Hearing General Grammy's call, the butler immediately pushed the door in, bowed down and made a gesture of invitation, only to see a man, two women and three people walking in from outside the door.

The middle-aged man led by him has gray hair, his wrinkled face is full of vicissitudes, and his clothes are simple and unpretentious, but the red hair is eye-catching.

The two women behind him were dressed very plainly, the middle-aged woman walking in front was about the same age as the man, with an expression of excitement and joy on her face, while the young woman behind her looked a little nervous with a hint of shyness and expectation.

Seeing the appearance of the three of them, Antonio got up from the sofa, looked at them with wide eyes in surprise, and the whole person froze, until the middle-aged man and woman shouted in a trembling voice: "Anton!"

"Daddy, Mommy!" Antonio excitedly ran forward to hug his parents, the family of three hugged each other and cried, the mother fell on her son's strong shoulder and cried and laughed, and the father patted his son's other shoulder, tears were in his eyes.

Seeing this, General Grammy stepped forward to persuade him, and after the three of them had calmed down, he said to Antonio: "Your father and mother came here not long ago with the fleeing crowd, and they wanted to go to the imperial capital to find you, but the distance is too far to continue. ”

As he spoke, the general looked at the young girl sitting next to Antonio's parents, and smiled at Antonio: "Fortunately, this girl is clever and reminds the two soldiers to tell them their identities and ask them to report to me, and I immediately took them home when I learned about them." ”

Antonio looked at the girl gratefully, vaguely feeling that she was a little familiar, but for a moment could not remember who she was, and his mother took her son's hand and said, "Do you remember her? She grew up with you and lived across the street from us." ”

Antonio frowned and looked at the girl, who was a little embarrassed by him, and lowered her head shyly, and suddenly heard Antonio ask, "Are you ...... Catherine?"

When the girl saw that he recognized herself, she couldn't help but blush, nodded, and whispered, "It's me, but you never called me that." ”

"Ah, that's right," Antonio smiled happily, nodded and said, "I used to call you Katyusha when I was a child, and you called me Anton, and we haven't seen each other for many years, and my impression of you is still sixteen or seventeen years old." ”

"Me too. The girl lowered her head and did not dare to look into Antonio's eyes, the knight captain smiled and nodded, suddenly remembered something, and quickly turned back to her parents and introduced: "I almost forgot, this is Miss Tully, she is a high priestess." ”

Tali, who was sitting outside Antonio, had been silently watching the family reunion, and when she heard Antonio introduce herself to her parents, she got up and saluted the two, and the two old men looked at Tali from head to toe, their eyes showed great surprise, and they quickly asked her to sit down.

"After all, I came from the imperial capital, and it is different from our small place," Antonio's mother said to her husband with a look of admiration: "Look at this appearance, this figure, this clothes and jewelry, this temperament, our most beautiful priestess is not as good as a tenth!"

Antonio's father nodded in agreement and turned back to the Grammy General next to him to whisper something, while Catherine, who was sitting on the other side of her mother, secretly observed Tali with an amazed gaze, and there was a hint of envy in her eyes.

"By the way, why aren't Katyusha's parents with you?" Antonio suddenly asked his mother, who looked back at the girl beside her, sighed and said, "Her parents are dead, she is alone, and your father and I have always taken her with us when we see that she can't live alone." ”

"Then our village is ...... now" Antonio glanced at Catherine distressedly after hearing this, and heard his mother reply: "Death is death, there should be no one left, and people are falling along the way we came, it's terrible." ”

"Yes," said my father, with a long sigh, "we thought that we would escape from the village and come to the main city to avoid the threat of death, but we didn't expect that this place would be the same as ours, and I wonder if there is really a safe place now." ”

"By the way, teacher," Hearing his father's words, Antonio suddenly remembered the words of the previous Grammy general, and he asked, "You just said that the person in power in the country now is a man named Ivan, what is his origin?"

"No one knows where he came from, except that he was a magician who stopped an assassin attempting to assassinate the king during one of his travels, and thus was appreciated by the king and stayed with him ever since. General Grammy replied.

"Wizard ......" Antonio looked back at Tali and nodded slightly, "It seems necessary to meet this Mr. Ivan." ”

"It's getting late today, and tomorrow I'll send someone to inquire about Ivan's residence, and then I'll go with you. ”

Antonio agreed to General Grammy's proposal, and the general invited everyone to dinner together in the dining room, during which Antonio's mother repeatedly asked Tali about her family history, and Antonio took the initiative to help Tali hide her past, only saying that she was from Deiz, and the others diverted from the topic and did not give a positive answer.

