Chapter 411

Chapter Thirty-Four Untitled

At that time… I heard a strange sound…

When the little girl’s voice trembled and carried emotion as she said those words, I froze. My mind stopped for two seconds, and I felt my whole body tense up, my heart sinking heavily.

Alice heard it…

What did she hear!? It couldn’t be…

I started to try to recall what had happened then, but I was too nervous. My palms were sweating, and I vaguely remembered using chaotic power to eat one, and then freezing another one. The details were completely lost on me. I couldn’t even understand why I was so nervous.

The bishop wasn’t a good person…

He colluded privately with the old duke for personal gain, and he wanted to kill Victoria, which I discovered. And the bad people Alice mentioned—the Gate of Truth—were precisely the ones the bishop brought into the church… Yes, that was correct.

I could tell Alice this.

I didn’t know what she had heard, but I could tell her this first…

I could…

My head turned stiffly, and I looked at the little girl’s eyes.

Her trembling pupils and the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, her soft hair, her little head tilting upwards as if mustering courage, still showing a hint of timidity and tension on her face, the faint flush on her cheeks gradually fading away.

But she smiled.

“Ugh, Sister, what kind of expression is that… it’s so funny… hahaha…”

…Expression?

My heart skipped a beat, and I instinctively touched my face, feeling nothing unusual. Then, as calmly as possible, I asked her, “Expression… what’s wrong?”

“Like…”

The little girl wiped away her tears with her fingers, sniffled, grabbed my skirt, and gently fiddled with it: “Like the expression when you have a stomachache. Sister, do you have a stomachache?”

“…No.”

“Oh… Then why didn’t you speak just now, what were you thinking about?”

“I was thinking… about what happened then.”

“So, did Sister remember anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmm… then forget it.”

Alice patted my skirt, her head swaying as she looked up at the half-beam of sunlight filtering through the gap. She swung her little legs slightly and softly said, “I was just asking casually. I remember… Sister seemed very busy and anxious that day. The royal city was chaotic and scary, full of bad people. Sister is a great hero, so she must have been very busy, doing many things I don’t know or understand, but are important. But heroes aren’t all-knowing gods; some small things, Sister might overlook, not paying much attention to them. So… it’s fine if she can’t remember now… who would expect Sister to be a hero.”

She paused.

“But… some small things, in Sister’s eyes might be insignificant, but in my eyes, they might be quite… quite important… ” The girl turned her head, looking straight into my eyes, “Payelo Sister, do you remember? The little girl I told you about, named Aile.”

I was slightly stunned.

Aile…?

Hearing this name from the little girl’s mouth, I didn’t react immediately. Two seconds later, I suddenly recalled: that was Yilushu…

This is bad…

I haven’t explained anything to Alice about Yilushu…

“At that time… Sister promised me, you said you would find Aile, and I’ve been waiting for you… I’ve been waiting for you to bring her back, day after day, four days, five days… waiting…”

The little girl’s voice was low, as if falling into a deep valley.

Her little hands clenched on the chair, seemingly trying hard to control her emotions. Her eyes blinked, and her lips curled up, a bright but thin smile appearing.

“Sister, where’s Aile?”

That smile vanished instantly, carried away by the wind.

“Alice…”

Damn it…

This is really terrible…

“You listen… I…”

How should I explain this to her?

Think quickly…

“Sister, you don’t need to say it, I know, I know everything… Aile can’t come back, right? They can’t come back. Sister didn’t tell me earlier because she was afraid I would be sad and hurt, because they, like Lucas, are no longer in this world… Aile and the others, we’ll never see them again…”

“I’m sorry, Alice…”

What should I say…

What should I say to avoid hurting her, this eleven-year-old child’s fragile heart…

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Sister, why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault…”

Alice stood up from her seat and walked to the side.

She pressed down on the top of her hair that was standing up, then turned her back slightly, so I couldn’t see her face.

“Just now, I actually lied… I wasn’t that busy, there was time to go to Sister’s house… I wanted to go, but… I didn’t want to go either… I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but recently… I keep thinking about all sorts of things, about the bishop…”

“One night, he told me, take good care of Aile, she’s younger than you, she’s your sister, you’re a family… He always reminds me of these things, saying them every time I see him, he’s so nagging… But Sister, he remembers each of our names… he worries about the smallest things for us…”

Despite the little girl’s efforts to suppress it, the childish voice gradually carried a hint of sobbing.

“And Aile… Even though the bishop told me to take good care of her, she often doesn’t listen, disappearing without a trace. I get scolded… But the bishop told me to take care of her, she and I are both children without homes… but when we gather together, we become a family… Sister…”

“The other day, I intended to来找你

The… I had already reached the church door… but my heart was racing, and I didn’t know how to face you or what to say when I saw you… I don’t even know what’s wrong with me… Later, I dreamt of Mother Teresa…”

The little girl’s shoulders trembled, her tiny silhouette appearing so frail.

