Kingdom’s Bloodline

Dragon Clouds City, Spear District.

Old Booker extinguished the permanent lamps he had lit to attract customers, lamenting another difficult day with no business.

The Spear District is an interesting place: it is not as poor and backward as the Shield District and the Hammer District, nor is it as noble as the Ax and Arrow Districts, and it is not even as lively as the Bow District, Sword District, and Armor District. The slope is relatively high, and most of the people who live here are the family members of the king's loyal servants who have a half-time official position but have not been able to get the title for a long time, or ordinary businessmen who have a lot of money but cannot live in the noble district. The district has become an out-and-out embarrassing area.

But Booker Sr., an innkeeper from the state of Commaswaril, is one of the few who makes a living out of this awkward situation: he sees a business opportunity in it.

Old Booker's inn is clean and tidy, and the decoration cost is not too bad. The cost is more than enough, but it can always attract customers of moderate status, such as wealthy merchants or craftsmen. , or a declining aristocrat who doesn't have a lot of money but doesn't want to lose his dignity, or a tourist who comes from afar and doesn't understand the local market.

These are often people who come from other places, waiting to meet the "big shots". They are not qualified to stay in the ax and arrow areas for too long, and they don't want to lower their status in the messy sword and bow areas (of course, the lowly and humble Shield District and Hammer District are not considered at all), so they often choose to be in the Spear District, Old Booker's well-organized and not shabby inn.

After countless hardships, Old Booker and his family took root in the Spear District.

It is a pity that since the assassination of Prince Moral, the relationship between the two countries in the West has suddenly become tense.

Rumors of conscription, tax hikes, wars, and stock outs came one after another. The tense atmosphere in the city caused Old Booker's business to plummet for more than a month. Recently, there was only one guest staying, for which he could only sigh himself Too bad luck, and then according to the usual practice, cut costs from the purchase of drinks and the wages of handymen to maintain the survival of the hotel.

When the news of Prince Xingchen's mission came, he thought the crisis was over.

Until last night, Old Booker woke up from his sleep.

Haoyue pity me!

Why are countless patrols scurrying across the streets at night?

What were those horrible bangs last night?

What were those thunderous bangs in the second half of the night?

Although Old Booker is from Commus, but unlike those mercenaries in Longyi Square,

The fellow merchants who only intend to make a fortune and leave are different.

From the time when the old Booker was still a young Booker, from when he saw the Northland girl who helped deliver the goods in Vallier, to being completely obsessed with her, to eloping with his future wife to Dragon Clouds City desperately It has been twenty years: so long that the local neighbors with strong backing are used to his presence, so long that even the harshest and xenophobic Order Officer will not come to trouble him, so long that the young people always think that he is nothing but He is a special-looking northerner, so long that even the words he uttered under his tongue have a strong northern accent. These vague endings that he would laugh at as "vulgar" when he was young until he fell in love with him deeply His Northland wife passed away, and Old Booker had no plans to return to his hometown or change places.

But Old Booker can swear by any one of Goddess Haoyue or Lady Harvest: During the years he lived in Dragon Clouds City, he has never seen or heard anything after opening the window last night!

disaster?

That big octopus stretching its teeth and claws in the direction of the shield zone?

dragon?

That winged lizard that landed and roared in the flames?

The neighbors whispered in panic or awe, and he, who didn't know much about the legends and stories of the Northland, panicked: Is this back to the age of mythology?

Forget it, the big shots will take care of it. Old Booker, who had lingering fears, yawned due to lack of sleep, shook his head and opened the accounts, and was about to calculate the management for the order officer and the patrol team. A fifteen or sixteen-year-old black-haired The girl opened the door and walked in calmly.

Old Booker instantly drove away all the haze on his face, as if he was about to welcome his princess.

"Lucy!" the innkeeper said happily, "my dear daughter!"

But after seeing the girl's clothes clearly, Old Booker frowned immediately.

The girl covered her head with snow and ice, and tightly covered her mouth and nose with a piece of black cloth, only revealing a pair of clever eyes. She was wearing a simple but thick cotton coat, her gloves were full of snow particles, and her trousers were tightly tied with belts. into boots.

I don't know where to go wild again, old Booker thought unhappily.

"You ran out of the city again? It's such a big snowstorm, you don't even wear a hat!" The boss forced himself to straighten his face and raised a finger: "Didn't I say that, you saw it yesterday, and now It's chaotic outside, there haven't even been many guests in the past ten days..."

"The patrol passed here this morning..."

"Rumors are everywhere, saying that the following districts have been destroyed..."

"Those country bumpkins from poor areas..." Old Booker looked at his daughter worriedly: "You are a girl, Lucy! You must pay more attention to your own safety!"

