Chapter 42 The Death of Fia

Yan Shi: ...

She gripped the memory stone tightly, feeling her anger level soaring.

Suddenly, a light yet cold voice whispered in her ear: "Yanshi, hold the recording stone and don't make a sound. Take good care of Lanlan."

She looked at the high priest with a puzzled expression, but the high priest had already walked back to the high platform of the hall.

"What's wrong?" Wen Ying turned around to look at Yan Shi when she saw that Yan Shi hadn't followed.

When the High Priest threw the recording stone at Yan Shi, the air was filled with a dense, materialized aura of light. The recording stone streaked across the radiant sky without leaving a trace.

Yan Shi held the photo-recording stone in his palm: "It's nothing."

She discovered that Wen Ying's words seemed to carry weight among the elves. When they left the elven temple, an elf was already waiting outside with Sheng Chunqiu and the C37 execution team that she had brought with her.

"Director," Sheng Chunqiu said, bending down as he brought his right hand to his shoulder, "I failed in my duties."

Seeing that Sheng Chunqiu was unharmed, Gui Gemu no longer showed any of the urgency he had displayed when he rushed to the Forest of Life. With one hand holding a scroll of the array paper and the other in his pocket, he stood at the entrance of the temple, watching his longtime friend's rare defeat and apology with amusement.

Since they met while studying at Zhanzhou, Sheng Chunqiu had consistently ranked first in her grade and had also been promoted rapidly after starting work.

Gui Gemu and Sheng Chunqiu were specially recruited into the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs after graduation. When they joined, it was the last year that the 64th Director of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs was taking charge of the new recruits.

This director served as the head of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs for nearly forty years, and was known for his clear-headed methods, decisive actions, and impartial law enforcement.

When she took office, several massive holy wars in the underworld were coming to an end, the situation was chaotic, and people were displaced.

Even today, more than twenty years later, there is a holy war in which armed conflict between the two sides continues every year.

During her tenure as Director of the Bureau of Alien Affairs, she not only implemented sweeping reforms throughout the Bureau, but also stabilized the situation in the Underworld, establishing branch offices of the Bureau in several non-human territories that were not originally under its jurisdiction. Simultaneously, during her tenure, the authority of the Bureau's headquarters reached its zenith.

After her departure, the three successive directors of the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs were all chosen ones from prominent human families in the Inner World. They each had their own preferences for resources, and since the Bureau was located in the Outer World, where spiritual energy was scarce and not conducive to cultivation, they all resigned after a short time.

As a subordinate personally recruited by the 64th Director, Sheng Chunqiu, with the help of some of the Director's former subordinates, quietly started from the field team of the Enforcement Division and actually climbed step by step to the position of Director of the Enforcement Division.

It is important to know that the General Administration's Enforcement Division is one of the three core departments of the General Administration, which includes the Enforcement Division, Patrol Division, Trial Division, and Investigation Division, each of which is highly renowned.

She had never made such a big mistake since joining the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs.

Although the overtime work was caused by Sheng Chunqiu, the matter is now temporarily over. Apart from this incident, she is still an extremely reliable subordinate, so Yan Shi originally had no intention of punishing her.

The real culprit should be the high priest who knowingly kept silent and kept the truth hidden.

Yan Shi gritted his teeth inwardly. Do all people who look like Kirina like to be riddle tellers?

From then on, these people will be on her blacklist. She will keep as far away from anyone who looks similar as possible.

As for now, she decided to quickly brush it off and go home to sleep.

Yan Shi merely glanced at Sheng Chunqiu without stopping, and instead directly pulled open the world barrier and walked in.

Wen Ying was also standing by watching. When she saw Yan Shi leave without saying a word, she raised an eyebrow.

It was still Yan Shi.

Fia was somewhat surprised: "Your bureau chief doesn't care about his subordinates?"

Sheng Chunqiu remained silent.

Just as Yan Shi's figure was about to disappear and the world barrier closed, Sheng Chunqiu heard a very soft sigh: "This matter has nothing to do with you. Be careful in the future. Go back and rest. You've worked hard."

Sheng Chunqiu stood there stunned, blinked, and slowly stood up.

