Cloud Thinking

At night, Helia, dressed in a black robe, climbed over the low wall behind the dormitory building and walked out of the school. She walked towards the Bazari in a mysterious and stealthy manner. She was extremely vigilant along the way, stopping from time to time to glance around to make sure that there was no one following her and no one noticed her abnormality.

Under the cover of night, she plunged into the narrow alley nearby, turned left and right, and found the hotel based on her memory. Next to the slightly weathered door stood a shabby wooden board that had been weathered by wind and rain. On it was a piece of red paper with four words scribbled on it: "There are rooms inside." It was very simple and crude, without any fancy promotions, and it inexplicably had a straightforward beauty.

She pushed the door open and walked in. She did not communicate with the boss who was sitting at the counter with his legs crossed and reading pornographic books. Instead, she walked directly up the narrow wooden stairs at the side. When her feet stepped on them, the stairs made a creaking sound as if they were under the heavy load. But even so, the boss just glanced at her and said nothing.

She walked through the narrow corridor, glancing at the doors on both sides that looked almost identical. Finally, she stopped in front of a door with a wreath hanging on the door handle. She knocked twice lightly, and then knocked three times heavily after three seconds.

The wooden door here is not soundproof at all, so any slightest movement in the house will be clearly heard by her ears, but she did not hear any rustling sound, and the door in front of her automatically opened inward.

She raised her hand and called out Theodore. After many days of copying books and daily basic training, she was able to hold Theodore in one hand for a long time. Theodore was a bit higher than the door, so she had to tilt it slightly before she could step in.

The room was tinged with dim firelight, and there were only the simplest facilities inside: a bed, a low bedside table and a low chair. A half-burned candle stood on the bedside table. Fortunately, the room was small enough, so the firelight could cover everything in the room with its light.

A girl with pigtails, a gray dress, and freckles on her face was sitting on the bed, holding a delicate magic wand in one hand and a book in the other. Seeing that the light in the room was mostly blocked by the shadow, she raised her head from the book and saw Helia's figure reflected in her gray-brown pupils.

"How's it going today?" Helia took off her hood with one hand, hooked her feet over a low chair and sat down.

The firelight in the room was not very bright, but it was obvious that Helia looked a little different now: her long hair had turned into messy short hair pressed down by the hood, her face shape had become tougher, and there was even an Adam's apple on her neck that shouldn't have been there.

The face Britney sculpted for her was already somewhat androgynous, but after cutting her hair and sculpting her Adam's apple, she looked like a man at first glance, and a handsome one at that.

"I guess I'll invite you to look for a partner tonight. Try to leave traces of your magic there." The woman replied expressionlessly.

"Well, I'll go now." Helia didn't plan to stay for too long. She pulled up her hood and stood up to leave. As soon as she turned her back, she heard the girl say, "I'm not sure if they have figured out your identity. You might be in danger tonight."

Helia paused, but only for a moment. She grasped the door handle and pulled the door open. Before leaving, she said, "The girls locked in cages are more dangerous."

Helia hadn't had a good night's sleep in the past month and a half. When the clock struck twelve, she would transform into a man and leave the academy to go here. After exchanging information with Fesimia, she would go to the famous underground tavern in the bazar - Kangsemi.

Here she plays a young, rich, alcoholic who is eager to find love. She uses herself as bait to catch a big fish - a group of human traffickers who kidnap young girls.

Helia noticed something was wrong during a shopping trip with Wicks. At that time, Wells was discussing sword-making with the owner of his blacksmith shop. He planned to customize a new sword for himself as a graduation gift. He saved money for a long time and collected materials everywhere. Helia even helped in this.

She was waiting by the side holding some magic consumables she had bought. She was holding so many things that she didn't notice and bumped into a thin woman who passed by. To be precise, the girl didn't look at the road and bumped into Helia who was standing on a camouflage pole on the side of the road.

Helia didn't fall, but the woman did, with her things scattered all over the floor. Helia leaned over to help, but another hand was faster than hers, forcibly grabbing the woman's hand and dragging her up. The woman didn't resist, so it must be someone the woman knew.

The man accompanying the woman was a very tall and strong man, wearing expensive and decent clothes, but he had a ferocious face, and he was obviously disgusted and angry at the fact that the woman couldn't even walk properly. He muttered softly: "What a loss... I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a thing like this..."

They didn't even apologize to Helia, and the man took his people away forcefully.

The woman staggered as she walked. Helia was about to yell at her for being uncultured when she suddenly turned her head, revealing her tear-soaked face. Her mouth opened and closed as she said something to her silently. But Helia was so angry that she just felt a little confused and didn't think about it too much.

It was not until the two were submerged in the crowd that Helia withdrew her gaze and squatted down to pack her things. At that moment, she suddenly recalled the arms and calves that the woman accidentally exposed when she fell. They seemed to be densely covered with scars...

Helia's hand that was picking up the things paused. She tried to recall and make sure that she was not mistaken. The woman not only had signs of abuse on her hands and feet, but also had bruises on her neck, which were only covered by her dress. When she fell, part of her scarred body was exposed to Helia.

