It doesn't matter what the lord is.

Apart from Irene, Bai Huang's realm was the lowest and her physical strength was the first to run out. Alayya supported her and continued on her way. On the way, Lid saw that Bai Huang's ankle was completely red and swollen, but she did not ask for a rest, relying entirely on her willpower to hold on. Walking on various dangerous cliffs for a whole day, even people with higher realms would find it difficult to bear, but Bai Huang managed to hold on through this journey.

When he was almost at the top of the mountain, Reed indeed sensed the familiar breath again.

Linglan was sitting on a rock at the top of the mountain, she was the only one there. She was looking up at the sky, not knowing what she was thinking. When Lid and his group came out of the forest, she cast a calm look over here, her eyes first fell on Lid, then moved to Irene on Lid's back.

Lid looked around and spoke first:

"Where's Bai Ye?"

Lily of the Valley did not answer, but just looked at Irene quietly.

Lidd continued:

"I brought back the person you wanted. Now we should be able to sit down and have a good chat."

Lily of the Valley still didn't answer.

She stood there like a precision machine, not saying a word, only her eyes were still staring at Irene without blinking.

Lid narrowed his eyes, as if he realized something. Before he could find a way to confirm it, the little ghost in his body had already conveyed the message to Lid's mind:

"This person seems to have some kind of powerful restriction. It doesn't seem like she doesn't want to talk about it, but it seems like... she can't talk about it."

Lid took a deep breath and said to Bai Huang, He Ji and Alaiya:

"Wait for me here for a moment."

Lid carried Irene on his back and walked all the way to Linglan's side. Then he put the petite Irene down on his back, gently touched Irene's head, and asked:

"Can you still sing?"

Erin nodded.

Lid smiled and said:

"Pick the song you can sing best and sing it. Don't worry about what happens, just finish it."

Irene nodded nervously and took out her three-stringed harp. The moment the ethereal singing sounded, the little ghost in Reed's body hummed in pain. Reed asked her how she was doing through his mind, and the little ghost silently said, "Don't worry about me for now, I'm afraid her affairs involve too many things," and then stopped answering.

Reed turned his attention back to Lily of the Valley. She stood there quietly, without any reaction at first, but as the singing became louder, the expression on her face slowly began to distort.

She then began scratching her cheeks with her fingers, appearing to be in great pain.

Several shocking blood marks appeared on her face. Lily of the Valley gasped and did something that no one expected.

She slowly knelt down.

Reed watched the scene in front of him silently, his heart also filled with turmoil.

Linglan opened her mouth. Different from the voice that Lid heard last time in Lingwu, this time her voice was more hoarse and full of fatigue:

“Save…save…him.”

This was the first sentence that Lily of the Valley said.

"Don't let the singing stop... Only then can I temporarily act according to my will. Listen to me..."

The five nails of one of Linglan's hands dug deep into her cheek, and the other hand trembled as she grasped Lid's sleeve. She raised her head, her face covered in blood, like a visitor from hell. She looked extremely painful, but there was a pleading light in her eyes:

"Please...save him...in exchange, I'll tell you...about Alayya."

The light in Reed's eyes suddenly became sharp.

The "he" here refers to Bai Ye. It is obvious that Ling Lan does not believe that Lid will really pay a huge price to exchange Bai Ye's life, so she adds a condition that he thinks Lid cannot refuse. At this time, Lid still has a way out, because Alayya's past may not only be known by Ling Lan, Fang Yuan's maid Xi Que should also know it.

But looking at Lily of the Valley's scarred face, Reed finally nodded.

He said:

"As long as the information you provide is useful, I can guarantee that Bai Ye will be alive."

Lily of the Valley gave a tired smile, as if a huge stone had been lifted from her heart.

She turned around slowly, grabbed the clothes on her chest with her hands, and pulled them down suddenly, revealing her white back.

She had a nice back and soft curves, but Reid had no intention of appreciating it.

Because there is a particularly complex pattern on her back.

There are wings, halos, wings, clouds and seas, stars and the sun. Just like the patterns painted on the stained glass of the church, holy and gorgeous. But when he saw this picture, Lid's heart fell down in an instant. His memory emerged with the messages that the little slime said to him when he just learned to speak, and he blurted out:

"【Choose a God】?!"

The little slime said that when he was just born, he heard a deep male voice giving a cold order: the new [Ceremony of God Selection] is about to begin, and the matter of [Weapons of the Age of Gods] can be put aside for now, and let them go this time. When the little slime opened his eyes, he saw some girls with complex patterns on their backs. The little slime was also very curious about why they looked like humans, without halos or wings.

This time it was Linglan's turn to be shocked, her voice even distorted:

"you know……?"

Reed put his hands in his hair and thought of many things in an instant.

