The Witch's Taste

Chapter 396 There is definitely something wrong with these witches

"Qing Yu." Chen Ziang sat down in front of the statue and whispered, "I have read all your diaries."

The statue didn't respond.

"Sorry." Chen Ziang was silent for a moment and continued, "I never knew before... I didn't know what you were thinking, and I didn't know that you were carrying so many heavy things alone."

The statue still didn't respond.

Chen Ziang pondered.

Every statue here must correspond to a small piece of soul. This is the rule of the Mandala Temple, and Xia Qingyu should not be able to exceed it.

In other words, it's not that she's not here, she just... doesn't want to answer?She doesn't want to talk to me?
Chen Ziang's mind changed slightly and he whispered:

"If you don't want to ignore me, I can accept it."

"You have paid so much for me in the past, but now that you are dead, I can't repay this debt, so just let me guard you here... until my life ends."

He leaned back against the corner of the corridor and changed into a more comfortable sitting position.

Then he was in a daze for a few minutes, and just when he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly heard Xia Qingyu's voice:
"...Don't you have to work?"

"No need." Chen Ziang felt relieved at last, but replied calmly, "Zili and Suzuna will take care of it for me."

"Now that you already have people who love you, you should cherish them more, instead of staying in this palace and talking to a statue." Xia Qingyu's voice said.

Although there is no sarcasm or ridicule, it still has that preaching flavor, which is very authentic and very... nostalgic.

"Maybe." Chen Ziang felt his nose was a little sore. He slowly raised his head and looked upward, "But they all supported me in paying off the debt I owed."

"……lie."

"No. Zili said that I must bring my sister back." Chen Ziang continued to stare at the ceiling and said, "What Suzuna means is that she doesn't want to compete with a dead person, because that means she will never be able to beat you. .”

The statue made no further response.

Chen Ziang was not in a hurry to continue to express his position, and just continued to be in a daze.

I don’t know how long it took—perhaps two or three hours later, Xia Qingyu’s voice sounded again:
"The souls who stay in the Mandala Temple have never left."

Chen Ziang was silent for a moment, then said:

"Then, it will be available soon."

He stood up and walked towards the outside of the temple.

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In the large study room, the three witches were tied up by thorns again and began to extract the knowledge from them.

Chen Ziang looked at the mandala flower blooming in the center and asked directly:

"I want to take a soul away from the Mandala Temple. How can you let her go?"

The mandala flower did not answer, but slowly extended the vine in front of him, and once again condensed a small fruit.

After eating the fruit, Chen Ziang understood what he meant:
Come and change.

The value determination of the Mandala Magic Sword basically uses fire as the unit.For example, killing an ordinary ghoul will return three fire seeds to Chen Ziang, which means that Fajian believes that the value of the ghoul is equal to three fire seeds.

How much is Xia Qingyu worth?As a witch, even a small piece of soul fragment is definitely not comparable to a lower-ranking race like a ghoul.

Although it doesn't require him to kill gods with his hands, it won't be any simpler than that.

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Half a year later, the starship humans finally set off again.

The direction of the jump of the Forever this time is the Centaur constellation on the northern border of the empire.

A consensus was finally reached within the empire.If the starship humans are refused to join, it will undoubtedly mean creating divisions among the humans in the galaxy - creating a confrontation between the Imperial humans and other humans.

Today's all-out confrontation with the Elf Federation is about to become the main theme in the next decades or even centuries. If all humans in the galaxy cannot be united, the possibility of victory will be even slimmer.

On the edge of the Centaur constellation, there is a sector called the "Triumph Sector".Orbiting the star are two rocky planets, a gas giant, and an ocean planet filled with liquid water.

The Imperial Pioneer Colonial Team established a preliminary exploration base on it, and the survey results showed that it was relatively complicated:
First of all, the planet has an atmosphere and liquid water, and the temperature is also very suitable. It is the kind of high-quality environment that can become a colonized planet with a little modification.

Secondly, the ocean area here is too large and the land area is too small, which means that the population that can be accommodated is not large. The Imperial Ministry of the Interior will be losing money when it allocates funds for development.If the number of immigrants does not increase, the cost of colonial ships will not be evenly distributed.Finally, there is a serious monsoon effect on Triumph.Summer is dominated by the hot and humid air currents from the equatorial seas. It rains nine out of ten days on land, and typhoons are common. In winter, cold air currents from the polar seas bring heavy snowfalls.Extreme climatic environments require a strong-willed human population to adapt - so we come back to the previous question: Since the population that can be accommodated is not large and the requirements are high, why waste allotments for colonization?
Now we finally have the perfect solution: let the starship humans make their home in the past.

There are tens of millions of interstellar humans in total, and they will not dislike the small living area of ​​the Triumph Planet.At the same time, no matter how harsh the planet's surface climate is, can it be worse than wandering in the galaxy?
As expected by the Imperial Administration Department, the starship humans did not dislike the climate problem of Triumph Planet. Everyone showed a high degree of enthusiasm and enthusiasm for "living on a down-to-earth planet".

The Forever has arrived at the Triumphal Planet and is sending a preliminary engineering team to build a colonial city.The first phase of the project is expected to take one year and three months, and the entire resettlement is expected to take about ten years.

Not that this is a problem.As long as the goal is set here and the deadline is clear, everyone is still willing to wait. The Starship human society expressed that its mood is stable.

However, the Imperial Ministry of the Interior began to worry about another hidden danger.

