Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  “Then don’t reuse it.” Shaking his head, Charles said, “We can use the cheapest iron sand to make the barrel. The reaction will take place in the barrel, and we can use disposable barrels which will be scrapped after one use and replaced with a new one. The reaction takes only one second. The barrel made of iron sand will collapse after that and became fine sand. With protective goggles, protective masks, and thick protective clothing, the user will be safe. This way, the production cost will be reduced by 20 percent. Bowmen usually take their shots in a three-row formation. While the first row of bowmen is shooting, the second row will get ready to shoot, and the third may rest, which is a perfect cycle. We may imitate that when using this device.”

  “How do we train the shooters? It’ll cost a lot to train even an apprentice musician.”

  “No need for training. Just teach them how to inject aether into the sealed chamber with the alchemy device and they will be ready to use this. We may even seal the aether inside when we produce the barrels. The aether can be isolated with the lead with a simple insert mechanism. It is simple, isn’t it?”

  Maksim said nothing. After a long while, he put down his pen and heaved a sigh. “You had me convinced.” Lowering his head, he said, “I am sorry that I underestimated your engineering skills. I’m honored to join this project. According to your concept, we’ll finish the design. With enough supplies, we can equip the soldiers on a small scale within a month.”

  “Can I be of any help?” Charles asked.

  Maksim nodded.

  “That’s perfect.” Charles smiled. “Finally, I can make myself useful.”

  …

  With Charles gone, the whole room fell into silence.

  “Go back to do your work, everyone. Please keep what happened here tonight secret.” Gauis said, “As usual, everyone will be inspected for related matters. Thank you for your cooperation. Maksim, please stay a little longer.”

  Pretty soon, guided by porters, the old men left, leaving only Maksim and Gauis in the room.

  Maksim was a little nervous. “Mr. Gauis, is there anything else?”

  “I felt that you had something to say just now.” Wrapping himself tightly with his coat and getting closer to the stove for the warmth, Gauis said, “Now no one is here. You were the first engineer in the Revolutionary Army. You may say what you want.”

  After a moment of silence, Maksim said with a hoarse voice, “I’m not sure if it is right or wrong for us to do this.”

  “Why?”

  “It will change a war, sir.” Maksim answered, “Not only one war, perhaps. You can see that, right, sir? Once deployed, this will change wars into utter slaughter. The whole world will be shocked. The way of fighting wars will be completely changed. We are to be cursed by what we start.”

  “Cursed? By whom? Victory?” Gazing at the fire in the stove, Gauis said casually, “Humans should take care of their own business and God will decide who will ascend to heaven and who should burn in hell.”

  Maksim smiled bitterly and lowered his head, looking at the holy emblem passed down from his ancestors that hung on his neck. It was tied to a thin rope, shining silver.

  “God?” Shaking his head, he heaved a sigh. “Who knows where this sort of thing is.”

  Gauis laughed. He stood up and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t be silly. He was standing right in front of you just now, wasn’t he?”

  …

  Back in his room, Charles saw Wolf Flute drinking wine by the stove. Wolf Flute lifted his legs up to the fire to warm his feet, which filled the room with their stinky smell.

  “You came back at the perfect time. I’ve just put on the fire. It must be deadly cold out. Get yourself warm.”

  Charles smiled and got himself a stool to sit on. He pulled up his cotton coat and took off his heavy boots. The air quality in the room deteriorated instantly. In no time, Wolf Flute’s face turned purple as he could not bear with the smell in the room anymore. “Let’s open one window,” he suggested.

  “All right.” Too lazy to get up, Charles raised his feet and kicked the frozen window beside him open. Freezing wind whirled in. The life of a mouse which was almost suffocated by the foul air in the room was thus saved.

  “You scared the hell out of that bunch of old men.” Wolf Flute said, “That thing of yours, is there really no problem with it? It could destroy a wall with one shot…”

  “Problem?” Charles looked at him absent-mindedly. “Is there any problem?”

