"As expected, you're not as harmless as you pretend to be." The Divine Envoy stared coldly at Leticia. She knew she had been baited.
All of this was obviously within this girl's expectations. She had her powerful subordinates come to retrieve the package, using this to lure her out.
Ridiculously, she had excitedly rushed into this trap like a moth seeing flame.
"What's the use of saying this now? I just didn't expect you would actually think of making a move on me." Leticia touched her chin with one hand, looking with interest at the black-clothed figure surrounded by four demons.
She didn't think this person could escape. This was a full assembly of two of the Four Heavenly Kings, plus Xue'er whose strength was no weaker than the Four Heavenly Kings.
Three Heavenly King-level combat forces, plus Leticia who could burst for short periods—if this person could still escape, Leticia felt she might as well find a block of tofu to crash into and kill herself.
But the black-clothed figure still appeared calm, reaching toward her waist. "Just wanted to solve the problem with a simpler method."
"You wanted to use me to exchange for that Half-Elf, right?" Leticia asked directly.
Besides using her to trade for Lin Qingyu, Leticia really couldn't think of why this black-clothed figure would come after her.
But why did they think capturing her would make Bai Ling hand over Lin Qingyu? Very few people knew about her relationship with Bai Ling, right?
Was there a mole?
"Do I need to answer such an obvious question?" The black-clothed figure asked back. The answer was so clear that she saw no need to respond.
Moreover, she didn't want to waste more time here.
Quickly drawing the short blade from her waist, she viciously slashed open her own palm.
Leticia's pupils contracted. Although she didn't understand why the black-clothed figure was doing this, instinct told her the black-clothed figure was definitely trying to escape.
"Stop her!" Leticia shouted loudly.
But her warning was still a step too late. The black-clothed figure had already transformed into countless black lights scattering in all directions.
Iyeft and Aina reacted fastest, but their interference had no effect at all.
Looking at the empty air in their jointly cast capture magic, both Heavenly Kings were momentarily stunned.
How did she escape?
Leticia also wanted to know the answer to this question. She couldn't understand how this was accomplished either.
Superpower?
But did superpowers have such bizarre manifestations?
And if it was a superpower, she should at least be able to track it, but that black-clothed figure's method was very different—Leticia had no way to track those black lights.
Puzzled and confused, Leticia spent the entire afternoon in her room thinking about that mysterious person's methods.
It wasn't until Bai Ling, who had only learned about Leticia's attack after returning home, hurriedly knocked on her room door.
"Are you alright?" The moment Leticia opened the door, Bai Ling stepped forward and examined her up and down.
Only after confirming Leticia showed no abnormalities did Bai Ling breathe a sigh of relief.
"Have some confidence in me. I'm not an idiot—their trap was so obvious, I'd be crazy to fall for it." Leticia frowned and pushed Bai Ling back a bit.
The girl's burning gaze made Leticia somewhat uncomfortable. She felt like Bai Ling's eyes wanted to burn through her clothes and see her body completely.
However, the feeling of being cared for wasn't bad either.
Bai Ling nodded. "I didn't expect they would make a move on you."
She felt somewhat guilty. Leticia was still so weak now, yet she had dragged her into such dangerous matters.
She hadn't felt much before, but when she heard about Leticia being attacked, she realized just how unscrupulous those people were.
She was clearly the one who had taken in Lin Qingyu, yet they attacked Leticia. It was truly infuriating.
"Don't get all self-moved. Since I got involved, I was already prepared. Besides, this attack really wasn't very dangerous." Leticia snorted lightly, indicating she wasn't some mascot.
She didn't need Bai Ling's concern because she had sufficient ability to protect herself.
"Just focus on your own business. I can handle things on my end." Leticia patted Bai Ling's cheek. "But you can strengthen the protection around Little Ya. If they can't deal with me, they might turn to Little Ya instead."
Bai Ling's face reddened slightly. Leticia's intimate gesture made her wonder if this was really the Leticia in front of her.
Would that hot-tempered tsundere girl comfort her with this tone and expression? Probably not, right?
And using her hand to pat her face—this was too surprising for Bai Ling.
Leticia's words also made sense. Her side was impregnable, and now they'd hit a wall here at Leticia's place, so those black-clothed figures would definitely think of other methods.
They definitely wouldn't choose frontal assault. If they had the confidence for that, they would have charged in long ago. Would they need to use such foolish traps against Leticia?
