"Xigelei, just out of curiosity, do you feel anything different about Caliera?"
Lanqi asked, as if testing Xigelei.
To spare Xigelei any heartbreak, he was determined to cooperate fully with Talia in playing Caliera over these twenty-one days.
Talia possessed an exceptional ability to discern lies and a faint capacity for mind reading.
If any flaw arose, she could immediately notice and adjust.
"Nope," Xigelei replied, turning to Lanqi.
She even took a sniff near the gray-haired demon's neck.
It was Caliera through and through—the scent hadn't changed at all; it smelled like Mom.
"Hiss..."
Lanqi pressed a hand over his mouth in surprise, saying no more.
Xigelei couldn't even tell the difference between an eight-hundred-year vintage and a thousand-year vintage.
Was he really the only one who felt the eight-hundred-year vintage packed more of a punch?
"Hmph."
Talia cast Lanqi a chilling glare, ignoring whatever blasted thoughts were running through his head.
Being with Xigelei had healed her heart, so she couldn't be bothered to squabble with Lanqi.
Only after embracing the gray-haired witch for a long time did Xigelei reluctantly let go.
She turned to Lanqi.
"Ho... Holy Pope, Your Holiness, what brings you here to see me this time?"
Xigelei's voice stumbled, having nearly slipped up.
Her Holy Son hadn't recognized her as Sigrid at all, taking her instead for the Shadow World's Xigelei.
In that case, she was more than happy to keep playing along.
If she were just a little girl, she could act spoiled with him without any reservations.
"I need to make another trip to the Demon Realm, which requires crossing the Land of Eternal Night in midwinter. Could I trouble you to guide me there?"
Lanqi asked Xigelei earnestly.
The main stage of this Shadow World had to be the Demon Realm. Experience suggested that the other six challengers, aside from him, Talia, and Boss Cat, were probably all in the Demon Realm as well.
Moving forward, there was only one objective:
To reach the Demon Realm smoothly and as quickly as possible.
"Ah,呃, no problem."
Her gaze darting away, Xigelei scratched the back of her head and agreed.
Even though she had dreamed about how to navigate back and forth across the Land of Eternal Night, she wasn't sure she could clear it in a single life without a hitch if she had to walk that path again.
"Isn't that pushing Xigelei too hard?"
Talia picked up on a hint of Xigelei's fluster.
Expecting a frail nun to drive a sleigh through freezing blizzards for several consecutive days to guide them to the Demon Realm didn't sound like something a decent human being would ask.
"She's an expert pathfinder," Lanqi pointed at Xigelei, reassuring Talia.
He wasn't bragging—the last time, when Xigelei was an eleven-year-old kid, she had driven a carriage and taken him smoothly across the Land of Eternal Night without a single bump. He had been utterly floored.
Now that Xigelei was in her twenties, it wasn't as if she could have regressed.
"That's right, I'm an expert pathfinder!"
Hearing this, Xigelei puffed out her chest proudly, planted her hands on her hips, and nodded with satisfaction.
"Wait for me to go change, then we can head out right away!"
Xigelei said to the two of them, rushing eagerly out of the chapel toward her quarters.
"..."
Seeing Xigelei's sudden burst of confidence, Talia decided to trust her after all.
For someone like Lanqi—who was uneasy whenever he didn't have a map on hand—to offer such high praise, her professional competence had to be solid.
"Then summon me again when you're almost at the northern border of Holy Polant. I'm going to rest first."
Talia waved her hand in farewell to Lanqi, dissolving into orange starlight and returning to his person.
Fierce magical beasts might roam the snowy plains outside the city-state, but as long as a great demon like her was aboard the carriage, none would dare approach.
When the time came, all he needed to do was explain to Xigelei that Caliera had set off ahead of them and would rendezvous with them outside the border.
"You've softened up, Master. You know Xigelei would get anxious if Caliera disappeared for too long, even though you could just as easily have suggested meeting in the Demon Realm," Lanqi chuckled inwardly.
"What can I say? I'm Caliera right now. What Caliera loved most was granting people's dreams. Even if it's merely a fleeting fall into a gentle slumber, she wanted to help others enjoy a beautiful dream as best she could."
Talia immersed herself into the persona of the ancient great demon.
Within a few minutes, Xigelei reappeared.
The moment she stepped back into the chapel, she looked all around, her expression turning tense.
She feared Caliera might vanish into thin air just like in that abruptly worsening nightmare, confirming the vague, ominous premonition deep in her heart.
"Caliera will be waiting for us at the border," Lanqi said to Xigelei, unfastening his mask and tying it to his waist.
At the same time, his appearance shifted, returning to the likeness of Luoqi from when he had first set foot on the snowy plains.
A Pope of Polant running around everywhere might be too alarming.
It was better to assume the identity of Luoqi, the brown-haired, green-eyed royal artisan.
"Phew, that's great."
Xigelei clutched her chest, her racing heart finally steadying.
