Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  Ye Qingxuan continued forward as if nothing had happened. He walked past the two musicians with challenging gazes without a care in the world.

  “What a pity,” he whispered as he walked past Colt. “If I were you and was fifty percent sure, I’d act.”

  “Revelations musicians never gamble.” Colt’s expression was still cold. “Ye Qingxuan, you still lack too much.”

  “No, what I meant was that a fifty percent chance becomes success in my hands.” Ye Qingxuan smiled and looked away. “But not for you.”

  Colt seemed to not have heard anything. He did not look back at the youth either. However, his lips pursed and veins bulged on the hand that gripped the cane. His emerald eyes were still cold.

  Fearless against those cold eyes, Ye Qingxuan gazed the door behind him. The Eye of Silence scanned every inch. He trailed a finger down the veins of the door. As if studying a precious treasure, he did not overlook any detail. After a long while, he rose and went back.

  The three did not relax until Ye Qingxuan returned to the range of Sam’s sound of heart.

  “What’s the situation?” Sam asked.

  Ye Qingxuan pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the dust on his hands. He looked up and said, “There’s trouble.”

  -

  Ten minutes later, Ye Qingxuan said, “So basically, there’s only one road ahead of us now. According to the trend of this underground palace, all the tunnels will reach here. In a while, after everyone else is here, it’ll be even more fun before the door.

  “The problem we’ll all face is that, compared to the poor civilians and soldiers, the ones behind the door are probably rich and powerful nobles. They won’t be buried so simply, you know?”

  Miller reacted first. “Is it an enchantment or a seal?”

  “The problem is that it’s both.” Ye Qingxuan jutted his chin at the large stone door. “In Romulusian legends, there’s something called the Hades’ Door. It’s over-reaching like an enchantment and independent like a seal. It should be the specialty of some school. There are signs of at least five Abstinence musicians working together.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “No.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head resolutely. “I might have some chance if I reach the Scepter level. Colt probably can’t either. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here.”

  “Should we try digging a hole?”

  “Do you really want to dig a hole on an active volcano?” Ye Qingxuan used a metaphor. “If you dig a hole without undoing the alchemy array, you won’t be better off than that guy. Remember the Romulusian formation? That was just an appetizer. Once Hades’ Door is activated, it’ll activate all the protective measures in the first floor too. Then the main course will come…” Ye Qingxuan gazed at the vast palace. It was enough for hundreds of people to come out and fight. He said with a mocking smile, “Let’s not look too far but how many clay puppets do you think can fit here?”

  Baro’s face twitched and he cursed. “I knew it was bad news for Romulusians to make such a big place!”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Eat some food?” Ye Qingxuan shrugged. “There are three solutions. One, we stay here and see if anyone else can figure out a plan. That’ll waste time though. Two, we go up and try another path. It probably won’t work though…”

  “What about three?”

  “Three?” Ye Qingxuan chuckled. Checking his watch, he said, “It’s getting late and there’s no point in waiting. Why don’t we go back, sleep, and come back when we’re refreshed?”

  Everyone thought that he was joking, but seeing his serious expression, they did not know what to say. In the end, the three were convinced. They packed their bags to leave.

  The group on the other side seemed panicked. Shock flashed past Colt’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but saw the mockery in Ye Qingxuan’s eyes.

  Boom! Ye Qingxuan slammed his cane on the ground, tipped his hat, bowed politely, and got the h*ll out of there. He did not know what Colt had planned, but he would not fall into any traps if he did unpredictable things. After all, the relic would stay there for a while. If they wanted to stay there, they could. Ye Qingxuan’s group would go sleep. The four of them actually left just like that.

  However, Baro suddenly froze while climbing the steps and grabbed Ye Qingxuan. His eyes had turned into the beastly vertical pupils at some point. The hair on his hands stood straight up like a beast about to go wild. His aura was already wild as if he had met his natural enemy.

