novelraw Chapter 847: He Has Reason and Humanity
Chapter 847: He Has Reason and Humanity
"Something happened."
Lu Li didn't intend to explain too much.
Eileen thoughtfully raised her chin.
"No wonder I haven't seen Anna... By the way, tell me what happened after you met Adolf, the overseer who just brought you here."
Lu Li briefly recounted their conversation on the way and the reason they had found the shelter.
"He made his choice, too?"
Eileen seemed a little pleased, tapping her knuckles on the table.
"And it's a very radical decision."
Tap, tap—
"That makes one more on our side."Lulu descended the wooden staircase and stood behind Eileen, just as he had twenty years ago when he pushed Baroness Joseph, dressed in a lavish floral gown, to a banquet.
The passage of time had taken nothing from them but time itself.
"Give me a push."
Lulu took hold of the wheelchair, wheeling Eileen around the desk. Everyone but Lu Li noticed that beneath the blanket covering her, the outline of her legs was missing.
The wheelchair stopped in front of Lu Li, and Eileen, extending her arms toward him, smiled.
"It's been over twenty years. Won't you hug an old friend?"
A sudden heat emanated from Ophelia.
The evil spirit radio in Lulu's palm hissed with static.
"Are you the head of the shelter now?"
Lu Li saw the shelter's insignia on Eileen's chest.
"Something like that. They still listen to me," Eileen said, tilting her head slightly. "Lulu, help me hold up my powerless arms until he agrees to hug me."
Unfortunately, the man standing before her was Lu Li, and Lulu did not help lift her arms either.
Eileen's gaze lingered for a moment on Ophelia, who was radiating warmth like a fireplace, before she lowered her arms.
"Seeing you always makes me think of the past..." she said wistfully. Life in the shelter was a torment, which made memories of the surface all the more precious.
She missed the food, the business, the annoyingly sycophantic smiles, the dancers... and the man she had met once again.
"And the strange people who were always around you... Tell me, what's happening outside?"
"I can."
Lu Li didn't refuse; this was why he had come.
"Call all the overseers to the warden's cabin..." Eileen cut her order short and asked Lu Li, "I remember you don't like crowds?"
Receiving a nod from Lu Li, she waved her hand.
"Never mind calling them. Let's make it a family dinner. Just tell them the outsiders are my friends from the surface, and not to disturb me."
Prepare the most lavish dinner the shelter has to offer.
"It's... morning now," Ophelia said, reining in her aura.
"Time is jumbled between the shelter and the surface."
Watching Lulu leave, Eileen casually turned her gaze back to Lu Li, thought for a moment, and asked, "Your method for staying young... can it help others?"
...
The dining room of the warden's cabin.
Candleholders illuminated a lavish, steaming dinner spread across a long table.
Besides the food, there was wine that had been aged for more than twenty years and grain spirits that were no less expensive.
Soon, Eileen and Lulu, having changed their clothes, entered the dining room. Seeing her, Katerina suddenly understood where her own hostility had come from.
Eileen wore a magnificent, dark purple noble's gown with gold embroidery. A deep blue sapphire pendant, larger than a wine cork, accentuated her pale chest. Her exquisite makeup made her look like a young noblewoman preparing for her coming-of-age ceremony, and the fragrance she exuded was far more pleasant than the cheap perfume Katerina smelled on tavern prostitutes.
Even Lulu, who pushed the wheelchair, had been forcibly spruced up, his hair trimmed to a girl's shoulder length.
Clearly, Eileen had her own intentions for this dinner.
"A pity. Something is missing."
Eileen leaned back languidly in her chair, gazing out the window.
The dark underground was like an eternal night.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Eileen Joseph, warden of the Allen Peninsula shelter, formerly the heiress of the Joseph family from the surface, a baroness. This is Lulu, my family."
When it was Lu Li's group's turn, after a brief silence, Katerina spoke first.
"Katerina, a hunter from the Wastelands, known as 'The Sting'."
"My name is Prusius, a member of Mister Lu Li's team!" exclaimed Prusius, perched on his chair.
"I am Mister Lu Li's fiancée," Ophelia stated hoarsely.
More importantly, she did so without a pause.
"My companion, a former employee of the Belfast library," Lu Li added calmly.
"Still have that same damn charm for ghosts?"
Eileen's red lips curled into a smirk.
Only the Merchant remained, who didn't introduce himself, but Eileen already knew him.
"Tell me what's happening outside." Eileen raised a trembling glass of wine, redder than her lips.
"From what point?"
"From when the shelter was sealed..." Eileen glanced at Lulu inquiringly.
"The fourth year."
"...It began. That was the year we completely lost contact with the outside world."
It was the era when the world transformed from a place of human glory into a haven for anomalies.
Lu Li hadn't witnessed those events, but upon his return, he had learned what had transpired during that time.
In Lu Li's calm, unembellished narrative, the situation outside was quickly laid bare.
"It seems it's not time to go out yet..." Eileen lowered her eyes, whispering softly.
"That's why I think you're better off staying hidden underground," Katerina, overhearing her mutter, reminded her. "It's more dangerous outside than you think."
"A fierce frost will snuff out the spark," were words Prusius had read in some book.
"Don't underestimate the shelter." Eileen wasn't angered by Katerina's audacity.
"We have enough power to resist anomalies. For example, the one you helped destroy didn't even warrant us sounding an alarm."
"But your methods are very crude," Lu Li recalled the scene of the shelter residents confronting the anomaly with torches and artifacts.
No investigation, no keeping their distance, like a group of peasants hunting a wild beast.
"After all, the last anomaly invasion was many years ago. Most of the residents born in the shelter have never even seen an anomaly," Eileen sighed helplessly.
"I'll tell you about the situation in the shelter... but don't tell anyone outside about this."
The purpose of every shelter was to preserve the spark of humanity.
According to the plans devised by the Exorcist Association, the shelters were to be opened after the tide receded, the clouds dispersed, and dawn arrived. If contact with the outside world was unexpectedly lost, the time of opening would be determined by the wardens and overseers.
All shelters were planned to be sealed for more than fifty years—the time the Exorcist Association estimated it would take for the anomalies to recede.
But in reality, most shelters could hardly last that long.
The psychological state of residents in a confined environment, the supply of tools, incursions by anomalies, the cultivation of food—each of these problems confronted the underground dwellers.
Especially after the Deep Sea Stone lost its effectiveness.
Just like the abandoned shelter Lu Li passed through on his way out of the underground: it had been sealed for less than twenty years but was forced to open due to an anomaly invasion, and its surviving residents became "Pureblood Humans," taken away as valuable commodities.