PNB Chapter 119 Daily Life - Wei Qingping's future is uncertain and hard to predict.
Chapter 119 Daily Life - Wei Qingping's future is uncertain and hard to predict.
Chapter 119 Daily Life. - Wei Qingping's future is uncertain and unpredictable.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Wei Qingping was never idle while leading the way, constantly chatting with the Swordsman King. The Swordsman King suggested she keep things simple and avoid asking questions that would take a long time to answer. Then, she asked the Swordsman King the name of the giant sword he carried.
Actually, this was just a casual chat. In this other world they were in, weapons were rarely named. The two of them chatted as they explored the unknown ahead.
When King Jianhao heard Wei Qingping's question, he didn't even think twice. He told Wei Qingping directly, "This sword is called 'Sword in the Lake'!"
Wei Qingping thought for a moment and thought, "The sword in the lake, does it mean the sword is in the lake..." Before she could think any further, she immediately realized she had been deceived. She complained to the Sword Master King, "You're obviously lying! Your sword wasn't in the lake to begin with. You threw it in there yourself. If someone else named a sword, they could at least call it 'Gan Jiang Mo Ye' or something like that."
King Jianhao didn't even think twice and told Wei Qingping directly, "You can call it anything you want. If you want, just give it a name."
Wei Qingping asked the Swordsman King with a suspicious look on her face, "Let's not talk about the sword's name for now. When you and I chat, do you often tell lies?"
King Jianhao told Wei Qingping, "I told all the lies."
After hearing this, Wei Qingping was speechless. She said to the Swordsman King, "What? This isn't a lyric."
King Jianhao asked Wei Qingping, "Oh? Have you heard of it?"
Wei Qingping replied to the Swordsman King, "Of course I have. By the way, why don't you sing it for me?"
King Jianhao said to Wei Qingping, "I don't sing well."
Before traveling to another world, the Swordsman King was at least a member of an idol boy group. No matter how bad his singing was, it wouldn't be as bad as a car accident scene.
At this moment, Wei Qingping was also wary of what King Jianhao said. She asked King Jianhao in a very skeptical tone, "Really?"
Before they knew it, they had walked a long way. The ground they passed was full of mud. After the heavy rain, the ground was covered with wet flowers and leaves.
Wei Qingping walked while muttering, "Fallen leaves, fallen flowers..."
The Sword Master King, who was following behind Wei Qingping, said, "It's bumpy."
Wei Qingping said to the Swordsman King standing behind her, "You rhymed, but the parallelism isn't neat at all."
King Jianhao said to Wei Qingping, "Who said you were being well-balanced? I was saying that this road is full of potholes."
Wei Qingping said to the Swordsman King, "Then I'm also talking about what happened on the road."
The Swordsman King changed the subject and said to Wei Qingping, "Fortunately, the roads we've been walking on are all dirt roads, but they're a little dirty. If we were walking on a stone road, it would become slippery after a heavy rain, and we would easily slip."
Wei Qingping looked at her shoes and said to the Swordsman King, "Such a muddy road is not that bad. My first pair of shoes since coming to this other world are ruined just like this..."
Speaking of this, we have to review a little bit. Ever since Wei Qingping woke up in the other world, her original clothes and shoes had long since disappeared. Later, while escaping the traffickers' residence, she picked up the cultists' clothes and shoes and put them on. It just so happened that there was a pair of shoes that fit her perfectly.
King Jianhao took a look at Wei Qingping's shoes and asked Wei Qingping, "Where did you buy these shoes? I can't tell how expensive they are."
When Wei Qingping was asked this question, she suddenly remembered the cultists' strange rituals, and her heart tightened. Her eyes wandered as she told the Swordsman King, "Someone gave it to me. Yes." It would have been fine if she had just lied, but adding "yes" to confirm it made her look very suspicious.
King Jianhao didn't think much about it and said to Wei Qingping casually: "Who would give you shoes? The style is very ordinary. You didn't pick them up from somewhere." He said it casually and he really came up with the answer.
Wei Qingping did not answer, but looked into the distance and continued to find the way forward.
That’s all for the trivialities and small talk they had along the way. Now let’s talk about what happened in another place.
Grilanchi, in the palace hall.