  “Something crazy’s coming.” Gritting his teeth, he stared into the distance. “Really strong beastly nature, really strong…”

  Ye Qingxuan was stunned. How strong must the beastly nature be for the inheritor of the School of Dragon Rock to be so affected? Ye Qingxuan had become desensitized to phantom beasts after seeing the great king earthworm. It was hard to imagine something even more shocking.

  Footsteps quickly sounded on the spiral staircase. There were two pairs of feet, one after another. Whenever the person in front took a step, the person behind him would step as well. It was orderly as if the latter was earnestly stepping into the former’s footprints.

  “Casper…Casper Hauser.” Baro gouged the wall with his sharp fingernails; sand fell to the ground. His body tensed. “It’s the Hauser brothers. Torre Haiser and his freak brother.”

  Just as he finished, a gray and a black shadow appeared before them. The one clad in gray stood up straight. His features were coldly handsome and serious. In the dimness, his eyes were like amber.

  The slouched figure behind him was like a monkey. His old black clothes were dirty and ragged. His features were unclear because his face was covered with cloth. His greasy waist-length hair was stuck together into locks like a wild beast. For some reason, his eyes did not contain the beastly nature representative of Summoning musicians. They were just blank.

  Casper. Casper Hauser. This was the legendary musician raised by Summoning musicians according to the optimization theory. He was the beast of beasts.

  The atmosphere stagnated when the two parties met. Then the elder brother, Torres, nodded slightly. Without giving a greeting, he moved aside. After a short pause, they ‘brushed shoulders’ against each other on the not-very-narrow staircase.

  The stairs were at least five meters wide but right now, it felt too, too narrow. It was narrow to the point of suffocating. When he passed by, Ye Qingxuan’s peripheral vision fell onto the faint designs on Casper’s black poncho. The design was faded from the years of wear and tear. It was the emblem of a black hound. It hid in the darkness of the long robe, its silhouette faintly revealed. It was grinding its teeth and drinking blood, preparing to kill.

  -

  It was a fleeting interaction but Ye Qingxuan could still hear Baro’s pounding heart after they had walked for a while. He was panting heavily as if they had fought a war. Baro’s eyes were dark. He chewed on his nails subconsciously, making annoyed cracking sounds.

  “Is the rumor true?” Miller asked. “He completed the inheritance of the beastly nature?”

  “Most likely,” Baro muttered. “I was doubtful before I saw him but now I’m pretty sure it’s true. Compared to that kind of result, the research of my school has fallen behind.”

  “Inheritance of the beastly nature? What’s that?”

  “Heresy!” Baro spat and looked back at Ye Qingxuan. “You know how the hound was created?”

  How was the breed of the hound created? Of course it was done by looking through thousands of dogs and choosing the most aggressive, most violent, fastest, and strongest one. Then, by interbreeding the best bloodlines, they would observe the children and choose the strongest to continue training, developing, strengthening, and breeding. Finally, the bloodlines of countless strong ancestors would be joined in one powerful hound. Aggressive, strong, fast, violent yet obedient…all the positive traits were combined, creating a new hound.

  “Some schools believe that we can breed hounds like that, so why not Sum
moning musicians? After all, aren’t humans just a more advanced type of beast?” Here, Baro stopped talking.

  After a long silence, Ye Qingxuan looked into the darkness behind him. The darkness shook as if a large black hound had once walked past it. This was a Summoning musician created by Summoning musicians. A beast of beasts.

  “I see.”

  342 Sunbathing

  Leaving the underground palace was not as hard as they had imagined. Most musicians were rational. They would not fight if there was no definite reward. Small tussles happened continuously but real fighting never happened. However, when they were going up toward the exit, they realized that the path they had first used had collapsed. The surprise they had left had probably been given to the owner. It must have been very interesting.

  When they left, the musicians were still exploring enthusiastically, but there had been no real breakthroughs. It was as if they had run into an obstacle in the aether ball games. However, no one expected that they would be stuck for days.

  -

  During these few days, Ye Qingxuan had gone to the palace every day. When he saw that the musicians before the door still had no solutions, he would go back and sunbathe happily. Yes, sunbathe.

