It seems that the villain is targeting me.

After thinking for a moment, Banur waved to his eldest son helplessly: "Eric, come here and greet the adults with me."

Then he said to his daughter, "Gwen, go with the guardsman and tell Prime Minister Butcher that His Majesty is very drunk today and probably can't hold a meeting. Please come back tomorrow."

Gwyneth's body stiffened for a moment, but soon returned to normal. She stood up and obeyed her father's orders.

Lucas, the youngest son who did not receive any orders due to his young age, sat upright in his chair and secretly glanced at the uneasy Gwyneth.

His eyes rolled around and he suddenly jumped off the chair.

"Father," cried Lucas, "I will go with my sister."

Chapter 60: The hand that wants to touch but pulls back

Grand Duke Banur agreed to his youngest son's request, and the brother and sister, led by their personal guards, rushed to where the Prime Minister of the Empire was.

Along the way, the further Gwyneth walked, the more familiar the scenery seemed to her.

Gwen seemed to have seen this ingeniously designed corridor, the marble railings, and the faintly visible white stone griffin statue in the distance with a spring gushing from its mouth in some setting.

She followed the guard for a while before she suddenly remembered: this was the corridor she and Butcher had walked along that night.

Gwyneth rubbed her palms subconsciously.

Gwen had almost forgotten what it felt like to hold Xiaoniao's hand.

But the familiar scenery in front of her made her recall the past. The scene when she first saw it a few months ago came to her mind without her reason.

The warm touch seemed to still linger on her hand, and the slightly higher body temperature of the half-human left an unignorable burning sensation on her fingertips.

Gwyneth suddenly had an inexplicable feeling, similar to homesickness - even though she had been separated from Xiao Niao for less than half a day, and even though she and Xiao Niao had greeted each other good morning the day before.

This feeling reached its peak when Gwen saw the Prime Minister of the Empire standing not far away and talking to several ministers.

I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but Xiao Niao changed her clothes after returning home, and now she was wearing the cloak that she had once handed to Gwyneth.

Fortunately, after such a long journey, the girl has sorted out her mood.

"Your Majesty Prime Minister."

Gwyneth deliberately kept her tone flat, as if she was afraid that others would hear something from her words.

She even felt tormented and quickly poured out everything she needed to say:

"... Prime Minister, His Majesty is drunk and may not be able to make it today."

Xiao Niao recognized Gwen's voice. She interrupted her conversation with the ministers and turned to look in the direction of Gwyneth.

The girl with a calm and peaceful expression quietly fixed her gaze on the bird, as if nothing had changed from before.

There was nothing out of the ordinary, everything was in accordance with etiquette.

Xiao Niao frowned slightly: "Lao Ye... His Majesty Lawrence is drunk?"

"Yes," Gwyneth lowered her eyelashes and stared at the ground, "His Majesty is very drunk and probably won't wake up until tomorrow."

Xiao Niao cursed in his heart.

She glanced at Gwen helplessly, then looked at the ministers around her, knowing that her trip would be in vain.

Xiao Niao was well aware of Lao Yezhu's alcoholism: although it was a bit sudden that the emperor drank hemp at the banquet, it was not too surprising to her.

The little bird knew that no one is perfect, and everyone has weaknesses: just like the Duke of Tudor was too upright, and the Knight of Red Moon knew nothing about the ways of the world - everyone has weaknesses.

It is the interaction of strengths and weaknesses that makes people complicated: there is no pure good or pure evil, only complex individuals.

Even a bad person like Charles actually has some good points: if you are of the same class and have the same interests as him, then Prince Charles will still be very kind to you.

The eldest prince is quite willing to spend money on his friends, and the treatment of his knights is among the best in the entire capital.

——Of course, Charles’ reputation among the Knights Templar has now plummeted to the level of the Mariana Trench.

Xiao Niao knew that Lawrence had many bad habits, but from the perspective of evaluating a ruler, he was qualified and could even be called a wise ruler.

To be honest, it is a blessing for Xiaoniao to meet a boss like Lao Yezhu in these troubled times.

