Horsburgh, 2764, winter.
At this time, Elden had just been promoted to deputy leader by Phaeth. Both Yenia and Admiral Weather had died in the rebellion last year, which meant that the high-ranking leader in the north had become completely alone.
There is one more important thing -
The male insect escaped two months ago and never came back.
Elden didn't know how to call Xu Cenfeng. He always felt that this male insect and the leader looked like partners. They ate, lived and slept together every day. But in fact, they had never held a partner ceremony, so that if the other ran away one day, there was no legitimate reason to find him back.
There was another all-encompassing snowfall, falling from the sky like goose feathers, as if it was going to engulf the entire north.
Elden stood silently in the living room, holding a military document in his hand that required Phaeth's personal signature, but he was hesitant to go up.
The door of the master bedroom on the second floor was tightly closed. Even though there was a soundproof door made of special material, one could still hear the painful roars coming from inside. That was the sound made by the female insect when it was experiencing a mental turmoil. It might last for a few hours, or even a whole night, but there was no other way except to soothe it with the male insect's pheromones.
Elden once went up to take a look and found that the chief was shackled to the bed, with his limbs rubbed and bleeding. Later, he couldn't bear to watch it, and never went up again.
The male insect has completely disappeared from the north and will never come back. How could the leader bear to erase the last trace of its existence
Hawke walked downstairs in a daze, and then sat down on the stairs. His hands were covered with blood, the blood on Phaeth's body. He stared at it, and suddenly buried his head in his knees and cried, his voice hoarse and regretful: "I was wrong... I was wrong..."
"roll!"
Hawke almost roared out loud. He grabbed the soldier's throat, and his extreme anger even made his facial features look a little distorted. "What do you all do?! It was you who were on duty near the dense forest, and it was you who let him escape! Don't you know that a living male insect slipped away from under your noses?!"
Elden still sat there motionless, because he knew he couldn't find it back.
"If you can't find it, find it for me!"
Only Hawke would rush in with the doctor every time, trying to persuade the chief to erase the mark left by the male insect, so that they could find a new male insect to appease it with pheromones.
The doctor was trembling with fear at first, but he had come so many times that he was numb. "Deputy Chief Hawke, the chief is probably pregnant with insect eggs now. We can't give him an inhibitor, and that might be bad for his health. We should find the male insect that marked the chief."
But Elden knew that the chief would not agree.
The entire north is under the control of the great chief. If he had not acquiesced, there was no way that male insect could have escaped.
Elden sat at the bottom of the stairs, wondering how could the soldiers not know about it, but how could they dare to do anything when their leader had ordered them not to do anything
Elden was sitting on the stairs, and as expected, he saw Hawke being driven out of the room with two doctors. Hawke was already at a loss, and he grabbed one of the doctors by the collar and growled angrily: "I don't care what method you use, calm the chief's mental power immediately, otherwise I will kill you!"
Hawke cried heartbreakingly: "When Yenia sent the male insect here... I should have stopped them... Then the leader would not like him... and it wouldn't have turned out like this..."
"boom!"
But the screams of pain in the room were becoming lower and lower, and hoarseer. That didn't mean his mental power had calmed down. It only meant that Phaeth no longer had the strength to fight against the raging mental power in his mind.
Hawke still didn't understand the chief's thoughts.
Hawke shuddered when he heard the voice inside, but finally gave in and admitted defeat. He hurriedly grabbed the soldier on duty and asked with red eyes: "Where is Xu Cenfeng?! Find him back! Quickly! Find him back! Didn't he disappear in the dense forest of Solitia?! Find him quickly! Find him quickly!"
But those soldiers still crawled out of the villa under Hawk's coercion. They set out with an entire team to the dense forest of Sorida to search for Xu Cenfeng's whereabouts for the 26th time.
Every time Hawke heard this, he would go crazy. He would throw the doctor away and drive them all away, wandering around in the corridor like a headless fly: "I don't believe there is no other way, I don't believe there is no other way..."
The soldier was even more panicked than Hawke: "Deputy... Deputy Chief... We have been looking for him for several months... We can't find any trace of him..."
"If he endures any longer, he will die... He will really die..."
Elden had never seen Hawke cry before, but at this moment he was sitting next to him, crying like a wronged insect cub, feeling regretful and annoyed.
They were originally competitors and usually disliked each other, but at this moment they actually felt a sense of empathy.
Elden hesitated for a moment, then slowly raised his hand, patted Hawke on the back, and said softly: "Don't cry..."
He said, "If you feel uncomfortable, go with them to the jungle to look for that gentleman. Maybe... maybe you can find him."
Elden himself didn't believe what he said, but he knew that Hawke would only become more and more uncomfortable staying here. The deep feeling of powerlessness was tormenting them every minute and every second.
Hawke took it seriously. He stood up from the steps subconsciously, as if he had suddenly woken up from a dream, and hurriedly wiped away the tears on his face: "Yes... yes... I have to go to the jungle with them to look for it... I have to go to the jungle with them to look for it... Maybe we can find it..."
After he finished speaking, he crawled down the stairs without even saying hello. He pushed the door open in a hurry and ran out. His figure quickly disappeared in the white snow.
Elden couldn't help but sigh when he saw this. He put the documents aside, stood up, walked over and closed the door. Suddenly he remembered that the leader was still alone in the room. He couldn't help feeling a little worried, so he went back to the second floor.
Hawke and the others had just left in such a hurry that the door was ajar. Elden stood in front of the master bedroom door, hesitating for a moment before pushing it open. All he saw was a dim light and a faint smell of blood in the air.
