The news of Maleficent's death and the lifting of the curse quickly spread throughout the Rose Kingdom.
In the streets and alleys, the people cheered, and decorations were hung everywhere.
The King held a grand banquet in the Royal City, attended by all the famous people in the Kingdom.
Commoners were also allowed to attend this grand celebration because, for everyone in the Kingdom, it was the most joyous day to celebrate.
At the celebration, in the center of the square, the King introduced Princess Aurora to all the people:
"Today, all the gentlemen and ladies of the Kingdom, almost everyone in the Royal Capital, have gathered. I want to introduce a hero to everyone, in front of all of you."
"She is my daughter—Princess Aurora!"
People widened their eyes and craned their necks, and indeed saw the beautiful Princess on the stage.
"Oh, it's that legendary beautiful Princess."
"She's truly enchanting. As beautiful as the legends say."
"I've heard about Her Royal Highness Princess. She has always been in the Brass Palace deep within the Royal Palace, and no one is allowed to see her."
"I've also heard this legend. I think everyone in the Royal City has heard it, more or less."
"..."
Contrary to everyone's imagination, Princess Aurora was not wearing a luxurious, flowing gown or expensive, fancy silk clothes. Instead, she was dressed in practical, casual attire, her appearance charming, and a treasured sword at her waist, exuding a peerless and heroic demeanor.
The King paused, then continued, while Sage Rhine amplified the King's voice with magic, making it audible throughout the entire Royal City:
"What I want to tell everyone today is that the legend is false!"
"That was just a ploy devised by the clever Sage Rhine, intended to deceive Black Witch Maleficent!"
"My daughter has never lived in seclusion deep within the Royal Palace. The Brass Palace deep within the Royal Palace remains empty to this day."
"Perhaps you remember, more than a year ago, Ender Kingdom's army invaded our Kingdom, and a Godly-like Warrior led the army to defeat the invaders!"
"That Godly-like Warrior is precisely my daughter!"
The people below the stage were astonished, crying out in disbelief.
They found it hard to connect the invincible hero of the past with the delicate little Princess rumored to be secluded deep within the Royal Palace.
The King's tone was filled with pride:
"My daughter is a Super Warrior blessed by witches."
"In these years, it was also my daughter, together with the great Magician and Sage Rhine of the Kingdom, who traveled to a foreign land, killed Black Witch Maleficent, and lifted the Kingdom's curse!"
"They are the heroes who saved the Kingdom!"
"Please allow me, on behalf of the Kingdom, to extend the highest respect to these two heroes!"
Amidst the expectant gazes of the crowd, the King recounted the entire story—the legendary tale of the Sage and the King.
He began with the baptism ceremony more than ten years ago and continued all the way to how Aurora slew Black Witch Maleficent on the Green Field of Oz Country.
Compared to the original experience that Rhine and Aurora told the King, the King, due to his imagination, added more details, dramatic elements, and epic color to the story.
Bards, historians, and literati recorded this story and compiled it into a book.
To this day, this story still circulates throughout the continent.
To make it easier for children to read, some people simplified the story, adding exquisite and beautiful illustrations, and compiled it into a fairy tale book. Later, in many Kingdoms on the continent, children would have such a fairy tale book about the two's journey by their pillows.
After telling the story, the King announced:
"Now, to celebrate the return of the two heroes, and to celebrate the lifting of the Rose Kingdom's curse, I declare that this celebration officially begins!"
Thus, in the Royal Capital of the Rose Kingdom, this grand banquet lasted for eight days and eight nights.
People drank, sang, and danced day and night, from dawn to dusk, and then to the dawn of the next day.
The lights of the city never went out, illuminating the night as brightly as day.
...
Compared to the Rose Kingdom, which was immersed in joy and celebration, the King of the Alamaide Kingdom in the Middle East encountered a bit of trouble.
The young and promising King had been looking troubled for the past few days.
His Queen—his beloved cousin whom he married—had suddenly disappeared overnight!
"Where has my beloved wife gone? She is a weak woman; if she disappears outside, I fear the worst."
Seeing the King so distressed, a brave palace maid, believing the Queen would not return, told the King about his wife's infidelity.
"What? You said my wife would mix anesthetics into my drinks every night to make me drowsy, and then sneak out?"
"Nonsense!"
The King was furious, completely disbelieving the palace maid's words, and even wanted to put her to death.
But as a virtuous King, he immediately reconsidered, thinking he should not be so rash.
He took out the golden cup he usually drank from and asked a pharmacist to examine it carefully.
