The air in the banquet hall was mixed with the smell of wine and spices, wrapped in the smell of all kinds of food, and the body was hot and sweaty.

The sound of the five-stringed piano tinkled and scattered in the hall, and the musicians sang one song after another of the long falling spirits descending to fight the heroes, but they were faintly indistinguishable in the loud chatter and laughter of the crowd.

Lin Yuqing turned the fork in his hand, and a large piece of roast chicken sprinkled with pepper and salt shone oilily in the bright firelight. But the boy didn't even mean to eat, but pricked up his ears, trying to distinguish the words of the musician from the noisy voice.

As soon as he heard the words of the worship king, who had been recognized by the fallen spirit, and the whole world was echoing, from the other side of the long table, there were suddenly a few crisp sounds of tapping wine glasses—a few bells, which called the attention of everyone at the table.

Count Mesoko coughed, waved his hand slowly in his seat, and several attendants behind him carried several large barrels of mulled wine mixed with honey, refilled them for the crowd, and poured him another glass.

"You obey the will of God, you are the sword and war horse of the Western God in the world, and I and my people are deeply honored to come to Jiyingling this time to quell the rebellion of the fallen spirits. Count Mesoko's voice was low, and he reluctantly raised his glass, and said slowly, word by word.

This time, he forced his sick body to appear at the dinner party, and even Roman Dan was taken aback.

The old earl's voice sounded weak because of his serious illness, but the knight lords at the table in the prime of life quickly quieted down—the musician stopped singing, and only the sound of the ukulele echoed softly.

Lin Yuqing lowered his head and stared at the roasted onion soaked in the gravy in front of him, forcing himself not to make a sound.

Ida sat beside him, and as the tablecloth flickered, she reached out a hand from under the table and patted him lightly on the knee.

Despite the warmth of the banquet hall, Count Mesoko wore a dark red shawl over his shoulders. His pale face was flushed with an unnatural flush from the heat of the hall, and although he was thin, there was still a vague sense of fortitude in his eyebrows, but his expression seemed to be a little sluggish because of his lack of energy.

"I'm not physically exhausted, and I'm afraid I'm about to be summoned by the gods of the West. This is my eldest daughter, Mia, and her succession ceremony is due before the winter comes. In the future, she and her husband Romantan will be the masters of this land. ”

Count Mesoko spoke every word slowly, and beside him, a young girl beside him, who was born somewhat like Ada, but whose hair was not pale yellow, but who was as bright as pure gold, immediately called out "Father." Romandan sat on the other side, with a serious face and did not say a word.

"When you inherit the Fallen Spirit, the responsibility of the Mesoko clan for thousands of years will be on your shoulders. "It can be seen that the old earl is struggling to speak. His gaze slowly turned from the noble knights on the table, as if to mean something: "My expectation for you is to be as brave and loyal as all of you here, and to abide by the seven commandments. ”

The Seven Commandments?

Lin Yuqing immediately glanced at Ida, full of doubts, but couldn't ask. At this time, he was wearing a gorgeous robe that was not an alliance and Tongyuan was not Tongyuan, and he was known as the "son of the city guard of Heyucheng" in the east; if he even asked about this thing that everyone seemed to know, it would inevitably make people suspicious.

At this time, all the knight lords around him had already stood up one by one, and raised their glasses to Count Mesoko, but a middle-aged man with a bloated and fat figure sitting on the right side of the old count did not move. After everyone had taken their seats, he wiped his sparse beard with a handkerchief and smiled at Mia: "His Majesty the Pope also hopes that Madame will serve the gods more devoutly in the future." ”

As soon as he said this, the atmosphere on the long table, which had just been warm, suddenly fell silent again, and everyone's eyes looked at Mia with different expressions.

Mia blinked her blue eyes and glanced at her husband quickly, and when he nodded, she lowered her head a little helplessly and whispered, "God bless, you must introspect." ”

"Do you think this fat man is annoying?" Ida leaned closer and whispered in Lin Yuqing's ear, spitting the smell of hot cider between her lips and teeth: "Cheng Ri is so yin and yang, as if he thinks that we are not loyal to the Pope, and stares at us more tightly than a dog stares at bones." ”

"Why?"

Romandan said that it was because his father had always paid more taxes to His Majesty the Emperor than to the Holy See. Taking advantage of the sound of conversation on the table again, Ada explained softly, "But this is how it should be!"

