Chapter 342: Death Sahara (24)

Centaur Katie laughed quietly, a note of admiration in her voice.

“Captain, the wheelchair you brought really came in handy!”

Who had An Xuefeng borrowed the wheelchair for? It certainly couldn’t be for himself. David and Katie both ran wild with speculation, but the Stargazer paid them no attention. He looked forward, watching as all the giants of the Red Sand settlement pledged loyalty to the new chieftain through their primitive dance, and then the new chieftain presented her eldest son, her hermaphroditic “daughter,” her symbiotic black insects, and her two short male giants.

At that moment, Lily’s somewhat ethereal voice came from the darkness.

“Captain, I can’t see Blood Wolf Rex and the Blood Baron anymore. They may have left the Red Sand settlement.”

Lily was a spirit medium. With the aid of a special black candle, her eyes could see many strange things, and she had left part of her spirit with Stargazer’s group; though she wasn’t visible herself, her voice could be transmitted. The group that had entered together had already split up, but the Stargazer had kept Lily watching Rex and the others’ movements throughout.

“An’s here, if they don’t leave now, they won’t be able to later.”

David said with a laugh. Lily gave a soft laugh too, then said:

“I saw it, I saw so many things. Red, red sand, the name of this place… perhaps it’s the Red Sand Giant settlement. I also saw—”

“Lily, close your eyes.”

The Stargazer cut her off immediately, his voice sharp. ”

Come back now. At once.”

The words were out but there was no response. David and the others immediately realized something was wrong. David released his little fire dragon to bring Lily back, but when she arrived her condition was very poor. She had what looked like tattooed deep-black liner around her eyes, pale skin, deep-red lips, and peacock-green eyes that gave the impression of seeing through everything.

At this moment, those captivating peacock-green eyes had turned black. Lily was convulsing violently all over, like a seizure; her strength was such that even David barely managed to restrain her, is voice was grave and urgent.

“Captain, Lily has seen something foul.”

The Stargazer said nothing, he reached out and gripped Lily’s jaw, studying her with a furrowed brow. Meanwhile Lily was fighting desperately to curl inward, as though trying to fold herself into a cocoon, but the moment the Stargazer extended his hand Lily suddenly stopped struggling. She went docile, her face full of a sick, entranced expression; from her mouth came a stream of fragmented murmuring that no longer sounded like her usual voice, more like some masculine register, and what it said seemed to be some strange, incomprehensible ancient language.

The Stargazer tilted his head and listened, and then his expression shifted slightly.

He released Lily’s jaw and pressed his hand against her cheek instead. Remarkably, Lily’s convulsions stopped. She slowly closed her eyes and nuzzled against Stargazer’s arm like a small animal, gentle and careful, with a faint delight and hunger that was barely perceptible.

After five minutes like this Lily finally quieted. She looked as though she had absorbed too much stimulation; tears slid down her cheeks and she began to sob softly. The Stargazer pulled his hand away and Katie pulled Lily into her arms with tender concern and gently patted her thin, bony back. David looked somewhat agitated, stopping and starting several times, before finally asking:

“Lily, what did you see?”

“I’m sorry, Captain, I’m sorry.”

Lily’s first instinct was to apologize, then she said hoarsely:

“I, I looked at the giant new chieftain by the platform.”

In an unfamiliar place you needed as much information as possible, and Lily’s eyes were invaluable, especially since the Stargazer had opened the Maya journey; being of the same Latitude 30 Degrees category, he couldn’t use too much of his power here. So, what Lily had done wasn’t wrong; she was a veteran and knew her limits.

The problem was in the “new chieftain”.

“I’m going to pay an old friend a visit.” The Stargazer said.

“David—”

“Captain, I’m coming with you!”

The Stargazer had been about to tell David to stay, but David was unusually insistent this time, and when it finally got to the point of annoying the Stargazer he simply stopped arguing and walked toward the chieftain’s tower on his own. David followed close on his heels, and just before they reached it David suddenly said:

“Captain, when Lily looked at the Puppeteer back then, her reaction was similar.”

