Witch Trials

Meanwhile, on the Sky City.

[System alert: Player Heart logged in the game.]

[Player Heart receives game identity (Son of the Virgin)]

Sleeping in the soft cushion of Heart's log-in game, he slowly opened his eyes, and at the sight of the familiar burgundy velvet draped tent in front of him, his pupils contracted for a split second, and almost as if he were a stimulated animal he instantly pulled out his weapon - a playing card - and scratched at it.

The draped tent was shattered by the sharp edges of the playing cards, which fell like a shower of blood, and on the opposite side of the table there was an ambiguous stacked pair of playing cards, the one below was the Heart Q - which stood for Heart.

The playing card on top usually represents the person who came to spend the night last night.

Heart calms down as he reads the instructions for the game, rises to his feet and walks forward, slowly reaching out with two fingers to stroke the Heart card on the table before dropping his eyes and letting out a lazy, soft chuckle:

"So this is the game map."

Reality, Heresy Authority three innings, two o'clock in the evening.

A helicopter landed stealthily at the top of the third station, and a group of men in black bodyguard uniforms with briefcases stepped out of it, and as soon as they landed from the top of the third floor, they were surrounded by members of the Heretic Authority with their guns raised.

Three Bureaus is a repository of dangerous heresy that was first built on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but then the island sank, and Georgia, the current head of Three Bureaus, rebuilt it out of his own pocket on another coast closer to the island, and increased the size of it, expanding Three Bureaus.

The three bureaus are now more heavily guarded and warehouse a very large number of dangerous heretics, with the main responsibility being to watch over the heretics that come in and lease a portion of the ones that have been determined to be safer to the nations by the way they are housed.

The group of men walking at the very head of the black bodyguard uniforms held their hands up in a gesture of surrender, signaling that they were harmless, carefully presented a reservation ticket, and discreetly said in English, "Good day, we have come to rent the Heretic by previous reservation, and have already paid the deposit."

The Heretic Authority team member took one look at the appointment ticket in his hand and slowly lowered his gun, cocking his head to signal to come after him.

The group let out a long breath and followed the Heretic Authority all the way down to the reception room on the first floor.

The Heretic Authority ground crew knocked on the door of the captain's office, and from inside came a serious, dignified male voice that said softly and politely, "Come in."

It took the man with the reservation ticket to push open the door and enter.

He took a deep breath when he saw Georgia sitting in her office chair, turning to look at him - no matter how many times he saw her, he was still shocked by her overly striking appearance, especially in such a solemn and institutionalized place, where the overly dark tones just didn't match her looks.

"Greetings, Captain Georgia." The man bowed respectfully to Georgia and sat down across from her as he pulled out his reservation ticket and pushed it over, "We're here to pick up a previous reservation for a low-risk heretic, the Seven Star Eel."

Georgia scanned the reservation ticket he'd pushed over to her with downcast eyes, and instead of moving, folded her arms in front of her, "I'll need to take another look at your rental qualifications."

The man became anxious all of a sudden, and the words came out with an accent, "Why do we still need to be inspected? It's already been examined for three rounds before, and we passed all the tests!"

Looking at Georgia's calm and unperturbed face, the man seemed to calm down as well, and realizing that such haste was unlikely to convince the cautious head of the third bureau, he took a deep breath and looked at Georgia with the most reverent eyes:

"Captain Georgia, the water pollution within our kingdom is really very serious, it has reached the point where boiling it for consumption after multiple purifications will affect everyone, you see."

With that, the man eagerly pulled out his cell phone and played a news video to Georgia:

"...... water pollution in the country is getting more and more serious, this year there have been twenty-three consecutive infants and young children died from illnesses because they drank water that had not been purified and cleaned, and everyone sits in front of the government every day in a sit-in protest in the hope that the government can offer a solution."

"Hospitals, restaurants, because of the water pollution almost all came to a standstill, suicide rate and death rate is climbing higher every day, the damage caused by the water pollution, as if there is an invisible disease in the population epidemic, the people in the case of no recourse, they have begun to turn to the major denominations, the rise of the ecclesiastical forces."

"People started praying to God to solve the water pollution problem, but we all know it's impossible ......"

Before the moderator could finish this sentence, someone in the background hissed manically, "Who says it's impossible! God can surely fix it!"

