Chapter 472: Kujo Kazuya’s Judgment

Kujo Kazuya led Zhou Huai, who was disguised as Matsutake Gen, to a secluded side courtyard.

On a crude wooden bed lay a woman.

Polina.

Her face was pale without a trace of color, her eyes tightly closed, and her breathing weak.

Her wounds were not bleeding; instead, wisps of black smoke continuously billowed out.

Her health points had dropped to less than one-tenth.

By the bedside, a burly blonde man was anxiously pacing back and forth, causing the floor to hum with his footsteps.

It was Kalen.

At this moment, he was obviously somewhat irritable.

When he saw Kujo Kazuya push the door open and enter,

"Bang!"

Kalen stepped forward, grabbed Kujo Kazuya by the collar, and slammed him heavily against the wall.

"Where the hell is that damned Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense placed?!"

He roared at Kujo Kazuya.

"I'm going to snatch it back right now!"

Kujo Kazuya was so frightened that his face turned pale, and he waved his hands hurriedly.

"Mr. Kalen! Calm down!"

"If you do this, not only will you expose ourselves, but even Ms. Polina will be in huge trouble!"

"Calm down?"

Kalen's volume rose a few notches, his spit spraying onto Kujo Kazuya's face.

"How the fuck can I calm down?!"

He pointed at the dying woman on the bed, his voice carrying a sob.

"Look at her! Polina is about to die!"

Kalen let go of his hand, retreated dejectedly two steps, and smashed his fist against the adjacent wall.

He turned his head and cursed fiercely,

"And that untrustworthy person from Great Xia Country!"

"He hasn't brought the medicine over after dragging it out for so long!"

"If it weren't for him, we would have already left Tokyo City!"

Right at this moment,

a calm voice carrying a hint of playfulness came from the doorway.

"It seems I heard someone cursing me?"

Kalen's movements stiffened as he abruptly turned his head.

He saw that the middle-aged man who had met with them last time was already standing at the doorway at some unknown point, watching him with arms crossed.

Kalen's pupils shrank abruptly, and he stared intently at the person at the doorway, his voice hoarse.

"You… You are that Ever-changing Star Lord?"

Zhou Huai did not answer, merely smiling faintly.

This smile instantly washed away the irritability and despair on Kalen's face, replacing them with wild joy.

He rushed in front of Zhou Huai in a single stride, grabbing Zhou Huai's arm incoherently due to being too excited.

"How is it? How is it?"

"The Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense! Did you bring it?"

Zhou Huai still appeared calm and composed, unhurried.

In fact, Nakamura Shinichiro had long since handed the Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense to him, but he had dragged his feet and refused to deliver it.

He simply wanted to wait.

Waiting until Polina was on the verge of death and Kalen was in despair. The closer it got to such a life-or-death moment, the deeper the other party's gratitude would be, and the more valuable this favor would become.

Zhou Huai stopped beating around the bush.

With a flip of his wrist, a sandalwood box appeared in his palm.

Opening the box, an exotic fragrance instantly filled the entire room.

A translucent stick of incense lay quietly in the box.

It was precisely the Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense.

"I brought it!"

The moment Kalen saw that stick of incense, his eyes lit up and his breathing became extremely heavy.

With trembling hands, he carefully took the box from Zhou Huai's hands, not even having time to say thanks before turning and rushing back to the bedside.

Kalen took out a small censer from his bosom and steadily inserted the Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense into it.

His hand striking the match tried several times before successfully lighting it due to being too excited.

"Poof."

A wisp of pale golden smoke rose from the tip of the incense.

That smoke did not drift upward, but instead flowed straight toward Polina's body.

When the pale golden smoke came into contact with the black smoke, the black smoke immediately churned violently, attempting to escape, but the golden smoke tightly entangled it.

"Sizzling—"

The two types of smoke eroded and annihilated each other in mid-air.

Golden smoke was continuously produced from the Curse-Breaking Spirit Incense to replenish it, while the black smoke retreated steadily, growing paler and paler.

In the end, even the last trace of black smoke completely dissipated.

After finishing all this, the golden smoke did not disappear; instead, they turned into flowing light, slowly covering Polina's wounds that were deep enough to see bone.

