The captain stood there, his eyes lingering on Chaluoke's face for a moment, then moving away, glancing at his companions who were still squatting in the shadows behind him, and finally landed on the money bag.
He was wondering: Is there any deep meaning in what this man said? It's not an ordinary request for money or food, but some kind of temptation? Some kind of signal? Some kind of code word that Silence Society doesn't know but is already used by other forces?
The captain's mind was spinning so fast that it seemed to Kaidezi behind him that he was just stunned for a moment, and then he started to take out the money. The captain reached out and took off the money bag from his waist, weighed it, and threw it directly towards Chaluoke without opening it.
Chaluoke stretched out his hand to catch it, his movement was very casual, like taking a glass of water handed to him. He didn't open it and directly stuffed it into his coat pocket.
"Eat." The captain glanced behind him again. A man in white robes came out of the shadows and handed him the oil paper bag in his hand. The captain took it and threw it over.
Chaluoke caught it again. The oil paper package was heavy in his hand, and he could feel that there were more than one piece of bread inside.
"As for the rest..." The captain paused here, thinking about his words.
He chose the most compromise and least likely way to go wrong - stating the facts. "The empire will send people from behind to guard the area. We can ask him to send you away."
The captain didn't know who this man was, where he came from, or why he appeared in this flooded ruined city.
But he knows one thing - this kind of person shouldn't be staying in this kind of place. With his strength, he can go anywhere.
The fact that he stayed here means that he has a reason to stay here. No matter what the reason is, Silence Society doesn't want to know. Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, and don't see what you shouldn't see. Give him what you can give, send him away, and then forget about it.
"Is there any wine?" Chaluoke asked. It was not a requesting tone, but a natural and taken-for-granted tone of "If you give bread but not wine, is there any disadvantage?"
The captain was silent for a breath. "It should... be." He was not sure, but he said "should be". This was not a lie, but an estimate.
It is impossible for people from the empire to come without bringing supplies. The supplies include food, dried meat, medicine, and probably wine. The soldiers on the border will drink some.
Chaluoke nodded and didn't ask any more questions. He put the oil paper bag under his arm, put one hand in his pocket, and fiddled with the bag of coins with his fingers, making a small, jingling sound.
He turned around and walked towards the building that was half submerged in the water. After walking a few steps, he stopped and glanced at the men in white robes who were still standing there. His eyes swept from the captain's face, to the people behind him, and back again.
"Thank you." Chaluoke said.
Then he walked into the shadow of the building. The sound of his footsteps gradually faded away and disappeared into the gaps between the water and the ruins.
The captain stood there and waited for a while. After confirming that the man's breath had completely disappeared, he turned around and waved to his companions who were still squatting in the shadows behind him. "Let's go."
The people in white robes emerged from the bunker, no one spoke, no one looked back. They left quickly along the way they came, their footsteps sounded on the gravel and mud, quick and messy, and soon disappeared around the corner of the ruins.
On the second floor of the building, the child was still lying next to the window, his face pressed against the palm-width gap, one eye closed, and the other eye straining to look out.
He saw the men in white robes leaving, and saw the uncle coming up from the stairs with a bulging bag in his hand and an oil paper bag under his arm.
"Who are those people?" the child asked curiously, his eyes jumping back and forth between the bag in the uncle's hand and the oil paper bag.
Chaluoke placed the oil paper bag on the table and opened it. Inside were four white breads, the skin was browned, and when pressed, the inside could be felt to be soft and slightly warm. He also placed the wallet on the table, without opening it, nor did he intend to open it.
He didn't even look at how much money was in it, just the weight.
He sat down at the table, opened the parchment paper, picked up a piece of bread, broke it in half, and handed one half to the child.
"I don't know." Chaluoke took a bite, chewed the bread twice in his mouth, and swallowed it. The taste was not bad. The flour was new and not mixed with too many impurities.
Seeing that the child was still waiting for his answer, he added, "I don't know how you...
"Oh, they can be considered 'good people'. We have to leave later anyway. Eat some white bread."
The child took the half piece of bread, took a small bite, and then took a small bite.
