Witch trials

After that, Heart managed to introduce the little witch into the guild.

After two or three encounters between Heart and the little witch, he didn't hesitate to include her in his regular team for the next league and started to focus on her development. Before that, Heart talked to Phoebe once.

The conversation took place in a somber room on the island piled high with burgundy duvets, on a rainy afternoon.

"I was ......" Heart The stunningly beautiful face had a rare hint of real weariness coming out of its laziness, he was reclining in a chair so wide that it was like a bed, the back of his feet curled up on it, his long burgundy hair wet from the side of his face down to the slightly open heart, his tone and eyes were trancey and misty, "I was going to let you join the team. to his slightly open heart, his tone and eyes trance-like and disoriented, "I was going to let you join the team."

Phoebe swept him off his feet and hit the nail on the head, "You went to see your mother?"

She knew that Heart's mother was buried on another island a long way from here, and Heart, if that was the case, could only mean that the guy had gone to visit his mother's grave before going to the island.

"Uh-huh." Heart clearly didn't want to talk about this topic, he avoided Phoebe's eyes, his voice calmed down, and moved the topic back, "But Little Witch is more suitable than you, your skills overlap, as well as you're a bit too extreme, it's not suitable for you to play in the league at such an early stage, Little Witch can be said that she has developed smoothly in all aspects, she's more suitable for the team than you are. With her ability, although she is still a novice, she can even take over the position of tactician."

"I don't have a problem with being her understudy, she's strong and I deserve to be her understudy." Phoebe looked at Heart, her tone was direct, "Even you should be her replacement."

"You're too soft, not as likely to win as she is to win as a tactician."

"You're not as strong as her."

Heart was silent for a long time, he raised his hand to cover his eyes, his body fell back and his voice was hoarse, "...... You're right."

"She's so young, she's been through so much, so much suspicion, and in the midst of the hatred, she's actually still calm and has the will and the backbone to protect others."

"...... I don't know what else I can protect anymore, even your mother, my old friend, she saved her life."

"You're right, I really should be her replacement." Heart slowly lowered the palm over his face as he looked across at Phoebe and said softly, "I want her to be the president of the King's Guild, and the true tactician of this warband."

"You're letting her go as president?" Phoebe sensed something, "So you're leaving the guild are you, what are you going to do?"

Heart inclined his head, his eyes staring stoically at the rain off the island, and didn't answer.

That night he went back to his mother's grave, a small European village in the middle of nowhere. Heart had bought the whole village, but he didn't take care of it, and the whole village consisted of nothing more than his mother's grave.

It was raining hard, and Heart, holding a black umbrella, stood silent and speechless at his mother's grave, and only after a long, long interval did he crouch down, and hugging his knees, he curled his body up like a child feeling the cold, and raised his head from his knees, and gazed with those violet eyes, quietly, at the picture on his mother's grave.

"I met a very powerful little girl." He said softly, reaching out to brush the water droplets off the picture, "Even more powerful than Phoebe, who saved Rebekah, the last time I told you about her."

"I want to give her the guild."

"Phoebe is right, I am indeed weak, and no matter how many [Shields] I have for protection, I don't have the courage to bring you back to this world."

Heart The tone is getting lighter.

Phoebe had asked her long ago why she hadn't resurrected her own mother, when it was obvious that lifting a guild could be done, and Heart had sat lost in her office chair for a moment, then answered with a loose smile - the dead had wills, too.

If you raise a dead person, have you asked her if she wants to live? If she's in pain after her resurrection and wants to die again, are you going to kill her again with your own hands?

--or watch her kill herself again?

What's the point of being resurrected?

There was still the Church in this world, there was still the head arms dealer, there was still everything that could go over his head and easily take her freedom from his hands and amuse her beautiful existence, and ten years ago he couldn't protect her, and ten years later he hadn't succeeded in protecting the people who had gone down from the island.

As Rebekah said in her farewell to Phoebe's father before she married him-is it any different beyond the island?

It's just a bigger island.

The only island free from the shackles of the world, Sky City, was still floating in the sky, cloudy and rainy, and filled with the blood and gore left over from the trials of the day; it was the only place where he could get a hold of and protect her.

But if she came back to life, was he going to let her live for decades as he had, on an island covered with the marks of those who had hurt him?

He was burned by anger and hatred when he first entered the game, and after gaining the ability to sanction his enemies, he repeatedly tormented and judged them, and in this extreme, with great intensity hatred, while his enemies were painfully tormented, he gradually grew tired.

Heart began to feel a little empty and tired, and sometimes felt an uncontrollable loathing after seeing in the mirror a face that bore a passing resemblance to that man, the man who had caused all this to begin, his biological father.

Disgust, hatred and exhaustion intermingled to drain him, and he was on the island, lying alone in a trance in his flannel, listening to the rain, the playing cards on the floor that had once represented the settlers above him strewn about.

