Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  —

  After a long time, the talk finally came to an end. Maxwell remained in his seat, watching as the girl’s backside grew distant. He smoked a cigarette, his eyes full of fatigue.

  “Hey, Maxwell.” Newton glanced at him, seeing how he was deep in thought. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, just a little scared.” Maxwell thought of the girl’s eyes and sighed. “The ancestors are insufficient to be law, the changes of the world are insufficient to be feared, and a man’s words are insufficient to be pitied? She stepped on ancestors, principles, and ethics so easily. How wildly ambitious must you be to make such things sound logical? I don’t think I can handle someone like this.”

  “All these years, you’ve handled Royalty, the Congress, those elites, and even the budget. But now you’re worried you can’t handle a little girl?” Newton snorted. “Have you gotten old?”

  “To be honest, I’m still not sure who I’m negotiating with.” Maxwell scratched his head. “Were those her words? Or Yunlou Qingshu? I feel like I’m not talking to her, but an evil and greedy soul. All these years, people said that Yunlou Qingshu had a good daughter. Now I understand that he had never seen her as a daughter, but a weapon and tool.” He sighed. “What a pity.”

  “What is there to pity?”

  “That’s why you lunatics don’t understand the beauties in life!” Maxwell sighed, shaking his head. “You stared at her for the entire afternoon, but could only imagine her tied to your surgery table like a white rat. Is there something wrong with your brain?” Maxwell was infuriated. “Newton, she’s a girl. She’s only sixteen! Did you look at her eyes closely? They are pure black, like black pearls, shining with a lonely light. So beautiful, anyone would like her. Such a good girl should be living without worries in a garden, or in a fairytale like a lotus. But someone turned her into a tool and is willing to have her marry an idiot in three years to complete his vision. What a damn pity.” Putting out his cigarette, he turned to leave.

  68 Resul

  It was already the fourth day of school. At noon, the bored Bai Xi lay on the library’s sofa, yawning. When she felt bored, she would roll over and say, “Ah, I’m so bored.”

  Before the blackboard, Charles sighed awkwardly. “Sister, don’t be like this. I’m trying to teach you.”

  “I don’t want to learn. We agreed that I just have to enroll, and don’t have to learn!” The little girl rolled her eyes. “I don’t care. I want to go shopping! I want to play…”

  “No, wait!” Charles waved helplessly. “Look, the professor told me before he left to take his place. You don’t want to learn, but it’s okay if you want me to teach you something else. We’re both experts on music theory. I charge a couple hundred per hour when I tutor. Can’t you give me some respect?”

  “In my old home, you wouldn’t be qualified to be my teacher if you weren’t at least an Imperial Nine Musician. And I had everything you’re teaching memorized by the time I was thirteen-years-old.”

  “Thirteen? Wait, that can’t be right!” Charles froze, getting confused. “Sister, how old are you?”

  “Don’t you know that you can’t go around asking a girl’s age?” Bai Xi huffed. Eyes filling with resentment, she muttered, ” I hit puberty late. I’ll grow tall someday…even taller than the white lotus!”

  Charles had good ears and heard what she had quietly muttered. “White lotus? Who?”

  “Why do you care? Anyway, it’s the pure little girl that you men all like. Pitiful and makes parents like her, has big boobs, and can make you have dirty thoughts just by wearing a white dress. That kind!”

  “How is that possible? A pretty girl like that that I haven’t met before?” Charles was suddenly infuriated. “Don’t let those girls ruin junior! Let them come to me, and I’ll teach them!”

  Bai Xi glanced at him and quickly looked away disinterested. “Senior, you’re so weak. Even if there were ten of you, you’d still get played.”

  “No way. I’m the famous prodigy of the Royal Academy of Music!” Charles’s expression was serious, but his words obviously had no substance, and Bai Xi burst into laughter.

  Charles’ expression turned helpless. He sighed, shaking his head. “Ugh, I was brave before, but a coward now. Whatever. If you want to go walk around, wait for junior to come out and we can go play together.”

