Chapter 358: The Fallen Princess

As an area with frequent personnel traffic, the port had many small restaurants or taverns serving crew, dock workers, fishermen, travelers, etc.

And directly across from Harland Shipyard, there was such a small restaurant, opening early for business, providing simple and affordable breakfast, including bread, butter, jam, ham, eggs, sausages, and tea or wine, etc.

Although the environment was simple, it was full of the atmosphere of life.

At a table in the small restaurant, Anna was unconsciously chewing on bread covered in butter, while staring tightly at the restaurant entrance.

Just then, a figure appeared there.

The little girl's eyes lit up, and she had already put down the bread in her hand.

The figure walked straight to the table, sat down, picked up a piece of sliced bread from the plate, stuffed it into his mouth, and only after swallowing it in two or three bites did he say with a smile: "Don't worry, done."

"Found my sister?"

"Not yet, but your sister did come to the door to buy a boat from Harland Shipyard, but she didn't have enough money, so she left to prepare, and she didn't leave any contact address."

"Then what should we do? If we don't find my sister, the bad person will find this place too." Although Anna was young, she was very smart and realized the danger in it.

"You don't need to worry about that." Gao De smiled slightly.

"Because I have already signed an intent contract with the owner of Harland Shipyard, preparing to acquire his shipyard, and had him withdraw all information regarding transferring the shipyard and selling boats."

"So, even if that bad person knows your sister is preparing to buy a boat, he will absolutely not find Harland Shipyard."

"And I also instructed the shipyard owner that if your sister comes to the door again to buy a boat, let her go to the Palm Tree Inn to discuss with Miss Anna," Gao De smiled slightly.

"Hearing my name, my sister will definitely come! We just need to wait for her at the inn!" Anna said excitedly.

"That's right," Gao De rubbed Anna's head, which was shaking because of happiness, "And we shouldn't have to wait too long."

After all, Harland had already laid the groundwork that "you need to be quick, if you run into other guests, I won't be able to hold the boat."

With the boat price being so favorable and Harland offering conditions that hit Aisha's needs, Aisha would inevitably raise the money in the shortest possible time and come to the door again to avoid missing out.

Stuffing the bread in the plate into his stomach to fill his early-morning stomach and gulping down a large cup of tea, Gao De picked up the little girl and left the small restaurant.

"Big Brother, where are we going now?" Anna asked.

"The library," Gao De said.

"Oh~ right, Big Brother, why do you want to acquire Harland Shipyard?" Anna was curious.

"Because I want to do some things that it will be very useful for," Gao De said truthfully.

"Big Brother, are you very rich?" The little girl in his arms looked up, staring straight at Gao De, her eyes blinking.

With the little girl's knowledge, she naturally understood the huge amount of funds required to acquire a shipyard.

Even if it was just a small-to-medium shipyard about to go bankrupt.

"Not really, I'm also worrying about how to prepare this money right now," Gao De laughed.

In Gao De's previous life, most cities had large public libraries.

The collections in these libraries were often tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of volumes, covering every field of human knowledge, from ancient historical classics to classic literary masterpieces to modern art albums, everything was available, and they were open to the public for free.

But in this world, this was an unimaginable thing.

Knowledge was very expensive; it was the consensus of everyone, and acquiring knowledge required paying an extremely high price.

For many commoners, books were almost equivalent to luxury goods—expensive but "useless."

This situation also caused all the libraries in this world to be private, and all the books in them were the extremely precious assets of the library owner.

It's just that some private libraries were like mysterious treasure vaults, only accessible to a small number of people.

Some private libraries were open to the public, just like a potion shop or a grocery store; they were a business, and people paid a hefty fee to enter and read precious books.

Lagos had three such libraries.

And what Gao De was looking for was the Lagos Library operated by the Lagos authorities.

It was the largest of the three libraries, with the largest collection and the most comprehensive range of fields.

Lagos Library was located next to a wide square in the city center, surrounded by ancient buildings and streets.

Gao De walked into the main entrance of Lagos Library, which was a spacious hall. The floor of the hall was paved with smooth marble, and exquisite paintings hung on the walls.

In the center of the hall was a huge spiral staircase, the handrails of which were made of carved oak, looking simple and elegant.

Walking up the stairs, one reached the various collection rooms of the library.

In the collection rooms, tall bookshelves were neatly arranged, filled with all kinds of books, each of which was carefully protected, emitting a faint fragrance of books.

A waitress had already come up to greet him and handed over a stack of cumbersome retrieval catalog parchment.

Reading books here was charged by the volume or book, so you had to determine the book name you wanted to read through the retrieval catalog in advance, and the staff would send the books you selected later.

This stack of retrieval catalogs was divided according to the fields involved in the books.

Gao De quickly flipped to the geography parchment, then quickly scanned the book names, and soon determined what he wanted.

The waitress took Gao De to the front desk and handed the books Gao De selected to the old man at the front desk.