They are the top brass of the Starfleet humans.

There are several witches among the top brass. This is no secret, otherwise starship humans would not be alive to this day.The reason why the empire is willing to accept them is that it hopes to harness the power of the witch for its own use. Of course, the cabinet cannot know what the old emperor is thinking. It is just purely from the perspective of national security that it believes that these high-level officials, especially The witch monitors closely.

Generally speaking, the top management of human forces who have returned from foreign countries are usually immersed in the joy of "taking over the mountain and becoming king" and concentrate on managing their newly obtained one-third of an acre, so it is not difficult to monitor them.

But the top brass of Starfleet Humanity took a different approach.Chen Ziang, Xia Zili and Yuegong Suzuna spent most of their time traveling around the empire, only returning to the Triumph sector every once in a while to check on the progress of the immigration project there.

travel?No kidding?

In fact, they really did this.According to intelligence from the Ministry of Etiquette, they visited a total of 118 star districts in three years. They were not visiting scenic spots, but specifically looking for places with folk culture and catching local elderly people asking questions.

The Chief Supervisor of the Ministry of Rites felt like he was facing a formidable enemy.They are responsible for managing supernatural things in the territory, which is equivalent to the Countermeasures Section [-] of the Jibei City Public Security Department in the past (of course, the scale and organization are much larger). They originally had strong doubts about whether the two witches would lose control, and now they are even more suspicious. I got an insight into what these people were doing.

They are looking for the source of supernatural pollution!

What to do, is to release pollution?We know that these witches are unreliable. How can there be safe and harmless witches in the world?Must hit hard!

The Imperial Cabinet rejected their request for "physical restrictions on the witch."Politically speaking, the Empire has just accepted the starship humans and hopes to turn them into a model - a model of the so-called "community of human destiny for the entire galaxy". Of course, it will not make such a decision just because of such suspicion without evidence. From the act of slapping.

So Si Mingjian sent his ace investigators to personally confirm whether these guys were fanatical believers and what ulterior conspiracy they were planning.

Shi Qinglian, 32 years old, female, is currently the most powerful spy in the Siming Prison, and has the qualifications to prevent the deity ceremony three times.

She took an interstellar spaceship and came to the North River star region on the border of the empire. She landed at the local star port and met with the secret informant.

"The specific location of the target team?"

"Three hours and 3 minutes ago, they arrived at the Mochuan Scientific Research Station and purchased relevant supplies from the locals."

"What are they doing at Mochuan Scientific Research Station?" Shi Qinglian said with a frown.

The informant was about to continue talking when the investigator suddenly raised his hand and stopped him:
"I didn't ask you, I was just sorting out my thoughts."

In her mind palace, countless phantoms began to arrange and combine.

These people visited the ecological protection area of ​​​​Xinuma Star District half a year ago; four months ago, they went to Jinxiu City in Jianyun Star District and visited the local Colonial History Museum; and then came to the Polar Region a month ago The environment here in the North River Star District.

The land here is covered with ice and snow from the equator to the pole. It is so cold that it can freeze people to death. Except for the scientific research stations doing lepton aggregation research, there are almost no human settlements... What are they doing here?
Investigator Shi Qinglian tried to connect these three coordinates with each other.

Ecological reserve, colonial history museum, polar research station...

Ok?
As inspiration continued to dig deeper into her subconscious, she suddenly grasped a certain key:

He Yuanling, a certain imperial folklorist who was active more than 300 years ago, gradually began to come into contact with the edges of the mysterious world due to his long-term obsession with his research field.

Si Mingjian immediately issued an arrest warrant for him, but the other party used his connections in the court and finally reached a compromise with Si Mingjian: the folklorist took a three-year break and stopped conducting any academic research, while Si Mingjian The jailer also did not actually arrest and imprison him.

Then, He Yuanling disappeared mysteriously.

He really did not conduct academic research, because his computer, data disk, and the account number of the thesis information database, etc., everything that could help him conduct folklore research were confiscated by the Siming Supervisor - they also thoughtfully provided The folklorist did a memory cleansing.

However, He Yuanling seemed to have predicted all this in advance, and he didn't know what he used to restore his memory... maybe it was the diary left behind in advance?Or is it a spiritual suggestion?An informant lurking outside?
In short, three months after his memory was purged, he mysteriously disappeared from the house under surveillance.

Si Mingjian traced that he first went to the ecological reserve in the Xinuma Star District - He Yuanling once built a hut there and studied the local indigenous culture for nearly three years - and then returned to his hut and took it away. something, and then went to the museum in the Jianyun Star District and robbed a certain unearthed ancient object from the exhibition hall late at night.

Then there was no news, as if it had completely evaporated from the universe.

Investigator Shi Qinglian remembers this incident very clearly because it was a case that she clearly wrote in the textbook during her school training, telling the new investigators "how dangerous the profession of folklorist can be."

Today, the movement route of Chen Ziang and others is almost completely consistent with the trajectory of He Yuanling.

Apart from this, I really can't think of any other clues that are related to both the Xinum Star Region and the Jianyun Star Region.The latter is a mature colonial star sector, but the former is a barren land with a dangerous environment. The air is full of harmful fungal spores. No one would think of traveling there.

In other words, these people probably got some secret clues in He Yuanling's hut, and then went to the museum to verify... Finally, it was confirmed that He Yuanling went to the Beihe Star District!

I have to stop them as soon as possible!
(End of this chapter)