Ning woke up early in the morning. Reever and Lisa had planned to leave back to her home early this morning, so he wanted to make sure they made it safely there.
At the same time, he would be leaving this place and continuing his adventure.
He canceled his hotel room and left the place. He walked through the morning crowd and made his way to the train station.
"Oh, you guys are already here," Ning said as he saw the husband-wife pair waiting on the train platform with a few suitcases around them.
Reever was wearing the same dress as he did when Ning first met him in the desert, and Lisa wore a flower pattern pink gown with a blue flowery hat on her head.
"Oh, brother Ning, you're here. Thank you so much for doing this. My fear of what's going to happen keeps increasing more and more every hour. She won't even tell me anything either," Reever said.
"Don't worry, I will help you get there safely," Ning said.
"Thank you so much, Ning," Lisa said. "I will help you as much as I can assuming I still hold any authority back at home."
"It's fine. I'm just doing this because you are my friends. Besides, I was getting bored with this place anyway and it was time for me to leave soon," he said.
"Thank you," Lisa said once more. The train came to the station, pupping a plume of white smoke above it. Steam was released from multiple instances around the train and made the place look more crowded than it actually was.
The three boarded the train and went to find themselves a seat. The couple sat on two empty seats on one side, and Ning sat on the opposite side.
It was slowly starting to get hot on the train, so Reever took off his hat and so did Lisa. She removed her hairpin, and her beautiful black hair fell down onto her shoulders.
Reever looked at her and immediately his eyes went wide. "Honey!" he called out and whispered something into her ears.
Ning got curious and used his enhanced hearing to listen to what he had to say.
"Did you forget to dye your hair last night?" he asked. Lisa's eyes went wide when she heard that and immediately tried to put on her hat. But then, she stopped and her expression returned to normal.
"It's fine. I don't need to dye it anymore," she said.
"Huh?" Reever looked at her with a confused expression.
"What's going on?" Ning asked.
"It's… nothing, brother Ning," Reever said.
"Does it have something to do with her blonde hair?" Ning asked.
"Sshh! Don't say that out loud, brother Ning," Reever said with his finger to his lips.
"Oh sorry. Why not?" he asked.
"Lisa has… um, an inferiority complex about her hair. She feels out of place with her blonde hair, so he has to keep dying it every day," Reever said.
"Oh," Ning said. "That can happen."
Suddenly, he heard a sigh coming from next to Reever. "That's not it, honey," she said.
"What do you mean?" Reever turned around to ask her.
"I don't have any complex. It's just… Blonde hair gives me away whenever I am out since no one else has it. So, I have to dye it. I couldn't really explain it to other people, so Uncle had the idea to tell people that I had a complex about it," Lisa said.
Reever looked dumbfounded. "Wait, so all the time we bought the expensive dyes for your hair, you didn't need it?" Reever asked, with a face that said he was betrayed right now.
"No!" Lisa exclaimed. "It was necessary. If I didn't have dyes, I would've been found out long ago."
"How?" Reever asked.
"Because only my family members can have blonde hair. That is where the name blonde started too," Lisa said.
"What?" Reever looked confused. "I have never heard of blonde hair belonging to a specific family."
"It's not a very well-known information amongst the commoners, but amongst the nobles, everyone knows this. That's why I had to do what I did," she said.
The train conductor came at that moment and asked for their tickets. Ning bought himself one and looked at Reever who was too confused and stunned to do anything.
Lisa brought out a few coins and paid for herself.
"You're still not telling me about your family, honey. How are you? A Baron? A Viscount? An Earl? A Marquees?" Reever asked.
Lisa just shook her head. "You'll find soon enough," she said.
Suddenly a card rolled up next to them. A middle-aged woman was selling food on the cart.
"You dears need anything?" she asked. "I have food and drinks."
"Do you have anything cold to drink?" Reever asked.
"Let's see… I have chilled water, fruit juice, or tea. What do you want?" she asked.
Reever thought for a moment and said, "Give us 3 glasses of juices then."
"Okay," the lady poured 3 glasses of juices and handed them to the three. "That would be 3 coins," she said.
"Oh, that's quite cheap," Reever said as he paid her.
The lady took the coins and moved on. "Hey what do we do with these glas— and she's gone. We should probably just keep it here at the side after we are done," Reever said and handed the juices to Lisa and Ning.
"Alright, let's just drink up and forget about this depressive talk," he said and started drinking.
Lisa shook her head and also drank her juice.
Ning chuckled a little and looked at the orange juice in his glass. "Hmm?" he thought when he smelled something. He smelled once more and the orange juice definitely had something in it.
His eyes widened and he immediately gulped it down. Suddenly, he could feel something happening in his stomach, a low rumbling as it threatened to hurt him.
"Oh no," Ning thought when he realized what was happening.
He was poisoned.
