As the pages of the book flipped quickly, the names on the list in his heart were crossed off one by one. The mage quietly watched the fire, while Gin held Ciri's hand and whispered to her.
Ciri still had a strange expression. Even though she was smiling, she found it hard to accept that Gin had suddenly transformed from a kindly elder into a beautiful young lady, looking even younger than her.
At this moment, Su Ming closed the book.
"Finished reading?" Ciri pulled her hand from Gin's, smiling sheepishly.
"Yeah, the rest is just indecipherable gibberish and doodles. The story only recorded up to when I crawled into the insect's belly."
Su Ming put the storybook into his spatial bag, looking at the fire as he answered.
"Found anything?" Gin grabbed Ciri's little hand again, pressing her fingers like a toy.
"Found quite a bit. For example, future Loki is good friends with Wade, his book doesn't mention Kama Taiji, and he toyed with Thor to the point of ecstasy. Odin is an outsider as well... but there's not much useful intelligence."
"Why not ask Master Gu Yi for help?"
Monac suggested. If the timeline was in trouble, The Ancient One with the Eye of Agamotto was the best choice for resolution.
"She knows, but lets things develop... If I asked her for help, I'd have to follow her script. You want me to be Supreme Mage?"
Su Ming tapped his chest armor, the alloyed strangulation making a thumping sound, then pointed to the two weapons strapped to his back.
In future mage conferences, everyone wears magic robes and holds magic staffs, yet Su Ming would be the only tin can walking into the venue, with others bowing to him. Don't you find it incongruous?
"Not entirely a bad thing..."
Monac turned his head as if focusing on the little stones on the ground, mumbling softly.
".... How can you say something so insincere? What benefit did Master Gu Yi offer you?"
Su Ming tilted his head back, taking a deep breath. Monac seemed to know something, as Gu Yi must have told him a few things...
Monac's face turned red, and his little mustache quivered: "How can you falsely accuse me out of thin air? I took no benefits."
"Enough, hand over the mustache wax. You're in the story; you can go home and rest. Help me bring Gin back, and call Hamill while you're at it."
Monac appeared in the story. Although his role might not have shown due to doodle covering, he had to be replaced by a mage from the Kama Taiji system now.
Using this excuse to send him back, Su Ming suspected he would report to Gu Yi, making this a probing move to see Gu Yi's next reaction.
Monac sighed. He did know some things, but he couldn't say them, and his health wasn't great either.
When someone's internal organs are soaking in ice-cold, bone-chilling alternate dimension fluid, no one would feel well.
He took a small round tin from his pocket and tossed it to Su Ming, then opened the teleportation gate to the New York Temple.
Gin glanced at the boss, and Su Ming nodded slightly at her. She released Ciri's hand, stood up, and walked into the gate.
"Be safe, boss."
"Proceed according to plan."
The teleportation gate closed, leaving only Su Ming and Ciri standing together, and shortly after, Hamill joined them carrying his black pot.
He walked out of the teleportation gate without saying a word, just nodding at Su Ming.
Then he set the pot over the fire, magically adding boiling water, and took out prepared dumplings from who knows where, starting to cook them in the pot.
Perhaps it was an illusion, but the white, plump dumplings rolled in the water, white steam curling around the pot, and Su Ming seemed to see golden light shooting out from the pot.
"Wait, is this really time for a meal? And it's not even a holiday, why are we eating dumplings?"
Su Ming quickly waved his hand to stop him. This story still felt off, like he was turning into a character from a Chinese cooking show!
"Eat well to embark on the journey."
Hamill pulled out a big slotted spoon, stirring the dumplings in the pot, occasionally adding some cold water, calmly responding.
"..."
On what journey?
Though Su Ming knew in many places, there's a saying of 'leaving with dumplings and arriving with noodles', meaning eating dumplings when sending family off on a long journey.
But this phrase 'embark on the journey' felt weird now?
"Alright then, what's the filling? Just so you know, I won't eat tentacles." Su Ming thought about it. Sitting by the fire was to lure enemies over anyway, so having a meal didn't hinder the main task.
"Ginseng lamb."
"Seriously edible?"
"Yes."
"Replacing carrots with ginseng, won't that be too nourishing?"
"Not for you."
"Can Ciri eat it?"
"Yes."
"What did Master Gu Yi say to you?"
"Follow your orders."
Hamill started scooping dumplings. His expression remained unchanged, and his answer was watertight. The aroma of lamb began to gradually permeate the air.
Su Ming pursed his lips slightly, failing to get anything out of him...
Hamill probably knows something too. He originally intended to beat around the bush to see if he could catch him off guard, but Hamill is meticulous, and there was no opportunity to exploit, even though he had just arrived on the battlefield.
The Guardian Race has always been bodyguards and housekeepers for generations, constantly vigilant as if it's a hereditary trait.
