her friend.”
“Squeak—”
It was like a conversation between people who had met by chance.
Suo Liuxiang watched as Lin Nuo closed the door, leaving her alone once more in the empty house.
“Crash—”
No matter when one heard them, the distant waves were always so peaceful.
Suo Liuxiang used her pale hand to push the wooden window open wider.
As she closed her eyes in the sea breeze, her memories began to reel backward.
Until she remembered… eight years ago.
She was also in this place where she could watch over the entire sea.
She had secretly seen the vulnerability of the Princess, who had broken down because of the unreasonable invasion the 900 knights were about to launch against Shilang Bay…
Similarly.
On the second night, she also saw him… the one who stood on the sea when he arrived, looking toward Shilang Bay and the Princess on the reef from afar…
The 10-year-old Lin Nuo.