“Excuse me, have you seen this person before?”
“Ah, what a pretty little miss. But sorry, I haven’t. You should try somewhere else.”
“Why?” the man in white asked, confused.
“Why, you ask...” The shop owner wiped the blood off his face, then showed him the cleaver in his hand, its tip glinting coldly. Behind him, the shop was dim and gloomy, and the floor was smeared with blood. The burly middle-aged man scratched his head helplessly. “This is a butcher shop. If you’re looking for someone, go to the police bureau, okay, young man? Or how about some pork tenderloin from my shop? Home-raised. Tastes amazing.”
“...What would I do with pork tenderloin?”
“What do you mean, what for... eat it, obviously. You two look like travelers, right? If you don’t want to cook, we can grill it for you to take away.”
The man in white, who didn’t actually like meat that much, stroked his chin and fell into thought.
“Excuse me, have you seen the person in this portrait?”
“Using a painting to find someone? What era are you two country bumpkins from?” The uncle at the apple stall chuckled around his lollipop. “Yo, and you’ve even got that huge pack of roast meat. Speaking of roast meat, want some apples too, little bro?”
“No... we just want to find this person,” the man in white said seriously, without the slightest crack in his expression.
“Aiya, eating only meat and no fruit is unhealthy. Like they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. And according to the current Pope Morris, my stall is a famous respawn point, little bro. So if only for His Holiness, you should— hey! Don’t leave! Little bro, I can lower the price! Really! Ten percent off, thirty percent off—”
The man in white, who had already been about to leave, stroked his chin and fell into thought.
“Excuse me, have you seen the person in this portrait?”
The man in white said this with a blank face, carrying a bag of bright red apples.
“Wooooooah! What exquisite skill! What a stunning beauty!” The down-and-out painter doing an oil painting of the street scene went wide-eyed the moment he saw the portrait in the man’s hand. The red-haired man beside him, gnawing on an apple, jumped in fright. For a second, he thought the guy’s eyes were about to shine gold like the Demon King’s. The painter lunged at the man in white and wailed, “My lords, can I buy this painting from you?! I’ll pay any pri—”
“He hasn’t seen her,” the red-haired man said. He pulled back his fist and tossed the unconscious painter onto the grass by the roadside. “Let’s go, bro. We keep moving.”
The man in white, who felt the painter’s skill wasn’t bad at all, stroked his chin and fell into thought. He casually picked up a finished oil painting from beside the easel and slipped two silver coins into the man’s pocket.
“Sorry to bother you, but have you seen the girl in this portrait?”
“Ah, no. But seriously, you two handsome guys want a Fukada photo collection? She’s totally not inferior to this little miss. Here, take a look at the latest cover.” On the magazine cover was a succubus lady in a nurse outfit on the outside, but beneath the open buttons was a purple swimsuit. Her thin stockings showed a rosy white beneath, and her fragrant tongue licked the corner of her lips. She looked irresistibly seductive. “How about it? This is the kind of stuff you can’t show in public. If I didn’t feel some fate with you two, I wouldn’t have taken it out.”
The man in white was shocked. He thought, This shopkeeper actually figured out the two of us aren’t human?
The red-haired man gave it a quick glance, then smiled slightly. Without hesitation, he flung ten gold coins at the newsstand owner, the smile at his lips growing brighter and brighter. “How many more do you have? I’ll take all of them!”
“Stop right there. Do you have no idea how we lost all our money on the way here?” the man in white hurriedly tried to stop him. “You absolutely cannot spend recklessly!”
The red-haired man looked at the bag of apples in his brother’s hand, the bag of roast pork tenderloin, and the rolled-up oil painting that still carried a faint smell of paint. His expression looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“My brother.”
“What?”
“That has absolutely no persuasive power, my brother.”
“Hah?!”
“And that last painter didn’t even make you buy anything!”
“Hah?!!!”
In the end, the two demon brothers squatted on the stone steps by the roadside. One held two bags of food and sank into thought. The other hugged a bag of photo books and giggled like an idiot.
“I’m telling you, little bro.” Facing the noon sun, the man in white lowered his head and said in a dispirited voice, “Did the Imperial Preceptor divine it wrong? We’ve been searching here all morning. Why does everyone say they’ve never seen her? She’s such a cute girl. No matter what, she should’ve left some kind of impression, right?”
“Heheh, hehehehe, Master Fukada, hehehehe... huh?” the red-haired man said with a vacant look. “Bro, what’d you just say?”
“The fact I ever expected anything from you proves I’m the biggest idiot alive.” The man in white covered his face and wept. But then he suddenly realized something and quickly looked up. “We’ve already been in the human world for a month, and the divination was from a month ago. So maybe during this month, that girl left Macedon City.”
“Heheh, hehehehe...”
“I’ve got it.” The man in white stood up and said confidently, full of certainty. “A girl like that has to be treasured by her family and raised like a jewel. There’s no way she’d be wandering all over the world on her own. She must’ve gone on a temporary trip with her parents. So all we need to do now is wait here for her to come back.”
“Heheh, hehehehe... heheh...”
“If you keep grinning like an idiot, I’m gonna kill you, you know?”
“Hm? Excuse me, young man, what’s that in your hand?” A nun in a black-and-white habit happened to pass by. When she saw the portrait in the man in white’s hand, she spoke up curiously.
“You know this person?!” The man in white was overjoyed. He hurried over and showed her the portrait.
The nun raised a fair finger and pointed at the portrait. After thinking it over carefully, she bit her nail a little before finally saying, “This... seems like the Holy Maiden of our Church of Lunhai?”
“The Holy Maiden? The Church of Lunhai?” The man in white froze. Before coming here, he hadn’t expected her to have such a troublesome identity.
“Ah, I only said seems like. But look—white long hair, red eyes, and just as pretty. Though prettiness is kind of abstract. Still, at first glance, the only girl with this kind of aura would be the Holy Maiden,” the nun said seriously.
“Then... may I ask how we can meet the Holy Maiden?” After hesitating a moment, the man in white asked again.
“Right now? Right now, I don’t think you can. She seems to have gone outside the city recently to spread the gospel,” the nun thought for a moment and said. “His Holiness the Pope went too. You two may need to wait a while.”
“I see.” The man in white let out a long breath and bowed to thank her. “Thank you very much. Without what you told us, the two of us wouldn’t know how much longer we’d have had to search.”
“The two of you?” The nun leaned slightly to peek past him, looking at the red-haired man behind him, who was still giggling stupidly at the magazine cover. Her gaze moved between the two for a while, and in the end she smiled helplessly. “It really isn’t easy.”
“Ah, right. By the way, do you happen to have anything for sale? I could—”
“No, no, absolutely not. More importantly, why would I have something like that?”
After they politely said goodbye, the man in white touched his money pouch and suddenly realized something terrible. With a dark expression, he walked over to the red-haired man. The latter looked up in confusion with a soft “Huh?” Then he saw his brother’s pupils trembling as he said, “Little bro... a truly horrifying disaster has just befallen us...”
“...What?”
“We’re out of money.”
“...What?”
“It’s all your fault for buying dirty magazines! We’re broke now!”
“Bullshit! You’re the one who can’t resist a single sales pitch, so your crime is even worse!”
“Hah?! Since when can’t I resist sales pitches?!”
“It’s practically written all over your face!!”
“Bullshit! I just like spending money!”
“That’s even worse than not resisting sales pitches!!!”
And so, the two trusted subordinates of the Demon King started loudly arguing in the religious city of the human race over which one of them had spent more money.
