My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 215 The Plan, The Final Tea Party (Seeking monthly votes at the end of the month)

On July 29, a sunny afternoon, the fishermen in Bergen harbor were tanned dark by the sun, and a row of seagulls perched on the railings of their fishing boats.

A warm summer breeze blew in from the horizon, carrying with it a salty, damp smell.

At this moment, Xia Pingzhou was in a private room at a restaurant, waiting for the other group members to arrive. With nothing to do, he and Ayase Origami played a game of Connect Four, taking turns making moves.

Shortly afterward, a boy wearing a blue jumpsuit pushed open the door and entered.

With dark circles under his eyes like black coffee, an infuriating expression, and a still-childish face, he is clearly the number 8 member of the White Raven Brigade—the hacker.

"Long time no see." The hacker rubbed his dark circles and looked at Xia Pingzhou with dead fish eyes. "Missed me?"

Xia Pingzhou took a sip of orange juice, then looked up at the hacker and asked, "Has the leader arrived?"

The girl in the kimono mimicked his tone, turned her head, and asked expressionlessly, "Has the commander arrived?"

The hacker curled his lip. "Where's your humanity? Can you please stop calling me 'team leader' every time we meet? I arranged all your flights and hotels, and all this hard work doesn't even earn me a single greeting... Sigh, the coldness of human relationships; sigh, capital, you win."

"So, has the commander arrived yet?" Xia Pingzhou continued to ask.

"So, has the leader arrived yet?" Origami Ayase asked as well.

"The leader and Carrot Head are with them; they won't arrive until the night after tomorrow." The hacker sighed. "Am I really that unimportant to you guys?"

Xia Pingzhou scoffed, "You're spying on us 24/7, do you need to miss us?"

"Little brat...annoying." The girl in the kimono chimed in indifferently.

As the three were chatting, the Ripper, dressed in a black and white school uniform, walked in from outside the private room. As he passed the hacker, he reached out and casually ruffled his hair.

The hacker, while playing on his phone, gave Enma Rin's retreating figure the middle finger. The Ripper, without turning around, brandished his katana. The hacker lowered his middle finger and instead gave her a thumbs-up.
"What a fine knife! As expected of our Black-haired Ripper, it's really different after reaching the third tier."

"Good boy." The Ripper retracted his Sky Chariot.

"So you're the group's darling after all." Xia Pingzhou turned to look at the hacker. "No wonder you're everyone's electronic pet, your emotional value is off the charts."

"A cat spirit dares to talk to me like that?" The hacker sat down, puzzled. Minors can't drink alcohol, so he poured himself a glass of milk.

"It's not the group's darling; the kitten is mine alone," the girl in the kimono said.

A little while later, member number 5, Bernardo Edward, walked in. His skin was as pale as a vampire who hadn't seen the sun in a long time, but his face was kind and intellectual, and his long white hair was tied into a ponytail.

He was wearing white gloves and a white trench coat.

"Number 8, a hacker, right? First time seeing you like this." Bernardo smiled and reached out his hand to the little boy in the overalls who had been ignored by everyone.

The hacker paused, gave him a perfunctory handshake, raised an eyebrow, and asked curiously, "Why are you, a holder of a 'Black Death' fragment, all white?"

"Is there any conflict between the two?" Bernardo asked.

“No, not at all,” the hacker said.

Bernardo sat down and said slowly, "The leader wants me to tell you about the abilities of the seven members of the Royal Court Team, and then Mr. Hacker will use the internet to convey this information to the other members so that we can assign enemies after entering the Garden."

“Okay.” The hacker put on his earphones and fiddled with his phone. “I’ve already turned on the text-to-speech function.”

"You said."

Ripper put his legs up on the table, crossed his arms, and looked at the white-haired man.

“Let me start by talking about the member of the Royal Court team that I think is the most threatening,” Bernardo paused and adjusted his one-way mirror, “Vice-captain, Red Dragon, Li Qingping.”

At the same time, in one of the corridors of the palace.

Caesar walked ahead, while Li Qingping followed behind, holding the crystal ball, and whispered to the little shark.

“To be honest…” Li Qingping said expressionlessly, “Why don’t we turn back to the king’s bedroom now, capture the queen, and then figure out a way to take the White King’s Scepter?”

“Now I know why the Third Prince also thinks you’re a pig,” Agubaru sighed. “If you want to die, don’t take Shark with you, okay? Put me down now, and Shark will swim back by itself.”

