“Thank you, Your Highness!”

“Long Live the Queen!”

“Your Highness!”

The people of Zone 3 stood on both sides, welcoming us enthusiastically as we walked forward.

Lucifer pushed Xing Chuan to look around curiously. He was happy to be able to head out for fun and to visit different places, even if most of them were only barren mountains.

The Queen followed us too. Flurry walked faster to catch up with Lucifer, as though he were worried that Lucifer couldn’t take good care of Xing Chuan.

“Everyone, move out of the way. Let our Queen see our village!” Silver Snake said proudly. He suddenly jumped and landed on a bridge connecting to a wooden house.

The entire village was filled with criss-crossing bridges, connecting to the second or the third floor of the wooden building. The population seemed to be larger than Zone 1. Blankets made of leaves were being sun-dried on the bridge. The village seemed to be doing well.

I got down to business. “Have you planted the seeds?”

“Yes, we did. We just sowed the seeds,” Silver Snake replied. He led me to the spacious land I had seen from the spaceship earlier. They were almost done with cultivation.

Raffles immediately squatted and grabbed a handful of soil. He sniffed and nodded at me, reporting, “The soil is good.”

I looked around and saw that the field had a forest behind it, and had wooden houses surrounding it. It was in a fairly good location.

“Your Highness, you just arrived from Zone 1. You must be tired. We prepared food for you. Please take a break,” Silver Snake said as he happily led us into the stockaded village. The elderly and the children in Zone 3 followed behind us happily too. 

We were going to stay overnight in Zone 3 that day, and look for a water source.

We had arrangements to stay in the wooden building where Silver Snake was staying. It was the tallest and the most “luxurious” wooden house in the entire village.

Silver Snake led us into the house and peeped outside furtively. His people brought Xing Chuan and the Queen into another room. He was suspicious of the Queen, and had left when the Queen came to Queen Town.

Raffles stood at the balcony, sending out the prospecting robots. They flew out and landed in the woods, crawling around. They could scan thirty meters underground.

Wherever trees were, there must be water. Plus, the trees survived even though there was hardly any rain. That was why Raffles was confident that there must be an underground river somewhere. He believed that it wasn’t a small river, because there was sufficient water to cultivate the soil for the trees to grow.

“Can we really dig a river here?” Silver Snake stood next to Raffles, asking, “I, I am not in doubt of you, Professor Raffles. I definitely trust in you, but what if…”

“There will be,” Raffles reassured him, looking at the data shown on his tablet. “Trust me. We will find it soon. Look, the water content here is very high. There must be an underground river,” Raffles pointed at the data on his tablet and said excitedly.

Silver Snake smiled in relief. Then, he stole a glance at me, as if he had something to say but didn’t. It was an annoying sight.

I glanced at him and said, “Speak.”

“Who is that?” He asked quickly.

“That’s the Great Ghost King’s wife, the Queen,” I replied swiftly too.

There weren’t many people who knew of Xing Chuan’s real name and real identity in Queen Town. Everyone only knew that I had captured the Ghost Prince as a hostage.

“What?!” Silver Snake was shocked, blinking. He said, “No wonder Flurry is here.”

“You know Flurry?” I asked Silver Snake.

Silver Snake flipped his long hair, the way a beautiful man would flip his hair under the moonlight in slow motion in a TV drama. He said, “Who doesn’t know the Sixteen Ghost Messengers around the Great Ghost King? The zone leaders in the livable zones know them, Your Highness…” He came to my ear and whispered, “You’d better be careful. He has super hearing. He can hear anything. Don’t let him find out about our plan.”

Silver Snake reminded me, and I decided it was necessary to meet with Flurry.

Flurry and Lucifer were in one room because the Queen was taking care of Xing Chuan now. So, Lucifer was no longer in the same room as Xing Chuan.

When I walked to Flurry’s room, I passed by Xing Chuan’s room. The door wasn’t shut properly, and I saw the Queen helping him up to walk him to the wooden bed. The bed was covered in a soft mattress that we had brought ourselves.

Xing Chuan’s body was fragile, and he couldn’t sleep on a hard, wooden bed. His current body was as fragile as that of a young daughter of a rich family.

“Will His Highness recover?” Flurry asked softly.

I turned to look at him, saying, “You know how he is now.”

Flurry lowered his head, creasing his eyebrows, and said, “It’s just a kind of feeling that’s hard to describe. It was the way he carried himself… that attracted me…” He let out a long sigh as he walked towards the end of the corridor. A door led to the balcony outside. 

He walked out the door and leaned against the wooden fence on the balcony, “His Highness… has a mysterious vibe that attracted me…” He narrowed his eyes, saying, “I have never seen anyone like His Highness who can attract the surrounding men… and women…”

For a long time, there were many who were infatuated with Xing Chuan. In Silver Moon City or on the ground, men or women went after him like a flock of ducks. It wasn’t only because of his appearance, but also his unique charm of a Prince.

“I was surprised that His Highness looked this old, but… I won’t change my mind about him. I also know that he won’t bother taking a look at me…” Flurry clenched his fists. His loyalty changed my mind about him though. It meant that he really didn’t care about a person’s appearance.

I looked at him, saying, “Honestly, I had a bad first impression of you.”

I looked at his right hand and he lifted it. He chuckled lightly and said, “Yeah. I don’t deserve to stand next to His Highness… His Highness… Is he really that Highness?” he asked, looking at me in disbelief.

I was surprised looking at his shocked gaze. 

He…

“You heard? My conversation with the Queen?” I had only talked to the Queen about Xing Chuan’s past in Zone 1 the night before.

He creased his eyebrows and pointed at his ear, saying, “I heard it all, but how is it possible? If His Highness is really that Highness and the Great Ghost King is his father, would that make the Great Ghost King...?!” He suddenly paused. It seemed he didn’t want to say it out loud because it would be extremely disappointing to him. He continued, “...a person from Silver Moon City?” 

“He is,” I replied, chuckling lightly. Flurry was shocked.

I drew back my gaze and looked straight ahead. “Actually, I wanted to tell you the truth in Ghost King City. But I saw that all of you were so loyal to him, and I thought you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you then. On top of that, all of you would hate me. But I knew that it was only a matter of time until you found out the truth.”

“How is this possible… How is it possible…” Flurry muttered. He stumbled from the bad blow, slowly covering his ears blankly. “I don’t want to listen to you anymore… I don’t want to hear anything!” He screamed in agony under the moonlight. He shook everyone who was walking past downstairs, and they looked up at us.