It also includes how they should hand over the hostages to the so-called "Mr. Rice" after successfully kidnapping Gary's family.
But that method could not be guaranteed to be effective, because she was not sure whether the other party was aware of the situation here and whether they knew that the robbers' kidnapping plan had failed.
"It depends on whether the black puppet is 'artificial intelligence' or 'remote control', or both..."
If the puppet was being operated entirely by someone somewhere far away, then he, she or they must have known everything that had just happened.
On the other hand, if it is another situation: all the activities of the puppet, including the splitting before being killed instantly and the silencing of the robbers after being controlled, are its automatic reactions.
In this case, there is a certain possibility that the other party is completely unaware of the situation.
"We can't pin our hopes on fantasies of the good..."
Qi Ji shook his head again and decided to consider the worst case scenario first, assuming that the other party already knew everything.
After all, even if she herself didn't have to worry about any failures or mistakes, it was better to act cautiously for the safety of others - that is, the personal safety of Gary's family.
She didn't want to let her momentary negligence lead to another accident like the one that happened before, where Gary's family was attacked inside the protective shield and Daisy almost died.
"If those guys already know the situation here...how can I find them out?" Qi Ji's divergent thoughts converged on the present.
Immediately, she returned her gaze to the ball of fluorescent filaments in her hand.
This is the most reliable clue we have at the moment...
According to her understanding of the realm of extraordinary beings, psychic warriors or magicians are already able to make their spirituality exist independently of their physical bodies, and can transform and manipulate them to a considerable degree.
But no matter how it is transformed, it was ultimately a part of the maker's own spirituality, and will retain some similar or identical features, traits, and characteristics.
It's like shuffling and reorganizing a set of building blocks. No matter how different the new work is from the previous one, the properties of the building blocks themselves will not change.
In other words, as long as she could analyze the spiritual remnants of the puppet in her hand deeply enough, she would be able to obtain some of the spiritual characteristics of its maker.
If I had known earlier, I would have "captured" the puppet alive... If I had used the entire puppet as an analysis sample, I might have been able to directly reproduce all of the spiritual characteristics of the creator...
Of course this is just an unfounded imagination, and she herself doesn't quite believe that she has this ability.
After all, the difficulty of this kind of thing is equivalent to restoring an entire statue with a grain of plaster powder. It is possible from the perspective of holography, but it is completely a fantasy technically.
Retracting her over-associated thoughts, she quickly memorized every detail of the remaining spirituality in her hand.
Then he loosened his hand slightly, releasing the "force field" that was freezing it.
In just a moment, the tangled mass of fluorescent filaments disappeared, as if they had never existed.
There is no need to worry about whether it will be useful in the future. Qi Ji, who has completely memorized it, can easily copy it out at any time.
If I continue to keep it on my body, not only will it be inconvenient to carry, but there is also the risk of being discovered by the other party - who knows if those guys have means of divination or remote sensing?
"Once we get to Loen City, we'll let go of our inspiration and explore to see if we can find spiritual fluctuations with similar characteristics..." Qi Ji thought, nodded imperceptibly, and curled his lips:
"A psychic warrior... or a magician? This is the first time I've encountered an enemy of this level... I didn't even have a chance to fight that seemingly powerful Rosago before he was killed by the black fog. What a pity..."
As she thought about it, she tilted her head back, resting it gently on the partition behind her, with her eyes closed, as if she was resting.
A few minutes later, she suddenly felt a touch on her left hand. She immediately opened her eyes and looked down to the left.
I saw that the hand she placed on the chair on the left side of her body was gently pressed down by another slightly larger but still very delicate and well-proportioned hand, and five slender white fingers were carefully stroking her knuckles.
Following the hand upwards, I saw a trace of panic flash across Mrs. Gary's pretty face, an expression as if she had been caught doing something bad in secret.
Chapter 118
"...?"
Qi Ji stared at Mrs. Gary without saying a word, blinked a few times, and a question mark gradually appeared above his head.
Under her motionless gaze, Mrs. Gary's expression stiffened little by little, her brown eyes wavered, and the hand that was touching the back of her hand slowly moved away.
After a few seconds, Mrs. Gary returned to her position with her legs together, hands on her knees, back straight, and eyes looking forward.
His expression was calm and his breathing was steady, as if nothing had happened.
