Rhine and Aurora exchanged glances.
"Is it the Eastern Witch? Has she come to the Queen on behalf of the Witch Society?" Aurora speculated. "We can't possibly meet her, can we?"
No matter what, Aurora was not the real Queen; she had merely relied on the suggestive magic of the perfume to make the King and the magic mirror firmly believe that "the person before them was the Queen."
Rhine calmly replied, "No. Let her leave!"
"Yes," Aurora mimicked the Queen's arrogant tone, "Tell that Old Witch that I don't want to see her at all, and tell her to scram!"
Aurora then angrily rebuked:
"Tell that Witch that the Queen says their Witch Society took too much advantage of her in the past. Now, I'm not so easily fooled!
"As for past events, I'll let bygones be bygones, but I don't want to see them again! Tell her to get lost, the farther the better, and never contact me again!"
Listening to Aurora's words, Rhine couldn't help but smile.
This Aurora, she's quite good at imitating the Queen, isn't she?
Being able to dismantle the Witch Society from within and completely eliminate the possibility of them using the magic mirror was something he welcomed. It was also one of the core objectives of the entire plan!
...
"What? Did the Queen really say that?"
The Eastern Witch, upon hearing the guard's message, flew into a rage, her withered hair standing on end.
"Rebellion, rebellion, it's truly rebellion, a revolt!"
"Who does the Queen think she is? How dare she speak to me like that!"
"Just the Queen of a small kingdom! Even the entire White Kingdom, I can destroy it for you to see!"
The Eastern Witch's eyes gleamed with ferocity. Just as she was about to rush into the palace to teach the Queen a lesson, an even more wicked idea suddenly popped into her head:
"Didn't the Queen want to diligently govern, wanting to revitalize the White Kingdom and make it prosperous?"
"Then I'll plunge this kingdom into disaster, and let you witness with your own eyes everything you want to protect perish!"
The Eastern Witch revealed a cold and cruel smile and began to ponder her next plan. Her silver shoes clicked together, and she vanished in a gust of wind.
...
Not long after, news of a heinous murder case in the city reached the palace.
"A dozen people suddenly died on the street, their faces purple, looking as if they had drowned and suffocated?"
"In broad daylight, a group of people suffocated to death on land? Is there such a strange thing?"
The King of the White Kingdom was greatly surprised to hear this.
"King, I suspect that an enemy kingdom, seeing our White Kingdom carrying out reforms and flourishing, harbored malicious intentions and did this!" a minister said.
He was a newly promoted low-ranking official, a beneficiary of the kingdom's reforms, and he genuinely did not want to see the kingdom's reforms fail.
"But how did the murderer do it?" another minister was very surprised.
"No need to worry, the Queen has a magical magic mirror. Such a strange case, I'll have her ask the magic mirror, and it can be solved. We will definitely give the public an explanation!"
The King's words put the ministers at ease.
Now is a critical point in the kingdom's reforms; absolutely no mistakes can occur!
The King immediately relayed this message to Rhine and Aurora.
"magic mirror, magic mirror, tell me, what exactly happened with today's murder case in the royal city? Who is the murderer?"
Aurora asked the magic mirror.
"The murderer is the Witch who came to see you today, the Eastern Witch from Oz, the Witch with the Witch Society codename of Slave Owner!" the magic mirror replied.
On the magic mirror's dim surface, ripples spread out, revealing scene after scene—
The Eastern Witch was chatting with people on the street, was angered by their attitude, and in a fit of rage, cast a spell, turning everyone into fish.
Aurora watched with her own eyes as the fish in the mirror struggled on the ground, flopping and rolling, their eyes bulging, tragically dying in the agony of suffocation, and finally turning back into human corpses as the spell was lifted.
That was a truly horrifying sight!
The golden-haired girl's fists clenched, as if she could feel the suffering of the people before their deaths from the fish's painful struggles.
"Too cruel! That Eastern Witch, that Old Witch, actually did such a thing!"
