Big is power. When a giant accuses you with a stern face, the effect is definitely much stronger than that of a dwarf. Especially when you feel guilty.
Nina felt that this was the most terrifying moment in her life. The other party's reproach made her terrified, as if she would be eaten by the magician who covered the sky at any time.
"Everything, everything is the lady's decision. I, I can't promise anything on her behalf. I can't resist her orders. I always do what she says." Nina argued, her hands tightly clenched around the corners of her clothes, like a kitten forced into a corner.
"But in my memory, I saw you disobey her orders more than once, even though it was only secretly. You see, one time you gave two pieces of bread to the servant who was standing in the corner. One time you let the lazy gardener go, he should have been whipped. Another time, you tried on Serinda's dress at home while she was out hunting. Well, there are too many things about stealing cakes, so I won't mention them here. Oh, you also dated the knight she hated twice. Another time..."
"Please, please stop talking. What do you want from me?" Nina asked in a pleading tone.
"I am only proving that you are an ordinary person. Sometimes you are kind, sometimes you are compassionate, sometimes you take advantage of others, and sometimes love bursts out in your heart. You live for yourself, not for your mistress. Her interests are not naturally consistent with your interests. You are a flesh-and-blood person, not her shadow."
"But I never betrayed her. I did some wrong things, but I never betrayed her! I won't help you against my master!" Nina said loudly.
Xiao Chen looked at Nina who was shouting at the top of her lungs, feeling a little reluctant, but he suppressed the emotion and continued, "I actually sympathize with you. Fate is sometimes a very bad and naughty ghost. It gives you two paths, but each path will hurt you. All you can do seems to be to choose between hurting yourself and hurting others. However, you have to understand that you can ignore this bastard. The path it gives you may just be an illusion. What you have to do is accept the help of others and find a third path."
"I do not understand."
"It's simple. You don't need to stand on my side against her, your master. And don't stand on her side against me, who at least risked his life to save you. You just need to help me maintain a harmonious situation. After all, I don't want to be hostile to my best friend's fiancée."
"You want me to keep an eye on her?"
"She has already lost my trust. If I had been prepared before she did something stupid like this, things wouldn't have turned out like this, right? So I naturally have to know what she is doing and what she wants to do."
Nina remained silent.
"What you did almost caused a confrontation between us and the Earl. Think about it, if your lady or his father really clashed with me, would they be able to defeat me?" Xiao Chen said this, waving his hand toward the sky. The heavy rain suddenly stopped, the dark clouds dissipated, and the "sun" above was revealed. This rapid change in the sky gave people a palpitating feeling.
Nina's eyes were stung by the sunlight.
"You don't know. Actually, I don't know either." Xiao Chen waved to Nina, and with a scream from Nina, the round stool she was sitting on carried her and flew out of the window of "Exquisite Waterside Pavilion". Nina was so scared that she hugged the stool with her hands and feet, and she flew all the way to Xiao Chen. Seeing Xiao Chen gave her a toothy smile, he said, "But in the face of such power, huge damage is always inevitable. The victim may be the ambitious earl, the restless lady, the submissive you, your taciturn father, or even the knight you like. We should try to avoid this kind of thing, don't you think?"
Nina looked at Xiao Chen's smiling face, and for some reason she felt relieved, and nodded involuntarily.
"Very good!" Xiao Chen snapped his fingers and said, "The sky is going to clear up, let's get along well. Maybe I can even give you a small gift."
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Li Jia was walking in a castle. This castle was similar in style to the one they lived in, but it was completely different because it looked unreal. To use a not-so-appropriate metaphor, this castle was like a 3D animation with bad textures. All objects looked rough and stiff, lacking details in reality. Li Jia touched a gray wall. It looked like a stone wall, but it actually felt like plastic, without any stone texture. He looked at the torch on the wall again. The flame was like a huge glowing brush, without any sense of agility. For a moment, he had the illusion that he was playing an old, low-quality online game.
What's worse, the castle's structure looked like it had been torn apart and rebuilt by a naughty child, with various porches and corridors crisscrossed together to form a maze.
