by Feng Yue
“You’re all so scared of him?” the dark shadow asked tauntingly.
“You don’t understand. You’re not from here, you don’t understand.” The Pyramid King was bitter, “The Shaman is not just a legend. He was an entire era of downtown, do you understand? He was the Dark King back then…
“When he was the most powerful, he controlled half of Anglo’s Dark World through Avalon’s downtown. Everyone dreamed of kneeling before him to kiss his ring and pledge loyalty to him.
“The elites couldn’t control him, and the police were all loyal to him. The Royalty had to ask him if they could wear silk pajamas. He was the king of Anglo in the shadows! Some say that he had even met the Pope… If he didn’t go missing, all of downtown would probably be his now.” His eyes flashed with discontent, “To him, we’re just rats eating his leftovers. Even if times have changed, all he needs to do is clap and many will want to follow him. If he really is back, we have to kill him before he can control everything…”
“Didn’t he run after being persecuted by the Royal Musicians?”
“Royal Musicians? They used to be his partners! How could the Royal Musicians live so lavishly without that man’s money?!”
Ye Qingxuan did not reply. He had never imagined the Shaman to be so powerful. He was just lucky that the legendary Dark King was still trying to get his own power back and was not focused on King Arthur’s hidden treasure yet.
“Last question.” Ye Qingxuan looked at him, “Do you know who ‘old guy’ is?”
“Old guy?” The Pyramid King tried not to laugh. “Are you kidding me? There are thousands with that nickname in downtown. How do I know who you’re talking about?!”
“Really? That’s a pity.” Regret flashed past Ye Qingxuan’s eyes as he looked away, “You can go now.” Turning, he waved his hand, “I’ve lost interest in you.”
The Pyramid King froze in disbelief, followed by ecstasy. He had not expected the man to really hold his promise. He could live now. But why did he feel so humiliated? He could feel the shadow’s eyes glancing at him for the last time. The gaze was cold, full of disdain and pity. It was as if the man was looking at a fly, a bug or some other insignificant thing. Was he just a rat the man could kill depending on his mood?! As if his life was so useless that he did not want to take it.
“You’ll regret it!” Sam screamed in his mind. “You will regret it…” Crawling back, he pushed himself up and prepared to leave cautiously, but when he stepped out of the cemetery, he looked back again. The eerie shadow was standing under the ghastly moonlight, looking down at a tombstone. He seemed to have become one with the cemetery’s darkness. The moonlight cast a sharp shadow behind him, like a beast dancing menacingly.
The Pyramid King looked at the shadow and hesitated. Hate flashed past his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by fear. He gave up on a sneak attack. “You…who are you?!” he yelled. “Tell me your name! I want to know your name!”
Hearing his voice, the shadow in the darkness turned around, looking at him coldly. His dark eyes sent chills down the Pyramid King’s spine. They was arrogant and cold, like checking if the rat had the right to ask for his name. Silence.
The Pyramid King’s face reddened and he turned in anger. But then he heard a voice behind him.
“You can call me Sherlock,” In the darkness, the youth was actually racking his brain for a name. When he looked down at the tombstone beside him, his eyes lit up and reported the name on the stone. He said, “My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
—
Ye Qingxuan finally could not take it anymore. After the Pyramid King left, he collapsed next to the tombstone, gasping for breath. If the Pyramid King had left a few minutes too late, he really would have collapsed. Skipping levels and activating the dark melody had pushed him past his limits.
Beside him, Bai Xi scrambled to hand him a tube of green medicine. It was high quality recovery medicine. Ye Qingxuan did not have the energy to ask where she got it from. Taking it, he tipped his head and downed the medicine. After panting for a long time, he finally felt his mind recover.
After he was back to normal, Bai Xi began to fidget. She tried to escape, but a hand pressed down on her shoulder, “Good evening, little friend. Do you want to play a game with Uncle?” Ye Qingxuan asked in a weird voice, “I have a lot of fun games here…”
Bai Xi suddenly felt a chill. “You…leave me alone!”