The girl who covered her face stepped on the ground, rubbed off the snow on her feet, patted the gloves covered with ice crystals, and pulled out a pair of white hands from inside, then pulled off the black cloth on her face, revealing a The red face in the cold weather is playful and cute.

The girl turned to her boss with a bright smile.

This made the old Booker's heartbroken preaching one of the suffocation.

"Yes, yes, yes, dear dad," the girl smiled and waved her hand, holding on to the handle of the wooden ladder: "I see."

"It's okay, I'll go upstairs..."

The girl tilted her head and made a grimace, then bounced and disappeared before Old Booker's eyes.

The only sound left is the sound of going upstairs.

Old Booker was immediately annoyed.

"You, Lucy!"

The boss leaned out half of his body, suppressed his voice, and said angrily to the stairs: "Don't disturb the guests, he emphasized to be quiet!"

What responded to him was his daughter's drawn-out voice: "Got it."

There were also a few low-pitched murmurs coming from above, which generally seemed to be "a long-winded old man".

Old Booker withdrew his head from under the stairs and sighed.

"Imperial people, disasters, dragons, curfew, well, there is a daughter who is as worried as her mother..." The boss walked back to his seat helplessly, took a sip of his dead wife's favorite ale, and shook his head: " God knows what else awaits me..."

but……

Old Booker rolled his eyes and curled his mouth:

As long as Lucy is okay, as long as Lucy is happy...

Then life isn't so bad.

Old Booker's dull mood suddenly brightened up a lot.

But what he didn't know was that the moment his daughter disappeared from his sight, the girl's originally youthful and playful expression suddenly turned cold.

As if a frost had come suddenly.

There was a faint chill all over her body, and her light and happy footsteps immediately became silent, like a black cat walking on tiptoes.

The girl pushed open the wooden door of a room, and walked indifferently into this narrow, dark room that smelled of medicine.

On the wooden bed in the room, a man sitting against the wall slowly opened his deep eyes with a gloomy expression.

He was wrapped in a close-fitting and tight gray coat, which was not cold in the cold weather. The sleeves were pulled up to the upper arm, and the left arm and right shoulder were wrapped with thick bandages.

The girl closed the door, slowly curled the corners of her mouth, showing a sneer that was completely opposite to the playful smile just now.

She spoke softly to the man, and respectfully and patiently called out a strange address:

"Father."

The man in gray didn't respond, but just looked out of the open window.

"The urban area has begun to lift the law." The girl seemed to be used to the other party's silence, she sat down on a stool beside her, grabbed a short knife on the table, and said to herself, "Probably the important people in the palace reached an agreement. "

"When are we leaving?"

The man in gray still didn't respond.

But in the next second, he suddenly raised his head, and the emptiness in his eyes turned into vigilance.

The man in gray slightly raised his hand, a short knife jumped up strangely from the table two meters away, and flew into his hand abruptly.

He only heard him say calmly: "We have guests."

The girl's pupils moved, she stood up, and moved instinctively.

She stretched out her white and slender fingers, which are rare for people in the Northland, and pulled out the black cloth tied around her neck from her collar, and pulled it all the way to her nose, covering half of her face as before.

Just like a professional face mask.

Cover not only your face, but also your breath.

Just as she pulled up her mask and held the dagger in her arms, a shrill voice came from outside the door.

"Long time no see, old friend."

A middle-aged man opened the door and walked in with a smile on his smooth face.

This "guest" was wearing a thick coat common to people in the North, and a thick fur hat covering his ears, but he had a flat face that is rare in the West, with thin lips and yellowish complexion. It makes people feel good.

He breathed into his hands, ignored the girl beside him, and narrowed his eyes to adapt to the light in the room.

The girl frowned, but the man on the bed made a gesture, which made her hold back the desire to make a move.

The guest smiled unabated, looked straight at the man on the bed, and stepped forward.

At this time, the man in gray suddenly raised his deep eyes, which radiated a cold light.

"There are three traps ahead of you."

The guest's smile froze on his face, just like his right foot just lifted.

The man in gray said very directly, without emotion: "Two of them are fatal."

The flat-faced guest took a deep breath, blinked, shrugged, and put his raised right foot back on the spot as if helplessly.

The girl on the side raised the corners of her mouth and smiled silently from the bottom of her heart.

But the guest's smile seemed to stick to his face, re-emerging in embarrassment.

"Now you are a veritable regicide family," the guest rubbed his hands with a smirk, his Common Tongue accent had some strange emphasis, neither like Exter and the Star People, nor Commus Or Southwesterners: "Thinking about it makes people feel..."

The guest's words suddenly stopped, and his eyes moved to the bandages on the man's shoulders.