  While everyone was racking their brains trying to solve the problem, this *ss would lay in the Romulusian market and sell the swords that no one wanted to buy while sunbathing on a ratty chair. He would read when he was bored, eat when he was hungry, and drink juice when he was thirsty. The afternoon sunlight was warm and bright. He was relaxed as if he were on vacation.

  Musicians that passed by him would practically break their teeth from grinding them too hard. They wished they could drag this guy over and beat him up. He must be so lazy that not even the Angloian musician could stand him. He needed to clean out his student!

  But actually, they were overthinking. The Angloian musician, the mysterious ‘big guy,’ had never appeared again after that first day! According to Ye Qingxuan, he just ate and slept, ate and slept in his room. He was even lazier than Ye Qingxuan! Since the teacher was like that, the student should not be blamed. Ye Qingxuan irresponsibly stirred up the serious trial.

  During this, Mr. Hu brought his students around the city. Sometimes, they would go over to say hi to Ye Qingxuan, talking about Eastern culture and specialties or discussing their thoughts on interpretation and ancient history.

  In the beginning, the stars of the Imperial College felt competitive against the white-haired boy of the same race. However, they were disappointed by his indifference and unprogressive style. They murmured, “The environment changes people” and decided to ignore him. If someone this lazy was in the Imperial College, he would have been expelled early on!

  However, Ye Qingxuan quickly discovered that his happy days were over. What was the phrase? The villain had his own devils.

  Just as Ye Qingxuan was sprawled on his chaise, sleeping and drooling, he felt a shadow fall over him. Opening his eyes, he saw a familiar map and Elsa’s gleeful face.

  “Sir, would you—” Before she could finish, Ye Qingxuan shot up from the chair in fright. “I bought the map! Please let me go!”

  “Oh…” Elsa instantly grew dejected. “Do I know you?”

  “Uh…” Ye Qingxuan looked around to see the Romulusians around him. Their faces said, ‘try bullying her and you’ll get it.’ Face twitching, he answered honestly, “Kind…of?”

  Elsa nodded. Seeming to have some thoughts, she circled his chair in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sunbathing.”

  “Oh.” Elsa was instantly satisfied. But instead of leaving, she…lied down! She actually lied down!

  Ye Qingxuan’s head promptly started hurting. He watched as the girl lay down beside him and copied him. She squinted and started sunbathing.

  Girl, you can’t do this! Ye Qingxuan felt the shocked eyes on him. Complaints stuck in his throat, his grew both sad and furious. If you keep doing this, I’m going to have to call you ‘dad!’ Having bad memory doesn’t mean you can extort people like this!

  Thankfully, Elsa climbed up after a short while. She stared at Ye Qingxuan blankly. “What am I doing?”

  Ye Qingxuan’s headache grew worse. He answered weakly, “You’re…probably sunbathing?”

  “Oh, I like to sunbathe? No wonder I’m so tan.” At this realization, Elsa looked at her bronze skin and started laughing happily for some reason. Ye Qingxuan had never seen someone so happy just from sitting under the sun. She seemed to have made this her home turf. She sat down while humming and took everything out of her bulging bag. Then she used a dirty handkerchief to wipe each item ‘clean’ before returning it. The objects formed a small mountain. Small pencils, small hair clips, small lids, small dolls…

  “What’s this?” Ye Qingxuan looked at a small bottle that had rolled to his feet. Picking it up, he asked in confusion, “A toy?”

  “I think it’s something I like.” Elsa scratched her head. “I have bad memory so I keep everything I like with me. Look at this, isn’t it pretty? And this—oh, and this!” She excitedly showed Ye Qingxuan her collection—the hair clips, dolls and…the dead white mouse.

  Seeing the dead rat so close to his face, Ye Qingxuan’s face twitched. He tried to scoot back. “You like this?”

  “Yeah. I don’t remember it, but I bet I liked it a lot before!” Elsa started petting the little mouse in her hand. She said gently, “If only it liked me too.”

