Chapter 186 — After the Onset of Winter

The traditional castle's structural requirements, Gao Yu said, were meant to withstand enemies; rather than calling them a kind of dwelling, "military fortress" would be the more apt description. But he had no intention of building such a castle anew in the Cecil domain. First, it wasted money and manpower; second, he was not used to living in those cold, rigid stone houses; and third, because he did not need to.

In a true emergency, that ancient facility in the mountains would be far sturdier and more reliable than any contemporary castle.

This three-story house was surely the most luxurious large building in the domain at present, yet set among the noble residences of the age, it could only be described as "overly plain." Gao Song had designed it himself, freeing it from the various defects of traditional noble mansions—luxurious yet uncomfortable. Its entire structure was arranged with practical utility in mind. When Gao Yang finally moved into the spacious, bright study—one that actually had walls—he felt at once that all his painstaking design had been worth it.

True, there were no ornately carved marble windowsills here, no glittering crystal sculptures, no domed frescoes or delicate colonnades in the style of the northern kingdoms—but he had two magical laboratories and a mechanical workshop, and this fine large study before him. This study had walls!

Amber was also wandering about the study. The half-elf lady seemed even more satisfied with this house than Gao Yang himself. She checked the locks on every door, then checked all the cabinets and drawers in the study, and finally she opened the window facing the "central plaza," looked down at the courtyard below, and praised from the bottom of her heart: "From now on I can finally climb in through the window..."

"Go be crazy next door," Gao Yang said, lifting his head from his book to glance at the half-elf. "And remember to use the door."

"Tch, I was only joking—why so serious?" Amber ambled over to Gao Song's desk. "But come to think of it, you really are a strange one. I figured, after living in a tent so long, you'd build some gorgeous fortress or palace—and it turns out you built a place like this?"

"Build a palace in a domain with a total population of only a few thousand?" Gao Rong laughed. "I'm not that extravagant."

"I just heard the commotion over by the riverside plaza—must be the last batch of refugees finally arrived," Amber's ears twitched. "Now you can finally rest easy, surely... Say, what have you been looking down at all this time?"

Gao Yang raised the large book he had been reading all along—hard cover, title stamped in gold: "A book quite popular in the central and southern regions. They say seventy percent of its readers are noble ladies and young misses."

Amber's expression instantly turned odd: "A book that ladies and misses love to read, eh? And you actually enjoy this sort of... oh my?!"

Before she could finish, her words turned into a cry of shock—because the book's title was truly eye-catching: "The Amours of Gao Yang Cecil: Tales of Heroes and Princesses."

Then the half-elf lady's expression grew even odder: "Your... your hobby..."

"What hobby—I'm researching my own biography," Gao Yang sighed. "Of course, coming across this sort of thing was truly an accident..."

Gao Yang sighed all the deeper in his heart: to rise from the coffin seven hundred years later and see one's own doujinshi—that was an achievement truly beyond replication.

Amber at once sidled over shamelessly: "Hey hey, let me see, let me see... So you actually have stories like this circulating about you? Those writers really are... tsk tsk..."

"It's generally believed that giving ancient heroes a pile of romantic escapades is a form of praise and gilding—after all, those people are all dead, they won't jump out to point out errors or make trouble for them, and the gilded heroes are mostly happy to have it so. When they thought that, they certainly never imagined I'd climb out," Gao Yang curled his lip. "I do rather admire them. I only lived thirty-five years in all, married just one wife my whole life, and they managed to arrange over eighty confidantes into my thirty-five tightly packed years. How did they even cram that roster in?"

"He's cursing, he's cursing—ehehe!"

"Ehehe your ass! Go fetch Pi Yun over here!"

Amber gave a start. "This book is his? That old lecher..."

"It's not his," Gao Yang said, slanting a glance at Amber. "I want to consult him about something. What kind of race is this 'sea demon' the book mentions? Of all the several biographies I have, this is the only one that mentions my seafaring experience—but in that account, it brings up a species I know nothing about!"