Lin Yuqing didn't understand these things, but he didn't have a good impression of the Holy See at all, and immediately agreed: "Do you have to collect more taxes to serve the gods?"

"That's it!" Ida tapped the edge of the table and shrank back.

The servants shuttled from crowd to many, adding a basket of floppy "Pender Main" to the knight lords. Count Mesoko covered his mouth with a handkerchief, coughed heavily, and shook his shoulders like dead leaves in the autumn wind, but when he stopped, he ignored the soft inquiry of his eldest daughter, and turned to the fat overseer, "Thanks to Lord Shalurt, the rebellion of the fallen spirits is almost extinct in Jiyingling and the surrounding lands. His Holiness summoned the Honourable Lords here, but there was no use for it. But even if you're only thinking about it for a few days, I'm ......"

"The Earl is wrong. The Overseer grabbed a piece of white bread and tore it in half, picking the almonds and walnuts in the middle, and said as he ate, "Lord Shalurt is injured precisely because of the tricky **** here. The fact that an entire village has escaped from his command does not mean that you need the help of the Holy See? ”

When Lin Yuqing heard half of this, he was already excited, pretending to taste cheese and fruit and lowered his head, wanting to listen carefully to the next conversation.

But for a long time after the Overseer said this, Count Mesoko remained silent - he just lifted his eyelids and exchanged a heavy look with Romandan.

The fat overseer looked like a leather ball resting on a cylinder, and even his outstretched fingers were fat and short, embedded in the vortex of flesh. He smiled at the old earl, pointed to a five-year-old attendant behind him, and continued, "You don't have to worry that we will let the rebels slip through the net. Do you see this guard of mine? To tell you the truth, this is a private soldier from my territory. I brought them this time to carry out the will of the Pope once and for all. They have been fighting bandits and bandits all year round, and they are very good at searching and tracking, and setting off with the knights is even more effective with half the effort. Of course, all this still depends on the cooperation of the Mesoko family. ”

Lin Yuqing turned his head slightly and glanced at the attendant. The man had a beard and hair, and was dressed in leather clothes and trousers, and he was dressed somewhat like Rod.

Count Mesoko only nodded, and did not know what to say, and his voice was weaker than before, and after a while, as if at last he had lost his spirits, and his eyelids were half-closed and half-opened.

When Romandan saw this, he whispered a word to the Overseer, confessed his sins to the people, and immediately helped the old earl down himself. Mia and Ida quickly stood up and sent their father out of the banquet hall together—Ada let out a soft sigh as she watched Count Mesoko be helped into an easy carriage.

"You look like a lady tonight," Mia looked back at her, and raised her hand to pin a lock of Ada's light yellow hair behind her ear, "Father didn't say it, but he must be happy in his heart." ”?

Ada replied in a snort, and as she walked back with her sister and brother-in-law, she asked, "What did father mean just now, and since he didn't want the fat man and the knights to stay here, why didn't he just drive them away?"

Mia was stunned when she heard this, and blinked her long butterfly-like eyelashes, "When did Father say that he didn't want Lord Dakla to stay here?"

"Mia," just as Ida was about to argue with her sister, Romandan, who was walking aside, spoke up. His face had always been serious, but tonight it looked a little darker than ever: "The Earl does have his worries. ”

Confused, Mia raised her blue eyes and tilted her head to look at her husband. Her long, soft blonde hair slid down her shoulders and the sparkle of diamonds on her earrings, and she looked so innocent that she didn't look like a married lady - she was only four years older than Ada.

"In Jiyingling and the surrounding territories, there are places where there may be falling spirits, and the trial team has already been there. Romandan slowed down, as if intending to explain to his wife the dark tide under the table before reaching the table. "Except for those who escaped from the Knight Captain Shalurt, the rest of the team of the inquisition team has hardly encountered any resistance, and this wave of falling spirits **** can be said to be over. Now, just to hunt down the civilians of that village, the Holy See has summoned seven knight lords to Jiyingling......"

He paused as if to soften the next sentence.

"Lord Earl is concerned that this is a move to be deployed in advance to prevent a possible resistance from us. ”

"Possible resistance?" Mia was startled, her petal-like red lips trembling slightly, "Rebellion against what?"

Ida clenched her fists tightly and followed the two of them silently, listening quietly.