"King, there are indeed traces of a mesmerizing anesthetic in this cup."
"Are you telling the truth?" The young King was greatly surprised.
"Absolutely true, King."
The King rewarded the palace maid who revealed the truth, while he himself was filled with worry:
"Where does my wife go after she dazes me every night?"
That night, the young King had a dream.
In the dream, he learned many things he hadn't known before—
He learned that his wife was a powerful witch who could instantly turn his Kingdom into ruins; he saw his wife helping another witch from the Witch Society cast magic on a distant Kingdom, turning all its citizens into fish; he saw the Magician Rhine disguised as a black slave, deceiving the witch to lift the curse, leaving the hated Alamaide Kingdom, and going far away, thus averting a catastrophe for the Kingdom...
When the light of dawn shone on the luxurious silk bed, the young King awoke from his dream.
He was drenched in sweat, his clothes soaked through, and he was gasping for breath, clutching his chest.
"It turns out that, without my knowledge, the Alamaide Kingdom actually escaped a disaster!"
"Thank goodness, thank goodness, it's fortunate that the witch left."
Just thinking about his wife's terrifying magic in the dream made the King tremble with fear.
"Fortunately, that silver-haired Magician tricked my wife away, otherwise, who knows when she would have cast a spell on my Kingdom, turning all my citizens into fish."
"Thank the Gods for giving me this dream, letting me know all this truth!"
The young King was immensely relieved.
He opened the window and saw the bright sunlight shining down on the Kingdom's land.
Thankfully, there are no 'what ifs' in this world; in this timeline, disaster did not befall his land.
What he didn't see was a majestic, divine phantom looking at him from the distant clouds.
It was the ring spirit driven by Rhine, which had just been responsible for giving the young King the dream.
...
All good things must come to an end.
The grand celebration in the Royal Capital of the Rose Kingdom finally came to an end.
People dispersed one after another.
The fragrance of wine and the aroma of delicious food permeated the air, and the cheerful singing seemed to still linger in their ears.
"The story of the Rose Kingdom has ended."
Rhine looked at the leftovers from the grand banquet, feeling both relieved and a little lost.
Having finally fulfilled Aurora's and the Rose Kingdom's wishes, Rhine felt a surging power of wish, like a sea, pouring into his soul.
Now, his magic was no longer limited to specific areas. He himself was like a Godly Lamp for wishes, with thousands of different spells echoing in his mind.
"Teacher, let's go." Aurora showed no nostalgia, only determination in her eyes.
"Teacher, you have fulfilled my wish. Now, it's my turn to fulfill yours."
To find the Godly Lamp and return to Earth—this was the Wish Magician's own wish.
Rhine smiled contentedly, took Aurora's hand, and gently clicked his heels together.
A silver wind swept them away, and their figures vanished.
The world spun, and the scene shifted.
The two appeared inside the Royal Palace of the White Kingdom, where they met the former wicked Queen and her magic mirror.
"I heard about the grand banquet in the Rose Kingdom and learned of your joyful success!" The Queen congratulated Rhine and Aurora.
"The Witch Society hasn't caused you any trouble recently, has it?" Rhine asked with concern.
"No." The Queen shook her head.
Then, she said with immense shock:
"It's strange, but I just received a message a few days ago from the Witch Society's President, who almost never speaks. Guess what she said?"
"She said the Witch Society is disbanded from now on?" Rhine asked.
"Ah?" The Queen was even more surprised now, "Sage, you already knew!"
The founder of the Witch Society had actually disbanded the organization. It was as easy as casually disbanding a group chat... Rhine muttered to himself, increasingly finding Night Ruge, who founded the Witch Society, to have a peculiar personality.
He stated the purpose of his visit:
"Queen, I have something that requires the help of your magic mirror. I want to find someone."
"Looking for someone? Of course." The Queen readily agreed, "Who are you looking for?"
Rhine smiled:
"The person I'm looking for is probably a child. He should live in a country further to the east.
His name is Aladdin, and his father is called Mustafa..."
...
Far to the east, in the Western Regions of the Far East Empire, in the eastern part of the Middle Eastern Country, there was a small town named Kassala.
On this day, a silver-haired boy and a golden-haired girl arrived in this small town.
They clearly weren't locals, and their appearance was exquisitely refined, like children who had stepped out of a painting. Anyone who saw them would instantly feel fond of them.
"Is there a tailor named Mustafa in this town?" The silver-haired boy asked some passersby.
