Chapter 105.2 – Observation Tower
The king asked Alicia to stay in Adesi to keep her away from the front line and away from rodents.
No one expected the moles to come.
The moles appeared quietly a long time ago. Nobody paid attention to them at the time. They were underground, hunting and killing an unknown number of rodent creatures, and brought their “breeding frenzy” to the extreme.
This was a tsunami-like attack.
The princess was awakened by their noise in her sleep, it was too late. The overwhelming moles broke through the line of defense and rushed to Adesi. No one had ever dealt with them before. Even though Adesi was heavily fortified, not even a mosquito could fly in on usually, they were still losing ground under the onslaught.
The city couldn’t hold it anymore.
The king tried his best to keep her in the safest place. And this little fortress, the secret paradise of the end of the world, eventually became a bird cage that bound her.
In the chaos, the princess hurriedly ran to the bottom of the secret town under the protection of the guards. There was an exclusive train for her, leading to other cities.
There were explosions and gunshots all the way, the “rustling” sound of moles drilling into the ground, the sound of them gnawing on flesh, and the roars and wailings of the soldiers were mixed. The gorgeous jewelry, pearls and diamonds, were scattered all over the place, the beautiful skirt was stained with blood and mud, and her naked feet were cut by the gravel. She seemed to be in hell.
At the bottom, there was a blue artificial dome, the dazzling simulated sunlight and the sea of pink and purple flowers.
The moles caught up with them.
The sea of flowers became the burial place of the guards – many years later, when Shi Yuan and Lu Tinghan came here, they only saw the layers of bones under the flowers.
Alicia ran desperately.
She ran faster than the wind, the petals were thrown in the air by her skirt, and behind her were thousands of dark moles. The simulated sunlight made the moles hesitate, and she boarded the train under the desperate protection of her own guards while it headed for the neighboring city of Yalie.
She failed to arrive safely.
There were more than one group of moles, and they also attacked Yalie City at the same time. On the outskirts of Yalie City, the train tracks were encroached upon, and countless moles crowded into the underground tunnel and were hit by the front of the car into meat mud. Soon, new moles rushed up to stop this human steel monster…
The entire tunnel was full of flesh and blood, tightly blocked, the front and bottom of the car were covered with moles, the speed slowed down, and the track in front was gnawed by moles. There was a section missing, and finally, accompanied by a loud noise, the train turned over.
Alicia didn’t remember what happened afterwards.
She fainted when the train rolled over, and in the muddle, she heard the scream of moles and the sound of gunshots.
She seemed to have been bitten by a mole, and her whole body hurt like it was on fire. The skin was itchy like… countless hairs were growing out.
‘What’s going on?’ Alicia thought, ‘Am I going to die?’
There was darkness in front of her eyes and a thick, hot liquid beneath her that seemed to be her blood. She couldn’t see anything clearly, and called out vaguely in a quiet voice: “…father.”
“…there is still someone here!”
“Is there still breathing?!”
“Oh my god, what is this, is this, is this still a person? She must be hopeless, let me give her a good end!”
“Never mind that. Try it first. Bring the fusion! Morrison, you continue to lead the search and rescue the princess! Go!”
‘What princess?’ Alicia’s thinking is very slow, ‘Am I not a princess? Why didn’t they recognize me?’
The cold liquid was injected into her blood vessels, which hurt very much.
She fainted completely.
The princess had a long dream.
In her dream, she was still in Elton, the castle was magnificent, and the lion flag was flying on the Sunrise Square. She stood side by side with her father on the high platform, either watching a thunderstorm approaching, black clouds filling the sky, or watching a vigorous sunrise and sunset. Her diamonds glittered, her jewelry was colorful and bright, the pearls of the North Sea, the jade on the border of the country, the opals and agate in the dense forests of the south, and the beautiful skirts that could be worn endlessly. It was a life full of gold and extreme luxury.
She didn’t know how long she had passed out.
It seemed that someone was feeding her water and liquid food little by little, and someone else had given her a nutritional injection.
Someone was talking beside her, faintly, she couldn’t hear it clearly, as if a group of demons were whispering to her ears. She tried hard to open her eyes, but her eyelids were too heavy and her dreams were too real for her to wake up.
A long, long time later, Alicia woke up in the early morning.
She opened her eyes with difficulty and was stunned in the dark for a while. Someone approached, stretched out his hand to probe her nose. Seeing her opened eyes, he yelled in fright: “Are you awake?!”
Alicia: “……”
“You’re awake!” The man leaned over and said incredulously, “You’re really awake?! Can you hear me?”
Alicia nodded lightly. The man ran away, shouting as he walked: “She’s awake! Di Wen is awake!”
Ten minutes later, a man and a woman stood in front of her bed. They should be husband and wife. They had black fur on their bodies, and their backs were hunched like monsters – if the princess still had the strength, then she would have definitely screamed out.
