Chapter 365
At least in the eyes of ordinary people, Qiangyin has always been seen in this light.
Xia'er had no idea where Qiangyin's room was, so she asked a maid for directions. However, this inquiry led Xia'er to an unexpected piece of news.
Qiangyin wasn't in his room; he was in the study meeting with a knight commander, who had been in the study and had yet to come out.
A knight commander? A "Mianwei" (Crown Guard)?
Xia'er decided to abandon her search for Qiangyin's room and instead sought out the knight commander, as the study was also one of her targets for investigation.
She arrived at the door of the private study on the second floor and paused in the hallway. A shadowy figure passed right in front of her, pushed open the door, and entered.
“Qiangyin…!”
A hoarse, frenzied voice echoed from within the study, followed by a massive sword piercing through the door, pinning the shadowy figure against the doorframe.
That voice…
Hearing the familiar sound, Xia'er raised an eyebrow. She stepped forward and stopped at the study door, where she saw Opode, his eyes bloodshot and nearly half of his face eroded by black iron armor.
“What a coincidence, Lord Opode.”
Xia'er wore a smile, but inwardly she cursed her luck.
Of all people, it had to be a half-mad tin man. It wouldn’t be easy to deal with him right now.
Opode, with his bloodshot eyes, looked at Xia'er. He recognized her from the banquet in Boleun City, where he had seen her beside Aivina. He had also encountered her in a simulation where she became a priest of the Church of the God of Order, so he knew who she was.
“It’s you…”
Opode's pupils constricted, and he instinctively loosened his grip on the sword, taking a few steps back.
He had a vivid impression of Xia'er; the first time they locked eyes, he felt an inexplicable fear towards the red-haired girl, as if he had encountered a natural enemy. Even his instinctual alarm bells rang—this time was no exception.
At that moment, Xia'er quickly scanned the study. She saw rows of toppled bookshelves, books scattered across the floor, torn wall hangings, and a shattered sealing object, from which extraordinary properties were already seeping out, flickering with a faint spiritual light on the ground.
Is this… a music box? Qiangyin's belongings?
From Opode's demeanor, it seemed he harbored quite a bit of hatred towards Qiangyin.
“Don’t be nervous, Opode. I mean you no harm.”
Xia'er maintained her formulaic smile as she spoke to the panting Opode. “We have a common enemy.”
“Now, tell me… do you know where Qiangyin’s spiritual notes are?”
Xia'er’s pupils glimmered with a pinkish glow.
At this moment, Opode's already fragile mental defenses crumbled under the weight of fear, and he was almost instantly lured by Xia'er’s voice.
Having already caused destruction here, he would know best if anything was hidden.
“I… found nothing… He… couldn’t possibly have left anything… here…”
Opode’s expression was dazed as he mumbled.
“Oh?”
Xia'er asked, puzzled, “Then where could it be?”
“Windsor… Palace…”
Opode lowered his head, a pained expression crossing his face as he pressed his hand against his temple.
In Windsor Palace? Why?
“How do you know that?” Xia'er pressed.
“I… once pursued Windsor… visited Windsor Palace several times… but rarely saw her… I could only search for her in the palace…”
Opode struggled to recall, as if something was coming back to him. He continued, “The last time I went, I found an underground passage, but I didn’t see Windsor there… instead, I saw Qiangyin…”
“In the end, I don’t even know how I got home… My father warned me not to get close to Princess Windsor… There must be something down there…”
The underground of Windsor Palace?
After a few more questions yielded no further information, Xia'er let Opode sink into a dream, then began to search quickly in the study and Qiangyin's room.
Yulis and Aimi assisted Xia'er in the search, and even the estate's servants were manipulated by Xia'er, turning the entire estate upside down, yet they found nothing.
As the search progressed, a massive tremor shook the eastern district. Looking out the window towards that direction, Xia'er saw a black-red sky looming over the eastern district.
It seemed… the summoning was successful.
Xia'er had to speed up; she needed to find Qiangyin’s spiritual notes before he either died or returned.
With no leads in Qiangyin's estate, Xia'er quickly changed direction and took the two back to Windsor Palace.
Since Princess Windsor had been abducted, the extraordinary guards had essentially followed Qiangyin to search for her, leaving no extraordinary beings behind. This made it easy for Xia'er to enter the palace.
The location of the underground passage was surprisingly easy to find. Xia'er effortlessly arrived at the entrance.
As she walked down the passage, she came upon a tightly shut door. Pushing it open, she frowned slightly.
This was a “collection room,” and Xia'er recognized it immediately as Windsor's collection room.
She knew the effects of the “Butcher” potion; by immersing herself in its influence, she could appreciate the wonders of this place.
Xia'er’s familiarity with various potions and her firsthand experiences were unmatched by anyone else.
She stepped inside and began searching, quickly finding a spiritual note—its cover signed with Windsor's full name.
It appeared to be Windsor's spiritual notes.
Xia'er handed the spiritual notes to Yulis, asking her to help break the spiritual seal, while she searched every corner of the collection room.
Aimi understood that Xia'er was looking for something very important and helped in the search as well.
Just like in Qiangyin's room, she took out a pouch of seeds from her bosom and began to evenly scatter them throughout the collection room.
The seeds quickly sprouted, their soft tendrils weaving into the cracks of the bricks.
If there were any hollow spaces behind the bricks, Aimi would be able to find them.
…Nothing.
Xia'er took a deep breath.
She had nearly searched the entire underground collection room without finding anything related to Qiangyin. She even began to doubt whether her thoughts were misguided.
Could it be that Qiangyin really left nothing behind to hint at his whereabouts?
Or was it possible that he couldn’t control where the “uniqueness” left its scars?
No, he must be able to control where wounds appear; otherwise, he wouldn’t have so many injuries without any being fatal.
The spiritual notes were crucial for extraordinary beings, especially for someone like Qiangyin, who had lived for so long. It was impossible for him not to have spiritual notes, especially given his chaotic memories.
And there was another important point.
Spiritual notes were something that needed to be recorded frequently; they couldn’t be kept in a hard-to-reach place. The purpose of spiritual notes was to allow others to check for mental anomalies; merely writing for oneself held no significance.
“Miss Xia'er.”
At that moment, Yulis had just finished deciphering Windsor's spiritual notes and handed them to Xia'er.
“Thank you.”
Xia'er took the notes and quickly flipped through them.
With her “photographic memory,” Xia'er read at an incredible speed, and Windsor's notes were not lengthy, appearing to have been written shortly after she became an extraordinary being.
As she flipped through the pages, Xia'er grasped Windsor's recent activities over the past two years and discovered some unusual details.
Especially in the last few months, almost every few pages, Windsor would vent her frustrations in the notes.
“Qiangyin came to me for notes again. Did his family die out? Does he have no one to help him? So annoying…”
“His notebook is thick and heavy, filled with a jumbled mess of notes, with a ton of spelling errors. The only reason he can scrape by in the royal court is because he plays the piano well.”
Windsor hadn’t been an extraordinary being for long; she seemed unaware of Qiangyin's status among the royal extraordinary beings…
In fact, Xia'er could sense through the lines that Windsor genuinely didn’t know Qiangyin was her biological father.
Qiangyin’s spiritual notes were actually meant for Windsor to read?
Windsor had previously shown very little musical talent, and her logical thinking skills were abysmal. She often acted on emotion, unable to pursue the paths of “detective” or “performer.”
The queen had basically given up on her becoming extraordinary. Even with royal resources, Windsor’s poor aptitude would likely make it difficult for her to succeed, and the possibility of being driven mad by the whispers was very high.
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