Chapter 60: Blood Rose
“Luo Ling, what’s wrong with you today?”
A pale hand waved in front of Luo Ling, pulling her slightly vacant gaze back. Eve looked at her with concern. “You seem distracted. Is this… Ms. Fiona, really that important to you?”
The eyes of the entire team rested on Luo Ling’s face. Usually boisterous and playful, they were unusually quiet today.
For some unknown reason, the existence of “Fiona, Grand Constellation of the Fate Society” had been erased from most people’s minds. The ordinary staff of the Victoria Opera House were no exception, having completely forgotten their manager.
Even Elsa, closest to Luo Ling, didn’t know what she was worried about, and Luo Ling wouldn’t say anything, leaving the Twintails team puzzled.
“…It’s alright,” Luo Ling said, recovering slightly.
“Alright… Seeing you like this, if I hadn’t known you back in Jiangcheng County, I would have thought she was your mother.” Lu Manqing said, twitching the corner of her mouth.
During the Incubation Barrier battle today, Luo Ling, constantly on edge, had several close calls. Each time, Lu Manqing, positioned at the rear, was forced to intervene and cover for her, sustaining some injuries in the process.
“…I’m sorry.”
Luo Ling knew her state today had let her teammates down. She bowed deeply in apology.
“Miss Luo Ling…”
Elsa hugged Luo Ling’s arm, her small face full of conflict. She was worried but hesitated to press Luo Ling for details.
But since Miss Luo Ling refused to talk, she must have her reasons…
“I’m fine, Elsa. Don’t worry too much.”
Luo Ling looked down at Elsa, a forced smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She continued walking with the team but remained distracted.
“Alright, you should say less,” Cen Xiangyun whispered, patting Lu Manqing’s shoulder.
“I’m not complaining, it’s just—” Lu Manqing said, then seemed to remember something, her brow furrowing deeply. “No, that’s not right…”
“What’s not right?”
“…Nothing.”
Lu Manqing composed her expression, returning to her usual carefree demeanor.
“Anyway, today’s commission was completed successfully. Since Luo Ling is tired, let’s just go home and rest.” As the team leader and the oldest sister in the group, Eve was still reliable most of the time.
No one in the Twintails team objected, and they quickly returned to their apartment.
Luo Ling’s behavior continued to be unusual. She didn’t even sneak into the kitchen to help as she usually did while Elsa was cooking, instead quietly sitting at the dining table, waiting.
Even when everyone had finished eating and started clearing the table, she just sat in her chair, motionless.
Everyone tacitly agreed not to disturb her. Only Elsa pulled up a small stool and sat beside her, chin resting on her hand, staring intently at Miss Luo Ling.
After an unknown amount of time, Luo Ling finally came to her senses, her eyes suddenly sharpening. “Finally… found a trace.”
“Found what?” Elsa asked beside her.
“Found… I can’t say yet.” Luo Ling reached out and stroked Elsa’s hair, then asked, “By the way, Elsa, aren’t you cooking today?”
“…Miss Luo Ling, haven’t we already eaten?”
“Ah, have we already eaten?”
Luo Ling paused, then rubbed her stomach, which was indeed slightly distended.
It seemed they really had eaten…
“Luo Ling, your absent-mindedness is getting out of hand!”
Cen Xiangyun, who was reading a newspaper in the living room, couldn’t help but comment upon hearing the conversation in the dining room. It also felt strangely familiar.
“Is it?”
Luo Ling smiled, her expression quickly turning serious.
Of course, she wasn’t as absent-minded as everyone worried, to the point of not knowing whether she had eaten or not, because of excessive grief.
Even if Aunt Fiona had truly been silently killed, Luo Ling wouldn’t just wallow in sorrow. No matter how heavy the emotions, nothing could be undone. The living still had more important things to do.
Luo Ling had experienced times of greater grief than this. Moreover… at least Aunt Fiona’s death hadn’t been confirmed, so there was still a chance.
Therefore, most of Luo Ling’s mind was immersed in searching for this slim chance, overloading her entire intelligence network. Even Alyssa, the final review mechanism, was working at full capacity, shutting herself in the quiet room to avoid disturbance, fully assisting Luo Ling in her search.
After exhausting several memory transfer processes, Luo Ling finally found a minuscule clue, within the Victoria Opera House.
Using this clue, Luo Ling deployed a single Spore from Alyssa, then through nearby puppet priests, barely managed to extend it into the Victoria Opera House.
Due to Fiona’s disappearance, the entire Fate Society was mobilized, and even the Company had dispatched an elite team led by a P8 to guard the opera house.
