Chapter 3 Brother and Sister
A few more hours passed.
The sky gradually darkened and it was approaching evening.
Levi finally breathed a sigh of relief and closed the notebook that he and Janna had jointly created, which was filled with dozens of pages of writing.
Just at this moment, the sound of approaching footsteps was heard outside the door.
The footsteps soon stopped at the door, and soon a black-haired girl wearing glasses opened the door with a key.
"Brother, I'm back."
The girl was Levi's sister, Lina.
Because her ancestors were Eastern immigrants from Ionia, she had beautiful black hair and black eyes like Levi, and her facial features and skin were more delicate and exquisite than those of the natives of Zaun.
Unlike her sloppy brother, Lina wore a simple and quiet thick ponytail and the standard school uniform of Piltover University. She was clean from head to toe without a single stain.
The slim-fitting women's suit and knee-length skirt, paired with white stockings, black leather shoes and gold-rimmed glasses... made her look more like a lady from Piltover, rather than the little Zuan girl who came here to make a living with her apprentice brother.
“Lina!”
Levi imitated the feeling in his memory and welcomed her in with a smile.
That Levi loved his sister very much. Before he died, he felt relieved, but when he thought that his sister would have no one to take care of her after his death, he quickly struggled to breathe in big gulps of air.
"Brother...where did you get this pet bird?"
Lina noticed the petite bluebird lying on Levi's shoulder.
But she seemed to be in a bad mood at the moment, and even the lovely Janna could not arouse the girl's interest.
So without waiting for Levi to answer, she frowned slightly:
"Brother...did you go through my suitcase? Why are my books and notebooks outside? You can barely read, what are you doing with these things? The school only gives out a few free notebooks, and there's only one pen...I need them for school."
Lina kept mumbling to herself, but Levi wasn't angry.
"You must be tired after a day of classes, right?"
"Lina, let's eat first."
As he spoke, he carefully set up a chair to use as a dining table and took out a lunch box from under the bed.
"Today is your favorite food--"
"Pickled Demonic Swamp Frog!"
Levi opened the lunch box with great ceremoniality, but what was revealed was not golden light, but a large lump of meat soaked in all kinds of strange and colorful spices. It looked very much like the magic frog meat that is a specialty of the Ganges River.
The Frog is a magical creature that lives in the sewers of Zaun.
Although it looks terrible and is disliked by the upper class in Piltover, it tastes surprisingly good and is the favorite delicacy of the people of Zaun, and one of the few meats they can afford.
Levi came back from an all-night shift. Although he was tired and sleepy, he still queued up in a long line when he saw a stall selling frog meat on the street and packed a box for his sister.
"Demon Swamp Frog?!"
For some reason, Lina's brows furrowed even deeper:
"Brother, didn't I tell you...I don't want to eat this kind of food anymore!"
"It's because we keep eating these weird things that the people of Piltover look down on us and call us 'sewer rats that eat everything'!"
“…” Levi finally stopped laughing.
He didn't preach, but just handed the fork to his sister:
"The landlord came to collect the rent today."
Lina: “…”
All her resentment was stuck in her throat and she couldn't utter a word.
Li Wei then quietly asked, "Have you been wronged in school again?"
“Hmm…” Lina’s eyes were a little wet.
"I'm sorry, brother..."
"Speak now, it's not good to hold it in."
"She is none other than the eldest daughter of the Ferros family! She relies on the support of a crappy family to cause trouble to others all the time... Not only did she scold me, she also called us Zaun people garbage-eating sewer rats, saying that we are stinky outsiders who only come to Piltover to beg for food..."
"She really has shit in her mouth. This bitch was born by her mother but never taught by her mother... cough cough!"
Lina cursed a lot of Zaun language, but then covered her mouth in embarrassment.
"Hahaha." Levi touched his sister's hair encouragingly: "Don't pretend in your own home."
"Look - no matter how you pretend, you are still a Zaun."
"Well..." Lina blushed and lowered her head.
Then she didn't say anything, just held the fork and showed off the magic frog.
It seemed quite elegant at first, but as it ate, its true nature showed and it started to tear the Frog apart with its bare hands.
"Brother." After a while, the girl raised her head belatedly, "Didn't the landlord say anything when he came to collect the rent this time?"
“He won’t just ask the law enforcers to kick us out, will he? If that’s the case… we’ll have to go back to Zaun.”
"Don't worry. Mr. Bill has promised that it won't go that far." Levi comforted him without changing his expression: "Just focus on your studies. I will take care of the money issue."
"Yeah..." Lina nodded.
She seemed to want to continue eating, but after hesitating for a moment, she said to Levi:
"After dinner, I will go back to school."
"There will be an interview assessment tonight. If I can pass it, brother, you know what? I can be accepted by Professor Jace Tallis's research group as a key training target."
"Members of the research team will receive additional subsidies..."
"Brother, then our family will have money!"
"Professor Jace..." Levi also heard that this was indeed a great opportunity.
Justalis, the founder of Hextech, is now the hottest scientific research star in Piltover.
Whenever Levi went downstairs to buy a pack of cigarettes, he could see more than a dozen different promotional posters of Mr. Jess.
