Charles looked at Anna speechlessly, "Can't you women think of anything else besides love?"
"Then why do you spend so much energy finding a way to rescue her? Is the little mouse important to you?" Anna looked at Charles with a smile.
"That's because she's my gunner, a crew member who's been through thick and thin with me!"
"It's alright, it's alright, I didn't say anything, so how are you going to save the little mouse?"
Hearing this, Charles sighed slightly, "I have no clue. Lily's case is not that simple. The Pope used the power of the entire church but couldn't find a solution. I guess it will be impossible to find it by conventional means."
"Hey~ Take your time to think about it. I have something else to do, so I'll leave first." Anna gently put her hands on Charles' face, turned and walked towards the door.
As soon as the wooden door was opened a crack, Anna's tentacles quickly stretched out and rolled out.
With a scream, Lily, who was eavesdropping outside, was caught in her hand. "Catch your little mouse, or it will be eaten by the cat."
Charles stretched out his tentacles and gently lifted Lily who was flying towards him in mid-air.
"Good morning, Mr. Charles." Lily gave Charles an awkward smile.
"What's the matter?" Charles asked.
Lily stole a glance at Anna as she left, then shook her head vigorously. "No, I just haven't seen you for a long time, so I came to see you."
Charles touched her smooth hair with his hands and put her on his shoulder. "Next time you want to see me, just come in directly. No need to hide. You are not a real mouse."
"Um!"
Lily smiled sweetly at Charles and spoke again: "By the way, Mr. Charles, can you fix the roller coaster in the backyard? It's rusted and can't be used."
"Roller coaster?" Charles was stunned, and then immediately realized that she was talking about the mini roller coaster that she had made before to fulfill her wish.
"Let's go and take a look." Charles took Lily to the backyard.
As soon as he got to the backyard, he saw that the mini roller coaster that looked like a four-wheel drive track was already rusty and covered with dust.
But this is normal. Since Lily's death, this place has been completely abandoned. Naturally, Charles would not come to this sad place before.
Some shipbuilding engineers were called over to oil the roller coaster and remove rust, and soon the entire roller coaster looked brand new.
Amid Lily's screams, the place came alive again and the rats gathered around.
Charles looked at Lily going around in circles with a faint smile on his face. Sometimes he really envied Lily, because the body of a mouse not only bound her body but also her mind.
Although she is almost 16 years old, she still looks like a child.
When I was a child, I always wanted to grow up, but when I grew up, I realized that childhood is always the best.
As Charles watched the roller coaster spinning round and round, he suddenly noticed that the background in the distance looked a little different.
"Huh? What is that?" Charles looked past the roller coaster and towards a swaying and rising tower behind it.
The black tower was gradually rising, ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters, and finally passed through the greenhouse and came into the sunlight.
Looking at the building that was still rising, Charles' mind flashed through the rock high-speed rail plan that Gordon had told him about before.
"Are we starting to build it now?" Charles muttered to himself.
Just when everyone on the island was attracted by this amazing building, the tall tower suddenly began to shake.
Then, amid everyone's exclamations, the tower fell down at an angle, stirring up clouds of dust.
"I failed..." Charles was not very frustrated about this. Things that no one had done before must be achieved through failures.
Now that Anna has taken over, he doesn't have to worry about this matter.
Time passed little by little, and Charles waited patiently for information about the Futan religion from the Navy Intelligence Department.
Fortunately, the Earthsea telegraph network was gradually restored. Just as Elizabeth was reluctant to leave the ship, all the general information about the Fortan religion appeared on Charles' desk.
Under the bright crystal chandelier, Charles, with a frown on his face, put down the paper he had just read.
Just as he thought, after experiencing two disasters, the situation of the Futan Church was not much better. The population had dropped sharply, causing their influence in the Earthsea to decrease rapidly.
Now the Futan Cult can only retreat to their headquarters, the Land of God's Descent, and slowly recover.
In order to restore the population as much as possible, the Twelve-member Council of the Ftan Cult issued a ban on sacrifices and birth rewards for ten years.
To force a cult that sacrifices living people to make such a decision, one can guess how critical their situation is.
However, this also indirectly shows that those in power are very shrewd. They are just crazy but not fools. If they really want to deal with the other party, they must be extremely careful.
"Rustle~" Charles' pen quickly recorded on the white paper. On one side was all the power that Hope Island could currently mobilize, and on the other side was the strength possessed by the Futan Church.
Charles took all kinds of situations into consideration, even the possibility that they would borrow the power of the Deep Ones, and that the Faith of the Birds of Suffering, which also hated the Ftan religion, would take advantage of the situation.
After a long time, Charles put down the pen in his hand. He looked at the things in front of him and scratched his hair with some annoyance.
The overall strength of the two sides is relatively evenly matched. If a war really breaks out, the casualties will be heavy. And this is without taking into account any killer weapons that the Futan Church has.
In this situation, it would be extremely irrational to act rashly.
"Has the mission to rescue the crew been stranded?"
Charles thought about it, stood up and walked towards the sanatorium. As soon as he entered the door, he heard the sounds of ghosts howling inside.
The crew members' symptoms seemed to be changing, but no matter how they changed, they were just getting crazier or even crazier.
Hope Island's deputy director Alia was also there. She was always tough in front of outsiders, but when she saw Dipper in the water frantically picking at his scales, her sharp eyes softened and were filled with grief.
She heard footsteps behind her, quickly wiped her tears with her hands and turned to look.
Although Alia covered it up quickly, Charles could still see a hint of hatred in her eyes.
"You don't have to hide anything. I made Dipper like this. It's only right that you're cruel to me."
Alia turned her head and looked at her crazy husband in the glass again with a complicated expression. "I'm sorry, Governor. It really breaks my heart to see him like this."
"I love him very much, very much. I have always felt that a woman like me is not worthy of him. The day he proposed to me was the happiest moment of my life."
(End of this chapter)