by Feng Yue
“Look here…” a voice seemed to murmur. “Look here and listen to this voice…”
The knocking had a strange magnetic pull. The grave keeper looked over in fright. His eyes slowly turned blank. The light in them dimmed.
“Come…come here.”
Guided by the voice in his heart, he walked forward blankly. He stepped into the darkness. The door opened slowly, the hinges grating and creaking. Moonlight flowed in as he moved, illuminating the cold statue hanging on the wall. The saint’s figure looked down on the world with cold eyes like bolts of lightning.
Under the statue, the room was empty save for the coffin. The knocking sounds came from there. It was as if the body inside the coffin was rapping against the ‘door’ with his knuckle, waiting for it to open from hell.
“Come! Come here! Open it…find the meaning of your life…”
Under the voice’s calling, the grave keeper walked forward dumbly. He pulled out a dagger and started prying at the nails on the coffin. They fell to the ground one by one, with crisp sounds like a demon stretching and cracking his joints. When the last nail fell, a sigh came out of thin air. With blank eyes, the man pushed the coffin, letting out the demon within.
Boom! The lid fell with a muffled thud and shattered on the ground.
The smell of flowers and rot came from the darkness. Under the moonlight, the dead Round Table Knight opened his eyes. He rose slowly, casting a large and menacing shadow on the ground.
It had three heads and hundreds of limbs. It looked like a bird, a beast, a human, hundreds of arms holding axes, white bone, a bottle and a thunderbolt… The fierce shadow disappeared without a trace in an instant. The knight finally walked out of the cage that had imprisoned him for such a long time. He returned from the world of the dead to the world of the living.
In that moment, the birds of Avalon all flew up in shock, cried out, and died. The beast with a human’s skin stood under the moonlight. His gaze seemed to pierce into the distance and fall on the sacred city made of metal. It smiled mockingly.
“I…am coming.”
-
Far away, the Well of the Ultimate burned like a silver vortex. Under it was bottomless darkness. But in the depths, there was an iron coffin—a broken iron coffin. There were shards of something menacing there as if something had broken out. Around it were three withered bodies. They had been killed in an instant and the corpses knelt on the ground as if praying and repenting for their sins.
May the Lord have mercy…
410 An Unexpected Reunion
In the narrow room with gray walls, there was only one table with chairs on both sides. A cold light shone from above, illuminating the prisoner sitting behind the table. Under the dim light, someone across the table asked, “Name?”
“Maxwell.”
“Age?”
The prisoner paused for a moment, thinking with a cocked head. “Fifty or seventy? Well, you can take the median, sixty.”
“Occupation?”
“The principal of the Royal Academy of Music and many other part-time jobs.” The white-haired prisoner said gravely, “All in all, I’m a big man. Be full of awe! Remember, when you write, you must recite and praise the Queen in your mind. “
“Be serious! Ye Qingxuan! This is for your own good…” The interrogator pounded angrily at the table. “Do you want to stay here for the rest of your life? If you want to have a trial at the earliest possible time, just cooperate!”
“Come on, if you’re serious, we won’t have to repeat that for so many days.” Behind the table, Ye Qingxuan raised his little finger to clean his ear. “Besides, if you really want to hear my words, it won’t be you here.”
“I am enough!” In the gloom, the interrogator turned pale and his voice went manic. “Who do you think you are?”
“Oh?” Ye Qingxuan narrowed his eyes, looking into the dark, gazing at the man behind the table. When his eyes narrowed, there was sharpness as if his eyes could sting one’s skin, making people want to look away.
“Come, let me see.” He murmured, “There are thick calluses on the wrist and fingers; your shirt is good, but the cuff’s seam has split from much washing. You must wash your shirt often, right? You also add bleach so the cloth is hardened… The shirt should be often contaminated with stains. It’s ink, right? Or perhaps the inkpad?”