"If God doesn't fix it will you fix it for us!"

The hosts were soon beaten and dragged off the stage in the midst of the chaos, and the video screen went black, and that was the end of it.

Georgia's eyes moved very lightly, but he remained silent.

The man began to advise bitterly, "Captain Georgia, our water contamination, as I'm sure you've read the reports, has reached a point where the mortality rate caused by the spread of the orange-colored Medium Critical Heresy has been reduced to a level that, according to the Heresy Authority's Joint International Regulations, is mandatory for you to lease us if you have any heretics that can solve such a crisis at this point in time! "

"It's to free all the innocent people in this country!"

Georgia finally spoke up, his eyes calmly sweeping the man's cuffs for ecclesiastical accessories, "But we generally only lease to government departments, not to the Holy See."

"But you can see the situation in the country now." The man sighed without regret, "People don't trust the government, they only trust the Holy See, and under these circumstances, the government is interested in bringing the Holy See under its jurisdiction."

The man gave a slightly reserved and smug smile, "-The Order would not have been able to get the Authority's reservation tickets without the help of the government, and you can now fully consider the Order as our governmental arm, with our high popular support and appeal."

Georgia, still not moving.

The man's patience seemed to be running dry, but he didn't dare make a move, instead he took a careful glance at Georgia and slowly pushed a check of a huge denomination over on the table, and spoke with deliberation, "If you think it's a matter of a deposit, we can discuss it again."

--That's a blatant bribe.

Georgia lifted her eyelids and gave the other a cold look, "You think I'm short of money?"

The man instantly knew that he had touched the scales and quickly took the check back, he smiled awkwardly, "Naturally not, I've heard about your status, how could you be short of money?"

"You are the heir to the Kingdom of Gold." The man smiled fawningly.

He's probably just been kicked in the head for trying to bribe Georgia with money, and there's no way in the world that Georgia is short of money.

Georgia But [the country of gold] of the big Wang Zi, the hand can not count how much gold in, even the reconstruction of a bigger than the island of the three bureaus, running up to now have not let the General Administration to shell out a penny, how can accept his fingernail cap so little bribe.

"There's no need to bring up that title again, I'm just a civilian now too." Georgia, in an unusual tone, "I'm dead."

The man nodded his head, "Okay, okay."

The country did fall, and that gold was indeed inherited by Georgia.

"You really can't lend it to us?" The man asked again, undeterred by Georgia's silence, the urgency in his eyes almost spilling over, "We'll give it back immediately after we've dealt with the water contamination, right now I'm at a standstill with you here, I could sit here all the time to express my sincerity in order to pass your test, I could express our sincerity for ten years, but every minute of every day there are children in my kingdom are dying because of drinking contaminated water!"

"You don't want these children to be like you once were, powerless to watch their countrymen perish and their country fall, do you?"

Georgia finally moved, he glanced up at the man, got up and said, "Show me the papers for the lease application again."

The man let out a long breath as he handed over the paperwork with trepidation, and after Georgia had carefully read it again, he looked up, "It does indeed meet the lease requirements."

"Come with me."

Following Georgia's lead, Georgia walked briskly ahead, explaining in a calm tone as she went, "The Seven Star Eel is a low-risk heretic we've recently taken in, it's not very dangerous, it's easy to take in, and we've recently discovered that it dissolves a lot of pollutants in the water, and it has a strange effect on purifying the water. "

"After coming up with this report, I then sent out reports to areas around the world where water pollution was so severe that it exceeded the danger of low-risk heretics, indicating that heretics could be leased to help solve the water pollution problem."

Georgia looked back at the man, "This is the seven-star eel."

In front of the man were two eels coiled up and sleeping in two separate tanks, and he did his best to control his greedy eyes with an ecstatic expression, "This is the low-risk heretical seven-star eel that can solve water pollution, isn't it?"

"Yes." Georgia nodded, his tone soon serious, "But no matter how low-risk it is, it's still heresy."

"The seven-star eel has no other hazards, its only heretical hazard comes from reproduction, a heresy that reproduces exceptionally quickly; as long as the females and males are placed in a tank, in just one night, the entire tank will be full of their offspring."

