Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  He laughed as if to comfort himself, but only to send an empty voice. In his broken right hand, the last remnants of two fingers tried to hold a leech-like “worm.”

  He crawled through the pool of blood toward Ye Qingxuan. “The body, give me a new body…”

  Ye Qingxuan tried to hold up his body, but was powerless. He smelled the stench from the blood. The quickly rotting Rain Artist had finally clutched his legs, smiling in ecstasy.

  “Body, body!”

  Ye Qingxuan turned pale. He took out half of the dagger from his sleeve with trembling fingers. Victor had given it to him for self-defense before he left. He did not expect that it would become his last straw.

  Arm trembling, he held the dagger to this evil old man in front of him. But in Rain Artist’s eyes, he could not see the fear and frustration, but only joke like contempt and ridicule.

  “What do you have in your hand? A toy?” Rain Artist opened his cracked mouth, as if he were laughing. Then he raised his hands and snapped his fingers. His fingers were broken but the snapping sound was like a hammer hitting Ye Qingxuan’s hands.

  Crunch!

  Ye Qingxuan’s wrist suddenly dislocated, and the dagger flew out from his hand and broke into iron pieces in the pool of blood.

  “Kid, do not be afraid, and do not resist me.” Rain Artist looked at Ye Qingxuan’s pupils, laughing with ecstasy, “It will only take a short while to complete the will transfer.”

  Ye Qingxuan grinded his teeth, heavily breathing, and did not say anything. He wanted to escape but the wall was behind him. He was cornered.

  Through the whole process he only miscalculated one thing—Rain Artist’s desperation at death. This mistake could not be remedied.

  Rain Artist screamed once again because the cold worm drilled into his left eye, digging out his flesh and blood. And then it stretched out the other end of its suction cup, crawling on Ye Qingxuan’s chest, quickly going towards his pupil.

  Great, there was a hope for rebirth! Rain Artist was overjoyed.

  “Do not resist, but accept God’s reward. Good boy, we can go together to the peak of the musicians!” He was incoherent in his ecstasy. “Aren’t you excited? I will always remember you, young man. What is your name? Where are you from?! Why do you not talk? You must be too nervous. It does not matter as I will forgive you. We’ll be best friends, you know?”

  Ye Qingxuan was too terrified to speak. He just looked at Rain Artist’s back, like watching the best thing in the world. The longer he was watching, the more he could not help but laugh.

  “He is not your best friend,” a hoarse voice came from Rain Artist’s back, stunning him.

  Rain Artist finally saw the reflection through Ye Qingxuan’s pupil—there was a yellow old dog standing in a pool of blood. Next to the old dog there was a blonde-haired teen looking livid, forcing down his fear.

  In Rain Artist’s sight, the teen raised the iron bar in his hand, which had been used to close the door, raised it up and slammed it down!

  “I am!”

  Crack!

  Rain Artist’s skull dented. He fell to the ground. His expression stiffening, he gaped at the crazy teen. He tried to say something, but Victor raised the iron bar, and then…bam!

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Rain Artist’s skull dented with every blow. His last gaze was full of despair. He said with difficulty, “Wait, I…”

  Bang!

  Victor delivered the final blow expressionlessly. Blood splattered onto his face, staining his green eyes.

  After a crisp sound, all fell silent.

  15 Moonligh

  When Wolf Flute awoke, he was laying in the same bed as before, only it had been converted into an operating table.

  He could not feel his own body. He felt like he was floating in the air, a sense of happiness wandered through this head. Although he felt no pain, the feeling of euphoria, seemingly out of nowhere, was rather confusing and unsettling.

  “Mandala?” Wolf Flute whispered, “Father, isn’t the amount of injection you gave me a little too much?”

  “At least you still have a sense of reasoning, and can talk as well.” In the candlelight, the chanting priest turned and looked back at him, “When you were brought back here, you were not exactly in one piece. In order not to let you die from pain, I had to use all of my mandala.”