Speaking of this, he stooped to look under the table and whistled. “Good leather shoes, no dirt, fine maintenance, so you seldom walk. But the shoes are not the high-grade kind… You’re a clerk who sits in the office all day? Your daily work is probably copying, recording, stamping and being the scapegoat for your boss, right? It’s not easy for you.”
“Shut up!” With a snap, the pen was shattered.
Ye Qingxuan smiled, leaning forward slightly. “I mean, although I killed people, at the very least, this is a serious case no matter from plot or influence. Can you ask a more reliable person to do this work? You probably don’t even know how to use a vise.”
After that, he heard angry breathing in the darkness. Just as he was ready to meet the expected fury, somebody suddenly knocked the on the door.
Against the light, someone came in and whispered a few words in the interrogator’s ear. The man froze. He quickly got up, put away the meaningless records, and departed. Before leaving, he glanced indignantly at Ye Qingxuan. Another layer of handcuffs were snapped around Ye Qingxuan’s wrists.
Ye Qingxuan sighed and raised his feet. “Isn’t it enough to isolate the aether with this thing? The handcuffs are so heavy.”
Soon, he found that he had not come back to the road he came from but turned and set foot on a path which he had never been to. “Where are we going?” He frowned.
“Someone wants to see you.” The guard looked back at him indifferently. The door opened and he was pushed in. The other end of the chain was locked in the pipe.
Before the guard left, he said, “You only have five minutes.”
Ye Qingxuan was stunned. He looked around but found himself in a narrow cubicle. This was the prison visiting room, which was separated into many compartments.
It was like a bank teller station for secret business but the glass was covered with a dark curtain. He could not see who was on the other side. When he sat down in his chair, the curtain rolled up, revealing a familiar face.
Ye Qingxuan blanched.
“What’s the matter?” said the man, sitting in his chair, smoking his cigar and puffing out smoke. “You just used my name to fool the interrogator a few minutes ago. You didn’t expect that karma would hit so soon, right?”
“Uh…” Ye Qingxuan’s expression was troubled and embarrassed. “I did not expect that you would come to the Sacred City to see me.”
“I arrived here two days ago. It’s not easy to see you. I needed to get through many hurdles,” Maxwell smoked and said lightly. “The examiners of the Amnesty Hall have been quarreling about your business but you are still so relaxed. Are you planning to stay here for the rest of your life?”
“Maybe.” Ye Qingxuan settled into a comfortable posture and slowly nodded. “Killers should be killed and debts should be paid. If I have sinned, I will accept the consequences, even if I will be imprisoned for life. I just didn’t expect that Anglo was willing to pull me out.”
“It’s not about whether we are willing but whether we can.” Maxwell glanced at him. “Today, the time is limited. I don’t want to judge what you have done. After all, you’ve already done it. You have enough time to think over the whole thing. I will look for someone to clear your name and pull you out. We will talk of other things only after that.
“But I ask one thing of you. If you do such things next time… Don’t say pretty nonsense like killers should be killed anymore.” He got up and put on his hat, sighing with complex look. “Ye Qingxuan, having courage and determination is commendable. But there are many people in the world who care about you. Because of them, you shouldn’t confess to die so easily.
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“This is how an adult becomes filthy. One day you will understand. As for the rest of the time, I’ll leave it to you all…” After saying this, he turned away, leaving Ye Qingxuan rooted to his spot.
A familiar smiley face emerged on the edge of the glass barrier before he can figure out what the old man meant by “you all.”
“Hey Cousin, long time no see!” The girl shook her head of long silver hair and looked at him with strange smile. “You left me hanging for the Winter Festival, but thanks to your blessing, I got the ticket to the Sacred City to play!”
“Bai Xi?” Ye Qingxuan only felt shocked. “Why are you here?”
“Not just me, but our professor…” Bai Xi reached out to pull over the person next to her. “Look, the principal used military connections so the professor could come to the Sacred City for academic exchanges on behalf of the academy!”
Abraham’s wooden face appeared from the side. He looked at Ye Qingxuan with a complex and sorry expression. His mouth opened for a while then said in muffled voice, “Yezi, it’s good to see you are all right. Don’t worry about the department.”