"That's why we only rent them separately, males only, just in case something goes wrong."

The man's greedy eyes cooled for a moment, and he paused for a moment before carefully inquiring, "Can't we rent the Matrix?"

"Can't." Georgia refused without hesitation, "The Seven Star Eel can only be dissolved if it is trapped in a cavity inside the human body, and the liquid after dissolution, although it won't cause too much harm to the human body, will cause some mutation."

"Though the reason for this is unclear and there is a certain gender orientation to the dissolution of the seven star eel; male-bodied eels can only be dissolved by the internal cavities of males, and female-bodied eels can only be dissolved by the internal cavities of females."

The man looked at the eel's mouth and his scalp tingled a little, "An internal male cavity?!"

Georgia swept her eyes lightly above and below him and spoke in an unusual manner, "For women it's the saliva that's highly soluble, but for men it's the intestinal fluids that are highly soluble."

"?!" The man laughed twice in embarrassment and subconsciously clenched his buttocks, "Captain Georgia, don't you feel terrible talking about this?"

"Scary?" Georgia shifted his eyes back to the eel in the observation cabinet as he gazed deeply into it and whispered indistinctly, "If it only goes so far as to save my hometown, then what's so terrible about it?"

Soon, Georgia regained her composure, "Male-bodied seven-star eels can't reproduce themselves, so the lease is safe, so you don't have to think too much."

"But one eel, the purification rate is too slow." The man stared straight at the female eel in the observation cabinet, "Can't you lend us the female one along with it?"

"No way." Georgia refused coldly, "The female eel is unstable right now, and we've watched her reproduce before and noticed a clear tendency to overpopulate - she's reproducing all females and almost no males lately, and it looks like she's about to expand her breeding. "

The man's eyes lit up, "All females?"

--Wouldn't that be enough to dissolve with just a woman.

"So Matrix is not leasing." Georgia simply came to a resolution as he looked toward the man, "Come on over and check out the lease."

"Oh, yes, yes." The man almost tore his gaze away from the female eel with fondness, "Captain Georgia, you asked me to make a call to notify the country first, to tell them that they've only borrowed one eel, so we can prioritize the area for use."

It's a perfectly reasonable request, and Georgia nods, "Go ahead."

Georgia Back in his office, the man went to the helicopter pad on the top floor of the Heretic Treatment Bureau to make a phone call.

In the office, Georgia dragged his jaw as if frozen in time as he looked at the water contamination information handed over by the man in contemplation, the team member next to him saw him like this and inquired, "Captain, are you still unsure? There's nothing wrong with his procedures."

"And it's only a low-risk heretic."

Georgia frowned, "I know."

"I just thought ......"

Curious, the team member followed up with, "Feel what?"

"Some coincidence." Georgia looked to the man's profile, his brow furrowing more and more, "One foot this country breaks out with a serious water pollution problem, the next we take in low-risk cultists who just happen to be available to lease them a solution to their water pollution problem."

"It's like ......"

Something unseen is arranging them.

On the top floor, the man's face contorted in rapid excitement the moment he made the call after getting back inside the helicopter away from the Heretic Authority crew:

"Hey, I saw the Seven Star Eel."

"Is this stuff really what you guys say it is, dissolved and then the bones stripped away like metal minerals that can be used to forge weapons?"

"The Church needs weapons, the big minerals are held, the Seven Star Eel would be an inexhaustible mineral if it could get into our hands, and we could use it to arm the Church from top to bottom."

"...... Money is not a problem, we have the backing of the big plutocrats ......"

"But the only problem is." The man lowered his voice abruptly as he glanced sinisterly at the Third Bureau, "The head of the Third Bureau will only lend me males, and without females there is no way to reproduce."

The bishop's hoarse laugh came over the phone, "Father Quan Zhendong, don't worry about that, God will bless you."

The man's eyes perked up, "What do I have to do?"

"We have been gifted by some of the gods, and the strange props that have been offered to us are comparable to heresy." The bishop laughed hoarsely twice more, "which facilitates our thievery."

The man frowned, "But the Third Bureau has a tight grip, and I'll be shot immediately if the Matrix is missing."

"No, we are not stealing the Matrix." The Bishop let out a low chuckle, "Have you forgotten what the one in charge said? He said that the females reproduce quickly and give birth to the next generation of females."

