The Great Worm Lich

Perhaps it was Zhang Lisheng’s promise that made Yaj saw the dawn in the midst of desperation, or perhaps every successful businessman excelled in camouflaging. After a night of sleep, she who had regained control of her emotions was dressed in a glittering crystal fairy-like white dress and had a bright smile on, completely opposite with the bitterness, struggle, and resolution of last night.

“A masked parade? That sounds very interesting.” Zhang Lisheng played with a black high-top hat in his hand and looked at the six-brimmed carriage surrounded by green vines under the steps and asked, “What is this role that I’m playing?”

“Dr. Thunderbolt Dupante, in Kattaman’s legend, he can draw lightning and turn the body of a dead patient into a diamond so he can also become the richest jeweler in the entire city state, other than being a doctor.” Yaj replied with a smile.

“What a bizarre legend.” Zhang Lisheng curled his mouth and walked down the steps, ignoring the woman’s introduction to each of the characters played by the guests, who seemed to be interested, behind him and entered the carriage.

After closing the door, the young man opened his mouth and exhaled. At once, he could see the faint white mist appearing in the cold air slowly condensing into a water mirror that was as thin as cicada’s wing in the air.

Tall ship sculptures, freshly farmed fields, a vast wilderness in the suburbs, cities that were wild with joy… The images in the water mirror constantly changed from blurred to clear. Soon, only a vast endless ocean could be seen.

By the time the image of a bird’s-eye view perspective of the raging ocean was pulled in from far to near, and armed troops made of hundreds of steel giant ships, more than ten black-shell biological warships that were slightly small in size floating in the sea, and countless of short but strong and ferocious native warriors equipped with their fierce war partners entered Zhang Lisheng’s vision.

“Now, all is ready, except for one thing. I hope that there will be a brilliant victory at night to mark the end of the old year…” Looking at the Wizard Li’s expeditionary army that was ready to set out to ignite the fire of battle at midnight, the young man muttered. The instant his words left his mouth, they heard the door of the carriage being pushed open so he reached out a hand to shatter the water mirror and made it disappear into the air.

“Our carriage is imitating the fruit of the Skythrough Vine.” When the door of the carriage was opened, Yaj, Roman, and five Fran people entered and the female merchant still continued to explain continuously, “The carriage is secretly built for eight months.

Every year, during the New Year’s Mask Parade, the people will choose the most ingenious two carriages to become the ride for the impersonators of Her Highness Sea Goddess Tiinaros and her most beloved connoisseur, His Highness Emperor of the Sea Bopan, to ring the Clock of the Sea God so every big trading companies will rack their brains to compare with each other.”

As she spoke, the carriage slowly drove and gradually accelerated under the pull of six white pure-breed beasts. Very soon, they left the Golden Flower Terrier Manor and began to course on the spacious avenue of the suburbs. However, at this time, the carriages of other rich merchant’s manors had also driven out so the road gradually became congested. By the time they reach the city gates, the traffic becomes a slow creep.

“Yaj, that carriage looks exactly like white clouds in the sky, it can even swing by itself! Oh look, the sea beast carriage here also looks like a real living one!” In the lowly moving carriage, as though being infected by the atmosphere of joy around, Seliya excitedly looked left and right through the window. “Oh, I first thought that our carriage is already unique enough but it looks like their carriages look better. How disheartening…”

“Your Highness Seliya, let me tell you a little secret. The drawing on the carriage we’re sitting on right now is hidden with magical formation and crystal. It can fly and even release a phantom mage of huge vine stalks.” When Roman saw how the Fran Princess started to talk in excitement, he suddenly chimed in with a smile. “This is a clever design that I personally came up with. The Golden Velvet Flower carriage will definitely be chosen as the ride for the Sea God.”

“Magical formation? Decorating a carriage with this strategic power?” Contrary to Roman’s expectation of a pleasantly surprised look, Seliya had a baffled look instead. “This is too crazy! It’s inconceivable that the advanced spellcaster in Kattaman is actually willing to do this kind of thing.”

“Your Royal Princess, haven’t you heard of this saying before, ‘there’s nothing that can’t be bought with gold coins in Kattaman.’ As long as you can afford the price, there’s nothing remarkable at all.” Roman no longer had the dejected spirit of yesterday but instead, he smiled at Seliya in high spirit before turning his attention to Yaj. “Dear sister, can you give me the magic wand to control the magical formation to me? Let us fly into the city.”

“Roman, has your brain rusted? We’ve just experienced a storm that almost causes us to be forced homeless by debts. How can you still keep the crystal and magical formation on the carriage and not sell it off?” As always, the female merchant satirized her brother and caused colors to rose on his cheeks.

