The world controlled by dice [Western Fantasy]

Mr. Xia—let's call him Mr. Xia for the time being—calmed down his emotions, and then sat behind his long-unused desk.

When he was seated, he suddenly discovered the rather unique location of this room.

From the window he could subtly see the whole of Atherton Square, the heart of the country.He could see the spire of the central cathedral of the former church and the beautiful flower windows of the Royal Palace of the Principality of Constance.

This is a rather peculiar location, as if surrounding Atherton Square, the Historical Society, the Church of the Past, and the Principality's Royal Palace have a three-legged posture.

He wanted to see how Antinam would feel when he saw this scene and saw the kingdom and believers he blessed when he used the identity of Mr. Xia in the past so many years?

Although, that is indeed a very, very distant past.

After a while, Mr. Xia withdrew his thoughts and focused on what he needed to do now.

He needs to understand what "he" has done in the past.

From the various descriptions of others, the Dawn Apocalypse is actually an organization that fights against the followers of the old gods.

In the beginning, the Dawn Apocalypse was established during the early war in the Principality of Const to fight against the dangers that emerged after the fog dissipated; but as time evolved, the Dawn Apocalypse shifted its focus to the followers of the old gods. in a certain danger.

The Dawn Apocalypse was established to wait for the "dawn" revelation, in other words, they hope to usher in the dawn of the world after the fog and darkness.

But before dawn, of course, there will be the last, thickest darkness.

Therefore, the Dawn Revelation Society seems to have fallen at this moment.

As human beings become familiar with the power of the Revelator, many people have a vague feeling about the concept of "power".An obvious question is, the followers of the old gods... don't they also hold the power of the revelator?

When Antinam gave power to the revelators, he seemed to treat them quite equally; even if the revelator didn't believe in him, or even stood on the opposite side of him, he could still use the power of the revelator.

...This situation may also be the reason why many people suspect that Anti-Nam is not a god, as if Anti-Nam cannot fully control the power of history.

In any case, under such circumstances, many people naturally had more greedy thoughts: If this is the case, isn't the power of the enlightener superimposed with the power of the patron always a better choice?

Why not become a Follower of the Old Gods?It is not necessary to believe in those fallen old gods, but they can still borrow the power of these old gods.This is what many people think.

...It's hard to say whether the people of the Dawn Revelation Society will have such an idea.After all, they were once very close to the followers of the old gods.

And to some extent, of course, they would never know that the Mr. Xia they once followed and admired was one of Antinam's incarnations.They were almost cultivated by Anti-Nam, but the situation is still not so satisfactory--as God intended.

Now that he knew all the truth, when he reviewed and sorted out some things related to the Dawn Revelation Society and the Historical Society, he couldn't help but feel a deep sigh.

He began to look through the many, many files that existed in this office.

The earliest one comes from the war in the Principality of Const in the Early Fog Period 400 years ago.He saw some illegible records, numerous casualty reports, case filings, and some heated correspondence.

This is of course a trace from the past, but now he is in the long river of history and sees these things.

He has marveled at the history of Fischer's world countless times.When he was still on Earth, he certainly marveled at the history of his homeland.But this feeling is different from the current feeling. He can always maintain a more objective position in Fisher's world.

Therefore, in the face of disasters, fog, struggle, survival and death in Fisher's world, he can also be a traveler, amazed at the tenacity and complexity of this world.

He saw these old papers, these mottled ink stains, and the faces of countless people in the past.

He also noticed a letter, which seemed to come from the Duke Const at that time.This letter was randomly placed in the casualty report after a battle, even with unknown bloodstains.

In the letter, the Grand Duke of Const expressed his gratitude to Mr. Xia, and at the same time embarrassingly and cryptically mentioned the "strange" power Mr. Xia used.

That kind of power seemed to frighten many people, so the Grand Duke hurriedly wrote to Mr. Xia.

He was most impressed by a sentence in this letter.The Grand Duke said: "People say that the old gods have fallen, but now you have shown the power of a god."

In the letter, only this sentence carries the most weight; other times, the Grand Duke didn't even directly mention Mr. Xia's such strength.

But 400 years later, when he read this letter, he could feel the unspoken meaning of this sentence-"Do you think they will believe in you and respect you, or, Fear you, hate you?"

