"Really?" Willow raised a brow in bewilderment and smiled, "That's great to hear. Then, I'll stop by the hostel if I ever change my mind. I'm Willow, by the way. Sorry for making you come out here for this."
The man shrugged and turned around before quickly leaving. Karma said his farewell before quickly following him. She assumed that Karma must've been staying at the hostel. From what she knew there were ways to separate the rooms used according to gender, but she never quite knew how. Regardless, she wasn't planning on going there if he was there too.
Moreover, she would probably be watched from a distance too, so she better hold off on the make-up stuff for now. But...
She sighed and muttered quietly with a smirk, "Since, it's like this. Guess, I'll have to stay here for a while."
After they left, Willow brought out her map from the small pot in her duffel bag and began to check on the area under the light shined down from the blue hood over the bench. It was good to investigate the situation, but just doing that would only get her so far.
She needs power.
Power to protect herself.
However, she believed that it was impossible to use her abilities without attracting attention and it was still too early to build strong connections with other people. She hated being wary of everything and having restricted movements, but it was better than being trapped in one place, to be honest. Yet, what can she do with such little leeway?
She's thought about this, but the situation really was difficult. Not even, the original Li Fei had known about all this or anything about people with a similar heritage as her. What if she were to travel to New York?
However, the place must've just been liberated from Elijah's hands and is currently undergoing difficulties. If she goes there now, it'd cause much trouble. However, there was something else she wanted to be sure of.
Not every design on the map should correspond with reality. Hence, she's been checking out all the areas of this city and comparing the streets and alleys with the map in mind. After much contemplation, she decided to take her bag for another stroll in the streets. According to Karma, all the buses had stopped that night. However, even if Karma knew this, wasn't this a little convenient?
She had told Karma that she wanted to head over to Beijing that morning and, not long after, it turns out that the transportation systems have all stopped for the night. It didn't take long for her to figure out what could've happened.
With such thoughts, she made her way down to a park.
The walk wasn't long and she arrived at a lush forest of green trees and bushes alongside a large stone bridge and river. She found a place under one of the bridges and built a simple campfire to boil her small pot of water. That water was then poured into her beaten thermal container with a couple pinches of black tea leaves.
When she finished, she breathed a long irritated sigh as she pulled out her notebook and pen into her hands with her thermal nested in the crook of her arm.
With this, her little trump was completed. The only problem is how long it will keep her moving?
It was a little more effort, but she managed to toss the remains of the fire out into the river. She then traveled to a few scenic places after asking some of the locals pretending she was a tourist as she mixed in some of the other questions she wanted to ask. It was pretty simple. Acting like a foreigner isn't really wise at a time like this, but choose the right approach can easily change things a little bit.
As she thought, the evening was turning quickly into night as a few food stalls struggle to keep their business alive. It was no surprise, after all. The virus was scaring everyone, but few could possibly die from starvation and cold instead of the virus without money.
This is the world where human wisdom ultimately reigns supreme. No matter how powerful a human can become. In the end, it all depended on the mind.
The more knowledge and witty one has in the palm of their hands, the higher their position could grow. All they need is a chance called education and, unlike what most thinks, not many gets that chance. However, she knew from her father's tutorship that China isn't behind the scales when it comes to mathematics.
When she was in college, she had passed all those courses easily due to her father's drills. However, if they were to say that she liked math, it's a bit sorry to say that she can only say she fears her father's temper more than she hates those number problems.
Those people in America weren't completely wrong when they say that Asian families were strict with the education of their youngest generation. Her father in her previous life, for one, was proud to uphold that sentence while their mom could only sit back with her children and sigh in exasperation wondering if her proud fool of a husband even understood the double sides of that sentence.
After all, her father was terrible in the English language because he takes everything so seriously with such big optimism. One time, they were at a Christmas breakfast buffet with his best friend and his family when her dad talked about wanting to buy a hardware disk, but his pronunciation was so jumbled that his friend thought he wanted to get some heart to wear a fish!
It was a wonder how he managed to passed the English Language test to go to study at a graduate college in California! She supposed at some point it had been passable before he entered the job industries.
The people opening stalls struggle to make deliveries and gather customers, that were few to begin with, interested. However, no matter where you look, you could still see some people with large bags on their back quickly guiding their curious children away with great speed. It was obvious they didn't have the energy or money to waste on the trivial matters.
It certainly just wasn't the time to spoil their children when a virus was on the run through the cities. However, from what she can gather, the virus wasn't as terrible as the plague that had once affected Beijing. Yet, how did this new come suddenly swept over to devastate the area further on top of the plague?
Something definitely wasn't right, yet this virus held little suspicions than the previous did. She recalled that tearing plague which had torn through her abdomen during her previous life. The horrendous pain in her mixed with the damp and sweltering air that pressured her every breath. It was a strange disease that had left weird symptoms on the victims. From vomiting black blood to their organs completely torn apart from inside their bodies without outside interference.
Thinking back, it was, without a doubt, the influence of those demigods.
Obviously, Elijah must've been one of the children of the Greek god of the underworld. However, would just that have been able to bring down plagues and disasters upon the land?
She remembered the fight he had with the group of demigods. Surrounding that man were two or three green or blue fire skulls. Also, she recalled that the Greek God, Hades, was the Ruler of the underworld, not death.
At most, summoning spirits and maybe a fireball or two should be within Elijah's capabilities and a cinch for that fool's father. But, to wreck the land with disasters and bring about plagues?
No.
That couldn't have been him.
He must've found someone else.
However, ever since then, there have been very few cases of such catastrophic disasters. Yet, without much evidence and scientific proof, everyone was quick to put the blame on Elijah. Pretty convenient, don't you think?
However, nobody said a word and accepted it socially and publicly. It didn't take much to understood the cause of the public announcement that arrested and took down the entire corporations that Elijahled in the United States. Something was wrong in this world. From a human's perspective mixed with a demigod's perspective together, it was plain to see. Anyone would want to find the answer to how a single person was able to find a way to cause natural disasters and plagues so easily, but where are those people now?
Even if he could hire evil researchers to do his bidding, there will always be more outside of his companies. There was also the government. What governments doesn't have their secrets?
It was obvious something had happened from within.
She turned from the main road and continued her investigation checking out the streets. It would be difficult since she's never done this before, but what she was more concerned about was the danger that came with it.