Qi Ji's eyes did not move at all, his gaze remained firmly fixed on her seemingly calm face, his lips tightly closed with an expression of innocence and confusion.
This embarrassing stare lasted for more than ten seconds. Mrs. Gary's stern face soon collapsed, revealing a defeated expression, and her eyes looked away at the floor:
"Okay, I'm sorry... I just thought your hands were beautiful and wanted to touch them..."
Qi Ji didn't say anything, there was no expression on his face, only black lines slowly hanging down from his forehead.
"Forehead……"
Although the upper half of Qi Ji's face was covered by the shadow cast by the hood, Mrs. Gary could still sense a gaze from below that could not determine any emotion or thought, and it was projected directly onto her face.
Then, it moved up and down little by little, from the tip of the nose to the throat, then to the collarbone, chest, abdomen...making Mrs. Gary shiver, as if she was licked by a soft-bristled brush.
"Yes, I'm sorry..."
Mrs. Gary couldn't bear this strange and cold look any more. She lowered her head hastily and apologized in a very aggrieved voice.
Qi Ji sighed silently, raised his left hand, and then brought it back to his abdomen with a very low movement.
The two remained silent for a while. Mrs. Gary suddenly turned her head and looked at Qi Ji with some doubt. After hesitating for a moment, she whispered:
"Miss Yaoliuliu, why do you keep wearing your hood? Aren't you hot?"
It was late summer, and even in the afternoon when the sunlight was greatly weakened, the temperature was still high.
In this kind of weather, most people choose to wear cooler and lighter clothes. Mrs. Gary and her husband chose to wear long skirts and long sleeves when going out to protect themselves from mosquitoes in the countryside, which was already a bit stuffy.
Like Qi Ji, his whole body is wrapped tightly in a wide cloak, and he also wears a hood that only reveals half of his face... I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it.
Qi Ji replied casually: "My face is not suitable to be exposed..."
She paused halfway through her sentence because she immediately realized that such an answer would only make the other person more suspicious.
As expected, Mrs. Gary looked puzzled when she heard this. She tilted her head slightly and asked, "Why? Miss Yaoliuliu is very pretty and cute. What's wrong...uh."
She suddenly thought of something and her words were stuck. She quickly closed her lips in silence.
Her thinking is indeed a bit naive, but she is not so stupid as to be completely ignorant of the ways of the world.
After she thought about it, she quickly realized that Qi Ji must have his own reasons for not wanting to show his face. It could be a personal habit or it could be the sensitivity of his identity.
Even...it might be because of some secrets that she doesn't want to mention!
Miss Yaoliuliu is a bounty hunter. This profession is indeed very rewarding. She can often earn tens of thousands of Ferums for a single order...
But at the same time, the risks have also increased significantly.
Bounty hunters often have to face extremely vicious desperadoes, and will almost certainly attract a large number of people and forces, both black and white.
They are not members of any official force, so there is no powerful organization backing them.
This means that no one can guarantee their safety in their spare time, and their families and friends will not be protected by any official forces.
And because of offending too many people who should not have been offended, he and his entire family disappeared out of thin air on an ordinary night. This kind of thing... there is no shortage of related descriptions in both the news and novels.
Therefore, bounty hunters are usually alone, without relatives or friends or real long-term partners.
Only when you have no worries can you be fearless.
Mrs. Gary couldn't help but think of what Miss Yaoliuliu said in the cafe, "I have no family" - her tone was very flat and indifferent, as if she was talking about a trivial matter that had nothing to do with her.
But when she thinks back on it now…she feels a hint of sadness.
Is there anyone who is born without family?
How could a delicate and tender girl, who was not much older than his daughter, become a bounty hunter alone in the dangerous border if she had a happy family?
What truly loving parent would let their own children live in hardship all day long?
What on earth happened to cause a little girl, at the age when she should be the most carefree, enjoying life, and most lively and beautiful, to fall into the situation where she had to cover her entire appearance with a gray and simple cloak all day long, fighting against cruel and brutal villains all alone and helpless?
Something quite tragic must have happened... In the shadow cast by that hood, are there any unhealable scars of that incident?
Mrs. Gary, who had rich experience in various literary works, had a rapidly expanding mind and came up with a lot of plots in a very short period of time.
Qi Ji saw that the expression on this very childish lady's face changed many times within a few seconds, first it was bright with sudden realization, then it was solemn as if she fell into sleep, and then it was deep sympathy.