Li Jia took a torch down from the wall. It still felt like plastic. He concentrated his mind on the flame. The flame, which had been shaking in a monotonous rhythm, suddenly changed its rhythm and became lively. Li Jia stood with the torch for a few minutes, and the torch finally became what it should be like in reality.
Serinda, here I come. Holding the torch, Li Jia chose a road that looked flatter and walked forward.
It is really like "looking from the side, you see a mountain, looking from the front, you see a peak; the distance and height are different." Walking in such a maze, Li Jia felt like he was climbing a mountain. He had to be very careful, because from time to time there would be a big pit on the road, or a cliff in front of him when turning. In some places, the slope of the passage was very high, even vertical wellheads, and in some places there was only a bottomless pit with no other way. But he knew that Serinda could be anywhere in this maze, so he had to go through. At this time, Li Jia had to use his creation ability to make ladders one by one before he could climb through.
"It would be great if Xiao Chen was here. With his ability, he could change this broken place with a wave of his hand. I don't know where the book spirit's confidence in me comes from." He muttered to himself while holding the torch and overcoming various difficulties. In this weird and depressing environment, if he didn't say something, he felt he would go crazy.
After walking for a while, he saw a red object on the ground in front of him in a relatively smooth downward passage. Along the way, Li Jia had not seen anything outside the building except walls and stairs. Now that he had finally discovered something, he was a little nervous. He pulled out a dagger from his waist and held it in his hand, slowly approaching.
When he got closer, he saw a figure with loose red hair and wearing leather armor lying on the ground. The man's head was facing the direction he came from, and his face was facing down.
"Selinda?" Li Jia tried to shout from a distance of two meters.
The man didn't move.
"Selinda?" Li Jia shouted several times in a louder voice.
The person shivered on the ground and seemed to wake up from a coma. She tried several times but couldn't stand up. She could only look up with difficulty, revealing a pale face.
"It's really you!" Li Jia dropped the dagger and torch, rushed forward and tried to hold her arm, but unexpectedly his hand went through Serinda's shoulder.
"This is..." Li Jia tried to touch her arm again, but there was still no substance. There was only a slight resistance at her fingertips, and it felt like her hand was sliding in the water.
"You, are Li Jia..." Serinda stammered with her eyes half open.
"Yes, it's me. I finally found you."
"Li Jia, Li Jia! You're finally here. I've been calling you for a long time!" Serinda was very weak, her voice was very soft, but she was trembling with excitement, "I, I have no strength. And, and, I can't feel my legs anymore."
Li Jia looked at her lower body. The visible part of Serinda's body was only up to her waist. The part below was blurred and invisible. He said in a panic: "Serinda! I'm glad I found you! Don't worry, everything here is not real, not real. You are lying on the bed in the castle now!"
"I was wrong, Li Jia, I was really wrong! If I wasn't so greedy! This wouldn't have happened. I regret it so much! I really regret it!" Serinda said over and over again, "I wandered around this palace for a long time, there was no food, no one to talk to, I was so hungry, but I couldn't find anything to eat, and then my body slowly disappeared. Then I crawled on the ground, and then I couldn't even crawl. I regretted it so much, I was so scared! But I don't remember what I did wrong, why I came here. Oh right! Here, where is this place?"
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!" Li Jia looked at her distressedly, stretched out a finger and gently pressed it against her mouth, trying to calm her down. He unexpectedly found that Serinda's lips could be touched, but they were terribly cold, like a smooth jade. He was delighted and felt along her lips. He found that he could touch her cheeks and neck, but below the neck, there was only an illusory shadow.
Serinda looked at Li Jia's hand passing through her body, her face twisted with fear: "Help me, help me! What's wrong with me?"
"Don't panic, this is not real! We are in your meditation space. It's not your real body that disappears, but your consciousness."
"I lost consciousness... Am I dying?"
"No! No!" Li Jia held her face and said softly, "Look at me, Serinda! Look at me, dear! Listen to me carefully. When I come, I can work with you to find a solution. Do you remember the book you opened? There is a powerful book spirit in it. She taught me how to save you. Let me think about what the book spirit said..." He squatted down beside Serinda, concentrated his mind, and tried to use the method taught by the book spirit to repair Serinda's consciousness.