by Feng Yue
Father Bann frowned, vaguely smelling a sweet scent. When he opened the carriage door, a heavy, bloody smell emerged. The light of the candle illuminated the dark carriage and the face of a young man.
The man in the carriage was in his twenties. He wore a black, collared trench coat and leaned on the inside of the carriage. He looked so pale in the candlelight. He was trying very hard to breathe, as if he could not inhale after every exhale.
In the scrutiny of Father Bann, he squeezed out a smile, as if he was trying to be brave. “I am sorry to come late; I got into some trouble on the road.”
After he spoke, he stopped holding his waist. His hand came away red.
The blood seeped from his waist, dying his black coat. Blood fell on the ground beside his pants, forming a puddle. It spread along the gap of the door into the rainwater, trickling outside, where it gradually dissipated into the red track.
“It was not easy to grab a carriage in the middle of the night. Can you pay the poor driver for me?” The young man painfully twitched his face, forcibly laughing, “You see, it’s not easy for me to get the money now.”
“You are the so-called ‘Wolf Flute’ in the letter?” Father Bann asked the young man while holding up the candlestick. At this moment, he was so cold and judgmental, it seemed like he would not give up until he saw evidence.
Wolf Flute lowered his head and sighed helplessly, “You are as the rumors say.”
While speaking, he raised his arm with a struggle. The wound was agitated by muscles stretching, which brought a burst of intense pain. He pulled a necklace out of his collar, and exposed the end of the decoration.
Made of iron with a wolf head on it, it was engraved with his number.
Father Bann stared at it until Wolf Flute was on the verge of death before nodding and throwing something to the carriage driver.
“Follow me.”
The driver looked down at the thing in his hand, stunned.
It was only a gold coin but its material was the green gold only used by the Church. It was rarer than anything issued by the various countries and was rarely circulated in the market. This little coin was enough for him to buy a new carriage!
“Thank you, thank you, sir!” He bowed to Father Bann in shock.
“Come on, can you hurry?” Wolf Flute said behind him. “I’m really dying.”
7 Talen
The church’s reception room was a mess.
Everything that had been on the table was swept onto the floor.
Wolf Flute was lying on the table, half naked. By candlelight, the terrible wound around his waist was exposed. The skin around the wound was pale, indicating excessive blood loss. The wound was as smooth as a mirror, like a razor cut, from waist to chest, partially exposing the bone.
The priest poured half a bottle of hard liquor on Wolf Flute’s wound. He screamed in pain. The priest then heated up a needle using the candle until the tip was red. He threaded the needle, and began to sew up the wound.
Gradually, he noticed that the pupils of Wolf Flute were dilated. “Did you drug yourself?”
“I had to, it hurt too much.” Wolf Flute grimaced, “I took half a shot of mandala, only to relieve the pain. I won’t get addicted, don’t worry, but isn’t there better medical equipment?
Bann responded unsympathetically, “There is no gel, no blood transfusion equipment, and no shadowless lamp. I can only sew up your wound.”
Another stitch. Wolf howled in pain, reminding Bann of Ye Qingxuan’s dog.
Wolf Flute’s face was twitching. “Priest, don’t you have a hymn to heal the wound?”
“I am just an ordinary clergy. You’ll have to find a hymnist who’s proficient in Choir.” Finished answering his question, the priest stabbed him with the needle again, and Wolf Flute instantly gasped in pain.
“Can’t you help me find one?” Wolf pleaded.
“The nearest one is over two hundred miles away,” said Bann calmly. “I am the only priest in town, so you can forget it.”
Wolf Flute felt a sudden haziness.
“How was the frontline of war?” The priest suddenly asked.
“Just as bad, still holding its position. Because of the historical remains, the war has gone on for over hundred years, and it seems that it will continue on.”
He took a breath. “Now, people on both sides are preparing for the arms race. It is said that the modern ‘Chopin’ has secretly arrived at the front line, and the modern ‘Brahms’ is representing the neutral country. They are in the process of organizing a treaty, but there are still no results yet.”