For the first time, Ye Qingxuan felt unspeakable shame and embarrassment. He looked at the two. After a long silence, he couldn’t help but sigh. “Sorry, Professor, I must have made a lot of trouble for you, haven’t I?”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” Abraham shook his head. He thought for a while and said, “To tell the truth, I’m relieved. I don’t need to worry about you and think that you might not be alive anymore. You just killed people, don’t worry. The prison seems to be good to you. They didn’t hit you. I’m so happy to see you are okay. Don’t feel any pressure. Bai Xi and I will strive to see you regularly…”
Abraham’s words made Ye Qingxuan feel that his ears might not be working. He was suspicious of his own perception. Then he realized that his teacher did not care about this kind of stuff at all!
Who was Abraham? He was a former member of the Dragon Riders who had been licensed by the state to kill and had killed countless people for the first half of his life… What Ye Qingxuan had done seemed to be serious but meant nothing to him! He might have even committed assassinations in the Sacred City, let alone outside the gates…
Ye Qingxuan really didn’t know whether it was good or bad thing to have a professor who lacked common sense like this. But what Abraham had just said was probably to comfort him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so worried that he even came here all the way from Anglo.
Thinking of this, Ye Qingxuan could not help but sigh. But he suddenly remembered something. “Why is it just you two?” he asked. “Where’s Charles? Is he watching the house?”
Hearing him ask, Abraham and Bai Xi suddenly became awkward and hesitant.
“No need to explain.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head helplessly. “I know he’s a heartless guy. I bet he was too lazy to walk. He would rather stay in Anglo, unwilling to go out.”
“…Junior, I’m so sad to hear you say so.” In the cubicle beside Ye Qingxuan, there was a sad voice. “You think I’m like that?”
For the third time, Ye Qingxuan was shocked to blindness.
“Charles!” He jumped off his chair and looked at the wall blankly. “You, you, you… Why are you here?”
“Why?” The sound of shackles sounded in the next room. “I was also imprisoned. I had a good chat with them before you came. Hey, by the way, have you used the soap here? It is really the Sacred City. Even the soap in the prison is better than that cheap stuff in our academy. It smells like jasmine…”
“Wait a moment!” Ye Qingxuan was confused. He thought he had seen much in the world, but did not think that Charles could become even dumber. It suddenly shattered his world views.
“You, you …” He organized his thoughts for a long while. “What have you done to be imprisoned here?”
“I also want to know why!” Charles’s voice was full of grief. “Hell, I just entered the Sacred City and spat and then dozens of people rushed to me and pressed me down. I was immediately handcuffed and stuffed into a sack! Then I was here. No one has told me what the hell is going on!
“Is it because I was so good-looking that the priests feared that when I went into the city, the ladies would be blushing and unable to stand up?”
“Shut up!” Ye Qingxuan kicked the wall of the next cubicle and looked to Abraham.
Abraham was also very helpless. He just nodded. “Not having been to the Sacred City for many years, I did not expect that the laws here have become strict to this extent.”
Ye Qingxuan almost spat out blood. Professor, you don’t really think that Charles was arrested just because of spitting, right? he wanted to say.
“Rest assured, it’s possible that Charles may get lost and somehow run out of the prison. Don’t worry,” Bai Xi comforted him seriously but Ye Qingxuan did not feel comforted. Within a few minutes, his worldviews had become distorted. He felt like his recovered IQ had fallen into the abyss again.
411 Sound of Heart Movemen
Truthfully, the sudden surprising reunion made Ye Qingxuan feel unreal. His world views did not stop shattering until he returned to his cell. He could only ascribe all this to the senior’s righteousness. Ye Qingxuan did not feel touched, but they were classmates, sharing the loot, and now Charles was even imprisoned here to be with him…
He just wanted to know what a big mess his senior had done to be imprisoned here! After a short visit, Bai Xi and Professor had left. They lived in the Embassy of Anglo. There was a shuttle bus for them so there was no need for him to worry about them.
