
The round trip does not feel boring especially many beautiful places that pass through, for Andi it was very nice to be together with Joan even though it was a little chance just to be alone but for him it was already satisfying but maybe at a later time, he said, he would travel the world alone with Joan.
Andi saw Joan very happy to travel to new places, enjoy the culture, scenery and especially culinary. Joan likes to learn new things, every time she finds a new menu, she not only enjoys it but is also diligent to ask questions and learn and then practice what she has learned.
Perhaps that explains why Joan looks so knowledgeable and makes many things feel like a miracle to many. It made Andi and the Mo brothers also began to like to pay attention to things that were new and interesting to them.
Approaching their destination, Joan is a little uneasy, but in this city she will finally discover the biggest secret of her life. In his previous life, he was an orphan, here he was the adopted son of the Joko family who received it from his parents. Which he did not understand what his former and present relationship was but which was clear both of them were connected by the same pendant that had always accompanied him all along.
Unwilling to confuse herself with that thought, Joan looked at the city gate before her. It was a very large city with a huge wall towering twenty meters high, on top of which there was a reconnaissance post to see in the distance.
In order to enter the city, each person had to pay ten pieces of copper, it seemed that for the residents of the city, they simply displayed their identity with a token of their residence.
With the ten pieces of copper, they received a visitor token containing a record of their identity. They also had to hand over a hundred copper coins as a deposit of guarantee that would be returned when they would exit the city by exchanging the token back.
They did not understand why they had to pay a deposit as collateral upon entering the city. After a while they were there, they realized that the deposit was a guarantee for them to get treatment or burial fees if they were injured or killed in the city.
Apparently there is a lot of violence that is common in the city so that the deposit guarantee prevents the city government to pay for visitors who are injured or even killed there. Joan thought it could also be applied to people who would enter the hunting area in the forbidden forest. Banning forest has become a tourist destination for the village of Genteng for hunting spirit animals and is only opened once a year which has been included in the schedule of national events in the Sky empire.
Joan recorded it and kept her notes back so that she would not forget it and immediately did so upon their return to Genteng village.
Bringing their horses and chariots into the city, Joan finds that the city streets are completely filled with a density of people who remind her of the condition of the city of Jakarta in her memory of her previous world.
As they were looking for a place to stay, Joan saw a small commotion in front of her, looking as if a plainly dressed old man was being yelled at by various people, the old man's face looked pale from fear and shame.
Joan came down from her chariot with Andi following behind her, and she wanted to ask the men what the old man had done.
"I'm sorry, what's going on".
Seeing a young woman with several people seen as her bodyguards, the men soon realized that the young woman in front of them was definitely a young lady from a large family. They soon opened up space for Joan.
"Oh this lady, this old man wants to take the bakpao without paying it so we scold him".
Joan saw the man trembling, perhaps out of hunger, she lowered her head with long, unraveling hair covering her face, her hands still holding a bakpao tightly as if afraid that someone would take it.
"Take this money and please give him whatever he wants to eat, I'll give you again if the money is less than what he eats".
"Oh well ladies, this is more than enough".
"Yes, we also happen to want to eat, please prepare the food menu".
Joan said as she stepped into the restaurant, the old man raised his face and looked at Joan with a grateful look but he said nothing. Just muttering in his heart
"Like miss, this young lady is also kind-hearted".
Andi glanced at the old man, though, in his vision he was a little surprised when he saw the sharp gaze of the old man as he raised his face because Andi felt the old man was not as simple as he looked.
As Joan and her group sat in the reserved seats, she looked towards the old man who was also looking at her. Joan was instantly dumbfounded, she said to Mo Ying.
"Isn't that the old man we met in the city of Bohoq".
"Where ? it might just look like a lady, how could the old man be in this place".
"Yes, it might just be similar".
Joan also thought that, it seemed impossible for the old man to be in this city hundreds of kilometers from the city of Bohoq. Those who had boarded the train had only arrived today, how could the poor old man have arrived so quickly to meet them.
Joan hesitated at the thought of it but she still felt that the old man was the same person she had helped in the city of Bohoq or perhaps this man was her twin. Although it was possible, Joan did not intend to ask him.
Joan still had more important things to do in this city than investigate the old man who looked like a beggar. After all, the old man did not look like a great person that he had to pay attention to.
Joan immersed herself in enjoying the food and drink before her, discovering a new taste of cuisine that made her unable to endure her hunger, she no longer paid attention to anything else.
The old man was holding the parcel of bakpao Joan had just bought, he smiled, feeling confident in what he had confirmed in his heart, the old man turned around and left the place