After leaving the main hall, Wolof asked Lia to take Barlow and the other two to their bedroom to rest.
He said this in a flat tone, like a tired father casually instructing his daughter to entertain guests who had come from afar.
Lia responded, lifted her skirt and stepped down from the throne. When she reached Barlow, she nodded slightly, a very faint, polite smile on her lips.
"Please follow me, all three of you."
She led the way, her pace slow, the hem of her light blue skirt trailing softly on the sandstone floor.
Passing through the archway at the back of the main hall leads to a long corridor. On the walls on both sides of the corridor hang portraits of members of the Nefertari Royal Family throughout history. The faces of the people in the portraits are different, but they all have the same straight nose and deep-set eyes.
Lia talked as she walked.
She first talked about how hard her father had worked these past few days, only sleeping two or three hours a day, and then described how utterly despicable the rebels' methods were.
Her tone shifted from sympathy for her father to righteous indignation, and then unconsciously from righteous indignation to curiosity.
"Mr. Barlow, are you from the East Blue? I heard that the Uchiha Trading Company's headquarters are in Water 7. Are the waterways there really denser than the streets of Alubarna? Do you usually live in Water 7 or on White Wax Island? Is White Wax Island really covered entirely with white wax trees? How many countries have you seen along your journey from the East Blue to the Grand Line? Have you encountered any pirates?"
Barlow walked half a step behind her to the left, each step steady, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
For every question Lia asked, he answered in the simplest way, "Yes." "Both." "I've encountered them."
Lia's questioning rhythm remained unaffected; she didn't seem to need detailed answers, but rather a springboard to move on to the next question.
The corridor was long, and her list of questions was clearly long as well.
"Mr. Barlow, besides your business with the Chamber of Commerce, do you have any hobbies? What's your favorite color? Do you prefer sweet or salty food? What do you think are the differences between the Alabasta desert and the sea? You----"
Barlow's brow finally furrowed slightly, a subtle but noticeable frown.
He turned his head, about to say something that could put an end to this one-sided interrogation, when a small figure suddenly darted out from around the corner of the corridor ahead.
"Elder sister!"
The figure crashed headfirst into Lia's arms, causing Lia to stumble back half a step, her light blue dress swirling halfway across the floor.
She looked down and saw the little head in her arms. She was stunned for a moment, then bent down, put her hands on the boy's shoulders, and gently pulled him away from her arms a little.
The boy looked to be about three or four years old. He was wearing a cream-colored robe with fine sand from the garden stuck to the hem. His hair was black with a slight curl, and his bright black eyes were looking up at Lia. There was a bit of sugar stain on the corner of his mouth that he hadn't licked off.
"Cobra, what are you doing out here?" Lia crouched down and wiped the sugar stains from the corner of his mouth with her thumb.
She turned around and smiled apologetically at Barlow and the other two. "This is my younger brother, Cobra. He's still young and doesn't know any better."
Cobra peeked half his head out from beside his sister's arm, curiously examining the three strangers in front of him.
His gaze lingered on Barlow for a moment, then on the longsword at Roy's waist, before finally returning to Barlow's face. Perhaps finding this expressionless man the most interesting, he grinned at him, revealing a set of small, not-yet-fully-grown White Fang.
Barlow looked at the little boy, his brow relaxing slightly.
He mentally made a note of Cobra, and his appearance was perfectly timed to interrupt Lia's endless questioning.
Based on this alone, his impression of the little prince wasn't too bad.
It's alright.
Lia handed Cobra to the nanny who followed behind her and whispered a few words of advice.
The nanny picked up Cobra, who was still waving at Barlow, and hurriedly left. The corridor finally quieted down, with only the occasional soft popping of the candlelight and the sound of a few footsteps.
The bedroom was at the end of the corridor. Lia pushed open the carved wooden door, behind which was a spacious guest room with several potted drought-resistant sand plants on the windowsill.
Barlow and his two companions entered the bedchamber, preparing to close the door and contact Rosa, an unexpected event occurred halfway through closing the door.
A muffled thud echoed down the corridor—the sound of someone being kicked and slamming into the wall.
Immediately following was Lia's short scream and Cobra's piercing cry. The nanny, carrying Cobra, hadn't taken more than a few steps when the sounds came from the other end of the corridor, penetrating the half-open door.
Barlow was the fastest of them all to open the door and rush out; he was closest to the door, and by the time he turned around, his fingers were already on the hilt of his knife.
The scene in the corridor was broken down into several details by his Three-Tomoe Sharingan the moment he rushed out of the room. Lia was lying on her side against the wall, trying to stand up with one hand on the ground. There was a clear boot print on the left shoulder of her dress.
The nanny slumped at the corner of the corridor, her arms empty; Cobra fell in the middle of the corridor, his little hands bracing against the floor tiles, his mouth agape as he was about to let out a second cry.
A man dressed in a royal guard uniform stood before Cobra, raising his scimitar high, the blade reflecting a cold white arc in the candlelight.
Barlow lunged at Cobra before the knife fell.
He wrapped his left arm around Cobra's waist, lifting him up and holding him protectively in his arms. He twisted his body half a circle to the left, bending his right knee and using his back to Cobra and the scimitar.
This was a desperate, all-out rescue. He didn't even draw his knife with his right hand, because drawing a knife would take a split second, and he had no intention of making any trade-off between saving the person and drawing his knife.
The curved blade struck the paving stones where he had just been crouching, sending stone chips flying.
At the same time, Roy and Mila had already flanked Barlow from both sides.
Roy cut in from the right, grabbed the assassin's wrist holding the knife with his left hand and twisted it outward, causing the curved knife to clatter to the ground; at the same time, he grabbed the assassin's shoulder joint with his right hand and twisted it backward, then pressed his knee against the assassin's lower back, slamming him face down onto the floor tiles.
Mila blocked all possible escape angles from the left, and the moment Roy pinned the assassin down, her foot had already stepped on the assassin's other still-mobile wrist.
Mila lowered her head, Three-Tomoe Sharingan in her pupils began to rotate.
Just as she was about to cast her Genjutsu, a trickle of dark purple blood foam suddenly spilled from the assassin's mouth.
He had been clenching something tightly with his teeth, and the moment he saw Mila's Sharingan turn, he bit through the venom sac hidden in his molar.
The dark purple color spread along his gums, quickly turning black. His body twitched twice, his pupils dilated, and then he became completely still.
Mila crouched down and probed the assassin's neck with her finger. She looked up at Barlow and shook her head.
Roy turned the assassin's body over, pried open his mouth to check the position of his back molars, where he found half a broken wax pellet embedded, with the remaining venom from the wax shell seeping down his gums.
"Hiding poison in their mouths—this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision; it was a pre-prepared assassin."
Barlow handed Cobra to the nanny who rushed over, stood up, and turned to walk towards Lia.
Lia was still sitting sideways against the wall, her back against it. The spot where she had been kicked in the left shoulder made it impossible for her to use her left arm. She tried to push herself up with her right hand, but she couldn't get up.
Barlow reached out his hand, and she took his hand to help herself up. Her fingers trembled slightly in his palm, her knuckles icy cold.
She nestled into Barlow's arms, burying her face in his chest, her hands clutching the front of his desert cloak.
Like a drowning person grabbing onto a single piece of driftwood, Barlow stood there, his hands hanging at his sides, neither pushing her away nor hugging her.
His chin rested on the top of her head, his gaze going over her hair toward the end of the corridor.
Hurried footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.