Valentina blinked and lowered her head in confusion, and saw a gold and silver brooch pinned to her collar.
The brooch is exquisitely shaped and made of solid material. It features a golden sword and shield covered by silver wings, and a sparkling ruby is inlaid at the intersection of the sword and shield.
"Eh? What is this?"
Valentina tilted her head as she looked at the small ornaments left beside her.
Although she didn't read much, she also felt something was strange.
A man and a woman were in the same room. The man left before the woman woke up and left something behind... There was no mistake.
This is the tribute!
"Why is he thinking of offering tribute to me?" Miss Hungry Dragon snorted complacently and accepted the gift with peace of mind.
Hehehe~
This is what the great dragon deserves!
"But this thing looks a little familiar."
Valentina thought back and finally remembered that this brooch had been pinned on Herbert's chest.
She took off the brooch, played with it carefully, and found that there were tiny words engraved on the back of it - she couldn't understand it!
Is he targeting me maliciously
"Hmmmm..."
However, although she was not sure that she could understand all human words, Valentina was not completely illiterate and could still recognize the initial words.
It was a name she knew very well—Herbert.
She sat against the wall in a corner of the cell, with her legs together and her upper body propped up, carefully placing the brooch in the palm of her hand and staring at it.
Why did he leave this to me
Valentina thought about it for a long time but couldn't figure it out, so she finally gave up thinking about such a brain-consuming thing.
"hey-hey… "
She looked at the brooch and grinned for a long time, then reached into her collar and fumbled around, taking out a delicate little mirror from the gap.
She pinned the brooch on her chest in front of the mirror and looked quietly at the woman in the mirror who looked a little strange.
The exquisite brooch, the necklace around her neck, and the silly smile on her face that only makes people think of relaxation.
Is this still me
She pulled the corners of her mouth and laughed, putting this boring question behind her mind indifferently, looking at herself in the mirror and smiling even more brightly.
"Herbert, Herbert..."
She whispered the name that had left a deep impression on her time and time again, and slowly closed her eyes.
"hey-hey."
.
.
[“So, why are you so skilled?”]
"Ah? What do you mean?"
[“Of course, it means that he was so skilled in deceiving that little dragon. Hmm, this word is not accurate. Playing with her emotions? It doesn’t seem right either…”]
After hesitating for a moment, Nenasha said uncertainly:
[“Training?”]
Um
“Stop, stop, stop!”
Herbert blinked violently, called a halt unhappily, and flicked an annoying shadow tentacle aside with his fingers.
Bang!
Listen, are there any good words here
Can't you say something nice about me
"What are you talking about! How did I deceive her? How did I play with her feelings?"
Herbert snorted and said confidently: "I just did what every man would do!"
He meant that after touching the tail, some compensatory tail-touching money was left.
I didn't steal or rob, and I even paid the money on my own initiative!
In other words, there is no note of "voluntary gift".
[“I said, did you notice… you didn’t refute the last word I said just now?”]
Herbert ignored Nenasha's questioning and waved his hand:
"You don't understand. I am trying to transform her with all my heart! I hope she will become a good dragon who abides by the law, and the first step is to make her understand the importance of emotions."
"I'm sacrificing my life to feed the dragon."
"I've always been the one who suffered the loss!"
Chapter 103 A Special Relationship (3/3)
Prison without light.
Sifanny looked at the boy who had been staring at the eye in the jar for most of the day, knocked on the table, and coughed lightly:
"Sir Herbert, I think I have the result about the letter you gave me. Do you want to hear it?"
"Hmm? Oh, okay."
Herbert came back to his senses, put down the jar, and nodded to the eye stalk inside, and the eye stalk also moved its eyelids in response.
Herbert: See you next time.
Eye stalk: Let’s play again~
The eye stalk that has been specially inactivated many times naturally has no consciousness, but Herbert always feels that it should still retain the most basic reactions.
Is this a new will born from flesh and blood
Ever since he mastered the forbidden knowledge of flesh and blood, Herbert no longer felt that Sfanny's research was creepy.
Of course, the disgust is still disgusting, but it is not as resistant and disgusting as before.