"Why not?" Li Qingping shrugged.

"If the Queen dared to summon us like this, the Royal Court's forces must be nearby."

Agubaru spoke eloquently, “The legendary whale hasn’t even landed yet. If we make a move, won’t we become sitting ducks? Even if we do capture the Queen, are you confident you can hold out against the Royal Court team in the miniature garden for four whole days? By the time the whale’s mouth opens, our corpses will be cold, okay? Shark doesn’t want to become dried fish.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as Caesar gets the scepter,” Li Qingping said.

Yagubaru sighed, "But we may not be able to break through the barrier protecting the king in a short time. The queen and the royal court can't do anything about it either. Otherwise, why don't they take the scepter?"

Li Qingping pondered for a moment: "That makes sense... The White King's Scepter is really troublesome. Even if we disregard the 'Disarming Wonder' which can only be used by the Guardians, its other abilities are already quite strong."

"Otherwise, how could the king of the whale-shaped garden be qualified to rule this country?"

As he spoke, Agubaru raised his head and gave Li Qingping a disdainful look at his chin.

"So what do you plan to do?" Li Qingping said. "If we can't obtain the White King's Scepter, we have no chance of winning."

Aguru said in a very serious tone:
"If you want to hear it from Shark, just go along with their wishes for now. The Queen wants to minimize the impact of this matter and is worried that starting a war in the palace would be too noisy. That's why she patiently waits until the whale's mouth opens, sends us to a corner where no one cares, and then finds a reason to take action."

"When that day comes, we'll first use a smokescreen to deceive them, making them think we're trying to escape, thus drawing away their fighting force, and then infiltrate the palace."

Li Qingping tilted his head.

"and then?"

"Then we enter the palace. Our first goal is to obtain the White King's Scepter, and our second goal is to capture the prince or the queen... If we can neither obtain the White King's Scepter nor capture one of them, then we will activate the final plan: to cause trouble and make a big fuss, so that everyone knows about it and they can't save face."

"Okay, okay, you always have so many clever ideas," Li Qingping said. "Anyway, the worst that can happen is a nine-out-of-ten chance of death. I've been prepared ever since I came back here."

"So do you have a way to make Shark's plan work?" Yagubaru said. "It's like making a few mannequins that look a lot like you two to fool them or something."

“It’s not difficult… Two common-level fragments of strange tales can do this, to confuse them,” Li Qingping said. “Oh, by the way, this is the Imperial Palace’s collection of strange tales.”

As he spoke, he turned to look at a heavily guarded passageway in the palace, with fully armed guards and a massive bronze gate behind them.

"So I can come here for a big meal in a few days?"

The little shark bared its row of tiny sharp teeth, pressed itself against the crystal ball, and followed its gaze toward the gate.

Li Qingping nodded: "There is a chance, but it depends on whether we will pass through here when we sneak into the palace that day."

"You have to pass by even if you don't want to, just like you have to try to create a chance encounter even if you don't have the chance to meet your crush."

"Didn't that shark just say its primary target was the White King's Scepter? It couldn't move once it saw food?" "Why do you care so much about sharks?"

"big eater."

"Trash fish."

One day later, it was the morning of July 30th.

“My brother invited me to their tea party.” In his dormitory, Caesar leaned against the window and glanced at the letter delivered by a pigeon.

Li Qingping looked up and asked him, "Do you want to go?"

"Why not go?" Caesar countered.

"Then let's go."

After saying that, Li Qingping picked up the crystal ball from the bedside table, shook the sleeping little shark expressionlessly to wake it up, and then left the castle with Caesar.

Before long, the group arrived at the palace of the eldest prince, Lorenzo. Stepping into the courtyard, they saw a marble-paved road.

The roadside is lined with unique flower species found in whale gardens, each petal as bright as obsidian. The eldest prince has a habit of admiring flowers and occasionally takes time to come to the garden to tend to them himself.

Caesar walked for a short while and saw a hexagonal pavilion with a round stone table and several stone chairs inside. The curtains hanging in the air were fluttering in the wind.

Lorenzo and Cosimo, two blond-haired, blue-eyed princes, were sitting at the table, waiting for a long time.

Meanwhile, the captain of the Royal Court team, "Ruth," and member "Ryan" stood by. Both the former's long, sea-blue hair and the latter's thick beard and golden eyes were very striking, making them instantly recognizable.