Elden knew what was happening on the bed without even looking. He walked to the balcony and opened the heavy, tightly closed curtains. The bright, dazzling sunlight instantly swept across the room. A female insect with red hair and green eyes was lying on the bed. Her limbs were firmly fixed in shackles. Her wrists had been rubbed to a bloody mess due to the violent struggle. The clean sheets were covered with mottled bloodstains. No one would have thought that the dignified northern leader would become like this. The once noble king insect had fallen into dust.
Elden blinked his sore eyes hard, then took out the key from his pocket, half-knelt beside the bed, unlocked the shackles on Phaeth, and called him softly, "Captain?"
Phaeth had just calmed down his restless spirit. His short red hair was wet with sweat and stuck to his thin face. He stared at the ceiling absentmindedly, his lips were pale and cracked, and there was a bloody taste between his lips and teeth. Finally, he uttered three words silently: "Xu Cenfeng..."
He was calling out someone's name, mumbling to himself over and over again:
"Xu Cenfeng..."
Mixed with blood and pain, it seemed as if these three words could keep him alive or allow him to die peacefully.
So Elden knew that the chief had not yet fully woken up. When he was awake, he never mentioned the name of that gentleman. Those three words had become an untouchable taboo in Phaeth's heart.
Elden suppressed his bitterness and said, "Chief, Hawke and the others have gone to look for them, and they will be back soon..."
He paused, choked up for a moment, and then continued: "We will find Mr. Cen Feng back soon..."
This sentence was like a bucket of cold water, suddenly sobering up Phaeth. Hearing this, he turned his dark green eyes with difficulty and looked at Elden. The sharpness in his eyes was gone, and there was only the dullness and silence that had been gradually smoothed out by the betrayal and abandonment he had experienced in the past few years.
Phaeth's chest rose and fell weakly for a moment, he moved his bloodstained fingertips and said silently: "Don't look for..."
Elden was stunned.
Phaeth slowly closed his eyes: "He won't come back..."
The voice was hoarse and broken, like a dagger broken into two pieces, or a rotten and rusty gun, and it would be difficult to restore it to its original state.
At that moment, Elden suddenly wanted to ask Phaeth if he regretted letting the male insect go. But the question was too hurtful, and he couldn't ask it. He could only lower his head to hide his red eyes, kneel beside the bed and beg, "Please live well... Please live well..."
None of the leaders in the north had a good ending, because only the most ambitious, greedy and despicable insects could sit in that position. They died on the battlefield because of plunder, or died in power struggles because of greed. The long lifespan of the insect race of 200 years was meaningless to them.
Elden didn't want Faus to end up like that.
Born in the slums, he once longed for power, but now he suddenly realized that power is not a good thing. Phaeth has stood at the highest place in the north, and all his subjects have to bow to him, but he is not happy at all.
Although Phaeth didn't say anything, Elden always felt that he was in pain, and was tortured every minute, every second, and every night when the wind and snow blew.
Phaeth didn't say anything. He closed his eyes quietly, like a breathing corpse. After a long time, he finally spoke: "Elden, if I die one day, bury me in that place."
Elden knew where Phaeth was referring to, the dense forest where Xu Cenfeng disappeared. He nodded vigorously with red eyes from crying: "I... I will follow your orders."
Phaeth was still very proud. After he finished speaking, perhaps to save face, he raised his chin as much as he could, curled his lips and said in a hoarse voice: "That place is also a battlefield. A soldier should die on the battlefield."
But Elden knew that Phaeth just wanted to get closer to the male insect. He knelt by the bed for a long time, and suddenly felt weak in his heart, until his knees were stiff and numb, and then he staggered to his feet from the bed.
The North is doomed, Elden thought darkly.
Such a place full of betrayal and conspiracy could not last forever. If the great leader really died on the battlefield one day, there would be no one in the same tribe who could take on this heavy responsibility, and what awaited him would be the annexation of the west and the destruction of the north.
At this moment, Elden even wanted to believe in the insect god, worship the god who exiled them in the legend, and ask him to grant salvation to the north.
Because of the excessive loss of mental energy, Phaeth was so tired that he fell asleep. Seeing this, Elden quietly left the room. He was about to call another doctor to check on the situation, but suddenly he heard the doorbell ring downstairs.
“Ding Dong!”
“Ding Dong!”
The crisp doorbell sounded strange in the empty living room. Hawke and his friends had just left not long ago, so they shouldn't have come back so soon.
Elden paused and had to go downstairs to open the door. He originally thought it was the servant who was responsible for sweeping the snow in the garden, but when he saw the figure standing outside the door, his mind went blank, his pupils suddenly contracted, and he uttered two words with difficulty:
"Your Mightiness?"
A thin man stood quietly outside the door. His skin was as white as jade, but his hair and eyes were as mysterious as the night. He stood in the white snow like an exquisite statue.
The man's shoulders were covered with fallen snow, his hair was covered with a thin layer of frost, and his clothes were thin, as if he had traveled thousands of miles from far away, walked through countless years, experienced the changing seasons, and finally arrived in this desolate northern land.
"Huh..."
The wind whistled past my ears.
The cold wind swept up the snowflakes all over the sky and blew into the house through the open door, so the entire living room was covered with fine snow, but it melted in the heater before it could hit the ground.
Seeing this, the man took a step into the house, a layer of snow fell on his eyelashes. He looked around and finally asked in a low voice:
"Excuse me... Is Phaeth here?"
It is said that when it snows, old friends will return from afar...
(End of this chapter)