The world in front of me was blurry, like frosted glass through the fog.

"Uh, it hurts. Al heard his own slurred voice, and he tried to move his arm, only slightly elevated, and the pain almost made him spasm all over his body. It took him a while to get used to it, and he slowly regained control of his body.

"Where? am I still alive?" Al lay on a white bed, the sun shining through the white curtains, and he could feel the salty sea breeze kissing his cheeks, but it wasn't a pleasant moment.

Al realized that he was covered in bandages almost all of his body except for his face, wrapping him in a mummy, and that his body was filled with various clear hoses, injecting unknown fluids into his body.

"Are you awake?" came an unfamiliar female voice, followed by the sound of clattering high heels.

"Who are you?" Al tilted his head to see an unfamiliar female face, and said slightly, "Where am I?"

"I'm Portis, a doctor in the Medical Department of the Imperial Military Academy, and this is the ward of the school hospital, and you've been in a coma for a day. The female doctor opened Al's eyelids and looked at his pupils, noting them in the medical book.

"Why am I here? What happened to the two elves?"

"Are you still thinking about them?" the female doctor looked at Al with interest, "They've been bought." ”

"What did you say, who bought you?" Al struggled to sit up.

"Don't get excited, your body hasn't fully recovered yet!" the female doctor pressed Al to the bed, "You don't have to worry about their safety, Miss Elaine bought them away, and she also sent you to the school hospital." What you're going to do now is heal in peace, you know?"

"Elaine? I don't know any Elaine. ”

"Achilles, the sergeant major of the Lion Legion, has heard of it, right? Dr. Portis examined Al's medical device, "You're good enough, outlander, aren't you? You even dared to break into the Imperial Arena, and wounded Captain Enzo, tsk, newborn calves aren't afraid of tigers." ”

"Oh no!" Al exclaimed, suddenly remembering something important that he hadn't done.

The thief who stole the box was not caught! There was also a letter from Uncle Paul telling him to keep it safe.

"Doctor, I can't lie here anymore!" Al sat up in pain, "I have important things to do!"

"I told you no, don't you know how weak you are?" the doctor flatly refused, "you have anything important to tell me, but you can't go out without permission." Do you know how many pairs of eyes are staring at you outside the Academy?If it weren't for Miss Elaine, do you think you would have left the arena alive?!

Despite Al's anxiety, as the doctor said, his legs were still a little numb, and he couldn't even walk normally, let alone look for thieves.

"Oh, by the way, this box is yours, isn't it?" the doctor pulled out a wooden suitcase from under Al's bed, "You left him in the audience yesterday?" ”

"What?" said Al, a little incredulous, "Auntie, do you know who sent it?"

"Listening to the people in the security department, they only saw a man in a gray trench coat leaving in a hurry, it was still very early, and they only saw the back of the man under the street lamp. As he spoke, the doctor put the suitcase on the side of the bed, "Let's see if there's anything missing." ”

Al's arms could barely move, and he eagerly opened the box.

"Call me anytime you feel like you're feeling something, my office is next door. The female doctor lifted her glasses, "I still have to see other patients, you just stay here honestly, don't go out and cause trouble, do you hear?"

The tidy room was quiet again, and only the sound of doctors and patients walking outside the door could be heard.

"Strange, who could it be?" said Al, struggling to pull his suitcase in front of him. A beige envelope fell out, the fire paint was still intact, there was no sign of opening, and the stone hanging in El's heart seemed to fall to the ground at once.

I flipped through the clothes, and the silver coins given by the coachman's uncle were there, and the strange thief, not only did he not take the money and return it to the original owner, but Al was completely confused.

Suddenly, a small note in the compartment of the suitcase sparked Al's idea, and appeared in the box out of thin air, apparently someone had put it in on purpose.

A distorted line came into view, "Don't trust anyone easily." ”

What does that mean? Is the person who wrote the note reminding me? And who would have written it? Whoever wrote it, first of all, he must have been kind enough to send the box back, and secondly, the man must have known something, but for some reason he couldn't say it explicitly.

There was a sharp pain in the head, and after a day of coma, the brain was a little unresponsive. Al rubbed his temples and put the letter away along with the note.

