Chapter 1372: Yi Lu Na and the Flower Girl

Xia De and Yi Lu Na exchanged a glance; both felt strange:

"Miss Lathers, did you see the other party's face?"

"I didn't see it, but I can almost confirm that the very young Miss is absolutely not a normal person."

Miss Lathers continued speaking:

"In that erased memory, there was no sensation of pain, which means the missing Miss suffered no harm or torture within a week of her disappearance. In that memory, I smelled a faint scent of flowers, but also the scent of blood. The memory itself proves nothing; I'm sorry, I can probably only help you this far."

"No, no, you can still help us. Since this is an opera house, there should be professional makeup artists and costumes for flower girls, right? I remember, in many operas, there are scenes of flower girls selling flowers on the street."

Yi Lu Na had not forgotten her plan; knowing Xia De did not want her to take risks, she spoke to Xia De again:

"Xia De, please treat me as an independent individual, not as an ordinary Miss under your protection."

She gazed at Xia De, then gradually averted her own gaze from his eyes:

"I promise I absolutely will not take risks; if there is danger, I will call you immediately."

In the end, Xia De could only reluctantly agree to this plan; Miss Lathers found clothing suitable for Yi Lu Na to wear, then had a professional makeup artist transform her into a flower girl on the streets.

The makeup artists of the Golden Dawn Opera Troupe were indeed professional; when Xia De saw Yi Lu Na again while waiting outside the dressing room, he almost thought she was a flower girl on the street. Moreover, Yi Lu Na herself looked very young; after such makeup, except for being slightly taller, she looked three or four years younger.

"You look now, really like you are around thirteen or fourteen."

He even laughed and praised Yi Lu Na for looking so young at this moment; he had thought praising a Miss for being young was the correct behavior, but unexpectedly, Yi Lu Na became somewhat unhappy instead.

Xia De spent money to buy all the flowers, and even that flower basket, from the flower girls he had found near the opera house just now, let Yi Lu Na carry them, and continued selling flowers in the area where the young girl who had already sold out her flowers originally operated.

Because they knew each disappearance occurred in alleyways, Yi Lu Na was also required to frequently traverse the nearby alleys.

And during this afternoon while waiting for the disappearance incident to occur again, Xia De kept loitering near Yi Lu Na, even approaching her to buy a Lyon Crimson Chrysanthemum and a Randell Carnation.

By four in the afternoon, Yi Lu Na, already feeling somewhat annoyed, walked into the alley beside the opera house again; Xia De waited at the alley entrance reading a newspaper, planning to follow up two minutes later.

Unexpectedly, an accident finally occurred this time, because the peculiar light of the Sun Gun actually flickered within that alley.

Xia De immediately dropped the newspaper and chased after it; subsequently, he saw no one in the alley, only a not-large amount of fresh blood on the ground:

"Oh, I knew we couldn't use a decoy... Blood Echo!"

A crimson halo immediately appeared in the air; Xia De chased in the direction of the halo, then, near the exit at the other end of the alley, saw that halo directly enter an open sewer pipe.

Although the smell of the city sewer pipes was terrible, Xia De still transformed into a Red Butterfly and flew down. After finding his footing in the foul, damp environment, he continued pursuing forward in the darkness along those crimson halos.

After chasing for a full five minutes within the sewer pipes, which were like an underground maze, he finally heard voices speaking ahead. Continuing forward, as the golden light of the light sphere summoned by Yi Lu Na illuminated the sewer pipes, Xia De finally saw the scene before him.

The current location was an underground room within the sewer pipes used for storing construction equipment and allowing maintenance personnel to rest; generally, this place was locked with iron grilles, forbidding random entry and exit, but there were indeed chairs, cabinets, and beds inside.

At this moment, on two beds pushed together, lay the four missing girls. The young Miss Xia De had never seen before stood in front of the beds, spreading her arms like a mother hen protecting her chicks,

not allowing Yi Lu Na to approach them.

That flower girl looked very young, her entire body composed of Whisper Elements; she was undoubtedly a Humanoid Relic. Her height reached only about Xia De's waist. Besides the clothing characteristics described by Miss Lathers, she held a small basket covered with black cloth in her hand; from the gaps between the black cloth and the basket, five or six flowers of different colors had poked out.

"Are you alright?"

Because he had come chasing the blood trail, Xia De was very concerned about Yi Lu Na's safety. The Miss with long brown hair shook her head:

"I'm fine; I was accidentally injured at the beginning, but otherwise, I have been gaining the upper hand. You must be careful; she looks young, but she is actually very powerful."

"It wasn't me who injured you!"

That flower-selling little girl's voice was quite childish, but she spoke with considerable anger; her brown eyes at this moment seemed ready to spew out flames of rage:

"I was merely asking you questions, yet you suddenly attacked me; I was forced to counterattack!"