The queen, the former queen, was sitting in the palace, sulking. What was going on? Previously, the warden and his guards had been searching for the Swordsman King, and as a result, the Swordsman King had escaped from the capital through the sewers near the unguarded prison without being noticed.
At this moment, the queen was listening to the messenger's report, saying, "The captains report that there's no trace of the two fugitives along the road to East Town. We've asked villagers in various places, and they say they haven't seen any suspicious individuals in recent days. People in West Town also say they haven't seen anyone who looks like the fugitives."
The Queen originally called the Sword King a "rebel," but to reassure the people of the capital, she's changed the term to "fugitive." Constantly making the people of the capital believe the rebellion isn't over is truly alarming. The capital of Grilanchi is home to a diverse population, a place with its own unique characteristics. Chaos is a primary concern.
After hearing the message from the messenger, the queen waved her hand and signaled the messenger to leave.
After the messenger left, the queen sat on the throne with a sad face, thinking to herself, "The jailers can't be blamed entirely for letting that man escape. I was too anxious to catch him and forgot there was an unopened sewer. How on earth did they clear the sewer overnight..." She really couldn't understand why.
At this moment, while the queen was still thinking, a jailer came to the hall and knelt down to report the situation.
The queen took the initiative and asked the jailer, "Is there any problem in the dungeon?" She thought the jailers had caused trouble again.
The jailer immediately told the Queen, "Your Majesty! There is no problem in the dungeon! Ever since we transferred all the prisoners from the main prison to the dungeon according to your Majesty's instructions, there has been no problem."
The queen was furious and asked the jailer, "What about the two fugitives who escaped from the dungeon before?" She was bringing up old matters, and it was not this jailer who was guarding the dungeon at that time.
Why was it the jailer who came to report? Then what about the chief jailer before? Was he chopped off by the Queen? Of course not. The Queen still let the chief jailer continue to "make meritorious service while serving his sentence".
After all, it was the Queen who had previously allowed the Chief Jailer to lead the jailers in the search before everyone else. There was no way she could simply place the entire blame for the Swordsman King's escape through the sewers on the Chief Jailer. If the Queen punished the Chief Jailer for this, it would be tantamount to negating her original plan, so she had no choice but to continue to let the Chief Jailer search for the Swordsman King.
After hearing the accusation, the jailer immediately told the queen, "Reporting to Her Majesty! It won't happen this time!"
After the Queen's rebuke, she calmed down a bit and then asked the jailer, "Okay! What's the matter this time?"
The jailer immediately told the queen, "Your Majesty! The chief jailer who went out to search for the fugitive has sent back a message!"
The queen was in high spirits and hurriedly asked the jailer, "Report to me quickly!"
The jailer told the queen, “When the chief jailer led his men to the east to search for the fugitive, he found some newly hammered rock spikes on a mountain wall. The chief jailer suspected that the fugitive had climbed up the steep mountain wall and escaped…”
The queen was surprised and asked the jailer, "What? Climbing up the mountain wall?" After asking, she thought for a moment and said, "I have heard of this before. It is said that a group of elves once climbed up..."
The jailer told the queen, "Yes, Your Majesty! The cliff above is said to be very high. The chief jailer wrote to ask if we can climb up the cliff to search for the criminals. He said he was waiting for the queen's instructions."
After hesitating for a while, the queen told the jailer, "I understand. You can go down first." After that, she waved to the jailer and signaled him to leave.
When the jailer heard this, he immediately said to the queen: "Yes, as you command!"
Two weeks had already passed, and the blockade of the capital had been lifted two weeks earlier. The nobles had also left the capital and returned to their respective territories. Now, if the Queen had any difficult decisions, she would have to consult with her ministers.
The queen then summoned her ministers for a meeting. She discovered that most of them had been replaced by the queen's trusted aides, and all of the new ministers were women. Only a few older ministers remained men, and it looked like they wouldn't be able to serve for many more years.
The Queen pointed to a huge map spread out on the ground and asked her ministers, "Where does it lead to?"
The military minister told the queen, "Your Majesty! That place seems to be a dead end. I've never heard of where it leads to. Otherwise, we would have stationed troops there too."
After listening to this, the Queen nodded and said to the Minister of War, "My dear minister, what you said is very true..."