"Oh," his voice sank, as if a little surprised, but also a little stunned: "You're hurt."

"Accident?"

The girl on the side snorted coldly.

But the man in gray on the bed just looked at the guest coldly.

"White Blade Guard, sixteen people." The man said softly.

The guest showed interest.

"Three cuts, one cut deeper than the first," the gray-clothed man stretched his bandage-wrapped left arm, and continued nonchalantly, "It'll be nice to be back."

The flat-faced guest put away his smile, lowered his head, and looked sideways at the man quietly.

It's like peeping behind a door.

"Where's your brother?"

The guest grinned, and asked softly, "For such a difficult job, he let you do it alone?"

"He has his own place to go." The man said silently.

There was a few seconds of silence.

The guest stared at the ground under his feet, stretched out his hands behind his back, and silently rubbed them in front of him: "Is the injury serious?"

The girl who felt something was wrong frowned.

The gray-clothed man's eyes remained calm, looking at the guest from afar.

The man slowly raised the corners of his mouth and moved his shoulders: "If you want to kill me, now is a good time."

"While I can't use a knife in both arms."

The guest raised his eyebrows slightly.

He tilted his head forward, motionless, staring straight at the man in front of him, his eyes soft and strange.

The atmosphere suddenly became strange.

The man responded silently, calmly.

Finally, just when the girl was getting impatient, the guest suddenly grinned.

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The guest squinted his eyes, tilted his head back, and was overjoyed, as if he had encountered something very interesting.

He raised his finger to the level of his eyes, and nodded at the man, with a playful expression of "I caught it".

"You're getting more and more humorous, Biannette!"

He laughed, shaking his index finger in the air more and more quickly, and exaggerated his tone: "That's what I like about you!"

The gray-clothed man named Baanette just looked at him coldly and didn't say a word for a long time.

But the guest didn't feel left out at all. He put away his smile and fingers, and turned to the girl with interest.

"Oh girl, you must be the brilliant 'Lucy'!"

The guest bowed politely, continued to smile strangely, and said in his strange accent: "Thanks to your help, my subordinates are indeed worthy of your father's..."

But he was clearly not welcome.

"Stay away from me," the masked girl said with disgust on her face, "Far Easterners with strange yin and yang."

"Oh, that's really indifferent," the guest from the Far East replied patiently, without any disobedience: "It breaks my heart."

The gray-clothed Baanette snorted coldly and interrupted the other party: "You never take risks with your own life."

He said indifferently: "But you are still here."

Hearing this, the guest from the Far East closed his mouth in embarrassment, and sighed helplessly.

"This time the customers are not easy to deal with. If I don't come, the little ones will be messed up." He shrugged.

and……

The guest from the Far East sighed softly: More importantly, it is the boy who represents the Fuxing Palace.

But the man was unmoved at all: "Why did you come to me."

The guest let out a sigh of relief and made two hey sounds.

"My friend got some news from Xingchen's country." The guest blinked, as if he was about to take out a big treasure: "You know, it's not easy for us to get news there..."

The gray-clothed man's voice turned cold: "Get to the point."

"You may be interested," the guest from the Far East quickly changed the subject, making the apparently blunt transition very smooth: "Several population gathering points on the border encountered invaders..."

Biannette snorted again: "The point."

Without any hesitation, the Far Easterners said the next sentence directly: "It's very similar to the style of the Saliton family, no matter the sword technique or the figure."

At that moment, the girl on the side stopped breathing.

As if remembering something.

The guest from the Far East raised his eyebrows, observing the expression of Biannette.

The man in gray still didn't respond, but suddenly glanced out of the window.

The Far Easterners were a little puzzled.

But a few seconds later, he also froze slightly, and also looked out the window.

The face of the Far East man became serious.

"Do you want to cook for you?" the man in gray said lightly.

The Far East guest sighed softly, but then changed into a happy smile again.

"How dare you."

He bowed slightly: "This is my private business."

"Alright then," the man in gray nodded lightly, "Farewell."

As soon as the words fell, the man named Baanette rolled out of the bed.

The moment his legs landed on the ground, the five short knives on the table jumped up like they were alive, and flew back and forth towards Baanette in unison.

Then obediently inserted it into several different scabbards all over his body.

Seeing this incredible scene, the Far Easterners couldn't help frowning slightly.

"The trap is lifted," the man in gray put on a large robe to cover the bandages on his body, and said softly as he walked past the Far East man, "You can come in with confidence."

Far Eastern guests bowed politely.

The girl snorted lightly, glanced at the Far East guest with a sly smile, and followed her father out of the room.

The moment the two left behind him, the guest from the Far East raised his head, his eyes became extremely cold.

