Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Preparing Gifts
The chamber of commerce organized a grand banquet at the president’s estate in the countryside to celebrate a lucrative deal made by the merchants.
At the long table, glasses clinked, and the famous Barto wine, as red as blood, spilled from the rim of the cups.
The merchant who had finalized the deal with Jima had a flushed face, a smug smile spreading across his face, entirely different from the flattering and friendly false smile he wore during negotiations.
He listened to his colleagues’ celebrations and praises, shaking his head and placing his silver cup on the table as he said:
“I’m not being modest; I just had good luck.”
“That girl is pretty enough, but even a goat could do better math. Sixty-three people, each giving thirteen gold coins, totals eight hundred and nineteen, yet she insisted it was a thousand and nineteen gold coins.”
The merchant waggled a finger emphatically, emphasizing, “A thousand gold coins! I was so stunned at the time that I even suspected she was trying to con me and was looking for an excuse to trap me.”
“To my surprise, she pulled out heaps of gold coins. Those sailors were even duller than goats and followed suit in paying.”
“Scared me into giving her a discount—the final price was eight hundred and nineteen gold coins, and can you believe it? She thanked me.” The merchant continued, “Her voice is heavenly; she’s the most beautiful maiden I’ve ever seen. I can’t even imagine which family could raise someone so lovely.”
“So, you sold a bull and a sheep for thirteen gold coins in total?”
“I’m not that cunning; the retail price was originally twelve gold coins. I just asked for one gold coin more.”
“What’s the wholesale price usually?”
“Seven gold coins in total.”
“Is there that much difference?”
“That’s the standard market rate. Don’t you know?” The merchant shook his head, “You have much to learn.”
“You don’t make much profit, do you?”
“I still have my conscience; I just raise prices within reasonable limits. Otherwise, I won’t last long in this business.” The merchant swirled his cup, saying, “I tested her a bit and found she didn’t care whether the sacrificial cow was robust or young, so I made an excuse to delay and brought in old cows and old sheep that I usually sell at low prices, some of which were sick, making their prices especially low.”
“Aren’t you afraid the sea god will be displeased by inferior sacrifices and flood the port?”
“I still provided her with ten young and robust cows; the standards for the sacrifices are already quite high.”
“So, how much did you make for the business?”
“At least over five hundred gold coins in profit.” The merchant leaned back in his chair, turning to the person who had been asking him questions and said, “Don’t be envious; just stick it out long enough, and you’ll eventually encounter easy customers like mine, haha, just not as easy as mine.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Jima sat at the side of the long table, tapping her knuckles one by one. No one noticed her; the guests were engrossed in their drinking and chatting, while outside the window, it was pitch black, with no scenery.
This was just a merchant’s dream.
Jima swung her smooth little legs, looking at the proud merchant, who hadn’t noticed anything amiss, and asked, “By the way, what are you most afraid of?”
“Of course, spiders. Once, a spider fell into my collar. It scared me so much I lay in bed with red spots all over my body; I was bedridden for three days.”
“Alright, I’ll arrange a nightmare for you.” Jima smiled, “After all, collecting extra money does require a price and absolute loyalty…”
The merchant, unaware of the impending doom, continued to smile proudly, seeing Jima as just another colleague as he boasted about his good fortune.
Jima mimicked him, waggling her index finger.
In an instant, everyone froze, and time stood still.
“… Absolute loyalty needs to be ensured by extreme fear.”
Saying this, Jima jumped down from the long table and walked toward the door. When she snapped her fingers, the wine in the merchant’s silver cup turned into a pile of pink spider eggs, and little spiders crawled out of the egg pile, spilling over the rim and falling down his fingers.
Time seemed to hasten as the living people beside the merchant quickly aged; their skin dried and wrinkled, their eyes sunk, turning to bones. White spider silk fell from the ceiling, landing on the bones, and a gigantic spider occupied more than half of the ceiling, with hundreds of eyes staring down at the merchant’s head.
And the merchant, oblivious, continued to smile at the bones beside him.
When Jima reached the door and closed it, she said:
“Time starts to flow.”
As soon as she finished speaking, a howl erupted from behind the door.
Jima’s lips curved upward, and bat wings measuring four meters spread from her back. With a gentle flap, she soared into the night sky, quickly flying out of the merchant’s dream and returning to the black-and-white dream realm.
Behind her, the merchant’s dream, which had once been like a glimmering white cloud, was now tainted with gray and black, becoming denser.
