Looking at the old man before me, I asked, "Why did you come to Great Xia?"
He froze for a moment. "Didn't I already explain that? I..."
I cut him off. "You did, but what I mean is, you had plenty of other options besides Great Xia. Great Xia is far away in the East, and you knew perfectly well that Great Xia and the Holy See had little interaction with each other. Of course, neither side wanted much interaction. You could have sought help from other divine realms in the West, especially those that had always maintained good relations with the Holy See. Given your status, if you had asked them for aid, they certainly wouldn't have refused."
Jacob fell silent.
He did not speak for a long time.
Nor did I. I needed an answer to this question. Even if I intended to help him, I had to clear up the doubts in my heart first.
After about the time it took to smoke half a cigarette, he finally let out a long sigh. "Because they expelled me from the Holy See and charged me with apostasy. If someone hadn't secretly tipped me off, I would have been sent to the Inquisition by now."
I narrowed my eyes. I knew something major had to have happened within the Holy See. Yes, he had personally said that the Holy See was controlled by "Silkworm," but I never imagined that Jacob, one of the Twelve Apostles—Jacob, known as the Dinghai Shenzhen of the Holy See, Jacob once regarded by their Lord as a pillar of the Holy See—would end up in such a miserable state.
He had nearly been sent to the Inquisition.
I knew what kind of place the Inquisition was. It could be called a living hell.
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