I don't know what she understood...
Qi Ji shrugged his shoulders and didn't want to understand.
Soon, the sound of horse hooves hitting the ground gradually became slower, and the whistling wind outside also weakened and finally subsided.
"Sir, this horse, this horse stopped by itself..."
The driver sitting outside turned around and called out to Qi Ji carefully through the small window.
Qi Ji nodded silently and said to the Gary family:
"Get off the bus, we'll walk the rest of the way."
As soon as he finished speaking, the light inside the carriage suddenly increased, dazzling the four people's eyes. When their vision returned to normal, the dim sun was hanging in the sky.
The dark red panels that served as the ceiling and four partitions of the carriage...suddenly disappeared, leaving only the empty floor and wooden wheels.
The red flames on the undead horse that exuded the temperament of a hellish devil suddenly went out, and its scarlet eyes returned to being cloudy and flat.
Then, it fell down with a loud bang as if it had lost all its strength, and stopped moving, returning to the state of a corpse.
Gary and his family got out of the car in a daze. They looked around and found that they were in the suburbs of Loen City. There were tall trees and rugged rocks all around, and it was more than one kilometer away from the city.
On the distant horizon, towering and low buildings lie dormant, cast as blurry silhouettes under the dim setting sun.
The city of Loon.
Chapter 119: Loen City
The undead horse was controlled by Qi Ji, but she did not let it pull the carriage straight into the city of Loen.
Because whether it was the undead horse with red flames burning all over its body, or the carriage temporarily constructed by imitating the material of the puppet, they were all too peculiar.
If someone saw it, it would be hard not to attract strange attention.
Not to mention a city of this size, there must be a lot of extraordinary people in it, and there may even be many high-level extraordinary people from the official imperial team stationed there.
Qi Ji couldn't guarantee that these strong men couldn't detect the aura of the "Life Refining" spell she cast.
If it attracts official attention at that time, with Qi Ji's sensitive identity... it will be difficult to resolve.
She herself was not particularly worried, but she did not want to cause trouble for Gary's family. After all, she had just promised to ensure their safety throughout the journey.
To be on the safe side, it is better to remove these spells before officially entering the territory of Loen City, and spend a few more minutes walking the remaining one thousand meters.
So Qi Ji and Gary's family of four walked at a leisurely pace towards the city of Loen that stood tall on the horizon.
As for the driver, he chose to return to the city from another direction.
Qi Ji was not worried about how he would explain to the carriage rental company, nor did she interfere, because he had been in this industry for decades and certainly had more experience than her, and he probably knew very well what was the most appropriate way to deal with this situation.
After about ten minutes of walking, the urban area of Loen came into view, and various details unfolded as the distance got closer.
This is the real "city" in this world... This is the first time Qi Ji has seen it.
Before this, the only human settlement she had seen with her own eyes was Stio, apart from that nameless town.
The latter has a population of just over 10,000, which is just a township on Earth and strictly speaking cannot be considered a "city".
The scale of Loen City is not that large, but it has some characteristics that can be regarded as a "city"...
There are more than a dozen square concrete boxes scattered in various locations, all of which are more than ten stories high. The windows on the surface are equipped with glass, but the area is not large, and there is no glittering full glass walls like modern buildings.
Apart from these dozen high-rise buildings, the rest of the buildings in the city are relatively low, generally no more than five stories high. They are basically square concrete boxes with small glass windows.
Most of the city's roads are paved with stone slabs, but some main roads have also been converted to asphalt.
On both sides of the street, a large number of pedestrians were bustling about; in the middle of the road, several carriages of various sizes and shapes passed by.
At first glance, it gives you a sense of déjà vu of a city on Earth... I don't know if this is an architectural style unique to the Glorious Plantagenet Empire, or if it is a common feature of this world.
"Finally... I'm back..."
After entering the city, Mrs. Gary was visibly relieved, as if the bustling city gave her a sense of security.
Gary took a few deep breaths to calm his restless heart, and whispered:
"Shall we go to the Super Management Bureau? They will definitely not ignore this kind of vicious incident involving supernatural beings!"
"Super Management Bureau?" Qi Ji glanced at him.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot, Miss Yaoliuliu is from another place." Gary nodded in understanding and then explained:
