Chapter 42
At midnight, the moonlight was soft and the starlight, like crumpled silver foil, shone through the night sky onto the bare rose grove.
The moonlight cast a long, long shadow on the girl.
Li Jia touched the bare flower branch, a trace of guilt welling up in her heart, but it quickly disappeared.
She will make it up to her from the rose garden later.
She sneaked out under the pretext of going to the toilet.
Time is tight and the task is urgent.
Li Jia picked up the phone and sent a text message to Lina. How come she never realized this thing was so convenient before? It's quite like a mobile phone, you can make calls and send messages at the same time.
Li Jia roughly recounted the system and what she had conveyed to Lina, and Lina replied with six points.
A few more seconds passed.
Lina: No? Do we really have to lose everything?
Li Jia: There's no other way, we should just see this through to the end.
Lina: So what do you need me to do? Just tell me.
Li Jia: You help me hold off Hera and report her location.
Rina:...?
Lina: Me? Are you sure?
Li Jia: The organization believes in you, I believe in you, you can definitely do it!
Lina: When?
Li Jia: Poseidon's banquet will be held three days later.
The information provided by the system unfolded in Li Jia's mind: three days later was the birthday of Poseidon, the god of the sea. Poseidon's birthday banquet was never a simple celebration, but a social feast where all the gods would gather on the coast of Eubian Island.
Every year on that day, the entire coast of Eubian Island becomes incredibly lively.
The sea god's palace was located on the seabed of this deep sea, where Poseidon, his wife Amphitrite, their children, and a group of sea monster servants lived.
Half an hour is enough to stall her.
Li Jia replied with a text message at the end, pressing her fingertip on the raised mark, and added: "But don't force it."
Almost immediately, Lina's text message popped up: "Do you think I'm the kind of person who would resort to force?"
Li Jia couldn't help but curve her lips into a smile. The moonlight fell perfectly into her eyes, creating a faint, shimmering smile. Luckily, there were no emojis in this era; she could already imagine the exasperated expression on the face of the person behind her.
"rest assured."
Li Jia replied, "I've prepared a gift for you. It's the calendula essential oil that Hera loves most, which comes from Mount Olympus. Once she accepts it, you'll have plenty of things to talk about with her."
I heard a vibration; it was Lina's reply, just a few words: "Get me a bottle too."
"receive."
At Poseidon's birthday banquet, all twelve gods would be invited and there was no reason for them to refuse.
Although Hera was aloof, she had no entanglements with other gods. Li Jia thought she still had to maintain appearances, so she wouldn't refuse to go.
"Oh? Your Majesty, aren't you going?"
Three days later, at dawn.
Li Jia pretended to have gotten the information from Lina and casually asked Hera when she planned to attend the banquet.
Unexpectedly, Hera frowned and said, "I'm not going."
Poseidon had sent her an invitation, but she had no intention of attending the banquet.
Why?
“Your Majesty, we have no enmity with the Sea God and are both among the Twelve Gods. This is inappropriate.”
Li Jia tried to persuade her with both emotion and reason that it was important to maintain a good facade of professional conduct among colleagues.
"Not suitable?"
Hera repeated those three words, her voice as cold as ice, the last syllable chilling. She raised her hand and gently touched Li Jia's delicate cheek, her fingertips feeling slightly cool: "Li Jia, he hurt you."
"You almost died there."
Yet, a barely perceptible tremor was hidden within it.
"The thought of losing you."
Hera's voice lowered, her fingertips unconsciously tightening, almost digging into Li Jia's skin, as if kneading her whole being into her flesh and blood.
Then it suddenly released its grip, as if afraid of breaking some precious treasure.
"My heart is breaking, and I can't sleep at night."
Her profile grew paler, and her usually cold and hard features now appeared somewhat fragile.
Li Jia's throat tightened; it turned out that Hera still harbored resentment towards that fire.
She had only intended to use the birthday banquet as an opportunity to complete the system's mission, never imagining that the fire would leave such a deep mark on Hera's heart.
Afterwards, Winslow told himself that Li Jia didn't feel any lingering fear but instead benefited from the misfortune, gaining His Majesty's pity.
"Your Majesty, I'm alright."
Li Jia raised her hand and placed it on Hera's hand, her soft palm touching her slightly cool skin, and gave her a light kiss.
"It's all in the past. I'm fine now, even better than before."
Li Jia deliberately straightened her back, trying to appear relaxed as she smiled.
Hera looked at her, remained silent for a long time, and then slowly spoke, her tone firm and unwavering: "You are my wife. If you want to go, I will go with you."
Li Jia was taken aback: "But..."
"I won't give him a friendly look."
Hera interrupted her, her fingertips gently brushing the stray hairs behind her ear. "Besides, with me here, no one can hurt you in the slightest."