"Sheng Chu?" a member of the enforcement team called out to her.

Sheng Chunqiu quickly got into work mode and said to Leona in a deep voice, "The misunderstanding should be cleared up now?"

She had already discerned from the formation of the wood elves that Leona was the one making the decision.

Leona nodded: "The High Priest said that the matter of the Scepter of Life has nothing to do with the Bureau of Heterodox Affairs, and my people will cooperate with you to supplement the household registration records."

“Then I’ll notify the Emerald City branch and have their household registration department coordinate with the Forest of Life.” As soon as Sheng Chunqiu finished speaking, Gui Gemu chimed in, “No need for that trouble.”

Lin Cai suddenly had a bad feeling.

"Director Yu from the Household Registration Department of the General Administration is also here. There aren't many Wood Elves, so let them enter the information directly into the system. It should be completed tonight." Gui Gemu shrugged and turned to Sheng Chunqiu to indicate that Yu Junxun was here.

Sheng Chunqiu looked at Yu Junxun. She didn't know much about the big families in the inner world who weren't involved in the internal struggles of the Execution Department, but this should be the newly appointed director after Director Yan finished his reforms of the Household Registration Department. She knew a little about Director Yan.

It's probably a reliable one, otherwise Guigemu wouldn't have given her that signal.

“Okay.” Sheng Chunqiu nodded. “Then I’ll have to trouble Director Yu.”

Yu Junxun smiled nonchalantly: "It's not hard work."

He pulled Lin Cai aside. "This is Lin Cai from our household registration department's field team. She's an outstanding member of the team. Tonight, she'll be in charge of the household registration data entry for the wood elves."

After saying that, he pushed Lin Cai forward and whispered in her ear, "I've already given you access to household registration information in your system. Good luck! Do your best, and who knows, you might already be a permanent employee of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs even before you graduate from Zhanzhou."

Lin Cai: ...

Lin Cai stared stiffly at the large swarm of wood elves who had arrived after receiving a message from Leona.

She knew it! She never wanted to go on fieldwork with Yu Junxun again!

Yan Shi, of course, had no idea about Lin Cai's past. She had already stepped into the house, taken a shower, and lay down on the soft bed.

The photo stone sat on her bedside table, glowing softly.

"Let me see..." Yan Shi curiously touched the recording stone. What was inside? How come the High Priest had already shown it to the Wood Elf and Guige Mu, but then secretly slipped it to her instead?

After leaving the Forest of Life, the Crown of the Sun resumed its feigned death.

Yan Shi angrily poked at the crown of the blazing sun, barely managing to summon some water spirit from the thin spiritual energy of the surface world and inject it into the memory stone.

The photo-recording stone lit up, projecting a beam of light.

It was a group photo of six people wearing different styles of the Bureau of Exotic Affairs uniforms and the High Priest. The people in the photo on the screen were all indifferent, keeping a fist's distance from each other, and staring blankly at Yan Shi outside the photo stone.

The six people wearing the uniforms of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs were four women and two men, and their faces were all unfamiliar; at least Yan Shi did not recognize them.

“Nothing special…” Yan Shi stared at the light screen projected by the recording stone, and suddenly, five seconds after the light screen appeared, it flashed.

Then, as if the projection network was faulty, light spots began to appear on the screen.

Just as a mirror is slowly wiped clean, the projection on the screen gradually changes its appearance.

There were still six humans and the high priest, four women and two men.

The difference was that everyone in the light screen was smiling happily. In the very center was a woman with red hair and black eyes, wearing the same uniform as Yan Shi as the director of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs, casually embracing another woman with black hair next to her, who was wearing the uniform of the Bureau of Household Registration.

The high priest stood beside the black-haired woman, a slight smile playing on his lips. Her hair wasn't long yet; it was a bob, the same style as Kirina's.

Hairstyles really do determine a person's appearance by a factor of three. The high priest in the photo stone looks more like Kirina than a six, which is now an eight.

Yan Shi's gaze swept across the faces of the six people in turn, finally landing on the black-haired woman.

Why did she feel like he looked familiar?