400 years ago, at the turn of the Era of Silence and Era of Fog, people had no time to worry so much.All kinds of complex and indecipherable emotions were thrown into the deepest part of the brain, entangled and silent with the fog.

But it is not non-existent.And Mr. Xia at that time—Antinam, when he used this power, he himself knew it well.

The world doesn't need gods anymore.

Now that the old gods have fallen and people have gradually realized this, then this is the case, and the conclusion is closed.It was the appearance of Anti-Nam, who on the contrary pried open the coffin boards of the old gods a little bit.

But he had to do it again.The mists and shadows that envelop the world require him to do so.

. . . and He treats all equally.No matter for anyone, whether it is a follower of the old god or his opponent, he gives his power fairly and silently.The world needs this power.

However, because the followers of the Old God caused too much harm, He had to lead the Dawn Apocalypse and the Church of the Past to fight against these people in the past many years.

That was a full 400 years, from the time when the church was not established in the past to today's heyday, from the foundation of the Dawn Revelation Society and the Historical Society to today's decline and glory, from the Duchy of Const still under the siege of other countries to the current leading and withering Wasteland development plan...

It was a long, long time.It was the old conspiracy and the dusty smell of blood accumulated in the thick documents and complicated records for a long time.

"...It's dawn." Qiuqiu reminded him softly.

He suddenly raised his head.

October 10.God's birthday has arrived.

Mr. Xia put down the document in his hand.In one night, he read almost half of the documents in this office, and he has fully understood Mr. Xia—that is, the identity he is using now, and what he has done in the past.

Overall, that's pretty much the same thing he's done: investigating incidents, resolving incidents.

It's just that Antinam was using this identity at the time, so Mr. Xia's actions at that time were naturally much bolder and faster.Antinam could understand the plans of the followers of the old gods from various angles.

For example, a fairly simple method is to look for clues of this group of people in the long river of time.

...In fact, this point has also given him some inspiration today.He realized that he had underestimated the power of time.It was a record of everything, like a thick investigation report.

Therefore, the Dawn Apocalypse at that time solved many followers of the old god with super high efficiency.

But this also brings up a rather odd problem: people are quite afraid of Mr. Xia.

In the pile of materials from 100 years ago, Mr. Xia’s subordinates at that time mustered up the courage to write a letter to Mr. Xia. The letter mentioned that Mr. Xia’s ability to know almost everything, and the long Life and the style of elusiveness have made many people feel scared.

Under such circumstances, the investigation of the Apocalypse of the Dawn became a bit...difficult, because many people, especially the revelators within the Historical Society at that time, felt uneasy and resisted the Apocalypse of the Dawn.

The revelators felt that this was a group of neurotic weirdos doing nonsensical things all day long.

Fear will spread.

Of course, Mr. Xia and Dawn Apocalypse are doing good things, they are fighting against those evil followers of the Old God; the same?

At that time, the Dawn Revelation Society had always been located in the salon of the Historical Society.This has become an organization within a very special organization, and it still has quite a terrifying power.

In the era when the Historical Society was also flourishing, the position of the Dawn Revelation Society gradually became awkward; after the Historical Society established the second corridor, this embarrassing situation became more and more common.

One of the things that often happens to members of the Dawn Revelations is that they'll investigate and then come across the Revelators in the Second Corridor of the Historical Society; what can they do in that case?

One thing worth mentioning is that at the beginning, the Second Corridor was not actually established to target the followers of the old gods. After all, the senior management of the Historical Society also knew the existence of the Dawn Revelation Society, and they were happy to leave these troubles to Dawn Apocalypse and Mr. Xia.

Therefore, the original purpose of the existence of the Second Corridor was for some disputes and negative influences within the Enlightenment, for example, some cases caused by spiritual pollution.

However, now that the Second Corridor has been established, the members of the Second Corridor at that time wanted to make some contributions.And if they are only limited to the common, trivial and ordinary affairs within the revelators, how can they reflect their abilities?

After all, there are only followers of the Old Gods.

If the credit is different, then solving the incidents of these crazy believers related to the old gods is naturally "bigger" than solving the incidents among ordinary human groups.

However, this "credit" was completely taken up by the Dawn Revelation Society.

In this case, contradictions naturally arise.

In this letter 100 years ago, this loyal subordinate carefully put forward his opinion: Should the Dawn Revelation be moved from the Historical Society?

