When the tower guard roared angrily, Yaleriga did not follow to find out. She thought about what kind of prosthetic limbs she could buy, and unconsciously stroked the horns on her head with her hands. After a while, she noticed that Jing Huang was looking at her, so she stopped groping and asked his intentions with her eyes.
"No hands." Jing Huang said.
It is not difficult to understand what he means. Yaleriga also saw him dragging a string of prisoners who were much taller than him with one hand and throwing them far away from the center of the room into the corner. Sometimes he encounters some particularly delicate movements, and that wonderful white rope can always help him. Even though he was missing an arm, it did not cause any inconvenience to his life. It was as natural as he was born this way.
Yaleriga smiled slightly at him. She knew what Jing Huang was thinking. Of course, she had a reason to repay him, because together they escaped from that nightmare prison. But she has also repaid him fully, repairing and modifying the spacecraft for him, and teaching him all the knowledge he needs. Recently, when she occasionally checked the news about the alliance or the customs of some distant places, Jing Huang would speed up his reading, as if he thought that the two of them were about to separate. But Yaleriga didn't think so. She hadn't thought about it yet, she just wanted to do it. This was a very novel feeling. She had never spent such a long time with someone before, but not in a gospel way. She found herself wishing that Jing Huang could be whole, in every sense of the word.
"You should try their technology." She said to Jing Huang, "Baita has done a lot of research on conventions. They can make limbs that you can use too."
Jing Huang's eyes were a little suspicious. The roar of the tower guard below seemed to intensify this distrust.
"You filthy bloodline fanatics!" the tower guard roared still angrily, "give birth as hard as you can, give birth as hard as you can! Then throw these unlucky little devils all over the world! Do you think you are Extremely smart? I curse you to give birth to your own god of death!"
No voice responded to his curse, which he didn't know whether it was effective or not. The tower guard refused to give up and continued to yell at the streets of Gate City filled with barriers and magic circles. Even Yaleriga rarely sees an official mage looking so angry. She was not surprised that the Tongshi School, which advocated the concept of perfect harmony, would be hostile to bloodline obsessives, especially after the Bronze Blood School's massive crossbreeding and the Single Spiritual War. However, that is one thing entirely different from randomly abandoning a child in front of a mage tower. Given that the public's understanding of White Tower mages is filled with countless absurd misunderstandings, she doesn't think anyone can cultivate an army of mages for themselves in this way.
She crossed her legs and began to think about this matter, especially curious about how the tower guard could come up with such a weird inference. When she was concentrating on speculating about the tower guard's past experiences, Jing Huang stared at her and said, "Jiao."
Yaleriga blinked. It was rare that she didn't understand what he meant. It wasn't until Jing Huang pointed at the top of her head and repeated it that she realized that she was stroking her horns again out of habit. It has been a long time since her prison life, and the chains that were once tied to her horns have long been removed, leaving only two holes to prove the existence of that period of suffering.
Regarding this pair of horns, Yaleriga already knew a lot from the inheritance before studying it herself. Melendra's pair of horns, as straight as sharp swords, possess a strange magical power that can invalidate all the magic spells used by mages to protect the mind. Since then, this dangerous nature has no longer appeared in her descendants. The horn is nothing but a derivative of her epidermis, composed of keratin and fibers. They are attached to her skull and can grow from the root as slowly as nails, but cannot regenerate damaged parts.
That didn't mean there was nothing she could do about the two holes through which the chain had passed. In fact, not long after she boarded the Silence, she quickly patched up her horns with some keratin-like material. The color and material were so good that even if she wanted to find the two original piercings, she had to look carefully in the mirror for a while. However, like those who have dentures in their mouths, every once in a while she would feel a subtle pain that was not serious but just enough to make her feel distressed. That was a strange thing, because there were no nerves or medulla in her horns, and there seemed to be nothing transmitting pain signals from the broken horns to her head. She could only guess that this was some kind of psychological effect, because she could not let go of Villar's betrayal, or her body had not adapted to the disappearance of the weight of the iron chain, and had some strange compensatory reactions.
She never told Jing Huang about her little trouble. Instead, she touched her horns from time to time and used her fingers to confirm the area where the hole had passed. Just as reason told her, it was always in good condition, with no ulcers, dryness or peeling. Yaleriga had no choice but to accept that she would have to keep the habit of touching horns for a while.
"I think my horns are in bad condition." She said to Jing Huang half-jokingly, "Friction can make them smooth and shiny."
This reason easily deceived Jing Huang. The traveling companions, who had no concept of horny care, nodded and turned their attention back to the tower guard downstairs.
