Care Guide to Raising a Max Level Leaf in Apocalypse - 64
Crying
The area assigned for cleaning was quite extensive. Ji Jiu, after playing around with a broom for a while, lost interest and threw it aside.
They had chosen a place deep within a vast library, which was only a small part of this church. Even the usual resting place of the high priest was nowhere near.
Ji Jiu brought down a few books, and upon flipping through them, he found that they all contained the same content. Half of it was praising the Holy Lord, and the other half was about how the believers should regulate themselves.
He had already read these contents in advance to avoid any suspicions. The dark mist suddenly reappeared on his shoulder, and upon seeing it, he widened his mouth.
Dark Mist: “Burp.”
Si Yin Yuan: “…Don’t feed your ability strange things.”
Ji Jiu tilted his head and thought for a moment. Suddenly, a bright idea flashed in his mind: “Let me take you to the place where we ate the chinese violet that day!”
That place was where he witnessed people resembling the Blood Cult making a deal with the high priest.
Si Yin Yuan nodded in agreement. Before leaving the library, he used his Golden Flame to sweep through it, leaving every place it touched spotless.
Once Golden Flame, which had been treated as a cleaning tool, finished its work, it hesitated and wanted to cuddle up to Dark Mist. However, Dark Mist extended a misty tail and swept it away without mercy.
Si Yin Yuan pretended not to notice his ability acting up and retracted it with an open hand.
With the signs indicating they were there for cleaning, they found it easier to move deeper into the church.
The senior believers didn’t bother with their work, and the low-level believers, even if they saw them, were intimidated by their confident appearance and didn’t suspect them of being there to clean. As they went deeper, they encountered fewer people.
Because of recent external pressure on the church, the regulatory authorities had eased up quite a bit, and most of the personnel had been reassigned.
Ji Jiu had a poor sense of direction, but he had a strong memory for food. After a series of twists and turns, he managed to find the guest room.
Si Yin Yuan fell silent for a moment and asked, “How did you manage to sneak in here alone?”
Ji Jiu hesitated and mumbled. He had, of course, transformed into an inconspicuous little grass to sneak in.
Fortunately, Si Yin Yuan didn’t dwell on this. He reached out, used his Golden Flame to destroy the lock from the inside, and pushed the door open. The empty guest room was now in front of them.
Looking at the decor with a sanctimonious slogan, Si Yin Yuan sneered.
Indeed, in the past two years, the church had been siphoning off resources from the base.
Our compassionate High Priest, on the surface, said this was for believers to experience the hardships of the apocalypse, but behind the scenes, he was extravagant.
Si Yin Yuan used the little gadget developed by the research institute to take pictures of all the suspicious documents. After the apocalypse, most computers were unusable, and the method of recording information returned to paper, making it easier to leave evidence.
The high priest never expected that the safe he had spent so many points on would be no match for Si Yin Yuan. He easily destroyed it from the inside using Golden Flame and spit out its contents.
With a quick glance, it was mostly about some external expenses, some of which had inconspicuous irregularities, and funds that couldn’t be explained went somewhere else.
Apart from that, there wasn’t much.
He didn’t expect to find the most critical evidence on this trip. After securing these items, he was about to call Ji Jiu to leave.
Suddenly, a soft body pressed against him, and delicate, boneless hands covered his mouth.
Ji Jiu tiptoed and whispered, “Shh, someone’s coming.”
Quiet footsteps could be heard in the hallway outside. This place was already quite remote, and ordinarily, there would be no believers passing by.
Si Yin Yuan’s gaze turned cold as he grabbed Ji Jiu’s waist and immediately hid inside a spacious cabinet.
In the darkness, the two of them were extremely close, and Si Yin Yuan’s heart raced for a moment.
He hadn’t yet sorted out his feelings for Ji Jiu. Since the day Ji Jiu got angry because of the Luminous Lily, he realized he had an inappropriate reaction to Ji Jiu. Over these days, he had been restraining himself from making any overly intimate moves, and now, all of a sudden, he was on the verge of reacting again.
The little guy being held in his arms was not afraid to move around in the cabinet, displaying flexible movements and peering through the gap with one eye to see what was happening outside.
To everyone’s surprise, the person who entered was none other than Xiao Shu!
Xiai Shu looked left and right, fully aware that there was something fishy in the guest room with the door ajar. Nevertheless, he gritted his teeth and entered.
Once inside, he began searching through the room’s belongings. An ordinary person without special training would not be able to easily discern any tampering, but with his actions, everything in the room quickly became disorganized.
Xiao Shu earned his nickname due to his fondness for theft in the slums, and he possessed this “skill” that allowed him to locate this place and slip inside, which was not surprising. What was surprising was why he was doing this.
He wasn’t a believer, so was he risking his life just to steal from the church?
Ji Jiu focused on watching what was happening outside, his ears pricked up to catch any sounds, completely unaware of the darkening gaze behind him.
Si Yin Yuan reached out to cover the slender waist in front of him but hesitated to make a move, his intense emotions gradually concealed.