She suddenly turned around and looked in the direction where the two people left. What did the woman say to her just now? It seemed like she said two words, two words or three words?

Helia kept opening her mouth to verify the lip movements while thinking, and was completely immersed in her own world. She didn't even notice that Vikes had come to her.

"Why are there things scattered all over the floor? Why are you standing here without picking them up?" Vikes squatted down to help Helia pick up the remaining things and put them away. He took the package for her and saw that she was still standing there in a daze. He couldn't help but ask in confusion: "Do you want to buy anything else?"

"No, I'm thinking about something very important." Helia said seriously.

Seeing her like this, Vikes didn't urge her to leave. He stood there with her as a barrier, "What happened just now? Why did you drop your things all over the floor?"

"A woman bumped into me and fell, dropping her belongings," Helia said briefly. "But the man she was with grabbed his people and left without even saying a word of apology."

"Are you angry because of this?" Vikes guessed.

Helia shook her head. "I was a little angry at first, but then I realized something was a little wrong. Senior, please let me be alone for a while."

Vikes watched her mumbling to herself silently there. After waiting for more than ten minutes, he saw Helia's brows getting tighter and tighter. It seemed that she couldn't figure out the reason.

It would be better to have someone to help think about it instead of being alone. Helia looked at Vikes and asked, "Senior, what two words do you think are pronounced like this?" She imitated the woman's mouth shape in her memory.

Vikes also began to talk to himself silently. He tried many words and reported the closest ones to Helia, but she felt that none of them were right.

"It's hard to guess just by looking at the lip movements. Why don't you think about what the other person would want to say in that situation?" suggested Vikes.

It's not that she hadn't thought about it, but in that situation, she should have wanted to say sorry. After all, it was she who knocked her things down, and it was really uncivilized for her to just run away without saying hello.

But she tried sorry, excuse me, and sorry, but none of them worked.

She thought of the strange scars on the other person's body, the tears on her face, and the man's rough treatment of her. Could it be that she wanted to save her herself... ?

and many more!

Damn girl!

Save…save me…?

She said save me?

Helia lip-synced and found that it matched, but she found it too late. The two people had already disappeared without a trace. Looking for someone in the bazaar at dinner time is undoubtedly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Helia patted her head, forcing herself to recall more details. Was it domestic violence? Helia recalled the man's gorgeous clothes, and then thought of the patched and rough clothes of the woman next to him. It felt like they didn't live in the same family at all.

Could it be that the woman was the man's servant?

I felt like something was missing. Helia reviewed her memories from the time the woman bumped into her to the time they left, and caught the man's whispered complaint.

Loss? Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent? Was that woman a slave bought by that man somewhere?

However, the kingdom has laws that stipulate that the sale of slaves must be certified and approved by the local Population Institute. In other words, the party who buys the slave must have the approval of the Population Institute before taking the slave away, and the party who sells the slave must also take the slave he owns to the Population Institute for identification, or the slave himself must go to the Population Institute to register and be managed by the Population Institute.

Part of the kingdom's tax revenue came from the slave trade, which was a considerable fortune. Claude and the princes and nobles were keeping a close eye on matters related to tax revenue and money. It was illegal to trade slaves privately.

Moreover, she suspected that the woman was a good girl who was trafficked, because she did not see any slave mark on her. All slaves who had been certified and registered by the Population Institute would have a circle of text on their ankles, which roughly meant "this person is a slave", so in this world, once you become a slave, you may never have a chance to turn over, and that mark will accompany you for the rest of your life.

"Senior Vikes, human trafficking violates the Population Law, right?" Helia asked.

Vikes didn't know why she asked, but he nodded and answered, "Yes, this was made by His Majesty Claude. What's wrong?"

The kingdom's income depends on taxes, the largest of which is the poll tax, that is, every citizen living in the kingdom must pay taxes, but taxes are also divided into different levels according to each person's income. The higher the income, the more taxes are levied. People who have no jobs and can hardly afford food and clothing will receive certain social security, but if they have no income for a long time, their national status will be confiscated and they will become refugees.

The taxes levied on slaves were different from those on ordinary people. As slaves were vassals of their owners, their taxes were paid by their owners. This was also necessary for the existence of the Population House, as taxes had to be levied on those who kept a large number of slaves with labor. However, the taxes on slaves were much lower than those on ordinary people. This was a decision made after the nobles protested. Therefore, in order to prevent people from converting a large number of working people into slaves and causing too little head tax revenue, Claude enacted a law that prohibited the arbitrary trafficking of people, in order to maintain a normal number of working people.

Helia thought about it. She was not sure what the woman was like. In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, she decided to investigate the situation. She smiled and shook her head. "Nothing. It's getting late. Let's go back."

Britney hadn't been with Helia for the past month because of something. Before she left, she told Helia not to go out without permission. At least in Carter's College, with Mobicius and Dean Phillips around, no one dared to cause trouble for Helia. But if she got into trouble outside, it would be difficult to deal with, after all, Lord Widgers was useless.