Chapter 181 Xia Pingzhou: Who is more important, me or the Ripper? (asking for monthly votes)

The train demon arrived in London at 7:00 p.m. local time on July 25.

It was just getting dark, with only a sliver of sunset still shrouding the Thames. Exactly at the hour, three long "dong dong dong" sounds rang out from Big Ben, echoing throughout the city.

The brightly lit carriage illuminated the weeds on the tracks, and Hei Pupa was the first to push open the door and walk out.

He stretched lazily and pulled the muscles in his arms: "It's unexpectedly tiring."

At this moment, a dark red and black text prompt box popped up in front of the black pupa.

[Main Mission 3 (Phase 4) has been updated - Assist the Ghost Train Group to capture the rampaging evil exorcist "Red Street Light". ]

"As expected..." Hei Pupa shrugged and closed the panel. He had guessed the content of this scheduled task a few days ago.

"Then see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Black Pupa." Ke Qirui walked out of the car with his hands in his windbreaker pockets. "I will contact you by cell phone before the operation begins."

"OK."

Black Pupa responded casually, then raised his hand and stretched out the restraints to tie around the eaves. He then distributed the weight of his whole body to each restraint, and like a light paper man, he pulled the restraints and flew upwards, disappearing under the blood-red sky.

Su Zimai raised his head and watched him leave, then turned around and looked at Ke Qirui.

"Captain, can we really trust him?" she asked.

"What are you talking about? Aren't you the one who trusts him the most here?" Ke Qirui touched her head.

Xu Sanyan walked out of the carriage and asked, "Did we finally get rid of that big bug?"

"Instead of complaining, why not think about what delicious food there is in London?" Lin Zhengquan followed him out and stood on the platform.

Ke Qirui smiled slightly: "At times like this, of course it is our Mai Mai who leads the way. She is a food expert."

"Let's go." Su Zimai hung his head and silently opened Xiaohongshu on his phone. He walked towards the exit of the abandoned train station and said, "It's a rare trip to London, so I must try all the good food. Besides, the leader is treating us!"

"Wow, the captain's wallet is not a wallet?" Ke Qirui turned his head and looked at her, holding a cigarette in his mouth.

"no."

"I understand. Our Mai Mai only feels sorry for her brother."

"Neither of my two brothers looks like a human. Isn't it asking for trouble to feel sorry for them?"

"Here it comes, Mai Mai is typical of someone who says one thing and means another."

"Shut up. From now on, leader, you have to remember your position. You are a big mobile wallet."

"Okay, okay, Mai Mai, eat whatever you want."

At the same time, in another corner of London.

A cruise ship was moving slowly on the Thames. Xia Ping Zhu and Ayase Origami were sitting on the deck, quietly looking at the Westminster area in the evening.

Xia Pingzhou looked up at the giant Ferris wheel in the distance, searching his mind for memories related to the "red street light".

That was two years ago, not long after Xia Pingzhou joined the Exorcist Association. A young exorcist named "Shi Yimin" pestered him.

Shi Yimin enthusiastically invited Xia Pingzhou to join his team. He was not discouraged even though Xia Pingzhou rejected him many times. Every time Xia Pingzhou gave him a cold shoulder, he would turn around and laugh dryly at his teammates behind him, muttering to them:

"What are you looking at? Zhuge Liang had to visit him three times, so it's okay for me to visit him a few more times, right?"

At that time, Xia Pingzhou still had a healthy family and was extremely talented. When he first joined the Exorcist Association, he was praised by the president. He had no aspirations or pressures and just wanted to live a carefree life.

Seeing that repeated rejections from Shi Yimin had failed to dissuade him, he simply accepted Shi Yimin's invitation and joined his exorcist team.

Most exorcists believed that such a low-level team was not worthy of Xia Pingzhou, who was judged to have double S-level potential.

But when Shi Yimin heard these voices, he would always pat him on the shoulder and promise him that he would lead this team to the top of the Exorcist Association and tell him not to listen to the nonsense those people said.

No matter how much pressure there was from public opinion, Shi Yimin never thought of giving up Xia Pingzhou.

After spending some time together, Xia Pingzhou gradually got to know the people in the team.

Captain "Shi Yimin" is a cheerful and simple-minded person. He said that when he was a child, he thought the traffic police standing on the side of the road were very cool, and he always wanted to be a policeman directing traffic. As a result, his natural instinct evolved into a street lamp that can change colors to red, yellow and green.

When he told this story, the team members laughed so hard that they were out of breath, but he just touched the back of his head and laughed along.

Xia Pingzhou is indifferent by nature. Ke Qirui, who also has double S-level potential in the association, wanted to make friends with him but was rejected by him.

But he and Shi Yimin had a good relationship. Shi Yimin would often invite him to drink after the operation and talk about their ideals in life.

Shi Yimin often praises Xia Pingzhou in front of his teammates as a rare genius, saying that he will become the strongest exorcist in time, and he wants to be someone worthy of being called "captain" by such an exorcist.

The atmosphere in the team was harmonious until one day during a demon-extermination mission, when Shi Yimin suddenly went mad, knelt on the ground, scratched his face with red eyes, as if he wanted to tear his face apart.

The teammate who came forward to care for him was smashed into pieces by Shi Yimin with the street lamp. For a while, the streets were full of blood and mutilated bodies, leaving Xia Pingzhou alone in the wind. In the end, Xia Pingzhou did not choose to fight against the crazy Shi Yimin, but let the Queen's stone statue take him away and fled the scene.

Xia Pingzhou became the only survivor of that incident.

Soon after, Kazumin Kaki became a notorious serial killer and was given the nickname "Red Light", an evil exorcist.

After killing the exorcists, Red Street Light would leave a string of Latin letters meaning "Salvation Society" at the scene. This is what Ji Minghuan is most concerned about.