"We just need to get the two eels to breed a little quickly, and then steal the female eel that the mother gave birth to, plus the male we leased-"

The Bishop sighed contentedly, "God loves the world, the Church is great."

Quan Zhendong also laughed out loud as he looked towards the Heresy Disposal Bureau, a ghostly light flashing in his eyes, "God loves the world, the Holy See is great."

Three o'clock in the morning.

Quan Zhendong practically jogged onto the helicopter, looking in a frenzied tone toward the two eels that were intertwining in the tank, "Got it, Bishop!"

"Well done." The Bishop laughed pleasantly on the other side, he seemed to be clinking glasses with someone, the sound of crisp glasses clinking came over the phone, and his tone became drunken, "Send the eels back, then come and relax on the Vice."

"You're on the secondary island?!" Instead of being happy to hear that name, Quan Zhendong was alarmed, "Are you crazy! Have you forgotten what happened to those people on the main island!"

"The original island of Sky City has been taken over by the Empress, and everyone on it is his slave and lackey!"

"Now this annexed island you built behind the Queen's back will also be discovered by him sooner or later! He will definitely torture you all to death then! How dare you go up there!"

The bishop's side was silent for a moment and became raggedly breathing, "You're right, I'm just so happy today, thinking about the fact that the Empress seems to be so busy with something else lately that she hasn't toured the island ......"

"I'll get off the island right away!"

"Don't ever go up to the Sky City Sub-Island!" Quan Zhendong warned the Bishop overstepping his bounds, viciously, "If you don't want our great ecclesiastical endeavors to be messed up by this lunatic, the Empress, after you're found out!"

After hanging up the phone, Quan Zhendong's excitement of stealing the Seven Star Eel had completely disappeared, his head was covered with cold sweat, he leaned against the helicopter's seat with his eyes closed, and it was only after a long interval that he dared to open his cell phone and flipped through the photos inside.

There was a special album called the Queen's Album, which Quan Zhendong opened with an almost shaking hand.

The first one in the album was of a very beautiful boy, who looked to be only thirteen or fourteen years old, with extremely moving violet eyes, just looking so coldly and languidly at the person who was taking his picture.

Quan Zhendong couldn't control the fascination in his eyes, and couldn't control the fear he felt from the bottom of his heart for this person, he half-closed his eyes, put the picture of his cell phone on his chest, and murmured indistinctly:

"...... Queen."

Every man who has ever met the Queen should have the same attitude towards her.

Twenty-five years ago, a world-renowned dancer appeared in their country, best known for the opera Salome, and countless people fell for her exquisite dance, and she was only nineteen years old, a very young dancer with a promising future, so to speak.

She had a good home environment, with loving parents and family harmony, and was raised to be kind and naïve. She soon had her own dance studio, and at the height of her reputation, her first national tour was actually a benefit performance, donating all the proceeds to organizations and churches in need.

Plus she had a devout faith, and everyone has called her a saint ever since.

The Virgin, who was said to have some foreign blood, was very beautiful, with a pair of violet eyes that sparkled like jewels, and although she danced a somewhat sinister, witch-like role like Salome, her demeanor was indeed still that of a nineteen year old girl when she smiled shyly on stage after each performance, holding up the flowers that were given to her by everyone.

This contrast made everyone love her, praising her for her dedication and her beauty.

But something happened to the Virgin on a charity tour, she was forced by a priest, but this priest forcefully testified that it was the Virgin who had a love affair with him and gave a series of proofs - such as pictures of the Virgin looking at him on stage and laughing, pictures of the Virgin smiling and shaking his hand.

The saintly woman in these pictures looks at him with such implied affection that the saintly woman can't argue with a hundred things - she looks at everyone.

But the majestic position of the priest and the reverence for priests in the country turned these puffs into ironclad evidence, while the priest fondly stated that he gave up his priesthood for the Virgin, saying that he was willing to give up his faith to be with her forever - priests and nuns are the same, being devoted to God with all they have, and are not allowed to marry.

This sparked a nationwide movement and everyone wanted the Virgin and the priest to be together.

But the Virgin refused.

Although she was also a devout believer, she did not want to marry a priest.

