Clotina

None of the elves present noticed.

From the moment the “kidnapping” occurred, the little elf held hostage by Lin Gui had been unusually calm.

There was no struggling, no crying out.

She would even pay close attention while Lin Gui was speaking.

She quietly adjusted her posture to make herself look more like a proper “hostage.”

Lin Gui's letters were not actually left unread.

At least Clotina had read hers—the letter that appeared to have been sent by her father.

The reason it hadn't triggered a delivery confirmation was because Clotina had only read a portion of it.

Yet even that small part was enough to affect the little elf, who had always detested humans.

She felt a profound sense of shock.

In the letter, her father did not shy away from the wickedness of humans.

He described the nobles and merchants who hunted elves, and the filth and cruelty of the slave markets.

But immediately after, he wrote these words:

“...But Clotina, my little star.”

“Did you know? Those bound in chains and dragged onto the auction block... are not just elves.”

“There are also ordinary humans who have neither power nor gold...”

“The lives of their children are taken at a noble's whim, and their wives are forcibly dragged away by lords.”

“They toil like beasts of burden, yet they do not even have a single piece of black bread to eat.”

“They even... hate those ‘high and mighty’ humans more than we do.”

Her father's letter was very long, detailing everything he had seen in Blackwater City both before and after he became a ghost.

It spoke of the rage of the souls at the bottom of human society, and their hatred for the nobility and those in power.

It described how they had torn apart and devoured the soul of a captured slave trader, piece by piece.

“I used to think all humans were the same.”

“Now I finally understand... the fault does not lie with the entire race.”

“What is wrong is this city-state apocalypse, which has unleashed the monsters lurking in the hearts of those with filthy power.”

“And those commoners who yield to the monsters and coexist with them just to survive are not much different from us.”

Clotina's worldview was shaken to its core.

She had thought this might be a trap.

But the nuances of the elven script and the familiar tone in his words were unmistakable.

They were things that could never be forged.

Her father had even written of things to prove his identity.

He included secrets that only Clotina and her father shared.

The poem Clotina had written to commemorate her mother.

The redwood longbow her father had prepared for her coming-of-age ceremony.

And the birthmark she had possessed since the day she was born.

Clotina was certain that this was indeed her father's letter.

But the contents inside went too far against the beliefs inscribed in the elven code.

They were too unconventional, completely overturning the teachings of the elders.

This made her hesitate, not daring to read any further.

Near the end of the portion she had read, her father mentioned a human messenger mage.

He had black hair and black eyes, and was accompanied by a beautiful human girl.

Her father seemed to want to testify on behalf of this human to his kin.

He insisted that this man was nothing like the other detestable humans.

In fact, her father believed the mage was kind to a fault, to a degree that was almost baffling.

For just seven copper coins, he helped ghosts he had no relation to deliver letters across a dangerous forbidden zone.

At first, her father thought the other party had some massive conspiracy.

However, after speaking with him and quietly observing his interactions with other human commoners who sent letters,

her father had witnessed both sincerity and utter exhaustion.

The sincerity lay in his interactions with the commoners.

He showed absolutely none of the arrogant disdain that practitioners usually held toward ordinary people.

He was like a friendly boy next door, just a completely ordinary person.

He possessed a bit of humor and would voice his indignation on behalf of the commoners he chatted with, sympathizing with their plights.

He would then use vicious language that even her father found terrifying to curse the relatives of nobles, comparing them to all sorts of livestock.

Sometimes, her father felt his words were far too wicked and pagan.

Yet, they resonated deeply with the surrounding commoners.

Soon, they would all be laughing and chatting together.

As for his exhaustion, it was because most human commoners had not practiced cultivation during their lifetimes.

As a result, they couldn't write letters themselves and had to rely on this human mage, who could see them, to transcribe for them.

There were thousands of letters in total.

Every day, that human mage would see off the last of his guests on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Her father seemed particularly eager to introduce this human mage to her.

But Clotina did not dare to read any further.

Her father did not realize how terrifying his sympathy for the mage and those humans sounded to an elf.

To the elves, such feelings were utterly monstrous.

If the Elder Council of the Elven Forest found out, or if she was reported by her peers,

being stripped of her name, expelled from her race, and banished from the elven homeland would be the lightest punishments.

The elves' hatred for humans was not just mere words; it was written into the Code of the World Tree.

It had remained unchanged since the Dark Age.

Moreover, the clan that Clotina and her father belonged to was the Shadow Clan, a branch of the Night Elves.

And the Night Elves had always been a source of wariness and ostracization among all the elven clans.

This was especially true after the betrayal of the High Elves.

Clotina did not dare to keep reading. She could not accept her father becoming a painful traitor who sympathized with humans and abandoned his own people.

She wanted to destroy the letter; she dared not imagine how her kin would look at her if they ever saw it.

However, before Clotina could act, she was “kidnapped” by the very mage her father had described as kind.

His act of taking her hostage to threaten her kin was exactly like those hateful humans.

But...

His words were filled with glaring loopholes, and his acting was incredibly clumsy.

Yet this actually made Clotina believe her father's words.

Perhaps this human truly was kind, and he only wanted to finish delivering these letters from the other side.

Under Lin Gui's guidance, the letters floated up one by one, drifting before the eyes of each angry elf.

Lin Gui, the human mage, seemed to be guiding the elves to sign the so-called “Slave Contract Letters” by accepting them.

Right at that moment, a patch of shadow on the snow began to shift back and forth.

Clotina knew this was a signal from the Shadow Clan warriors.

Every Night Elf born in Deepwood Outpost began training and cultivating from a young age.

And Clotina was considered one of the more outstanding talents among the young Night Elves.

Naturally, she knew exactly what this signal meant.

The warriors were in position, waiting for Clotina to avoid the most lethal blow.

Once she did, they would strike and kill the human mage.

And right now was the perfect opportunity.

Clotina looked at the mage, realizing that the wooden stick pressed against her had loosened at some point.

For a moment, she fell into a state of deep conflict.

She looked up, gazing into the human's gray eyes.

Forcing down the fear in her heart, she saw only helplessness and exhaustion.

She recalled her father's description of him in the letter.

Swept up by a sudden rush of emotion, she completely ignored her clan's rescue plan.

Instinctively, she blurted out a warning.

“Watch out, there's danger behind you!”

“I know.”

“Eh?”

Clotina froze.

He knows?

“Eh...?”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

She could only stare blankly up at Lin Gui's gray eyes, which were just inches away.

There was no surprise, no panic, and not even a hint of astonishment in them.

There was only a calm... as if he had expected it all along.

Lin Gui didn't even look back.

He merely tilted his head slightly, catching a glimpse of what was behind him out of the corner of his eye.

Then, he looked back down, his gaze landing on Clotina's face.

His tone carried a hint of... how should one put it?

It was like an adult looking at a child doing something foolish—a mix of helplessness and gentle admonishment.

“Little one.”

Lin Gui's voice was very soft, audible only to her.

“It's best if you don't do things like this in the future.”

“If I really were a bad guy...”

He paused, his gray eyes staring straight into hers.

“You would have dragged yourself and your people down.”

“You would have risked everything.”

Clotina was completely dumbfounded.

Warning him had meant risking being branded a traitor by her own people.

It was because she believed her father's letter, driven by a sudden, inexplicable impulse.

Yet he... had known all along?

Not only did he know, but he was actually turning around to “lecture” her?