Madness and depravity are only superficial appearances; the essence here is still the exploration of knowledge.
"Although you entrusted me to decrypt it, this is not my forte, so it took me a little longer to look up the information."
More than a week had passed since Herbert asked for help that day, and Sfanny finally got the answer.
Sfanny spread the letter in front of Herbert and gently stroked her palm over it. The words on the paper appeared in the air and began to arrange themselves automatically.
"I used thirteen traditional decryption methods, then compared them with some local folk decryption habits, and finally changed to eight magical decryptions."
The words kept changing and combining as Sfanni spoke calmly. There were also some seemingly plausible sentences in between, but they all had more or less inconsistencies.
Herbert narrowed his eyes after seeing this scene, and a vague answer already appeared in his mind.
Sure enough, after everything calmed down and she returned to the letter paper, Sfanny looked at him and spoke softly:
"From what I can gather so far, there is no encryption in this letter."
There are no secrets in the letter.
Herbert shook his head in silence, sighed softly, and said lightly: "Is it really so..."
Herbert was calm about this result and was not surprised at all.
Rather, it would be strange if there really was a secret in the letter, wouldn't it
Grand Duke Silver Wing would never expect a teenager who had never been exposed to decryption before to think in this direction, nor would he expect him to successfully find a decryption master to help decipher the letter after receiving it.
This is unrealistic.
But precisely because this possibility is not realistic, it gives people expectations and makes people want to try to pursue it.
I hope this tiny possibility really exists, and I hope there will be such a secret waiting for me to discover...
Am I disappointed now
Herbert felt the ups and downs of his emotions, shook his head, and couldn't help laughing out loud.
"hehe."
After Sfanny finished her conclusion, she kept observing the expression on Herbert's face, and raised her eyebrows when she saw that he calmed down so quickly.
The relationship between this father and son might be a little different from what she had guessed.
Although Herbert did not seem to have a good relationship with his father, Sfannie had some doubts about this based on his behavior.
If Herbert really didn't care at all, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to find her in the hope of finding some clues.
But now, he was able to quickly regain his composure... Did he really not care
She thought quickly in her mind and decided to change the plan slightly.
“Ahem.”
Sifannie coughed lightly and said slowly: "In addition to this conclusion, I have another more personal idea here. Do you want to listen to it?"
“… Please go ahead.”
"Your father may know that the letter will be seen by others."
Herbert frowned.
Sfanny pushed the letter in front of Herbert and said, "The wording of this letter is rigid and extremely standard. There is no personal emotion mixed in the text. It is completely a standard formulaic reply letter."
“This may seem fine, but… is this really normal?”
She observed Herbert's reaction and continued:
"Dark elves don't have the same parent-child relationship as humans, and I don't have anyone I can call a father... But I think this may not be his intention."
"It is precisely because he knows that he is being monitored that he can only try to protect you in this way. He does not want others to think that he still cares about you."
"I think he loves you."
After Sfanni finished speaking, the room fell into silence.
Herbert blinked his eyes and looked at the expressionless dark elf with a strange look in his eyes. He said unexpectedly: "Sfanny, this is not something you would say."
What love and affection are these? These are not things you, a bloodless and tearless taboo scholar, should talk about.
"Why can't I tell you?"
Sifanyi's expression remained cold and she asked, "Am I such a cold-blooded person in your eyes?"
"Maybe I'm wrong."
Herbert shook his head, not wanting to delve into the issue further, and had no intention of discussing it with Sfanny. He simply skipped the topic and said:
"Thank you for your help. What would you like me to do for you in return?"
Reciprocity is the way of life.
Simply seeking help will only consume the friendship between each other. Helping each other is the essence of interpersonal communication.
Even though the two may not be of equal value.
Sifanyi didn't pretend to be polite and said directly: "I do have something I hope you can promise me."
"When my family came here and you were ready to kill them, could you..."
She paused, looked up into Herbert's eyes, an inexplicable look flashed in her eyes, and the corners of her cold mouth curled up slightly.
Sfanny laughed coldly.
She said:
"Let me do it myself."
Cold-blooded and heartless