As expected, this was indeed a Shadow World, not an absurd world straight out of a nightmare.
"How about it? Do I look like I did when I took you to the Land of Eternal Night last time?"
A smile broke across Xigelei's face as she gave a twirl, letting Lanqi get a good look at her.
It was a style completely distinct from her nun's habit.
She had changed into an outfit suited for long journeys with a more boyish flair, wearing a beret with her hair pinned up beneath it, a few strands of pale hair falling naturally past her temples.
"This time you actually look like a girl," Lanqi replied with a smile.
When he first met Xigelei, she had given off the vibe of a wild tomboy whose gender was hard to distinguish.
Back then, he had told his secretary Elm that what he needed was an experienced bodyguard and troubleshooter who could guide him covertly and smoothly across the Land of Eternal Night while handling any potential trouble, whereas Xigelei looked far too young.
As a result, that single remark had annoyed Xigelei, who stiffly waved him off and walked away on the spot, unwilling to suffer any slight just for a bit of wartime coin.
"So you couldn't tell last time?"
Xigelei wasn't upset by Lanqi's comment. She was thoroughly confident that even if she were a boy, the Holy Son would still like her; the bond between them had long since transcended gender.
"Back then, twelve years ago, I hated people wasting my time—and even more than that, I hated your disdainful attitude! If you hadn't offered such a high price, I wouldn't have gone through multiple referrals just to meet a big-shot client like you. Lord Luoqi—"
Xigelei confessed her thoughts from back then to Lanqi, drawing out the final words playfully.
"If you had known back then that I was the prime minister, would you still have been so blunt with me?"
Reminiscing about old times, Lanqi couldn't help lingering in conversation with Xigelei.
Once these twenty-one days passed, he might never see her again.
More than a decade later, Xigelei had changed a bit, yet she remained just as entertaining.
"Just the same! Why should I live like a beggar? I won't bow and scrape to anyone. Unless... there are no unlesses."
Xigelei crossed her arms like a true powerhouse, speaking with immense pride.
Her trailing remark carried no continuation, as if such a scenario couldn't possibly exist.
"I can tell. You don't have an ounce of reverence for me as Pope."
Lanqi shook his head with a sigh.
Back when he was prime minister of the Polant Empire, Xigelei had treated him casually without any sense of propriety.
Now that he had become Pope of the Holy Polant Theocracy, it was pretty much the same.
"Do you know what I like most about you?" Xigelei asked out of the blue.
"What?" Lanqi asked.
"Even when you hold a high position, you never act aloof and arrogant like those big shots. Instead, you can mingle with me just fine, and I can always treat you as an equal, like another version of myself," Xigelei revealed the answer. "So come on, who are we to stand on ceremony? Do we really need all those rules and formalities?"
Grinning, she leaned in, bumped her shoulder against Lanqi's, and then scurried ahead, gesturing for him to keep up.
Lanqi rubbed his shoulder, tilted his head, and followed after her.
...
That night.
A few hours of travel flew by in a flash.
Across the snowfields cloaked in night along the northern border of the Polant Empire, a young woman wearing a beret drove a sleigh. Her poised, competent posture blended into the beauty of this frigid world.
In front of the sleigh, three Snowfield Nether Deer sprinted across the snow, their hooves kicking up plumes of powder like natural contour lines drawn across the expanse.
After setting out with Lanqi in the afternoon, Xigelei had quickly reached the northernmost reaches of the Theocracy via the Holy Polant Church's aerial routes.
Everything felt so familiar.
The northern frontier border had changed considerably compared to twelve years ago.
Yet as the two of them embarked on this identical journey once more, it felt completely second nature, as if this were far more than just their second time traveling together.
After renting the magical beasts capable of traveling the fastest through the Land of Eternal Night, Xigelei departed the Holy Polant Theocracy's borders alongside Lanqi and Caliera, who was waiting for them as promised.
Unfazed by the biting wind, Xigelei lightly flicked the deer-driving whip in her hand, letting out intermittent cracks.
Behind her, Lanqi and Talia sat quietly in the rear seat.
After finishing the hamburger Lanqi had bought for her, Talia had already leaned against the backrest and drifted off to sleep.
By the moonlight, Lanqi intently studied the newly edited pocket booklet map in his hands.
The wind ruffled the map, its corners fluttering gently, but that did nothing to disrupt Lanqi's contemplation of the journey ahead.
With the grown-up Xigelei and the long-since-adult Talia present, he had no reason to fear that traveling through the Land of Eternal Night after dark would be unsafe.
"We need to get to the Demon Realm as fast as possible. Since we departed quite late, it will likely be tomorrow morning by the time we reach our first stop, Little Stone City. Once we arrive, our first order of business will be staying at the old place again."
Lanqi's brown hair fluttered in the freezing wind, his face filled with anticipation for Purgatory City Pasqual.
He had dreamed countless times of returning to that place.
Not only that, but every landmark leading from the Polant Empire to the Demon Realm was steeped in memories.
