Bai Wei's Request

"First, I want to emphasize that it's not some heaven out there, and I'm not some angel." Lai Er sat cross-legged, his posture like that of a king of children. "Of course, compared to what's in here, outside really is like heaven, and compared to you all, I really am like an angel."

Lai Er's words confused the children. They felt like he had said something, yet also hadn't, but they didn't dare to question him, because he was Angel-sama.

To the people of the village, angels had always been noble and mysterious.

They rarely came to the village. Even when they did, they only came to collect those golden seeds, and they hardly spoke any words to them during their visits. It was as if a tacit understanding had formed between the villagers and Angel-sama: they were responsible for planting, and Angel-sama was responsible for taking, and that was that.

But this Angel-sama before them was different. He didn't come and leave on the same day; instead, he had been here for several days and hadn't taken any seeds. He even generously shared things from his person with the villagers.

Those were things they had never seen before: a "Divine Staff" that could directly ignite fire with a gentle wave, "Medicine Candy" that could double one's spirit when chewed, and, most impressively, several "Broken Fingers" that were impossible to damage no matter what.

At that time, Angel-sama had thrown these "Broken Fingers" in front of them, proudly saying, "If any of you can break it, you can pick whatever you want from my bag... except for those potions, of course."

Angel-sama's bag filled them with longing. The items mentioned earlier were all taken from Angel-sama's bag. They couldn't imagine what treasures were inside, so they tried their best to damage those "Broken Fingers." But whether they used a small knife to cut, a stone to smash, or fire to burn, they couldn't damage the "Broken Finger" at all, not even "injure" it.

Their efforts greatly amused Lai Er, so after each attempt, Lai Er would still give them a few sweet candies. To them, this was Angel-sama's blessing. They accepted it with great reverence, which made Lai Er smile even more happily.

"Hmm... where did we leave off yesterday?" Lai Er shook his head and swayed. "Does anyone else remember?"

"Me, me, me, I remember." A child raised his hand. "You said something about an old asshole..."

"Ah, Rhine." Lai Er remembered. "Rhine is a place with a lot to talk about. That place is truly... well, it's hard to put into words."

The children's faces once again showed confusion.

So, was there a lot to say or not much to say?

"Of course, I'm quite familiar with Rhine," Lai Er thought for a moment, then found an entry point. "Let's talk about their magic! Rhine's magic is also one of the best in the world."

Then, Lai Er began to tell the children about Rhine, which naturally left the children there stunned.

For the first time, they learned that the "heaven" outside was very, very large, not just a single country.

There was Rhine, there was Holy Sound, there was Lyra.

People from different regions had different lives, but most of those lives were difficult for them to understand. For example, they didn't know what musical notes meant or what machines were, so Lai Er could only start by telling them about Rhine, as it was the most understandable of all the churches.

But even so, when he talked about magic, the children still let out waves of exclamations.

They had never seen magic before, except for the "Fire-Igniting Staff" that Lai Er had used to show off earlier. In their eyes, that was magic, very magical.

When Lai Er mentioned the Rhine God, a child couldn't help but ask, "Is the Rhine God the God of Heaven?"

"Yes."

"Then is He also our God?"

"Ah, no." Lai Er shook his head. "The Rhine God is just the god of the Rhine people. Heaven... no, there are several gods in the world outside, and different gods have different followers."

"Do the followers know their gods?"

"Of course."

"Then..." the child asked doubtfully, "who is our God, and why don't we know?"

"Because you don't have a god," Lai Er said. "The people here have no deities."

"We have no deities?!" the children asked in horror. "Have we been abandoned by God?"

"Of course not... Damn it, why do you care so much about gods?" Lai Er waved his hand, deciding not to discuss gods with these guys anymore. "Let's talk about something else. Hmm... do you know what I do?"

"You are an angel."

"I mean my job."

"Do angels need to work?"

"Of course, I'm a merchant."

"What is a merchant?"

"It's someone who exchanges money for goods."

"What is money?"

Lai Er: "..."

He then remembered that the collectors from Contract Land never paid for the seeds when they came to collect them.

After a lengthy explanation, the children had a general understanding of what a merchant was, and then eagerly asked, "Then what do you sell?"

"Oh, many things." When it came to his main business, Lai Er became even more animated. "I am the most outstanding merchant in this world, a Gold Merchant! Do you understand what a Gold Merchant is? The number one Gold Merchant in gold, silver, and copper! You have no idea how impressive I am outside. My current achievements are all thanks to my hard work, and a little bit of luck. Now I have the most profitable job."

"The most profitable job?"

"Yes." Lai Er said with a smile. "I've started selling peo..."

He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.

He looked at the children in front of him, who were looking at him with expectant eyes, but his mind flashed back to that night, to the other children he had seen in those prison cells. The words that had reached his lips couldn't be spoken.

"Angel-sama?" the children asked. "What did you say you were selling? We didn't hear clearly."

Lai Er was silent for a moment, then shook his head and said, "It's nothing, just some children's things, toys and such."

The children here didn't know what toys were either, but they could sense that Lai Er's mood had suddenly become a bit somber, and they immediately panicked, thinking they had done something wrong, and quickly apologized.

"Why are you apologizing?" Lai Er shook his head, tossing the strange thoughts out of his mind, and clapped his hands. "Let's talk about something else. Hmm... do you want to go to the outside world?"

"Going to heaven?"

"No, it's the outside world... Ah, believe what you want about heaven." Lai Er looked at the children before him with hopeful eyes. "Let's go to the places I mentioned, Rhine, Holy Sound, Lyra."