That black-clothed figure probably never expected her to open the package herself. They just wanted to trick her into leaving the complex, then ambush and kidnap her.
If Leticia were just an ordinary girl, she might really have fallen for this.
But Leticia's vigilance was quite strong.
"I understand, but now the enemy is hidden while we're exposed. Are we going to keep Lin Qingyu locked up there forever?"
The protective forces Bai Ling had deployed had time limits. Short-term deployment was fine, but keeping them there long-term wasn't very feasible.
They had their own work too. They couldn't keep wasting time here because of an unidentified Half-Elf.
Central City's daily defense still depended on them.
"Of course not. You need good steel to make good tools—I have my own plans for this matter. You don't need to ask too much." Leticia showed a wicked smile that made Bai Ling's heart itch. "If it succeeds, we won't need to worry about her safety anymore."
"Really?"
"Why would I lie to you? Of course it's real." Leticia was somewhat angry at Bai Ling's distrust. "I roughly know what she's afraid of. Now my goal is to help her overcome her fear. As long as she can cross this hurdle, the future will be bright."
Elven Empress, divine artifact in hand, the god in that artifact had a great temperament, and she had a demon race big shot backing her—wasn't this future bright?
Extremely bright!
Whether for Evangelyne or Leticia, it was bright as hell!
Although she didn't quite trust Leticia's talk of a bright future, Bai Ling was still willing to believe Leticia.
She felt Leticia wouldn't speak carelessly, at least not in front of her.
Moreover, Bai Ling could sense that when Leticia said those words just now, she was serious—she wasn't joking.
Since that was the case, why not trust Leticia?
"So, do you want to see her tomorrow?" Bai Ling asked.
Tomorrow? Leticia thought about it and felt there was no rush. "Let's wait a few more days. Help me tell her that I'm looking forward to her decision."
"Alright." The girl nodded.
Logically, having finished discussing this matter, Bai Ling should go home to accompany her sister, but this girl now seemed to have thoughts of lingering and not wanting to leave.
"Hmm? What do you want to do?" Leticia, who had planned to play games to relax after Bai Ling left, looked at Bai Ling in confusion, not knowing what this girl was up to.
Bai Ling's expression showed some struggle. She stepped forward, then returned to her original position, looking at Leticia as all sorts of strange thoughts popped into her mind.
What was this person doing?
"Are you sick? If so, call a doctor to take a look." Leticia casually picked up paper from the table, rolled it up, and hit Bai Ling's head with it.
"I just... want to hug you." Bai Ling said bashfully.
She hadn't had intimate contact with Leticia for a long time, and she was getting eager to cuddle with this petite girl again.
Perhaps she had already been poisoned by this girl and could never leave her for the rest of her life.
But such words were really hard to say out loud. Although Bai Ling was strong, she was still a girl experiencing her first love.
Leticia was her first love. She had no idea how to handle the feelings in her heart and could only follow her inner desires, desperately trying to get close to Leticia.
But this method's effectiveness was really minimal. Leticia, this pure looks-focused person, would occasionally not mind Bai Ling's approach, but her reason for not minding wasn't that she liked Bai Ling—it was because Bai Ling was pretty.
Shallow? That's right, Leticia was just that shallow.
Both Bai Ling and even Leticia herself understood this principle.
How to pursue this nearly flawless girl—in Bai Ling's view, this question might have no answer.
Because their identities made it almost impossible for feelings to develop between them.
Leticia was very rational, and Bai Ling was equally rational.
They were essentially the same type of person, who wouldn't put desire above responsibility.
"Get lost, thank you~" Sure enough, Leticia's response was very characteristic of her.
Her rejection wouldn't make people angry, but rather make them think this girl was really cute, even her rejections were in this manner and tone.
"Just for a moment." Bai Ling mumbled.
"Want me to step on your face with my foot, you pervert!" Leticia tilted her head and said quite rudely to Bai Ling.
"Mm." Bai Ling looked down at Leticia's feet—those delicate jade feet wrapped in semi-transparent black stockings, vaguely showing hints of flesh color.
It seemed... maybe... not unacceptable?
Seeing Bai Ling's expression, Leticia was also stunned. Why did it feel like this person was seriously considering her suggestion?
If she really agreed, would she really have to step on her face with her foot?