The reason why Xia Pingzhou joined the White Crow Brigade in the beginning, besides to take revenge on the Ripper, was also to investigate why Shi Yimin suddenly went crazy... and now it seems that this reason must be related to the "Savior Society".

Then, time moves to the present day, which is July 25th.

Tomorrow morning, the Ghost Train Group and the Savior Society will officially launch the capture operation for "Red Light".

The outcome of this action will involve many things. If Ji Minghuan can finally catch the "Red Light", it means that he has caught the tail of the Salvation Society for the first time and is no longer in a passive state of ignorance.

Even...find out the truth about the Salvation Society.

"Kitty... is daydreaming again." The kimono girl beside him suddenly spoke, interrupting his thoughts.

"I'm looking at the scenery." Xia Pingzhou said casually.

Following his gaze, Ayase Origami also raised her head and looked towards the Ferris wheel on the south bank.

The setting sun slowly fell from the edge of the horizon, gradually taking away the afterglow that had fallen on the city and casting a dim shadow on the Ferris wheel's carriage.

The wind blew over, and the fresh hair of the kimono girl beside her ears swayed gently like bird feathers.

"Go sit on that one." After a long silence, she whispered.

"Can."

Soon after, the two got off the boat and entered the amusement park on London's South Bank. After paying the administrator, they boarded the huge Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel began to rotate and the carriage slowly rose.

Sitting in the bumpy carriage, Ayase Origami pressed herself against the window, looking down at the city shrouded in the afterglow of the setting sun.

"This... is good." she said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Xia Pingzhou raised his eyes and looked at her profile bathed in sunlight.

"Traveling around the world with a kitten."

"What's good about it?"

"Tokyo, Venice, London... I want to go to many more places in the future."

Xia Pingzhou was silent for a while: "Then...how about we take someone with us when we travel around the world?"

"who?"

"A girl with white hair, dull-looking, like a penguin."

"who is she?"

"She's my...family."

The girl in kimono was silent for a while: "Your family?"

"right."

"You never told me that."

Her voice was as clear and light as ever, but it seemed to contain a hint of loneliness.

"Because the people of the White Crow Brigade don't need to have a past." Xia Pingzhou lowered his head and looked at his clasped hands. "We are just a group of desperate criminals. We may die at any time. If we die, we will be replaced immediately, just like Lan Duoduo."

Ayase Origami looked up at him, then looked away and was silent for a long time: "If she is your family, then I will treat her as my family."

Xia Pingzhou was stunned, then turned his head to look out the window: "But... maybe in a month, you suddenly don't want to travel around the world with me anymore."

"Why?"

Xia Pingzhou shook his head and did not answer.

At this moment, the setting sun completely fell into the horizon, taking away the last of the sunlight, and the city fell into endless darkness. Then lights began to light up on the long street, and soon the whole city was brightly lit.

When Xia Pingzhou came to his senses, he found that the doll girl sitting opposite him had been staring at him from beginning to end, and her eyes, which seemed to be covered with fog, reflected his face.

She seemed to be still waiting for his reply.

With a click, the car returned to the bottom of the Ferris wheel, and the noise of the amusement park poured in from the window. In the silence, the laughter of children gradually faded away from the ears of the two.

The sky had completely darkened, and only Xia Pingzhou's faint voice could be heard in the carriage.

"Let's go back and rest," he said.

"Why?"

she asked again.

Xia Pingzhou tilted his head, was silent for a moment, and then suddenly reached out his hand to her.

The kimono girl was silent for a moment like a white doll, then took his hand. Xia Pingzhou led her out of the car, got off the Ferris wheel, bought her a bunch of cotton candy on the street, and then the two walked across the 325-meter-long Millennium Bridge and walked back to the hotel.

Ayase Origami didn't say anything after that. She just sat by the window and read the haiku collection quietly.

Xia Pingzhou also sat with her on the windowsill, tilting his head and quietly looking at the night view of London's Westminster district. The spires and towers of the Parliament Building were lit up by the golden light emitted by Big Ben, and their reflections in the Thames complemented each other.

Before I knew it, time had passed and it was already twelve o'clock in the evening.

"Dong, Dong, Dong..." Big Ben chimed. This huge clock chimed every fifteen minutes and rang three times on the hour.

Amid the melodious sound of the bell, Xia Pingzhou suddenly asked, "Who is more important to you, me or the Ripper?"

Ayase Origami was stunned for a moment, raised her eyes from the page and looked at his face.

"Is this just acting like a spoiled child?" She thought about it and could only come to this conclusion.

Xia Pingzhou was silent for a long time, then said, "You are very good to me. No one has ever been so good to me before."

"In fact, I don't have parents. I'm just an orphan who grew up in an orphanage. Everyone hates me. In order to protect the only person I care about, I always have to pretend to be strong. But in fact, I'm really tired, but I can't tell anyone..."

He lowered his voice and said, "Don't you always want to know what my past was like? This is my past."

The evening breeze blew over, lifting Xia Pingzhou's hair and flipping the pages of the haiku collection high.

Ayase Origami raised her eyes and then lowered them, looking at him quietly. She didn't know why, but she always felt that Xia Pingzhou in front of her seemed to have suddenly become a different person when he said these words. He let down all his defenses and revealed his vulnerable side... just like a child.

This was the first time she saw a hint of uneasiness and anxiety on the face of this robot-like human.

"Even if I..." Xia Pingzhou's lips moved, and he said silently, "Even if I betrayed you, deceived you... and used you, would you still stand by my side?"

The girl in kimono didn't hear him, but she slowly, slowly moved forward like a kite blown by the wind and held his head in her arms.

"You... are more important than anyone else." She said softly.

(End of this chapter)