  “You must have considered the consequences of what you are doing, Charles?” Wolf Flute said, “I don’t know much about mechanical engineering, but I can see by the drawings of that thing that it has been carefully designed and is in no way something that popped out of your head on the spot. You finished the design a long time ago, right? You are not the sort of nerd who knows only research but nothing about application. You know the consequences of using this thing, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know it perfectly well.” Charles nodded and lowered his eyes. “Maybe a lot of people will die because of it. There will be more to die, thanks to me. I’m fully prepared for that.”

  Wolf Flute withdrew his gaze from Charles.

  “Don’t worry. This is the choice I’ve made myself.” Charles shrugged, smiling. “The only benefit of being the Holy Son is that there is no one calling tp convict me, right?”

  Wolf Flute didn’t reply, but lied on the chair, looking at the snow flying in through the window. A long while later, he suddenly asked, “That thing you designed, have you named it?”

  Charles thought about it for a while and answered, with a smile, “I’ll name it ‘Redemption’.”

  589 Before the Coronation

  Darkness surrounded Ye Qingxuan.

  Reliving the sensation of almost dying once more, he had to say that it felt quite nostalgic. The pain had disappeared by then, as Ye Qingxuan cast his consciousness into a sealed dream, causing all the external disturbances to fade into the distance. In the empty dream, even the flow of time slowed down.

  It was enough for him to break away from anger and remain cool-headed.

  Then, he started thinking anew.

  Fortunately, Shi Dong is not here. The old devil has never bothered to save me any face, and he always taunts me cynically. If he sees my miserable state, he’ll definitely be gloating, won’t he? Ye Qingxuan could even imagine the exultant expression on Shi Dong’s old face. See, I’ve reminded you of it before, but you’ve never taken my words to your heart.

  Have you gotten the name list of spare firewood ready?

  Don’t forget to purge the nation.

  Who can you trust?

  Think about it carefully, Ye Qingxuan. Is it really what I actually mean? Must I, as an outsider, be so explicit with my words regarding sowing discord?

  Fine, you win.

  If you don’t know who you can trust, then, consider this… Who can’t you trust?

  Maxwell? No, he has already disappeared.

  Mephistopheles? Impossible. In order to prove his innocence, he placed everything he had in your hands, at the expense of living under one roof with the executioners of the Religious Court of Inquiry, from dawn till dusk and from dusk till dawn.

  So who do we have left?

  Who else?

  The only answer is the leading example of Anglo in terms of morality, the actual ruler of Avalon after the palace has fallen, the eldest uncle of yours—Lancelot.

  “Lancelot?” Ye Qingxuan laughed in self-mockery, biting his lips to hold back his anger.

  Lancelot, what on earth are you thinking about?

  He seemed to hear Shi Dong sneering once more.

  Ye Qingxuan, are you a saint?

  No one can know what other people are thinking about, no one. Surely you don’t care about how the heretics burned on stakes have thought?

  You need not.

  Here, one needs not find out about the hardships they find difficult to mention, nor their tortuous interna
l struggles. Do you care about whose eggs are the heretics planning to rob?

  Whether people can enter heaven after their deaths is up to God to consider. Our job is just to send the heretics to face God. Must you consider so much?

  You need not…

  You just have to figure out what did he do.

  What is he trying to do?

  Ye Qingxuan did not know. However, attempting to figure it out at the moment… was still not too late!

  …

  Crack. A crisp snap sounded.

  In a 24-hour intensive care unit of the Central Hospital of Avalon, an alarm suddenly rang out. The chorale musician wearing a thick protective suit walked forward and looked at the thing, which was connected to layers and layers of cables, on the bed.

  The hemorrhage had stopped as early as a few hours ago. The blood-colored mold that grew out of his skin had covered Ye Qingxuan’s body, completely shrouding him. The layer of mold rapidly lost moisture and turned into a thick carbonized shell. It looked like a giant’s burnt corpse.