Soon the controversy surrounding her grew and reached its peak when she was found to be pregnant.

It was not permitted in their land for those who believed in the Church to put to death a life that had not yet been born, it was an original sin - the Virgin eventually chose to give birth to the child.

In this case, the will to urge the Virgin and the priest to get together grew stronger and stronger, even to the point of a kind of Virgin who, if she did not marry the priest, would be sorry for the child in her womb, not having given it a father, and not knowing what is good and bad-you also have to give birth to the child, you are also in love with the priest, and you also believe in the Holy See.

Then why don't you want to marry a priest?

After all he's done for you.

If I had to, I'd be willing to marry a priest - a lot of girls of the Faith persuade the Virgin this way.

But the Virgin just wouldn't have it, and as the situation was about to intensify to an irreversible level, a heroic bishop appeared.

This bishop, also a man of faith in the Holy See, who was of higher rank and purer status than the priest, fell in love at first sight with the Virgin and did not care at all about the child in her womb - he was willing to quit the Holy See and marry her.

This bishop made a bold show of love for the Virgin before all, saying, I was deeply enamored of you when I first stepped on the stage as Salome at the age of fourteen after seeing you, but I knew that both your heart and mine were to be devoted to God, so I never bothered you.

But now, I think I can bother you. Will you stay with me?

The country was in an uproar, and the saintly woman finally relented; she married this bishop, and moved abroad under the protection of the other, and was no longer disturbed by gossip, and lived for some time in great happiness.

The bishop seemed to really love the Virgin, his house was full of pictures of the Virgin as a teenager just taking to the stage, and every one of the Virgin's early stage performances had been reproduced on videotape and preserved by him, which he often admired to the point of ecstasy.

"You are so beautiful." The Bishop exclaimed, "I'm so sorry I didn't meet you when you were fourteen, I would have pursued you like crazy then."

"Too bad you were eighteen when I first saw you on tour."

The saintly woman felt something eerily strange inside her as she looked at her too-young self in the photo the bishop was obsessed with, but the man's heartfelt fondness still made her drop her guard.

"Will you like my child?" The Virgin asked.

"Surely she will come out as beautiful as you." The bishop said humorously, "What reason would I have not to like her?"

The Virgin looked at the many girl paraphernalia piled up in the infant's room, and she hesitantly inquired, "You seem to like girls?"

"Yes." The bishop smiled gently, "A girl as beautiful as you were at fourteen."

"What if the child ......" The Virgin looked up at the Bishop, "is a boy?"

The Bishop was quiet for a moment, the expression fading from his face, but soon he raised his smile again, "No, it will be a girl, I expect it to be a girl."

The saintly woman paused, "You can get your gender checked."

"No, I will not disturb her coming by any measure." The Bishop gently held the Virgin's shoulders as he looked to her stomach, patting it gently and murmuring, "Have you forgotten? In our teachings, it is a great discourtesy and disrespect to casually test a child that has not yet descended, that would disturb their descent."

"They'll fly away from my hands like angels."

Days went by and the baby was born.

It's a boy.

The saintly woman could never forget the look of disappointment on the man's face when he saw that the child was a boy - it was like a long awaited gift opened with great anticipation for a split second and realizing that it wasn't what you wanted inside.

It's like waiting for a long time for a delicious fruit and realizing it's plastic the second before it's about to ripen in your mouth.

"The child I carry away. "The bishop said indifferently, "You just stay here."

The saintly woman looked at the man incredulously, "Where are you taking him?!"

"The Island in the Sky." The Bishop looked to the Virgin as he explained absently, "A holy land built by the Holy See, just right for a newly born child like him to go up there and be educated by the Lord - there'll be priests up there who like the boy, and they'll teach him well."

The saintly woman deadpanned at the bishop, "What is that place?"

The Bishop looked to the Holy Maiden, looking at her wretched hair, her no longer green and alluring face, her eyes that had become sharp and determined, and couldn't help but sigh regretfully, "You're no longer the maiden I once loved, I can choose to let go of her, and it's fine if you want to go up there."

"And yes, you have dedicated your best years to me." The Bishop smiled again, "Next, you can return to the island and rededicate your body to God, and the rest of the Order."

"And a lot of people like you."

Sky City.

