276: Chapter 271 Let the City Lords Open Their Eyes

It was a rare occasion for Avril to leave the palace today to wander the streets.

Since learning of Mr. Zhang Mu's death and choosing to take the risk of practicing secret arts, she had seldom left the palace.

Even on the occasional outing, it was for urgent matters, and she would hurry through the streets to reach her destination.

Perhaps she sensed that everything was about to come to an end.

As soon as dawn broke this morning, she changed into a set of commoner's clothing, pinned up her pure, ice-blue long hair, and wrapped it tightly along with her face in a gauze scarf.

Then, under Mora's surprised gaze, she instructed her that she was going to play on the streets of the Royal Capital.

After a bit of preparation, the two of them walked out of the palace gates.

Mora discovered that while her Princess Highness said she was going shopping, she actually had no intention of buying anything.

She simply walked slowly forward along the stone-paved path in front of the shops.

Her gaze was not on the goods in the shops, but on the air in front of her, as if she were merely feeling troubled and wanted to come out to clear her head.

As Avril's head maid, Mora felt it was necessary to dispel her master's worries.

“Your Highness, would you like to try some snacks from Mary's?”

“Do you want to go?” Avril continued walking, answering with her back to her.

Even though her master's gaze wasn't on her, Mora shook her head in denial. “Your Highness didn't eat before we left, I'm worried...”

Avril's footsteps paused, and she turned around; Mora's reaction was a bit slow, and she nearly collided with her.

Relying on the powerful physical control of a Knight Professional, Mora managed to brake successfully at the instant they were about to crash into each other.

“Uh, what's wrong, Your Highness?” She wasn't short, but facing the tall Avril at such close range, she could only look up to ask.

“Do you have something on your mind?” Avril placed the backs of her hands on her hips and crouched slightly until her gaze was level with hers. “You've been spacing out the whole way.”

She wanted to shake her head.

But before she could move, Avril's eyebrows, hidden behind the gauze scarf, twitched. “Not spacing out? Then you're worried about me being hungry?”

Hearing this, Mora finally realized—a Professional could go several days without food and be perfectly fine; what was a missed breakfast?

She only now realized with a start that she indeed seemed to have been in a daze for quite some time.

Avril sighed and straightened her back. “Are you still worried about City Lord Eji?”

“A little.”

“I went to look for him, but he wasn't at the hotel.”

“That's not what I meant...” Mora said hesitantly. “You were very agitated that day...”

Although Avril hadn't shared the specific details of her visit to the hotel upon her return, in Mora's view, nothing other than Mr. Zhang Mu could possibly cause the Princess to lose her composure.

However, Mr. Zhang Mu had indeed perished.

Mora didn't believe anyone could escape the Church's pursuit after using force within the city.

When she had mentioned to the Princess that City Lord Eji bore some resemblance to Mr. Zhang Mu, she only suspected the two might know each other.

But Avril's reaction made her feel that things weren't that simple.

After hesitating for a while, she thought that since the Princess didn't want to talk about it, she would set it aside for now.

Instead, she asked, “Then coming out today... did you think of Mr. Zhang Mu again?”

In mentioning this name, Mora wasn't overly cautious as if it were a taboo.

At first, she was a bit afraid of causing Avril sorrow, but as time passed, she realized her master was not fragile.

Avril gave a mysterious, low laugh. “Maybe.”

“What did you think about Mr. Zhang Mu?”

“Well... I was thinking about what he would say to me if we met again.”

“Senior, long time no see.”

“Eh?” Avril was somewhat surprised. “How did you guess?”

Mora suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Your Highness, you mutter it like that every single time.”

As she spoke, she put on a longing expression. “If Junior saw me again, I'm sure he would smile and say, Senior, hel—ouch!”

Avril pinched one of her ears, and Mora flailed her arms, crying out in pain, “I won't do it again, Your Highness! Mora won't do it again!”

It was just a joke; she didn't use much force, and when she thought it was enough, she let go.

Whether she was faking it or it really hurt, Mora rubbed her ear and said aggrievedly, “The risk of trying to make Your Highness happy is getting higher and higher.”

Just as she finished speaking, Avril had already turned and walked toward the intersection ahead. “Keep up.”

“Oh.”

“You... what... here?!”

As the two passed the front of an inn, they suddenly heard an angry shout from upstairs.

Separated by walls and at a distance, plus the fact that their attention wasn't on it, they didn't hear clearly what was said.

Avril frowned, feeling the voice sounded very much like Mr. Zhang Mu's, but then she gave a self-deprecating smile.

She must miss her Junior too much and misheard.

How could someone who had been dead for half a year appear here?

Her slowed pace picked up again, and she and Mora, who followed behind, gradually walked further away.

...

“Was that... Senior?”

After warning the Pope, Zhang Mu passed directly through the wall into the air outside the inn, intending to find a deserted corner to open a Portal, but out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a familiar figure turning into the street on the right.

He instinctively wanted to chase after her to confirm, but he immediately quelled the thought.

So what if it was?

Now was not the time to reveal his identity, not to mention he was very busy.

Zhang Mu wasted no more time, slipped into a nearby alley, summoned a Portal, and returned to Blue Star.

As soon as he emerged, he headed straight for the workshop located on Jiu Jin Mountain, refining the details of his plan in his mind.

Regarding the difficult problem of how to notify all the City Lords at once without alerting the two Archdukes, the solution he thought of was mobile phones.

As electronic devices that integrated a large number of functions in modern society, achieving the aforementioned conditions was simply too easy.

Afterward, they could continue to use the phones to communicate with each other, and others would be completely unaware.

Of course, because no signal base stations had been built on the Saul Continent, how to enable phones without internet to send messages naturally became a problem.

But it wasn't a big problem.

Although voice recording was much more cumbersome than real-time communication, given the limited conditions, he could only make do.

He would record what he wanted to say on the phones, then have Sauron deliver them one by one, and collect the phones with the City Lords' recorded voice messages the next day; this could similarly hide from the Archdukes' eyes.

After all, even if the two Archdukes inspected the phones inside and out, it would be impossible for them to find the magic crystals or paper notes commonly used to transmit intelligence in their experience.

There was also no need to worry about them clicking randomly on the screen and luckily playing a recording—the phones had lock screen passwords.

A six-digit password made of ten random numbers; if the two Archdukes could manage to press that out by luck, then Zhang Mu would admit defeat.

While thinking, he arrived at the factory building.

He went through the plan from start to finish, and after confirming there were no flaws, he took out his phone to contact the agent who had helped him buy the factory.

Although it would be easy to gather several hundred phones from Huaxia or Ying Country, he would still need to find an appropriate and reasonable excuse.

Too much trouble.

Besides, phones weren't sensitive items; it was more convenient to just spend money.

Not only did the agent have a wide scope of business, but he also understood the principle that speed was of the essence in business; if you were slow, competitors would steal your business.

Half an hour after receiving the call, he drove a truck over with a box of phones.

Zhang Mu paid the bill readily, then spent the afternoon setting up all the phones before getting up and stepping into the Portal.