The Minister of Land and Resources pointed to a map and explained, "Although there's no road above the mountain walls, to the east of those towering mountains lies a bottomless ravine, a natural border. To the west of that ravine lies our country, Grilanchi, and to the east lies a country called 'Kaklita,' also known as the 'Land of Quicksand.'"
After hearing this, the queen muttered to herself, "I remember there was a large desert in that country."
The Foreign Minister then spoke up, explaining, "Well, although that country's territory appears larger than ours, the inhabited areas are actually closer to the east. To the west, near the Bottomless Ravine, is a vast desert."
The Queen asked the Foreign Secretary, "How is the relationship with us?"
The Foreign Minister told the Queen, "Your Majesty! We have never had any contact. Separated by the vast desert, any attack by either country would incur enormous logistical costs and non-combat casualties. Therefore, since ancient times, there has been no history of war between the two countries, and communication has been extremely rare."
The Minister of Commerce supplemented the Foreign Minister's words, telling the Queen, "Also, Your Majesty! Although our trade route to Styras Odin passes through the territory of Kakklita, they never care about it, nor do they restrict or block our entry or exit, not even collecting transit taxes."
The Queen was shocked but pretended to be calm. She asked the Minister of Commerce calmly, "Why is that?" She couldn't understand how anyone could give up collecting taxes.
The Minister of Commerce pointed to the extent of the trade route and explained to the Queen, "Your Majesty! It's a matter of cost. Their settlements are too far from the southwestern border. If they stationed troops in the southwest desert to collect transit taxes from us, it would cost them a lot of money, so they would naturally leave us alone."
After the Queen had a general understanding of the situation, she said to her ministers, "Let's get back to the matter of the fugitive."
The military minister said to the queen, "Your Majesty! I believe the fugitives can't stay on the cliff for long. We should just send some men to wait at the foot of the cliff. If we force them up, I'm afraid the fugitives will fight desperately on the cliff. Then, the men we send up will die in vain."
The Minister of Land and Resources also agreed with the Minister of War and said to the crowd, "That makes sense. Halfway up this mountain wall, there's really no way to fight back. We can only let the fugitives on the mountain wall slaughter us."
Seeing the Queen's frown, the Foreign Minister quickly offered a suggestion, saying, "If Your Majesty is concerned about a road leading to Kaklyta from those mountains, we could send spies to the capital and various towns of Kaklyta. After all, sending people through the desert is faster than the fugitives crossing the mountains."
At this point, the Minister of Commerce also quickly advised the Queen, saying, "We can also station guards along the trade route, waiting to intercept the fugitives escaping to Styras Odin along the route. If the fugitives don't go to Kakklitta, they will surely cross the desert and head towards the trade route."
The Minister of Lands quickly interrupted, saying to the Queen, "It's impossible for the fugitive to go north. It's too far and the climate is bitterly cold. It's almost autumn and winter, and he'll just freeze to death on the way there. So, we've already deployed personnel along both possible routes, waiting for the fugitive to fall into our trap."
After hearing this, the Queen immediately agreed with her ministers' suggestions and said, "This is a very good plan! I also had this in mind. According to my deduction, the fugitive's destination is most likely Styras Odin."
The military minister, who had been unable to find a word to say, immediately asked the queen, "Your Majesty, should we send troops to guard the trade routes and the mountain walls immediately?"
The Queen told the Minister of War, "Go! This arrangement will be foolproof! I await your good news! But remember, you must not cross the border of Styras Odin."
The Minister of War immediately said to the Queen: "Yes, as you command!"
The Queen was still wary of Stilas Odin, a large nation. Allowing heavily armed soldiers in without permission would be difficult to explain later. Furthermore, she wasn't sure if there was a hidden, intimate relationship between the Swordsman King and Stilas Odin.
The Foreign Minister immediately addressed the Queen, saying, "Your Majesty! I will immediately arrange for a spy to go to Cacleta. This is in case... the fugitive changes his destination at the last minute."
The Queen gave her permission and told the Foreign Minister, "Go ahead! Secretly plant a few spies in Styras Odin as well."
The Foreign Secretary immediately said to the Queen: "Yes, as you wish!"
Afterwards, all the ministers in the hall bid farewell to the queen. The two ministers who received the order also arranged their own personnel to carry out the operation.
So what will happen next? Please see the next chapter.