  “Really tough, huh? But can an ordinary priest perform a surgery with this level of difficulty? Moreover, an ordinary church should not have surgery equipment and this many drugs.”

  The priest ignored him.

  Wolf Flute raised his head slowly, and saw that his chest had numerous stitches. He sighed softly, “Since I am alive, does that means the Rain Artist is dead?”

  “Isn’t he right next to you?”

  Wolf Flute was stunned by the priest’s words. He turned to the other side and let out a cry, almost falling out of bed.

  Right next to his pillow, there was a large glass container. With a repulsive smell of the antiseptic liquid, a dry, deformed body was soaking in the container.

  It was as if all the water had been drained. A deformed body curled into the fetal position, but no baby was nearly as horrible as this.

  “Is that your way of getting revenge on me?” Wolf Flute said bitterly, “Are you from the hunter’s tribe? How did you turn him into this?”

  “He became like this after he died.” The priest reached over, took the bottle from him, and made a gesture to throw it away, “It seems that I was too sentimental. If you do not need it, I can throw it away.”

  “I was wrong! Please forgive me! This thing is rather ugly, but worth a lot of money from the Musician Unions.” Wolf Flute pouted and begged for mercy. Saliva dripped down from his mouth—he looked like an idiot. “My instrument cannot be repaired otherwise. Those people from the Cavendish Laboratory won’t even let me in the door without money.”

  The priest looked down at the wreckage in the bottle and suddenly asked, “The funding you promised that child is also part of this?”

  Wolf Flute was stunned, “How did you know?”

  “When you were talking last night, I was listening outside.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since the beginning. Until you said, ‘in order to compensate him as a bait, for the danger he may encounter, I will financially support him to study to be a musician’.”

  “Were you not curious whether or not he agreed?”

  The priest gave him another look, as if he was an idiot, and said nothing.

  “Well, he agreed.” Wolf Flute shrugged, “If it wasn’t for him this time, I might have died.”

  The priest shook his head, “You had a Wolf King who could control the aether. You might not have lost.”

  “The teacher gave me that. Thanks to his foresight, I was able to scare the Rain Artist, but I still paid a hefty price.”

  “It’s better to be alive than anything else. Why don’t you rest now.” Father Bann got up, ready to leave, but after a moment of silence he whispered, “There will be a carriage to take you away the day after tomorrow. I will go with you to pick up that item tomorrow. It…is kept very well. I hope you can use it properly.”

  He took one last look at Wolf Flute, left the room, and shut the door.

  In silence, there was only Wolf Flute.

  After a long time, he scratched his head and sighed softly, “As long as it was used, there’s no such thing as ‘proper’ anymore?”

  -

  Ye Qingxuan had another dream. He dreamed of the distant past, but different from what he had remembered.

  It had seemed to be from someone’s fantasy. Beginning with the sound of the rain, he came into the dream.

  He was once again in the streets of Avalon, crowded as always.

  -

  A familiar sound of piano playing came from somewhere, it was a voice from his first memories. They were like hands, guiding him towards a deeper world of dreams.

  In the raging
crowd, he saw a man carrying a piano case. He looked very young, so it must have been many years ago.

  His robe floated in the wind, flying like a crane.

  His long silver hair was not tied in a knot like most of the Easterners. He simply put it up with a hairpin—strange but simple.

  “So that group of old men from the holy city called me ‘Chant of Month’, probably thought I was the expert against a heretic. But whichever way you look at it, my son is a bit more of a genius than I am, right?”

  The man looked down at his son. The child was just curiously gazing at his surroundings. The child’s face was so familiar, it gave Ye Qingxuan a headache, but he still could not remember who he was.

  Ye Qingxuan was standing in the middle of the crowd, staring and confused.

  “Dad, I want that.” The child raised his hand and pointed to the balloon in the hands of a pedestrian.