  Only the intermittent heartbeat proved that he was still alive. Despite so, anesthetic gas more than three times the usual dosage still continued to be pumped into the breathing tube nonstop, not to mention the commandments imposed upon the body by the other musicians of the school of abstinence. But at the moment, at the head of the carbonized shell, a gap had suddenly cracked open.

  It was as if the giant who hadn’t died opened his eyes.

  Under the crack was a silver iris full of moonlight. Blood-colored streaks lingered within, resembling flames, or malicious internal parasites extremely difficult to remove, flickering in and out of existence.

  Such grotesqueness.

  “Has he begun to regain consciousness?” Beside the bed, the musician of the school of abstinence responsible for guarding Ye Qingxuan frowned.

  Soon, the chorale musician shook his head coldly. “It’s just a simple stress response after a brain infection, a normal phenomenon.”

  For some reason unknown, the abstinence musician felt a somewhat torrid sensation and was slightly uneasy. “Do you have any tranquilizer? Better give him another shot to be on the safe side.”

  “Alright,” the chorale musician answered.

  Soon, a transparent dose of medicine flowed into Ye Qingxuan’s body along the saline delivery tube. Under the crack, the eye, which had a look of emptiness, gradually closed and returned to sleep.

  The abstinence musician stood there for a long time before pushing the door open and exiting. After leaving the torrid, closed ward, he couldn’t help but sigh in relief in the cool breeze in the corridor. Perhaps the thing in the ward had brought him too much pressure, he had been sweating profusely before he even realized it.

  In the corridor, the other highly alert guards looked at him, and surprised looks flashed across their eyes. The abstinence musician looked at them, puzzled, and someone pointed towards his face. He was momentarily confused, then reached out and touched his nose. His hand was stained a scarlet red.

  “A nosebleed?” He sighed in a resigned manner and extended a hand. “Does anyone here have some gauze?”

  The guards soon put the inconspicuous incident behind them.

  …

  In the closely guarded ward, in the carbonized shell entangled in cables, positioned just below Ye Qingxuan’s heart, a copper seal had already been opened for God knew how long. In the dark, it gave off a green fluorescent glow.

  …

  A flame lighted up in a crystal and rose slowly into the sky along with the clear and exquisite crystal, the light spilling down. In the low and solemn melody, hundreds of shining crystals rotated in the sky, like clusters of stars. The vast Windsor Manor was at the moment crowded with people.

  As an important residence of the royal family throughout the generations other than the palace, Windsor Manor had been standing for three centuries. Although no particularly high wall had been erected, it was still a palace by no means inferior to the royal palace and had always been reputed as the summer palace. It had also played an important role in Anglo’s history, and God knew how many decrees had been issued from the place.

  The queen of the previous generation was born here, and at the moment, due to the fall of the uptown, the new queen would also be crowned here. For those of the upper class, it was a meaningful and eloquent signal.

  Although the coronation ceremony was somewhat hasty, the Westminster Abbey, where rulers of the previous generations had been crowned, was not chosen as the crowning place of the new ruler. The royal family had not even invited Archbishop Mephistopheles.

  The Church, which representing orthodoxy and theocracy, was being cast aside. The action caused many aristocrats close with the Church to grow wary. On their seats, they tested each other out euphemistically to gauge each other’s opinions, exchanging news, then pondered over whether there was still time for them to change their allegiance at the moment in their hearts.

  Meanwhile, the nobles who were descendants of glory, namely those whose ancestors had been involved in the founding of the nation, were no longer in low spirits, and instead held their heads high in exaltation. Many of them had already occupied critical positions in the new ruler’s cabinet.

  It was mealtime for them…

  The key positions of finance, land resources, construction, and diplomacy had been taken. Comparing the nation to a meat broth, the meat, which consisted of positions in the new cabinet and even in the Privy Council, was already in the noble’s bowls. As for who the remaining soup would belong to, it would depend on how good the other participants are. The families which were unwilling to remain hungry for the next five years had already been fighting so hard in private that their eyes had almost turned red, but they still had to appear polite on the surface, not losing their manners and greeting each other warmly when they met.