Bann listened, but did not ask again. He said in a faint voice, “Is that so…”
Wolf Flute felt more annoyed, since he had so much more to tell.
While stitching, Bann suddenly paused. He used a tweezer to take out a piece of very thin iron from the wound. The iron had a sharp edge and was thin as paper. It was stuck in the bone as if it had grown there and was very difficult to take out.
“What happened?”
“A wanted dark musician happened.” Wolf Flute smiled and said, “Bumped into him on the way here, probably a Satanist. I wasn’t careful enough, and got sneak-attacked.”
“Can you be sure? Hyakume’s believers usually move in packs.”
“He was alone. I only heard the sound of the clarinet. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have escaped.” Wolf Flute took another breath. “I remember the song.”
He closed his eyes, recalling. It was like he was going back in time to the heavy fog with zero visibility, and millions of water droplets flying around. The water droplets were like a heavy rain, flying to the sound of the sharp music…
The song, the solo, was Opus seventy-four, an extension based on the Krommer Variation.
Wolf Flute grinded his teeth, and finally remembered from an intelligence memo, “He was the Rain Artist.”
-
“Holy, holy, holy! With the power of the gods, in the morning I shall sing, through the clouds to the holiness.”
Wolf Flute was awakened by the hymn in the church. He opened his eyes and felt extreme pain from the wound. He was so dizzy, thirsty, and hungry. It felt worse than dying.
“Teacher, you lied to me.” Wolf Flute’s voice was unsteady, “Who said I wouldn’t regret coming out!?”
“Sir, are you awake?”
With his faint vision, he saw a white-haired youth. His hands carried a plate of food and water.
Wolf Flute did not pay attention to the youth’s characteristic Eastern white hair. His eyes were only focused on the food.
After he ate and drank to his heart’s content, he was finally satisfied. Remembering his rough trip and his high spirits when he first started his journey, Wolf Flute could not help but get sentimental.
“Most people realize that their past mistakes are from the things they thought they would never regret, but it is always too late before they find out.”
“Maxwell, Refuting Independence, chapter two,” said the quiet boy at his bedside.
“Oh?” Wolf Flute was stunned for a moment, then realized the presence of the young man, and suddenly felt embarrassed. “Uh, sorry. You read that book?”
“From the library. I’ve seen it from copying other books.” Ye Qingxuan smiled, “I’ve only looked at it. The book is deep, mostly beyond my depth of understanding.”
Wolf Flute’s face reddened. After all, he had only read it during his final year of learning, under the strict supervision of his teacher and he still wasn’t done…
“The priest said you needed to rest here for a while. If you’re bored, I can help you find some books.”
“No, I get headaches from reading.” Wolf Flute rubbed his forehead with a bit of distress, but soon his eyes lit up. “You know how to spell, right?” He caught Ye Qingxuan’s hands, his eyes full of sincerity. “Help me, or I will die!”
“Uhh, sure, I will do my best.”
Wolf Flute waved his hands in excitement, stretching his wou
nd in the process. He sneered in pain, but still managed to force a smile. “As you can see, I can hardly lift a finger. Can you help me write a few letters, please?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded, found a pen and paper, and listened to Wolf Flute speak.
Wolf Flute coughed a bit, and suddenly had a gentle look on his face. He spoke with a tender voice, “To my beloved Milina, my rose. I have been away from you for a month.”
From the moment Wolf Flute began to speak, Ye Qingxuan could not help but get goosebumps. He transcribed a letter filled with every mushy love word in the English language. Three thousand words later, Ye Qingxuan was finally done and he took a deep breath/
It was finally over!
“Okay, now the second one.” Wolf Flute blinked his eyes and watched Ye Qingxuan’s face turn green. “To my dear love, Eileen, my rose. I have been away from you for a month.”
“Wait a minute! This is exactly the same content as the previous letter! Eileen and Milina are two different girls?” Ye Qingxuan was stunned. “You’re dating two girls at the same time?”