  “Who knows when he’ll come out?” Bai Xi suddenly became upset. “I called him for a long time last night and he ignored me. What is he even doing down there by himself? Can you learn the notes just by locking yourself up?”

  “I doubt it. That feeling isn’t that easy to get.”

  “Is it really that hard? Didn’t I learn it easily?”

  “That’s what you think.” Charles could not help but sigh. “Here’s an example. Notes are just like pretty girls. They are cold and beautiful, and their personalities and moods are always changing. You need to have the charisma of a wanderer, the inheritance of royalty, the stubbornness of a fool, and the enthusiasm of a lunatic to be able to achieve resonance. But sadly, in the eyes of the notes, junior is just plain, poor, and has a weird personality. He probably can’t even get onto the waiting list for reincarnation. There’s no way he can achieve resonance.”

  “…Is it that bad?”

  “It’s worse than bad.” Charles shook his head. “If it were, say, a pretty girl, it’d be easier. At least there are other ways.”

  “What ways?” Bai Xi asked.

  Charles smiled crudely. “Use force.”

  “Go die!”

  A book whacked Charles in the face, knocking him straight to the ground. Charles crawled up and sighed. But before he could say anything, loud barking came from the hall.

  “Old Phil?” Charles looked over in suspicious, but finally realized, “I know, it must be spring.”

  “Spring your *ss!” Bai Xi jumped down from the sofa and ran out without even putting on her shoes.

  As an evil dog, Old Phil always followed the rule ‘silence is golden,’ and never barked no matter what. If the problem could be solved with teeth and claws, then he would use his teeth and claws to solve it. Problems that could not be solved with teeth and claws…well, he never ran into them. Old Phil was too powerful, and never ran into those problems. If there was nothing, Old Phil would never bark. That was why Bai Xi started to worry. What happened to Old Phil? Had he brought back something weird again?

  On the second day of school, there had been a mysterious theft in the academy. All of the doorknobs on the School of Revelation’s first floor were stolen! Who knew what the thief was thinking, stealing only the doorknobs and nothing else. The academy could only conclude that it was some student’s prank. Only Bai Xi knew that when Charles found all of the doorknobs in his bed, he almost peed his pants.

  After giving its welcome gift to his new servant, Old Phil turned and walked away without letting anyone know his name, as a hero should. So Charles and Bai Xi could only dig a ditch in the middle of the night and bury the doorknobs.

  Bai Xi walked down the hall with the same worry that Ye Qingxuan once had. And just as Ye Qingxuan had, she froze.

  “…” Bai Xi stared blankly at Old Phil, who was panting, and at the thing that he had dragged from the basement and down the hall. Her expression twisted. “What the heck, Cousin?”

  “Hey, Cousin,” the bedraggled youth on the ground said weakly. There was a trembling smile on his pale face. “Do you…have food?”

  —

  Charles and Bai Xi sat in the big hall of the small building, carefully watching the youth stuffing his face at the table. Their expressions were unreadable.

  “I went down to the basement to check. This guy hadn’t moved at all for the past three days.” The horrors he had seen flashed before his eyes. “Nothing that had been covered by dust had been moved in a long time, but the bottle of ink on the table had been used up. There was a sign of struggle by the door. I guess he was too weak to open the door and had to be dragged
out by Old Phil,” said Charles.

  Bai Xi’s mouth twisted. “Was he trying to kill himself?”

  “The draft paper had been used up too. I found these on the table,” Charles gave Bai Xi a thick stack of paper filled with words. Bai Xi took two glances and felt dizzy.

  The stack of paper, at least one finger’s width thick, was filled with cramped handwriting and some confusing math symbols. Only some of the words were from the lingua franca, most were from other languages, all jumbled together.

  “What is this?” Bai Xi asked.

  “Some are the Runes of the Asgard language, some are Latin used by the church. It looks like he was trying to organize something.” Charles tapped the papers. “Seems like these days hadn’t gone to waste. It’s hard work to organize all this.”

  “This has nothing to do with notes.” The little girl rolled her eyes.

  At the table, Ye Qingxuan was finally done shoveling food into his mouth and licked his fingers with satisfaction. He could not help but say in awe, “I never thought that pizza left out overnight could taste this good.”