The miscalculation was intentional on her part. The merchant sensed it correctly; Jima wanted an excuse to deal with him while forcing him to serve her.
Even when she was still a demon lord, Jima realized that instead of forcing someone directly, luring them into making a “mistake” and then compelling them to work was much more effective. The coerced would willingly believe they had erred, thinking that if they just followed what the coercer said, they could correct their mistakes.
“Trust the nightmare I designed; it will make him realize what he needs to do when he wakes up.” Jima stood on the window frame, lightly flying into the gray and white sky of the dream, “Never mind, I’ll return to confirm once the nightmare is over. My head hurts; I can’t show myself directly or make it clear that I’m the mastermind behind this.”
Jima firmly adhered to the “mastermind” principle, avoiding taking matters into her own hands unless necessary to prevent leaving traces.
“I also need to deal with the illustrations. If the little yellow book sells well and accidentally falls into George’s hands, he’ll recognize it as one he drew himself, then I’m totally done for.”
Jima murmured to herself as she circled above Leanan City.
Unknowingly, Jima flew to the harbor. The ships docked at the port were outlined in a haze, as if obscured by a layer of gray mist. On one ship, a third color appeared—light yellow. The dream realm had always been in black and white, and this different hue stood out remarkably.
Jima looked at the color, cautiously circling above the ship. She noticed that this light yellow deepened toward the ship’s hold. Although she couldn’t see the details clearly, Jima could ascertain that this ship was the Sea Siren.
What’s going on…
Jima descended from the sky, landing on the roof of a building at the dock. In the middle of the ship, where the crew rested, she spotted a small patch of deeper yellow; she counted—there were sixty-three of them.
Why was there yellow on the crew? What does this signify? Why hadn’t her personal system mentioned this?
Jima could only speculate.
Could this yellow be the “visualization” of my lies? I didn’t see it in my previous dreams. Now that I see it, it might be because I’ve further mastered the power of the “trickster.”
But Jima didn’t rush to investigate the light yellow area. Avoiding unauthorized exploration of unknown territories significantly lowers the probability of dying young.
To verify her speculation, Jima went to the place the Sea Siren crew frequented the most.
In the tavern owner’s resting room, there was a faint hint of yellow. Near the market, there was also a circle of light yellow surrounding it.
This aligned significantly with the sailors’ daytime activities.
Only then did Jima head to the Sea Siren, entering the hold and approaching the bright yellow spots to touch them. An indescribable feeling surfaced in her heart.
For some reason, Jima understood its meaning.
“It’s the kind-hearted lies of the demon Jima, spreading throughout the city like a virus.”
Jima turned around and glimpsed a pitch-black “dream seed” through the cabin walls and heavy buildings. That was the seed for the merchant’s dream. Jima reached out, grasped it, and in the blink of an eye, she “flew” to the merchant’s side.
The gray-black hue of the merchant’s dream had faded; Jima reached out, touched the dream, and entered it.
Inside, there was nothing, as if she had plunged into a mass of dark clouds. She saw the trembling merchant, curled up on the ground.
Jima softly asked:
“If you wake up, what will you do?”
“I… I’ve been cursed; I need to atone! Yes! Atonement!”
“How will you atone?”
“I need to buy a painting of an elven woman, and then find someone to print a book. The more people who read it, the lighter my sin will become. If it sells well, I can even make some money.”
I like the word atonement.
“Yes, exactly like that. Remember, revealing secrets has serious consequences.”
The merchant curled into a ball and said, “I… I understand! I understand!”
“Good, from now on, I’ll call you Mr. Understand.”
The next morning.
Mr. Understand woke up, drenched in sweat.
He only remembered having a very terrifying nightmare last night but forgot a female voice spoke to him; however, he inexplicably knew he had to publish a book.
“Just a dream, right?”
Mr. Understand rubbed his brown beard, the memories of the nightmare surfacing in his mind, causing him to tremble. He looked around and muttered to himself:
“It has to be just a dream. I don’t even know what book I’m supposed to publish.”
As soon as he finished speaking, his neck stiffened.
On the bedside table, there was a neatly stacked pile of paper covered in writing. He was certain these papers didn’t belong to him; he nervously reached out with his hand—just glancing at the text made his eyes ache.
Mr. Understand felt a mix of fear and despair, immediately turning his head away to avert his gaze. He had heard that certain texts held power, causing madness when looked at.
The paper was filled with mysterious words tangled together like earthworms, exuding an aura of secrecy and madness.