“No no, I’m dating three girls at the same time.”
Ye Qingxuan hesitated and then said, “You’re great!”
After the completion of the three letters, Ye Qingxuan realized that Wolf Flute did not want to stop. “To my dear Mr. Sebastian, my…”
“Your rose? You date men too?!”
“My teacher!” Wolf’s face was also green, realizing how it sounded out loud.
“Hmm, hmm, forget I said that.” Ye Qingxuan was embarrassed. He went back to writing.
Fortunately, this time, the letter was quite simple, only a few words long. However, even with many years of experience in copying books, Ye Qingxuan still felt a sense of relief when he was finished.
“Okay, thank you, my friend.” Wolf Flute nodded with satisfaction, and patted his shoulder. “I haven’t asked yet! You are…?”
“Ye, Ye Qingxuan.”
“An Easterner? No wonder.” Wolf Flute glanced at his white hair, nodded his head and said, “Regardless of who you are, you did a big favor for me, and I will put in a good word with the priest for you.”
“A good word?” Ye Qingxuan tilted his head and looked at him. “Do you think that will be useful?”
“Uh, indeed.” Wolf Flute thought of the priest’s iron cold face, and suddenly felt frustrated. “Well, I have no way to repay you. You see, the priest paid for my transportation here. Now, the only one poorer than me is the Anglo Kingdom, who is sixty-million in debt.”
With those words, Ye Qingxuan suddenly laughed, “You’re a musician, did I guess correctly?”
Wolf Flute was stunned, trying to recall everything he had said, but nothing had shown his identity.
Ye Qingxuan pulled out his hand, and pointed to the holster next to the bed’s headboard, where half of the metal flute lay exposed. Although it looked simple, it had a special heavy texture, which was obviously not cheap.
“Well, you guessed it.” Wolf Flute took out the flute, skillfully swiveled it in a circle, and then pressed one of the flute’s finger holes. “You know this?”
Ye Qingxuan shook his head. “It’s not shaped like a flute of the East. It’s different from what I know.”
“This is a musical instrument from my hometown, not very well known.” He caressed the flute. “It was said that the first flute was handed down by the ancient Samnites, called ‘Nai.’ They lived in the desert, so you could hear the sound of sandstorms when playing the flute.”
He saw the anticipation in the young man’s eyes. Suddenly he laughed. He held the flute vertically to his lips, tapped his fingers, and played a few simple notes.
There, a sound clear and pure.
In that moment, all usual noise had all disappeared—the wind, the sound of water, the distant footsteps, and even their own breathing was silenced.
Followed by the sound of the musical notes, as if the wind was blowing from a deep cave, was the sound of desolation. Like the shaking of dry reed leaves in the wind, like friction from the touch of iron and gravel, the sound traveled and bounced around the room, then dissipated without a trace.
In front of Ye Qingxuan, silver dust emerged out of thin air, where it vaguely condensed into a wolf’s shadow. Wolf’s eyes glanced at Ye Qingxuan, seeming to have a spirit of their own. Then, travelling with the sound of the note, it turned away and disappeared in the breeze.
Suddenly, everything was over, like an illusion.
The silence was back again.
Wolf Flute coughed lightly. He had stretched the wound again, and had to take a few deep breaths.
Next to him, the white-haired youth was blindly grabbing at the air. He seemed to be looking for where the silver wolf was hidden. There was nothing there but he smiled.
His smile was hopeful and satisfying.
“So nice,” Ye Qingxuan whispered.
“You want to be a musician?” Wolf Flute suddenly understood as he blurted out the question, but he was saddened. He understood now why Bann had asked Ye Qingxuan to come and to take care of him—that bastard priest did not want him to give Ye Qingxuan hope; rather, he wanted Wolf Flute to shatter it.
“Yes.” Ye Qingxuan asked with a hint of hope, “Do you think it is possible?