  However, private conversations soon stopped. In the solemn hall, everyone stood in their own position quietly, suppressing the thoughts in their hearts that could never be revealed under the sun, as they waited for the actual star of the ceremony to arrive.

  Along with the cheers of the people outside the summer palace, the solemn coronation anthem rang out.

  In the night sky, from the depths of the darkness, fitting of the situation, a bell tolled gloomily, as if it was sending a gift to the ceremony.

  The peals echoed between the heavens and the earth.

  …

  In a bleak room in the Westminster Abbey, even the flames in the fireplace had gone out. The black tea had already cooled. The old men wrapped themselves in blankets, sat in their chairs, and drowsily stared at the chessboard on the table, hurrying each other to continue the terrible game of chess. The situation persisted until a mighty rumble sounded from afar.

  Shi Dong yawned and looked up at the window. “What’s that sound?”

  “The bell.” Mephistopheles answered, “The bell of redemption.”

  “Oh.” Shi Dong nodded casually. “That’s pretty rare.”

  “Yeah, it’s rare indeed,” came the reply.

  The game of chess continued. Soon, Mephistopheles was checkmated.

  Shi Dong kept his eyes low, his fingers stroking the black queen piece in his hand, and said no longer.

  Mephistopheles did not speak either.

  In the silence, one could hear the clanging of armor as the armored knights walked along the corridor and the faint whispers of the guards outside the door. After being detained in the church under some form of disguised imprisonment, they had lost their freedom. They were even required to settle their business within five minutes when visiting the toilet.

  “Sure enough, it still won’t work.” Shi Dong sighed softly.

  Mephistopheles frowned. “You have been sighing from time to time since a while ago, what on earth are you thinking about?”

  Shi Dong smiled in self-mockery, shaking his head, and put the pieces back into the box. “I’m wondering, now that almost all the senio
r officials of Anglo are there, if all of them get killed at the coronation ceremony, is there still hope for the country…”

  Dead silence.

  Mephistopheles was quiet, and his cataract-covered pupils contracted. The liquid in the teacup he was holding also rippled slightly. “Are you serious?”

  “What else? Joking?” Shi Dong shook his head coldly. “Don’t you all always put yourselves in others’ shoes when preaching? I also tried thinking for a bit just now regarding what I would do if I was looking to cause some trouble. It seems that you don’t like alarmist rumors, eh. However, it would be quite a pity if no one makes good use of the opportunity of such a hasty coronation ceremony to open a slaughterhouse. “

  He chuckled softly.

  And he gloated.

  …

  In the chamber behind Jadeite Hall, Mary sat up straight in front of the mirror, alone, and looked at the luxuriously dressed girl in the mirror. She was draped in an exquisitely woven dress and donned jewelry, and the long hair tied behind her head glittered like gold.

  She resembled the former queen.

  She was no stranger to such attire, as her duties had required her to accompany her mother in attending various ceremonies in her brother’s stead for the past years. But after her mother had passed away, she suddenly began to panic.

  She was to become a queen.

  And to rule over Anglo.

  Such seemingly unrealistic matters were already close at hand.

  Although it was clear that the threat of Leviathan had not been resolved, so many people had already dug into the feast carefreely, and everyone deliberately put the incident that had happened in the shadow of Avalon behind them.

  She could feel the maliciousness coursing through the dragon blood in her body. Her other self, who had manifested as the dragon blood in her, was growing abnormally and responding to the call from the darkness. It was almost close to swallowing her…

  “Fear not, sister,” the girl in the mirror suddenly started speaking and smiled sweetly. “Becoming a queen regnant is such a celebration-worthy occasion, why are you so troubled? You won’t have to hide your true colors anymore! The fools can’t wait to present you with everything they have without you even needing to say a word. You need not worry about the dirtiness anymore, we can wash it all away with blood…”