Chapter 643: Plans and Nightmares

"Your invitation just now was way too stupid!"

After Hearing Li Ang's interview invitation was flatly rejected by the female reporter, and he could only leave with a face full of regret, climbing aboard the public carriage back to the Cleansing Bureau, Hearing Heishanyang immediately squeezed out of the carriage window in a rush, first chattering away with a few questions, then commenting with a face full of regret:

"If you wanted to set a trap to catch her, you could've just invited her to your place for the interview, or to Bobby Laien's place — either works. When the time came, whether it was Auntie Auntie Ai Ma or the red-haired Bureau Director, with the prepared catching the unprepared, snagging her would've been ridiculously easy.

But you just had to invite her to the Cleansing Bureau for the interview. That woman is both a rebel and one of Aquarius's subordinates, she's still seriously wounded and not fully healed, she's already doing her best to avoid you people — how would she dare go to the Cleansing Bureau to interview you?

Let me tell you, I was sitting inside the chandelier glass watching the whole time. The moment she heard you invite her to the Cleansing Bureau, that reporter's face went pale with fright. The second you looked away, she was sneaking peeks at you full of suspicion — she'd clearly already started suspecting you!"

After chattering on at length and giving Hearing Li Ang's proactive invitation an utterly boneheaded overall assessment, Hearing Heishanyang smacked her lips, still not quite satisfied:

"Kid, now you see how important I am, right?

If I'd been able to come out just now and secretly tip you off, you wouldn't have startled her. Now that this has happened, it'll be way harder to set a trap for her in the future — what a shame!"

Oh right, right, right, you're absolutely right!

After shooting Hearing Heishanyang a sidelong glance, Hearing Li Ang jotted down the intelligence he'd just obtained in his little pocket notebook, asking in a calm tone:

"Tell me — is there any chance that I actually had no intention of catching her at all?"

"???"

"A live spy whose identity has already been exposed is far more useful than a dead one locked in your grasp."

Hearing Li Ang answered without looking up, still writing in his notebook:

"If she's still in contact with Director Aquarius, then through her we can feed them some false intelligence — we might even be able to track down Director Aquarius's whereabouts directly through her. Isn't that more useful than catching her?"

Fair point…

Hearing Heishanyang mulled it over for a moment, then couldn't help but nod slightly, though still a bit unconvinced:

"Since you weren't planning to catch her, then wasn't there even less reason to mention the Cleansing Bureau? You just invited her to the Cleansing Bureau, she suspected you were trying to set a trap to catch her — she's clearly already on her guard!"

"Her being on her guard is exactly what I want."

Thinking over the intelligence he'd just obtained, Hearing Li Ang's brow furrowed slightly. He paused the charcoal pencil in his hand and said, feeling the pressure:

"After all, she's a Class One Cleanser. According to the Director, in a no-holds-barred situation, an elite Class One Cleanser like Senior Auntie Auntie Ai Ma has the ability to destroy most of the royal capital within a single day — she'd probably be able to kill me in just one encounter.

Someone like her, with terrifying destructive power and unknown methods, is simply too dangerous. Senior Jerry's friends can keep tabs on her movements, but they can't stop her from causing destruction. Within the Bureau, probably only the Director herself stepping in could reliably subdue her on the spot.

And you know the Director's situation — there's absolutely no way she can drop everything else and spend all day watching just one person. So the safest approach is to make her stay alert and not dare act rashly, but at the same time, because of wishful thinking, she won't be willing to withdraw on her own."

"…"

In just that short while, you'd already thought through all of this?

After hearing Hearing Li Ang's plan, Hearing Heishanyang couldn't help but click her tongue, suddenly feeling that this kid was just a tiny bit unfamiliar.

After slowly gaining some power, and being "corrupted" by Auntie Auntie Ai Ma and the red-haired woman for a stretch of time, the current Hearing Li Ang had changed completely — he was no longer that foolish kid who was nothing but a ball of fury.

This bastard's heart had grown a lot darker than before. Not only had he started getting used to setting traps for others at every turn, but the way he handled things was getting more and more like those scheming bastards at the Cleansing Bureau — his belly stuffed full of black schemes with nine bends and eighteen twists, and whatever came out the other end was probably threaded by his mother.

"Fine."

After casting a glance full of malice at Hearing Li Ang's backside, Hearing Heishanyang asked curiously:

"So what are you planning to do next? Head straight back to the Cleansing Bureau and wait for Auntie Auntie Ai Ma and that red-haired woman to come back?"

"As for what's next…"

Hearing Li Ang thought for a moment upon hearing this, then circled something in his little notebook with his homemade charcoal pencil, saying somewhat hesitantly:

"First, head back to the Bureau, brief Senior Jerry on the situation, then go find the Princess to break off the engagement."

……

The sun had set.

As the sunlight faded, the embers and smoke left behind by the sweeping flames of war spread like strokes of dark grey paint across streets and alleys great and small, smearing patch after patch of gloomy shadow.

After several exceptionally brutal seesaw battles, the once-prosperous city had been blasted into ruins. Along the cracked streets, broken mechanical parts could be seen every few steps, and within the collapsed buildings, large numbers of ruptured steam pipes were feebly spewing out pungent grey-white smoke.