Luo Ling didn’t want to alert these guards and had to be wary of the seemingly omniscient surveillance of the directors. Therefore, she could only use the minimum number of Spores, avoiding everyone’s gaze. After many difficulties, she finally reached Fiona’s room.
This was the reason for Luo Ling’s distraction during today’s commission. Her mental energy was greatly depleted, but she couldn’t leave the team abruptly, as that would only raise more suspicion.
Fiona’s room hadn’t been disturbed. A burnt-out lamp had been knocked over onto the dressing table in panic, and a small wooden mallet lay on a nearby chair.
Judging from their auras, both were Sacred Tools, and not low-level ones.
The Company personnel should have already checked this room, and even the directors’ gazes had likely fallen upon it, but they had found nothing.
But… Luo Ling was different.
Not long after her consciousness entered the room, fragmented pieces of information coalesced out of thin air, as if they were specifically left for her.
“Finally found… a trace.”
Luo Ling gathered these fragments, carefully piecing them together. A sentence… or rather, half a sentence, surfaced in her mind.
“The Company deliberately triggered the ‘Taboo’ disaster. They and the Harbingers of Calamity are merely branches of the same root—”
Luo Ling’s expression darkened slightly.
It was left for her by Aunt Fiona before her disappearance. She hadn’t had time to leave the complete message before she was gone.
“As expected, the Company deliberately triggered the disaster, but branches of the same root with the Harbingers…”
Luo Ling recalled her previous conjecture about the relationship between the Company directors and the Harbinger leaders. She had, of course, told Aunt Fiona about this speculation, but it was ultimately just a hypothesis.
In the half-sentence left by Fiona, she finally confirmed this point. Even… Luo Ling’s speculation about a “double agent” had been confirmed by Fiona.
Moreover, the relationship between the two was even deeper than Luo Ling had imagined. “Branches of the same root” meant that the Company directors and the Harbinger leaders were once on the same path but later diverged due to disagreements.
However, this information alone shouldn’t be the reason for Fiona’s disappearance.
The fact that Fiona left this message for Luo Ling beforehand meant she knew how dangerous the information she had obtained was and wouldn’t entrust it to Luo Ling lightly.
Although Fiona only said half a sentence, the information she wanted to convey, the things she wanted to warn Luo Ling about, were already clear.
“I’m afraid… the Company is going to target me…”
Luo Ling sighed deeply. During her later meeting with Fiona, she had vaguely understood why the Company directors had been willing to honestly trade with her during their first meeting.
It was simple: Fiona was backing her.
Fiona’s combat ability might not be that important, but her skills were, and their influence was profound.
—She was a top-tier Sacred Tool crafter.
Top-tier Sacred Tools were extremely valuable, not only because the Sacred Relic materials were difficult to obtain, but also because the crafters who could forge them were even rarer.
Fiona was currently the strongest Sacred Tool crafter. The other two Grand Constellations of the Fate Society specialized in combat, while Fiona focused on crafting.
Given sufficient resources, she could attempt to craft Taboo Sacred Tools—of course, not from the core itself, as no Taboo core Sacred Relic had ever appeared.
Moreover, Fiona’s extremely high success rate was one of the reasons she was considered the strongest crafter. Her fees were higher, but it was better than having a cheaper crafter ruin the materials, as crafters didn’t compensate for losses.
Now, a critical secret had cost Luo Ling her implicit backing. The Company directors no longer had any scruples and were more willing to use the most direct methods to obtain what they wanted.
“It seems… I have to let this useful shell die…”
Luo Ling wasn’t worried. Even if the directors personally took action, they would have to plan and prepare as if they were facing a High-Risk Grotesquery to have a chance of killing her.
But how could that be possible?
Even if the Company realized this and intended to make plans, given the current situation in Victoria, the Harbingers wouldn’t give the directors this opportunity.
However, no matter what, the relatively good identity of “Luo Ling, P5 Company Dispatch Specialist” could no longer be maintained.
“Next…”
Just as Luo Ling was pondering her next move, Eve suddenly emerged from her room, waving a parchment scroll in her hand, her face beaming with joy.
“Sisters, come out! We’ve got a big one! There’s a B-rank commission newly posted by the Company that’s perfect for our team. Come take a look…”
The parchment scroll was a special item imbued with power. It functioned like the Company’s notice board, allowing one to view and accept posted commissions at any time, enabling them to snatch better commissions faster. It was a small artifact that every team needed.
“What?”
Hearing about a big commission, Cen Xiangyun immediately perked up, throwing down her newspaper and rushing to Eve to grab the parchment. Her face broke into a wide smile.