The old man flipped through a large book on the counter before looking up and saying: "Sir, you have selected a total of four books, namely 'Changes in the Royal Family of the Duchy of Sidian,' 'Nobility Grading and Royal Secrets of the Duchy of Sidian,' 'Geography and Humanities of the Duchy of Evga,' and 'Geography and Humanities of the Duchy of Sidian,' all of which are in a borrowable state."

"These four books all belong to the second-floor collection of this library. According to the regulations, the borrowing fee for second-floor collections is 5 silver dragons per book. Four books, that is 2 Goldfinch coins. You can freely choose to read in the reading area on the second floor or the first floor, with no time limit, until you leave the library."

Even though he had been mentally prepared, Gao De still had the urge to curse in his heart.

Four books, just reading them, and not the kind that could be taken home, only read in the library, and just for one reading, it cost him 2 Goldfinch coins.

According to the purchasing power equivalent, this was equivalent to the tuition fee for one year of compulsory education in his previous life.

Cursing aside, Gao De still honestly handed over the two Goldfinch coins.

"The second floor."

"Good, sir, please follow me."

"This is free," the waitress led Gao De to the second-floor reading area to take a seat and served a pot of black tea, then reminded: "Sir, you cannot copy, cannot mark, and even more cannot damage the books during the reading process, otherwise you need to pay double the original price as compensation."

Afterward, another staff member brought over the four books Gao De had picked.

Gao De opened the books viciously, vowing to read them until he got his money's worth.

Gao De had guessed that Aisha might come to the door soon, but he never expected it to be so early and so sudden.

That night, Anna had just finished taking a bath, and Gao De was using a towel to wrap the little girl's head, which was shaking non-stop because of happiness, to dry her hair.

"Don't move, the hair must be dried first, otherwise it's easy to catch a cold." While "rubbing" Anna's little head with the towel, Gao De said.

"Hee hee." The little girl under the towel made an indistinct laugh.

Suddenly, the movement of Gao De's hand stopped abruptly.

I don't know when, but at the head of the bed, a woman appeared.

Her whole body was buried in a robe, and she was wearing a hood on her head, her face hidden in the shadows, making it impossible to see her true appearance.

"Big Brother, what's wrong?" Anna, who found that Gao De had stopped moving, asked.

Gao De didn't know who the other party was, how she had appeared in their room silently, or what her background was, but he knew he had to remain calm.

He used one hand to protect Anna, who was sitting on the bed with her head wrapped in a towel, behind him, while maintaining the state of the towel wrapping her head, so as to avoid Anna seeing this sudden uninvited guest and being afraid, and also to avoid this uninvited guest seeing Anna's face.

At the same time, Gao De looked at the other party with vigilant eyes, his other hand ready to cast a spell at any time.

The other party looked at Gao De deeply and then said: "Anna, it's me."

The next moment, Anna let out a "wow," and her happy mood flew out through the towel.

She lifted the towel on her head.

The cloth flipped in the air.

"Sister!" Anna ran a few steps and threw herself directly into the woman's arms.

The woman helplessly caught Anna, who had thrown herself into her arms, and the hood on her head also fell, revealing a beautiful face that Gao De was extremely familiar with.

"Aisha?" Gao De asked, looking at the woman in front of him.

This was a very beautiful woman, with a waterfall of golden curly hair that cast golden spots of light under the illumination of the room's lamps.

Her nose was high, her eyes were golden, and her overall features revealed a kind of mature charm.

After a slight hesitation, the woman who was holding Anna with one hand nodded.

"Is it invisibility?" Gao De asked again.

He was referring to the reason for Aisha's sudden appearance.

Aisha nodded again.

That meant Aisha was at least a second-circle magic user.

Because 【Invisibility】 was a second-circle illusion spell, the effect was to make the creature invisible and maintain it until the spell ended. The target's clothing and carried items also remained invisible as long as they were kept on the target. If the target launched an attack or cast a spell, the invisibility effect would disappear directly.

It was by relying on this spell that Aisha had just performed a "living person transformation."

Actually, just a second-circle illusion spell, Gao De's third-rank Mandola Magic Eye's ability to see through falsehood had a high possibility of seeing through it.

It was just that under normal circumstances, where would Gao De open the Mandola Magic Eye?

"Who are you?" Aisha asked back.

"Gao De, Hai Shao Bing magic user. On the airship from Dorn City to Lagos, I met Anna, and at her request, I helped her find you."

"Sister, Big Brother is a good person. I snuck onto the airship, and the auntie on the airship wanted to catch me, but fortunately Big Brother..." Anna chattered to help Gao De, while briefly introducing the experiences of the past few days.

After listening to Anna's words, Aisha looked at Gao De as if looking at a monster, and after a long silence, she said incredulously: "You, a Hai Shao Bing magic user, would actually agree to a five-year-old little girl's request?"

This sounded indeed very absurd.

If it were an ordinary person, meeting Anna on the airship, the first thing they should do is hand Anna over to the airship staff.

Even out of a soft heart, if they didn't expose Anna at the time, after getting off the airship, they should hand Anna over to the local authorities as soon as possible, instead of taking the unknown risk of taking Anna with them, let alone helping Anna find her.

