Chapter 51: No One Behind the Door, and You Are the Same
The Sentinel felt a bit speechless. Behind him, the Sentinels still waiting in line for purification had already begun to urge them on. “Hey, you in the front! Since the Imperial Daughter has fainted, who’s going to purify us next?”
“Why ask me? Ask the other Guides!” The urged Sentinel replied impatiently. “I’m not a Guide, how would I know!”
The only Guide present was Jiang Qingwan. The Sentinels had no choice but to seek her out. When they found her curled up on the floor bed, sleeping soundly, their expressions turned into ones that were hard to describe.
“Unbelievable. Didn’t she think to call the Imperial Daughter to rest with her? She couldn’t even hold on when she wasn’t doing anything, while the Imperial Daughter was purifying Sentinels every single day. No wonder she collapsed from exhaustion!”
“This is such a dereliction of duty! To think the Imperial Daughter came to purify us for her sake, only for her to be sleeping so peacefully.”
“Tsk. When the higher-ups come to blame someone, I wonder who’s going to take the fall.”
The Sentinels were all filled with dissatisfaction. One of them stepped forward and pushed Jiang Qingwan awake. “Hey, wake up! Stop sleeping!”
When Jiang Qingwan was pushed awake, her head felt heavy. She looked at the Sentinel with bleary eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“The Imperial Daughter can no longer purify us. Hurry up and find other A-class Guides to come over!” the Sentinel who pushed her said rudely.
“Is she throwing a tantrum again?” Jiang Qingwan’s consciousness was still not quite clear. She rubbed her eyes and let out a yawn, then said sleepily, “I know. I’ll go try to persuade her again.”
She left on her own, completely failing to notice the strange atmosphere in the purification hall.
When she arrived at Xie Qiang’s rest area, Jiang Qingwan knocked on the door, but it was Shu Fenghua who came out.
Shu Fenghua looked at her with a cold gaze. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to persuade the Imperial Daughter to go purify the Sentinels.” Jiang Qingwan raised her hand to her lips and shouted through the half-open crack of the door, “Imperial Daughter, let’s talk! Why did you suddenly stop the purifications?”
“Stop shouting.” Shu Fenghua frowned. “The Imperial Daughter suddenly fainted. Come back and look for her in two days.”
“Ah, I see.” Jiang Qingwan finally realized what had happened. “No wonder. she’s been sleeping too little lately. I told her not to push herself so hard, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Heh.” Shu Fenghua curled her lip. “I heard Guide Jiang has also been working very hard these past few days. While the Imperial Daughter is recovering, you should take a good rest as well.”
“Alright.” Jiang Qingwan smiled. “I’ll come back once the Imperial Daughter is better.”
After several days of having her schedule turned upside down, she was indeed tired. Once she regained her energy, she would go deal with the Imperial Daughter again.
After Jiang Qingwan had rested enough, she went straight to the purification hall.
During the days she was resting, the Zerg had been frequently attacking the base. The number of A-class Sentinels on the brink of mania in the purification hall was rapidly increasing.
Seeing that the Sentinels who had been thoroughly purified by the Imperial Daughter before could fight to their heart’s content, the Sentinels who hadn’t been purified felt an itch in their hearts.
Therefore, they couldn’t help but start urging Jiang Qingwan.
“Is the Imperial Daughter still not recovered?”
“When is she coming to purify us? Go urge her!”
“Exactly! Didn’t she come to purify us for your sake before?”
Jiang Qingwan scanned the hall. Seeing no sign of Xie Qiang, she put on a troubled expression. “I went to ask before I came here. It seems the Imperial Daughter doesn’t really want to purify you anymore.”
“Hasn’t she always been unwilling?” The Sentinels were used to this and didn’t think it was a valid excuse. “That’s why we’re asking you to persuade her!”
“Yeah, yeah! You could even get the Imperial Daughter to sleep only one hour a day to purify us. So now, making her purify for just a few hours a day should be even less of a problem, right?”
“The Imperial Daughter said it herself—if it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have come to purify us at all.”
Jiang Qingwan hesitated for a moment, then nodded and smiled. “Fine, since you put it that way, I’ll try again.”
She then headed to the rest area and knocked on Xie Qiang’s door. “Imperial Daughter, are you awake? It’s time to go purify the Sentinels.”
There was no response from inside the room.
Jiang Qingwan knocked for a full half-hour, but no one came out.
Cradling her aching hand, Jiang Qingwan couldn’t help but frown. She didn’t understand why Xie Qiang was refusing to see her.
Was she throwing a tantrum because she was sick?
But it was clearly Xie Qiang herself who insisted on the high-intensity work.
It was no use to keep knocking, so Jiang Qingwan could only head back to the purification hall.
The Sentinels who saw Jiang Qingwan return immediately came to greet her. When they saw she hadn’t brought Xie Qiang back, their expressions changed instantly.
“What the hell? The Imperial Daughter didn’t come?”
Jiang Qingwan said in a muffled voice, “It’s not like that. I knocked for a long time, but the Imperial Daughter refused to see me.”
“Guide Jiang, stop pulling our leg!”
The Sentinels sneered, not believing her words at all. “How could the Imperial Daughter not want to see you? You’re the person she’s willing to get out of bed for even when you knock at three in the morning!”
Jiang Qingwan’s body trembled.
The person who knocked at three in the morning wasn’t her; it was the Imperial Daughter.
But since she had admitted to it in front of everyone back then, she had no way to refute it now.
It was too late for regrets. Jiang Qingwan could only let out a soft sigh and comfort them, “The Imperial Daughter must have been too tired before and wants to rest for a few more days. Just wait a bit longer.”
Seeing this, the Sentinels had no choice but to let it go and turned to leave.
As they walked, they complained, “What the hell. I thought she truly had the Imperial Daughter’s trust, but it seems that’s all there is to it.”
“In the end, the Imperial Daughter was only willing to indulge her, which is why she could get the Imperial Daughter to come and purify us without complaint.”
“I bet the Imperial Daughter saw her sleeping there and got annoyed, so she decided to teach her a lesson.”
“It’s just us who are suffering. D*mn, if I had known, I wouldn’t have sucked up to her. Once the Imperial Daughter turns her back, she’s nothing.”
The Sentinels didn’t deliberately suppress their voices, as if they were intentionally speaking for someone to hear. Jiang Qingwan hung her head in embarrassment, her palms clenched tight.
It’s not like that.
It’s not like that at all.
If it weren’t for her, given how much the Imperial Daughter hated Sentinels, how could they have ever gotten the chance to be thoroughly purified?
She had worked so hard to stay up late with the Imperial Daughter, fearing that one wrong move would make the Imperial Daughter quit. Who knew about those hardships?
These Sentinels… what right did they have to talk about her like that?
Her heart felt stifled. She turned to look around, but all the Sentinels had already dispersed, and not one was willing to approach her.
Even a Sentinel who had helped her set up the floor bed earlier quickly averted his eyes after they met, seemingly afraid of being associated with her.
Jiang Qingwan left the purification hall in a daze.
She couldn’t accept such a result, and even more so, she couldn’t understand why the once-persuadable Imperial Daughter had suddenly changed her mind.
Was it because she had said before that it would be better if the Imperial Daughter hadn’t changed?
She regretted it, okay?
Returning to Xie Qiang’s rest area, Jiang Qingwan knocked on the door frantically, using all the rhetoric she could think of to try and bring back the obedient, “good” Imperial Daughter.
Unfortunately, behind that door, there was absolutely no one.
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