Aurora turned to Rhine, and after confirming that the latter had muted the sound so the magic mirror couldn't hear, she said seriously:
"Teacher, we absolutely cannot let this Eastern Witch go! I want to personally deal with her, just as I will personally kill Black Witch Maleficent!"
This child, Aurora, truly has a personality that hates evil as much as she loves good... Rhine sighed inwardly, feeling a bit of admiration for her.
He nodded: "We will have our chance."
Rhine's expression became slightly more solemn, and he said earnestly:
"Don't forget our plan.
Once our plan is complete and we leave the White Kingdom, a formal conflict with the Witch Society will be unavoidable.
The Eastern Witch possesses a pair of silver shoes, allowing her to travel anywhere on the continent within three steps, giving her the ability to quickly gather the Witch Society and launch a surprise attack on us.
Although the Witch Society is not united, we must guard against this possibility.
Therefore, before we travel to the next kingdom..."
A sharp glint flashed in Rhine's eyes, clear as lake water:
"The Eastern Witch must die!
Even if we can't kill her, we must seize her silver shoes!"
Aurora also raised her small fist:
"Yes. We must deal with this highly mobile member of the Witch Society!
This is both for the safety of our future journey, to ensure we can truly eliminate Black Witch Maleficent, and to provide an explanation to the citizens she killed!"
At this point, Aurora also showed some concern:
"As a core member and pillar of the Witch Society, the Eastern Witch is certainly much harder to deal with than that Old Witch in En De!
Before reaching the next kingdom, can we really eliminate her, or at least seize her silver shoes?"
Rhine walked out of the room and informed the King and the ministers in the palace about the identity of the perpetrator of this heinous murder case.
"What? The killer is a very powerful foreign Witch?"
"This wicked Witch, just on a whim, used such brutal methods to kill a dozen people?"
The ministers began to discuss.
They also clearly understood that on this continent, individuals with powerful magic were capable of overthrowing kingdoms, slaughtering lords and Kings, and were absolutely not to be provoked.
The King of the White Kingdom was equally worried about this.
Although he knew his wife was also a Witch, she did not seem to possess any particularly powerful magic, far less terrifying than this "Eastern Witch" Rhine described.
Looking at the anxious crowd below, Rhine said:
"Please rest assured, as the Sage of the White Kingdom, I will definitely give everyone an explanation.
One thing everyone must know about this reform of the White Kingdom is: no one can escape the law's punishment. Whether you are a warrior who can slay dragons, or a magician who can overturn cities with a flick of your hand!"
When the boy in the silver-white wizard's cloak stood beside the throne and spoke these words, the ministers couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion.
Rhine returned to the room and looked at Aurora:
"Now, for the next step of the plan.
Let us awaken the true Queen!"
With that, Rhine grabbed Aurora's shoulder, and their figures immediately blurred and disappeared.
...
On the other side of the mountain, in a lush green forest.
Inside the small wooden house where the seven dwarfs lived.
The dwarfs gathered around the fireplace, chatting about the events that had occurred in the city recently.
They didn't pay much attention to human world affairs, but they always heard a lot from travelers and hunting parties in the mountains.
Next to the dwarfs was a crystal coffin, inside which lay a beautiful woman with cruel lips and a sharp nose. She was the Queen who had fallen into a deep sleep after eating the poisoned apple.
"I heard that the magician Rhine has not only become the Sage of the White Kingdom but has also managed the kingdom in an orderly fashion!"
"Truly remarkable!"
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
The dwarfs hid the crystal coffin, opened the door, and saw a handsome Prince leading a white horse and his attendant.
"I am Prince Henry, the Second Prince of the neighboring Kingdom of Summer.
My attendants and I were hunting and playing in these mountains, and we became tired and thirsty. We happened to see this house and wanted to come in, sit down, drink some water, and eat something.
Don't worry, I will give you gold as compensation."
The dwarfs felt they shouldn't stop a neighboring Prince, so they let him in.
Prince Henry entered the house with his attendants.
After a hearty meal, Prince Henry began to wander around and accidentally walked into one of the small rooms, where he happened to see the Queen in the crystal coffin.
"Oh my, this woman is too beautiful, who is she?"