But she was still very weak and couldn’t react, she just said faintly: “Elton…Elton, I, I’m going…”
“Elton?” The couple glanced at each other, “Is your home there?”
The man said, “Don’t miss Elton. Mole people are being hunted everywhere now, and we can’t get close.” He cursed in a low voice, “What a tyrant! The entire royal family should die!”
Alicia: “…what mole people?” Not clear-headed, she still subconsciously retorted, “How dare you call him a tyrant…He is obviously…”
“Oh, you just woke up, you don’t know anything.” The man interrupted her, “You don’t even know how many people he ordered to be killed!”
“William!” The woman whispered, “She just woke up, don’t talk about this!”
William shut up bitterly, and asked Alicia again: “How are you feeling? We thought you would never wake up.”
“…my head hurts,” the princess said, “How long has it been?”
William told her: “You have been in a coma for about 7 months.”
“…” Alicia opened her eyes wide, “Seven months?!”
“That’s right,” the woman said slowly, “Maybe they injected the fusion agent too late when they found you, you almost became a monster completely. Fortunately, you woke up.” She comforted, “It’s okay, you are safe here.”
The princess came to her senses a little.
The surroundings were dilapidated, and she didn’t know where she was. She was very smart, and even in her confused mind, she could hear that these two were very hostile to the royal family.
In normal times, she would have scolded them for their disrespect, but now was not the time, she couldn’t reveal her identity to such people, and tentatively asked, “…where’s the princess? How is the princess?”
She thought, fortunately, they didn’t recognize her.
She thought, what happened in these seven months? Her father must still be looking for her, and after she returned to the royal capital, everything would be back on track.
The couple glanced at each other again.
William said, “You mean Alicia von Cavendish? She is dead! She died a long time ago!” He sneered, “The tyrant’s daughter…”
The woman added: “The king had a funeral for her, a very grand funeral, and the whole country mourned her.”
Alicia was stunned for a while.
She felt something was wrong but she couldn’t tell what it was. She weakly stood up and scanned the room.
There was a faint light outside the house, and she saw a small mirror.
In the mirror was a terrifying, deformed face.
…
Di Wen said: “At that time, I was screaming non-stop, smashing things and throwing things everywhere, and others couldn’t hold me down at all.”
“And then?” Shi Yuan asked.
Di Wen: “Then, they told me that some people infected by moles will become so-called ‘mole people’ after injecting fusion agents. Most mole people behave strangely, and there are very few people like William and I who can maintain their sanity.” She paused, “and I am the first mole man. No one recognized me. When I was in a coma, they all called me ‘Di Wen’.”
Di Wen means “ugly beast” in slang.
She said again: “It took me some effort to accept my new image.”
She said this lightly, as if it was not worth mentioning.
But Shi Yuan understood that for someone like the princess, it was undoubtedly torture.
“Click—”
All the signal lights of the observation tower were on, and the door slowly opened.
The three of them got up and took the elevator to the 52nd floor. The elevator they had to transfer to was broken, so they had to climb up for a while.
Di Wen talked as she walked, speaking very slowly: “It’s all old things, and it’s boring to mention more. Let me make the long story short! It was a team of volunteers who rescued me from the train. I was infected. They didn’t recognize me at all, and they were sure that I would die. They only let the locals take care of me – that is, William and his wife. Only they were willing to take care of me, and believed I would wake up again.”
Lu Tinghan said, “This is very inappropriate, they didn’t even check your identity.”
Di Wen smiled bitterly: “After all, it was not a regular army. At that time, Yalie City’s regular army was almost annihilated. In order to save me, they ventured to search and rescue the train. I wore the most ordinary nightdress, and they couldn’t recognize me by my clothes, so they probably thought I was a maid and couldn’t be bothered to check. After that, they probably all died, and no one knew about it anymore.”
She sighed: “Later, there were more and more mole people, Mr. and Mrs. William were also infected. My father ordered the mole people to be killed. They took me and hid underground with the other mole people.”
She continued: “After the fall of Yalie City, the army withdrew, and there were really only mole people left there. I lived with them for a long time, and I never revealed my identity. I just waited for the day when I could contact the army and return to Elton.”
Lu Tinghan said, “They all hated the king.”
“Yes,” Di Wen said, “Many mole people died at gunpoint. They wished that they would never see the army again in their lives, only I tried my best to contact the army and the outside world. I thought I could definitely go back, and one day, I would definitely return to my hometown.”
Even if her body was deformed and her face was disfigured, she still wanted to go home.
The stairs were very long, and Di Wen couldn’t help but gasp as she walked, but she forced herself to talk like an obsessive-compulsive disorder, like tearing open a bloody wound: “There were monsters out there, and there was no way I could get out. It wasn’t until the third year that we met a convoy.”