"All in all," Romandan sighed, seeing that he was not far from the table, and hurriedly ended the topic in a low voice, "You don't have much contact with the Overseers of Dakra. ”

Ida wanted to stop him and ask him if he knew about the Holy See Inquisition's massacre of the village outside, but Romandan had already walked back.

When she returned to her seat, Ada was a little stunned, staring at her white joints in a daze. As a nobleman, she should never have her elbows on the table during her meal, and yet at this time, even her sister Mia did not correct her.

At this time, a knight lord named Haiber at the table was talking about the battle between him and another nobleman last year - the other ten knight captains directly under the knight order, although none of them came this time, but all the knight lords summoned by the Holy See were all fallen emissaries without exception.

The one who dared to quarrel with the Fallen Spirits was of course also a Fallen Spirit, and although in such private fights between nobles was often not fought for their lives, it did not prevent Hyper from describing the battle that was said to have lasted "six whole days"—and in the end, of course, he was victorious.

Ida listened for a while, and when she couldn't help but start thinking about it, thinking that if Haibo started a war with her sister, she didn't know who would win, only to hear someone next to her whisper to her.

As soon as she turned around, she met Lin Yuqing's dark eyes.

"I ask you, Fat Overseer, do you know what his fallen spirit is?" he asked softly, lowering his voice amid the roaring laughter of the knight lords.

"He didn't," Ida picked up a buttered piece of roast meat with the tip of her knife and held it in her hand to cover her lips, "I heard that the Fallen Spirit Envoy in his family is his brother." ”

"Oh, look at him so arrogant, I thought there must be a fallen spirit. The boy's eyes lit up.

"If I were a fallen spirit from his family, I wouldn't want to choose this fat, greasy, nasty-looking body to live in. ”

Lin Yuqing smiled nervously, and then lowered his voice even softer: "That's great." I have an idea...... It landed on this fat man's body. ”

Ida was stunned.

Their whispers at the dinner table fortunately did not attract anyone's attention. It was a hot time for the three rounds of drinking, and Romandan and the Overseer Dakra sat at one end of the long table, seemingly chatting about current events in the Alliance, while the knight lords on the other side were laughing, singing, and munching—no one would listen to what the two children had to say.

The dinner went on for a long time. When the night was getting dark, and the wine and food were cold, the people who had finished the feast were led out of the banquet hall by the maids one by one, and returned to their place of stay. Soon, as if an invisible dark wind blew out the lights in the windows, the Mesoko estate fell silent in a short time, enveloped in a thick night.

The night passed smoothly, and the dim moonlight, drenched in jet blue, struggled out of the clouds and illuminated the high and low stone brick walls of Chongsenburg.

From the dimness cast by the stone wall, two deeper black shadows emerged, squirming, walking around the stone corridor, clinging to the root of the wall, and walking to the side buildings in the courtyard one after the other.

After walking for a while, I saw that the side building was already in sight, and the short shadow following behind suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" The figure, a head taller in front of him, also stopped, shrunk behind half of the corner masonry pillars, and asked, "Why don't you go?"

"I ...... I was a little scared. The second shadow lifted her hand and lifted the heavy black cloak from her head, revealing Ada's small face. Her pale pink lips almost melted white with her complexion, except for her eyes, which gleamed in the night and whiteness. "We're not going to be identified, are we?"

"Don't make a sound, just look at him, and I'll ask him—I haven't spoken to him, and he promises not to recognize him. Lin Yuqing said with a little comfort.

Ida bit her lip and lowered her eyes, only two faint eyebrows on one face, as if there was still some color.

"What else are you worried about?"

It took a moment for Ada to speak. She just looked at the tiles and said softly, "I'm not worried about tonight's actions. My sister, you saw it too...... The biggest argument she has ever had with people in her life is arguing with me. Although Romandan is reliable, his family's fallen spirit has not been passed on to him...... If, if the Holy See really wants to ......"

She didn't finish her sentence, and gradually faded away.

Lin Yuqing was also silent for a moment. It is only when changes come that people realize their uselessness - whether they are nobles or commoners, the haste in their hearts at this time is the same.

"Don't worry, no matter what they're going to do, we'll find out tonight. After thinking about it, he leaned close to Ada's ear and whispered, "When we come back, I will tell you a big secret, and you will be happy to hear it." ”

The face hidden in the shadows, the white receded slightly, and a lively expression floated. Ada, who was so young, nodded, and put her cloak back on. The two children, wrapped in a black robe, could not even see their faces and figures, and they took advantage of the darkness of the moon to creep under the door of the side building, and when they pushed it, they found that the door had been locked from the inside.