Yan Shi thought for a while but couldn't recall anything. The water spirit she had poured into the image stone was exhausted, and the light screen dimmed.

She poured water into the photo stone again, and just like before, the photo stone first showed a stiff group photo, and then five seconds later revealed several people making peace signs at the camera.

The high priest must have added a very detailed array to the surface of the image stone to create this illusion.

But the light spirits attached to the surface can only last for five seconds. Why is the High Priest doing this?

Yan Shi couldn't understand it.

---

Within the Forest of Life, Lin Cai finally entered all the unregistered identity experiences and related details of the wood elves from the past twenty years into the household registration system.

By the time it was finished, it was already dawn.

"Off work..." Lin Cai's eyes were glazed over, and she felt like she could faint the moment she hit the bed.

Sheng Chunqiu had been away from the bureau for several days, with a backlog of official duties, and had already left, leaving four members of the enforcement team to help maintain order.

After they finished cleaning up the scene, Zhuang Le, who was in charge, asked Lin Cai, "Shall we leave together?"

Lin Cai: "Okay..."

After they left, the forest returned to its tranquility.

The forest was vast, and the elves were not closely related, so they lived far apart from each other.

Leona sat in her treehouse in a daze for a long time until the constant noise from the Bureau of Evil Registration outside subsided, and then she turned to look out the window.

She lost track of the clue she had finally obtained regarding the Scepter of Life.

Leona felt heavy-hearted. She sighed and went out to talk to Fia, telling her not to speak without thinking next time.

Since the loss of the Scepter of Life, Leona's mother, as the chieftain of the Wood Elves, was overwhelmed with remorse and chose to return to the Mother Tree of the Elves, leaving the entire burden of the Wood Elf race on Leona's shoulders.

The scepter of life is a responsibility she must reclaim.

As Leona walked through the forest, she thought about what the clan elders had said: the Scepter of Life was stolen by a stranger whom the clan chief had taken in twenty years ago.

The photographic stone that the high priest took out showed that the outsider from twenty years ago was indeed wearing the uniform of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs.

Why did the High Priest let the people from the Bureau of Heretics leave again?

The High Priest was the head of the Elven Temple, and Leona knew she should unconditionally follow all of the High Priest's teachings.

But she couldn't understand this matter.

Leona walked to the outside of Fia's hut, but suddenly stopped and widened her eyes.

To save trouble, unlike Leona's cottage which was built on branches, Fia simply wrapped the hut around the tree roots with vines.

At this moment, the outside of the small house made of vines, which Fia had carefully decorated with small flowers and mushrooms, was covered in light red, slightly green blood.

The door of the hut was wide open, and bloodstains slowly flowed out from inside.

Leona opened her mouth but couldn't utter a word; tears slowly slid down her cheeks.

She stumbled down, then got up again, eager to run into the house to check on Fia's condition. Suddenly, someone covered Leona's mouth from behind and dragged her behind a tree to hide her carefully.

"Don't speak," the person behind her whispered in her ear.

Leona tried to struggle, but suddenly a person slowly walked out of the hut.

The man's fingertips were still dripping blood, and he was frowning as he vigorously wiped his hands clean with a silk handkerchief.

Elf blood is unique; the texture of blood varies from elf to elf. Wood elf blood has a greenish tinge, while light elf blood contains specks of light.

The blood on the man's fingertips was the blood of a wood elf; Leona could see it clearly.

She suddenly lost all her strength, stopped struggling, and collapsed onto the people behind her.

The one who emerged from Fia's hut was the High Priest.

Leona couldn't find a reason to defend the High Priest.

“Look closely at the High Priest’s face,” Wen Ying reminded Leona.

Leona's dazed gaze was fixed on the high priest who was walking out of the hut.

The high priest had a bloodstain on his face, probably from when Fia slipped on her usual spear before she died.

The small amount of blood slowly seeping out of this bloodstain was bright red.

Author's Note: Updated! This is the June 30th update. I felt it wasn't good to leave it halfway through, so I finished this part completely. It's just a bit late; I wasn't planning on abandoning it QAQ

Starting today, I will resume daily updates.

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