Chapter 578 – 56. Ready to Go
Suddenly, the obvious mark at the corner of Fisher’s lips ignited Raphael, the fire dragon, like a spark setting off a barrel of gunpowder.
Having been intimate with Fisher so many times, she of course recognized the irregular pink mark on his lips almost immediately.
Could it be left by that woman called “Renee”?
She had just returned from Jasmine’s place, and that little girl clearly wouldn’t leave such an uninhibited mark. Furthermore, that woman named “Renee” seemed to be a sorceress, which made it reasonable for her to have some mysterious methods.
Thus, the biggest suspect in Raphael’s heart naturally fell on that elusive sorceress whom she had hardly seen before.
Even though Emhart had explained several times beside her, perhaps she thought that this bookish person and Fisher were of the same ilk, often engaging in deception and cover-ups. Therefore, Emhart’s attempts to protect him were declared a failure, and he could only lay on the nearby table, pretending to be dead to avoid the flames of war.
But Emhart’s grievances were secondary; when it came to grievances, no one in the world could be as aggrieved as Fisher, who was currently in the room.
He swore to the Mother that he had merely been reading the Soul Supplement Handbook while casually studying magic. Later, when he saw the shortcut to enhance soul power researched by Jahl Uzz, he wanted to give it a try. Who knew it would lead to a slew of puzzling questions for Fisher, including but not limited to his blank past life, the inexplicable soul power he acquired, and the identity of the mysterious woman who placed him at the church school gate.
While these unanswered questions left Fisher in confusion, he also inexplicably found a bit of a “mark” on his lips, likely left over from his research on that method. In short, it was definitely not left by some lady; it merely resembled a strawberry in shape and appearance.
However, he also recalled that when he was muttering the name of the “ocean,” he indeed had felt like he was being taken advantage of. Could it be that mark was left at that moment?
Fisher was unsure; the priority now was to appease Raphael. He had his own physical methods to do so.
Under the sparse moonlight, the candles in Fisher’s room gradually extinguished, allowing the vague moonlight outside to wash over the floor as if it were water, illuminating Fisher’s sage-like thoughts.
The room was quiet, with Raphael, her complexion rosy and a fine layer of heat-sweat glistening on her forehead, gently breathing as she lay on Fisher’s chest, exhaling a bit of fragrant hot air.
On her body, the closely-adhered scales swayed slightly, continuously releasing strands of vapor that were difficult to see with the naked eye, causing the bedding to dampen slightly and adhere to her skin, sticking to her rosy long hair, making her comfortably squint her eyes and clutch him a little tighter.
“Feeling a bit better now?”
From the side, Fisher’s inquiry came, and Raphael, closing one eye and raising the other to glance at him, denied,
“Not at all.”
“Not at all?”
Behind her, the long tail that poked out from the scattered bedding cheerfully slapped the bed mattress, then nodded.
Fisher looked down at her in confusion but found that she too lazily lifted her head a bit to look at him.
Facing Fisher’s gaze, Raphael imperceptibly puffed up her cheeks, and her tail swished across the bed like a rattlesnake’s tail, her emerald green eyes persistently circling the extremely conspicuous kiss mark at the corner of his lips.
Then, in the midst of Fisher’s stunned expression, she leaned her head closer, pressing her lips firmly against the other side of his mouth, matching the mark left earlier on the opposite side.
“Pop!”
She kissed Fisher’s lips with considerable force, and he remained still, allowing her to act as she pleased, until after several seconds when she finally pulled away, breathing heavily as she glanced at the spot she had just worked on.
As a result, no matter how hard she tried, she could not leave a strawberry kiss mark next to Fisher’s mythical-ranked lips similar to the last one.
Fisher couldn’t help but chuckle as he noticed Raphael was increasingly puffing up her cheeks in frustration, her tail swaying angrily behind her as if it were displeased, which made him laugh even more.
Before she opened her mouth wide, intending to bite him with her sharp dragon teeth, Fisher gently pressed down on her head, pulling her back into his embrace.
She struggled a little, but once she couldn’t break free, she lazily settled back down in his arms, her emerald green eyes staring murderously at him, prompting him to explain,
“This isn’t a kiss mark; it’s just a mark left from studying magic.”
“Ha.”
Raphael ignored his explanation, biting down on his abdominal muscles, seemingly just teasing him but also expressing the “explanation has failed” situation.
However, Fisher also felt this way. If a lady really possessed such magical prowess, he might feel a bit guilty. But now, it wasn’t true; what could he say to explain it?
But Raphael seemed to have moved on from thinking it was some false lady; instead, she stated,
“You definitely weren’t studying magic just now. If you were studying magic, you wouldn’t be banging your head against the table like that, it was too painful. What were you really doing that was related to defeating demons?”
“No.”
Fisher’s palm wrapped around Raphael’s delicate body, smoothly threading through her waterfall-like soft rosy hair as it flowed through his fingertips.
Raphael’s body trembled, yet she did not let Fisher off the hook,
“You’re lying.”
“What lie? Haven’t I already told you the method? Those demons haven’t escaped the Mother’s seal; I just need to enter the Demon Dynasty and reactivate their seal.”
“Is it really that simple?”
“It’s that simple.”
Fisher smiled, but a flicker of thoughts crossed his eyes.
He suddenly recalled what he had just seen; his soul had no past, nor did he have a previous life, which completely contradicted the knowledge of the soul given by Jahl Uzz.
What kind of situation is this? Why did his perspective abruptly stop at the moment he saw that bizarre woman?
This implied that it was very likely he didn’t have truly meaningful parents at all; perhaps he was created by some existence, like the woman he just saw.
Or perhaps this was the real reason Ch had called him “special” earlier?