He swallowed hard and turned his head to look closely.
Miraculously, he discovered the “mysterious characters” gradually transformed into comprehensible common language. Though it looked like poorly written common language, Mr. Understand believed these words were magical, automatically becoming clear to the reader.
“The Story of the Fallen Elven Queen, by the White-Haired One?”
…
…
In the morning, at the Leanan harbor dock.
George, fully armed, was listening to a timid citizen:
“Sir, the sailors indeed bought a large number of cattle and sheep to sacrifice to the sea god yesterday.”
“How many heads?”
“I couldn’t see clearly, perhaps two to three hundred heads.”
“Thank you very much.”
George turned to leave; this was the fourteenth person he queried that day.
Before long, he walked to the back yard of the inn.
On a carriage.
A bored dark-haired girl leaned against the window, her ten fingers tapping up and down on the window frame. Her horns had vanished, and she looked just like an ordinary human girl.
Seeing George, a bright smile and a small tiger tooth suddenly appeared on her cute, innocent face as she raised her hand and shouted:
“You’re finally back!”
A smile involuntarily appeared on George’s face; he walked up to the carriage and said:
“Yesterday, you and the sailors sacrificed over two hundred livestock.”
“Not that many.” Jima’s smile faded, and her brow furrowed, “I just accidentally became a sucker and spent a lot of money at once.”
“That’s okay.” George said, “It’s rare for you to do a good deed; consider this my support, and the debt is cleared.”
“Really?” The demon girl’s golden eyes sparkled, “George, you’re really a great person.”
“By the way, did you forget to bring something?”
“Let me check.” Jima hurriedly rifled through her stuffed-to-capacity backpack beside her, “Compass, books, and the Gwent cards… The Great Blade is resting here; I can use the fear aura on it to keep the mosquitoes away.”
“It seems you left the painting I gave you in the room.”
“Oh, that painting.” Jima smacked her forehead: “The more I look at it, the angrier I get. I thought, never mind, it’s better to sell it. Just then, a merchant seemed bewitched by that painting and offered a good sum for it.”
“How much?”
Jima’s face lit up with joy, “Fifty gold coins.”
“This is the first time I’ve learned that my painting can sell for so much.”
“Do you want to become a painter in the future?”
George gazed at the sky outside the window and said, “Perhaps, maybe in the future. There are too many things that prevent me from being a painter.”
“If you become a painter, you’ll definitely do well.” At least you won’t be running to others’ bedroom doors with a sword.
George laughed and said:
“If I become a painter, please help me sell my paintings.”
“Of course.” Jima said, “By the way, can we get going now?”
“Let’s set off.”
…
…
A plump messenger pigeon quietly perched on the chest of Saint Jenna. Holding the white dove, she slowly walked on the stone path, as if a beam of white light had fallen upon her, radiating a holy aura that evoked reverence.
On the road, she encountered a group of female priests, who greeted the saint.
“Good day, Saint.”
She smiled and returned each greeting: “Sisters, good morning.”
In the gazes of admiration and envy, the silhouette of Saint Jenna disappeared into her dwelling.
The main door closed, the room door shut, and the windows had already been shut.
Alone, Saint Jenna suddenly jumped up with joy:
“George is coming back!”
The poor plump dove was flung toward the ceiling, flapping its wings in a panic.
With a thud, the messenger pigeon crashed into the ceiling. Saint Jenna quickly caught it, gently stroking its head, her fingertips radiating a faint white light, saying, “I’m so sorry; I’m just too excited. But you won’t tell anyone, right?”
“Coo coo coo.”
“You also don’t understand human language.”
Saint Jenna gently set the messenger pigeon down and found a piece of paper at the bottom of a thick layer of books in a locked drawer. She unfolded it and softly read its contents:
“George, a few days ago was your coming-of-age birthday; you probably didn’t feel like celebrating, right? The coming-of-age ceremony is very important, so I’m going to hold a belated birthday celebration for you, okay? I’ve prepared a cake for you; Bishop Gregory has something to deal with and won’t be back for a while, so it’ll just be the two of us. I… I have something very important to tell you.”
As she spoke, Saint Jenna’s face flushed red, and she suddenly placed the paper on the table.
“Ah, I almost forgot there’s also a demon girl. George didn’t mention the demon girl, so she probably betrayed him, and he’s heartbroken, thus not bringing it up. I’ll comfort him again on his birthday…” Saint Jenna clasped her hands together, “It’ll definitely succeed the first time.”