After the meal, Antonio was chatting with his father and General Grammy in the living room, his mother and Catherine returned to the room on the second floor, and when Tali went up to the second floor alone to return to her room, she passed by Antonio's mother's room and suddenly heard a surprised inquiry from inside: "Don't you like her?"

Tali glanced curiously at the closed door, hesitated for a moment to listen, and heard Antonio's mother's voice come from her: "Katyusha, you don't understand, that young lady does look beautiful, almost like a queen, but that's what I find suspicious. ”

"Is there a problem?" said Catherine's bewildered voice again.

"Silly girl, think about it, when have you ever seen a priestess look like her, and besides, I've never seen a man with blue hair, and her dress alone doesn't look like a ......," the mother seemed to consider her words, and continued, "to put it mildly, it doesn't look like a serious woman. ”

Catherine did not answer, and after a short silence the mother continued: "Think about it, when have you ever seen a priestess wearing a glittering jewel and such a light gauze garment, that if that dress were in the sun, you can see through the human body, right?

"Perhaps, the people of the imperial capital are like this, and they can't be compared to our kind of small places, right?" whispered the country girl.

"I don't believe it, we've been in Mosco City for a while, and we've seen some priestesses, all dressed in gray-black robes, how can anyone dress like her?" ”

"And what do you want?" asked Catherine, confused.

"We have to find a way to keep her away from Anton, I see that Anton is also confused by her, he has been helping the woman lie when he is at the dinner table, he can't even tell where she is, there must be some ghost, we can't let her ruin Anton. Mother said worriedly.

Standing outside the door, Tully felt a pain in her heart when she heard these words, and she couldn't imagine that she had such an impression in Antonio's mother's heart, and the emotion for Antonio buried in her heart suddenly became like a knife piercing her heart at this time.

"Why didn't he tell his family my true identity?" she silently asked herself in her heart, what was he afraid of? After so much time together, she knew that he loved herself, but he did not dare to tell her identity in front of his relatives, so that it caused so much suspicion, which made her feel very painful.

"You have a noble and official identity, and I have a hated and hated identity, so I have to hide myself. ”

In the manor outside Itali, the conversation with Rogge that early morning suddenly came to Tali's mind, and she suddenly understood the feeling that Rogge was talking about, and also understood the sentence from Rog's mouth: "We're the same, aren't we?"

Standing at the door, Tali suddenly heard footsteps close at hand from inside the door, she panicked, wanted to escape but it was too late, only to hear the "click" of the door opening, and Catherine's face poked out from inside.

The girl looked at the empty hallway, turned back to Antonio's mother and said, "No, there is no one outside, you must have misheard." With that, he closed the door.

In Tully's room at the end of the corridor, Tully, who was leaning back to the door, breathed a sigh of relief as her heart beat wildly, and the lamp god floating in front of her looked at her with concern and asked, "Are you alright, my mistress?"

"I'm fine, thank you Lamp God. Tali shook her head with a pretended relief, and the lantern god looked at her uncomfortably, "If you need anything, please call me at any time, and I will do my best." With that, he turned into a stream of blue energy and burrowed into the magic lamp on Tully's waist.

Tali caressed her chest with her hand, her heart was still aching, she felt as if she was about to suffocate, even she couldn't explain why a few casual words from others made her so uncomfortable, she stumbled to the window, pushed open the window and let the cold autumn night wind blow on her face.

"What are you thinking?" she said to herself, looking out the window at the silent night, "didn't you come all the way here to recover the lost artifact and make up for your mistakes?"

Thinking in her heart, her thoughts unconsciously turned to the first acquaintance with Antonio, from the first encounter at the door of the head of the fishing village to today, with him bit by bit haunting her mind, she shook her head desperately, trying to dispel these memories, but they were entangled in her mind and refused to leave.

"The love between mermaids and humans never ends well. ”

The voice suddenly sounded in her head, and Tali shuddered with horror, the words of the nurse who raised her when she was a child reminded her of the tragic experience of the merfolk that she had heard from the mermaid elders, and a sense of panic came over her.

Suddenly, a knock on the door shattered her nightmarish thoughts, causing Tali, who was leaning feebly against the window, to turn back uneasily.