Then why was his specialty granted to him? Who exactly was that mysterious woman? Did she create him? If she did, what was her purpose?
Even Fisher himself didn’t expect that realizing he had no past life would evoke a deep-rooted fear in him.
If he had no past life and was artificially created, then were the people he met and the experiences he went through possibly arranged for him? Was he walking according to someone else’s plan and scheme?
He even feared that everything he possessed now was false, that all he had experienced was manipulated. Or perhaps, any soul that yearns for freedom would feel such fear.
Unfortunately, Fisher was not someone who had been transferred from another world; he didn’t know the story of “The Truman Show,” yet he could empathize with the protagonist Truman’s feelings.
“Raphael, do you believe in fate?”
In the silence, he looked at Raphael, who was resting on him and feeling somewhat drowsy. She opened one eye, looking towards Fisher, tilting her head slightly in response,
“Fate… you mean destiny?”
“A bit like that, but the fate I’m talking about might be something conscious, a divine existence that has been around for a long time. I once read a Nali drama that depicted a very skilled puppeteer who created a lifelike puppet with consciousness named ‘Duke.’ He never told the puppet it was a puppet, allowing it to believe it was a living person. Thus, Duke wandered around Saint Nali, meeting many people, including a farm girl who did laundry. Duke instantly fell in love with this laundry girl.”
Fisher recalled the story of the drama, stroking Raphael’s shoulder as he spoke,
“Just like any adventure story, one day, a reckless son of a wealthy family took a fancy to that laundry girl, wanting to claim her. The girl didn’t want this, but had no way to resist the wealthy boy, leading her to weep every day.
“When Duke learned about this, he conferred with others he knew to find evidence of the wealthy boy’s misdeeds to bring him to trial in the Golden Palace and save the laundry girl. Amidst the cheerful story, he faced numerous challenges along his journey, and with the help of many allies, finally found the evidence against the wealthy boy and brought him to court, ultimately winning.
“Just when it was natural for Duke to step into a beautiful ending, as he had defeated the villain and was ready to enjoy the pinnacle of life and the climax of the drama, music suddenly rang out around the court. The puppeteer walked out with the song, and it turned out everything was part of the puppeteer’s play; the wealthy boy, the laundry woman, and all of Duke’s friends were all actors of the puppeteer, bowing to the real audience, leaving a stunned Duke standing there, blankly feeling the mocking gazes of the spectators.”
In Nali language, the name “Duke” is actually homophonous with “joke,” which is also the essence of the story.
Raphael opened both her eyes. After thinking for a moment, she said,
“When we Dragon Race come into the world, our elders follow the guidance of the soul to give each dragon a name, which generally carries special meaning, representing the future destiny of that dragon.”
“What does the name ‘Raphael’ mean in terms of destiny?”
“It means ‘gentle and virtuous.’”
“Really?”
Fisher looked unexpectedly at the yawning Raphael in his arms, and that unexpected gaze made Raphael slightly stunned, before she bit down on his chest and mumbled,
“Why, am I not gentle?”
“If you let go of the dragon teeth biting me right now, I might actually think so.”
However, even Raphael herself seemed to feel that describing herself as “gentle and virtuous” didn’t quite fit, so the next moment, she gently released her bite on Fisher’s skin and said,
“So, I’ve never been a firm believer in fate. Fate is timing, it’s momentum. Perhaps indeed there exists a moment we don’t know where we will face an inevitable conclusion, but before that, we must have made countless choices that lead to that moment. Perhaps I once had the chance to truly become the gentle ‘Raphael,’ but when I chose to walk out of the tribe, decided to be with you yet also decide to temporarily part with you, that set fate went its own way with me.”
Listening to Raphael’s words, Fisher also thought of the phoenixes’ interpretations of fate and the choices they made.
This made his heart feel a little more at ease. Perhaps his fate was indeed shaped long ago in his blank past life, but from birth to now, every decision he made was from his own heart.
Even if because of this, his actions were calculated by some truly powerful existence (like the woman with the strange scar on her hand), he still should have acted that way.
“I understand now, Raphael. I’m preparing to set off for the Demon Dynasty tomorrow. You must be careful while leading the army, do not engage in direct combat; you are no match for those two demons. Only by resealing them back into the dynasty does the Dragon Court have a chance of survival.”
As Raphael was giving this advice, her tail involuntarily perked up when he spoke those words.
She was originally worried that Fisher would do something foolish because of her and the Dragon Court. Now, it seemed, her previous words had helped him make up his mind?
“Swish.”
Her tail began to shake restlessly, hitting Fisher’s thigh, making him look at Raphael in confusion,
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. If that’s the case, I’m planning to have Jasmine accompany you tomorrow.”
Fisher was momentarily taken aback, the first thought in his mind was: Is there such a good thing?
Could it really be a gift of fate that would resolve the conflict between them without them even realizing it?
If that’s the case, whether fate is good or bad could be worth contemplating.
But seeing Fisher’s “pleasant surprise” expression, Raphael dangerously narrowed her eyes, poking him with her tail like a needle, while saying,
“Ha, it’s just that Jasmine doesn’t have anything to do here for now, and having her around can help you, plus I can find out the specifics of the situation in the dynasty through Jasmine to arrange strategic deployments. Given the urgency, if you dare to secretly do something bad behind my back…”
“I’ll just go with that friend, Jasmine can stay by your side. Both of you will be safer.”
“…”
Raphael fell silent. She comfortably closed her eyes, lying motionless on him, preparing to rest.
The room gradually quieted down and sank into a deep sleep.
Unbeknownst to everyone, at that moment, the Sea of Souls in the Spirit Realm seemed to have established a wondrous link with Raphael, firmly locking onto her lower abdomen.
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(End of Chapter)