The little slime's memory is stuck in the period of [Weapons of the Age of Gods], which is at least thousands of years away from now. So when the little slime mentioned these things to Lid, Lid didn't actually investigate the matter of the God Selection Ceremony, because now is very different from the past. Humans have established a national defense formation, and the country has changed several times. Things thousands of years ago have become blank in historical records. But now the existence of Lily of the Valley proves a terrible thing - the old gods have been maintaining this ceremony for thousands of years. What exactly do they want to do, and to what extent have they infiltrated humans?

Secondly, Linglan said that she knew about Alayya's past, which meant...

Is Alayya a chess piece placed by the old gods?

42. God’s Past

As Irene sang, Lily of the Valley dug her cheeks and began to tell her own story in a low voice.

She first answered Lid's question: Bai Ye is not here, because there are many things she doesn't want Bai Ye to hear now. So she temporarily asked Bai Ye to investigate the weakest point of Yunhaiwei to prepare for the subsequent forced breakthrough and create an opportunity for this brief meeting.

Lid also looked back at Alaiya to make sure she couldn't hear the conversation between him and Linglan. Alaiya was still in a state of amnesia, and it was not a good idea to force her to learn the past information. Lid still hoped that she could live according to the original trajectory. If she recovered her memory one day, Lid would give her the right to choose.

After everything was ready, Linglan took a deep breath and revealed all her remaining memories.

First of all, Lily of the Valley's past is pretty thin.

She has no childhood, and her memories from childhood to adulthood are all pure white, because she was already what she is now when she was "created". But she has her own personality and way of speaking, so when you communicate with her, she can constantly respond to you, which seems to be no different from ordinary humans. And she has a more extensive knowledge base, so she can chat with anyone.

Of course, once you look into it, you'll find that there's actually a big problem here: everyone's past is filled with countless events, encounters with others, happy times spent together, slowly becoming mature through setbacks... Various events interact with each other, coupled with innate factors, to determine what a person looks like now.

And Linglan is a person without a past, which means that her current appearance is purely predetermined by the old gods when they created her. She is not a "person" with independent consciousness, but more like a machine equipped with advanced AI, doing things according to fixed logic and constantly making the most favorable choices to achieve her goals.

Such a person should be absolutely reliable to the old gods, but the problem lies with the national defense formation.

Because of the existence of the National Defense Formation, the old gods could not monitor the human territory in real time. Therefore, when the old gods created Linglan and other god-choosers, they also gave them a certain degree of autonomy. This autonomy allows them to do some "inappropriate" or "redundant" things, but for the sake of long-term interests, they must not violate the duties of the god-choosers.

Linglan took advantage of this loophole in this meeting. Through some "redundant" small actions, Lid found Irene, and then Irene's singing temporarily suppressed the restrictions on her body, allowing her to say a few words according to her heart. It can be guessed that this autonomy is very small, so that she could not appear in public from beginning to end.

Of course, like the little ghost, the restriction has become one with her to a certain extent, so she must endure great pain.

After telling her life story, Linglan's strength had been depleted by more than half, and her pretty face was covered with mottled and hideous bloodstains.

After she finished speaking, Lid asked the question he wanted to know most:

"What is the God-selection Ceremony? What exactly do you want to do?"

Suzuran gasped for breath and answered with difficulty:

"As the name suggests... select outstanding individuals from among humans and assist them... to become new gods."

Lid frowned and asked:

"Why do this?"

Lily of the Valley's voice became lower and lower:

"The old gods are different from other races. The old gods don't have the ability to reproduce... or in other words, in order to prevent them from being affected by blood ties, they have been deprived of the ability to reproduce. But gods will also go to war with other races, and there will be casualties and vacancies. At this time, suitable individuals must be selected from humans and promoted to new gods. I don't know much about the specific promotion process, but I only know that the human world is like a selection field. If you want to become a god, you must keep climbing up. When you are finally promoted to a god, a person's temperament will undergo a subversive change. Many of the gods in the sky now were promoted from humans... From ancient times to the present, this ceremony has never been interrupted."

Reed was digesting this information, and Linglan seemed to have no time to wait for Reed to ask questions, and went straight to the next part of the story - her encounter with Bai Ye.

The God-chosen people themselves have no past to speak of; they are merely puppets created by God.

But a doll with consciousness might also fall in love with someone and act on impulse because of its own emotions. This is probably something that the arrogant gods have never thought of.

Linglan had a good start and was assigned to the world-famous Yunhai territory, which was much better than her colleagues who had to search for the child of destiny in a remote place. Linglan, who arrived at Yunhai smoothly, soon had her own target, which was Bai Feng, the second son of Yunhai.

That’s right, the target that Linglan chose at the beginning was Bai Feng, which was also the best solution recommended by the gods.

Because objectively speaking, Bai Feng has a natural aura. He was able to gather some loyal and brave people around him before the chaos came, and won their love. This kind of innate noble attribute is hard to come by. But just when Linglan was about to make a decision, she met Bai Ye, who was living in seclusion at the time.