“Wow, what kind of luck is this? Isn’t this the Incubation Barrier we’ve dealt with before? Completing this commission will put my quarterly performance into surplus, and I won’t have to rush for the year-end bonus! Quick, quick, accept it…”
Even Lu Manqing became interested, craning her neck to look.
Elsa also wanted to see, but she felt it was more important to stay with Miss Luo Ling, so she continued to sit on the small stool, stretching her neck as far as it could go.
A special Incubation Barrier?
And… one they had dealt with before?
Hearing this, a chill ran down Luo Ling’s spine for some reason. Looking at her teammates’ joyful expressions, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Whose memory was causing this… wait.
It was… Linna’s.
Linna’s memory.
The scene of the Hunt team meticulously preparing for a routine Incubation Barrier mission inexplicably overlapped with the current Twintails team.
The witness felt a chill in her blood.
“No…”
Luo Ling subconsciously voiced.
Although her voice was soft, everyone present heard it clearly and turned their gazes towards her.
Facing their gazes, Luo Ling composed herself and said,
“Let’s… refuse it.”
“Huh? Luo Ling, why?” Cen Xiangyun asked, puzzled, waving the parchment in her hand with some hesitation. “But I’ve already accepted it.”
“Because—”
Luo Ling intended to explain the real reason. Everyone’s eager eyes focused on her, waiting for her answer.
However, at this moment, Luo Ling couldn’t bring herself to say the second half of the sentence.
It wasn’t that she wanted to deliberately conceal it, but because of a more important reason.
“Some knowledge itself is poison. It’s not always better to know more. Ignorance is often a blessing.”
This was something the “Woman,” one of the Company directors, had told her, and Luo Ling knew it was true.
Moreover, it was also a threat from the Company director.
Even Aunt Fiona had “disappeared” because she knew things she shouldn’t have. Luo Ling really couldn’t be sure that if she told her team the whole truth…
Would they also “disappear”?
Would they end up like Aunt Fiona, without even a single word left behind?
Except for Elsa, the others in the team didn’t have her life-saving abilities. Perhaps… just a casual sentence would get them killed.
So she absolutely couldn’t say it. Saying it might lead to death.
After a long hesitation, Luo Ling could only manage a dry, “…Let’s not go.”
A long, terrifying silence followed.
Just as Luo Ling thought they would choose to continue with the commission since she couldn’t give a reason for refusing, Cen Xiangyun hesitated for a moment, then crossed out the acceptance on the parchment and tossed it back to Eve.
“Since Luo Ling doesn’t want to go, let’s not go. Damn, we’ve been working overtime like dogs lately, even having to go on missions on New Year’s Day. It’s so annoying.”
Eve felt a twinge of regret. It was rare to find such a suitable mission.
But as if remembering something, she tossed the parchment to Lu Manqing and said nonchalantly,
“That’s right, that’s right. We’ve been slaving away for the Company for so long, without a single day off. Damn this shitty Company, to hell with it!”
“To hell with it, then. Why are you throwing this at me? I’m not the captain.”
Lu Manqing stuffed the parchment back into Eve’s hands, grumbling, “Besides, our dear Captain Eve, it was you who forced us to work overtime on New Year’s Day.”
“Because I worked overtime on Christmas, which is equivalent to your Eastern New Year, so you have to work overtime too. Otherwise, I’d feel very unbalanced!” Eve angrily punched the air, a slight whooshing sound echoing.
“Oh, you feel unbalanced, do you?”
Cen Xiangyun sneered, extending her hands, a thin layer of frost covering them. She then suddenly reached behind Eve’s neck, sliding her hands down inside her clothes.
“Yahh!”
The usually cool and collected Iron Fist maid let out a cute, surprised yelp, scrambling to remove Cen Xiangyun’s mischievous hands.
But Lu Manqing didn’t hold back, a sly smile on her face. Her nimble fingers reached Eve’s armpits, making teasing sounds as she relentlessly probed Eve’s weakest points.
A chaotic commotion ensued, interspersed with the girls’ laughter. After a while, the apartment finally returned to peace.
Luo Ling still sat in her original spot, while Elsa went to make some warm tea for her rambunctious sisters.
Eve, on the floor, was practically disheveled, with quite a bit of exposed skin, still bearing traces of frost. Her indignant face was flushed and hot, and while panting, she put Cen Xiangyun in a ground cross-face hold.
Of course, Lu Manqing wasn’t in much better shape. Before putting Cen Xiangyun in the hold, Eve had already put Lu Manqing in a rear-naked choke for quite a while, and she was still coughing violently.