The bread was very soft and sweet, much more delicious than the hard cakes soaked in water that he had eaten these past few days. He chewed the bread, mumbled an "oh" and stopped asking any more questions.
Boom.
The ground roared. It wasn't the earthquake-like shaking that came from under your feet and made people unsteady, but the kind of sound that came from far away, like something huge had fallen from the sky, making people's chests numb.
The faded oil painting hanging on the wall in the room tilted, then tilted again, then slipped from the nails and fell to the floor. The sound of the frame breaking was mostly drowned out by the roar, leaving only a crisp, short click.
The bread in the child's hand almost fell to the ground, and he quickly clenched it tightly. He rushed to the window, stood on tiptoes, and put his face in front of the crack.
In the distance, in the direction of the ruins of the mine, there is a huge outline. It is not the black storm - the storm is still there, the storm is still in the sky.
The huge silhouette fell from the storm and landed on the edge of the ruins of the mine. It was far away and the details could not be seen clearly. Only a vague, golden shadow with a slender body and several necks could be seen.
"That's... what? A dragon?"
Chaluoke did not move. He sat at the table, holding the half piece of bread in his hand, looking across the gap in the window and landing on the golden outline in the distance.
The nearly black eyes reflected the golden light and shadow in the distance. The pupils shrank slightly and returned to normal.
He chewed the bread for a long time, then swallowed it and took a sip from the glass of cold water on the table.
"Dragon?" Chaluoke's voice had an indescribable, dull tone that seemed to be self-deprecating or lamenting something. "Who knows."
He put down the water glass, leaned back on the chair, looked away from the window, stared at the crack on the ceiling for a few seconds, and closed his eyes. He seemed to be unable to understand this world, although he seemed to have never understood it before.
Mine ruins.
King Ghidorah landed on the ground. His three heads rotated, and his golden vertical pupils scanned the surrounding ruins.
After being destroyed by the storm, the ruins of the mine were repaired with Valeria holes, and now they look even less impressive than before.
King Ghidorah didn't care about this. He looked down at the ground beneath his feet. His golden vertical pupils seemed to be able to penetrate rocks and soil and see what was happening deep underground.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Deep underground.
The purple light was flickering slowly. It was not a rapid, unstable flicker, but a rhythmic, breathing-like pulsation of light and dark. The light poured out from the purple crystal on Valeria's chest and spread to the whole body along the remaining lines on the right half of its body.
The newly grown parts—the stump of the left wing, the scales on the left chest, and the bones of the left forelimb—are growing rapidly in the purple light.
Rocks condensed from the air, crystals extended from cracks, and scales emerged from under the skin. Layer by layer, one stroke after another painted a huge, complex painting with stones and crystals.
Valeria absorbs the ores here. Not by eating or drinking, but in a more direct and instinctive way - countless purple lines as thin as hair extend from under its body, and the lines penetrate deep into the rocks like the roots of plants, decomposing, extracting and absorbing the useful substances in the ores.
Its body was recovering at an incredible speed. New wing bones had grown out of the stump of the left wing. The wing bones were covered with a thin, still translucent wing membrane, and the wing membrane was embedded with fine purple crystals the size of rice grains.
The scales on the left chest have basically recovered. The new scales are smaller than the original ones, lighter in color, but very dense. When you tap them with your fingers, you can hear a crisp, ceramic-like sound. The bones of the left forelimb have grown fully, and the muscles and scales are still slowly covering them, but they can already support its weight.
Give it some time, maybe half a day, maybe a day, and it will recover better than when it first woke up. But it can't wait.
It felt that the person above was urging it. Although King Ghidorah only said two words - "Hey, are you okay?" - Valeria could feel the impatience in those two words.
It's not the kind of impatience that says, "I'll be angry if you don't come out." It's the kind of impatience that says, "I gave you time, and when the time comes, it's time for you to come out." It's business-like, without any unnecessary emotions.
Valeria retracted all the purple lines that penetrated deep into the rock, rolled up the useful substances in the underground ore that had not yet been absorbed, and stored them in the purple crystal on the chest as a backup.
Then it moved.