Silent Crown

Chapter 207 The Illusionary Sun

It was late at night at the Royal Academy of Music. Two figures met in the main building without meaning to. When they discovered each other, they instantly felt awkward.

"Good evening, Mr. Egor." Ludwig, who had descended the staircase first, uttered a greeting. Egor, who had just came through the door, returned the greeting.

After some small talk, the awkward atmosphere had almost disappeared, but the insubstantial conversation continued. Ludwig realized that Egor’s thoughts were elsewhere and he suddenly cut to the chase. "Are you here to investigate the results of the draw too?"

"No, no." Egor chuckled as if he did not mind at all, but his eyes grew cautious. Ludwig was ten years older than him, but his actions were always faster. He was sensitive to every change and always got to things first. This time was not an exception either.

Egor had just entered, but Ludwig was already leaving. He did not know what the result was, but how could someone who liked saving face as much as Egor admit his reason for coming? He stated, "The drawing was done under our monitoring. How could anything happen?"

"Oh?" Ludwig glanced at him with a smile. "Then why are you here so late at night? Don’t give me the excuse that you forgot some documents. You never bring documents to meetings."

Egor’s expression grew even more awkward, as well as humiliated and angered. "Ludwig, aren’t you the same?"

"To be honest…I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity." Ludwig chuckled. Under the moonlight, his eyes became the vertical pupils of snakes. They fluttered and fluttered, making Egor slightly unsettled.

The musicians of the School of Summoning developed beastliness inside of them and controlled demons during battle. At the same time, their sanity would be even more powerful. But no matter what, they would be affected by it. Because of this, Summoning musicians would have strange fetishes. Ludwig was not an exception. For example, he was overly curious.

Egor scoffed. "I just wanted to ensure the fairness of the results."

Hearing Egor’s refutation, Ludwig could not help but chuckle. "Egor, when humans start talking about fairness, it means that unfair things are going to happen. Did you sense something?"

"Don’t beat around the bush, Ludwig. Get to it." Egor rolled his eyes. "I hate philosophy and theories."

Ludwig shrugged. "I’m just saying that things like drawing lots are never fair."

"Are you saying that the music department has problems? But all three of us monitored the drawing" Egor said.

"Don’t forget that this is under the Requiem enchantment. Even the results of the lots are controlled by the enchantment. We can only monitor the students, but can’t do anything to do the enchantment."

"It’s impossible for the enchantment to have problems" Egor argued.

"Of course. It won’t have problems, but humans can," Ludwig said lightly. "The results of my investigation confirmed what I felt during the day. I’m not the most familiar with the School of Abstinence, but I still felt this afternoon that the enchantment had been shifted three times."

"Three times?" After pondering, Egor felt something wrong. "There’s no need to use one’s authority three times to change the results. Unless…"

"Yes, there were three authorities trying to change the result."

Egor fell silent, finally sensing the complexity behind this event.

"Of the three authorities, the lowest one came from the student council. One came from the school board, which is obviously Sydney."

"That’s not strange," Egor said. "Sydney doesn’t want to the history department to draw empty again. And hasn’t Gavin been trying to help his brother inherit his position? The history department is the best stepping stone to becoming the head of the student council."

Ludwig just snickered. "But it’s a pity because nothing they do will be successful. The third authority canceled out everything they did."

"Canceled out?" Egor glanced at him, eyes suspicious. "Only one person can cancel out the school board’s authority."

"Yes, it’s our principal." Ludwig kind of wanted to laugh mockingly at how he and his colleagues had acted these days. "What are we so worried about? The principal had probably already dug a ditch for us to jump in. Egor, I’m afraid we’ve all been tricked by those guys."

He patted Egor’s shoulder and saw a bitter smile on his old friend’s face. Egor sighed and gave up on the urge to continue asking. If he continued investigating, he would just increase the tension between the school board and the principal. But he did not understand why the principal would go against the school board for such a small thing.

"What is he trying to do?"

"How would I know?" Ludwig slowly filled his pipe with tobacco. Thinking of what had happened during the day, he could not help but mock himself. "I’ve lived so many years, but I don’t even know what a dog is thinking. How can I understand what’s hiding in someone’s heart?"

-

Ye Qingxuan had slept for twenty hours. He was sleeping so heavily that not even the sky falling down would wake him. It seemed that he could still continue sleeping…

After being carried back from the field, Ye Qingxuan was thrown onto the sofa. Traces of Bai Xi’s off-handed graffiti still remained on his face. He was still in his original posture, like a wax figure.

"Charles, is he okay?" Bai Xi poked Ye Qingxuan’s face as if she had found a giant toy and was playing happily.