Living up to her moniker of Iron Fist, Eve’s fighting skills were indeed strong. She wasn’t just proficient in boxing; her ground game was equally impressive.
Looking at her teammates, Luo Ling couldn’t help but smile. But after a slight hesitation, she spoke again, “I haven’t even said why I wanted to refuse the commission.”
“Is that important?” Cen Xiangyun replied while struggling against Eve’s hold. “If you don’t want to go, then don’t go. The reason doesn’t matter. What matters is that you don’t want to go.”
“Don’t forget, we’re… a team…”
Eve tightened her hold on Cen Xiangyun, attempting to drag Lu Manqing back into the fray.
Fortunately, Lu Manqing was quite sensible and stayed far away after escaping the chokehold.
Even without using her Judgment Path abilities, Eve’s physical prowess and close-combat skills far surpassed those of Cen Xiangyun (Elemental) and Lu Manqing (Myriad).
“……”
After a moment of silence, Luo Ling smiled and said,
“Right.”
Although they didn’t know much, they knew one word: “trust.”
Trusting close teammates.
Even if Luo Ling didn’t explain the specific reason, it was still the same.
So…
“This feeling… seems quite nice.”
Luo Ling stood up and walked towards the girls wrestling on the floor.
“Hot tea is here, sisters, come… Ahhh!”
Elsa, carrying a large pot of hot tea, entered the living room and was instantly startled, nearly dropping the pot.
Luo Ling had forcefully locked Eve’s arms from behind. Even with her superior ground game, Eve couldn’t do anything in this situation.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Cen Xiangyun and Lu Manqing began to take liberties with Eve, and an even more chaotic scene unfolded, frightening young Elsa.
“You… hahahaha… bastards… hahahahaha…”
“Bas… hahaha… tards!”
………
The next morning.
As the first light of dawn touched the horizon, the clock on the wall pointed precisely at six o’clock.
Elsa, now firmly rooted in Luo Ling’s bed, sleepily stretched but didn’t feel the familiar soft body beside her.
She instantly woke up, groping around before finally spotting a figure sitting at the desk nearby from the corner of her eye.
“Oh, Miss Luo Ling, really, why are you sleeping out here again…”
Elsa mumbled, then rustled the covers.
“I didn’t sleep out here.”
As if startled by the sound Elsa made, Luo Ling in the chair turned around, calmly looking at the surprised Elsa.
“Ah, is that so? But Miss Luo Ling, you’re up so early today? Even if you’re going out, there’s no need to get up this early… The other sisters are definitely still asleep!”
“I didn’t sleep.”
Luo Ling turned her gaze back to the clock artifact on the desk, seemingly lost in thought.
After last night’s commotion, the team had discussed that since they were planning to skip work, they couldn’t stay in the apartment.
At Eve’s suggestion, they decided to go out for a rare day of fun.
Come to think of it, since arriving in Victoria from the Boundary where Jiangcheng County was located, they hadn’t properly explored this world-famous city.
Compared to the later Sunset Empire, Victoria in this era truly deserved to be called the light of human civilization. Even with its ignorance and shortcomings, it was far ahead of its contemporaries.
However, due to the Company’s strict attendance and evaluation system, coupled with the unfortunate timing of the busiest Incubation Barrier incident period, the Twintails team hadn’t rested in a long time.
Such a rare opportunity likely wouldn’t come again for a long time—because missing work once was quite detrimental, requiring a long time to make up for the lost year-end bonus.
“Oh my, Miss Luo Ling is like a little kid, so excited about going out that she didn’t sleep all night.”
Elsa got out of bed and walked up to Luo Ling, seriously scrutinizing her face. Only after seeing no trace of fatigue did she relax.
Awakened Ones had different physiques. Some could stay up for several days without issue, while others had to strictly adhere to their biological clocks.
Elsa clearly belonged to the latter category, while Miss Luo Ling seemed to be the former.
“I feel like you’ve become like a mother hen recently, Elsa,” Luo Ling said, finding Elsa’s serious little face amusing, and pinched it.
“Mmm, no I haven’t! I’m still very young!” Elsa pouted. “And it’s all Miss Luo Ling’s fault for being so clumsy, not even able to take care of herself.”
“I am not.”
“You are!” Elsa said, hands on her hips.
However, what Elsa didn’t say was that she could vaguely sense that Miss Luo Ling seemed to enjoy being taken care of, so she was secretly trying her best, even at her young age, to become an adult who could take care of Miss Luo Ling.
Luo Ling didn’t argue, only increasing the pressure of her fingers pinching Elsa’s face slightly.
