"Without production sorcerers, they can actually manufacture high-precision machine tools?"
"Without combat sorcerers, they managed to maintain nearly a thousand years of peaceful order?"
"Without thunder, water, earth, or wind sorcerers, they could still generate electric power, resist floods, construct skyscrapers, and regulate the weather?"
"Without sorcerers at all, how did they ever research these crucial theories? This is too bizarre."
In the indoor library on the ground floor of the villa, listening to Igola's exclamations and doubts, Yaxiu felt a bizarre sense of superiority, like someone showing an otherworldly visitor around modern society.
The technological level of the Country of All Stars closely resembled that of his previous life. Processes and positions that sorcerers could have streamlined were replaced by manual labor and machinery, so from Yaxiu's perspective, this world's history seemed fairly normal. But for Igola, it was entirely different. To use an analogy, it was as if humans, knowing they must drink water to survive, found it impossible to accept the existence of fellow beings who didn't need water at all. To the Swindler, sorcerers were to civilization what water was to humanity. Believing that all civilizations were built upon a foundation of sorcerers, he naturally could not accept a technological civilization that had developed without any sorcerers whatsoever.
By comparison, Harvey was much quieter. His brain entered a state bordering on hibernation whenever he wasn't dealing with necromantic affairs.
"Hm? Cemeteries and earth burial traditions are popular here!"
Yaxiu and Igola glared at Harvey, warning him with their eyes not to do anything reckless.
The necromancer shrugged and continued flipping through the history book in his hands. "Not like I can bring them back to reality anyway... Wait. The imperial mausoleum from a millennium ago is currently on public display in Jiashi, and the embalmed remains of the empress are completely intact!"
Harvey looked up at once, quietly gazing at his two companions. Ever since they first met, this dark-skinned, curly-haired, deadpan man had seemed completely devoid of blood and tears. Yet now, he wore a pitiful, pleading expression, his innocent gaze so bright it was almost painful to look at.
Igola shook his head. "No!"
"A thousand years..."
"No!"
"Completely intact—"
"No!"
The necromancer pressed his lips together, his body trembling slightly. Yaxiu even suspected that in the next second, the man would throw himself onto the floor and start throwing a tantrum. In the end, Yaxiu had no choice but to turn to Rose. "If he gets caught stealing the bones from the imperial mausoleum, will it cause serious problems for us?"
Rose thought for a moment and shook her head. "No. As long as we provide sufficient restitution, we can get him released on bail pending trial, though he will definitely end up with a criminal record. But from what I know, security for the imperial mausoleum exhibition is not particularly tight. We could actually hire someone to steal the remains, or I could even devise an undetectable heist plan for you. The odds of being discovered are quite low."
Yaxiu looked at the Swindler. "If we find a way to leave, indulging Harvey's wish just before we go shouldn't affect us much, right?"
Igola clicked his tongue, glanced at the necromancer sitting bolt upright, and snapped in annoyance, "Go ahead, keep spoiling him." Turning to Harvey, he added, "But during this time, you have to behave yourself. If you cause any trouble, I don't need to spell out the consequences, do I?"
The necromancer nodded vigorously, like a chick pecking at grain.
"Alright then. Before we leave, we'll help you obtain those thousand-year-old remains."
"\(^o^)/ Yay!"
Harvey leaped straight out of his seat and excitedly dashed over to sit down at the nearby piano. After lightly testing a few notes, he began playing a lively tune. Merrily cascading notes danced and flowed from beneath his fingertips, filling the entire library with a cheerful atmosphere.
Now it was Yaxiu and Igola's turn to stare in dumbfounded shock.
*This bastard actually knows how to play the piano?!*
As Rose massaged Yaxiu's temples, she asked, "It's an unfamiliar new piano piece. Does it need copyright registration?"
"No need for now..." Yaxiu glanced at her with some embarrassment. "And I really don't need you to give me a massage."
Rose nodded and turned to walk away. Just as Yaxiu breathed a sigh of relief, a cool sensation touched his earlobe, sending a shiver through him. It turned out to be Rose wiping his ear with a wet wipe.
"Rose, I really don't need any service here!" Yaxiu sprang straight up from the cushioned armchair. "Go do your own things. Just let the three of us read here!"
The young assistant looked puzzled. "But I have to work. My job is to attend to you personally, providing services and advice ranging from criminal defense to daily life."
"Well, I won't be needing personal service from now on. If I need anything, I'll call you!"
"That works too." Rose's nose twitched slightly. "However, my income will drop by ninety percent. The added value of my job lies entirely in personal service; routine service is no different from an ordinary housekeeper's."
"Isn't all my money in your hands anyway?" Yaxiu asked, baffled. "You can just take as much as you want."
"I cannot. I will only accept compensation commensurate with the value of my labor." Rose shook her head. "That is the professional code of conduct in society. But since the Court Master demands this, I have no choice but to accept your change to my duties."