Thinking of this, Xiao Niao stopped complaining and just asked Gwen, "What is Grand Duke Banur like now?"

"My father is entertaining the ministers who have come to discuss matters," Gwen answered her. "He is busy, so he asked me to come and tell you.

One sound."

"I see. Thank you for your hard work, Your Highness." Xiao Niao lowered his gaze slightly. "Ah, so your brother is here too—it's been a long time since we last met, Master Lucas. I hope everything is going well for you in the capital."

Lucas thought to himself: Lord Butcher, could you please not be so obvious about shifting your gaze? It's really discouraging.

The youngest son of the Tudor family pursed his lips and said, "Yes, sir, I am living quite well in the capital."

"Time spent with family should indeed be cherished," Xiao Niao said with a small smile on his face. "...In that case, I won't bother you any more. Please allow me to leave first."

There was actually no other meaning behind Xiaoniao's words. He was just looking for an excuse to run away.

But Gwyneth felt heartbroken after hearing this.

Butcher's family... should all be gone, right?

Gwyneth thought blankly: I have never heard Butcher mention his relatives.

Were they abandoned by their parents? Or were they lost in the chaos of war and never found again?

At a certain moment, she suddenly wanted to touch the departing figure. She wanted to run up and catch the little bird - she even absurdly hoped that it could become smaller and smaller, preferably so that she could hide it in the palm of her hand and no one could see it.

But just as Gwyneth raised her arm a little, she pulled it back again.

Gwen's heart moved, and she spoke:

"Butcher..."

"Lord Butcher," Gwyneth calmed herself down, "His Majesty said that a grand celebration banquet will be held at the end of this month, and all the nobles in the capital will be in attendance. You..."

Will you come when the time comes?

Xiao Niao was stunned for a moment, but soon his signature smile returned to his face. "This is a very important occasion, and it's also a celebration banquet. I will naturally attend."

As if thinking this was too serious, Xiao Niao added a witty remark: "—I will look forward to seeing you in your formal attire, Your Highness."

Gwyneth nodded at her with a stern face, called her brother and turned to leave.

Probably just as she turned around, within less than one or two seconds, an invisible ripple quickly released towards the surroundings with Xiaoniao as the center.

This electromagnetic wave is emitted by the system.

While Xiao Niao was communicating with the ministers, and just now talking to Tudor and his sister, the system had been idly spinning in Xiao Niao's head.

The system didn't need to worry about these things, Xiaoniao could handle them on its own, so it just sat there for a while, feeling bored.

Then just as Gwen was about to leave, the system, which had been idle for a long time, suddenly had an idea and prepared to do a routine check.

It then released an invisible exploration wave: this thing can lock the location of the Son of Fortune and roughly confirm the other party's current condition.

This is a routine detection that the system has done countless times, but today's routine task had a small mistake: the detection wave that originally spread out in a circular shape was actually concentrated in one direction in the next second.

——That was the direction Gwyneth left.

Hmm? The system became slightly alert.

It sensed something was wrong... There seemed to be a faint sign of the flow of luck in Gwyneth.

Ever since it was confirmed that the eldest prince was the son of destiny, the system would routinely release detection waves at regular intervals to confirm the status of that unlucky thing.

The main basis of this detection method is the concentration of luck - the system does not need to keep an eye on Charles, it only needs to let the perception module explore in the direction of the strongest luck.

The son of fortune in each small world will guide the flow of fortune like a whirlpool.

They are favored by the will of the world and will continuously absorb the scattered luck around them as they grow.

These fortunes can help people turn misfortune into fortune and encounter many adventures. People with great fortunes can always find a glimmer of hope even at the moment of death.

This is why such people are called protagonists, because no matter what their personalities and personalities are, they are favored by the world - anyone who goes against them is going against fate.

But just now, when the system was investigating, it unexpectedly discovered that Gwyneth, who was standing opposite, was also surrounded by a faint trace of luck!

Because they were too close, the not-so-intelligent detection wave made a mistake and mistook Gwyneth for the Son of Destiny.

Although it was only a matter of a split second—the next second the detection wave passed over Gwen and went to find the Crown Prince—this erroneous feedback allowed the system to clearly sense the existence of that thin wisp of luck.