Dust, smoke, ash, rust, blood, wailing!

A desolate yet searing wind howled wildly through the streets and alleys, dragging the chaotic air thick with the smell of smoke and scorched earth — raw and brutal — into one's nostrils, stinging the survivors' eyes until tears streamed down, as if this city, utterly destroyed by war, were mourning its own death.

This is… Recognizing the shattered city before her — a place she had clearly only visited once, yet knew so intimately it couldn't be more familiar — Veronica, who looked about six or seven years younger, gave a slight start, then couldn't help but bite down hard on her lip.

This was her own dream… The broken city before her was the former county seat of Bobby Laien County — Cornwall City, already utterly destroyed by the fires of war.

During the War of National Defence six years ago, the Kingdom and the ice-plain nation of Ashito's mechanical forces fought a full eleven rounds of battles for control over Cornwall City, blasting the once-prosperous Cornwall City into a complete blank slate. Even counting those who had fled in advance, the residents of Cornwall City still suffered casualties exceeding half.

And what lay before her was the day after the sixth seesaw battle, the moment just before the Kingdom of Ashito's counterattack and the start of the seventh grueling battle. What would happen over the next two hours would be the deepest nightmare of her life.

Even though she desperately resisted moving forward, the Princess within the dream could not control her own actions at all. She could only follow her former self, accompanied by a large number of guards and ten field medics, hurrying toward the broken factory at the end of the street.

It was a sugar refinery that had been bombed repeatedly. The rainbow candy produced in Cornwall had once spread across the entire Kingdom, the very shape of the rainbow in countless children's dreams.

But after six rounds of battles for control, this factory that had once held so many sweet memories had been half-collapsed by the bombardment. At the broken edges of the bullet-riddled walls, steam still hissed from the pipes, and shattered machine wreckage lay scattered everywhere.

In jarring contrast to this scene of ruin and scorched earth, the factory floor was awash in brightly colored syrup, and in the warehouse where this syrup had once been stored, dozens of citizens who hadn't managed to evacuate were hiding, waiting for a rescue that almost certainly wouldn't come.

The Princess in the dream heard the faint cries for help and anxiously directed the guards to pry the door open, even personally forcing aside the warped door frame herself, and rushed in first.

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled through the broken window into the room, casting several mottled beams of light and shadow across the half-destroyed chamber. A child, sticky with filthy syrup, was clutching her doll and looking timidly toward her, and beside the child were over thirty survivors.

Upon seeing the objective of this trip, the Princess in the dream couldn't help but let out a long breath, a relieved smile crossing her face. But the Princess who knew she was dreaming stared at the doll in the girl's arms — its cheek half-shattered away, its face like a sorrowful smile — and bit down hard on her lip.

"Boom!"

Accompanied by the shrieking tear of air being ripped apart, several hundred bombs packed with alchemical fuel, trailing pale-white flames, tore through the dark-red evening glow and fell onto the streets of Cornwall City. The half-collapsed sugar factory was utterly reduced to rubble, and the brightly colored syrup across the ground transformed into a raging sea of orange-yellow fire.

"No!!!"

At the instant the bright flames were about to explode fully, the Princess in her sleep suddenly snapped her eyes open and sat bolt upright in bed.

Yet even though she had successfully escaped the dream — breaking free of the nightmare that had tormented her for six years before that most agonizing moment arrived — the Princess's thin nightgown was still soaked through with cold sweat, clinging tight to her skin, leaving her shivering all over.

"Haah…"

Leaning weakly against the headboard, gasping violently for a while, the Princess's heartbeat gradually steadied. She didn't try to fall back asleep, but instead got out of bed, drank a cup of water that had already gone completely cold, then walked to the desk, sat down, opened the stack of documents on the desk that she hadn't finished reviewing, and silently picked up the quill.

The Nightmare King's Curse.

Every direct bloodline of the royal family, upon reaching adulthood, would be haunted by nightmares for the rest of their lives — endlessly reliving, within nightmares of unbearable vividness, their deepest regrets and agonies.

Still, this was probably for the best.

After finishing the document in hand, the princess turned her head, glanced at the tin doll smiling on the shelf behind her, fell silent for a moment without a word, then picked up another new document.

The Nightmare King's curse was painful, but it also kept reminding her, preventing her from ever forgetting everything that had once been, making sure she would always remember exactly what she was supposed to do.

……

As the princess wrote swiftly, the mountain of documents piled on the desk slowly began to dwindle, but the oil in the lamp was also gradually running out.

When a soft "crackle" sounded, the flame in the lamp flickered slightly, and a maid's gentle call came from the doorway.

"Your Highness? Are you asleep?"

"Not yet."

Picking up a pair of tweezers, she trimmed the wick and coaxed the dimming lamp back to brightness. Then, while continuing to review documents, the princess asked in a gentle voice:

"What is it?"

"Princess Veronica… it's your… um… that Mr. Hearing Li Ang has arrived. Would you like to see him now?"

(End of chapter)