A few days later, while browsing the news, Hugo was surprised to say, "The Federation has declared a complete ceasefire. Defense Minister Antonio announced that they have reached an agreement with the Zerg to stop sending armed forces to the border for at least fifteen years."
Igor shook his head and said nothing.
At the same time, Hugo's mobile terminal kept buzzing.
Azathoth was annoyed: "Whose news is it?"
"Quinna's," Hugo said. "We left her at the spaceship transfer station, and now she's been contacting me every day, asking if we should meet with the bugs stationed in the capital. Maybe they're officials from the church, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the embassy."
"I won't." Azathoth refused firmly.
Hugo shrugged. "Okay then. I'll just block her messages."
"Come to think of it," it suddenly remembered something, "the hovercar that brought Erica back that day. I later checked the license plate number and the owner was Shirley Joyce."
Igor and Azathoth turned their heads and looked at him at the same time.
Hugo is a bionic man who is connected to the wireless network every day and basically lives on the star network. Even Azathoth often doesn't know what he is busy with.
Although according to Hugo himself, he spends most of his time reading the news, browsing forums (a robot that wishes to remain anonymous: the spam posts are very interesting), playing small games to kill time (the kind that can reach level 999 with one hit, without even tampering with the data), and hacking into the backend of certain institutions to see if there is any new news. In this way, he leads a slow and healthy life (for an AI).
But occasionally it does work.
Azathoth: "Is this also what your one hundred smurfs in the gossip forums have picked up?"
Igor glanced sideways, he had never heard of this.
The netizens in the Federation have a very hard time. When they are cursing those strange small accounts for being like robots, the people on the other side may really be robots.
"Nonsense," Hugo said sternly. "How can you call eating melons water? But I did find an interesting anonymous forum recently. Their member screening mechanism is very strict. Even I spent quite a while to crack their invitation code system."
Azathoth was not interested.
Hugo refused to give up. He'd found a rare and interesting toy, and like a child who'd spent countless hours finally solving a puzzle, he had to let his parents know every detail. The android leaned over and lay on the back of the sofa, showing it to Azathoth and Igor, who were sitting nearby. "This is it. It has a strange name... It's called 'Yalpreu Port Aquaculture Base Forum.' I heard it was changed after the cult incident at Yalpreu Port."
"There are many sections here. I haven't figured out the rules yet, so I don't dare to post or reply casually. But there's a section that's probably just for casual chatting. I saw someone talking about Viscount Joyce."
Igor looked up and saw the title of the post at the top of the page Hugo clicked on:
I have a day off today and nothing to do, so let's talk about the recent Langman Griffin?
[OP: Anyway, I'll post one more thing. I heard that Shirley Joyce almost had a fight with the head of the Griffin family a few days ago. Is this true?
Floor 1: Did you just come back to the capital? Of course it’s true =w= Secretary Langman told me personally, the scene was extremely intense, that woman Shirley was almost pissed off.
2nd Floor: ...Are you talking about the Viscount Joyce I know? She doesn't seem like someone who would get angry. I can't imagine.
OP: You underestimated the power of the Griffin family head to draw hatred. Also, I'm asking about Langman, Langman, not Shirley. What's wrong with Langman? She's such a beautiful woman, how could she go crazy?
Floor 4: I don’t know either, but I heard that the day he was admitted to the hospital, we ordinary faculty and staff were present.
5th floor: 'Mr. Ordinary'?
Floor 6: Who are you talking about? I’m a newbie and very confused.
7th floor: Reply to 6th floor: Forum jargon popularization guide xxx. Before this post is deleted, I tell you that Mr. Ordinary refers to Bishop Gilbert of the Capital Diocese. He has a unique catchphrase hhh
Floor 8: Mr. Pingpingwuqi was injured by his own dagger and is still recovering from his kidney disease.
9th floor: ls is talking nonsense, his injured kidney is not at all.
Floor 10: Bet a Red Line Medal, this matter is related to the aquatic life in Port Yarple.
11th Floor: ...Red Line Medal! You can gamble with something like this! You must be a big shot!
12th Floor: Don't bring up all these gods and ghosts. The hospital says he's under a lot of stress. And Langman has always been crazy, you just didn't spend much time with him. Incidentally, he's immune to Shirley's powers, which is amazing. He might be a lunatic, but he's a beauty, immune to psychic attacks. I'm openly announcing on the anonymous forum that I like Langman Griffin.
Floor 13: Whatever was said on floors 10 and 11 was deleted at the speed of light.