“What, you’re scared now?” Ye Qingxuan asked, “Then why are you out here in the middle of the night?”
“I-I’m not Bai Xi!” The girl covered her face, “You got the wrong person. I’m John! Uh, John Watson…”
“Wow, you think of names pretty quickly.” Ye Qingxuan snickered, “Do you want to add a middle name? Like ‘H’ or something?”
“Names are created by parents. You can’t just change it.”
“Ha.” Ye Qingxuan squeezed her cheeks, “Try to make up something better.”
“I’m sorry! Cousin, I’m sorry! I just wanted to help…” Seeing Baixi suddenly become obedient, with her hands clasped together and lashes batting, Ye Qingxuan could not be angry anymore. He sighed and reached out, “Hand it over.”
“What? Hand what over?” Bai Xi looked at him confusedly, “What are you talking about?”
“Really?” Ye Qingxuan scoffed. He reached into her pocket and pulled out a palm-sized leather notebook. Shaking it before her, he said, “You have guts. You couldn’t forget your old job even with an arrow to the head. Didn’t you promise to stop stealing?”
“This is called fighting fire with fire! It’s his fault!” Guilty, Bai Xi looked away. She whistled, her face full of innocence. “I just reached over…and it came out.”
Ye Qingxuan shook his head, unable to do anything with her. He opened the book and studied the numbers. Thinking of something, his eyes became serious and he read through carefully.
Old Phil returned soundlessly. The giant golden dog sniffed at the blood. He wandered around the cemetery as if it was a store, stepping over the corpses gracefully. His eyes lit up. He lowered its head and picked something up in its mouth. Trotting over, he put the thing at Bai Xi’s feet. He had gracefully and selflessly given this thing to his top student, Bai Xi.
Gaping, Bai Xi bent down and picked up the bloody mirror. Flipping it over, she saw the carving of Medusa, and her eyes brightened. It was the Mirror of Medusa!
Seeing that Ye Qingxuan was focused on the notebook, she put a finger to her lips, shushing Old Phil. And then she sneakily put the mirror into her pocket.
She was just going to take a little thing. Her cousin would not mind…hopefully.
—
Ye Qingxuan flipped through the notebook quickly. He had a general impression of the content and stuffed it into his pocket. If the content was what he thought it was, he would have to think and plan carefully.
Just as he pulled Bai Xi’s hand, getting ready to leave, he heard a moan from the unconscious man in the ditch nearby. The man seemed to have fallen into a nightmare, writhing painfully.
Ye Qingxuan remembered him. His name was Hudson, and he had wanted to leave this dark world, but had been captured by the Pyramid King. It was surprising that he was still alive, but he was still close to dying.
Thinking for a bit, Ye Qingxuan halted. He pressed his cane against Hudson’s chest and the music of flowing water sounded—Rune Flow. Using Jiu Xiao Huan Pei, Ye Qingxuan stimulated the blood in Hudson’s heart, pulling him back from the nightmare.
With the nightmare gone, Hudson woke with a cry. Opening his eyes, he looked at the ruins. When he saw Ye Qingxuan’s shadow, he seemed to understand something, “Am I…dead?”
“You’re still alive,” Ye Qingxuan said lightly.
“Did you save me?”
“You survived because of your own luck. I just gave you hand. Since you’re still conscious, go find a doctor before you really die.”
Hudson fell silent. He forced a bitter smile onto his bloody face
, “Maybe it’s better for people like me to die. Even if I live, where can I go?” He sighed hopelessly, “I ran far away to start a new life, but I was still dragged back. On the way here, I realized that the day I jumped into the swamp, I would never be clean again. I’ve sinned so many times. I have to pay for them some day.”
“Then live on and use the rest of your days to repent for what you’ve done.”
“Will I be saved if I repent?” Hudson asked, his voice full of hope.
