Feeling the soft, supple sensation pressing against the back of his head, Yaxiu sneered internally!
*Hah!*
*Who do you take me for?*
*Even if it really does make a comfortable pillow, do you think I'd let myself be manipulated by my mistress that easily?*
With such rational thoughts turning in his head, Yaxiu felt his moral integrity soaring by leaps and bounds. Suddenly, however, he noticed that both Sonia and Diya were staring calmly at him, their eyes completely flat, as if observing a corpse.
"Why are you two looking at me like that?"
"Well, considering she's been holding you for nearly thirty seconds and you were so engrossed you only just noticed us, how else are we supposed to look at you?"
"What? It's been thirty seconds already? Wasn't it only three seconds? This has to be a miracle! Mistress, did you sneakily cast a miracle on me?! I misjudged you!"
After a second of thought, Denzel concluded that Yaxiu was likely incapable of resisting her charms—this man was already wrapped around her finger. Turning to Diya, she said, "I have uncovered a piece of information that might affect your answer. In return for this intel, I want you to drop the matter of what I just did, and do your best to help me when it's my turn to answer—or at least don't interfere."
Sonia scoffed, but said nothing, merely looking at Diya.
Diya blinked and agreed without hesitation. "All right."
Denzel was equally direct. "Ever since the Lover (Sonia) confirmed the correct answer in the first question through eye contact, I've been paying close attention to the eyes of the people in the portraits. And then I noticed—the Witch's gaze is identical to that of the woman in the painting."
Her gaze?
Diya snapped her head toward the Witch. The Witch met her gaze unabashedly, that timeless smile still plastered on her face—though to Diya, looking at that smile was like spotting a cockroach at the bottom of her bowl, making every fine hair on her body curl up.
She looked down at the painting again. Naturally, there was no smile on the Princess in the portrait. Her gold-and-white robes were devoid of wrinkles, not a single strand of hair was out of place, and even her eyelashes were immaculately aligned. The Princess looked like a flawless woman who could only exist within a painting, every stroke of color embodying nobility—a complete contrast to the cheerful Witch.
Yet in her pupils lingered an arrogance identical to the Witch's...
An arrogance that treated everything in the world like marionettes on strings.
...
Perception was rewoven; reason reconstructed itself.
When Diya came to her senses, she found herself in a strange place, and everyone else was gone.
This was a room atop a high tower, where the night sky outside the window crooned the city to sleep. Dressed in a silk nightgown, Diya lay in bed, seemingly about to sleep—or perhaps having just awoken.
When she set her bare feet upon the marble floor, the chill seeping into her soles felt so real that she almost wondered if her strange adventure in the wooden cabin had just been a dream.
Voices and several sets of footsteps came from outside the door. For no apparent reason, a fierce impulse surged within Diya. Creeping up behind the door on tiptoe, she pressed her ear against the room's sole automatic super-alloy door, listening to the conversation in the corridor:
A middle-aged woman's voice: "...She goes to sleep promptly at midnight every day, after which the 'Ode to Joy' is played every hour to conduct the Armoring Ceremony. Not a single error has occurred."
A melodious yet cold female voice: "Three."
The middle-aged woman's voice grew slightly frantic: "Right... During the Armoring Ceremony on the sixteenth, the Princess suddenly rolled over in bed. That was the biggest incident this month."
The cold female voice: "Two."
The middle-aged woman: "On the twenty-third, the Princess said she wanted red velvet cake, so I had the kitchen make a serving... I'm sorry, it's all my fault."
The cold female voice: "One."
After a brief silence, the middle-aged woman suddenly wailed, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I... I just didn't understand why the Princess had to be kept under house arrest like this, why..."
"That's why I secretly asked the Book of Gospel what the Armoring Ceremony was. I'm sorry, I thought Your Majesty was trying to..."
"After all, rumors in the palace say the reason Your Majesty remains eternally youthful is because..."
"I truly care for the Princess. I just didn't want... But I fully understand Your Majesty's good intentions now! I completely understand! The Princess will surely be grateful for your upbringing, inheriting the glory of Yisu in the Weaving Ceremony and donning the armor to become a saint once more—"
All sound abruptly cut off.
The world fell so silent that only her own heartbeat remained.
Diya didn't know why she was growing more and more anxious, every hair on her body seeming to tremble.
*Tap.*
Footsteps suddenly echoed outside the door.
The number of footsteps.
Only one person.
...
"Hey."
The Witch's voice pulled her from the high tower back into the wooden cabin. "What is your answer?"
The voices in her mind instantly exploded. Only now did Diya realize that while she was in the tower, the residents in her head had been completely silent. It wasn't that they had learned to behave; rather, their voices had been blocked by some power, held back until bursting out all at once.
The sisters' intense emotional surge shattered Diya's rational defenses. Lacking even the strength to bite Yaxiu, she could only muster her final ounce of energy to say, "It's the third option..."
With that, she slumped directly into Sonia's arms, knocked completely unconscious.
"Don't worry," the Witch said, putting a stop to Yaxiu and the others' rough wake-up attempts. "For her, this counts as normal mental fluctuations. She just needs a little rest. If you're really worried, just toss her out of the cabin; once she regains her memories, she'll go back to normal."
"The treasure tied to this question was... well, whatever, you're already knocked out."
Seeming somewhat disheartened, the Witch flicked two beams of radiance toward Diya before walking over to sit beside the Sword Princess. The Sword Princess seemed rather disgusted by her, immediately scooting over by an entire body width, but the Witch pressed right back against her.
Just as the two phantoms were fussing with each other, the Empress picked up the picture album from the table. "Well then, next up is your second question..."
"And his first question."
Without anyone noticing, the Watcher had dragged his favorite chair over to the dining table.
The Empress looked at him in surprise. "You want to pose a question with me?"
"Is there a problem with that?" the Watcher asked in return. "Your question happens to be the same as mine..."
*Impossible!*
*Yaxiu and Denzel hadn't even seen each other's faces before entering the cabin. How could they possibly have the same question?!*
Countless words choked in her throat, but the Empress could only nod impassively. As a phantom, she still had to obey the phantom mechanics and could not reveal any information concerning the answers.
"The question is simple."
The Watcher opened the picture album. Inside was none other than the Eyepatch Girl with whom Denzel had wanted to 'share life and death.' "All you need to do is guess who this young girl is."
"First, a missionary saint who redeems the world."
"Second, the secret advisor to the First Sovereign."
"Third," the Watcher swept his gaze over Yaxiu and Denzel, "the Gospel Incarnation of the Omniscient Weaver."
Chapter 309