The Stargazer said nothing. David murmured to himself:

“And then you made that great prophecy, and after that…”

After that the Stargazer had made a fragment of himself, cutting out the pessimistic, self-destructive part and making it into a principal host. Nobody knew who this fragment had gone to; if the internal fighting hadn’t broken out, even the people inside Metaphysics wouldn’t have known the captain had made a fragment.

“I’m worried…”

The divination from back then, even Vice-Captain David didn’t know the full details of it; he was simply worried. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] If, if the new chieftain really had some connection to the Puppeteer and it caused Stargazer to make another prophecy or fall back into pessimism, then… then Stargazer had no fragment left to cut. David was genuinely worried about the captain’s safety.

“David, is your brain really the size of a goldfish’s? Did you actually forget what I told you?”

Almost at the chieftain’s tower, the silent-all-the-way Stargazer finally spoke, drew a deep breath, and said with labored patience: “Do I really have to say it again? That I was misled, deceived, made that laughable prophecy, and then laughably cut out my own pessimism like an idiot?”

“Captain, you could never be misled!”

But David pushed back seriously, turning it into reassurance:

“Everything still has room to turn around, I believe in you!”

They both believed the Stargazer had made an extraordinarily terrifying prophecy back then, and that his current denial of the prophecy was simply because, after excising the pessimistic part, what remained of him was too optimistic and was denying it at the root level.

“Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right.”

The Stargazer rolled his eyes and stopped arguing with David, heading directly into the chieftain’s tower.

“Wait.”

He stopped David abruptly, then produced two pairs of small round opaque glasses, keeping one pair and handing the other to David.

“Once we’re inside, no opening your eyes, no looking.”

The Stargazer also took out a walking staff, the whole look genuinely resembled a blind person’s.

Red Sand Giant settlement buildings had no doors, only archways; the chieftain’s tower had an archway twenty-five meters tall. If the new chieftain’s height didn’t surpass the old chieftain’s, she could only live in the old chieftain’s former tower, unless she built her own. But if she surpassed hers, the entire Red Sand settlement would build her a new tower.

Of course, the new tower had no shadow yet, and there weren’t enough materials either; the most pressing matter right now was hunting and raiding. The new chieftain had announced there would be a grand hunt the next day, so for now the new chieftain was temporarily making do with the original tower.

Making do was one way to put it, but Wei Xun felt the tower was tall enough to serve as a birdcage for the Phoenix bird, and wide enough for him, his group, and all of Chen Cheng’s tour group to spread out sleeping mats across the floor, though the smell was something else entirely. Baby Corn was sent to clean the room, and Chen Cheng’s group pitched in enthusiastically.

With nothing to do, Wei Xun sat in the wheelchair looking enigmatic, while in reality he was exchanging private messages with An Xuefeng:

‘I sense someone spying on me.’

Just earlier at the ceremony, when he had communicated to the other giants through Xiao Sha that tomorrow’s hunt would be targeting the Star Borer Insect.

‘Perhaps Metaphysics’s Lily, or the Stargazer.’

An Xuefeng said: ‘They like to look at everything.’

Then he added: ‘Bai Xiaosheng used to let them look freely, he only required that the results be shared with him afterward. If the Stargazer’s group comes, you can ask them directly.’

‘It’s not only the looking.’

Wei Xun said thoughtfully: ‘There’s something else I’m feeling.’

Just a moment ago he had felt the bloodsucking blade at his waist tremble slightly, as though responding to some signal, some stirring, and then Wei Xun had felt a subtle craving and hunger. A craving for the butterfly fragment, and a hunger for the Latitude 30 Degrees contamination that came with it. It was as though something had taken up residence in his heart and was beginning to influence his perceptions.

Wei Xun became aware of what his hand was holding, came back to himself, and found that at some point without noticing it he had reached out and taken hold of Yin-Yang Butterfly’s small hand where he stood behind the wheelchair.

“Ahem, you’re not needed here for now. Go keep an eye on the Infected.”

Hm?