“No,” The youth shook his head. Studying the bloody cane, his voice was hoarse and cold, “You will live on full of guilt. You will live in this darkness until death. But you can at least try to be a good person.” With that, Ye Qingxuan turned to leave.
Stunned, Hudson fell silent. Watching the shadow leave, he wanted to cry. He felt as if he had just been saved. “That’s wonderful…” He knelt down onto the bloody dirt, seeing the shadow off, “Sir, thank you.”
The shadow in the distance halted, turning around. He finally looked away after a long moment, “And thank you too,” he murmured. This was the most beautiful sentence Ye Qingxuan had heard over the past few days.
“What happened?” Bai Xi asked quietly. “Why are you suddenly so happy?”
“There was a question I’ve been asking myself these days, but now I realize that the answer had always been in my heart.” Ye Qingxuan smiled in the darkness, satisfied and freed, “It’s not meaningless to be a good person.”
116 The Seven Schools of Music
The Royal Academy of Music had continued the tradition of having one public lecture per week for centuries. Every student could attend, regardless of major, school, or year. Sometimes, famous musicians or scholars would hold lectures to share their research or explorations with students, but nobody had put much effort into their lectures over recent years. It had become an empty tradition.
The professors wanted to keep their findings exclusive, and only shared things that everyone already knew. Now, the public lectures were just a group of important people coming to move their lips. Other than textbook material that everyone knew, they would also say useless things like “work hard!” and “don’t give up!”
As expected, fewer students came every year. Now, it became a blow-off class for students who had cut class and needed extra points. But today, the classroom was no longer empty. Instead, it was filled to the max. In the crowded classroom, there were even students sitting in the aisles. But no one in the crowd spoke. It was silent except for the gentle voice from the podium.
—
The academy had always upheld a strict etiquette system to produce students with the mannerisms of an elite. The etiquette system touched upon things like sitting posture, and was enforced throughout the Academy. The crazy dogs of the student council executive office made sure that the system was followed to a T.
Every lecturer would stand behind the podium. Even a saint had to be polite and spirited, unable to show any weakness or laziness, but today, there was a chair behind the podium. A girl sat on the walnut chair, her feet hidden under her dress. The dress that rested on the ground was spotless. She looked nothing like a famous history scholar or renowned explorer. Instead, she looked like an eighteen year old girl—Lola Caput.
Her skin was pale, as if she had a chronic illness, but her hair was golden and her long locks fell past her delicate neck to her chest. It looked like a beam of sunlight falling on plain brocade.
She leaned back in the chair, explaining the content of her lecture in a gentle voice. Sometimes, she would get excited and start coughing. When her servant offered her medicine, she would refuse. After catching her breath, she would begin lecturing again.
The students were silent. Everyone focused on her. Even if they whispered, they tried to be quiet, not wanting to interrupt her. They could not help but look into her eyes.
Most who could enter the Royal Academy of Music were the best of the best. They had seen much of the world. They were bored of elite ladies’ caked makeup and had seen enough of weak girls who needed to be protected, but they had never seen a pair of eyes like these. They were like an emeralds in a mirror. They were filled with refined beauty when still, and when they moved, they shone an intoxicating light. They were close yet unreachable.
Nine years ago, an elite girl from a fallen family had been physically weak since childhood and had become a musician. She began researching the Dark Age, becoming a researcher of the Dark Age history.
In the beginning, everyone who heard this thought it was a joke. It was clear that this girl had a disadvantage compared to the exploration musicians who could enter deep into the Dark World. Her weak physique could not survive the harsh conditions of explorations. She also could not enter archeologist sites to search for ancient texts and evidence. All she could do was organize and decipher the texts that had been discovered. Everybody knew that research of the languages from the Dark Age had not progressed in the last three hundred years.