However, this question brings up a new one: what about the salon space?

This space was established by Mr. Xia, and is also used by the Historical Society.Indeed, Mr. Xia is also a veteran of the Historical Society, but he has never occupied an effective seat at the top of the Historical Society.He just drifted away from the high-level.

Mr. Xia and Liming Apocalypse would like to leave, and that was fine; but Mr. Xia wanted to take Sharon away, which became another problem, and the Historical Society would not be happy for them to do so.

But for the members of the Dawn Enlightenment Society, Mr. Xia would of course take Sharon away when he left, which was obviously part of his power.

This stalemate continued awkwardly for decades.

Over the past few decades, the contradictions have intensified.Mr. Xia—or Antinam, in fact, is not very happy to deal with these intrigues between humans.But this identity also forced him to get involved.

Even within the Dawn Enlightenment Society, there are some uneasy and uneasy discussions about Mr. Xia's strange power.It all happened in private, but Antinam would not be unclear.

Combined with some of Qiuqiu's explanations, he was sure that Antinam had already planned to let go of Mr. Xia's identity at that time.

Of course, that doesn't mean giving up completely.This identity has been in business for many years, and there is no need to give up easily.But at least Antinam at that time did not intend to continue to use this identity.

In general, before what happened 14 years ago, within the Historical Society, and even within the Dawn Revelation Society, there was already a faint tendency to reject Mr. Xia.

After all, the reason why the Dawn Enlightenment Society is so special, so independent, and so embarrassing is because of the existence of Mr. Xia.

If Mr. Xia did not exist, then the Dawn Revelation Society could naturally become a part of the Historical Society, for example, a department, a branch—this was some of the internal ideas of the Historical Society and the Dawn Revelation Society at that time.

And then there was... 14 years ago.

From a novel perspective, he revisited what happened 14 years ago.

Mr. Xia's break with the Historical Society, if you want to demonstrate this issue from all aspects, you may need countless repetitions, countless documents and letters to support it.

Therefore, as far as this matter is concerned, one person that has to be mentioned is Joseph Morton.

That is, the head of the Revelation section of the Historical Society.

Joseph Morton was Grenfell's former teacher; although they had broken up now, he would occasionally hear some information about Morton from Grenfell.

Combined with the process of Morton's transformation from an ordinary enlightener to a great man, he actually already knows the temperament of the vice president of the Historical Society very well.

Morton was the vice president 14 years ago.He came from an ordinary background, but he was appreciated by the former president because of his excellent aptitude for enlightenment, so he made his way to the top.

It is worth mentioning that the reason why he became the vice president so quickly is inseparable from his hard work in the second corridor.

Some gossip can prove that Morton was once a very experienced and skilled revelator, and he killed a lot of followers of the old gods.

But also because of this, he has a superstitious admiration for power—whether it is the power of the enlightener, the power of the patron, or the power of the gods.

He himself relies on and uses this power, and at the same time, he has witnessed countless people using this power.He is actually quite in awe of this power, because he understands its power and danger.

In other words, at least 14 years ago, Morton was not very supportive of the experiment that tried to reproduce the power of the gods.

Many people think that the subject and the experiment have desecrated the majesty of the old gods. This is a judgment with hindsight; Morton does not think so, and he is indeed not on the side of the old gods.

But he also does think that this kind of experiment should be tried slowly in a more conservative way under safer conditions, instead of trying to restore the power of the old gods all at once.

To a certain extent, Morton supports "God is God and man is man".He does not quite sincerely believe that human power can overcome divine power; however, he does not quite sincerely believe that divine power may always be superior to human beings.

In the Historical Society at that time, many people were coerced into a crazy atmosphere that wanted to overthrow the "majesty of the gods".It is the regurgitation of the shadow left by people in the first 400 years of the oppressive and troubled fog.

There may have been many who held similar contradictory positions as Morton, but they all apparently remained silent, or their attitudes changed only afterward.

All in all, the experiment 14 years ago was a bit like a wild attempt.

If this attempt is successful, then people will naturally overthrow the majesty of the gods; and if this attempt fails, then the price of failure will also become a cloud that hangs over people's hearts.

But the success and failure of the attempt—the young man had indeed reappeared the powers of the gods, even if he died of madness within a few days—made the situation somewhat embarrassing.

