Meanwhile, at the entrance of the Church of Wisdom…"Huuuh…" Bishop Gregory breathed in and out and then repeated the set of actions several times. Yet the aching in his chest barely eased up.
It would not be hard to imagine how embarra.s.sed and ashamed the bishop and his colleagues were feeling after the incident. Imagine it. They had just fed, clothed, and almost wors.h.i.+ped a fake messenger! Blasphemy! It was really blasphemy! And they all felt like they had sinned so greatly for falling into that youth"s tricks.
Right now, there would be no one on earth who wanted the pretender dead more than them! And to think they were servants of the G.o.ddess!
Thinking of this, the bishop barely managed to maintain his composed expression.
The anxious madam seemed to have recovered from the stupor that time and grabbed the priest"s sleeves with her trembling hands. Her voice began to break as she asked in between her sobs, "Y-Your Honor! My child! N-nothing bad is going to happen to my child, right? The knights! Maybe we can send more knights! Please! Rescue my daughter!"
Lady Obson had started to be this fidgety since it had already been half an hour since the chase started. Yet none of the people sent had gone back.
Why? They were trained knights and the carriage should not be that fast? Why were they not back yet? Was that youth so formidable? Or working with others all along? Then was her daughter the target all along?
The aristocratic madam began to think too much because she was also reminded of the death of her first child. At this point, she was starting to link the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt last month to the current problem, fearing that this time, it was her daughter meeting misfortune, that the church"s men would go back empty-handed. The female lead"s mother was really someone who deeply cared for her children so the recent events that befell her family left quite the psychological trauma in her.
A bit of resentment welled up from within her.
"Didn"t this person say my daughter and I should not worry about safety because the holy knights are with us? He said that with full confidence. But in the end, what happened?"
The priest might have been annoyed by the lady"s cries, but since he could somehow guess her mind through her blaming gaze, he felt so horrible but realized he was partly at fault so he could only try his best to pacify her. "Lady, please believe in the G.o.ddess. I"m sure she would not let her ardent believer fell in bad hands. Our knights would definitely return with good news…"
"But why are they taking so long? Is the boy working with somebody? M-maybe we should ask for more manpower from the other inst.i.tutions!"
Hearing this, the priest"s expression darkened while the bishop once again took a deep breath. It was so unbelievable for him to hear a believer suggest that they ask help from the other churches. There was a limit to how inconsiderate and thoughtless one should be, no?
The bishop was very displeased.
However, a second later, he suddenly realized his mistake. If the real meaning was extracted… Lady Obson mentioned that they should send out more people… Right! The knights! He indeed should have done that, and in fact, it was stupidity that he only thought of it!
The man who almost broke his scepter in frustration was unaware that he only didn"t immediately think of this obvious move due to the psychological cues left by Jiang Li.
But now that the idea sprouted, he immediately worked on it, producing some stuff as proof and shoving them in the hands of a guard, "You and your comrade! Split up and go to the gates! The Church of Wisdom is chasing a heretic so the city should be locked up! No one"s allowed to exit the city!"
The one roared at by the furious bishop hurriedly executed the order.
Noticing his state, Bishop Gregory walked into the church and knelt to pray… He badly needed the G.o.ddess" blessing right now. After escaping from the hypnosis, he really felt awful and embarra.s.sed, having committed a serious blunder of pampering a faker and then letting him escape easily. He repeatedly asked for forgiveness from the G.o.ddess.
When he felt like he had finally calmed down, he walked out only to be met with a royal messenger saying that there was a prince visiting the Church. He was of course shocked.
"My goodness, why now?" The bishop looked at the crying woman by the staircase and the restless people by his side. A splitting migraine swept over him.
It was not easy having to squeeze out a smile and give orders at such a sight. But who asked him to be a leader? He had to flash a sincere and warm smile. The whimsical one who suddenly appeared at their doorstep without warning, the one he would be greeting was a royalty.
…
If there was one thing which Jiang Li felt great remorse about… it was that all female leads seemed to be very annoying creatures.
They were beautiful, sure. The one in front of him was not an exception despite the messy hair. Probably they all have their own characteristics which would make them attractive to people. Still, he would probably never have any positive opinions of them.
Most were so kind of troublesome to be with or just plain lucky but not brainy. Some were beyond annoying or worse, beyond saving than most villainesses. IQ-wise, the only exception was probably the psychotic thriller writer from Feng Ru"s world. And he already forgot her name. But this person belonged to the latter case who was more villainous than a real villainess.
Alright, in actuality, all he wanted to say was that female leads were sometimes so troublesome that people would just want to murder them or lock them away. He might have tried to scheme so, if not for the plot armors.
May his beloved G.o.ddess of Light forgive him for his nefarious thoughts. But he just couldn"t help it.
Look! Right now, he encountered a female lead, and it led to his supposed to be easy escape turning this disastrous! How couldn"t he feel like beating someone up?
Jiang Li gritted his teeth in anger.
"Those to be hypnotized have been hypnotized and the correct orders are pa.s.sed down… But accidents could still happen, so I installed in the driver seat a scarecrow wearing clothes identical to mine."
