Chapter 1077 — Suspicion

At this he looked very seriously at the blonde woman across from him. "In truth, what I once feared most was the Silver Empire's attitude toward this matter—among all the nations of the Loren Continent, only the Silver Empire's royal house holds the dual role of church leadership. Though the god the druids worshipped left this world many years ago, that role still shapes how you act. But now it seems... that greatest worry is no longer a problem."

The Silver Empress's gaze rested on Gao Yang for a short while, and then she suddenly laughed. "I can see that you are indeed in earnest. Then I would be glad to become your supporter."

Gao Yang's expression scarcely changed; he only breathed an inward sigh of relief. He could no longer connect the mature, quietly imposing woman before him with the "little princess" in his memory—she had changed so greatly that the memories Gao Yang Cecil had left behind were nearly useless to him, and all he could do was improvise.

Then, after a moment's thought, he prepared to ask his next question—but before he could open his mouth, the Silver Empress spoke first. "You have asked a great many questions. Is it not time the lady had her turn?"

Gao Yang started, then nodded. "Of course. Ask away."

She smiled, fixed her eyes on Gao Yang's, and said unhurriedly, "You are not really Uncle Gao Yang, are you?"

Gao Yang: "..."

The silence lasted only an instant. Gao Yang felt his heartbeat lurch half a beat faster, but his resilient will held: nothing showed on the surface, not even the rhythm of his breathing slipped. He merely put on a look of mild surprise and astonishment, pointed at himself, and regarded the blonde woman before him. "What makes you say that? Could I be a fake?"

The Silver Empress Pingxi looked at Gao Yang, and only after a long while did she speak softly. "I am not bluffing you. I know you are not him—at least, not entirely him... I can tell."

The garden fell quiet. The stagnant air seemed to thicken into something solid, weighing heavily on the spirit. Gao Yang and the Silver Empress faced each other in silence; he studied her eyes while a host of explanations and self-justifications suited to the moment took shape in his mind—but in the end he only shook his head with a smile. "Why is it that one after another, they all figure it out..."

"All?" Hearing this response, which amounted to a confession, the Silver Empress's expression barely changed; she only caught the key word in Gao Yang's words, and a trace of curiosity entered her tone. "Who else has found out?"

Gao Yang shook his head. "Beiyila Augustus, Selina Geerfen—you should remember them. You used to go and make mischief around them all the time. You even secretly hid Selina's lantern once—except you did not know it was a magic lantern, and it recorded the whole business of you hiding it, start to finish."

"Beiyila and Selina... it has been so long since I heard those two names," the Silver Empress said, a flicker of reminiscence crossing her face. "They are actually still alive?!"

"...In a manner of speaking," Gao Yang said. "A great many things have happened; explaining it would likely take a whole day. If there is a chance, I can take you to see them—provided, of course, that they are willing to reminisce with you."

At this he shook his head. "Let us set that aside for now. How did you judge that I am not 'Uncle Gao Yang'? Though it sounds like self-flattery—I believe my performance has shown nothing unusual. From my way of speaking to my habitual little gestures, I am exactly the same as Gao Yang Cecil of seven hundred years ago."

"Yes, exactly the same... but how could you be exactly the same?" The Silver Empress Pingxi gazed into Gao Yang's eyes. "If you truly were Uncle Gao Yang, how could you still be exactly the same as seven hundred years ago?"

Gao Yang furrowed his brow, feeling somewhat confused. "'Gao Yang Cecil slept for seven hundred years.' Since those seven hundred years were spent asleep, then in fact there is only a gap of a few years between the present 'me' and the moment of 'death' back then. A mere few years, surely..."

"If you were truly Uncle Gao Yang, then you have passed through life and death, have you not?" The Silver Empress cut him off, stating each word distinctly. "You have passed through life and death, through the instant transformation of an era, through all the things changed and people gone. You woke in a completely unfamiliar age, and in that unfamiliar age you have done so many earth-shaking things—and, most important of all, before you stands a me who is almost entirely a stranger. You did not live through those seven hundred years, true, but what you lived through was a change greater than seven hundred years of life. So how could you remain utterly untouched, exactly as you were in my memory?"

She paused, gazing into Gao Yang's eyes, and only after a long while did she speak softly. "You are too much like the Uncle Gao Yang in my memory—almost one hundred percent the same. Which means it cannot possibly be real."

"...I let my guard down," Gao Yang was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly slapped his forehead and sighed. "But are those the only reasons?"

"If those were the only reasons, I would probably only suspect," the Silver Empress said. "But there is one other thing I know—I know the rumors about the 'Vagrant from Beyond the Realm'... With that as a premise, it is more than suspicion."

Gao Yang suppressed the urge to twitch the corner of his mouth. "The elves' footprints cover the whole continent, and the world calls the Silver Empress the ruler with the best intelligence network in all the world... Now I have thoroughly grasped that."

He sighed, then went on. "But since you have discovered that I am not the real one, why tell me so much? Why even be willing to support my plan? Do you not think me a dangerous 'soul thief,' or some 'arrival' with purposes unknown?"

The blonde woman before him smiled. "You said it yourself just now: the Silver Empress is the ruler with the best intelligence network in all the world."

"You mean to say..."

"Communications between the north of the continent and the Silver Empire are poor—but only relatively speaking. In truth, intelligence concerning you piles up on my desk: from your founding of a frontier territory in the Dark Mountains, to the revival of the Cecil family, from your building of an empire, to that war of deicide... I know everything you have brought to this world—down to the very typeface used for the title of the third article in this month's second issue of the Cecil Weekly," the Silver Empress said with a smile. "Knowing all of that, is there any need for me to know more?

"As for the other reason I have told you so much... it is really quite simple.

"You have defeated gods—and more than one."

(End of Chapter)