Cesare walked straight into the gazebo and sat down unceremoniously opposite Lorenzo and Cosimo.

“Caesar, the day after tomorrow is the day the whales will land,” Lorenzo said, looking up.

"Correct."

"Why don't you stop struggling in vain? That way you won't kill Li Qingping," Lorenzo said casually.

Caesar remained silent, as did Li Qingping.

After a long pause, Caesar asked, "Li Qingping, are you willing to die for me?"

"Of course, Your Highness." Li Qingping nodded slightly.

Lorenzo chuckled: "You two are quite a good match, an unreliable prince and an unreliable vice-captain of the royal court."

"I have already left the Wangting team," Li Qingping said.

“But you haven’t received the king’s approval yet,” Lorenzo said.

“Approval? How can it be approved?” Caesar said. “You have already rendered our father bedridden, all because of your selfish desires.”

“You are not fit to be king, Caesar…” Lorenzo said. “You will lead this country to its disintegration and destruction, and I cannot watch it happen.”

“You’re wrong, brother.” Caesar said expressionlessly, “Whether I become king or not, I will overthrow this country.”

"Are you going to betray your country?" Lorenzo raised an eyebrow and asked curiously.

“You betrayed me first,” Caesar said. “And… this kind of dilapidated country that has always been hiding inside the belly of a whale, avoiding the outside world, should never have existed in the first place.”

"You have guts." Lorenzo clasped his hands together. "But there's only one whale's mouth. How do you plan to leave?"

"You're afraid of me, that's why you're so eager to eliminate me."

Lorenzo shook his head, patted Cosimo on the shoulder, and laughed loudly. "I really don't know when our third brother learned to talk such big words. Second brother, is it because you lost to him in the arena last time, which gave him confidence?"

Cosimo's face was gloomy, and he remained silent.

Caesar looked up at Ruth: "So, since you heard everything, why did you ignore it all?"

Ruth said expressionlessly, "I only obey the Queen's orders. In the King's absence, the Queen's orders are above all else."

Caesar asked, "But they're the ones who made the king sick. Shouldn't you deal with them first?"

"Do you have any evidence? Don't make baseless accusations." Prince Cosimo frowned and spoke.

Caesar ignored him and turned to Ryan: "And you, Mr. Ryan... It is said that the strange fragment 'Sword in the Stone' will only choose the noblest knight, but seeing it today, it seems that it is not as I thought."

Ryan was silent.

“Stop now, Caesar.” Lorenzo smiled. “For the sake of our brotherhood, on August 1st, I will have someone take you away from the Little Garden. You can go with Li Qingping, wherever you want.”

Caesar scoffed, "After all, you want to settle things with me in the outside world so that you won't be looked down upon as a mad dog who would kill his brothers and poison his father in order to seize the throne."

“It seems you’ve started to act unreasonably…” Lorenzo looked up and met Caesar’s gaze. “Finally, as your older brother, I’ll teach you a lesson: history is usually written by the victors, and the victors… are usually ruthless.”

Cosimo glanced at the letter the pigeon had handed him, then looked up and said, "Brother, let's stop here. Mother wants to see us."

“Let’s go.” Lorenzo stood up.

Caesar watched them leave silently, then turned and walked out of the pavilion. Li Qingping followed him.

As Caesar walked away without turning his head, he said, "Li Qingping, the chances of me escaping are very small... They want me. If the situation is really unfavorable for us that day, then you should take Agubaru and leave. Don't worry about me."

At this point, Caesar paused, "If Father dies, I'll only have the two of you left. After I die, only you will remember me, so... don't die."

Agubaru was taken aback, thinking to himself, "Are you going to transform from a dark elementary school student into a melancholic elementary school student?"

Li Qingping looked up, silently watched his back for a while, then opened the lid of the crystal ball and poked the little shark's head: "Take it with you? You might as well roast it and eat it on the way. I've never had roasted shark before."

"Grilled shark is a culinary abomination only Londoners came up with. Can't you, a Chinese person, have any shame?" the little shark snapped. "Don't you understand what a great culinary nation is?"

“You’re right, but I’m a person from a small garden.”

"Traitor."

Caesar stopped, turned to look at the man and the shark, and smiled silently.

There are now only 48 hours left until the legendary whale lands in Bergen, Norway.

　Asking for a monthly ticket.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)