Chapter 68: 67. The Dark Gold Eye

67. The Dark Gold Eye

Around the middle of Dorothy’s swan-like, elegant, and slender neck was a ring of bruised, blood-congested marks from being tightly strangled.

“Don’t worry, I did this to myself.” The girl’s fair hand brushed over the ligature marks.

She raised her wrists, which were covered in dense, shallow cuts: “Just like these, all done today, right when you happened to run into me.”

“You’ve been hurting yourself like this all day?”

“I didn’t want to go to the ceremony to welcome Wenders, didn’t want to go to the balls some people invited me to, didn’t want to go to the city hall mixer, and Huofu kept nagging in my ear. I saw you but didn’t dare speak, and I couldn’t explain things clearly to Leona…”

Dorothy counted her troubles off one by one. She didn’t say it explicitly, but Li Ang already knew they had all turned into those scars.

“I’m most afraid of talking to others—when we aren’t close at all, yet they act like they want to be very intimate. So I always hide away to do these things. By the next day, the scars all disappear as if they never existed.”

“Why do it like this?” Li Ang said.

“After Mother passed away, Father once taught my brother and me how to ride horses. I had a hard time mastering it, and he said I might only learn my lesson if a horse trampled my leg, since I wouldn’t die anyway. After returning to my room, I suddenly thought: if I hurt myself as punishment, could I do things better?”

“I’m actually still a bit afraid of pain. At first, making a small cut worked quite well.”

“But later on, I slowly got used to it, and the effect wasn’t as strong. I reflected on it later; it actually started after I returned from my adventure at sixteen.”

“After graduation, I came to Spark Island. One day when I woke up, I saw the same furniture in my bedroom every day and the same street view outside the window, thinking about the same tedious work and the same troublesome social interactions, and I suddenly lost the feeling of being alive.”

Dorothy’s brown pupils gradually turned vacant, staring into the void of darkness within the secret passage.

“From that day on, I understood less and less what being alive was all about.”

“To figure out why, I bought quite a few books. Some had situations similar to mine, along with analysis and answers. The explanation I found most convincing was that it was because I lacked love.”

The girl looked at Li Ang: “Tell me, what is love?”

Li Ang said: “Everyone has their own answer to this question; no one dares to say they can summarize it. Love also comes in many forms.”

“That’s wonderful. It means most people at least know one kind of love.”

Dorothy smoothed out her lusterless, turmeric-colored hair: “I feel the vividness of the world less and less, so I started looking for some… more intense sensory stimulation.”

Her slender fingers formed a claw shape, gripping her own neck in the air.

“Suffocating restraints that only release when the time is up, bloodletting until I’m on the verge of death, or even using intense pleasure to stimulate myself.”

“Only when my body approaches the critical limit do I seem to grasp a sliver of the reality of being alive.”

“Just now, when I was eating the rice ball, I said I understood my own cowardice better than I did at sixteen. It’s actually because I discovered that no matter how I hurt my body, I couldn’t make myself pull it together anymore.”

“I just keep repeating this, but I can only catch a tiny bit of feeling, as if I’m sinking deeper into the world.”

Li Ang shook his head: “Actually, this is escapism.”

“Mm, now that you’re here, I can stop doing this.”

Dorothy smiled faintly: “Your words just now gave me a very strange feeling, like when Mother was around, yet a bit different. Is this what the feeling of being alive is?”

“Do you know what I’m thinking right now? It’s that I must board your ship; I can give up everything else.”

“So, as long as you are happy and willing, you can do anything you like to me, and you can even push me forward while you’re at it. How wonderful that would be… Ah!”

Li Ang sighed and pulled back the hand he had used to flick her forehead.

“Stop talking.” Li Ang shook his head and said: “I must clearly refuse you. This won’t do.”

“You are still escaping, just shifting the responsibility onto me.”

Li Ang hadn’t expected Dorothy’s past to be like this, but he understood much more about why she was the way she was now.

Sometimes, people temporarily lose their intuitive perception of life.

Li Ang recalled a period of decadence before he transmigrated. It truly felt like falling into the cracks of the world, where society and all interpersonal relationships had nothing to do with him. Time passed by in a flash, and with a sudden start, he realized he had already missed so much.

Dorothy had tried to struggle, but no one had ever pointed her in the right direction. She lacked the method and instead sank deeper.

“Move forward.”

Li Ang pushed the lady’s back. She obediently leaned against his palm and took steps in the direction of his force.

“Let’s go to the last room first, then come back to fight that guard dog.”

He felt that, instead, he couldn’t lecture Dorothy, and scolding or hitting her wouldn’t work either. Because of the immortality granted by the Demon-Born Flower, combined with her years of self-torment, she was already beyond caring.

Before thinking of a concrete solution, he would start by doing what needed to be done.

Wait, why am I starting to think of solutions for her? Where is my calm, steady, and highly efficient teammate?

Demon-Born Flower, Legendary realm… Sigh, it’s not easy to meet someone who is both problem-free and has high potential.

Arriving at the third secret passage exit, Li Ang discovered that this stretch had no dust or cobwebs.

The entire secret passage had been built long ago; most places had mold and moss, and dust was a common sight, indicating those sections had been abandoned for a long time.

Yet, from the room where the Pale Dog was located to this final entrance and exit, it was relatively clean, suggesting this area was used frequently.

Sure enough, the final room was quite significant. The two walked out from behind a movable, mechanical bookshelf.

Judging by the expensive, high-end desk supplies and furniture, this was the room where Count Finat handled his affairs.

The books on the shelves were not important; Li Ang was focused on the stacks of booklets on the desk.

As soon as he picked one up, Dorothy said: “These are various records of Spark Port.”

“Clerk, you’re quite familiar with looking at these, aren’t you?”

“I am, after all, the one who does this.”

No matter how boring a job is, once one becomes proficient, it settles into a skill. Dorothy immediately organized these records clearly.

Spark Port’s debts and profits, capital flow, trade reports… almost everything was complete.

“It’s not strange that these are here,” Dorothy said: “The city hall only handles the work; all decisions must be reviewed by the lord. Do you want to see if he’s corrupt?”

“Private territory, that has no meaning. I’m wondering if you can analyze any strange information from this data?”

“For example?” The girl didn’t understand what Li Ang meant.

“Can you see if there’s anything different now by comparing the trade and capital flows of the past few years? Perhaps we can infer what the Empire is actually planning in the Ignis airspace from that.”

Dorothy’s eyes rolled, and she nodded slowly: “I should be able to.”

She scanned the room, grabbed a few record books, and pulled some documents from the Count’s file rack.

“These should be enough.”

“Then let’s go first.”

In the long run, the harvest in this room might be the greatest.

Just as the two returned to the entrance of the secret passage, sounds came from outside the room’s door.

They hurriedly closed the secret passage door, though Li Ang left a small crack to peek at the situation inside the room.

Whoever could come here was either the Count or another key figure; perhaps they could hear some crucial information.

The footsteps were chaotic; there was more than one person coming.

After the door opened, Count Finat with his red beard and hair appeared, followed by Wenders. The two did not enter immediately but gestured for someone to enter first.

There were two people who were ushered in.

One of them had long, pale gold hair, a handsome face, and pointed ears—a half-elf youth.

He followed half a step behind a person entirely covered in a wide black robe. The wide hood worn by this person hung down, obscuring half of their face.

And right on the part that obscured the face, a kind of metallic, dark gold substance was branded into the shape of a giant eye.

The Sky Blue Ring on Li Ang’s hand began to burn hot.