There's a big problem with dreams in this world.

"Is that so?" Lu Qing's intuition told her that Ling was not lying, and considering her purple intuition skill, this idea was probably correct.

As long as she knew Ling wasn't lying, Lu Qing told Ling what had happened after they separated, while having Ling follow her.

The Azalea Tavern was gone. Lu Qing planned to return to the dark tunnel and talk to the train they had taken to get there.

At this moment, members of the Iron Order wearing breathing filters had already entered the sleeping gas. She quietly bypassed them and returned to the train without any incident.

After waiting for a while, about two or three hours, Eileen and Senator Dis woke up one after the other.

Eileen was the first to wake up. Lu Qing told her what had happened while she was unconscious, and Eileen also remembered that her family's tavern had been overcrowded after she woke up.

“My tavern…” Eileen said, looking very distressed.

She has lived in the Steel City for so many years, relying on her own void power and some resources from the Guiji Sect, to gradually work her way up to become the owner of the Azalea Tavern.

It's impossible to say she had no feelings for that tavern, but...

“Luckily, all my money is in the bank,” Eileen said, her expression suddenly changing.

Although the tavern also stores a large amount of cash, as long as the bank doesn't collapse and she doesn't die, the land where the tavern is located will still belong to her. And compared to the money from the land, rebuilding a tavern won't cost much.

and.......

"If Your Highness can heal the sacred tree, then that tavern won't matter anymore, will it?" Eileen thought to herself, her eyes shining with hope as she looked at Lu Qing.

"Uh..." At the same time, Councilor Dis, who had been placed on the train seat by Lu Qing, woke up.

“Where is this…” Councilor Dis sat up with a headache, looking around, and said, “Is this the Steel City train?”

Distant memories flooded back as Senator Dis recalled the scene from over a decade ago when he and other members of the Steel Order traveled by train to Steel City.

"You are... Miss Rose and Eileen, the owner of the Cuckoo Tavern?" Councilor Dis gradually recalled what had happened before he lost consciousness and quickly looked to his side, asking, "Where is that monster!?"

"Are we fleeing Steel City right now?!" Senator Dees exclaimed, breaking out in a cold sweat at the thought that he was sitting on a train in Steel City.

"Please calm down." Lu Qing comforted the flustered Councilor Dis, and then repeated what she had said to Eileen to Councilor Dis.

"It's already been eliminated, Miss Rose, you eliminated it?" Councilor Dis asked somewhat blankly after hearing Lu Qing's words.

“That’s right, I was the one who destroyed it. Actually, my goal was the same as that member of the Guiji Cult: to ask you for information about the location of the fire element.” Lu Qing looked sincerely at Councilor Dis and said:

"I hope you can tell me what you know; this news is really important to me."

“Um… I’m sorry.” Councilor Dis moved his lips, hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Even if you are my savior, I cannot tell you anything about the fire element.”

“You can let me do something else to repay you, as long as it’s something I can do and it won’t cross my bottom line.”

"It will be all right!"

------------

A new month, take a day off.

As the title says, a new month has arrived, and I'm going to happily slack off for another day.

It wasn't very pleasant to begin with; subscription numbers have been quite dismal lately...

The number of new subscriptions hasn't dropped, but because there's no traffic, there are no new readers. The number of new subscriptions is pitifully low. It feels like it won't be long before even the 500 average daily subscriptions for perfect attendance will be gone.

Well, it shouldn't be that bad. Anyway, I'm taking a break today!

------------

Chapter 609: When will it be possible...?

"..."

"Do you recognize this?" After thinking for a moment, Lu Qing took out the Princess's Crown from the storage cabinet in the cabin and showed it to Councilor Dis.

“This is…” A distant memory flooded back, and Councilor Dis, who was once a nobleman of the Vanhusdan, recognized the item in Lu Qing’s hand at a glance.

"This is Her Highness the Princess's crown?" Councilor Dis looked at Lu Qing with surprise, then asked excitedly, "Why is this crown in your hands? How is Her Highness the Princess now?"

"I am Princess Lu Qing," Lu Qing said after hearing Councilor Dis's words.

“Impossible. I have seen what Her Highness looks like with my own eyes, and fifty years have passed. How could Her Highness be so young?” Councilor Dis retorted without hesitation.

"I am Princess Lu Qing. My current appearance is just a disguise." Lu Qing shook her head and called Ling over.

"Ling, explain my situation to him. I'm going to change my clothes."

"Okay, Ling'er will tell you everything in detail." Ling swayed her body after hearing Lu Qing's words.

"There's no need to be too careful," Lu Qing said with a helpless smile.

Turning around and leaving the carriage, Lu Qing gently closed the door behind her, then took out the props she had stored in the locker in the small house.

After shedding her [Black Rose Vampire] form, her clothes suddenly became looser, and Lu Qing felt her field of vision suddenly drop, shaking her head with some regret.

After getting used to the form of the [Black Rose Vampire], I actually felt a little reluctant to switch back.

She slightly tiptoed, tilted her head back, and stretched out her palm to show how much shorter she was now compared to her [Black Rose Vampire] form.

At her current age, it's impossible for her body to develop again, but anything is possible in a dream game, right? Let alone a second development, a third development, a perverted development... cough cough, let's not talk about that.

"Ugh......"