  “Well, okay, Daddy will buy you one, but do not tell your mother okay?” The man carrying the piano case teased his kid, and walked right past Ye Qingxuan.

  Ye looked back, and saw the child in the arms of the man, gazing with innocent eyes.

  In the crowd, the child looked back at him. Their eyes met for an instant, like a door had been opened. Their eye contact made Ye Qingxuan take a step back. He fell to the ground stunned, feeling as if he were inside out.

  The child looked just like him when he was young.

  Had he ever been this happy?

  He wanted to laugh.

  -

  The piano music started again. It had frozen the raging crowd. The wind had begun from the end of the dream. It had fallen from the sky, and blew away the whole city.

  Ye Qingxuan was struggling in the wind, unsure of where to go.

  At his fingertips, the chord was restored to a shining string, pulling him deep inside of the wind tunnel.

  He floated in the wind.

  “Ye, have you dreamed before?” The man carrying the piano case whispered in his ear.

  Ye Qingxuan looked around blankly. He heard a young voice answering instead, “Is that one of those things happens after falling asleep?”

  “Maybe, but you can also dream when you’re awake.” The guy carrying the piano case laughed gently, his voice soft and low, like the clear resonance of tapping jade together.

  “You will forget the dreams you had when you were sleeping, but the ones you had when you were awake, they will continue in your dreams. And the whole world will become a dream. That’s beautiful, right?”

  Ye Qingxuan was stiff. He looked back at the man with the piano case. A pain out of nowhere made him keel over. He held his head, feeling bursts of pain.

  “This world is a nightmare, father!” He roared, “It is all because of you. And you think of it as a beautiful dream? Mother died—she died because of you!”

  The Eastern man was shocked. He seemed to have finally remembered, staring at Ye with blurry eyes, complicated and sad.

  The music, smooth as silk, was interrupted for a moment. Like sharp scissors had shredded it into pieces and left a mess everywhere.

  The wind had stopped, the dust was gone, the sun went out, the earth was broken, and everything had collapsed.

  The darkness encapsulated everything, and he fell into the abyss.

  The broken piano music was like a hand, tightly holding onto him.

  The dreams were changing dramatically. Sometimes a flooded city, and sometimes a castle ready to collapse. Sometimes it was a raging sea with a jungle growing in it, with neon flashing at the horizon.

  In the next instant, they changed again, now dim.

  Infinite fog was rising, drowning everything.

  -

  The piano started again.

  As the moon sang, the clouds moved in the sky.

  Ye Qingxuan was walking in the fog, looking for the music. At his feet, the rough mountain road was rising, but was becoming narrower and more difficult to walk on.

  The fog wrapped around him. As if numerous eyes were quietly watching him, it made Ye feel not so alone walking this path.

  He kept walking in the mountains. Forward, forward, forward until there was no place to go.

  The next step would be to the abyss.

  The music came from the end of the sky, broken yet persistent as if it were calling him. Ye Qingxuan quietly staring at the fog and took a step forward.

  The abyss did not devour him because of the invisible music lifting him. He stepped into the wind and began to move forward, faster and faster.

  Sometimes he looked around, staring at the dancing clouds. In the fog and the sea of ​​clouds, only stars shined like broken lights around him, like a fish in the fog. Flashes of light passed by him, then disappeared.

  He began to feel calm, no longer afraid.

  Then the ​​clouds split in front of him. Layers of mist and clouds exited from both sides, revealing a dark sky with stars flashing above.

  Ahead of the clouds, a moon was rising silently, illuminating his path.

  With a crushing sound of the music, immeasurable rays of light rose from the star-filled sky, up and down again. Misty tunes lingered in the clouds between Heaven and Earth, turning into bits of bright light.

  In the moonlight, he saw the man waiting quietly.

  He was standing in a distance, unreachable. Ye Qingxuan could not catch up with him.

  Staring in silence, he saw the shadow of Ye Qingxuan, then laughed and gently waved.