Across from the sofa, Charles shrugged. "I don’t know either."

Ye Qingxuan had sweated for the first few hours. Now, he had no movements other than his heart beating. His pupils had no reaction when shone with blinding light, but at least he was still breathing. There were no other strange conditions. He just looked like he was sleeping.

"Did he get some weird disease?"

"I don’t think so. His health was good during the physical examinations at the beginning of the school year, just a little thin." Charles paused and shook his head. "He’s like a girl, ugh…Boys should be like me and have an eight-pack!"

"You talk like you have one!" Bai Xi rolled her eyes. "Should we take him to the hospital?"

"To be honest, I think that we should just let him sleep if it’s not an emergency." Charles took a bottle of liquor from a cabinet. Opening it with expertise, he took a whiff and let out a satisfied breath. "As the saying goes, get drunk today if you have wine. There aren’t any other solutions, right?"

Bai Xi was stunned. "But we can’t just leave him like this."

"Maybe he just wants some peace. Huh, don’t ask me who peace is. Anyway, just let him sleep a bit more. He’s played soccer for so long. He should get a halftime break, right?" Charles looked down and wiped his glass. His eyes filled with lamentation. "No matter how powerful or strong someone is, they still have a time where they want to escape from reality. Saints are like that, not to mention mundanes like us.

"Cheers." Charles stuck a glass into the youth’s stiff hands and clinked glasses with him. He tilted his head back and downed the glass. When his gaze fell on Ye Qingxuan, it grew distant yet troubled. He seemed to look past Ye Qingxuan’s body to some unknown place.

"Hope you can escape, kid."

-

A blizzard fell from the sky, falling into Ye Qingxuan’s eyes. The sky was still the empty whiteness from before. Numerous snowflakes fell from the sky.

He walked barefoot in the ice and snow. His soles had been pierced and his footprints were tinged with stark red. But later, the red disappeared gradually, freezing into the ice.

He panted and forged on. He tried to feel his lower body, but his legs were almost numb. Sometimes, he would look back at his long trail of footprints. They extended from deep within the field of ice. Slowly, the footprints were covered by snow and disappeared.

It was no longer like a search for something.

It was an endless escape.

The shattered snowflakes and crystals crashed against each other in the cold wind, producing tiny yet fine sounds. The countless sounds rose like rainwater, but in the "rainwater," a hoarse voice sang an unnamed song. The voice was sometimes close, sometimes far; one could hear it clearly but could not grasp it. But in the end, the song disappeared as well. Only mocking laughter rang in the silence.

Mockery.

Ye Qingxuan lowered his eyes and looked at his cracked and frozen feet. His toenails were tipped up and his toes no longer had feeling. There was just a trail of frozen dark red blood.

It was familiar. So familiar.

Maybe these was his real feet. When he studied his feet for the first time, they were like this too. They were numb and deathly pale, but with a dull pain that reached his bone, reminding him that the long trip had not ended yet and that he was still alive.

It had been snowing then, too, but there had been the light of fire burning behind him.

Yes, the light of fire.

He held his forehead in pain, not daring to think further, but those memories had awoken and haunted him like a ghost. They tugged at him, telling him to turn around and look at his past. The forgotten past.

Ye Qingxuan saw shards of memories appear continuously on that pale, white, icy field. In the shards, he saw those scornful eyes, a dilapidated cabin, and a gentle voice. "Little Yezi…" she murmured in his ears. "Little Yezi, have you returned?"

"Shut up!" the youth growled hoarsely. He covered his ears, but a strand of dull blonde hair floated past his eyes. Like a hallucination, it disappeared in a flash, but left behind a whiff that made one want to remember.

"Don’t be afraid." Her voice returned, sounding in his heart. "Little Yezi, don’t be afraid."

Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid…The voice echoed endlessly, overlapping and building on each other. It was as if the entire world was comforting him gently, but the voice only terrified him.

He roared in anger. And so the voice disappeared, as if nothing had happened. The only sound left was the whistling of the wind. He saw that the snow underfoot was red from the reflection of the firelight behind him.

Behind him, something was burning. Burning.

Ye Qingxuan froze. He stood stiffly in his spot, not daring to look back, but the smell of burning wood traveled over. Was it a cabin? The cabin lit on fire, the burning cabin, the collapsed cabin, the cabin…

He turned back blankly and saw the vaguely familiar cabin, and that apparition. The apparition stood amongst the flames and gazed at him quietly. Its eyes were compassionate and gentle. Just looking at those eyes made one feel sad.

"Little Yezi, don’t be afraid."

The wind carried over the sad murmurs from his deepest memories. Ye Qingxuan lowered his head in silence. He gritted his teeth, trying to disperse it, but he was helpless.