As for Ye Qingxuan… There was still something good from committing such a serious case. At least the treatment was not bad. He was even allocated to a single cell.
There were two prisons in the Sacred City. The one outside the city was where ordinary criminals were imprisoned. Those common criminals were all thrown there. The other one was located in the northeast of the Sacred City. It was a lonely tall tower. Martial law was enacted in the zone of a radius of several kilometers around the steel tower. It contained various military institutions and sensitive departments. There was a heavily guarded roadblock every ten steps. Not even a bird could fly in.
Serious criminals like Ye Qingxuan were imprisoned in the tower.
In addition to those politicians and nobles from the occasional downfall, the major ‘clients’ here were the arrested dark musicians… There were thousands of dark musicians imprisoned here.
More than half of them were pulled from here to be purified, one-third died here, and the rest were often taken away in a dark night for some unknown reason and never returned. They just totally disappeared.
Since the prison was founded, no one had ever been able to escape.
But compared to the horror stories spread outside, the inside of the prison was quite harmonious. The guards smiled, and the prisoners were calm and polite. They greeted and talked to each other with the elegant retroflex of aristocratic accents. There was nothing hostile in the prison. Everything looked bright. It was like a sanitarium with iron fences. But the harmony here was enough to explain how scary this place was!
Having been here for so many days, Ye Qingxuan did not encounter the ‘king’ of prisoners from rumors or any provocations. He was not even made fun on. He lived a quite ‘happy’ life. He could eat meat every meal and have books to read every day. It was just that he had to wear one-kilogram shackles on his feet which prevented him from touching anything related to aether and movements. If he ignored the dozens of layers of enchantments and Abstinence discipline rules, it was like a holiday to him.
However, for any qualified musician, there was no difference between a life without aether and being dead. Fortunately, Ye Qingxuan was not very qualified. In fact, the rings on his ankles that blocked any aether sensing actually helped him.
Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes, sensing things in his body silently. A long time later, he opened his eye and sighed softly. “I was really�
��heavily injured…”
Double Snake Timer Meter. This one, engraved with the Faust movement, was the top three instruments Ye Qingxuan had known. When it was detonated, the force that broke out from it was far beyond Ye Qingxuan’s expectation.
Even if there was Jiu Xiao Huan Pei’s fine control, that power was still too strong. When it converted into lightning, it completely simulated the spirituality of the falling spirits and completely obliterated six grandmasters in seconds. It even broke down the territory of Holy. The aftermath of the frenzy reached the depths of the aether sea.
The price was the complete mess Ye Qingxuan’s body was in. The music theory system that had just been constructed with the Philosopher’s Stone as the core completely collapsed again.
As he broke the Barrier of Knowledge, the music theory which formed the Philosopher’s stone had once again evolved and detached from the body. It fused into his source in the aether world and became a lever for him to pry the aether sea.
The sub-originator that was formed in this way had gone beyond the imagination of all musicians from School of Stone Heart. Ye Qingxuan’s vigorous foundation had reached an unprecedented degree.
However, without the repression of the Philosopher’s Stone, the injury of his body completely broke out. It seemed to be fine on the surface, but this could only show that the Philosopher’s Stone had strengthened his physical fitness to an extent that he could even survive from the music theory’s collapse.
But in fact, if any music theory disturbed him now, the chaos in his body would kill him. Had it not been for the suppression of the Philosopher’s Stone at the time, his fate would have been like Gavin’s dead father, who had sat in his wheelchair with a shattered heart of sound. A bigger possibility was that he would be dead without a complete body.
Therefore, Ye Qingxuan enjoyed the peace in prison somehow. Who would refuse this kind of free recuperation opportunity?
-
The afternoon sun shone from the window with warm gold so that the steel prison became gentler. The air was even fragrant with tea. Thanks to the Sacred City, he could enjoy a good afternoon tea even in prison.