In the correspondence between Morton and Mr. Xia, this ambivalence was fully displayed.

Based on the actions against the followers of the old gods, the relationship between Morton and Mr. Xia is actually quite peaceful.In any case, such a big man will always maintain some superficial friendliness.

Morton often wrote to Mr. Xia, because they had to fight the followers of the old gods together.More than ten years ago, the actions of the followers of the old gods were more covert and crazy, and death was the most common situation.

So the two of them were almost friends.Mr. Xia even mentioned in a letter that he almost saw the shadow of the earliest vice president of the Historical Society in Morton.

In fact, Morton has mentioned in many past letters about "resurrecting the power of the gods" or similar topics.He was less sympathetic to the approach, but was careful not to express too radical a view.

He just thinks that this kind of behavior is quite dangerous.

And 14 years ago, when this experiment was really going to be carried out...in a total of four days, Morton wrote four letters to Mr. Xia.

In the first letter, he was still not very optimistic about the prospects of this experiment.He exudes an emotion bordering on disdain, waiting to see what happens.He thought that the young man might make a fool of himself.

The second letter was sent after the experiment ended, and Morton inexplicably repeated "he succeeded!" "He actually succeeded!" and similar words in the letter.Obviously this incident brought him an unprecedented impact.

The third letter was written after the young man's death. It's hard to say whether Morton can maintain a calm mind at this time. He just said, "I knew earlier that I should explore the gods in a safer way." the power of".

He also said, "The power of the gods may be an area that humans cannot discover."

The last letter was perhaps the only friendly and calm letter Mr. Xia received before and after leaving the Historical Society.In the letter, Morton said: "Before this, some people thought that gods were outdated.

"But this experiment let us know that the power of the gods has never left us. How can I describe the dead silent and oppressive atmosphere inside the recent society?

"...my student had a big fight with me. He didn't think it was a failure, although I didn't think so either. And he asked me in a rather vehement tone and said, 'But, do you think , this is the defeat of man against the gods, isn't it?"

"The sarcasm almost made it impossible for me to recognize this outstanding student. The truth is, I don't know how to describe the situation myself...I'm not sure what I think.

"However, what I want to say is that there may be a change in the society soon. And their finger may be pointed at you, Mr. Xia, even though you didn't even participate in this experiment.

"When we were discussing this experiment, no one really cared about the past—no one really cared about the old gods and the followers of the old gods. What they cared about was our present.

"So, when this experiment succeeds and fails, it also means that the situation we are in now will change. I hope you can be mentally prepared."

He was even surprised when he read the letter in the dim dawn light.

As Morton said in the letter, there was indeed confusion within the Historical Society because of this experiment-but in the end, why did the blame for this matter point at Mr. Xia?

The answer is quite simple, because everyone knows that Mr. Xia is related to Antinam.

And at that moment, another major event happened on the Principality of Const.In the name of the Dawn Apocalypse, Mr. Xia united with the Church of the Past and requested the Duchy of Const to cancel the inheritance of Ebenezer Const. Of course, many people know about this.

Therefore, Mr. Xia made a rare appearance at a routine meeting of the senior members of the Historical Society.He came here at the invitation of Morton, but he probably did not expect that he would receive a severe questioning at this meeting.

The content of the inquiry includes, but is not limited to: whether he betrayed the Historical Society (referring to the union with the Church of the Past), whether he made any unknown snooping on the experiment not long ago (such as what he did to the young man) , whether he is merciful to the followers of the old gods, and so on.

I have to say that Mr. Xia was of course very surprised at that time.

A subtle twist is that in the Historical Society at the time - in those chaotic days - people were actually confusing the Old Gods with Antinam.They are indeed gods, of course.

After that successful and failed experiment, under the long accumulation of 400 years of contradictions, at the moment when the fear of gods overwhelmingly occupied the minds of the top leaders of the Historical Society...

All the questioning was for one purpose: they wanted to know what Mr. Xia's real position was.

Is Mr. Xia on the side of the gods, or on the side of humans?What does Mr. Xia think about the power of gods?Should humans have access to this power?Many questions were asked in an overly intense way at this time.

"Interrogation".There is a subtle bias in this statement itself.

To this day, when he looks at the documents that took place in that meeting and provided evidence for the questioning, he feels a deep trouble.In fact, these documents cannot support Mr. Xia's position at all, and it can even be said that many records have been forged and tampered with.

