They soon found themselves in the Grey sisters’ room. Xia Lei was carried in by the four females. They then threw him onto the bed unceremoniously. The Russo sisters quickly set to work, stripping him but graciously leaving his underwear untouched, to which Xia Lei was thankful for.

Meanwhile, the Grey sisters had lit up another two sticks of the same Requiem candles Arthur had lit during dinner.

“Wow, they’re really generous on the candles. One of these candles would’ve been enough. Are they so desperate to get this over with?” thought Xia Lei to himself.

“Hey.” Rosa extended a hand to slap Xia Lei’s cheek in an attempt to gauge his response.

“Darling, wake up.”

Xia Lei blinked his eyes open and started to mumble, “Tianyin, is that you? Oh, you’re so pretty. I’ve missed you…”

“Tianyin?” Rosa was confused, but she soon remembered something. “Oh, right. According to the information the leader gave us, he does have a wife whose name was Shentu Tianyin, but they’re divorced now.”

“What a name,” commented Stella. “But if he had mistaken you for his ex-wife, it really means that he’s completely out of his mind now.”

Xia Lei had said that on purpose.

Theresa waved her arm in front of Xia Lei, then held up two of her digits. “Darling, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Xia Lei blinked slowly. “Five. Hehehe…”

Theresa started to laugh. “With his current condition, do we still need to do it with him?”

“The leader’s instructions were clear, we must follow his orders,” rebuked Giovanna.

“Yes, tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum.” Stella continued. “We must stick to his orders to avoid any mistakes.”

Xia Lei was screaming internally. “Are they out of their minds?! Do they only have one brain cell between them? They could’ve just left that part out now that I’m like this, but they still want to…”

“Fine, we’re leaving two of us here anyway. Giovanna, stay here with Stella to do the deed. I’ll go with my sister to retrieve our relic,” uttered Rosa.

“Then we should hurry up and get its location out from him! We can’t just stand here and wait,” urged Giovanna.

Stella climbed onto the bed steadily to lie close to his left torso while Giovanna had followed suit to occupy his right. The Russo sisters soon joined them, choosing to kneel beside his leg and his head. Now, Xia Lei was surrounded by a beautiful scenery, the Greys’ breasts and the Russo’s legs were a sensual sight to behold.

“These four had only learnt it by theory, huh?” pondered Xia Lei as his right arm started to sneak towards his discarded shirt.

His sneaky hand was only an inch away from his shirt when Giovanna abruptly hugged his moving arm and pressed it against her soft chest. “Darling, where did you keep the silver metal?” she asked in a low, seductive tone.

“I… I placed it… in my… room…” Xia Lei’s words were slurred, but it was still understandable.

“Where in your room did you place it?” asked Stella. Unlike her sister, she didn’t embrace Xia Lei’s other arm, opting to use other ways to further distract him. She started to draw circles on his abs.

Xia Lei could feel his jaw clench. He could control his mind but his brain had failed to control his body. His physiological senses decided to take over, forming an obvious tent in his boxers. Though so, Xia Lei was determined to play his part until the end. “There’s a safe in my room… “

“What is the password to the safe?” asked Rosa impatiently.

“383874,” answered Xia Lei.

“Let’s go.” Rosa leapt off the bed.

Theresa quickly followed suit, smoothing out the wrinkles on her skirt as soon as her feet touched the ground. “Giovanna, Stella, we’ll leave this to you. Please buy more time for us,” said Theresa.

“Do try to extract more useful information from him!” added Rosa.

“Please be careful, may God bless you.”

While the four had their attention elsewhere, Xia Lei’s arm had successfully reached into the pocket of his shirt. Using his thumb, he removed the wooden cork of a small perfume bottle before retracting his arm back stealthily.

The Russo sisters left the room in a flurry.

“Wait, what is that smell?” Giovanna sniffed the air.

“I smell it too, it smells really nice,” replied Stella. Her gaze quickly landed on Xia Lei’s shirt. She grabbed it and soon found the small opened perfume bottle in its pocket.

There were still some remnants of its substance at the bottom of the bottle. As soon as Stella removed it from its pocket, the fragrance intensified and engulfed the scent of the Requiem candle.

“I’m surprised he brings perfume around with him.” Giovanna frowned.

“The leader said he was a perverted man. Looks like he was right. He probably uses it to appeal to females.”

“He even mentioned that Xia Lei was probably the world’s most powerful fighter and had single handedly taken the lives of more than a hundred people. But he’s so clean and sophisticated, how could he possibly be a killer?” Giovanna squinted at Xia Lei.