The children exchanged glances, and then one of them timidly asked, "We're not angels, we can't go to heaven."

"I already said, that kind of thing doesn't matter," Lai Er said. "Anyone can go if they want to."

He turned around and pointed to the mist outside the village.

"If you walk out from here, it only takes half a day to reach the outside world," Lai Er said. "That's where the things I mentioned are, and the real sky. Yes, above our heads shouldn't be a sheet of yellow sand, but something vaster, with no discernible edges."

"But we can't leave here." The child said, "If we leave the mist, we'll die."

"Who told you that?"

"Mom and Dad."

"Damn it, that's all lies." Lai Er's voice involuntarily grew louder. "This damned mist isn't a necessity at all; on the contrary, it's something superfluous that harms your health."

"What is health?"

"...Who is the oldest in your village?"

"Village Chief-sama!"

"How old is your village chief?"

"Seasons?"

"I mean... seasons."

There were no seasons in the No Man's Land, and therefore no months or years. The 'seasons' mentioned here referred to the time when the Contract Land came to collect the Seed of Covenant. Lai Er had inquired, and the two seasons here roughly corresponded to one year outside. The villagers used this to calculate their age.

"The Village Chief is eighty seasons old!"

"Yes, yes, eighty seasons!"

The children replied.

"Eighty seasons is forty years," Lai Er said. "That means the oldest among you is only forty years old. Do you know how long people live outside?! I've met several eighty-year-old elders, meaning here, he could live to be one hundred and sixty seasons!"

"One hundred and sixty seasons..." The children were amazed. "Is that the lifespan of angels?"

"What kind of angels! They're just people, ordinary people, just like you," Lai Er's voice became even louder, a hint of anger in his tone. "They live that long simply because they don't have to eat sand here every day!"

The children naturally sensed Lai Er's anger and began to kneel one after another, kowtowing to Lai Er to apologize.

Even their parents rushed over, kowtowing along with them.

At this moment, Lai Er couldn't help but feel a sense of powerlessness, like punching cotton.

This wasn't the first time.

He had tried to "lure" these children away several times in the past few days, just like Ha Luo had taken him away five years ago.

But Lai Er didn't actually intend to take these children away; after all, he didn't have the time to raise children now.

He was just rehearsing, so that when he returned home, his wife and children would be willing to leave with him.

Unfortunately, no matter how good things sounded beforehand or how pleasant the interactions were, they would always get stuck at the step of "Let's go to the outside world."

This inevitably reminded Lai Er of five years ago, when his parents knelt before him, his wife who had just given birth, and his newborn child crying their eyes out.

But so what?

He wasn't wrong!

He wanted to pursue a better life, he refused to stay in this broken place where people could only live to thirty, he wanted to see the outside world!

And once he reached the outside world, he was even more convinced he was right. Therefore, the thing he wanted to do most now was to prove to his parents, his wife and child, and everyone in the village that he was right, and he would stop at nothing to do so.

But was that enough?

Why couldn't these guys understand him?!

Lai Er was on the verge of roaring at them, "Don't call me an angel, I came from the same place as you!"

He really wanted to say that, but he couldn't. At least not until he got permission from Visas-sama. He couldn't expose his identity, so he had to suppress it.

Forget it.

He comforted himself inwardly as he looked at the frightened children before him.

These were just a bunch of irredeemable ignorant people. Let them rot here forever. As long as he could take his wife and children away.

As long as he took his wife and children.

"Alright," at this moment, a cold voice rang out. "You may withdraw."

Lai Er turned his head and saw the envoy from Contract Land, who had brought him here earlier, standing behind him.

Although they had stayed in this village together for a few days, they hadn't had much interaction. To this day, Lai Er still didn't know his name, and he hadn't approached Lai Er to talk. At most, he would watch him from afar, as if monitoring him.

Now that he had arrived, Lai Er had a premonition that his rare period of peace was about to end.

As expected, after dismissing the villagers, the envoy stood before Lai Er, sizing him up from head to toe, and then slowly said, "It seems you are indeed merely a servant of Tongue."

Hearing this, Lai Er's heart suddenly leaped in shock.

Even though he had told the envoy a few days ago that he was merely Tongue's subordinate, he hadn't left because Visas-sama had instructed him to wait for news. This naturally led the envoy to wonder, "Could this guy be Tongue?"

But now, the other party could confirm his identity.

Had they perhaps found the real Tongue, meaning Visas-sama?

"My master wants you to deliver a message to Tongue-sensei," the envoy said. "Although you haven't left, the time has come, and we need an answer. We need to know what Tongue-sensei is thinking right now, otherwise... Tongue-sensei should be prepared to face the consequences of 'Obedience of Heavenly Voice'."

Was this a threat?

It definitely was a threat!

Lai Er immediately panicked, as Visas-sama hadn't contacted him in days, and he couldn't reach Visas-sama either...

"Have him take you to the scene," Bai Wei's voice echoed in Lai Er's mind at that moment. "This is my condition."

Lai Er blinked in surprise, then immediately felt relieved.

Thank goodness, Visas-sama was back.

So, after mentally communicating with Bai Wei, Lai Er said to the envoy, "Tongue-sensei has also contacted me."

The envoy frowned. "He contacted you? When?"

"That's none of your business," Lai Er said, feigning calmness. "My master has a condition."

"What condition?"

Lai Er said, enunciating each word clearly, "I want to witness the 'Obedience of Heavenly Voice' with my own eyes."