"Originally the mayor thought the girls were having illicit relationships with men and that was why they were pregnant. Opinion on the matter changed, and everyone realized something wasn"t right when one of the girls tried to commit suicide. No matter how much she bled, she wouldn"t die.

The mayor and some of the older town heads thought the pregnancies were unnatural, that perhaps the pregnancies were demon sp.a.w.ns. It wasn"t a farfetched idea considering the town"s proximity to the badlands. An escaped demon could have caused it."

"No, that"s impossible," interrupted Gerasi. "There are two incredibly powerful seals over the entire perimeter. Besides any demons inside are long dead. There"s none that could come out to cause trouble."

The boss shot Gerasi a reprimanding look. "I know, don"t worry. Please let me finish speaking."

"Anyways at this point everyone believed the pregnancies was supernatural, so we wanted to find out what was going on. The mayor went to a magician guild to request a.s.sistance, but the magician we hired was no help. All he did was circle the town a few times before declaring the pregnancies weren"t related to the demons in the badlands, that the girls were simply indiscrete and became pregnant in the normal way. He suggested the suicide failed because the girl either ate some kind of special fruit or she just had a strong const.i.tution.

Basically he took our money and left. Now a lot of the people in town believe the girls were indiscrete and that the pregnancies were a result of their affairs.

The girls cried and shouted their innocence, but no one believed them. In the end, because of all the gossip, the affected families kept their daughters inside. Some even forcefully fed abortion drugs to the girls, but it was useless. The babies refused to be aborted.

Princess Nai Nai visited at this most difficult of times. The mayor was afraid the pregnant girls would make the town look bad so he deliberately hid the matter from the her.

After the princess left, there weren"t any new pregnancies. It was really strange so I visited my brother in town. His daughter, my niece, had had something similar happen to her."

The boss sighed. The whole affair was just pitiful.

"So what was the problem?" Rain asked. The story had roused her curiosity.

Feng Wu was listening quietly as well. No one knew what Lydia was thinking, but she appeared mesmerized by the tale.

"It turned out all the girls had the same dream. Every one of them dreamt of being engaged to a beautiful prince who lived in a magnificent palace. On top of that they were all pregnant. My niece didn"t give it much thought, believing it was just a dream. It was only when her body began showing that she became afraid, and she wondered if wasn"t just a dream after all.

My niece and a few other pregnant girls were able to meet up and they realized they had had very similiar dreams of the man. Sometimes the man would claim to be a prince, other times a n.o.bleman. In one dream he even claimed to be the embodiment of a sword G.o.d from the ancient past. Whatever his ident.i.ty, it was always a n.o.ble and attractive one."

Luis tapped his chin in thought. "Interesting." He asked, "Is it the same person that appears in everyone"s dreams then?"

"Yes, it"s the same person." The boss sighed.

"How strange. Getting pregnant from a dream! Isn"t that crazy?" Elena had no problems stating her opinions. She had always been a tomboy so she wasn"t shy about sharing her views.

"Boss, what you"re saying is everything settled down after Princess Nai Nai left. That there were no new pregnancies correct?" Ming Xi knew there were many secrets in the world, in fact he even knew what a couple of them were. He thought about the ancient records in his family library but couldn"t remember anything that referenced conception from dreams.

"I realized something." The boss hesitated but ultimately decided to share his opinion. "After Princess Nai Nai left there weren"t any new pregnancies in town. It really was strange. I wanted to know if the pregnancies were related to her so I hired a few mercenaries to investigate. I had them look into the capital to see if they could find any news regarding pregnancies out of wedlock. I didn"t expect them to find anything but they did! The city looked fine on the surface but there were problems underneath. The mercenaries discovered several pregnancies. The ladies were from n.o.ble houses so their families tried to keep it a secret. They even tried to abort the pregnancies, but everything they tried failed.

This only accounts for the n.o.bility, I"m afraid if we consider the common people the casualty would be much higher..."

The boss was a clever man. He had noticed something was off about the princess"s body when she came the first time. After several months of investigation the mercenaries confirmed there was indeed something wrong with the princess. The boss didn"t know what sinister thing was happening, if the man in the dreams was a malevolent spirit. He didn"t know if the princess herself was aware of it. If she was aware of it then was she a part of it? If not then was she another victim?

"Boss, are you telling us this because you want us to help?" Zi Cheng admired him for not trying to sweep the problem under the rug. Instead he was actively trying to do something about it.

"Yes. If I"m not mistaken there"s a demon attached to the princess. You"ll be able to catch it if you follow her."

He talked with them for a moment longer before taking his leave. After the boss left Jier turned to Lydia and asked, "What do you think?"

Everyone else followed suit and turned to her as well. It was clear the matter involved dead spirits, but unfortunately there wasn"t a necromancer in their group.