I walked over and hugged her from behind.

“Elle, listen to me…”

“I don’t want to hear!”

Elle suddenly struggled, her head shaking violently against my chest. I was startled and instinctively released my arms, allowing the little girl to turn around and take a few steps back. Her tear-streaked face glistened as she wiped it with her hand.

Her small body was trembling under the loose habit.

“Sister, please stop talking… I don’t want to hear anything… I know what you’re going to say… but I, I don’t understand those adult things, I really don’t! What heroes, villains, the fighting back and forth, I just don’t get it… Lucas is dead, Aile is dead, Milai… so many friends have died, even the Bishop has died… I don’t understand… I just feel so sad… I’ll never see them again… Sister… I’ll never see them again, ah—”

She stood in the light gap, in the corridor, opened her mouth wide and cried out loud until her voice became hoarse.

It was as if some string inside her finally snapped. The little girl unleashed her emotions without restraint, tears streaming down her cheeks. I stood a few steps away from her, saying nothing and doing nothing.

Terrifying power, the ability to destroy everything with a wave of the hand, the bravery in battle against strong enemies… all of this seemed pale and powerless before the helpless tears of an eleven-year-old girl.

Inexpressible…

The Bishop had abandoned his principles for personal gain, and perhaps the ins and outs of Aile’s incident… or the power struggles, the Gate of Truth… even if I told this little girl all these things in detail, what would be the point?

It would only add salt to her wounds.

She simply couldn’t understand…

In the innocent world of an eleven-year-old, she didn’t understand why adults fight, and why fighting meant death. And regardless of whether our actions were noble or selfish, righteous or evil, all an eleven-year-old girl could understand was… I’ll never see them again.

Never again see Lucas, Aile, Abel… and those whose names I can’t recall, Elle’s family.

That was all that mattered to her.

No matter what I said, no matter how beautifully I spoke, this fact would never change.

“Sister, I’m not as sad anymore… it’s just sometimes, when I wake up, in a daze… I feel like they are still here… I wish time could stop at that moment…”

The little girl cried for a long time.

As she cried, she grew tired.

We sat on the bench for a while longer. I said nothing more, just gently patted her back and sang a somewhat disjointed lullaby. Many children stood outside the corridor, peering curiously at us.

Then Elle said she wanted to go back.

I nodded and got up to see her off, inviting her again, “Tomorrow, come to my place, okay? I’ll make doughnuts.”

But the little girl didn’t answer directly.

Her eyes carried a hint of confusion: “Sister… Cataloma will soon be completed, we’ll leave here soon, go back there.”

I fell silent for a moment, then smiled.

“That’s great.”

“Yes…”

When I saw her to the door, the little girl said to me, “Sister, I might… become a nun very soon.”

“Oh… Really? That’s wonderful, Elle!”

This was good news.

I remembered Elle telling me her dream was to become a saint one day. Although the journey was long, this first step was finally being taken… For many children in the orphanage, taking this step was already the best outcome.

I hope she has a smooth and happy life ahead…

“May the gods bless you.”

I clasped my hands in front of my chest, closed my eyes, and sincerely blessed her.

Opening my eyes, I found Elle didn’t seem as excited as I had imagined.

“What’s wrong? Are you… still hesitating?”

“I…”

Hearing my concerned inquiry, the little girl hesitated, then smiled and shook her head.

“It’s nothing. Sister, I’ll think about it myself, I can’t rely on others for everything… Thank you, thank you for coming to see me today, I’m very happy.”

In the church hall, at the wooden door, at this moment, the little girl could smile like a grown-up.

…………

Today is May 16, 1187 AD.

The sky over the royal city was clear and sunny.

The princess-like girl, feeling complicated after leaving the church, held an umbrella and stopped a rhinoceros-drawn carriage on the street. She quickly exchanged a few words with the driver before jumping into the carriage. The carriage turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

On the opposite side of the street, a woman with white hair and blue eyes, dressed in black mourning clothes, led an old man who looked like a butler, walking under the bright sun.

She passed by the carriage the girl was in and walked toward the solemn church. She paused to look up for a moment, then stepped onto the stairs in front of the door—if the girl had lifted the curtain and looked back at that moment, she would immediately recognize this woman as the dancer on the stage last night.

The prosperous royal city, with its intricate network of streets and alleys.

From the perspective of a bird in flight, those closely packed roads converged into a huge, fog-covered spider web. People moved back and forth like ants in a complex web, some heading east, others west, some climbing to the top of the web, and others dying in despair.

People living within this giant web, regardless of gender, age, or social status, could not distinguish whether the paths ahead were dead ends. When they reached a crossroads and faced the next node in their lives, the unknowns they would encounter would appear at some time and place in what form…

No one could predict it.