Li Jia shook her head and refused, not entirely because she couldn't attend the system's mission, but because she didn't want Hera to bear such a heavy burden. Hera, the goddess of marriage, had married her handmaiden, who was a woman.
How would the gods and mortals view Hera?
The secular world is a vast place of discipline.
Li Jia may not fear or be afraid of these worldly gazes, but she cannot bear to see her god being looked at with strange eyes or suffering even the slightest grievance.
Let's just consider her a coward.
Seeing her timid and hesitant, Hera suddenly chuckled and reached out to embrace her.
"Your Majesty, I don't want to go, but you have to go, okay?"
“Then I won’t go either.” Hera tightened her embrace, resting her chin on the top of her head.
"No way!" Li Jia hurriedly looked up and poked her chest with her fingertip: "All twelve God Lords are going. It would be too unsociable for you not to go."
"Remember to pack some good food for me to bring back. I want to eat oyster pancakes from Eubian Island, the freshly made kind."
Hera looked at her pitiful expression and gently brushed her nose with her fingertips: "You do know how to order me around."
"Who made you my beloved Majesty?"
Li Jia leaned in and kissed the corner of her lips, her voice as soft as cotton.
"good."
She whispered in Li Jia's ear, her voice so gentle it could melt your heart: "When you've had your fun and feel it's right, we'll hold a wedding ceremony and invite them to visit the hot spring valley."
Li Jia's heart skipped a beat, and her eyes instantly welled up with tears. She buried her face in Hera's arms and let out a muffled "Mmm".
Li Jia's thinking was quite simple: mortal life is like a mayfly, it has an end, and an illness could take her away at any time.
She thought that the bravest thing she had ever done in her life was to give herself and her lover a romantic moment.
Little did she know that her god had already planned for a much longer future.
Hera drove away in her peacock chariot. Doreen and Winslow were supposed to stay behind to watch the house, but Li Jia persuaded them to leave. It was rare for them to get together once a year, and it would be too disrespectful for the Temple of Marion to have only one person go.
Winslow knew that Li Jia and Poseidon had a grudge, so he understood why she wasn't going. He prepared a lot of Li Jia's favorite dishes and baked cookies, and gave her a lot of instructions before the three of them finally left.
No sooner had the Peacock Chariot departed than Li Jia sent a message to Lina, asking where she was.
Lina replied that she was on her way. Li Jia estimated that it was about time, packed her things, and went out.
"Crunch."
The girl pushed open the door to the hot spring stream, and a dark figure emerged from inside. The door was then gently closed.
Li Jia possessed half of Hera's divine power, and she pestered Hera to teach her how to use Shadow Cloak.
"It definitely can."
The girl cheered herself up.
She will tear off Zeus's mask of pretense and save Demeter. Whether Demeter will appreciate it or not is not important to Li Jia; what matters is that she wants Demeter to know the truth.
"Girls help girls" is more than just a slogan.
It is also a mutual redemption among women
...
Li Jia used Shadow Cloak to reach the coast of Eubia Island. She took the last water-repelling pearl she had left over from Landu and dived into the sea.
The Palace of Poseidon is extremely luxurious and magnificent. The coral-built columns are entwined with gilded vines, and each leaf is inlaid with tiny pearls. Schools of fish swimming across the walls can even reflect the flowing glow of the sunset.
Li Jia concealed her aura and used her divine power to condense a thin layer around her body, thus avoiding the sea monsters patrolling around the palace.
She swam towards the place she had agreed to meet with Lina in the temple, and swam deeper into the area. In a corner of a courtyard in the side hall, filled with underwater water lilies, she saw a familiar figure.
It's Rina!
Lina saw her and waved for Li Jia to come over.
Li Jia immediately swam faster, the faint light formed by the water-repelling beads on the tip of her nose swaying gently with her movements.
"If you don't come soon, I'm already planning to come find you."
Lina's voice came through the water, still as unreliable as ever.
He gave Li Jia an OK sign.
That was their agreed-upon safety signal, meaning there was nothing unusual in the surroundings.
When Li Jia got closer, she noticed that Lina's robe had a few strands of dark green seaweed stuck to the hem, and her hair had tiny grains of sand clinging to the ends.
"We encountered a patrol of sea monsters changing shifts on the way, so we took a detour."
Lina lowered her voice and explained, her gaze sweeping over the coral archway at the entrance to the courtyard: "I've already inquired. Poseidon has invited a human dance troupe and an acrobatic troupe to perform today to celebrate his birthday."
"The entire Sea God Palace is now completely surrounded by guards. I spent a lot of money to come up with this solution for you."
As she spoke, Lina took out a dance dress from her backpack and handed it to Li Jia. She then glanced at the coral archway and reached out to push aside the water lily ribbons that were floating in front of her.