That day, Bai Ye walked in the street with an indifferent look, without any guards or maids by his side, and everyone around him kept away from him. Some people said that he was a loner, some said that he only knew how to practice martial arts every day and his brain was damaged, and some said that our Yunhai was a territory where merchants gathered, and all the princes were good at dealing with people, but only the eldest prince Bai Ye was different, and if he was elected as the prince, it would probably have a fatal impact on the Yunhai territory.

The white night at that time had already reached the ninth level of perfection. He could hear every noisy sound clearly, but he did not even frown. He crossed the street in the downtown area as if he was walking in the wilderness. This noisy world of black and white had nothing to do with him at all.

Some people say that there are three kinds of feelings in the world: complementarity, resonance and compromise.

Linglan felt that she should be the first type, because she was born with an empty heart, while Baiye was different. His heart was not big, far less than Baifeng's, but his heart was full, so full that he could face all the sarcastic eyes calmly and walk in the world with his head held high. Linglan envied him very much. From envy to longing, and then to love, this process did not take long.

Linglan also felt that she might be the second type, because she had been alone since she was created, and they had similar temperaments in this respect. Lonely people often attract each other, accompany each other for a period of time, and then embark on their own lonely journeys. When she met Bai Ye, Linglan threw all her previous research on Bai Feng behind her and chose Bai Ye as her assistant.

This means that for her, Bai Ye will be her personal god from now on.

Rule 1 of the God Selection:

If the person being assisted does not become a god or dies unexpectedly, the person who chooses the god will die immediately.

43. What She Desires

After using some tricks, Lily of the Valley successfully came to Bai Ye's side.

Bai Ye showed no love or annoyance for her existence. To Bai Ye, Ling Lan seemed no different from the maids in the past. There was still a thick barrier between him and her, and the two lived in different worlds. But Ling Lan was a little different from the other maids. She would silently watch Bai Ye practice martial arts, although most of the time all she could do was just watch from the side.

She watched Bai Ye perform a set of boxing techniques to perfection, watched his clothes soaked with sweat, and also watched him make no progress in reaching the ninth level of perfection.

One day, Bai Ye finished his boxing practice in the yard as usual, took the towel from Linglan, and wiped the sweat from his cheeks and forehead. Perhaps because he had some new insights today, Bai Ye took a quick look at the maid who was becoming more and more familiar to him, and said to her:

"Thank you."

Linglan was stunned for a moment and replied:

"No need... Hehe, it's the first time I hear you speak, and I'm still a little uncomfortable."

Bai Ye smiled and said:

"You are not from Yunhai."

Lily of the Valley asked back:

"You can see that, too?"

Bai Ye put the towel back on the tray in Linglan's hand, put away his not-so-good-looking smile, and said to her:

"The people in Yunhai are very afraid of me. Even if they try to hide it, I know it in my heart. They won't look me in the eye for more than three seconds, but you are different."

Linglan held the tray and chatted with Baiye for a few more words:

"Do you know my name?"

Bai Ye replied:

"To be honest, I'm not sure. But I remember when you came, and you've been with me for 102 days. No matter what your purpose was in approaching me, the fact that you've persisted for so long shows that you're a very capable person."

Linglan smiled and said:

"My name is Linglan. During these one hundred and two days, I saw you practicing without slacking off every day."

Bai Ye exhaled and said calmly:

"I'm sorry that I didn't let you see any of my growth."

Linglan put her hands down in front of her and said openly:

"No... That's why I think you're different. Most people want the other person to give them some surprises every time they pursue something, whether it's martial arts, art, or love. Once things become ordinary, they will naturally get bored. But you won't. What I see in you is unchanging tenacity."

Bai Ye stretched his shoulders and replied:

"Thank you."

He paused, and added before leaving:

"Although I'm not impressed by compliments, I will remember your name."

After that day, the relationship between the two people slowly changed.

Bai Ye was practicing boxing in the yard, and Ling Lan sat on the fence and watched quietly. When Bai Ye was about to finish training, Ling Lan would fill a basin with hot water, put a clean white towel on the edge of the basin, and hand it to Bai Ye. The two would chat about some meaningless topics at first, and then Ling Lan would "inadvertently" give Bai Ye some inspiration in martial arts - although her realm of cultivation was not as good as Bai Ye's, the knowledge she got from the gods allowed her to cope with such occasions.

There are many people in the world who have no greed for worldly things such as power, status, money and fame.

But people are not plants, they all have emotions and desires. It's just that many desires are usually hidden very deeply and rarely revealed. To Bai Ye, the sea of ​​clouds is something unattractive, but his obsession with martial arts becomes a breakthrough for Linglan to conquer him.

The two people gradually developed from occasional chatting to sitting and discussing, and then to practicing together in the yard.