Fortunately, this is Shigemonburg.

The roofs, eaves, and corridors in the castle are spread out in a row, and from a distance it looks like a brick mountain. Lin Yuqing had always been the best at climbing up and down, and he turned and climbed up the roof of a stone corridor along the pillars, and stepped on the edge of it to touch a protruding windowsill on the side wall.

I glanced in along the windowsill, but I couldn't see anything in the dark. It was now deep in the night, and the people in it were probably asleep, and the boy made up his mind to cling to the ledge of the ledge, and to step on the stone wall—in the darkness he had not stepped on any of them, and almost caused Ada, who was looking up at him, to let out a cry of exclamation—but at last he had climbed in.

However, as soon as Lin Yuqing landed, he immediately secretly screamed "Oops".

Because he didn't fall on the "ground", but on a bed—when he felt himself stepping on something round, he rolled uncontrollably under his feet and fell to the ground, and at the same time, a man woke up from his dream with a scream, and cried out in exclamation, "Who?"

Downstairs, Ida shrank her head in fright, and at the same time, Lin Yuqing also hurriedly twisted her body and threw herself under the bed. The big man was in pain, and he rolled out of bed, only to see two big feet fall to the ground, stood up and stopped for three or four seconds, and then turned around a few times, probably looking left and right.

The room is narrow and the furniture is scarce, so I can see it at a glance, and naturally there is no human figure in sight. The feet seemed to be stunned for a moment, one foot went to bed again, and the other was still on the ground, apparently kneeling on the bed and looking out of the window.

Lin Yuqing didn't know if Ida had dodged it, but he knew that the next place this guy was going to look at was under the bed. The boy quickly landed on his knees and elbows, and stepped back little by little, silently, staring at the open space beside the bed as he retreated.

The big man threw himself into the air several times in a row, and snorted in disbelief, and both feet fell to the ground. Next, there were really more hands on the floor, and a pair of knees that had sunk down with great difficulty—when he knelt on the ground and put his face and arms under the bed, Lin Yuqing had already quietly stood up from the back of the bed, walked behind him on tiptoe, gently opened the door, and slipped out through the crack in the door.

In the distance, he heard the man behind him scolding, "Haunted?"

Even though the palpitations were still gone, the boy couldn't help but sneer lowly.

Just come in, and you're good to go.

After waiting in the corridor for a while, Lin Yuqing heard that the man seemed to be asleep again, so he went downstairs and opened the door from the inside. Ida soon flashed out of the shadows, and when the two met, they were both happy and afraid. She led the way, and the two children crept up the stairs to the top floor, which was only three stories high, and the downstairs were inhabited by soldiers, and the main owner was in the innermost part of the top floor, in one of the largest guest rooms.

To their slight relief, Dakra did not put guards outside the house.

Slowly opening a crack in the door, Lin Yuqing stopped his hand and listened for a while.

The darkness was still deep, and through the narrow crack in the door, there was a rush of human breathing and a slight snoring. Raising his eyes and looking in, layers of blurry shadows stood silently in the darkness. After waiting for a long time, seeing that there was nothing unusual, Lin Yuqing pushed the door wider a little bit and got in first.

He tightened the cloak on his head, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and quietly reached into his arms and pulled out the knife. This knife brought out of the house is the biggest reliance of the two of them tonight. He couldn't call out Nagarjuna, not only because it was still weak—but also because he was afraid that if it came out, it would be discovered by a dozen fallen spirits sleeping in Mesoko Manor.

In the faint moonlight through the curtains, everything seemed to be a vague shadow. Overseer Dakra's fat figure cut a dark black arc in the night, rising and falling with the sound of heavy breathing.

The two gently touched the side of the bed, Lin Yuqing squatted down as little as possible without making any sound, then turned his head and asked in a breathless voice, "Did I do it?"

Ida didn't answer him.

She looked up, a small face in the faint light that looked snow-white. She stared blankly at Lin Yuqing's back, and a little fear floated on her face—

Lin Yuqing's hair exploded all over his body, and he was about to turn back, only to feel that his hand holding the knife was suddenly clasped by someone.

Overseer Dakra's snoring stopped.