Why keep judging theirs, their sins are established, why not kill them - Phoebe asked him - kill them and it's all over.

He was always reluctant to give that group of people a relief so easily, so that they and his own mother would all end up in the same place - death, whether their souls after death would nag her about her hard-won freedom, and also because of the note left to him by that guest, he always regarded death as the best outcome for these people, but that day under the questioning of Phoebe's puzzled inquiry, Heart had a rare moment of reflection-what would happen if he did kill them?

What am I going to do after I kill them?

Heart asked herself very softly.

He had been on this island for twelve years from that day.

He started the guild to become stronger, and he did become stronger as he wished, the whole world was his power, and even had the strength to fight and confront the arms dealers, the daily flow of points in the guild warehouse reached a horrible lot, and in the early days, he was a little bit of the excitement of relieving himself from leaving the island, and became an actor as he wished for in his childhood, to show himself to all people, and also had naively hoped to receive what she called, without that lustful implication of praise.

But the truth is that you just don't get it, and the people he's approached, in all shapes and sizes, very many of them, from fans who have written to his studio for three years in a row to investors who say they chose him because they believe in his acting ability, are more than willing to sleep with him as long as he's willing to do so, or as long as in one of his glances they savor the extra meaning.

Power, money, love, almost the top of all these things he had seen, with a cold and weary gesture.

Had there really been someone who, as she had said, had only complimented her on her beauty? Or was it just that she was wrong, and there was actually a residual glow of desire under that person's eyes?

He had no wishes, no desires, no things he wanted to do, no places he wanted to go, and day by day he stayed on the island listening to the rattling sound of the heavy rain falling away, he became lazier and lazier, and even when he played matches, he only preferred to turn on his [Shield] to torment the opponent instead of taking the initiative to attack, and did things as if he was expecting that someday someone would suddenly kill himself on the field.

This all came to a screeching halt at the sight of the black bone whip in the hand of the player named Spades.

He could no longer recall the exact moment he saw Spades, it was like hearing a clap of thunder on a rainy day, he almost stood still as all his thoughts came rushing back to him, he sat up straight in a rare moment, staring blankly at the black bone whip that Spades wielded on the small TV.

"What's his name?" He heard himself ask.

Wang Shun answered him respectfully, "Empress, he is the dark horse of this term."

"He doesn't have a name, I think he has a code name, Spades."

[You can't call me by my real name, just call me by my code name, you can call me Spades.]

What happened next was logical, Heart's mad quest for Spades was rightly interpreted as a quest, and in a rare moment of careerism, he chased Spades all the way to the second place in the league - but really it was just because Spades was a guy who only had eyes for the game and his opponents, and if you didn't meet him on the field, the guy would never respond to your questions and would just walk right past you as if he didn't see you. If you don't meet him on the field, he will never respond to your questions and will walk right past you as if he didn't see you.

After the loss, Heart stood in front of Spades, and while the coaxing from the hosts for them to shake hands went on and on, Heart never extended his hand.

Heart looked at Spades, his eyes almost devoid of emotion, an expression of anticipation, "Your whip and code name, who gave it to you?"

There are no such coincidences in this world that just so happen to be right.

Spades replied, "I don't remember."

Heart was silent for a long time, but he extended his hand, and then looked up again with that impeccable, lazy smile, "It was very nice to meet you, and I hope to see you on the field next time I see you."

"At that time, I hope you remember the answer to your question."

Later, Phoebe enters the game, the Little Witches join the guild, and Heart, after many unsuccessful attempts to test Spades, gets lazy again and begins to let go of his power in the guild, allowing the Little Witches to take over in turn.

"So what the hell are you going to do?" Phoebe was rarely alone with Heart as she stared at the other woman, "You're letting go so fast that the little witches will all but take over the King's Guild at the end of this year, what are you leaving the Guild for?"

Heart was quiet for a long time and spoke in reply, "Go outside the island."

His eyes were half-lidded and he smiled diffidently, "Going to the dance after where no one wants to fuck me."

Phoebe was quiet for a moment-except for a few necessary things, Heart hardly ever went off the island; he loathed the off-island as much as he loathed the island.

"With a face like yours, places like this don't exist." Phoebe replied nonchalantly.

-- Heart's favorite dance is the "Dance of the Seven Veils," a dance that is inherently seductive and can be performed by Heart, who grew up on an island of love and lust, and whose bones are saturated with the scent of seduction.

"Well, I know." Heart responded lazily, a smile still on his face and a certain sigh in his tone, as if he was lost in memories, "I also only danced that one time where the other person was just purely appreciative of me, and I waited for that guest for ten years, and even the guild was named after him."

"And then never seen a second time."

