Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 128

“Who are you?” Eugene asked warily.

“I—”

“Don’t talk to me in that voice!” Eugene interrupted him.

Charlie: “……”

This request was a bit unreasonable, so he decided not to adopt it.

“I’m Charlie. It’s good to be vigilant but being surprised for too long will only waste time,” Charlie said. “You can verify my identity.”

“How do I verify it?”

“Say a code, something only we know about,” Charlie suggested.

Eugene thought it made sense.

But what would be something only they knew about? Eugene was puzzled.

Charlie suggested again, “Like your feet are stinky, Shiloh is directionally challenged, and Hasting…”

“Alright, alright, alright.” Eugene was somewhat convinced and looked at the other carefully again. “But why does your face look familiar to me?”

Charlie hinted again. “At the Stonewall Inn in Pennigra, the night you attempted to steal.”

Eugene suddenly realized.

That night was chaotic. Eugene’s attention was all on the Witch’s Pot, only to reluctantly scrape up a bit of an impression from the depths of his memory.

“That person was you?” Eugene finally believed. “But why didn’t you appear like that again after that?”

“That’s a long story,” Charlie said. “Now is not a good time to explain.”

Eugene felt he had a hundred questions to ask. He considered for a moment and chose the most pressing one. “What was going on just now? How come you were following… Aquinas’s preaching?”

He promptly swallowed the words “crazy old man” to prevent the shopkeeper from having any unclear relations with this cult.

“Do you know Aquinas?” Charlie didn’t mind but instead gave him an approving look. “His theory is interesting, but what’s more interesting is his power, which is very important for us.”

Eugene couldn’t see any power in that rambling old man and his indescribable followers. After listening to stories all night, the core content was nothing but repeatedly indoctrinating everyone with his theory of accumulating virtue for the afterlife. He just thought the guy was a thorough fraud.

That’s what he thought, and that’s what he said.

“What can he do?” Eugene asked. “I’ve lived on Paradise Island for a few days. Not many people, like Jason, have the spare energy to think. The vast majority are struggling for the next day’s thin porridge. If they have any extra energy, it’s mostly spent on following swindlers.”

Actually, Eugene didn’t hate poverty, having experienced it for most of his life. He didn’t know what word to describe it with, only instinctively feeling that although they were also poor, the people sitting under Aquinas tonight were completely different from the thief Eugene.

Charlie saw through everything.

“Eugene, you don’t believe they have power. Do you think you are superior to them?” he asked.

Eugene instinctively wanted to refute, but being stared at by Charlie, he felt somewhat uneasy.

“My understanding of Paradise Island comes from Aquinas. Your feelings aren’t entirely wrong. Aquinas’s teachings are basically a placebo. Those who follow him are indeed the weakest and most numb group. For them, Aquinas numbs their present suffering, giving them the strength to keep living,” Charlie said. “I don’t agree with Aquinas’s method of sustaining himself with lies, but he has accumulated more followers than you saw tonight. The power of belief is very strong. If Aquinas says sacrificing life can bring happiness in the next world, those willing to end themselves are probably not a few.”

Eugene vaguely understood something. “So you…?”

“I took him hostage,” Charlie said calmly.

When he returned to White Bridge the night after settling Elena, unfortunately, a hapless bystander witnessed everything and was quite frightened. This also made Charlie keenly aware that the ecology here and the external mainland were completely different—the overly distressed and narrow perspective made them unable to understand his unusual parts.

In theory, he could have bypassed this place and entered the inner city, where the auction of White Bridge existed for rare and exotic items, and curses and rare species were nothing new. Like all open mainland cities, seeing his rabbit head would only be seen as a symbol of some accident or enmity.

But to find such a place in the world-famous den of inequity—moreover, completely unknown to the outside world—piqued Charlie’s interest. He entered Paradise Island under the cover of night and, quite by chance, bumped into Aquinas’s “evening class”.

Then the unfortunate Aquinas was caught by Charlie. The shopkeeper, who usually preferred to convince with reason, rarely used violence, but being a spiritual leader for too long, Aquinas had forgotten that he was quite weak—if without followers. When he saw the shopkeeper, he took him as some sort of half-human, half-beast evil presence and immediately decided to make him part of his “miracle”, not even waiting for Charlie to speak up before trying to take action.

Instead, Charlie easily subdued him (and a few bodyguards), and when a desperate Aquinas thought he was an assassin sent by a hostile force about to lose his life, he swore to give everything to preserve his life. Charlie used his mouth to learn about the existence of Paradise Island, which had been “invisible” on the mainland for a long time. Then he realized that Aquinas’s prestige on Paradise Island was an existence beyond the rules, and seemingly unknown to the actual controllers of White Bridge, the Wolves and Monkeys, who had allowed him to develop and grow for a long time without taking any action against him.

“I’ve heard of Jason. He and Aquinas are completely different types, but they possess similar power,” Charlie said. “It’s a pleasant surprise that you know him.”

Eugene held back, but eventually couldn’t resist.

“What’s with your head?” he asked. “Has the curse been lifted? Is Elena dead?”

Then, inspired, he added, “The Duke must want to see what you really look like.”

Not just the Duke—practically everyone was curious about the shopkeeper’s true appearance, but it felt a bit strange to say it out loud.

Charlie winked at him. “Of course, Elena isn’t dead. As for the Duke…”

Eugene saw a somewhat triumphant expression on his face.

……

A few hours earlier.

Annie knocked on Alexander’s door, telling him the guest’s carriage had arrived.

This was a guest scheduled by the Countess, and Louis had also specifically instructed to take care in receiving, so Alexander personally went out to greet, only to be stunned by the visitor’s appearance, secretly guessing whether the other party might have elven blood.

Dwight was used to being the center of attention and didn’t give Alexander and Annie a second glance. His focus was entirely on the upcoming meeting.

Louis wasn’t only Priscilla’s ex-lover but also Charlie’s twin brother, which meant…

Their appearances should be exactly the same.

Dwight had imagined what Louis might look like. He knew Priscilla and knew that the other’s appearance definitely wouldn’t be unpleasant—in fact, just from Rabbit Head’s body proportions, one could roughly guess.

But when he saw the man sitting on the sofa, he was still taken aback.

Because he had seen that face, more than once!

At the Stonewall Inn and the Mokwen Palace—although he had a vague feeling, realizing that Rabbit Head had indeed been pretending for so long, he was still infuriated.

But his upbringing and temperament didn’t allow him to make a scene on the spot. Dwight gripped his cane tightly and watched as the other stood up and flashed him a smile.

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