He closed the door gently, looked out the window and sighed.

"Fifteen years," the guest spit out another language that is very different from the Western Continent's common language, composed of single sounds: "You still found it."

At the window, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbed the window sill, and the second Far Easterner turned over and entered the room neatly.

"It's been a long time," Gu, the butcher shop owner who just turned over from the window and had a relationship with Thales, stood by the window, flapping the snowflakes on his hands, and said in the same language, "Senior Brother Teng .”

"Director Teng."

On the stairs outside the room, the man in gray and the masked girl went downstairs quietly.

"He's just..." The girl turned her head, glanced at the room just now, and couldn't help but ask, "It's him?"

The man didn't answer, just nodded.

The girl's eyes tightened.

"Father, what he just said is the intruder," the girl asked tentatively, "It could be mother or sister..."

"How much?" The expressionless man asked abruptly.

The girl was slightly taken aback: "Huh?"

"That guy," said the man in gray coldly, "how many lies did he tell in total?"

"Lies..." The girl was a little puzzled.

"Eleven."

"From the time he stepped into the room to the time we walked out of the room, he told a total of eleven lies," the man concluded softly, and continued with serious eyes: "Nine of them would be fatal. If I didn't recognize one and deal with it The tentative response..."

The man suppressed the trembling of his palms, waved his left hand, and caught a drop of blood oozing from the bandage in the air, preventing it from dripping to the ground: "That scene will be ugly."

The girl was taken aback and blinked her eyes: "But he didn't say much in total..."

"Lies don't need to be woven with words," the man in gray interrupted the girl coldly: "This sentence came from the mouth of a terrible lady, remember it well."

The masked girl was stunned.

"Also, remember," the man didn't even look at the girl beside him, his face was expressionless, and his tone was indifferent: "Your mother and sister are already dead."

"Don't mention them again."

Hearing this, the girl's shoulders shook slightly and she clenched her fist lightly.

"Next time," the gray-clothed man may have noticed the girl's strange behavior, but he didn't respond: "Don't let people come to you by attaching you to her."

The girl lowered her head deeply.

People can't see her eyes clearly.

They went down the stairs.

"Lucy, why did you come down with the guests?"

Old Booker raised his head from the chair, looked at the girl covered in black cloth, with a look of surprise on his face: "And you're wearing a scarf again, do you want to go out?"

But the girl ignored him and just looked at the man in gray.

"This guest," Old Booker finally realized, looking at the man attentively: "Do you want to pay the bill?"

The man in gray nodded slightly, and said in a low voice: "Be clean.

Old Booker watched the interaction between his daughter and the guest suspiciously, not knowing why.

The masked girl nodded, and with Old Booker's inquiring eyes, she walked up to him and hugged him with open arms.

Like a daughter hugging her father.

"What are you doing, Lucy?" Old Booker looked at his daughter's behavior dumbfounded, and hugged her helplessly, while giving apologetic eyes to the cold guest: "I still have to entertain..."

But he couldn't finish his sentence.

"laugh!"

Old Booker's expression changed, and he trembled as he hugged his daughter!

Old Booker's teeth began to chatter, his face was extremely distorted, he lowered his head with difficulty and shock, and looked at the daughter in his arms.

"Lucy, you..." Old Booker's shaking became more and more severe, as if he was enduring great pain.

But nothing could compare to the disbelief, pain and despair in his eyes at this moment.

"Puff puff!"

Old Booker shuddered three more times, each time more terrifying than the last!

His eyebrows were twisted into a ball, but he could only find coldness and indifference in his daughter's eyes.

The girl let go of her arms and gently pushed Old Booker away.

"Plop!" Old Booker limply fell to the ground with a face full of despair.

With trembling lips, he looked at the bloody dagger in the girl's right hand.

Moisture and warmth spread from the boss's painful back, soaking through the robe and wet the ground.

No.

lucy.

No!

Old Booker, who was lying in a pool of blood, pursed his lips and stared at the dagger in the girl's hand.

In the severe pain that almost blurred his senses, he stretched out his weak right hand to his favorite daughter, crying in a trance:

"Lucy...no...why..."

But the girl just looked down at him coldly, with disdain and disgust in her eyes.

"Listen, dear papa."

"My name is not 'Lucy', that's just my working name." The masked girl squatted down gently, and leaned into Old Booker's ear: "My real name is..."

She said in a voice that only two people could hear clearly:

"Jessica Sarriton."

Old Booker's eyes froze.

But he couldn't say anything.

The man in gray stood quietly behind them without saying a word.

Jessica stood up silently, looked at her dagger silently, and gently shook off the blood on it.

On the dagger, two letters appeared on the blood-soaked blade:

yc.