Before setting foot on this island, probably no one could have imagined that there was such filth in the sky above.

The man, who had redressed in his bishop's uniform, introduced himself in an unusual tone to the saintly woman who had ascended to the city in the sky, and he smiled, "It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing that there really are magical islands suspended over the seas in this world."

"We bought it from a mysterious gentleman who has many such marvelous things in his possession, but the prices can be exorbitant - such as this island, which cannot be easily scouted out, and which cannot be boarded without an introduction."

The bishop laughed a little, "Sky City is a membership system, and you can't easily come up here without an introduction from a senior member of the Order."

"Those who can come here are those who have a devout faith or can provide some help to our devout faith."

The saintly woman looked at the faces of so many big names from other countries that she had seen on TV just walking past her, all of them looking well dressed and followed around by at least two to three men and women in ecclesiastical dress who looked as if they were in the middle of a conversation.

"They're not good enough to be on the outer perimeter of the island." The bishop said gently, "The inner perimeter of the island can only be entered by the truly great."

"The inner circle?" She inquired softly.

The Bishop smiled, "To enter the inner circle of the Sky City is to need a higher level business card, it won't do just to be introduced by a member of the Order."

"What business card?" She instinctively felt bad.

The card was spat out slowly and methodically from the bishop's mouth, giving her a very creepy feeling.

The Bishop looked at her with a smile as he reached out and stroked the Virgin's long hair compassionately, "The ties of interest of those who enter the inner circle must be especially strong, or we risk betraying each other."

"So in order to keep everyone united as one and closely linked for the greatness of the Holy See, we have created a very special kind of business card."

"-that's people."

"We would bring the one we were closest to to the island as a calling card and then exchange them with each other, giving each other the feeling that we had once had, so that we would feel like brothers and we would never betray each other again."

The bishop caressed the saint's completely blank face as he gave a low chuckle, "I used to cherish you too much to use you as a calling card."

"But now you can be."

"Of course you can refuse, the Lord is merciful and will give all the right to refuse." The Bishop smiled, "Then I'll just get another card, the boy can be considered close to me, I don't like boys, but many priests do, and there are quite a few little boys on this island."

"Only neither is as pretty as your boy, and I'm sure no one would refuse to use him as a calling card."

"And your choice?" The Bishop looked as if he had read some sort of message in the Holy Maiden's eyes, and he laughed softly in a dazed manner, "Still, I would advise you not to rise up in revolt; the Inquisition's power extends across the globe."

"I could easily execute you on this island and no one would find out, and by then, custody of your child would still be in my hands, and he could still be my calling card."

"It's just that I didn't like the idea of forcing it before I gave you that choice, just like I liked the idea of you choosing to marry me on your own, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to do it the hard way."

"By the way." The bishop smiled, "The boy's biological father is also on this island right now, staying with some business card."

The saintly woman was still for a long time, she glanced at the island suspended in the sky and closed her eyes.

The boy grew up day by day, and spent years alone in a large villa on an isolated island, which he was not allowed to leave; his father was a bishop, and his mother a saintly woman, and by all rights he should have been a devout believer, but he detested the Papacy very much.

An unspoken, instinctive disgust.

His father was very cold to him, to the point where he felt his father would one day even kill him for accidentally cutting one more of his favorite roses last night.

But his mother was good to him.

His mother was the most beautiful, best human being in the whole world, although she was away from home a lot and couldn't be with him - one of the few drawbacks.

But she was very gentle, and she would hug him and talk a lot about the outside world, and tell a lot of stories about the outside world, and so he magnanimously chose to forgive her for this shortcoming la!

Although his mother was clearly a saintly woman, she never told him stories from the sect.

"Why?" He inquired suspiciously.

She paused, "I would prefer that you believe what you believe, not what others believe."

"And what should I believe in?" He asked seriously.

She looked at him with complicated eyes, then smiled, "Love, respect, kindness."

"What is the use of having faith in these things?" He inquired in disbelief.

"Belief in these things used to hurt me, I suffered constantly, and then I realized that I was one of the few people in the world who believed in these things, and that most people would just use them as reasons and excuses to hurt others." She paused, then smiled like relief, her violet eyes brightening as she looked up at him, "But the belief in these things gave me you."