Visible to the naked eye, the rolled-back flesh began to wriggle and heal at an extremely fast speed.

Beneath the pale skin, a trace of healthy rosiness gradually recovered.

Kalen knelt by the bed, staring fixedly at Polina's face, not even daring to take a full breath.

Not knowing how much time had passed,

Polina's long eyelashes trembled gently.

Afterward, her eyes, which had been tightly closed for a long time, slowly opened.

"Thank goodness, you've finally woken up."

Kalen breathed a sigh of relief, sitting weakly on the floor by the bed.

On the bed, Polina's eyelashes moved. She felt her strength returning and her wounds no longer hurting. Her gaze swept across the room and finally stopped on the middle-aged man standing at the doorway with crossed arms, smiling.

Polina was a smart woman.

Seeing this man, she immediately understood everything.

She struggled to sit up.

"Don't move."

Kalen hurriedly pressed her down, his voice still carrying a bit of lingering fear.

"Your injuries have just healed."

Polina ignored him, only staring with her eyes at Insect Emperor Caesar at the doorway.

"Ever-changing Star Lord?"

Her voice was still somewhat weak.

Zhou Huai, manipulating Insect Emperor Caesar, nodded.

A smile appeared on Polina's face as she slightly bowed toward Zhou Huai.

"Many thanks to Your Excellency for saving my life; Polina has no way to repay this."

"I almost truly thought I was going to die in this cold city."

She looked at Zhou Huai's ordinary middle-aged man face, her eyes filled with inquiry and curiosity.

"Your appearance right now is a disguise, right?"

"To be honest, I really want to see what my savior actually looks like."

Polina licked her lips, her tone carrying teasing.

"Presumably, he should be a great handsome guy."

Zhou Huai ignored her teasing, merely looking at her calmly.

"Since Ms. Polina already has the energy to tease me, it's obvious that your injuries have completely recovered."

"How about we talk about the matter of cooperation instead?"

Hearing this, Polina's smile subsided a bit.

"Go ahead and say it, how do you want to talk?"

Zhou Huai told Polina and Kalen about the current situation in Sakura Country and Kujo Koji's plan.

Hearing that Kujo Koji wanted to sacrifice 130,000 civilians to resurrect Qin Ze, Kalen was full of shock, while Polina frowned, pondering something.

After a moment, she finally spoke.

"I didn't expect the price of the Pendulum of Life to be so huge."

"At every turn, it's the lives of over a hundred thousand people."

She suddenly chuckled and shook her head.

"If I were Kujo Koji and obtained such a Divine Artifact, I'd run over to a hostile country to use it the very first chance I got."

"Why harm the citizens of your own country?"

Zhou Huai looked at her with a peculiar expression: "Your angle of thinking is also quite unique."

"But this doesn't seem to be the main point, right?"

The smile on Polina's face appeared once more, and she blinked at Zhou Huai.

"I understand."

"The Kujo Family and the Omiya Family are about to go to war. To gain stronger combat power, Kujo Koji is preparing to sacrifice a city to resurrect that so-called 'King of a Hundred Ghosts'."

"This is indeed the best time for us to fish in troubled waters and seize the Pendulum of Life."

Her tone shifted as she said,

"But the problem is, how should we judge which city Kujo Koji will actually bring the Pendulum of Life to?"

"Karuizawa, Hakone, Lake Kawaguchi, Kamakura…"

"Out of these four cities, which one will he choose?"

Polina's gaze turned to Kujo Kazuya, who had been silent beside them, and cast a seductive wink at him.

"Kazuya-kun, do you have any clues?"

Kujo Kazuya's face instantly turned red.

Seeing this, Zhou Huai was somewhat speechless in his heart.

Looking at this good-for-nothing appearance of Kujo Kazuya, he was mostly a marginal figure in the Kujo Family. How could Kujo Koji possibly tell him such an important secret?

Expecting things from him was worse than expecting things from a stray dog by the roadside.

Who would have thought that Kujo Kazuya did not shake his head; instead, he knitted his brows and began to think seriously.

This made Zhou Huai somewhat surprised.

After a while, Kujo Kazuya seemed to think of something, abruptly raising his head as his gaze became extremely certain.

"I feel that Uncle… will definitely choose Lake Kawaguchi!"