  “It’s not just overnight.” Charles slapped his knee. “That pizza’s been there for three days!”

  “Senior, I just finished eating. Can you not ruin the mood?” Ye Qingxuan said.

  Bai Xi pursed her lips and threw the papers onto the table. “You spent three days just to do this stuff?”

  “Oh, that’s useless.” Ye Qingxuan glanced over and waved casually. “Toss it.”

  “Toss it?” Bai Xi’s face grew pale in disbelief.

  “Yeah, I’ve memorized it all anyway.” Ye Qingxuan cracked his stiff neck, making popping sounds. “I just wrote it down as a habit, but I realized after I organized everything that it’s pretty easy to memorize, so it’s useless now.”

  Bai Xi was so angry she could not speak. “What about the music notes? The notes?” She pounded on the table, shaking in rage. “Didn’t you say that you found the way to learn the notes? Don’t tell me you spent three days writing a book for fun.”

  “Ah, cousin, you think too highly of me.” Ye Qingxuan scratched his face coyly. “Writing is such a high class thing, I can’t do it yet.”

  Bai Xi did not reply and just cracked her knuckles in silence. She looked up and down his body, trying to decide where she should hit first.

  This guy locked himself in the basement and did nothing! She had been waiting and anticipating for nothing! She had even been a bit worried!

  “Don’t hit me yet!” Seeing her eyes, Ye Qingxuan immediately raised his hands to surrender. “I have results!”

  “Then show me.” Bai Xi slammed a fist on the table, her eyes flashing. “But let me say this first—if you take out another weird thing, just wait to be riddled with holes. I’ll have red blades go in and come out white!”

  “Uh, Sister, it’s actually the opposite way,” Charles reminded her quietly. “The white blade goes in and comes out red… Ow!” Charles cried out in pain as Bai Xi cut him off and stomped on his foot. But amidst the painful cry, one could hear the youth’s murmurs. The notes that floated out of his throat had Charles raising his head in shock.

  —

  In the sudden silence, the bedraggled youth raised a single finger, his eyes shining with the light of the aether. As his mouth opened and closed, both crisp and heavy syllables overlapped in his throat, turning into a faint voice. As if someone thrummed a nonexistent instrument string, the weak sound with a metallic feeling filled the room.

  It was no longer jerky and choppy. This time, the syllables flowed out like running water. Clear runes appeared from the light and transformed into the blazing sun, moving with his heart and soul! In his senses, the sleeping aether had finally been awoken under the bright light. The pieces of light combined from all directions, grouping on the youth’s fingertip, and transformed into a substantial light. The light on the fingertip was being threaded together, wrapping together and finally forming a tiny ring of light.

  This was the Rune · Light!

  69 He Really Used Force!

  Bai Xi stared at the ring of light on Ye Qingxuan’s fingertip. Through the ring, she could see the youth’s black eyes. There was a faint smile in those eyes.

  “It worked?” Charles murmured.

  “You used three days to make a ring?” Bai Xi stuck a finger through the light and the ring shattered, breaking from the outside force. But when she pulled her finger back, the deformed shape bounced back like tallow, turning into a ring again. It was bright as before.

  Charles nodded. “The shape is a little weird, but it’s very stable. It must have taken a lot of hard work to reach this level.”

  Properly saying the syllables should have created a smooth ring equal on all sides, but at least Ye Qingxuan was able to improve the quality of the aether structure, and it was no longer a mess like it had been before.

  “It’s okay. You’ve worked hard to do this.” Bai Xi sighed. “Remember to let us know before you lock yourself up. No one knew anything. Others might have thought you went to rob the church’s bank.”

  “Don’t be so impatient.” Ye Qingxuan slowly raised his finger. “This is just the beginning…” Saying that, he blew. Along his breath, a weak breeze went through the ring and ran into an invisible wall, turning back. The breeze seemed to have blew away the dust, revealing its true nature. There was a thin membrane pulled taught across the ring. It seemed like it would tear with the slightest touch.

