The old man had not expected the woman before him to see through his identity so easily.
But after a long silence, he spoke again with conviction. "Even if you are right, my lord's awakening is already inevitable. No one can stop it."
"Who says so? I came here precisely to stop it." The woman of unknown origin lifted her chin. "I only need you to provide a little help."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Establish contact with that thing beneath the Forbidden City. You should have a way to do that, right?" As she spoke, the woman of unknown origin took out a bone flute no larger than her palm.
"What is that?" The old man looked wary.
"There's no harm in telling you. This is the Siren's Flute. I hunted roughly over a hundred sirens in the deep sea and made this item from their hyoid bones. Once this flute is played, any mortal who hears it will become completely lost in its music, and most likely never regain their senses. But don't worry. To your boss, this flute will at most calm its restless heart a little and send it back into slumber."
"You are lying." The old man shook his head. "Sirens are extremely rare. There might not even be ten sirens left in the entire ocean. Where did you find more than a hundred sirens to make a flute?"
"I know." The woman of unknown origin licked her lips and smiled. "Because I was the one who wiped them out. Up until the nineteenth century, there were actually quite a few sirens. Nowhere near as many as humans, of course, but there were still several hundred. They used their songs to lure sailors, causing their ships to crash against reefs, or drawing those