Wolf Flute pondered for a long time, until he slowly shook his head, “Sorry, Ye.” Wolf Flute lowered his eyelids, not wanting to see the young man’s disappointed look. “You have no talent.”
8 Music Notes
“If you want to be a musician, you need to understand who the musicians are. Throwing out all accessories, removing all glories—being a musician is to devote yourself purely to your career. Compared with the musicians of the Dark Age, we cannot even say we love music. Compared with other people, we cannot even say we sacrifice more.
“But there is no doubt that we are most suitable ones for communicating with aether, and we are the ones who can best understand aether, too. Aether is everywhere. It is part of the world, existing even earlier than humans. Whether it is soil, water, fire or air, those are composed of aether. But aether is different from these elements because they can, and only do, respond to sound. Do you understand this premise?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded.
“At first, the communication between humans and the aether relied on runes. Those notes inexplicably transcribed the voice of the Gods, composing music that could shake reality. These notes are known in some places as ‘runes,’ in some places as ‘charms,’ and in the East, they are called ‘Mantra.’
“In that era, humans communicated with the Aether by singing the runes,” Wolf continued to explain. “With time, a lot of things changed. Runes evolved into small sections called measures, and measures evolved into music scores until there was a need for dozens of musicians to release the formation of the ‘symphony.’
“Music division classification also became more and more defined. There are hundreds of special careers in seven specializations. The sages’ explorations formed the road to the ‘Nine Levels of Musicians.’ Even returning to the Originator was not a delusion anymore.
“But before that, there was always a never-changing iron rule–connect with the aether, respect the aether!” Wolf Flute stared at Ye Qingxuan’s pale face, trying to gain a feel for him, but then he slowly shook his head. “You cannot sense the aether, Ye.”
Ye Qingxuan kept silent. After a long time, he softly said, “Mr. Wolf Flute, I can learn musical instruments, I can even-”
“No, you cannot.” Wolf Flute became serious. “A man who has never been close to an animal cannot ride a horse, and a man living in the desert cannot swim
“Ye, perhaps you have a reason why you must be a musician. But if you can’t even sense the aether, you’ll be constructing a building without a foundation. If you can’t sense the aether, you won’t know what the aether is doing.
“At that time, it’ll be a good thing if your music score has no effect. If a single rune goes out of control, the res
ult could be horrifying…” He paused, his eyes turning pained.
“The smallest mistakes I’ve seen were all paid for in death. This is why cities and villages are all built in places of low aether density. Important places must even be set inside silent enchantments to freeze the aether. A musician must also have a unified heart of sound to rid your body of white noise disturbance.”
Here, Wolf Flute realized that he had said too much.
The more he said, the crueler it became for Ye Qingxuan to endure because it became more and more clear to him that his dream was far, far away from him.
Ye Qingxuan was still looking at him, so he could not bear to stop. He sighed, “Ye, these words that I’ve said to you could be considered compensation for your work. But I cannot talk too much, as this information is restricted and is not open to ordinary people. If you are still interested, the stuff you will see later will be my last exhortation.”
Then, he did not wait for Ye Qingxuan to answer, and raised his own hands. He was no longer laughing. His face became serious, then more and more pale.
In front of Ye Qingxuan, Wolf Flute leaned against the wall, his hands folding into his chest, and took a deep breath.
At the end of a long exhale, the slightest strands of sound spread out with his long song. This kind of voice seemed to be deliberately suppressed to be faint, like a vague wind, but also had the essence of a snake’s subtle sound.
But in this enchanted sound, the air in front of Wolf Flute suddenly became blurred!
A trace of a light from the convergence gathered in front of him three feet ahead of the place, surging and brewing. Then, it burst into full bloom. It converged into crystals and grew in the air, reflecting the shadows of roses. Roses reflected irises vaguely. It was magnificent enough to make people intoxicated.
Then, the silky sound suddenly changed by a slight jump, which made it out of place.
In response, the magnificent flower turned into disgusting dark red and dark green. The mixed colors made one feel nauseous, then quickly collapsed while the crystals were broken, and burst.