"Why not? She made a request to me, I can help and am willing to help her, so I agreed, even if she is just a little girl."

"You are indeed a good person." Aisha was slightly startled and then praised sincerely.

"Don't give me a 'good person card'; I don't consider myself a good person," Gao De shook his head and added: "Besides, 'good person' isn't a good word either."

Aisha didn't understand why "good person" wasn't a good word, but since the other party didn't like it, she naturally wouldn't say it.

"And then you relied on Anna's portrait to find Harland Shipyard, and even wanted to acquire Harland Shipyard for this?"

"The first half is correct, the second half is not," Gao De corrected earnestly: "I want to acquire Harland Shipyard because I have this need myself."

"How did you do it?" Aisha was curious.

"Actually, it's not complicated..." Gao De briefly introduced his approach and thinking.

"You are truly a wise person." Aisha sighed again.

"You flatter me." Gao De expressed humility.

"In any case, I express my gratitude to you here, Magic User Gao De, thank you for taking care of my sister these past few days." Aisha put Anna on the bed, then pulled up the corner of her robe, and performed a standard noble salute by kneeling half-squatting toward Gao De.

Gao De accepted it calmly.

"Are you going to take Anna away?" Afterward, he asked again.

"Of course." Aisha was stunned for a moment before answering.

"Where are you planning to take Anna? According to Anna, there are bad people who have been tracking you." Gao De said again.

"My original idea was to buy a boat and then take the boat to shake off those bad people." Aisha was silent for a moment before speaking.

"If I'm not mistaken, you don't even have a clear place to stay right now, Princess Aisha."

Aisha's face changed, and she instinctively hugged Anna, took a step back, and looked at Gao De with full vigilance.

"If I were your enemy, when you entered the room, you would have already fallen into a trap, and people who had been lying in ambush would have swarmed up and captured you." Faced with Aisha's stress reaction, Gao De was very calm and said slowly.

Aisha was slightly startled, thought about it carefully, and understood that it was indeed the case, so she returned to normal.

"How did you know? Anna told you?"

"No, Anna didn't tell Big Brother!" Before Gao De could answer, Anna immediately raised her hand to show her innocence.

"Oh, Big Brother, how did you know?" After proving her innocence, the little girl couldn't help but be curious and looked at Gao De with wide eyes.

Gao De smiled slightly and slowly recounted his analysis process.

After discovering Anna's extraordinary knowledge and talent, he indeed could guess that Anna's background was definitely not a simple "well-off," and he had also suspected her background.

But he couldn't possibly inexplicably link Anna's identity to the Duchy of Sidian, which had just been destroyed not long ago, as mentioned on the hand-copied parchment, and he wouldn't have thought that Anna would be a "runaway princess."

When did this guess start to arise?

Actually, it was last night, when he met the "bad person" looking for Aisha at the inn front desk.

He found that the person had a very unique point: his ears were different from the common rounded contours, being unusually long and slightly curved at the tips.

In the geography class at Ceris Academy, the instructor had mentioned this.

The Duchy of Evga had rolling hills and crisscrossing valleys, and dense forests covered large areas of land. In ancient times, the Elf race had lived there.

Although the traces of the Elf race were no longer seen there later, the people living there, that is, the people of the Duchy of Evga, all had long and curved ears similar to elves, possibly possessing a certain Elf bloodline.

This was a significant external appearance sign that distinguished the Duchy of Evga from people in other regions.

So, that "bad person," without a doubt, was from the Duchy of Evga.

With this as a lead, Gao De naturally associated it with the briefing he saw on the hand-copied parchment at the front desk about the Duchy of Evga destroying the Duchy of Sidian.

Being able to make the Evga people go to great lengths to chase all the way to the Goldfinch Empire, plus the various peculiarities Anna showed... it could almost be determined that Anna must have come from a noble family in the Duchy of Sidian.

"That only shows we are nobles; how can you conclude we are members of the royal family?"

"That's right, the existing conditions don't allow me to determine your specific identity." Gao De nodded and continued.

"So, today I went to the Lagos Library to borrow books about the Duchy of Sidian and the Duchy of Evga."

"And in the book 'Nobility Grading and Royal Secrets of the Duchy of Sidian,' I saw a very interesting introduction: The Sidian royal family would use Sidian lavender honey, a specialty of the Duchy of Sidian, to coat silver spoons during the infant weaning period. This honey has a mellow fragrance and can make infants who have just been weaned eat better..."

"It's just that this Sidian lavender has a special fragrance and extremely strong fragrance-retention ability, so this habit would cause the thumb and index finger of the infant's right hand that holds the silver spoon to carry a special fragrance."

"Of course, as they grow older and no longer need this method to coax infants to wean, the fragrance on their fingers will slowly fade until it disappears completely."

"However..." Gao De looked down at Anna. Anna was listening to him with full attention, very earnestly. Seeing Gao De look at her, she immediately gave him a sweet smile.

Gao De returned the smile and finally said: "Anna is only five years old."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 359 =====