With a barely perceptible sigh, Lu Qing took off the outfit Eileen had prepared for her and changed into her usual attire. As for the [festival costume], it was still too flashy in the Steel City, so she decided to skip it.

Putting on the outermost silver-gray evening breeze, Lu Qing moved around a bit, trying to regain that familiar feeling, before returning to the room where Councilor Dis was.

"This...it really is Princess." Councilor Dis had already learned what had happened from Ling, and because of her elven identity, he believed some of what she said.

After all, it was a legendary elf, one that ordinary people might never see in their entire lives. Coupled with numerous folk tales such as the Child of the Sacred Tree, the words spoken by the elf were quite credible to Dis.

"Her Highness is still alive... The sacred tree can still be saved..."

"Vanhusdan has not yet perished..."

Councilor Dis knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face. Fifty years had passed, from the withering and death of the sacred tree and the disintegration of the kingdom, to the establishment of the Steel Order and the construction of the Steel City.

Countless cycles of the sun and moon have passed, yet those living underground cannot even see the sun and moon. In fact, those born in the steel city have never known what the sun and moon look like since childhood.

At this moment, the old nobleman, who had once been loyal to Vanhustan, suddenly erupted with his long-suppressed emotions upon learning that the princess was not dead and that the sacred tree still had hope of healing.

After a while, it took Senator Dis a while to compose himself. He stood up from the ground, his eyes bright, as if he were no longer the walking corpse hiding underground, escaping reality.

"Regarding the location of the fire element..." Councilor Dis said softly, "None of the core members of the Steel Order actually know."

“But I can tell you the location of the founder of the Iron Order.”

.......

Councilor Dis told Lu Qing everything he knew, and then they left the train tunnel of Steel City and went to Councilor Dis's house.

Eileen was also brought along by Lu Qing, as Lu Qing was really worried about leaving Eileen alone on the train.

The Church of the Dead's infiltration into the Steel City is far greater than imagined. They have a presence in all sorts of forces, large and small. If the Steel Order hadn't been able to use the power of fire elements to detect people corrupted by the void, the Steel Order would have been infiltrated long ago.

As for why the Church of the Dead cannot send people who have not been corrupted by the Void to infiltrate the Iron Order...

Can someone who has not been corrupted by the void still join the Guiji Sect?

Furthermore, the Iron Order's defenses against the Silent Church are not limited to using fire elementals to detect void contamination.

In short, it is enough to know that the Church of Silence has infiltrated the Steel City very seriously. The commotion caused by Number Two earlier has attracted quite a few people.

Especially for those members of the Silent Church who were aware of the Silent Church's plans, they were currently scattering their people all over the streets to search for the missing Councilor Dis and Eileen, the owner of the Cuckoo Tavern.

It's only a matter of time before they find the tunnel; Lu Qing doesn't think those people will miss the space inside the tunnel.

Avoiding all visible figures along the way, Lu Qing arrived at Councilor Dis's building, only to find that it had been sealed off by the Steel Order.

“Those members of the Steel Order should be considered your subordinates, right? Shouldn’t we go find them?” Ling asked Councilor Dis with some confusion.

“Apart from the members I know, I don’t want to trust anyone from the Iron Order right now,” Councilor Dees said, shaking his head.

At times like these, being cautious is never wrong. Lu Qing, along with Councilor Dis and Eileen, used her superb skills to sneak past these people and enter Councilor Dis's house.

Quietly knocking out the members of the Steel Order, they entered a reading room under the guidance of Councilor Dis.

“Over here…” Councilor Dis said softly, then gently turned the candlestick hanging on the wall.

"I think this mechanism is a bit conspicuous," Lu Qing said, looking at the bookshelf that was moving gently under the mechanism's effect.

"It's alright, this is just a mechanism to open the door. Even if someone else gets in, it won't make a difference," Councilor Dis said, leading the way towards the passageway that opened the bookshelf.

“Buzzing........”

Shortly after they went inside, the bookshelf slowly closed under the action of a mechanism, making a slight sound.

Fire elemental light shone on both sides of the walls, so that those who entered would not suddenly be blinded and unable to see anything.

As she walked down the stairs, a slightly cramped space soon appeared before Lu Qing's eyes.

------------

Chapter 610: Divination from Fifty Years Ago

"This thing is..."

Lu Qing immediately noticed an object hanging on the wall that looked like a public telephone.

"This thing is called a telephone. It allows you to communicate with people over a very long distance," Councilor Dis explained to Lu Qing. "I usually use this to chat with the founder of the Steel Order. Please wait a moment."

As he spoke, Representative Dis gently picked up the phone and then entered numbers on the dial next to him.

008-0000001

"008 is the number on my phone. It can only work properly if I enter the correct number. As for the string of numbers that follows, that's the phone number of the founder of the Steel Order," Councilor Dis said to Lu Qing as he dialed the number.

"..." Although I really wanted to complain, after thinking about it carefully, since trains already exist in this world, it doesn't seem like such an unacceptable thing to have a telephone as well.

"Beep beep beep..." The phone rang with a familiar sound to Lu Qing.

"Hello, is this Representative Dis?" As the call connected, an aged voice came from the hole above the phone.

“It’s me,” Representative Dees said into the hole below the phone.

"........"

"It's so good to hear you're safe and sound. I heard something terrible happened to you after the ball," the old man on the other end of the phone said after a moment of silence.

"Speaking of which, I haven't heard any news of your return..."