However, the failure to extract information doesn't matter. Hamill's arrival indicates that Kama Taiji's stance hasn't changed. The test yielded results; the Ancient One still stands on Su Ming's side, though she has concealed some matters, like the puppet master behind the scenes.
But that can be questioned later.
"A bit bitter..." Ciri didn't know what the two were talking about. She ate a dumpling right away but was scalded and took a while before speaking.
Hamill took out a few small dishes and a bottle of vinegar.
.................
In the dungeon, the dry air seemed to drain the life from every cell in the body, while outside the door, the sounds of slithering in the darkness kept nerves on edge.
It was like multilegged animals running across the snow, or like snails squashed against glass, complex, multi-layered sounds affecting every nerve.
Lianna had seen snow; she was Russian, and after the fall of the unbreakable Great Alliance, ordinary people's lives became problematic.
Her father and mother died of hunger and disease on a snowy winter's night.
She and her brother were powerless to stop the march of the Death God; they could only watch their parents, faces blue, weakly tearing at their throats, dying on their home bed.
It wasn't a simple disease; almost every member of the Rasputin clan died this way. It was known as the 'Curse of Rasputin.'
Lianna, Pyotr, Mikhail—these are the only surviving members of the Rasputin clan.
They each had some special abilities, a secret preserved for generations in the family, unknown to outsiders.
Elder brother Mikhail was the oldest and had the strongest powers, able to transform matter through telekinesis, like turning ice into water or ensuring he never grows tired.
Second brother Pyotr could change his form, transforming into metal, impervious to knives and bullets.
And Lianna, the youngest, her powers seemed ordinary, but she was regarded as the family's hope, because her abilities make her immune to all diseases and infections.
The family's curse manifests at a certain age, leading to failure of internal organs, the entire body seemingly rotting from the inside, ultimately leading to inevitable death.
To provide for the family, after their parents died, Mikhail could only enlist. With his superpowers, he became an astronaut.
But as he was launched into space, the Alliance suddenly disbanded, and his spacecraft mysteriously vanished into the cosmic void.
The responsibility fell on Pyotr's shoulders, but in a time of crisis, the government completely shut down. It was months before they even learned of their brother's death, let alone any compensatory benefits.
With their parents and brother gone, Pyotr decided to take his sister to the 'Land of Freedom' across the ocean. The newly elected president promised that in a democratic and free country even the air is sweet.
But one cannot live on air; jobs and food are necessary. At that time, jobs were hard to find in Russia, and everyday people were worried about their livelihoods.
At that time, it wasn't difficult to smuggle into the United States. He sold the family's land and ancestral property to foreign capitalists at a low price, exchanging for two smuggling ship tickets, bringing his sister to the United States.
Pyotr usually had great strength, and when powered up, he could lift about 9 tons. He quickly found work at the docks in New York, doing heavy labor for Wilson Group, because they could provide a false identity.
Wilson Enterprises straddled both the legal and illegal worlds, wielded enormous power, and at the entrance of the nightclub named Peace Restaurant, high officials in fine clothes frequently came and went.
However, the enterprise treated its workers well, distributing rice, flour, grains, and oil during holidays, providing employee housing and education for relatives, even supporting families in case of accidental death.
Pyotr felt it was less a money-making company and more like a humane mafia, because his English was vodka-flavored, and the false identity and other holds were kept by the company, making it impossible for him and his sister to move in New York without the enterprise.
The enterprise covertly controlled every person; mysterious young women constantly loitered around the port and factory areas, giving off a KGB vibe.
Luckily, his work did not involve anything illegal, just packing and shipping scattered goods, often art pieces too delicate for machines to handle. Thanks to his outstanding performance, he quickly saved up money.
A year later in 1992, he bought a small farm near Long Island, as a home for himself and Lianna.
But soon after, a bald man in a wheelchair showed up, saying something to Pyotr, leading him to join an organization named X-Men, under the codename Gang Lishi.
Lianna learned that her entire family were referred to by Professor Bald as mutants; she was only seven at the time.
Charles actually said little to Gang Lishi, only stating that Xavier Academy was a home for all mutants, offering protection and personal guidance for special children like Lianna.
The Rasputin clan's hereditary disease wasn't a curse, but rather instability of special X Gene causing genetic collapse and organ failure.
Xavier Academy could better develop Lianna's abilities and maybe help her avoid the tragic fate.
Gang Lishi himself wasn't concerned; when he underwent metal transformation, his internal organs changed along too, having no worries about such diseases.
But Lianna was at risk.
Thus, he abandoned the idea of letting Lianna attend Zhongsi Academy for free education and took her to Xavier Academy, where Professor X offered Gang Lishi a job as a gym teacher, with decent pay.
Teaching at the school allowed him to see his sister at all times, which was ideal.
But before Lianna could happily spend the next winter with her classmates, a devil accompanied by black smoke and dense fog suddenly appeared, seizing Lianna and pulling her into a temporal rift, vanishing from the campus without a trace.