No, no, just thinking about it felt perverted.
Compared to this, even hugging her seemed acceptable.
To avoid Bai Ling agreeing to her request and putting herself in a difficult position, Leticia gritted her teeth and proactively hugged the still-dazed Bai Ling.
After hugging her briefly, she immediately pushed Bai Ling out the door. "Alright, alright, you should go now."
With that, she slammed the door shut with a bang, leaving Bai Ling standing there in a daze, still not having processed what happened.
After a while, Bai Ling reached up and pinched her own face, pulling hard.
It hurt—not a dream.
Leticia had proactively hugged her? Why? Was it an illusion?
Bai Ling completely couldn't understand what had just happened. Honestly, she had been about to agree to Leticia's request, but then Leticia suddenly hugged her and pushed her out the door?
Incomprehensible, truly incomprehensible.
"Mm." Bai Ling was still puzzled when her phone rang.
Taking out her phone, Bai Ling squinted. "What's the matter?"
"Miss Xi says she wants to chat with Miss Lin. Should we allow it?" A male voice came through the phone.
Xi Mengyao wanted to chat with Lin Qingyu? Bai Ling scratched her hair—then let them chat.
Anyway, although Xi Mengyao still had some suspicion on her, it was quite small. She was probably just a poor kid being used by the mastermind.
Moreover, if she really had problems, there were quite a few listening devices in Lin Qingyu's room.
"Mm, you don't need to ask me about such things in the future. If they want to chat, let them." Bai Ling made her decision.
If Xi Mengyao had no problems, that would be best. If she did have problems, they could be quickly discovered. She didn't think there was anything wrong with this choice.
If it were Leticia, she would make the same choice, right?
Perhaps?
...
With Bai Ling's permission, Xi Mengyao gently knocked on Lin Qingyu's door.
"Does Miss Lin have time?" she asked quietly.
What answered her was a pair of vigilant emerald eyes through the slightly opened door crack.
"I'm Xi Mengyao from next door. I heard Miss Lin is also staying here like me, so I wanted to come chat with you." Xi Mengyao smiled at Lin Qingyu.
Bai Ling had already coordinated the story beforehand—Lin Qingyu was here as an ordinary human who, like Xi Mengyao, had been dragged into this troublesome matter. That's why the genuinely bored Xi Mengyao wanted to find Lin Qingyu to chat.
"I know you." Lin Qingyu said in a low voice. She opened the door, allowing Xi Mengyao to enter her room. "That movie of yours was very good."
"I'm surprised myself that my first movie performance achieved such results." Xi Mengyao giggled.
She hadn't actually thought this movie would succeed either. After all, it was about the relationship between two girls, and the story was bizarrely strange. She felt its success was entirely due to the elven gimmick.
After all, while there had been romance with Elves before, a beautiful human girl and a beautiful elven girl falling in love—this was the first time.
"I heard Miss Bai mention you. You seem to have..."
"Been poisoned by the elven race. Probably because I killed the Elven Empress in the movie, so the elven race holds a grudge against me."
Lin Qingyu could only say this young lady was overthinking this speculation.
The elven race's attitude toward their empress could only be described in one phrase: cold indifference.
Expecting them to get angry over a human movie that portrayed the Elven Empress?
Impossible!
Lin Qingyu dared guarantee that this beautiful little actress definitely wasn't attacked because of this matter.
"I don't think that's very likely. The radical elements in the elven race should all be dead by now." Lin Qingyu poured a glass of water for Xi Mengyao.
Taking the glass Lin Qingyu offered, Xi Mengyao asked with some confusion: "Why?"
"Because the radicals all died on the battlefield." Lin Qingyu shook her head. This wasn't really a secret in the elven race.
The Council of Elders had conducted a major reshuffle after the previous empress's death. Elders who insisted on continuing the war were all sent to the front lines to command battles.
And their endings weren't very pleasant.
The better ones returned to the Elven Capital after a few years, though their power had basically been stripped away, leaving them as mascots in the Council of Elders.
The worse ones were directly split in half by that demon, not even leaving complete corpses.
To say that under such circumstances there would still be Elves who would send subordinates to kill people over a human world movie portraying the Elven Empress—that was really a joke.
Did they think their lives were too long?
Why did Lin Qingyu flee to the human world? Wasn't it because Elves didn't dare conduct large-scale searches here?