Wei Xun sent Yin-Yang Butterfly off, then asked An Xuefeng:

‘The Stargazer opened a Latitude 30 Degrees journey, so he should also have a butterfly fragment, right?’

‘Of course, it’s no secret; it’s in the center of the star chart tattooed on his right hand.’

An Xuefeng assumed he understood what Wei Xun was getting at:

‘The Puppeteer naturally has designs on this butterfly fragment too. The business of ??? being completely obedient to him seems to have something off about it; the Stargazer once said publicly he wanted to snap a certain great Tour Guide’s head off. Though the Puppeteer had already gone in the Sun Gate by then.’

And the West District Butcher Alliance had used this as an opportunity to try to suppress the East Butcher Alliance, nominally going after Metaphysics to make trouble, and had thoroughly burned themselves in the process; the Stargazer had snapped the heads of quite a few of their key figures. In those years the Stargazer’s reputation in the Butcher Alliance had been almost as bad as An Xuefeng’s.

‘Are the Stargazer’s prophecies really that remarkable?’

Wei Xun was curious, but the Phoenix bird shook his head:

‘His abilities are limited here too, he probably can’t see through the Latitude 30 Degrees contamination, but a simple look should be possible.’

He could look at Chen Cheng’s group members, see when and how each of them died; knowing this would give them the initiative in the scene re-enactment going forward.

Just then, Wei Xun noticed some movement at the tower entrance.

******

Zhu Yuande from Chen Cheng’s group was cheerfully heading out to throw away some cleared debris. The big worm clearly looked like it wanted to eat whatever went past it, and had opened its mouth wide as he walked by with the trash, but before coming here Captain Chen had sat down with all of them for a careful talk, stressing how formidable and unpredictable Wei the Boss and his companions were.

Zhu Yuande had taken this firmly to heart and decided using the worm as a trash bin didn’t feel right. He smiled and gave the worm a little bow, then continued walking. Sure, enough the worm didn’t give him any trouble.

‘Yuande, your luck is exceptional, but always remember not to lose your sense of proportion.’

Before entering the Agency, he had been an ordinary, upright businessman, remarkable in nothing but his fortune. His family’s earnest lessons had stayed with Zhu Yuande deeply.

People with extraordinary luck often got a bit carried away, started to feel that good things coming their way was simply how things should be, something that didn’t need to be tended to. But Zhu Yuande’s family was a careful sort; his mother firmly believed a person’s lifetime luck was fixed, spent a little and there was a little less, so when Zhu Yuande’s luck had been running spectacularly all his life, his mother had always carried an inexplicable anxiety.

Zhu Yuande used to think his mother worried too much, but after entering the Agency he had come to see she wasn’t wrong.

His deep blue title was Heaven-Blessed Grandson; the next tier up was the purple Heaven-Blessed Son; and the final orange was Heaven-Blessed, extraordinary fortune. But in a place like the Agency, “good luck” had always represented only one thing: more possibilities for progress, which meant more danger.

These past few days Zhu Yuande hadn’t been sleeping well. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] His heart kept pounding and pounding, a vague exhaustion settling over him. His mind wandered a little as he walked out to throw the rubbish—

Thud.

“Sorry, sorry, excuse me!”

He had walked into an unfamiliar person at the tower entrance and apologized immediately.

What a  strange person. Very tall and very thin, wearing small black round glasses in the middle of the night, leaning on a walking staff. Ah, probably one of Wei the Boss’s acquaintances; disabled, after all.

“Bai the Boss is over there.”

Zhu Yuande helpfully pointed the way.

“The ground is uneven here, mind your step.”

Powerful people probably had no fear of uneven ground, but a word of reminder cost nothing. The other person said nothing; Zhu Yuande gave a good-natured smile and made to go throw the rubbish.

The next moment, that person’s walking staff came to rest against his shoulder.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t go out.”

The Mandarin was impeccably standard, with a tone that was somehow both agreeable and faintly arrogant.

Then the person’s voice sent a chill rippling through Zhu Yuande’s chest.

“Otherwise, you will be dead in one minute.”