Counting on her fingers, she continued, "In that case, I will have to move out of my current apartment, stop sponsoring the cougar at the zoo, and I won't have money to donate to charities anymore... If personal service isn't needed, does that mean I can leave at night? Would you find it acceptable if I take a part-time job at an upscale nightclub in the evenings? I would wear a veil to conceal my identity."
Yaxiu stared at her blankly for a moment before helplessly sitting back down. "Could you... clean my ears for me?"
To his astonishment, Rose produced a full set of professional ear-cleaning tools, complete with everything from cotton buds to tuning forks.
Watching this scene, Igola chuckled. "I have a feeling I'd have a lot to talk about with that girlfriend of yours I've never met."
Ever since they first met, the Swindler had noticed that Rose's care for Yaxiu reached an impeccably seamless degree. It wasn't over-the-top, nor was it absurd: for instance, handing Yaxiu a towel the moment he stepped out of the bath, adjusting the passenger seat's distance and incline while directing the air vents away from him... When they first arrived at the indoor library, Igola had sat right in the central spot with the best lighting, only for Rose to stare at him unblinkingly for three seconds until he had no choice but to surrender the red leather armchair to Yaxiu.
Even with the head massage, if not for Igola's strange look, Yaxiu—deeply absorbed in the history books—might not have even noticed he was enjoying the pampering of a pretty girl.
"Please, don't, I beg you!" Yaxiu immediately backed down. "I had no idea I had a childhood friend as an assistant either!"
"If relationships here are influenced by reality, then you two should be quite close in reality," Igola said. "Was she your girlfriend before you went to prison?"
"I already told you, I'm not the cult leader Heath, how would I know?" Yaxiu shrugged. "Though it seems unlikely. If she was in the Blood Moon, why didn't she become a feeler? Besides, I remember that I'm an orphan here, but Rose has parents—even if both of them have passed away, right?"
Rose nodded. "Correct."
"See?" Yaxiu hastened to clear his name. "She has social ties like parents, so she's probably a projection of a person from the Starry Kingdom. Meanwhile, I'm a genuine Blood Moon orphan. We definitely don't know each other in reality!"
The cult leader grew more confident the more he spoke. "Besides, Sword Princess and I have an intimate relationship. As if a mere Swindler like you could drive a wedge between us! I advise you not to harbor any sinister ideas—"
Igola snorted, looking down at his history book. "Then I suppose that's one less topic of conversation with Sword Princess. That leaves only Annan, Qinna, and Black Crow. What a pity..."
Yaxiu caved immediately. "I'm sorry, I was out of line... But why on earth is Tamashi on that list?"
"Take a guess." Igola turned another page, then suddenly raised his eyebrows. Turning to the shelves, he pulled out several books and flipped through them repeatedly, murmuring, "Interesting..."
"Did you find something?"
"With the exception of a small minority who were assassinated, the vast majority of the Country of All Stars' supreme rulers throughout history died... quite dramatically." Igola smiled. "Struck dead by lightning, run over by cars, drowned after falling into lakes, and a whole slew of sudden deaths from myocardial infarction. It's as if they suddenly reached the end of their lives and were haphazardly assigned a cause of death. Pity I don't know the list of Starry Kingdom emperors and their years of birth and death, or else I could verify it."
"A correspondence in death?" Yaxiu's expression turned grave. "If I die in reality, the me here will immediately meet an unnatural death as well... But looked at the other way around: if we die here, are we truly dead, or will we return to reality?"
Having reached this point in the analysis, Yaxiu couldn't help but feel a bit disheartened. "There is so much critical information that we simply cannot obtain and don't dare test at random. The Divine Lords known to be involved with the Country of All Stars already include the Four Pillar Gods and the Divine Lord of Stars. This isn't a place we should ever have come to. If this is a game, we're idiot players who skipped all the beginner tutorials without knowing any of the rules."
Igola, however, did not seem particularly worried. "Then all we have to do is find the tutorial left behind by another player."
Yaxiu was taken aback. "Another player? Who?"
The Swindler glanced at him. "You."
Yaxiu instantly grasped Igola's underlying meaning. "You think Heath left behind crucial information? Of course! Every time he returned to the Blood Moon, he would lose his memories of this place. Knowing that, he was bound to make preparations!"
"When I was browsing through the books just now, I noticed something very interesting." Igola paced before the bookshelves, his fingertips lightly brushing the colorful, ornate spines. "Several books have folded marks on their pages. At first, I assumed they were bookmarks Heath folded after reading, and in fact, most of them were indeed just that. But in quite a few books, the exact same page was folded over—page 18."
"Rose," the Swindler asked suddenly, "are the bookshelves here numbered?"
As Rose rubbed the contours of Yaxiu's ear with a wet wipe, she replied, "Yes. They are numbered from Shelf 1 to Shelf 7."
"Then it's the eighth book on Shelf 1." Igola pulled a volume from the shelf beside the piano. Opening it, a smile appeared on his face. "He certainly had time on his hands."
Harvey stopped playing as well. The four gathered together to open what might be the only relic left behind by Heath.
The very first sentence inside caused Yaxiu's heart to skip a beat:
'Am I dead?'
Chapter 784