Floor 14: Reply to Floor 12: Is the world crazy or am I crazy? There are actually people who like Langman. I feel suffocated if I stay with him for more than three minutes.
Floor 15: I actually think that Patriarch Griffin is quite polite to the clergy... relatively speaking.
Floor 16: The person above said that I think Mr. Pingpingwuqi has aged ten years in the year since he was transferred to the capital.
Floor 17: Reply to Floor 16: That’s because he lost too much blood and his kidney was stabbed.
18th Floor: I already said that Bishop Gilbert was not stabbed in the kidney! It was just that there was a small problem with his dagger!
…
23rd floor: Reply to 12th floor: What is Viscount Joyce's psychic attack ability? I heard that it is her personal charm?
Floor 24: Reply to Floor 23: Wherever Sulli appears, there is war. Sulli fans and Sulli haters will reach the battlefield in ten seconds. The host of this floor should run away quickly.
OP: Oh my goodness, you're all talking about Shirley again. Is Viscount Joyce such a hot topic? Never mind. I'm not interested in this, so I'll just run away. You guys can chat more.]
After that, there were some debates about whether Shirley had supernatural powers or personal charm.
Igor blinked slowly. "...Is this an internal church forum?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Hugo said excitedly, "I feel the same way! By the way, what is the Red Line Medal?"
"I don't know." Igor shook his head. "This is the first time I've heard of it. It might be a hidden reward system among their top management."
"But Shirley actually got into a fight with Longman Griffin, even though they seemed to have a good relationship in public before."
**
"...I thought Aunt Shirley had a good relationship with the Griffin family."
Annie shook her pen, holding up her red, furry head, and said in annoyance, "They almost got into a fight. It was the first time I saw Aunt Shirley so angry."
Erica sat beside her and said soothingly, "Maybe this conversation just didn't go her way."
"Actually, I don't think she likes Patriarch Griffin that much." Anne's expression was curious. "I mean, I've seen their interactions at banquets before... Auntie seems very nice, so nice that many people think she might have a crush on Longman Griffin."
"After all, you saw that Aunt Shirley was always cold to everyone, but she even smiled when she was chatting with Langman."
"But they're not that close in age, are they?"
"It's only a ten-year age difference, and Mr. Langman doesn't look old, but he already has several children. So I was worried that if my aunt got married, there would be a lot of family conflicts." Anne sighed, "Now it seems that my thoughts back then were ridiculous."
Erica asked, "Do you often stay with Viscount Joyce?"
"Not really," Annie explained. "She and my mother aren't biological sisters, after all. It's just that my parents occasionally ask her to look after me when they're busy with work. But speaking of which, I haven't seen Aunt Shirley in over a year. When I went to her house a few days ago, it felt like a completely different place. It felt like a completely unfamiliar house."
She seemed a little sad. "Erica, I don't know if you've ever felt this way... You're in a familiar place, you see your loved ones, but everything feels different. Something's happening outside of my sight, and I can't do anything about it."
During the art class in the afternoon, Erica saw Annie painting a watercolor with colored pencils.
She was a beginner and had no talent in this area, but it was obvious that she was trying hard to draw the pattern according to the idea in her mind - the result was quite hard to describe.
Erica fell into deep thought as she looked at the stick figure on her drawing paper, which could barely be seen as a child.
Anne noticed Erica was looking at her and instinctively reached out to cover the drawing paper. Then, a little embarrassedly, she said, "It's not pretty...don't look at it!"
"It's quite cute." One of Erica's talents was that whatever she said sounded incredibly sincere, and she did think the painting was full of childlike innocence and fun...even though it didn't match the age of the artist.
"Who are you drawing?"
Anne: "I don't know."
She was comforted by Erica's praise (?), her expression relaxed, and she moved her hand away from the drawing paper.
"It's a portrait from Aunt Shirley's house. She used to hang it in the living room, but now she's taken it down for some reason. But I really like this painting, and I don't know why it suddenly came to my mind today."
Erica took a careful sideways look and saw that it was probably—if Anne's color scheme was realistic enough—a human with short, shoulder-length gray hair and bright red eyes. Because the lines were too messy, it was difficult to tell the specific age and gender.
But this color combination looks familiar?
As she chatted with Anne, she couldn't help thinking.
Could it be related to Mr. Igor?
...I heard that Mr. Igor once had a sister who disappeared for many years for unknown reasons?
"Annie," Erica hesitated, then pressed, "how much do you know about that painting?"
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