Lina spent a fortune to buy this golden dance dress from the head of the dance troupe. The head of the troupe, seeing her extraordinary attire, mistook her for a young mistress from some deity and insisted on giving Lina a dress, thus ripping her off.
"If I want to sneak in, this is the only way I can think of. Most of the guards in the main hall have been transferred to the front hall, and now only two siren maids are left to guard the side gate."
Lina shook the calendula essential oil in her bag, and the glass bottle made a soft shattering sound as it clattered.
If you accept a gift from someone, you naturally have to do the job well.
"I just heard them complaining that if it weren't for the sea god's order to keep an eye on the dance troupe, they would have gone to see the performance already."
"With a hundred or eighty people in the dance troupe, who would recognize whom?" Lina said with a bright smile.
Li Jia's fingertips traced the pearl tassels adorning her skirt, echoing the extravagance of the underwater palace. She looked up at Lina: "You mean? I'll disguise myself as a member of the choir and sneak in?"
"clever."
Lina mouthed to her, "I'll distract them later, and you can slip in while wearing your dance dress."
Best friend!
Be loyal!
Li Jia nodded gratefully and quickly changed out of her outer garment. The cool dance dress clung to her body, which actually made her more awake. She used Hera's divine power to conceal her appearance, and now she looked no different from an ordinary girl.
Once everything was ready, Lina smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress, deliberately making a soft sound as she stepped on the water lily leaves, and slowly walked towards the coral archway.
"Sisters, isn't the performance in the front hall about to begin?"
Her tone carried a deliberate hint of envy, successfully drawing the attention of the two siren maids.
"That's right, I've heard that human acrobatic troupes are quite interesting."
One of the green-haired siren irritably fiddled with its tail: "Why do we have to be stuck guarding this wretched place?"
Just as another red-haired siren was about to speak, Lina took out the essential oil and said in a soft but clear voice, "Sisters, the steward of the front hall asked me to bring you calendula essential oil, saying it can refresh you."
The green-haired maid's eyes lit up, and she was about to reach out to take it when she suddenly frowned: "Which palace are you from? I've never seen you before."
Li Jia hid behind the archway, her heart tightening. She secretly channeled her divine power into her fingertips, knowing that if soft methods didn't work, she would have to resort to force.
Lina immediately had a bright idea: "I'm new here and I'm timid, so the manager asked me to cover for the older girls."
Lina handed over the essential oil, her gaze quickly sweeping over the side door, where only a semi-transparent pearl curtain hung, through which one could vaguely see the heads of people dressed in flamboyant attire.
The green-haired siren took the essential oil, opened the bottle, smelled it, and smiled with satisfaction: "At least the person in charge still has a conscience. Then you can come and take your shift. Don't waste our time here."
Although the red-haired siren was somewhat puzzled, she thought that the dance troupe would be performing soon, and that it wouldn't be a big deal if she kept watch for a while without knowing anyone.
Lina nodded and stood guard in the side hall for the sirens, while the two sirens swaggered away with the essential oils.
After confirming that no one was around, Lina signaled to her, and she didn't delay any longer.
Li Jia lifted her skirt and quickly walked through the pearl curtain, the beads clinking softly against each other.
Seeing that the person had gone inside, Lina left. She couldn't leave Artemis for too long and had to get back to her side as soon as possible. And most importantly, she had to report Hera's location to Li Jia.
There were many girls standing in the room, all wearing the same clothes and looking no different from each other.
Li Jia only dared to stand in the corner. Seeing that they were all wearing veils, Li Jia breathed a sigh of relief. It was truly a stroke of luck. She also took one from the box next to her and put it on.
Now, nobody can tell who she is at all.
Li looked at the dancer in the mirror and smiled faintly; she was now a dancer.
The system informed Li Jia that after Demeter became pregnant, Zeus could not suppress his desires and seduced a beautiful sea monster in the sea god's palace. Today, he would take advantage of the sea god's birthday banquet to commit adultery.
What she has to do today is to guide Demeter to discover Zeus's affair.
Just as Li Jia stood still, the sound of a copper bell suddenly rang out in the hall, signaling the arrival of the dance troupe leader who was calling out names one by one.
She quickly caught up with the group, moving with the flow of people towards the side corridor of the main hall. Her gaze, hidden behind her veil, swept quickly around. The luminous pearls on the pillars cast a warm light, stretching everyone's shadows long and slender, which served as natural cover.
"Hurry up! Poseidon and our distinguished guests are waiting!"
The foreman's reprimand came through the water, and Li Jia subconsciously gripped the hem of her skirt, her fingertips touching the cold, hard pearls.
She suddenly remembered the system's notification that Zeus should be in the warm pavilion behind the main hall at this moment.
And Demeter...
According to Rina's previous information, she might be watching the performance in the lobby right now.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