But even so, the senior officials of the Historical Society at that time turned a blind eye to the contradictions in the document.

Mr. Xia never expressed any opinion on that experiment.Even those letters from Morton, he never replied.Therefore, when these high-level officials asked—questioned—his position, Mr. Xia was almost at a loss.

...Besides, Mr. Xia at that time... was controlled by Qiuqiu.

At that time, Antinam was too lazy to deal with these things.He has already been keenly aware of the subtle rejection of Mr. Xia within the Historical Society, and even within the Dawn Revelation Society.

Therefore, the reason why Mr. Xia appeared during that time was entirely because Ebenezer Const became a believer in "Shadow", so he needed to deal with this problem.

But precisely because he (Qiuqiu at the time) dealt with this issue, it was the reason for the high level of the historical society to initiate this questioning of him.

——Because he united the Church of the Past.This proves that Mr. Xia is the representative of Antinam.

At this time, the high-level members of the Historical Society are so afraid of the power of the gods. This fear comes from their witnessing the young man's crazy expression and behavior, and from their own greed for the power of the gods.

This fear, combined with the inconceivable, monster-like incomprehensible power that Mr. Xia has shown before, has brewed a deeper rejection and anxiety...

Everything in the end became the reason why Mr. Xia could not continue to stay in the Historical Society.

According to Qiuqiu, before Mr. Xia really expressed his opinion, he once looked at Morton, but Morton didn't say a word and didn't express any opinions—just like his attitude towards that experiment, he Always keep silent, like a default.

So Mr. Xia sighed, he just said: "The cowardice and despicability of human beings always control their brains when they shouldn't be."

Then, he left the meeting; after that, he never appeared again.

... When Qiuqiu said this, its tone was even a little excited and excited.It asked him if he wanted to actually visit that moment.He thought about it, and finally refused.That's not going to be a good scene.

The power of time can certainly witness this scene calmly, but he is not sure if he can do it.

All in all, the so-called "Mr. Xia's break with the Historical Society" is actually not as intense and crazy as people imagined.

Mr. Xia left quietly; Antinam probably didn't bother to understand this matter, and just let Qiuqiu handle it by himself; and the Historical Society quickly suppressed the chaos of the Dawn Revelations, as if they had a plan in advance Same.

As a result, Mr. Xia disappeared for 14 years.

The direct reason for his departure was indeed that experiment; but that was not the root cause.So many years of conflict, so many years of fear... this is the real root.

Mr. Xia is doomed to leave the Historical Society.

…Of course, that was 14 years ago.

He went to the window and saw the God's Day celebration in Atherton Square.The celebration was indeed very solemn, but the crowds gathered around the square and watched the excitement made everything look very lively and lively.

He thought that his past self was also invited by the old church and was watching the ceremony in the square at this moment, although at that time his mind was still full of the Grayson Foods incident that had just ended.

Of course, no one could have imagined that behind an invisible window of the Historical Society, there was a vision from the future quietly watching this scene.

He stretched out his hand and gently tapped the glass window in front of him with his knuckles.He murmured in a low voice, "Mr. Xia?"

When Mr. Xia left, everyone seemed to be relieved; but if Mr. Xia appeared again, how many people who participated in the questioning 14 years ago would feel frightened?

He looked out of the window in silence for another moment, then smiled under his breath.He said, "Let's go back, Ball."

"Okay, Keeper of Secrets." Qiuqiu answered briskly.

Opening his eyes again in the Mirror of Fisher and retracting the doll, Sirius felt a sudden trance.

He stayed in the long river of time for one night and read many disturbances in those long years; but when he returned to the mirror of Fisher and later returned to the real world of Fisher, he It feels like time is only staying for a moment for him.

Anyway, he finally learned how to "play" Mr. Xia smoothly.

On the whole, Mr. Xia is quite a gentle person, at least much gentler than the cold and reserved temperament of "Siles Noel" in his daily life.He can even be described as an approachable, gracious and kind person.

…Combined with his previous conversation with Anti-Nam, he can almost understand Mr. Xia's character.

However, Mr. Xia's gentleness also has an obvious sense of distance.His mystical style also reflects this sense of distance to a considerable extent.After all, Mr. Xia is a different existence from ordinary people after all, and people's fear comes from this.