Just a little bit.
As the rest of the team woke up one after another and had Elsa’s breakfast as usual, they began preparing their plans for the day.
Eve enthusiastically planned the sights and destinations, even choosing a few restaurants—this time, she specifically chose restaurants run by the neighboring Gauls. As a local, she was well aware of the locals’ culinary skills, as even her family’s chef was from Gaul.
Cen Xiangyun, on the other hand, set her sights on Luo Ling. She had wanted to put makeup on Luo Ling for a long time, but hadn’t found a good opportunity until today.
Luo Ling stared intently at herself in the mirror, memorizing Cen Xiangyun’s techniques step by step. After saving this memory, she could replicate it herself later.
Lu Manqing was fiddling with her camera. She loved taking pictures, to the point of taking group photos even during commissions. She called these “closing shots.”
“Bingo! Done!”
Cen Xiangyun clapped off the remaining makeup powder from her hands, proudly patting Luo Ling’s shoulder as if presenting her masterpiece.
“Did I recognize the wrong person? Is this really… Luo Ling?” Eve feigned an exaggerated expression, her face full of disbelief. “Amazing, Xiangyun, she looks completely different from usual.”
Lu Manqing nodded in agreement, sighing, “It’s like she’s got a different head… Oh wait, not just a different head, a different person altogether.”
“It’s mainly because of her good foundation,” Cen Xiangyun said with a reserved smile, but the pride in her eyes couldn’t be concealed.
“Nonsense, Miss Luo Ling has always been beautiful!” Elsa protested. Cen Xiangyun had only let down Miss Luo Ling’s usually gloomy hairstyle; nothing else had changed, right?
“It feels… not as good as when Aunt Fiona did it,” Luo Ling said, looking at herself in the mirror and touching her chin.
In terms of makeup skills, Aunt Fiona was still superior, although she had given her Linna’s makeup.
However, Cen Xiangyun had deliberately used foundation to cover the faint scales on her temples and used colored contacts to conceal her dark gold eyes.
These unusual features had previously been hidden by Luo Ling’s hair, which was why she had seemed particularly gloomy, even being described by Lu Manqing as a “wraith-like girl.”
Now, Luo Ling finally looked like a normal adolescent girl, without the eerie and gloomy aura.
Then, Lu Manqing produced several small yellow hats from somewhere, wanting everyone in the team to wear them. It was only after Cen Xiangyun’s desperate resistance that they avoided transforming from a group of shopping buddies into elementary school students on a field trip.
By the time they were ready, the sun was already high in the sky. When the team stepped out of the apartment, the direct sunlight made their shadows almost imperceptible.
“First stop, Gaulish cuisine!”
Eve said, wiping a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth as she consulted her travel guide.
She hadn’t had a decent meal in a long time. The chefs at Wellington Manor had all gone out on commissions, and the replacements hired were locals who made food unfit for even dogs.
However…
Just as they had taken a few steps from the apartment, the originally bright sky suddenly darkened, quickly becoming as dim as night.
“Ah, is it going to rain? The forecast clearly said it would be clear skies!” Cen Xiangyun frowned slightly. “That damn forecaster, Bert, probably slacked off and didn’t use his abilities to check again.”
“No, this doesn’t look like rain.”
Lu Manqing pointed her camera at the sky, taking several pictures before examining them.
At the same time, Luo Ling also noticed the anomaly in the sky, saying gravely,
“There are… no clouds.”
Not only were there no dark clouds, there weren’t any clouds at all.
As if splashed with thick ink, the entire sky was stained with darkness, even the sun was no exception, slowly being swallowed by the eerie gloom.
“What’s going on?”
Eve said, her face panicked. For some reason, she felt a deep unease, a sense of being exposed to some unknown, terrifying danger.
“It’s… an Incubation Barrier.”
Elsa, with her most sensitive perception, directly confirmed the answer everyone had already suspected.
The reason Elsa had always fainted in Incubation Barriers before was her overly sensitive perception. After this period of training, she had overcome this, even able to detect Incubation Barriers earlier than Luo Ling.
“…I didn’t expect it to come so quickly,” Luo Ling sighed softly.
At that moment, a sword glint flashed from the shadows, striking at the team with lightning speed.
But… the target wasn’t Luo Ling.
A sword tip burst from Eve’s chest, twisting and churning, tearing her heart apart.
Half of a blood-stained travel guide fluttered to the ground, followed by a gush of blood and a thud.
Eve slowly collapsed in a pool of blood.
A beautiful, vivid flower of blood bloomed on her chest, like a thorny red rose.
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