A passerby replied with a hint of regret: "Indeed, there used to be such a good tailor in town. I even had him sew clothes for me. Unfortunately, that poor tailor passed away a few years ago."
"Did that poor tailor have a son named Aladdin?" the silver-haired boy asked again.
Upon hearing that name, the passerby immediately said angrily:
"Yes, he did have such a son. That Aladdin was very mischievous!"
The silver-haired boy asked many more questions about Aladdin's family.
So, everyone started talking, one after another.
It turned out that the tailor Mustafa's family was poor, and to support his wife and son, he worked tirelessly day in and day out.
But precisely because of this, he neglected Aladdin's upbringing, letting the child spend all day messing around with bad friends outside. Aladdin developed many bad habits at a young age, being playful, lazy, and idle.
Mustafa had also thought about sending Aladdin to school, but he was of low status and lacked money, so it was impossible to send his son to study. He wanted to teach Aladdin a trade, but Aladdin simply refused to learn.
A few years ago, after Mustafa passed away, Aladdin was even more unsupervised, spending his days messing around with a group of shady friends.
When mentioning Aladdin and his deceased father, everyone felt a degree of regret:
"What a pity, Mustafa was a good tailor, his craftsmanship was famous on this street! Although he wasn't wealthy, he would help out friends in need. When he was alive, he had a good relationship with all the neighbors."
"Now that Mustafa has passed away, his son Aladdin and his mother, an orphan and a widow, had to sell their shop and barely get by on that money."
"Alas, if only Aladdin had learned a trade from his father back then!"
"Indeed. How long can they live on the little money from selling the tailor shop?"
"That little money certainly isn't enough for them to live on. I heard that Aladdin's mother spins thread all day and takes the spun thread to the market to sell for a tiny bit of money, which, combined with what they got from selling the shop, has barely sustained their mother and son until now."
"Alas, how much money can a woman earn just by spinning thread? How can it be enough for two people to eat? I think their family must be living beyond their means, just barely hanging on with that little bit of savings."
"Alas, if Aladdin had learned his father's trade and inherited the tailor shop, he wouldn't have fallen to this state today."
When mentioning Aladdin and his mother, the neighbors couldn't help but sigh repeatedly, shaking their heads, feeling quite regretful.
In their opinion, the small amount of money saved from selling his father's tailor shop would eventually run out, and Aladdin's mother was also getting old and couldn't spin thread indefinitely. The mother and son would eventually become impoverished and end up on the streets.
"Indeed, it's this Aladdin. He's the person we're looking for!"
Rhine recalled the story of "Aladdin and the Godly Lamp" he had read in his previous life and was confident that the neighbors' descriptions of Aladdin and his father were consistent with the original work, just from a different perspective.
"Thank you all." Rhine took out a few gold coins and gave one to each passerby who provided him with information.
Some of them had never seen gold coins in their lives. Seeing the large, shiny, and clearly high-quality gold coins Rhine gave them, their eyes lit up.
One kind passerby said to Rhine:
"Child, you clearly come from a wealthy family. Why don't you help out Aladdin's family? We're all neighbors, and Aladdin's father helped me a lot back then. I can't just stand by and watch his mother and son starve."
Rhine nodded in agreement.
He had come to ask Aladdin for help, so of course he wouldn't mistreat his mother and him!
Soon, Rhine and Aurora arrived at Aladdin's house and gently knocked on the door.
A tired-looking woman opened the door; it was Aladdin's mother.
"Hello, madam, we are Sage Rhine and Princess Aurora from the Rose Kingdom in the west."
After speaking, Rhine handed a few gold coins to Aladdin's mother.
Aladdin's mother was both surprised and delighted to see the gold coins.
The gold coins Rhine gave were of excellent quality, shining brightly in the sunlight, and amounted to what they had originally gotten from selling the tailor shop!
She took the gold coins, feeling as if she were dreaming, a little disbelieving:
"Oh my! You are important figures from a foreign land. How could people like you come to find a poor, ordinary person like me?"
"We are here to find your son, Aladdin. May I ask where he is?" Aurora glanced inside the door, saw that Aladdin wasn't home, and then asked.
"Aladdin?" Aladdin's mother was quite surprised, clearly not expecting them to come looking for her good-for-nothing son.
Aladdin's mother thought for a moment and then said:
"Aladdin was taken by his uncle. His uncle said he wanted to take him to see the world, saying it would help him become a businessman in the future."
Upon hearing this answer, Rhine's eyes narrowed, slightly surprised.