"Are we still buying ingredients and letting the little black cat cook?"
Xigelei turned her head and asked.
Familiarity made everything easy.
This practically marked the third or fourth time she had stepped into the snowfields alongside the Holy Son.
"Yeah, though the little black cat might have been streamlined out of that role by now," Lanqi replied, glancing down at the shadow beneath his feet.
"Who's been streamlined, meow?! This Divine Beast has merely reached an appropriate station in life! Have you ever seen an eighth-tier Divine Beast cook in person?!"
Boss Cat sprang indignantly out of the shadow, scurrying onto Lanqi's lap to argue its case.
"Huh? It's eighth-tier?"
Before Lanqi could reply, Xigelei had already turned her head around in astonishment.
She had noticed the little black cat had gotten a tiny bit stronger, but she never imagined it was actually eighth-tier.
"Meow..."
Boss Cat hung its head dejectedly and hopped back into Lanqi's shadow.
Perhaps only when it took on the form of Catlen would people genuinely treat it like an eighth-tier.
Otherwise, its jump from seventh to eighth tier was so negligible in Xigelei's eyes that it was practically nonexistent.
The sleigh carved a clean trail across the snow-covered expanse beneath the night sky. Amid the thudding gallop of the Nether Deer and the soft swoosh of the runners, only the scattered lanterns erected by the Holy Polant Theocracy illuminated the road ahead.
"Uh."
Resting one hand on the backrest, Xigelei looked back at Lanqi.
It seemed she had driven the little black cat into a sulk.
She hadn't meant to.
"Don't worry, it'll cheer up in a bit," Lanqi answered.
Boss Cat was only capable of simple memory storage anyway.
"Still, could I ask you to keep both hands on the reins and watch the road ahead? It's nighttime, after all."
He pointed forward with a finger.
"Oh, good then."
Hearing that, Xigelei turned her head halfway back, her eyes still lingering on Lanqi.
As a top-tier martial artist, her mind's eye perception allowed her to perceive things far more clearly than with naked eyes anyway, so not watching the road didn't really matter.
"You really need to change your driving habits. This violates traffic regulations," Lanqi said rather helplessly. After all these years, she still hadn't kicked her bad habit—she just couldn't sit still while driving without chatting up the passengers.
The only comforting thing was that Xigelei no longer swore.
"Besides, look at this road, isn't it..."
He kept looking up, repeatedly comparing the map with the height of the mountain ridges, feeling more and more that something was off.
"Don't worry, babe. With me around, nothing goes wrong," Xigelei said to Lanqi, still not paying attention to the path ahead.
She was going to show Lanqi how to speedrun the Land of Eternal Night.
"Um..."
Lanqi pondered for a moment, feeling that the way Xigelei addressed him was a bit strange.
"Wait, Xigelei, do you want to take a look at the map?"
He leaned forward anyway, holding out the map to Xigelei in the front row and pointing out where he thought the discrepancies lay.
"Look, the latitude line here is clearly different from our current position. That means we should be heading northwest instead of continuing straight. Otherwise, we're going to plummet off a cliff..."
Lanqi's voice grew increasingly hesitant, because he sensed Xigelei wasn't listening to him at all.
Looking up, he met Xigelei's violet eyes, clear and luminous as glowing night pearls. He realized she hadn't cared about the map at all, but had been staring intently at his face the entire time.
"What's on my face?"
Lanqi touched his cheek. Feeling no snow grains, he asked Xigelei.
"As expected, the moment our eyes meet..."
Only then did Xigelei slowly shift her gaze toward the map, murmuring to herself.
She needed to exercise some self-restraint.
"..."
Lanqi looked at Xigelei's absentminded attitude toward the map, having no idea what she meant by that comment.
He gazed into the distance again.
An ominous premonition welled up in his chest.
First of all, the terrain of the Land of Eternal Night had changed drastically over the past twelve years.
Second, ever since he had taken Xigelei to study in the Demon Realm for a few years, followed by her return to Polant to work in the Church for several years, she hadn't worked as a guide in the Land of Eternal Night for a very long time.
"I've been wanting to try driving a Snowfield Nether Deer sleigh for a while now. How about this: you sit in the back and rest, and I'll drive for a bit?" Lanqi suggested in an exceedingly polite manner.
"...Fine, then. If you want to work for me, I won't complain," Xigelei didn't insist otherwise.
If an easy mark of a boss wanted to act as the driver himself, why should she, the driver, refuse?
When she arrived at South Vantina this morning, she had already heard rumors about a gullible young master from something called the Wilfort Chamber of Commerce who was always making losing deals and had nearly run the family business into the ground.
"Are you thinking about something impolite?"
Lanqi asked, eyeing Xigelei's half-smiling expression.
"How could I be?"
Xigelei gripped the reins, answering him with zero sincerity.
A spendthrift Holy Son wasn't bad either.
Once he squandered the entire family fortune, he'd probably have no choice but to marry into her family.
Chapter 766