If he could get Jiang Lan to stop her operations, then this Naheye could directly monopolize the business.
Or perhaps, before The Fool found Jiang Lan, that guy might have already made a fortune off the ingredients she provided.
“Since Justice and the Wheel of Fortune are busy right now, why don’t we go have some fun? I didn’t get my fill earlier,” Ruan Qingyi suggested.
Her proposal immediately won the approval of the others.
They had rushed over in a hurry, but in the end, the only ones who got to do anything were Lan Qingyou, Ingrid, and Olf—who had been taken out almost immediately.
“The three of you aren’t allowed to make a move.”
And so, the three were warned by the others who were itching for some action.
However...
“If I don’t make a move, how are you going to get the opponent out of their shelter?” Lan Qingyou looked at the people warning her with an innocent expression.
“Uh... then you can act, but the Chariot and the Sun cannot.”
The two who were warned again could only shrug helplessly. In any case, they had already obtained most of what they wanted; the rest was up to the Chariot and Esmeralda’s side.
So, the two simply didn’t follow along.
Instead, they stayed behind to act as guards for the divining Esmeralda, ensuring she wouldn't be interrupted.
“Your district feels very special. Is there a story behind it?” Lan Qingyou asked, looking down at the surroundings from her high vantage point as they walked the path of vengeance.
Initially, Lan Qingyou had thought the Cursed Corridor would be a place where monsters and ghosts roamed the streets and where the timeline was a distorted mess.
But when she saw the rows of shelters arranged in an orderly fashion, she fell into a very peculiar state of mind.
Whether they were wooden houses like Jiang Lan’s, or stone houses, tree houses, caves, or fortresses, these shelters were all arranged in a slightly curved arc. They were neatly aligned with a gap of about twenty meters between each one, forming a massive circle.
The shelters occupied the outermost perimeter; stepping out of a shelter was equivalent to stepping out of the Cursed Corridor. Further inward were their respective plots for vegetables, wheat, rice, and the like.
The sight was refreshing to Lan Qingyou, but it also raised doubts in her heart.
She wondered why this area had become like this.
Clearly, Lan Qingyou was a hundred percent certain that this situation was absolutely not the result of some 'uncanny workmanship of nature.'
“I knew you’d ask that.” Jiang Lan gave a gentle smile upon hearing the question.
After all, compared to the others walking on the ground, Lan Qingyou, who was flying in the sky, would definitely notice the patterns sooner.
“Actually, in the beginning, everyone was scattered across various parts of the region, just like any other area.”
“But later, because someone felt it was inconvenient to travel—they couldn't even drop by a neighbor's place—they used their talent to rearrange all the shelters into this current state,” Jiang Lan explained.
“Huh! Empress, are you saying this neat arrangement was created by someone's talent?” Ruan Qingyi looked at Jiang Lan with her mouth slightly agape in shock.
“Yes. You all know how a washing machine works, right? All foreign objects are thrown to the edges by centrifugal force. This place was created by a similar phenomenon.”
Everyone naturally knew what a washing machine was.
And at the mention of rotation and centrifugal force, everyone’s minds instinctively associated the concept with a whirlpool in water.
In their view, rather than saying these shelters were 'thrown out' to form this neat arrangement, it was more accurate to say that because of the previous barriers, these shelters could only be flung as far as this specific perimeter.
That was precisely why they had formed this shape.
If the shelters had been square before, they might not have the arc that Lan Qingyou could see from the air now.
“Heh, then that person must be quite powerful. I’d actually like to meet them.” Upon hearing there was someone capable of stirring an entire region, Li Huai felt an itch to test his skills against them.
“We’re here.”
After walking for about three minutes, Jiang Lan and Frenna both came to a halt.
So close!
Lan Qingyou couldn't help but complain internally after looking at the shelter here and then back at Jiang Lan’s row of wooden houses.
“Step back a bit, let me perform first.”
Since they had reached their destination, the first to step up was naturally Lan Qingyou, acting as the 'door knocker.'
However, before Lan Qingyou could even gain altitude, the shouting of a man drifted out from within the shelter.
“Jiang Lan! What are you doing here?!”
“Begin.”
Although the man inside the shelter was shouting at Jiang Lan through the window, she didn't pay him any mind. Instead, she turned her head and looked at Lan Qingyou with a squinty-eyed smile.
“Ah, right!”
Feeling a shiver run through her under that gaze, Lan Qingyou immediately began her ascent.
Because she needed a precision strike this time, she didn't fly to an altitude of over two hundred meters like before. Instead, after finding a suitable height, she dropped a stone about one meter in diameter directly downward.
As mentioned before, because she needed a precision strike that wouldn't damage the other shelters twenty meters away, she used 'small-diameter' ammunition.
Boom!
Though the stone was only a meter wide, it was enough to smash through the shelter, which was also built of wood.
Because magic circuits were continuous, having a single section smashed through would cause a chain reaction, making the entire protective shield fail.
Seeing the stone pierce the shield and the shelter, the group rushed in like a dark cloud.
The entire combat process was extremely smooth.
By the time Lan Qingyou descended from the sky, the slaughter was already over.
Since they were mostly fighting inside the damaged shelter, Lan Qingyou hadn't even been able to see how they fought.
In short, when she flew back down to about a meter above the ground, the people inside had already emerged.
They came out chatting and laughing, their faces beaming with bright smiles.
Although the battle just now might not have even counted as a warm-up for them, it gave off a broad-minded sense of 'since we're already here, the trip wasn't a waste.'
“Empress, you’d better take a look at this.”
After the group walked out, Shang Chuan tossed an object to Jiang Lan.
Jiang Lan caught the flying object and opened her hand to look. It was an iron badge with 'Formation 505' written on it.
On the back of the iron badge, the name 'Naheye' was engraved.
“This...” Jiang Lan frowned slightly.
“Good grief, so Naheye was actually the member of Formation 505? Otherwise, why would he have this thing that even Saran Siqing didn't have?” Lan Qingyou, who hadn't gone in to fight, leaned in to take a look.
“Do you think there’s a possibility...”
Just as Lan Qingyou saw clearly what the object in Jiang Lan’s hand was, Chu Yuan spoke up beside them with a frown.
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