But this did help Siles; at least he didn't have to worry about his "acting" being exposed. In fact, not many people knew about Mr. Xia.

On the other hand, 14 years ago, didn't Qiuqiu do a good job when dealing with the affairs of the Duchy of Constance and the Historical Society?

He thought about the arrangements for the future, and it didn't take long before he said goodbye to Dice and Ball.

What I have to say is that spending the night in the long river of time gave him a real feeling of "I didn't sleep all night".Although this was only a psychological factor, he still decided to leave the dreamland to rest for a while.

He went to Qinduo's dream.Qin Duo was talking to the souls of the dead one after another boredly.This is a matter of luck, and there may be useful information in it.

However, when Mr. Ghost appeared, Gindo happened to summon a new spirit.

Qin Duo looked at Mr. Phantom, then at the new soul, hesitated for a moment, and couldn't help but say, "...coincidence?"

Mr. Phantom couldn't help but smiled, Qin Duo's cautious and vigilant expression made him feel a little funny.He said, "You suspect that this spirit might bring us interesting information?"

Qin Duo shrugged and said, "I mean, I know your strength quite well. Maybe we can really thank fate? After all, it was a coincidence that we were all caught off guard."

Mr. Ghost smiled, and said, "Then let's try?"

They set their sights on that soul.

He looked like a young man, probably in his early 20s.His hands were strangling his own neck, which seemed to be the cause of his death, but whether he strangled himself or was killed by others is another question.

His expression looked quite distorted. Of course the pain of death shrouded his face, but a more intense madness and fear almost completely destroyed the background of that pain.It is hard to say whether madness brings pain, or pain brings madness.

Qin Duo looked at the young man's soul, and then murmured in a low voice: "It seems that there is really some secret."

A suffocated, tormented, mad, twisted young man.It really immediately made them think of some others, like Foster Longey, who is still recuperating in Middleton.

The young man's soul was whispering hoarsely and whispering all the time, but they couldn't hear it.

Soon, Mr. Ghost found his dreamland.

Of course, they didn't know the young man's name, but in this matter, "direction of mind" is a very useful method.This soul has already appeared in front of them in full shape, so it makes no sense for them to be stumped by a name.

Both he and Qin Duo looked over curiously.

Like so many other dead people, the young man's dreams were a messy, trivial picture.

There are some pictures that look like he is talking with some people and discussing something, some pictures are that he is quietly looking at the river on a boat, and some pictures are distorted color blocks and unrecognizable worlds.

... river water?

Mr. Ghost suddenly froze for a moment.Regarding the identity of this young man, he had a very strange association.

Qin Duo didn't think about it that much for the time being, he just touched his chin, and said curiously: "Who are these people who appear in his dream?" He felt a little strange, "It seems that they are all... important people .”

He said the last word in a very delicate tone.

The young man in front of him looked like an ordinary person, he was wearing rather plain clothes, and the occasional family scenes in the dream could also prove his rather ordinary financial situation.

But those people who appeared in his dream, without exception, had a very obvious, almost pretentious aristocratic style, such as the exquisite-looking canes in their hands, such as their expensive suits and accessories.

Why do these two seemingly different types of people deal with each other?

They re-watched the fragmented images of these dreams.

Qin Duo said uncertainly: "I seem... to be familiar with someone's face." He paused, "It's the guy who first met this young man."

It was a middle-aged man who looked about 40 or [-] years old, and his eyes revealed a rather sinister and cold aura.His attire is obviously very exquisite, which fits his status as a nobleman.

In the dream, he quietly approached the waiting, nervous young man, making the latter jump.

Mr. Ghost also looked at the man carefully.He didn't think the middle-aged man looked familiar, but he felt a little surprised because of his previous association.

He thought for a moment in silence.

Gindo was wondering where that sense of familiarity came from.It took him a while to recall, and then he suddenly remembered: "I see. I feel that this middle-aged man is somewhat similar to the current Grand Duke Const."

The current Grand Duke Const?

Mr. Phantom couldn't help but startled.He once had a brief contact with the Grand Duke at the banquet on the eve of God's birthday. He was a middle-aged man in his 40s.He was impressed by his firm and ruthless gaze.

And this man who appeared in the dream of the dead young man?

Mr. Ghost was silent for a moment, then whispered: "