"I've been looking for him for a long time ......" Heart propped his jaw up, the candlelight wavering beside his face, his long eyelashes falling in wobbly shadows across his face, "Every time I'm about to find it, I come so close to not hearing about it. "

"Think about it." Phoebe said faintly, "Maybe he's dead?"

Heart lost his smile for a split second, then went quiet again, "This might end well for him."

"That guest ...... does indeed yearn for death."

Phoebe's heart expanded with an unsettling foreboding, and looking at Heart's face, which was seductive even in its contemplation in the candlelight, she guessed almost instantly what the other woman was thinking, and she pressed Heart a little coldly, "So ...... you think death is good because of him, too, don't you? Is it?"

"So you left the guild to die, did you?"

"In the beginning ...... when he said he wanted to die, I indeed couldn't accept it, and I even wanted to kill the person who was going to kill him." Heart spoke very softly, "But after all that time, when I think about what he said now, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with it."

"It's all boring as hell to me, and I don't have to bring her back into this uninteresting and dirty world."

"-Death might be a good ending."

"Even if I go to hell after death, it might be cleaner than this island I'm on now."

Heart cocked his head slightly, the little glimmering light of the candle reflected in his lifeless violet eyes, and raised his hand to casually fiddle with the wick as it went out.

So not a single light could be seen on the island.

The rain stung outside the window.

A few months before the league kicks off, something goes wrong, and Phoebe is the first to notice something's wrong with the little witch.

She knew that the little witch's obsession was with Liu Huai, the cowardly and incompetent man, but the Guild had Liu Huai under control, and although the little witch was always silently "looking" at Liu Huai, who was a little bit confused after being controlled, and didn't seem to approve of them, they didn't stop them from doing it either.

For someone as timid, incompetent and weak as Liu Huai, such tight control might be a form of protection.

Phoebe disliked Liu Huai, one might even say she loathed him, and while she had changed her view of the weak, she disliked Liu Huai as a weak man with no convictions and a passion for betrayal.

She was certain that Liu Huai would be the young witch's weakness, and she felt that Heart's opinion was in line with hers - otherwise the guy wouldn't have gotten into some operation to raise a preppy group of brothers.

But Phoebe scoffed at the maneuver.

"If the desires at the core of one's being could be easily replaced or shifted, it wouldn't be a core." Phoebe hit the nail on the head with a tone of disgust, "And these brothers you're looking for are so inferior, the little witch won't be able to easily transfer her feelings to these people."

Heart smiled noncommittally as he asked her, "And what do you think it means to be a quality older brother for a little witch?"

"To be able to understand her to a certain extent, to support what she wants to do, and to be able to make her successfully empathize, the similarity to Liu Huai in appearance is a must, and the similarity in experience as well, such as teaching her a lot of things and believing in her ability ...... " Phoebe raised her eyes, "Finally, it's best to also be as cowardly as Liu Huai, which can make her protective."

Heart The smile on his face faded.

Phoebe said nonchalantly, "Heart, I can't believe you haven't realized that the little witch has similarly complicated feelings for you as she does for Liu Huai."

"You're the perfect [brother] person for her."

"You only need to use your skill once on the little witch, and you will become Liu Huai in her eyes, you and her brother are not only identical in appearance, but also similar in character, and the role you have taken in her current experience, with your means, you can also completely replace Liu Huai's position in the little witch's heart psychologically, Liu Huai's weakness is replaced by you. After Liu Huai's weakness is replaced by you, the little witch can become stronger and more stable ......"

Heart The tone faded, "Enough."

Phoebe looked into Heart's eyes, "If you're already determined to get the little witch to overcome the weakness that is Liu Huai, why aren't you willing to lie to her yourself?"

"Obviously you're the one who's perfect for this."

"Me personally?" Heart looked at Phoebe with a smirk, "I'm [the queen] in her eyes, how is she going to accept me as her brother?"

Phoebe looked up, "Heart, there's no use running away."

"You're a man, and from that point of view, you're also suitable to be her [brother]."

"Bad things you do are done, dragging your feet like this will only backfire, don't be a vicious and cowardly person in power, Heart."

"Well, that's the end of the discussion on this matter." Heart gathered his expression, his eyelashes dropping, "Go ahead and get out, I'll think about it."

Phoebe paused for a moment, pushed open the office door and left, Heart sat alone in his chair for a long, long time in silence before slowly pulling open the drawer under his desktop, he took out the picture that was in the drawer and placed it on the desk.

Heart slowly lowered his head, leaning it against the desktop and burying it in his elbow, looking at the picture his mother's bright smile, his voice too soft to be heard:

"...... I'd hate to become a man to lie to her and win her over."

"It will make me think of you."

"...... So I let someone else do the honors." Heart slowly put his head down as he gave two abrupt low laughs, "Phoebe's comment was pretty spot on, I'm so cowardly and vicious ......"

"But I really ......"

"Don't want to lie to Jiayi."