When the sky was bright, Lin You returned to the fishing village beside the small branch of the river.

Geralt and his family were packing their bags and preparing to leave. In fact, the only one who really needed to pack was Yennefer; Geralt and Ciri, the "father and daughter", had the same living habits as demon hunters, and only had weapons and various props with them. If there was anything that was not related to demon hunting, it would probably be the few cosmetics in Ciri's waist bag.

But Yennefer is completely different from this "father and daughter".

It would be fine if there were just a bunch of boxes and cages thrown into the portal, but there was also a one-to-one scale unicorn doll... Well, Lin You had to admit that he had seen this thing through the screen in his previous life.

Seeing Lin You coming back, Ciri cheered and came over with an enthusiasm that made Lin You flattered; she asked about what happened last night. Geralt seemed to want to follow suit and "listen to the story", but Yennefer glared at him and he continued to deal with the piles of clothes, shoes and hats.

"Did you really let the crown prince go so easily? Surprisingly, you don't look like that kind of person!" After hearing what happened at the festival last night, Ciri was full of doubts.

"What kind of person?" Lin You could tell that she was not saying good things, and asked with a dark face.

Xili looked embarrassed: "I mean, he scolded you like that... and you didn't do anything to punish him?"

"On the contrary, the punishment began the moment I let him go."

"Ah?" Ciri widened her eyes, totally unable to understand.

"A father who feels guilty for abandoning his son, a son who feels resentful for being abandoned, a noble whose life hangs by a thread because of the mistakes made by the king and the crown prince, and among those who finally survived, there are also relatives and friends of the deceased. In the future, will the son avenge his father? Will the relatives and friends of the deceased betray the king? Will the crown prince vent his anger on the nobles for being abandoned, and will the nobles be hostile to the crown prince for fear of being vented?"

Lin You counted the people who had experienced this thrilling night on his fingers, with an anticipation of waiting for a good show on his face;

"Just wait and see. It won't be long before the Redanian court will be filled with suspicion between the ruler and his subjects, and resentment between fathers and sons. Suspicion is the most deadly danger to a regime, and it cannot be dealt with without great wisdom. I came back specially to remind you to try not to go to Redania in the next few years. You never know when something big might happen in that country."

There have been too many similar stories in the history books during the era of monarchy. Even powerful men like Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Taizong of Tang could not handle the situation of suspicion between father and son. Lin You was pessimistic about Vizimir II.

Unfortunately, even though Lin You explained, Ciri still didn't quite understand; the little girl was a carefree princess in the first ten years of her life. Although she had suffered many misfortunes in recent years, most of them were open battles, and she had hardly experienced the human heart. The most emotionally challenging thing she had done was pretending to faint in order to bring Geralt and Yennefer together.

Therefore, it was a bit difficult to ask this girl to understand the mentality of aristocratic politicians. Ciri's attention was not on this. Whether she understood or not, it did not prevent her from taking the opportunity of talking to Lin You to avoid housework.

"If it was just this little thing, you would have returned long ago; last night, I saw the fire on the mountain gradually die out just after midnight."

"You guessed right. I later went to Novigrad and 'visited' the headquarters of the Church of the Eternal Flame, Temple Island."

Ciri exclaimed, "Not only did you kill the archbishop, but you also went and robbed the lair of the Eternal Flame?"

Her tone was only one of surprise, without any moral accusation; as a "daughter" raised by a demon hunter and a sorceress, Ciri never had any positive feelings towards the Church of the Eternal Fire. Therefore, whether it was killing the archbishop or overturning the Temple Island, in her eyes, it was a natural and acceptable behavior. Lin You shook his head and said, "In fact, I did not overturn the Temple Island; when I left, the Temple Island was almost intact inside and out."

"But you made a special trip to Novigrad, you must have done something?" Ciri obviously didn't believe Lin You's words.

"If you want to know what I did, I just called out the leaders of the Eternal Flame on Temple Island and told them that I was very angry and that an archbishop alone could not calm my anger, so I asked them to hand over more people who were responsible for claiming my credit. I gave them two choices: either I kill all the church personnel on Temple Island, or they hand over a list of responsible people, and the names on the list must be at least one-third of the church personnel on the island."

Ciri was stunned by this generous move: "And then, which one did they choose?"

"Of course it was the second one." Lin You couldn't help but sneer as he recalled the scene at that time. "Then I sat at the highest point of the temple and listened to them quarreling in the temple for two full hours; endless mutual abuse and accusations, and more than one armed confrontation broke out. That scene was the best farce of the year. Even Dandelion couldn't write such a wonderful plot."

"That's inevitable; whether it's me or the bard, every time we think we understand human nature, we always see more ugliness beyond imagination." Dandelion walked in from outside the village and sighed when he heard the words.

"What happened next?" Ciri pressed on, demanding to continue the story. "Did they really hand over one-third of the list? In other words, they voluntarily sacrificed one-third of their colleagues?"

"When it was almost dawn, they did hand over the list, and they also gathered the people on the list and brought them directly to me. However, if you ask how many of the people on the list took the initiative... I don't think we can have too much expectation of the spirit of sacrifice of these religious traffickers; because most of those who were brought to me were shackled, and a few were even injured."

"And then, did you really kill one third of the people?" Although she hated the Church of the Eternal Fire, Ciri still couldn't imagine such a large-scale massacre. She felt uneasy when asking this question, guessing that Lin You would let the people go in the end - just like he let go of the Crown Prince Radovid.

"No, I didn't kill anyone on the list." Lin You's answer made Xili breathe a sigh of relief, and then she took a breath of cold air again, "I killed the other two-thirds."

Dandelion sighed, "Blaise, my brother; your manipulation of human hearts is more terrible than the devil's."

"Yes, I believe that my image of a demon has been deeply rooted in people's minds. Now I am waiting to see what kind of image the people in this world will create of me; a demon or evil god wearing golden armor, accompanied by poisonous snakes, and with a heart as vicious as that of a poisonous snake?"

"You're experimenting on them?" Dandelion said, as if realizing something. "Did you discover something?"

"It's hard to say. I think I discovered something that was overlooked in the past, but I can't be sure yet. I can only know if my guess is correct after confirming the test results after a period of time."

"When you get the results, remember to tell me."

"Of course, as long as I can remember it."

As Ciri listened to the two people's questions and answers, she suddenly felt that the two "familiar people" in front of her became extremely unfamiliar; for the first time, she realized that her thinking as a human being could not keep up with the pace of "gods". Obviously, their facial features were exactly the same as those of the people she knew, but her reason told her that the two people in front of her were not the two people she knew at all, and even their current state could not be considered "human".

Ciri turned around silently and walked back into the house. At this moment, even the task of packing became interesting. (End of this chapter)