  But as Ye Qingxuan blew, it slowly inflated. As if blowing a giant soap bubble, Ye Qingxuan carefully and patiently increased the strength of his breath. A bubble slowly appeared from the ring of light on his fingertip. Finally, with a slight push, a perfect bubble popped out from the ring and floated up toward the ceiling.

  Bai Xi watched, frozen.

  —

  The breeze blew in from the window, and the delicate bubble slowly floated toward the girl. It reflected the sunlight and surrounding colors. The semi-transparent bubble emanated a magnificent glow, as if it were reflecting the image of another world.

  Bai Xi could see Ye Qingxuan’s face through the thin membrane.

  As if sensing the shock in her eyes, the youth smiled.

  “What is this?” Bai Xi carefully reached out to hold it, but was scared she would accidentally pop it. When the bubble floated over, she retreated, afraid she would ruin that beautiful thing.

  Charles reached out. The lightest touch caused ripples. It floated an inch above his finger, rotating lazily. This was another coherence technique, and it had been executed was amazingly.

  Charles studied the bubble on his fingertip. Seeing something unexpected, his eyes lit up with a pleasant surprise. “This is a variant of the Rune · Light. It’s the School of Illusion’s favorite effect—Bubble. You’re already able to use it in battle. If you can make this, then you should know the other twenty-three uses of Light, correct?”

  “The others are pretty easy, but I had to try this many times.” Ye Qingxuan rubbed his belly and sighed. “I had wanted to make Old Phil’s shape, but the precision it needed was too high. Halfway through, I ran out of energy and almost died. That was so scary…”

  “You learned the note and all twenty-three uses over three days? But three days ago, you had no interaction with the aether at all. How did you do it?”

  “A stupid method that everyone can think of.” Ye Qingxuan pointed at the papers on the table and chuckled. “Practice.”

  —

  “In the end, a musician controls the aether by chanting. The aether joins together and creates the structure of the rune. Different runes have different effects. The principle behind it is complex, but since the proper syllable can achieve the proper result, I just needed to pronounce the correct syllable,” Ye Qingxuan said.

  “As you all saw, I don’t have the genius so-called ‘feeling.’ So when I chant, I can’t tweak the syllables according to the outside environment and the aether’s reaction, so that’s why the result
was weak, right?”

  “That’s right,” Charles nodded. “How did you fix it?”

  “It was easy.” Ye Qingxuan snapped his fingers. “As long as I can anticipate outside disturbances beforehand, then there’s no problem.”

  —

  In the silence, the youth spread out the papers with a smile and gazed at the scrawled handwriting. “All I did was find the proper syllable from different records. The theories used now, and corrections to pronunciation all come from each individual’s ‘sense’ of the Originator. Then they adjust their Sound of Heart and perform the rune. But it was noted in ‘Ten Basic Problems in Casting,’ there’s a non-mainstream School of Behavior. They don’t believe in the existence of a soul, and only believe in action and reaction. It can be applied to Phantom Beasts, which are created from aether. So there should be a set mechanism to force a reaction from the aether too.”

  There was a long silence following Ye Qingxuan’s words.

  After a long time, Charles processed Ye Qingxuan’s words with difficulty. “So you’re saying that you read everything that had anything to do with Light, chant records, the aether environment at the time, the timbre, frequency, pitch, pattern of change, and everything else?”

  “That’s right,” Ye Qingxuan nodded.

  “Everything?” Charles felt like he was hallucinating.

  “Everything.” Ye Qingxuan nodded again.

  His voice trembling, Charles asked, “That’s what you did for three days?”

  Ye Qingxuan thought for a moment and shook his head. “It took one day to organize all the material, and half a day to find the pattern of change of notes. Memorizing it all took the shortest amount of time.”

  He paused and added, “There’s not much, give or take six-hundred variations. If you take out the two-hundred or so rare circumstances, it’s easy to remember the rest. The changes are complicated, but once you get the pattern, it’s not hard.”

  “…” Silent, Charles looked at the youth, his eyes wild like he was looking at two different things. His left eye was looking at an idiot, while his right eye was looking at a strange creature. “I can’t believe it. Your *ss really used force on the runes!”