"You are the best thing my faith has ever brought me."

His mom was a dancer and did the very beautiful dance of the sevenfold veil, the most beautiful dance in the world in his eyes, and of course, she still goes out dancing.

She would dress up extra extra pretty and then stand in the flower field outside the villa one sunny afternoon and smile at him and wave, her violet eyes filled with a gentle glow, "I'm going to dance!"

She said that.

So he plopped down on the balcony and responded to her with a loud, "I'll be waiting for you to come back!"

She'd usually come home late, late, with his obnoxious bishop father, with her clothes in tatters, and then she'd go to her room by herself, change out of her tattered clothes, take a very long shower, and then walk up to him, still smiling, and embrace him, "Today's dance is over."

Sometimes he would find bruises and cuts on her body and he would get on her shoulder and ask very quietly, "Dancing is so hard, can you not go out and dance?"

She was quiet for a long time, then answered him with a smile, "No, mom has to work too, how can I earn money if I don't dance?"

He said, "Then I'll dance."

"I've watched your tape many times." He looked at her and said very seriously, "I can dance too, I'll help you get there!"

"You're too young." She couldn't help herself, "Can't dance, I was twelve the first time I was on stage, how old are you?"

Twelve years old - he made a mental note of that age.

When he's that age, he can help her dance and she won't have to work so hard.

As the days continued to go by, he began to sneak around while she was out dancing, wearing her women's clothes, applying the makeup she had painted on, and then mimicking her dance moves and imitating her facial expressions to the videotape.

He's slowly growing up, and he's getting prettier and prettier.

The way she looked at him began to grow helpless and flustered, and she would say to him in a great hurry, "Go outside and take a roll in the field of flowers!"

"Get your face dirty!"

"You don't play with flowers! You become boyish! Don't play with these things!"

When he was eleven years old and he put a flower mischievously on his head and twirled it around in front of her, cocking his head and asking if it looked good, she looked at him for the first time with such horror that she erupted in hysterics:

"Didn't I tell you no playing with these girly things!"

"You're a boy, not a girl!!!"

He was so stilled by the yell that the flower on his head fell and shattered into a shower of petals.

"I'm sorry ......" she slowly sat down in a crouch, she covered her eyes which were watering and apologized very softly, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you, I just don't understand, after talking to you so many times, why you still always like to play with these girly things."

"You're obviously a boy ......" She slowly lowered her own hands over her eyes and looked up at him tearfully.

"But I don't like being a boy." He pursed his lips and looked at her stubbornly, "I hate the boys, they're all bad for you."

--Both his bishop father, and the ecclesiastics who had come, had treated her with such petulant haughtiness, with that knowing smile as their eyes swept over her, almost as if they were looking at something lowly.

He loathed the way these people looked at her.

She was clearly the best person in the world and could dance the best dance in the world, and these men were the trash that deserved to look like that.

"I want to be like you, I don't want to be like them."

Tears slowly fell from her eyes, then she smiled again, sniffling, then held out her finger, "It's my fault, I thought wrong, you can do what you want - as long as you agree on one thing with me."

He asked, "What is it?"

She said in a very soft voice, "Don't pretend to be a girl when your father is home."

He immediately nodded in agreement.

On his twelfth birthday, after ascertaining with her that his stupid bishop father had gone off to some place called Sky City and would never be back that day, he excitedly said to her, "Can I dance for you!"

"I totally learned it! I'll dance for you!"

"That good, huh?" She clapped with a smile, "Yeah, I'll wait and see then."

He changed completely into the dance costume of her youth, took his makeup seriously, donned a sevenfold sari, and imitated her dance in front of her exquisitely as she had done in the videotape.

"Do I look good?" He asked her as he spun around, grinning, his purple eyes bright with excitement, "Do I look like I'm learning!"

"Very much so." She looked at him, a very light layer of tears in her eyes, smiled and complimented, "You look good."

"You're even better looking than I was back then."

"I think so." A deep, hushed, vaguely heated male voice suddenly appeared, and his bishop father, who would never have come back, stood by the door, staring at him with a creepy, smirking gaze and chuckling, "It's quite beautiful."

"Twelve years old and as beautiful as I ever imagined."

For the first time since he was born until now, he saw on her face, an expression of such despair.