Half an hour later.
After washing up and bathing in the palace on Natsen Island, then changing into a set of well-fitting clothes that Erika Joaquin had specially found for them, Feng Baobao, Wang Ye, Lu Linglong, Zhi Jinhua, Fu Rong, Zhang Chulan, Zhuge Qing, Zhang Lingyu, and Lu Lin had all cleaned up nicely. Though some still had scratches on their faces and hands, they looked refreshed compared to the sorry state they'd been in when they first stormed ashore. Along with the little girl who'd caused all this trouble—the sect's founding ancestor, who hadn't been affected in the slightest—they teleported once more and finally saw the queen of Natsen Island again, after several days apart.
What the group found strange, though, was that they didn't meet Queen "Wang Shenna" in the palace. Instead, they found themselves in a peculiar place, brought there by another Natsen Guard—Elijah Jones, whom Zhang Chulan knew well.
Mist surrounded them on all sides. They couldn't see the sky, the ground, or anything in the distance. All they could make out was a small figure up ahead, dressed in the same traditional Natsen garment that looked like a bathrobe, and the outline of a tree.
"Elijah..."
Zhang Chulan looked around, then toward the blurry figure ahead, unable to hide his alarm.
"What is this place?"
"Is your queen meeting us here?"
Truthfully, there was no way Zhang Chulan wasn't uneasy.
If he hadn't known that the other side meant them no harm and had no reason to attack them—and if their troublesome ancestor Annie and Sister Bao'er hadn't been beside him, looking around without the slightest sign of alarm—he might have been ready to fight or make a run for it.
"Of course!"
"Look, isn't our queen over there?"
Elijah Jones smiled and pointed