"Don't think about it yet. Al said to himself, "It's like a dream, I survived." ”

Al's gaze shifted to his left arm, where the arm ring was safely worn, he was a little surprised, but then relieved, someone must have realized that his body was unusual, and it was strange that no one noticed that he had made such a big movement.

Fortunately, I thought about the sealed arm like a time bomb all the time, and I don't know when it will explode. The echoing sickly sound, as long as he thought about it, sent a chill to Al's neck. In just a few days, he had felt the tyrannical impermanence from his arm twice, and each time it became more and more turbulent. The blood-red scene, the uncontrolled body, the sadness and despair of the emotion, Al's heart palpitated.

After yesterday's incident, I am afraid that my terrifying appearance has spread all over Xinlan, can this metropolis still tolerate me?" Sure enough, it's really a sad thing to be different from the masses, no matter how hard you try to make things better, the result will always go in a bad direction uncontrollably, and people will still reject you in the end.

Al smiled wryly, remembering the frightened faces in the audience, the shouts of "monster" and "stay away from him". Maybe I was wrong, I don't know how many people wanted Enzo to kill him. In the eyes of the audience, who is the hero of justice, and who is the monster who does all kinds of evil?

Al leaned back on the pillow and tried not to think about the pessimistic things, a pot of hyacinths on the windowsill had grown pink flower bones, and the cedar trees outside the window had begun to glow green, and his eyes looked beyond the branches to the dizzying steel forest beneath the sky.

In a black room at the Imperial Military Academy, a man behind a mahogany desk is looking at the oil painting on the wall with his hands behind his back, which is a medieval oil painting with a sense of age, depicting the scene of a dragon slaying warrior fighting a dragon in ancient times. The two weak lamps on the table shimmered dimly, smearing his confused shadows on the mottled walls.

Outside the door, a figure lingered in the wooden hanging hallway for a long time, and finally dusted off the ash of his cigar and pushed the door in.

"How's it going?" asked the man, still admiring the painting to himself.

"Yoda, you'd better be polite when talking to me" The person who came let out a puff of smoke, "I can let you come to the academy, I've already given you a lot of face, this is Xinlan, not Green Valley!"

"Hehe, after so many years, I still can't put down the official frame, deputy military elder. Oh, no, it's the former deputy commander. The man touched the soldier who was trampled to death by the dragon on the painting, and sneered, "It's a pity that the Green Valley Defense War is not your territory, figure out your identity, you are just a dog now, a dog who guards the door for those nobles." ”

"Yoda, you..."

"Why? want to disobey Lord Tulum's orders? I don't mind helping you get it through. ”

The cigar fell to the floor, splashing a pile of sparks, and a ravine-crisscrossed face came out of the shadows, with a long sigh and a dim look in his eyes, as if he had aged a few years.

"I asked Raven to do what you wanted, but it seems that something went wrong halfway. The old man said to the short figure, "The person who delivered it lost it in the commotion. ”

"Lost?!" Yoda's finger snapped through the painting, "As far as I know, ravens wouldn't make such a lowly mistake, wouldn't they," his voice a little cold, "you." ”

"Yoda, don't go too far! You doubt me? At least I used to be a soldier! I don't bother to do lying!" the old man was a little excited.

"Hahaha, you still know that you were once a soldier? A soldier who murdered a friend? Even I want to give you a round of applause. ”

The old man's face suddenly tensed, and his face began to turn pale.

"I only accepted the orders of the royal family..."

"Enough, I'm not interested in those people who claim to be superior, and I'm not interested in anything about you. Yoda said lightly, "Things haven't been done, and you know your fate best." Master Tulum, you don't need me to repeat it a second time, do you?"

The old man's tense body suddenly softened, but fortunately he held on to the seat in hand so that he did not fall, but he was still a little shaky. Yoda's words left him in the dark, and his face turned like ashes.

"But I can be kind enough to help you. Yoda turned and sat down, tapping her fingers on the armrest, "I heard the academy is recruiting new people?"

"Yes, you're recruiting new ones!, I can accommodate your requests!" the old man stared at Yoda in his chair.

"Hey, hey—" a dangerous smile rose at the corner of his mouth.

Outside the door, thick clouds obscured the stars and moon, and a night owl on the old tree suddenly took off and flew in the direction of the administrative building in the academy.