If they dared act recklessly here, that recently retired Sword Saint would dare act recklessly in the Elven Capital.
Last time, the Sword Saint killed the Elven Empress with one strike.
This time, how many elven elders would he kill?
No elder dared bet whether that demon would spare them—betting wrong meant death, and they hadn't lived enough yet.
"Eh?" Xi Mengyao blinked. "Miss Lin knows a lot about the elven race?"
"Mm, I grew up in the elven race." Lin Qingyu nodded, pointing to her own eyes. "See my eyes?"
Her eyes were like the most beautiful emerald in the world, sparkling brilliantly under the light.
Xi Mengyao was momentarily mesmerized. Such beautiful eyes shouldn't appear on an ordinary-looking girl like Lin Qingyu—they should be adornments for a beauty.
It wasn't that Xi Mengyao looked down on Lin Qingyu, but these eyes were too beautiful, too out of place with their owner.
Like an ordinary car equipped with the best engine—it made one feel quite discordant.
Not that it was bad, just felt somewhat wasteful.
Such a good engine should be in an extremely expensive sports car; ordinary cars should use ordinary engines.
"Very beautiful." Swallowing, Xi Mengyao said.
"My father was a human soldier captured on the battlefield. My mother took a fancy to my father's beauty, and that's how I was born." Lin Qingyu said calmly. "I'm a Half-Elf, with half elven blood flowing in my body."
"Half-Elf?!" Xi Mengyao's eyes widened. Although she'd heard that humans could bear Half-Elves with Elves—beings that were neither human nor elf—this was the first time she'd actually seen a real Half-Elf.
Moreover, if Lin Qingyu hadn't told her proactively, she really wouldn't have suspected Lin Qingyu's true identity.
Did Half-Elves really resemble humans so much?
"Mm, so when I watched that movie, I felt the director hadn't considered what kind of tragedy would result from Elves and humans combining." Lin Qingyu said quietly.
Since the girl before her was the protagonist of that movie, she was willing to share her views with Xi Mengyao.
The union of Elves and humans was inevitably tragic—this had been proven by many couples over the years.
"Half-Elves can't integrate into either society. They're born as existences spurned by both worlds." The emerald-eyed girl sighed. Even she faced discrimination, let alone those Half-Elves without any status.
It was like this on the elven side—was it better on the human side?
Not really. Although discrimination against Half-Elves wasn't as obvious as among the elven race, discrimination definitely existed. At least, Half-Elves had lower status than ordinary humans, and the occupations they could pursue were extremely limited.
Those lovers might be happy, but when they left this world, what would happen to their children?
"Sorry, I didn't know these things." Xi Mengyao didn't know how to comfort the emotionally low girl beside her. She could only stroke Lin Qingyu's back, using the gentlest voice possible to console this girl.
"You can't be blamed for this. In your eyes, cross-racial love must seem very romantic, but only those who've experienced it know how painful the children of such lovers will be." Lin Qingyu closed her eyes. Speaking these words relieved some pressure in her heart.
But it also made her eyes somewhat sour. Talking about this inevitably made her recall her dark past. She felt very wronged and wanted to cry.
But crying in front of a girl she'd just met seemed inappropriate, so she held back.
"Thank you for listening to me about these things. Although I don't really like that movie, you were still very beautiful in it."
"Haha, thanks for the compliment." Xi Mengyao scratched her head somewhat embarrassedly. She could tell Lin Qingyu's mood wasn't very good and could roughly understand this girl's current feelings.
The things she spoke of should have actually happened to her.
If Half-Elves were discriminated against by Elves, then as a Half-Elf, Lin Qingyu's past must have been very unpleasant.
"So you escaped to our side and were hunted by the elven race?"
"Mm, I took something very important when I left, and I threw it away. Now those Elves are probably anxious to death." Speaking of this, Lin Qingyu cheered up.
Thinking of those Elves burning with anxiety made her want to laugh.
Let you look down on me, let you curse me every day, let you make me take the blame—did you really think I was clay that could be molded at will?
"Eh?"
"I can't tell you about this. If you knew, you might face even greater danger." Although she really wanted to show off her glorious deed, Lin Qingyu knew the girl before her was just an ordinary person.
Knowing too much wasn't good for ordinary people.
For Xi Mengyao's safety, Lin Qingyu felt it was better to say less.