I really didn’t expect that…
If it was before the time travel, when hearing the name Jayce, Levi would only think "How dare little Jayce show off his skills in front of an expert", and then sneer and let him show the other side what Ionia's high spirits are.
But now that he has traveled through time, Jace has become a great man that he can never reach. It's really sad.
But no matter what, this is indeed a huge opportunity.
If Lina could become Jace's student, then they would no longer be afraid of being driven back to Zaun by the law enforcers.
"But it's not easy, right?"
"Huh?" Lina's forced smile froze.
Li Wei touched her head again and said, "Just do your best tonight and don't put too much pressure on yourself."
"Even if we fail, we haven't lost anything."
“Hmm…” Lina was a little speechless, she just bit her lips tightly: “Hmm!”
"You eat first." Li Wei slowly stood up, moved away from his sister, and squeezed to the door: "I'm going to work the night shift."
"Go now?" Lina was a little reluctant. Her and her brother's schedules were completely different, and they could only see each other in the evening.
"Well, I'll go see if Mr. Erwin is there."
Levi works in a Hexagon audio factory and Mr. Irvine is his boss.
In the original owner's memory, this boss who was quite majestic in front of the workers was actually a good person with a cold face but a warm heart.
A good man who sympathizes with the workers of Zaun - a rare species among business owners in Piltover.
"If possible, I will go to Mr. Irving and ask for an advance on next month's salary. I think he will agree."
Although this amount of money is not enough to pay the rent, at least I can use it to ask the landlord for more leniency so that I won't be kicked back to Zaun by the law enforcement officer tomorrow.
"What about next month?"
My sister still asked worriedly.
"Don't worry, I can handle it." Levi was very confident. After all, he was a knowledgeable earthling. As long as he could buy some time, he would naturally find a way to make money.
"Defend your thesis well tonight and don't think about things at home."
After giving his final instructions, Levi opened the door and walked out with the blue bird Cana lying on his shoulder.
"Hey, brother, don't you want to eat?" Lina called him but the door was already closed.
She thought about it and slowly put the lunch box down.
Then she squatted down, took out the bag of salt from the storage box under the bed, and carefully sprinkled a layer of coarse salt on the remaining half of the magic frog meat. Then she carefully closed the lid of the lunch box and put it back on the bed.
"Brother, I haven't finished eating. Come back after your night shift and eat it. If you don't eat it now, it will go bad."
Lina picked up the notebook that Levi had used earlier, carefully tore off a piece of paper from the last page, and left a note for her brother.
After leaving the note, she stuffed the notebook into her schoolbag.
As she said, she never had enough notebooks.
Even though Levi had used this blank notebook to write something, she still had to take it to school and use it as writing paper for her defense interview in the evening.
"Wait..." Lina had just stuffed the notebook into her schoolbag when she suddenly realized something:
"What did my brother write?"
"Doesn't he usually never read?"
With curiosity and confusion, she finally opened the notes left by Levi.
The first thing that caught my eye was a line of speech:
"For you, Mr. Levi."
The handwriting was firm and powerful, with distinct strokes, and it didn't look like it was written by her older, rough brother.
"When did my brother's handwriting become so good... and how come he wrote this speech for himself?"
Lina was confused, but she only saw the preface after the speech:
"Goddess Janna is real."
This was a lightning strike at the opening.
"I have had the honor of having several long conversations with the goddess Janna, and have been enlightened by her grace and wisdom. I have also learned and mastered a revolutionary tool for understanding the world."
"Huh?" Lina was stunned.
My brother actually said that he had seen Janna with his own eyes? The legendary guardian of Zaun, Janna the Storm's Fury?
What a joke!
Janna is clearly telling a story to trick children!
Even if she is real, so what?
What on earth is the patron saint of Zaan? The people of Zaan are living like this, and I’ve never seen her go to work!
"Oh no, I wonder if my brother has been deceived by some charlatan..." Lina was very worried.
However, she only read a little further and found:
"First of all, I want to make it clear to everyone that Janna really exists and she is indeed a god."
"But gods are not omnipotent. Gods are just powerful magical creatures, and there is no essential difference between them and humans."
"Huh?" Lina was confused again.
The first part is so mysterious, why is it that the god is described like this in the latter part? If the god is described as a human, will anyone be fooled?
Levi then wrote:
"Janna granted me divine grace not to promote herself through my mouth, but to spread wisdom to the world and share her thoughts and ideas."
"As the goddess of mercy and equality, and the protector of thousands of people, her soul has been floating over Runeland for thousands of years."
"She observed the development and changes of human history and analyzed the past, present and future of society. Finally, after a long period of research and thinking, she summed up a set of thinking tools to help us understand and transform the world."
“Here, the author simply summarizes it as Janna Thought, which is the true meaning of the Janna Goddess.”
“Here, I will try to use Janna’s thoughts to simply sort out and analyze the history of Zaun and Piltover over the past 7,000 years—”
Seeing this, Lina was already deeply curious.
Janna's thoughts? God is no longer trying to deceive believers, but is now a philosophy teacher? This is really something new!
She continued to scroll down.
Li Wei then wrote a striking title for his article in plain language that is very eye-catching and understandable to anyone:
"Zuan, where did it come from?"