His heart once again beat as erratically as it did that day when the youth licked blood off him, and unfamiliar emotions washed over him. Si Yin Yuan restrained himself and withdrew his hand.
No…something was slipping out of control.
Ji Jiu hunched down, burying himself deeper in his owner’s embrace without realizing. He turned back and asked, “Do you want to save him?”
Footsteps could be heard again from outside, but this time, it was several people.
It was almost certain that they were church personnel, and once Xiao Shu was caught, there was no escape from death. As the words were spoken, the man regained his composure. He stretched out his hand and affirmed, “Yes.”
Several points of golden light leaked from his fingertips and floated in front of Xiao Shu, flickering in his view.
Xiao Shu was startled and, under the heightened tension, finally realized that something was amiss.
Without the panic expected of his age, he quickly determined that these golden light points posed no threat to him. He promptly pushed open the window from inside the room and, in a display of agility, jumped into another room, then swiftly ran away.
The wind blew through the window, scattering the documents on the table, turning the scene into chaos.
The approaching footsteps became frantic, and they finally noticed that the guest room’s door had been forcibly opened. They all rushed inside.
“What’s going on here!?”
The high priest, surrounded by a circle of believers, walked through the crowd with a livid expression, his stiff electronic voice unable to mask his astonishment and anger.
“It appears that someone broke in and escaped through the window over there,” a man with a large hood by his side approached to inspect.
Ji Jiu, inside the cabinet, blinked his eyes and looked at them with a bent gaze, silently mocking their incompetence.
The high priest examined the damaged safe, and his face darkened as he looked at the missing documents inside. “Go! Search for them! It must be the Guild’s people. They must still be nearby! Lock down the entire church!”
The high priest, who had always maintained a mysterious appearance, couldn’t control his temper under the continuous pressure from external public opinion. However, the circle of believers around him showed no signs of surprise, all nodding in unison, “Yes.”
These humans are a bit peculiar.
Ji Jiu wanted to continue observing, but the high priest turned around and left with most of the people.
Only the surveyors remained on the scene. When they left as well, Ji Jiu couldn’t wait any longer and opened the cabinet to jump out.
Si Yin Yuan kept his complex thoughts to himself and spoke rationally, “Let’s go back.”
The assembly time was approaching, and if they didn’t return soon, they might arouse suspicion. The high priest wanted to lock down the entire church to search for intruders, but they had infiltrated from the inside based on their identities. As long as they didn’t reveal anything, no one would suspect them.
When they returned to the main group, Xiao Shu was also among them, hiding his scars from bumping while climbing out of the window.
A senior believer strolled over, and when he saw him, everyone lined up.
“Let me check how well you’ve been handling your hygiene.” He turned and took the lead.
He took a detour just to be the first to inspect the area Ji Jiu and Si Yin Yuan were responsible for.
Wearing white gloves, he looked very critical. “Your name is Zheng Er, right? If I find even a speck of dust, you won’t be having dinner today.”
If he followed him and went hungry, he would probably understand how unreliable this man was.
The believer’s inner thoughts were eager to please, and he planned to bring him some delicious food later to easily win him over.
Si Yin Yuan nodded obediently.
Golden Flame immediately took away all the dirt, so there was no way he could find a mistake. After checking many places, including the top shelves of the bookcase, and not finding any dirt, the believer could only awkwardly twist his face and say, “It seems you’re quite respectful to God and haven’t been lazy.”
Si Yin Yuan raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.
This attitude frustrated him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The subsequent inspections didn’t have major issues except for the area under Xiai Shu’s responsibility, which was visibly dirty even to the naked eye.
One of his teammates in the group protested, “Let me explain, this guy said he had a stomach ache and needed to use the restroom right at the beginning of the cleaning. He left me alone to clean such a large area, and he hurriedly came back just before the assembly. He definitely slacked off.”
The believer, who had failed to find fault with Si Yin Yuan earlier, redirected his anger towards Xiao Shu. He pointed at him, scolded him harshly, and then insisted he couldn’t have dinner.
Xiao Shu had anticipated this scene when he left his work to search for something. He accepted it calmly.
Skipping one meal was something he had grown accustomed to.
The pent-up frustration finally found an outlet, and the senior believer scolded him mercilessly before leaving satisfied.
…
The church’s dinner consisted of plain congee and pickled vegetables, without a trace of oil, and there were portion restrictions, barely enough to fill an adult’s stomach.
Ji Jiu felt unfairly treated.
Si Yin Yuan felt sorry for him.
This was Ji Jiu’s worst meal ever since following him.
He secretly handed Ji Jiu a strawberry-flavored nutritional liquid and whispered, “I’ll take you to have something delicious once we’re out of here.”
Ji Jiu nodded obediently, placed the empty bowl aside, and said, “Let’s go.”
When they returned to their dormitory, it was already dark outside. To conserve energy, the church hall had turned off its lights after today’s baptisms. The bright and holy church during the day now appeared eerie and terrifying in the darkness. Even the wall reliefs seemed somewhat sinister.
In the empty corridor, the only sounds were their footsteps on the floor and… the sound of a woman crying coming from an unknown corner.