"The horse is also hypnotized to go forward without reducing speed while I secretly slipped away in one of the back alleys. It was all in case the knights managed to catch up."
"Yet who would have thought this d.a.m.n female lead will jump off and roll towards the same alley?"
"Fine, it is to escape and not to be dragged away somewhere far from here. It"s understandable. But even if she wanted to prove she"s a brave twenty-first-century woman by jumping off a fast-moving vehicle, why there? Why also provoke those thugs to go after her?"
"Hold on. In the first place, how the h.e.l.l did she end up in the carriage? Wasn"t she standing at the entrance of the church?"
"d.a.m.n, idiot!"
There was no deviation from his plan since he managed to escape from the church, but he disliked how the leisure walk in the alleys turned into a cat and mouse game! He also didn"t want to be a.s.sociated with this trouble.
A decision was immediately reached. He got up.
"I"m leaving," he said with restrained anger.
"Oh…" The girl simply replied. This time she seemed to have calmed down already and were no longer having any difficulty breathing. She tried to rose to her feet.
Jiang Li felt even more irritated seeing that. "Girl, I"m warning you. Don"t try to follow me. Or else, I"ll throw you back to the alleys! Don"t test me. I"m being serious here!"
Aliyah was speechless. The tall skinny boy looked younger than her but here he was, he managed to scare her with his fierce expression and eyes. Why was that?
However, she shortly realized that he was simply furious at what she did and was naturally not hiding hostility.
Embarra.s.sment swept over her and a wry smile appeared on her beautiful face. "Er, I"ve been a bad girl just now as well, forcibly making him bring me outside the dark and smelly maze. Of course, he will be annoyed. Who won"t be?"
She realized it was normal to be told that. However, there was also one fact that never left her mind since falling into that carriage. She shouted at the youth who had already turned around and began to walk away. "Hey!"
Jiang Li paused his steps. His anger that had not totally cooled began to rise again as he felt a hand tugged at his sleeves. In a foul mood, he asked. "What else do you want? What? Are you a devotee of Penemue and want to catch me for them?" He laughed satirically. "Miss, don"t daydream. You won"t be able to drag me back to that church no matter how hard you tried."
"I don"t care about that!" Aliyah replied.
"Oh? If so, then better. Let go of me then."
"Hold on. What I mean is, you can scam them for all I care. It"s a matter unrelated to me anyway. But you kidnapped me from the central area and now I don"t know how to go back there. You should take responsibility for that. You, help me return!"
"And be captured by your knights, Miss Obson?" Jiang Li felt speechless at her request for some time. Wait, why was he even hearing her out?
Feeling a headache coming, while freeing his sleeve from her hands he said, "From the beginning, I never intended to bring extra baggage with me. Do you know that even now I"m still wondering how my empty carriage suddenly had you onboard?"
"…" Her mouth opened but she couldn"t think of anything to say…
Jiang Li thought she was mapping out her retort in mind so he hurriedly added, "Oh, wait. Actually, I don"t need to hear the answer from you. Curiosity kills. I"m sure I"ll only get hypertension if I hear the answer. So, let"s say I did kidnap you. Now that I already saved you and led you out the back streets, we"re even and you…" he peeled off the other hand that was grabbing his clothes, "… can separate from me. Alright? You understand? Then bye!"
Aliyah was dumbfounded. He began to tunnel through the busy street filled with people, stores and wagons. As her eyes looked around, she really didn"t know which part of the earth she was. This was why she followed him once again.
He must have felt her presence, so he turned his back her way and gave her a glare. She hurriedly spoke up to explain. "I, I don"t know the way back!"
How was that his problem?
"Ugh. This "kidnapped" lady must have a serious case of Stockholm syndrome to follow her kidnapper on her own accord."
"And even if she couldn"t go back, couldn"t she hire a coachman to do the job? Or simply stand there and wait for her male lead, her personal knight, to find her?"
Jiang Li pretended he did not hear a thing. He really just wanted to shake off the stalker so with all his might, he began running in the streets. He had to apologize every time he b.u.mped into carts or people.
However, to his woes, when he arrived five miles away and entered an abandoned house next to a forest, the girl had actually followed him all the way there!
Yup, for some reason, she was so good at running and tailing that she didn"t lose him in the sea of people even though she was wearing a heavy dress. Her legs and thighs must be quite strong, the type which would have no difficulty qualifying her for the Olympics.
But d.a.m.n, if she had that talent, why did she use that skill to go after him instead of running back to her castle or any of the churches in the vicinity?
Jiang Li really felt like puking blood.
Earlier, when he opened the door and saw that the Viscount"s daughter was the one knocking, his face was already that of somebody who had swallowed a mouthful of flies.
But when she said in a bullsh*tting manner, no, in a helpless manner that there was a voice in her head which kept whispering to follow him, he began to wallow in regret.
He should have not drained himself of mental energy from the most recent operation. Now he could not hypnotize the troublesome female lead to leave him alone…