Chapter 1189 — A Letter from Home

Bard blinked, and though he had no idea what was happening, instinct snapped him ramrod straight. "Yes, General!"

Margarita had somehow produced a thick envelope from behind her back and held it out to him. "Hold out your hand and take your letter from home!"

"A letter from home?" Bard was baffled. He reflexively took what she handed him, and only two seconds later realized it was a piece of correspondence. He blinked, staring at the cross-border postmarks and inspection stamps stamped one after another across the envelope, until his gaze finally settled on the familiar emblem of a sword blade and a wolf's head. Something in his eyes changed at last, and his voice was thick with disbelief. "This... this can't be..."

"You can read it back in your quarters, or open it now—either way, you can probably guess that before it reached your hands, this letter was opened and examined by more than one layer of inspectors," Margarita nodded. "It's from your daughter."

Bard finally confirmed that what he saw before him was no illusion and what he held was no counterfeit, yet he still could scarcely believe it. He was no ignorant country bumpkin; he knew well his own unusual past and sensitive status, and he knew even better how extraordinary his family's position in Typhon was. On one side stood a former Wolf General and dark cultist, now a technical expert and classified personnel; on the other, a current senior officer and top-tier noble of a foreign nation. Such a peculiar situation would have kept any official handling the relevant affairs awake at night in any era—and yet now... he had actually received a "letter from home" from Typhon?

"I know what you're thinking, Mr. Bard Wendell," said Margarita, who had been watching his expression all along. She smiled now. "This was not easy. Too many sensitive links were involved, and you have no small number of historical complications. On both the Cecil and Typhon sides, there were people anxious and worried about it. But you should count yourself fortunate—there are still those willing to help you. And... we have a magnanimous sovereign."

At this, the female general paused, then added offhandedly, "Well, since the letter got through, I suppose that Luoyan Augustus isn't so bad after all..."

"...I should thank everyone who helped make this happen, thank our sovereign, and thank you," Bard said, gripping the letter with some emotion, fighting the urge to tear it open right then. "I never expected..."

"We can discuss all that later—you can buy me a drink sometime," Margarita waved a hand. "What you should be more grateful for is the peace between us and Typhon now, and you should hope it lasts a good while longer. As for now... are you going to open it?"

Bard hesitated, but in the end he couldn't help himself. Carefully, he broke the seal on the envelope, and as he drew out the letter paper, several small, light objects sealed in transparent wax fell into his hand.

They were tiny golden flowers sealed in wax—no rare variety, common enough throughout the central and western regions of Typhon. Yet for the Wendell family, such little golden flowers carried a different meaning altogether.

His gaze rested for a long time on those flowers, now made into specimens. It was plain that the craftsmanship of these wax-sealed specimens was nothing to boast of—any dexterous young noblewoman would likely have declared it a waste of those pretty petals. But Bard knew... the person who had made these little specimens was no "dexterous young noblewoman" herself.

He unfolded the letter paper and let his eyes fall on the opening lines—

"Father, the golden daiwei flowers at Longbranch Manor bloomed this summer. I picked the prettiest ones and made them into specimens..."

The letter was long, and there was no telling how long Anluo had agonized over these words... She had probably bitten through several pen shafts by the end, hadn't she?

A smile crept onto Bard's face. His eyes moved word by word, line by line across the page—the stiff, dry phrasing, the ink smudged by accident, the paper torn through from pressing too hard... to him, all of it seemed to glow.

Margarita simply waited patiently at his side, a smile on her face. She was familiar with the expression Bard wore now; she had seen it many times—those soldiers who had left their homes behind and followed the construction corps out to one barren frontier after another all wore that same look when they received letters from home.

"There's another one inside—from your father."

Having offered that reminder, she fell silent again, and at the edge of the platform there remained only the sound of turning pages and breathing.

Perhaps mindful of how much time had passed, Bard finally sped up his reading. When at last he finished the final line, he carefully folded the pages, returned them to the envelope, and held the crudely made specimens in his hand, looking them over several times, before tucking them and the envelope close against his chest. Only then did he look up at Margarita. "Sorry—I read for too long."

"Compared to more than a decade apart, not long at all," Margarita said with a gentle shake of her head. Then curiosity crept into her voice. "Those golden flowers sealed in wax just now—were they from your daughter?"

"Ah... yes, that's a craft unique to Typhon. It calls for a very special translucent wax. Where we come from, girls from well-off families make these to show off their dexterity. Depending on the flowers inside, one can be given to an elder as a blessing, to a friend as a token of friendship, or even to one's sweetheart as a declaration of love... But Anluo never cared much for such things. She's always been clumsy with her hands, and she could never keep straight what any of those flowers meant." Bard laughed, yet his mouth kept rambling on. "Ah... and now it seems her craft has made no progress at all. I'm afraid she'll never find a sweetheart..."

Margarita promptly coughed twice, then asked with deliberate innocence, "Well, since you think it's so poorly made, why not pass it on to me?"

"That I can't do—Anluo gave it to me!"

Margarita looked at the former wolf general before her, now grown stout with age, and a few seconds later the two of them burst into laughter, as though by unspoken agreement.

"All right, we've dawdled long enough," Margarita said, exhaling softly. She glanced up at the distant sky, then nodded to Bard. "There's one more thing I came for—I happened to run into one of Lady Beiyila's avatars just now. She asked me to pass along a message when I saw you: go to her laboratory after dinner."

"Beiyila? All right," Bard nodded, then frowned slightly in puzzlement. "But why didn't she tell me herself...? This is well within the bounds of the Soring Great Tree. If she wanted to speak with anyone, she need only lower a vine."

Margarita shrugged. "I asked her that. She said life needs a bit of ceremony."

Bard: "..."