“Was she sitting at home, waiting for research results to fall from the sky?” some people asked. But quickly, the mockery and doubts shattered after she successfully deciphered the first chapter of Voynich’s Manuscript. Numerous scholars had been defeated by this manuscript; countless people spent their entire lives trying to decode it to no avail, but it was deciphered by a frail and sickly girl. The scholars who had doubted Lola’s ability were slapped in the face by reality. Many quit their research in humiliation and anger.
After deciphering the first chapter of Voynich’s Manuscript, she found the foreword of the Emerald Tablet, a legendary alchemy manuscript that had been sealed for centuries, and filled in the missing parts of the Baidi Yinfujing. Over the next few years, this girl, who rarely ventured outside, would create a storm in the academic world every now and then with her findings.
Five years ago, she accepted the title of Honorary Professor from Principle Maxwell. Every now and then, she would choose a day to hold a public lecture. Every time, the lecture hall would be packed. Within the last five years, more and more students decided to explore the Dark World after graduation. Miss Lola’s influence was undeniable. But this time, the woman did not lecture about material that was way above their level. Instead, she followed the suggestions of some professors and decided to fill these impetuous and impatient students in on the basics.
—
“When the Dark Age ended, the original Three Kings established an entirely new musician system on top of the School of Classics. They divided musicians into three levels: Musician level, Resonance level and Scepter level. These three levels could be further divided into nine sub-levels. This is the nine levels of musicians that we now know.
“For everyone present, the most important is undoubtedly the Musician level. After your initial learning and research, I’m sure you can all successfully enter the Rhythm level in a few years.
“From here, your basic knowledge will enter a professional level. All students must choose the School that suits you best. This is the most important choice a musician will make in his life. Of course, the Royal Academy of Music had already chosen the field for you based on your natural skills. All you have to do is follow the course.” At the podium, Miss Lola pursed her lips ever so slightly, as if disagreeing with this method of teaching. But she hid it well, smiling gently.
Pausing, she waved a hand and a tree diagram appeared on the blackboard behind her. Below the same foundation, seven branches reached in different directions. Sometimes, they would combine or overlap. Other times, they were like parallel lines, staying far away from each other. “Today, I will lecture about the seven major schools of musicians.”
Lola said, “The so-called seven major schools is a classification system suggested by the third pope. They represent directions of research. Through the years, musicians have added and revised the school, forming seven different paths and fields.
“They are the ones we know today: Modifications, Summoning, Choir, Revelations, Illusions, Mind and Ab
stinence. You may think that there’s nothing to this, right?
“Even an idiot knows this, right? Musicians from the School of Modifications can cast electricity and frost, Summoning can control demons and beasts, and Choir can heal like a doctor. Revelations are eccentric. They can predict dangers and avoid trouble. Illusions musicians can manipulate illusions, and the School of Mind can control the mind…The School of Abstinence can restrain the previous six schools, but it’s hard to truly become an expert and has many flaws.
“There is another School that combines two or even three schools, producing unimaginable power…You have all heard of this before and don’t need anyone to repeat it. So today, I want to tell you something deeper.” She paused. Her eyes were no longer light, but dark and serious. Now, she was not a girl anymore. Standing before her podium, she was standing in her field of expertise. Expression stern, she was ready to explain the reason behind the phenomenon to these confused students.
“The seven schools all have unique core principles and goals. This is something no musician can get around. A musician only has to consider it after entering the Resonance level, or even the Scepter level. But if you only start thinking about it then, it’ll be too late.
“No matter what school it is, in the end, it’s all to search for the Originator, but all seven schools have different starting points and direction of research. They are different in performance, function and final goal.
“Here’s an example. The School of Modifications uses changes in matter to create effects such as fire, frost and electricity. It has terrifying destructive power. But actually, they research the relationship between the nature of all organisms.
“The School of Summoning explores the nature of demons and catastrophes. That is why they take out a piece of their personality and consciousness to raise beasts and demons. When a musician groups aether, these pieces can come together to form phantom beasts.