The unfortunate recipient of the baby seemed to finally tire, so he walked back upstairs in a rage, his rough and pitted face still showing strong resentment. He was also holding a gray-white cloth bag in his arms, which was obviously the swaddling clothes of the abandoned baby. When she saw this scene, Yaleriga subconsciously wanted to stand up and take a closer look at the baby's face to see what fate had arranged for it to cause it to be abandoned by its parents as soon as it was born. But in the end she held back and pretended not to care about the child being brought so as not to arouse the suspicion of the tower keepers.
The tower guard didn't notice anything strange about her, but carefully placed the cloth bag in the cabinet in the farthest corner of the conversation room, closed the cabinet door tightly, and then came forward to apologize to them.
"Some low-life people should be thrown to clean up the shit of the macrophage." He muttered, having completely forgotten the mage's manners. "The babies are constantly being sent here, it's like treating this place as a nursing home! I I don’t want to see the bad faces of those night dire elves anymore and have to use my own allowance to pay the fine..."
Yaleriga spoke to him in a timely manner, expressing her sympathy and understanding for him. She also reminded the other party that they should investigate the real parents of these babies. Since they were currently in the gate city, no trace of anyone could escape the eyes of the lord of the gate city. If the managers of Gate City refuse to reveal the answer, then this fine for poor management would be unfair.
The tower guard agreed dryly, indicating his agreement with Yaleriga's point of view. "I have tried it before." He confessed in annoyance, "The blood spell has no effect, which proves that there are no blood relatives nearby. I asked the golden guardian and installed a peeping eye in front of the tower door, but it had no effect at all. These weird babies still appear! Maybe it is necessary for me to write a letter to the mentor and ask him to write a letter to the Lord of the Gate City... This involves the privacy of identity and the sanctity of the contract, madam, such troubles are for us Seekers of the Secret Art are very tricky, so let’s talk about your child’s arm first. Have you thought about giving him an arm that is most suitable?”
Yaleriga readily admitted, and then entered into a bargaining session with the tower guard. The alien tower keeper was highly resistant to her charms, and was obviously struggling with the fines from the public home, so he was extremely price-sensitive. When they were fighting fiercely over money, Jing Huang was already drowsy. He quietly jumped off his chair and looked at the cabinets embedded in the wall one by one, looking at the potions, gems, scrolls or items placed inside. Enchanted jewelry. Sometimes he even reached out and touched one or two of the necklaces, and the tower keepers who were busy raising prices let him test them, because everything that could be put on the stage was a harmless gimmick. After the client had looked through almost all the knick-knacks in the entire room, his future left arm was finally sold for 700,000 Zhisi coins.
This result was quite satisfactory to both parties. Yaleriga was more worried that it would be difficult to buy truly exquisite works at this price, while the tower guard seemed surprised by her familiarity with the prices of spell raw materials. They agreed on a time for the left arm to be delivered and transplanted, and then signed a contract with a strong certificate, and Yaleriga paid one-fifth of the deposit. After all this was over, Yaleriga called back Jing Huang, who was standing by the wall, and prepared to take him to see the elves' hotel. But Jing Huang didn't follow her silently as usual. He still stood where he was, pointing to a ruby pendant on the cabinet and asking, "How much?"
"The Spell of Enthusiasm." The tower guard introduced it in a coaxing tone. "It can make you energetic, optimistic, more willing to communicate with the outside world, and easier to make friends. Like its color? Look at this The beautiful brilliance goes well with your clothes, doesn't it? There is also this chain made by elves. Water and fire cannot corrode it, and it will make everything it touches smooth and supple. It only sells for a total of twenty Zhisi coins. Or forty taels of gold, or other metal equivalents. I have a conversion list here."
Jing Huang shook his head with disinterest. "No chains," he said.
"That chain is only worth three and a half cents." The tower guard immediately replied, "A bit of modern craftsmanship. The important charm is on the red stone. As long as the distance is close enough, you can wear it however you want."
When Jing Huang nodded silently, Yaleriga was ready to pay for it. She had already noticed that her traveling companion had a special liking for red, and she didn't mind adding a beautiful piece to his collection. But before she had time to walk over, Jing Huang shook out a small gold shell from his right sleeve and threw it into the arms of the tower keeper. Then he said in his tone that showed no emotion or anger: "I will buy a chain."
The tower guard stared at him dumbfounded, and even Yaleriga stood there, blinking her eyes. Jing Huang waited on the spot, his expressionless face very calm. He reached out to the tower guard with a smile that bloomed secretly in Yaleriga, his attitude was serious and natural.
"Change," he said.