By the time the carriage entered the Sea Haines City, this smug-looking good-for-nothing was too ashamed to stay in the carriage so he pretended to have seen his friend and hastily pushed open the door to blend in with the crowds of people singing and dancing clustering around the various-shaped carriages.

After Roman left, Norwin also seemed to have been attracted by the carnival crowd and the endless food on the streets. He laughed and bid goodbye before leaving the carriage, along with the two Fran girls next to Seliya.

Soon, only four passengers were left in the carriage. The atmosphere became inexplicably much more subtle but it was fortunate that the Princess of Fran kept asking questions, making the atmosphere less awkward.

“Yaj, the entire city is filled with music. Could it be that there’s a band hidden in every house on the street?”

“There are not so many musicians in Sea Haines City, Your Royal Highness. The music comes from the countess of the large music box. Can’t you tell that these music is actually playing on loop?”

The Princess of Fran carefully listened and not long after, she replied excitedly, “The music is really playing on loop. The music box that I’ve seen before can only make a few sounds but the music box in Sea Haines City can actually play an entire song. This is incredible!”

“It’s all thanks to the alchemist, Seliya. The most common spellcaster in Kattaman City State is an alchemist, for it’s only here that they can buy the most complete alchemy materials and turn their ideas into reality.” The female merchant said proudly.

“Yaj, your motherland is a great country.” The Prince of Fran next to them complimented in a timely manner. Then, Seliya’s sigh of emotions filled the carriage. “There is food everywhere on the streets, so much that it can basically feed all of the poor people on the whole Green Leaf Mainland! The Sea Haines City is really rich. In Fran, even a decent freeman can’t enjoy such a meal in the New Year, let alone a servant or a serf. Sir Lisheng, how nice it would be if the river flowing with gold sand that you mentioned yesterday really existed. In that case, I could borrow a lot of money from you and let the people of Fran also live a prosperous life.”

The Princess of Fran’s words sounded childish and innocent, but her brother and the female merchant immediately had a change of expression. Zhang Lisheng could sense the subtle change in the atmosphere so he was secretly amused by how these mainlanders still had the desire to try to get their hands on his gold despite going to have a big disaster landing on them soon. However, he merely smiled noncommittally to them.

When Seliya saw that he did not make any reply, she flashed an angelic smile as though trying to say more words for the poor people in Fran but Yaj beat her to it and asked first, “Is everybody hungry? We have jams, breads, and black tea in the carriage. Or you guys can also go down to eat some street food as well if you want. Since the carriage is going so slow, you can come back at any time. Sir Lisheng, are you interested in the never-changing Sea Haines City’s New Year’s meal of smoked meat and fresh vegetables?”

“I’m willing to give it a try.” The young man nodded with interest at the implied invitation of the female merchant. Just like that, the two got out of the carriage.

After bypassing just one layer of the compartment of the carriage, the warm cheers and singing on the streets became deafening to the ears.

In the middle of the spacious stone road, people would run in and out of the thousands of various kinds of gorgeous carriages making up a queue of ‘long snake’ so Zhang Lisheng and Yaj did not attract too much attention from the revelers. However, there were still men whose eyes lit up when they saw the female merchant’s beauty and rivaled for a top spot to take out dry petals from their pockets to sprinkle on her.

This seemed to be a tradition of Sea Haines City’s celebration of the New Year’s Parade. The more beautiful a girl was among the crowds, the more petals could be seen stuck on her body.

Walking through the crowds in the midst of flower rain slowly being surrounded by everywhere, Zhang Lisheng gradually became infected with the atmosphere of the city. At once, he became relaxed and would sometimes squeeze to the side of the street to drink fine wine and juice and chow down on food. From time to time, he would sing and dance, cheer and shout, like the ordinary young mainlanders beside him. He would follow the parade to pass through blocks of streets with interest and when the sky gradually turned dark and the entire Sea Haines City was lit up with countless torches, he finally reached the magnificent central square.

This was a magnificent circular square in the middle of the square city. The ground was covered with thick rough stone, which was about three steps higher than the surrounding flat land. Its area was so large that one could not see the other edge of the square at all.

There were hundreds of beautiful white stone statues on the edge of the square, which were mainly historical figures, but most of the large sculpture group was mostly ship and sea.

At the New Year’s eve, under the illumination of a magical fire amazingly suspended in midair that was about several times the height of a human from the ground, the statues appeared to be vivid and life-like. However, when a person first stepped into this spectacular and incredible square, he would never notice the statues around him but would have his gaze locked in the shining hall that seemed to be carved out of gold in the middle.

“Sir Lisheng, we’ve reached the end of the parade tonight.” Following behind Zhang Lisheng from afternoon until night time but not saying a word at all, Yaj finally opened her mouth after they boarded the square steps as she pointed at the main hall that had a golden wheat ear that seemed to be left behind by gods. “That is the symbol of Sea Haines City, the Furoh Hall.”