Charles’s voice seemed to ring again in his ears. He said, "Fire and pain."

Ye Qingxuan froze. He could not help but laugh at himself. He had been escaping for so long and had worked so hard just to go in a giant circle and return here.

"So this is how it is." He looked up. Tears fell as he stared at the apparition in the fire. "I’ve almost forgotten this memory."

Haven’t you been trying to find the sun? Ye Qingxuan, this is the sun.

This is the source of your pain.

This is where your mother died.

-

"It’s been so many years and you’re still waiting for me here…" In the long stretch of silence, the youth stared at the burning cabin. After a time, he stumbled into it. "Mom, I’m back," he murmured as he stared at the flames that swallowed himself.

The burning pain spread, but it made him feel settled, as if the pain had found where it belonged. After all these years, he had become used to its existence. He would not even know how to live without the pain.

The youth studied the blurry apparition through the dancing red. The apparition studied him as well. Her eyes were gentle, just like before. But seeing those eyes, Ye Qingxuan smiled. He knelt in the ashes and flames.

It’s been so many years. How have you been? I’ve been well. Just like you told me to, I haven’t been afraid. I’m not afraid of anything after you left.

"I returned to Avalon and now I’m studying at the Royal Academy of Music. I’m looking for what father did back then…I haven’t gone to Grandfather yet.

"I’ve been obedient all these years and never did anything bad. I made some new friends—Victor, Charles and Bai Xi, and some other people. I really want to introduce them to you."

"…" He lowered his head. Caressing the skeleton, he murmured, "I’m sorry. It’s been so long and I never came to see you."

The fire burned and rose. It touched his cheek like a gentle hand, giving him pain and life. Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes. He took in the pain and let the flames of pain wipe away his tears with such gentleness.

He suddenly felt the urge to stay here. It was so nice and so quiet here. It made one feel calm. He would not have to think about the coldness and scary things of the outside world.

Stay here a bit more…just a bit more. Stay in this warm fire, even if there was nothing here but pain…

After a long, long time, the youth stood slowly and bid farewell. "Mom, I’m going." He turned around and took one last look at the apparition in the fire. "I’ll miss you."

The youth walked out from the burning cabin. The blizzard fell into his eyes and melted. Water vapor solidified in the wind and floated toward the sky. It was like a sigh resounding in the air.

He continued forward, welcoming the blizzard and frost, embracing every snowflake that flew toward him. His clumsy steps were branded into the snow and reached forward gradually.

Gradually, gradually, the youth’s figure turned into a black dot in the distance. It was covered by the wind and snow, swallowed, and then it disappeared.

As if seeing himself off, Ye Qingxuan watched as the silhouette grew more distant. He heard a faint melody in the wind. It was the sound of frost crystallizing, but it transformed into cool yet forlorn piano music. It sounded in his ears like a murmur. Someone’s hoarse singing was brought over by the wind.

"I saw three suns in the sky…I stared at them long and hard; they stare at me too, as if unwilling to leave. But you’re not my suns. Before, I had three suns too, but the two I loved most had disappeared…"

It was as if the long dream had finally ended.

Under the hoarse song, Ye Qingxuan felt himself dissipate, melt into the cold wind and transform into frost. He rose, rose and rose; he passed the wind, snow and icy clouds and gradually left the earth. The burning cabin in the snowy field disappeared too.

Ye Qingxuan closed his eyes and waited for this dreamscape to end. If living without pain was like this, then living in a world with some pain was better, right?

At least, you’re in that world.

At least I’ll still remember you.

Goodbye, Mom.

-

Ye Qingxuan woke from his dream at dawn. The morning light illuminated his eyes.

He sat up on the sofa and found that a glass had appeared in his hands. The liquor reflected an illusionary sun. He smiled and raised the glass, drinking the ‘fulcrum’ that he had been searching for in one shot.

The liquor slid down his throat like fire, bringing him the pain of living. He moaned in satisfaction.

The girl sleeping on his knee was startled awake. She rubbed her dazed eyes and looked up at him. "Cousin, you’re awake?"

"Yeah." Ye Qingxuan petted her hair. "Sorry for waking you."

Bai Xi looked at him. After a while, she asked softly, "Did you cry?"

"No." Ye Qingxuan smiled. "Why would I cry? I just thought of some things."

Bai Xi looked at him without a word. She did not worry anymore after seeing his smile. Putting her head back on his knee, she found a comfortable position, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Her white hair had grown long and it spilled on the sofa like silk. Ye Qingxuan looked at her sleeping figure and smiled slightly. He could not help but squeeze her cheeks. She must be having a good dream.

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