After her description, Xia De could almost imagine the scene at that time: Yi Lu Na, who had been speaking with a smile, suddenly threw out the Sun Gun.

"You are a Humanoid Relic, and you have abducted so many girls; of course I must attack you and keep you here!"

Speaking to this point, Yi Lu Na was also quite angry. She pointed behind that flower-selling little girl, as if wanting to prove her righteousness to Xia De:

"Look, those missing girls are indeed here. The one lying in the middle is the Baron's daughter; I have seen her photograph."

"Oh, you old woman who is clearly an adult but pretends to be a minor girl! Where did I abduct them? They clearly came to help me of their own free will."

The flower-selling girl argued again, her childish voice echoing in the sewer pipes. And this time, she finally completely enraged Yi Lu Na:

"I am only seventeen; I just became an adult! How dare you call me an old woman?!"

As she spoke, a golden light sphere, like the color of the sun, appeared in her hand, and the volume of the sphere continued to expand endlessly.

The flower-selling girl shivered, then looked pitifully at Xia De:

"You will help me, right, Brother?"

That cloying tone made Xia De unable to help but shiver, but he still stopped Yi Lu Na:

"Don't rush to act yet; what kind of Relic is this exactly?"

"A Keeper-class Relic 【Flower Girl】. The name is the entire meaning; she is the collection of all concepts of flower girls: resentment, joy, attachment to childhood, nostalgia for the past, sorrow for poverty, sentimentality for suffering. All these collected together became her. Do not look at her small apparent age; her formation very likely traces directly back to the First Era. Decades ago, someone even proposed classifying her as an Angel-class!"

Yi Lu Na said through gritted teeth; actually, her cultivation was quite good, but she was only angered this time by being called an "old woman"; in the past, only she said such things to others:

"A danger level of only 【Keeper-class】 does not mean she is not dangerous, because no one has ever been able to truly probe the upper limit of this Relic's power. Fortunately, besides her own uncontrollable influence on the surroundings, she herself holds no great malice toward humans; she just likes to do strange things related to selling and raising flowers. I think she was also attracted by the distorted power of the Earth."

"Yes! Big Sister is right!"

The girl said in a quite childish voice, still displaying an expression of being very afraid of Yi Lu Na:

"The soil here has now become very special, so it can cultivate flowers that are difficult to bloom under normal circumstances."

"Then what do you want to do by taking these girls away?" Xia De asked, and the girl looked up at him and replied:

"Cultivating fresh flowers requires not only soil but also nutrients. I need blood to cultivate flowers, so I found these pure girls who share my profession to help me. I asked for their opinions, and they agreed!"

"That is because you possess the ability to make all sentient beings sympathize with you, pity you, and thereby almost agree to all your requests!"

Yi Lu Na said through gritted teeth; after speaking, she glanced at Xia De:

"Xia De, do not be deceived."

"Do you have some misunderstanding about me?"

Xia De said softly, while the girl continued to spread her arms to block Yi Lu Na:

"I did not let them work for nothing; after they worked for a week and left, I gave each of them a small white flower to decorate their souls. In this way, they will neither be infected by the petrification plague you speak of, nor will the fallen Earth Element Spirits attack them. Even if they move far away from this area, that small white flower can also strengthen their soul strength."

"You see, this is why she's clearly quite dangerous, yet only rated at the Secret-Keeper level."

Yi Lu Na said to Xia De, the orb of light in her hand still not having disappeared. This was a new wonder Yi Lu Na had developed; although it could currently only imprison the power of the sun in her hand, it was already enough to cause considerable lethality.

"You've done very well, but can you let these girls go?"

Xia De asked; since Yi Lu Na said the other party was very capable, it was best for them not to act rashly.

The girl pursed her lips and thought for a moment:

"Since you've made a request, letting the four of them leave is of course fine—after all, I'm not some sort of bad person. But afterward, I'll still find new helpers in this city, since my flower hasn't bloomed yet."

In the deepest part of this small room in the sewer, a brown flowerpot sat on the table; inside the pot was a smell somewhat like blood-wine, a not-unpleasant mixture of blood and alcohol. Only, in the pot's soil there was currently just a very short green sprout.

"That won't do. Leave this city now."

Yi Lu Na stared at her.

"But what about my flower... How about this."

The girl thought for a moment, then proposed a condition to the two of them:

"If you help me find the nourishment that can make my flower bloom right now, then I'll leave this city immediately, and I can even give you a flower."

"What nourishment do you want?"

Yi Lu Na asked hesitantly; if this could solve the problem, of course it would be good.

The young Miss smiled and looked at her:

"The nourishment is right here in this city, and very easy to get—you could even say you can get it right now. For others this might be difficult, but for you it should be very simple. You only need to agree to my request, and you can save many flower-selling girls. That's a very worthwhile exchange."