“Yeah, I agree. I don’t think he has the looks of a killer. More like a nightclub owner.”

“Ah? Since when have you visited a nightclub?”

“I’ve never visited one but I’ve heard a lot about that place. This world is filthy and corrupted, it needs to be purified.”

“I think we should save this for some other day. What should we do now? How do we start?”

“Like this.” Giovanna laid herself between his arms.

Stella was stunned but followed suit. She glanced at Giovanna through Xia Lei’s broad chest, “Like this?”

“Yeah. What were you expecting?” Giovanna stared at Stella.

Stella gave the question a thought, then placed both her hands on Xia Lei’s chest, forming a loose fist with her left palm then inserting a finger from her right into it.

“Huh?”

Stella then repeated the motion, driving her right finger into the hole of her left fist again and again. “I was expecting this? Aren’t we supposed to do this with him?”

“Hahaha…” Giovanna finally understood the innuendo.

Their conversations and Stella’s adult humour didn’t go unnoticed by Xia Lei. He had a lot to say about this but all he could think of was ‘Fucking idiots!’.

The only thing that the Grey sisters did, in the end, was chatter away in his embrace. The Russo sisters must’ve thought they got the easiest job which was in fact, the most difficult one.

“Giovanna, do you wanna take a peek at his stuff?” Stella’s voice rang.

“Disgusting, may God forgive your sins,” replied the older sister.

“It’s going to just be a peek. God will surely forgive us if we pray hard later.”

“Well… I guess we can?”

Xia Lei wanted to shout. If all it took was a prayer to have their sins forgiven, then why did the law exist? As his mind was a mess, he felt a tug at the rubber of his boxers, then it was lifted by what felt like two feminine fingers. His groin was now free from its shackles.

“So… that’s a penis?”

“It looks disgusting.”

“It’s ugly.”

At this very moment, Xia Lei wanted to die.

Thank goodness the ‘Mary’s Desire’ finally took effect. The Grey sisters were starting to feel sluggish, they started to mumble incoherently. They were in a daze. At last, they went quiet, unfocused eyes fixed on the ceiling.

It was finally his turn to strike.

Xia Lei pushed the two ladies away before sitting up. He pinched Giovanna’s cheek, then he pinched Stella’s. The action had earned the same response from the sisters, it was slow, clumsy and muddled.

“Where do you live?” Xia Lei asked his first question.

“Malta Palace, Rome,” answered Giovanna.

“Rome… Malta Palace.” Stella’s voice followed.

The Grey sisters had the same answers, the only difference was their answering speed.

“Giovanna?”

“Mm?”

“Stella?”

“Mm?”

Xia Lei continued with a few trivial questions like how many siblings they had, what was their family like, their favourite food and so on. Though seemingly irrelevant things, the questions played an important part in his strategy. He was trying to get them used to inertial thinking which would urge them to answer his questions without complications.

Xia Lei finally asked the important questions after a few trivial ones. “Why does the Knight Hospitaller treat the silver metal like a sacred relic?”

Giovanna answered, “That is the most well-kept secrets of the Knight Hospitaller. I don’t know anything about it. But my grandfather did tell me a story. He said on the day the kingdom of Jerusalem was invaded, a miracle happened. The four horsemen of the apocalypse appeared in the war-torn city. War rode his red horse through the sacred city of Jerusalem. His opponent was a mystery to us mortals as we can’t see them. War lost his silver armour and since then, Jerusalem was constantly plagued by the war. If one could return War his armour, he would rebuild a sacred kingdom in Jerusalem.”

Stella’s answer was similar.

Xia Lei’s knowledge of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse came to mind.

In the bible, the first horsemen, Plague, rode a white horse and had a bow and arrow with him, symbolizing conquer. The second horsemen rode a red horse and represented war. He was always depicted with a sword. The third rides a black horse and was typically depicted with a balance, he symbolizes famine. The fourth horsemen rode a pale horse, representing death as he brought hell with him.

Both Giovanna and Stella had mentioned the same story about War and his red horse. The information sent Xia Lei’s mind into a flurry of thoughts.

“Red horsemen? Though it was a story from the bible, that era was an incredibly religious time. It might not have been entirely accurate but it’s worth taking note that every story had its origins. Could there really be an armoured horseman on the back of a red horse that rode through Jerusalem on the day it was invaded? And that he failed to defeat his enemy and even lost his armour?” Xia Lei’s thoughts went into overdrive. Abruptly, images of him running that particular experiment in the underground laboratory flashed across his eyes.

The metal was from the horsemen’s armour!

The Knight Hospitaller should’ve known something about it!