  His body was swinging with his wave, as if dissipating.

  “How do you like it?” He looked at the boy, “A beautiful dream?”

  “Is this a trick, Father?” Ye Qingxuan stared at him, “But I do not think it’s beautiful. I am scared of it.”

  “Ye, this was a dream of your past. You were just remembering.”

  “I forgot already.” Ye Qingxuan turned around, not wanting to see it again.

  “Things that have been forgotten would not have appeared here.” He whispered in the moonlight, “Things that cannot be forgotten may be painful, but this was your dream, how could you forget?”

  Ye Qingxuan was stunned. He looked around at his dream world, watching the sea of ​​clouds and the moonlight. He suddenly felt lost and sad.

  “What should I do?”

  In silence, the man laughed, as gentle as the moonlight.

  “Weren’t you planning on going forward?” He said, “Just like that, not arrogantly floating in the sky or falling down because of the pain. Just go forward, straight ahead, and nothing in this world can stop you. Whether it leads you to Heaven or Hell, straight to the end of the dream.”

  The young man looked at his black eyes, the same color as his own, seemed to have a thousand words in them, but also seemed vague.

  “So, do not forget, Ye.”

  In the moonlight, Ye stared at the young man, sighing. His feelings were complicated, but he was mostly sad. Gradually, the man disappeared onto the moon, only the wind carried his final whisper,

  “I’ll be there waiting for you.”

  16 True or False

  ChaYe Qingxuan opened his eyes.

  It was afternoon. The warm sun shone through the opened windows upon his body.

  He felt the fatigue for the first time in a long time, but it felt so good. There was no pressure, or any unbearable pain either. There was just a peace and comfort in his heart.

  “You’re awake?” The father who was reading at the table raised his head and said coldly, “I couldn’t expect you to recover that quickly since you came back half dead last night.”

  “My father had said before that cheap life was easy to support,” Ye Qingxuan laughed, struggling to sit up. “God was probably not willing to accept a liar like me.”

  “Do not speculate about God.” The priest did not continue arguing with him, only giving him a warning, then went back to his reading.

  The afternoon sunshine on Ye Qingxuan’s body felt warm and soft, making his pale face feel much better
, almost soothing him back to sleep again.

  After a long time, he heard Father Bann’s unexpected voice, “Did you have a nightmare?”

  “No.” Ye Qingxuan thought for a moment, but could not help laughing, “I haven’t had such a good dream for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a lie. It looked like you were recovering well.” The priest nodded and suddenly said, “Go and see Victor. He is in his original room.”

  “What’s up with him?”

  “He has been hiding in his room since he came back last night, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. He felt guilty regarding you. You should talk to him.” The priest paused and said, “You both are fools, so you should be able to understand one another.”

  －

  Since geniuses had a mutual understanding amongst themselves, there should be a common language between fools too.

  The priest’s words were right—the world was always grouped together. The wealthy drank with the wealthy in their mansions, while the homeless hugged each other in the snow. The lonely people shared loneliness with each other, while the people in pain licked each other’s wounds.

  Victor said that Ye Qingxuan was his only friend, as Ye Qingxuan was Victor’s only friend.

  One was holding onto the dream of becoming the musician and never letting go. The other one imagined becoming a big shot and seeking revenge against the aristocracy for killing his family members.

  The guy who was already a street boy always believed that he would become a bigger one, so he was ready at all times to challenge authority or whatever else.

  Treating others as he wanted to be treated, he felt Ye Qingxuan was his only friend. This way no one could call him cheap—even his Majesty would not be allowed to do that!

  The entire time he felt that he would have a great future, and there was nothing in this world that could stop him. He was naive and stubborn.

  But when Ye Qingxuan saw Victor so anxious and sad, unkempt and curled up in the corner, he did not look like the big man he wanted to be.

  When Ye Qingxuan sat next to him, Victor looked at him for a long time before he finally recognized him.