  Ye Qingxuan fell silent. He reached out and petted her head. “Don’t worry. It likes you too.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Elsa became happy again. She spun around him for a while before suddenly taking a notebook out for him to sign.

  “What’s this?” Confused, Ye Qingxuan accepted the notebook. The crooked title on the cover read Elsa’s friends.

  The notebook was almost filled completely with messy handwriting but the content seemed to be repeated. Some names had been written four or five times. The newest page had an inked paw print, for some reason. The ink was still wet and it looked like graffiti.

  Beside it, Elsa had scrawled, Big dog can’t write. Ye Qingxuan really did not know what her friends actually were. Sighing and chuckling, he wrote down his name. After all, she would forget after a few minutes. He should just make her happy for now.

  Seeing his signature, Elsa cheered. She grabbed the notebook and started flipping through. As her hair moved, the faint words on her neck were revealed. Ye Qingxuan gazed at them curiously.

  “What’s this?”

  “This?” Elsa felt around. She found a mirror and answered with assurance, “I think it’s my name? And my address! Oh, this way people can bring me back home. Wow, no wonder everyone knows me.”

  Ye Qingxuan made a face but he was unable to reply.

  Elsa suddenly reached out to pet his hand. “Good luck to you too. Your family must be looking for you too.”

  He turned stiffly. “Huh?”

  Elsa looked at him in confusion. “Didn’t you forget where your home is too?”

  “No.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head expressionlessly.

  “Liar.” Elsa pouted. “Everyone thinks I’m pitiful when they look at me. But when you look at me, you look sad, like you can’t find your home. You must have a bad memory too, right? That’s why you got lost and can’t find where your home is.”

  Ye Qingxuan looked at her for a long time before glancing away. He replied nonchalantly, “No, you’re overthinking.”

  “No, I’m right.” Elsa glared at him angrily but her expression soon turned to sympathy. She got onto her toes to touch his white hair. “It’s okay. Pat, pat. I know this place really well and everyone’s nice. Maybe someone will find you one day and take you back home!”

  Ye Qingxuan did not know what to say, or whether to be angry or chuckle dryly. He stared at the little girl for a long time. Staring at the amber-like eyes, he suddenly felt scared for some reason. She could see th
rough him. She could see through his lies. It was not because of her instincts or any other reason. It was solely because…she thought Ye Qingxuan was like her. The creepy thing was that she was right. She was f*cking right!

  “My home…isn’t here.” Ye Qingxuan broke the staring contest and avoided her eyes. “You don’t have to worry.”

  Elsa seemed to understand and not understand at the same time. “Did you…forget too?” she asked with uncertainty.

  Ye Qingxuan pushed down the anger that had risen for some reason and said nonchalantly, “You’re overthinking. I’m not to the point of forgetting where my home is.”

  “Where is it?”

  Ye Qingxuan opened his mouth to answer but he was stuck. Yeah, where was his home? In the East? In Anglo? In the burned wooden cabin where he had been banished to? The music history department of the Royal Academy of Music? Or the luxurious mansion on Queen’s Avenue?

  “You’re right.” Ye Qingxuan laughed at himself and looked down. “I forgot.” He had had no home since he was ten years old.

  A small hand pressed onto his forehead. “Pat, pat. It’s okay, don’t be sad.” Elsa tiptoed and petted his hair. Her eyes were gentle and quiet, pure like the sky. “I’ll make you a straw doll, okay? That’s the only thing my mom taught me that I didn’t forget. My mom said it can protect me. It’ll help you find your home too.”

  Ye Qingxuan gaped at her. He squeezed out a smile. “I hope so.”

  Elsa soon cleaned up her collection. She waved goodbye and ran off somewhere. When she left, her expression was determined and serious as if she was going on an unknown adventure. Perhaps everything in this world was new and unknown to her. Perhaps living without any worries was not as painful as Ye Qingxuan had thought. After all, she was much happier than him.

  “Make a straw doll?” Ye Qingxuan chuckled softly as he stared at her receding back. Hopefully she’ll remember.

  343 Fifty Percen