CHAPTER 993: CHAPTER 186: THE FLOWER GIRL OF THE OLD SEWERS

"Sir, please buy a flower."

On the edge of Midnight City, an old sewer branch, the shantytown inn.

The figures draped in clerical robes quietly ate the food they brought. The little girl peering in from outside made them pause.

Several pairs of eyes under the hoods fell on the little girl. She waited for a while, saw no business, and then left the doorway.

Silently finishing their food, they paid the lodging fee and left the shantytown inn.

The faint glow from the fluorite chunks on the dome was not as bright as the oil lamp torches in the shops. The shop signs written on the alchemical slabs, adorned with colorful glowing runes, could be seen clearly from hundreds of meters away.

The burly figure following his companions suddenly paused, looking at the street not far away.

He saw the little girl selling flowers again. She seemed to have been rebuffed once more, carrying a basket of flowers that seemed to have none missing.

A frail girl without any malice or taint was out of place in the old sewers, almost as if she might be swallowed at any moment by the peculiarities passing by.

The figure left the group of companions and squatted in front of the little girl, pulling out a few crumpled Shillings from a pocket inside his clerical robe and stuffing them into her hand.

"We should get going."

A call came from his companion behind him.

"Find a way to the surface, don’t stay here."

The figure ruffled the little girl’s hair, took the swaying purple flower she handed over, stood up, rejoined his companions, and walked toward the bustling underground street in the distance.

...

Midnight City Main Station.

The bustling main street seemed no different from the cities on the surface.

Except for the strange and bizarre goods in the shops.

Lu Li and his companions arrived later than expected because there was no Insect Path—the worms surrounding Dark Star City had been plundered, and the vacant paths quickly occupied by roaming tribes.

"Sir, please buy a flower."

A dirty, frail human girl approached Lu Li and his companions.

"How much for one?"

"Only 3 Shillings, sir."

Lu Li gave the girl 3 Shillings but did not take the flower she offered, leading the believers around her.

"Do oddities... also... buy flowers?"

Ophelia frequently looked back. The little girl was again trying to sell flowers to other passersby.

"There are more humans and Aliens at the Midnight City Main Station than in other old sewers," Lu Li said, stepping forward.

"They are more gullible."

"Gullible...? "

"The flower is an oddity; I’ve seen this scam before."

As a resident of the old sewers, Puxiu had the authority to expose the flower girl’s ruse: "The oddity flower spreads pollen or parasitizes through this method. I guess the latter, as the girl is either parasitized or is the oddity flower itself."

A real little girl would not survive alone in the chaotic old sewers.

"Old sewers... didn’t they have... rules?"

Ophelia recalled the girl’s numb expression and behavior, which indeed felt strange. But did the Midnight City Main Station allow oddities to forage here?

"Miss Ophelia, you can consider it an unwritten rule that if not discovered, nothing happens... The rules of the old sewer are weak and incomparable to human cities. Here, fools and the weak have no right to survive..."

Puxiu spoke with a sense of lament and painful memories.

He was not a fool but utterly a weakling. Only he survived from the City Ring Scouts. Without Lu Li, he would have already been food for some monster, like his past companions.

...

Drip—drip—

Blood dripped along the fingertips as they squeezed into the dim Dark Alley.

Hiss—

Struck matches bloomed into thick smoke and bright light, flickering as they were brought close to the oil lamp.

The lit dim glow gradually revealed the surroundings.

Captain Hogte continued pulling from the burly figure’s chest, covered in bloody tendrils.

A strand of root-like purplish-red tendrils was discarded in the muddy ground beneath their feet.

"Retinue, make a torch."

Captain Hogte spoke without turning, extracting the last buried root, and took the torch handed by the Retinue.

"Bear it."

The torch moved closer to the plowed-like chest, suppressed groans and a roasted meat smell simultaneously spread.

After a dozen seconds, Captain Hogte removed the torch, wrapped the chest with gauze, and sprinkled it with a blood-scent concealing potion.

The trembling, rough, wide hand grabbed the clerical robe to drape over, and a wall-like silhouette in the torchlight walked out of the alley.

"Come back, Knight Vino." Captain Hogte called out to him.

Knight Vino stopped in his tracks: "Scholar Lanna died because of my mistake."

"So we must learn our lesson. Remember, nothing here is worth pity,"

Captain Hogte whispered earnestly: "This is paranoid, but do not forget the task given to us by the Bishop. For the glory of humanity."

"...For the glory of humanity."

...

There was no need for the Spider Guide to follow them any longer.

The rescued worms should have recovered and left, no longer having to worry about the Spider Guide betraying them upon return—

Nonetheless, the Spider Guide was unlikely to return.

Because there were more opportunities at the Midnight City Main Station, because returning might result in death on the road, and because the religious group was not as inaccessible as imagined—in fact, they were quite kind to it.

The Spider hoped to follow Lu Li and his companions again, whether for work or service.

The word "service" made Ophelia sensitive, but they indeed needed someone relatively clever for errands.

Bishop Jon rented a lodging and sent the Spider Guide outside to investigate. It wasn’t long before the Spider Guide returned with a local guide.

"I heard there’s an auction in the old sewers recently," Lu Li inquired.

"Could you be more specific?"

This Three-eyed Alien Guide was more fluent in human language than the Spider, groveling on the ground: "There are auctions every day at the Midnight City Station."

"The deep-layer rare treasures auction," Lu Li reiterated as conveyed by the Tentacle Cultist.

"Deep-layer... please give me some time!"

The departing Three-eyed Guide returned three hours later. It was pitifully missing an arm, with one eyeball gouged out.

However, it brought back the news Lu Li wanted: the extraordinary oddity auction would be held on the seventh layer tomorrow night.

The Three-eyed Guide paid a heavy price for the investigation, humbly pleading for Lu Li to pay the agreed compensation or let it become a believer.

Lu Li did not expand his companion group further, merely paying it a high compensation that made the Spider envious.

"Merciful and compassionate sir, if I were to lose a leg..." The eight-legged Spider ingratiatingly struck a conversation but was driven away from Lu Li’s side by Bishop Jon.

Learning that the Three-eyed Guide’s injuries were unrelated to investigating the auction but just normal "old sewer unwritten rules," Lu Li and his companions left the inn and headed towards the Spiral Hall leading to the deep layers.

The spiral staircase coiled downwards along the edge of a chasm-like giant hole, its center unfathomably deep.

Apart from various dark routes leading to the deep layers, the Spiral Hall was the main passage openly connecting to the deep layers from the Midnight City Main Station.

This meant it was safer.

At least from the Spiral Hall to the seventh layer, except for the decreasing number of humanoid figures around them and the increasing number of abominable oddities, no trouble found them.