What's going on? What the hell is going on?!

The system scanned Gwyneth with uncertainty, repeatedly confirming that there was no major problem with its analysis module - if even such a basic function had problems, then what was the point of it doing the mission!

But the fact is that there is nothing wrong with the system's analysis module: Gwyneth Tudor is indeed surrounded by a wisp of aura as ethereal as green smoke, which seems to be there and not there, as if it will dissipate at any time.

This trace of luck is hidden very obscurely. If the system does not scan it deliberately, it will definitely not be able to detect it.

But no matter how hidden it is, this little bit of luck seems to be stuck to Gwyneth, and it stubbornly surrounds her.

Never wanted to leave.

The system's heart immediately skipped a beat.

The system is not completely ignorant of the phenomenon before it. The system knows that this situation has occurred in some small worlds.

This is not a mission world that the system is responsible for, but basically all systems within the organization know about it.

——Because an extremely rare, low-probability event occurred in that world: the replacement of the Son of Fortune.

The cause of this incident was that the time traveler who was carrying out the mission snatched away a large number of opportunities that originally belonged to the protagonist. This behavior drastically changed the original world line, causing the fortune of that world to begin to tilt towards the time traveler.

The final outcome of the time traveler is self-evident. After becoming the new son of destiny in that world, he successfully gained the full attention of the world's will - but then the world's will discovered that he was a stowaway, and he was severely punished by heaven.

According to the system's database, this kind of thing has happened four times in total, three of which were when time travelers stole the luck of the original son of luck.

Without exception, their end was a violent death.

The only time the traveler was not involved in the replacement of the Son of Fortune, it actually led to the destruction of that small world in the end:

As the two people compete for luck, the already distorted plot points become even more distorted, turning an event that could still be resolved by the tasker into a disaster that completely destroys civilization.

The final result was that the system mission failed, and the traverser who was carrying out the mission also died.

[…I see.] The system disconnected from Xiao Niao and muttered to itself, [This is what the master controller said…the worst case scenario.]

[There has never been a case where a task was successfully completed under such circumstances.]

[The struggle for luck will cause the originally controllable distortion nodes to become out of control, resulting in unexpected situations that cannot be detected.]

【By then, the mission will have failed...】

and then?

The system's analysis module froze for a moment.

But in fact, there is no need to conduct simulation analysis, the conclusion is very obvious:

If the mission fails, the bird's wish will not be fulfilled.

If her wish cannot be fulfilled, she will die in this world in a few years.

--------

-

On the other side, Gwyneth was walking in a depressed mood on the way back, and her mood was visibly low.

The reason why Gwen mentioned the celebration party was because she suddenly thought of something: after this celebration party, it seemed that she and Butcher would have little contact anymore.

The war was over. No matter what arrangements her father made for her next, it would be difficult for her to find a reason to go to the Prime Minister's Office to disturb Xiaoniao.

The other party has important things to do every day, and according to etiquette, he is a "stranger male" with no blood relationship.

She is an unmarried girl with no serious job, so it is not appropriate for her to go to other people's homes all day long.

Thinking of this, Gwyneth suddenly became even more frustrated, and a series of thoughts flashed through her mind: these were all very easy to guess, so I won’t go into details here.

Lucas, who was standing next to him, looked up and secretly observed his sister's wonderful and unpredictable expression, then suddenly spoke.

Gwyneth was originally seriously struggling with her troubles, completely immersed in her own world and didn't notice the existence of her younger brother at all.

But after hearing Lucas's childish voice, Gwen was so scared that she almost jumped up.

Lucas glanced at her and lowered his voice: "Sister, do you have any feelings for that person? When you were talking just now, your eyes looked wrong."

Gwyneth exploded on the spot and retorted to her brother without thinking: "Don't talk nonsense! How could I possibly have any improper thoughts about the Prime Minister? Don't make random guesses. I just respect him!"

Lucas rubbed his smooth chin slyly and asked curiously, "Huh? Did I just tell you who that person was?"

Gwyneth: “…”

Well, how should I put it?