Chapter 26 — This Counts as a Former Residence, I Suppose?
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
Gao Yang deliberately kept the procession from moving too quickly, for he could well guess that the reception staff needed a frantic scramble to get the manor at No. 4 Crown Street ready to receive its master, and he had no intention of making things too hard for those who were merely following orders. Yet even after he led the group on a leisurely half-circuit through the streets, by the time they reached No. 4 Crown Street he still saw servants in livery dashing in and out, sweating profusely.
Still, at least their preparations were more or less complete.
A tall, gaunt middle-aged man in a white wig and black cravat, every inch the butler, came out from the manor to greet them and bowed before Gao Yang's horse: "My lord, your residence is ready. I am James Brain, presently charged with the management of this estate, and I shall have the honor of serving as your butler during your stay in the royal capital."
"Brain... that surname rings a bell," Gao Yang said, searching his memory with a smile. "Ah, yes—Holly Brain, the little page boy at Charles's side back then. Charles was the one who gave the Brain family their name."
The middle-aged man who called himself James Brain wore a flicker of astonishment—the same astonishment, doubtless, that anyone felt upon dealings with one of the ancients (and an ancient who knew his own Xuanmai Sect, no less): "Y-yes... Holly Brain was my ancestor. Our family has served the royal house as attendants for generations, and the crown's direct holdings in the capital have all been managed on its behalf by members of the Brain family..."
Gao Yang chuckled. "Yes, of course—this house of mine is crown property now, isn't it?"
James Brain broke out in a cold sweat on the spot. The awkwardness of this topic was surely the greatest in the capital today—equivalent, say, to being strapped to a chair while someone reads aloud, to your face, the angsty teenage prose you posted online at fourteen...
But Gao Yang was only teasing the man, and swiftly moved past it: "Tell everyone not to go to such trouble. I won't be staying long."
James Brain drew himself up. "I have received my orders, and I shall serve you with all my heart. It is our duty to see the manor properly prepared."
"For instance, clearing out the ticket seller at the gate and the tour guides inside first?"
"...Eh?"
Dealing with otherworlders really was a pain—the jokes never landed.
Somewhat deflated, Gao Yang waved a hand, swung down from his horse, handed the reins to an attendant already waiting at his side, and then led his plus-one-generation great-granddaughter and the whole crowd of them through the gates of this ancient manor, seven hundred years old.
It was indeed as that palace official had said: the historic and profoundly significant mansions along Crown Street had not only been preserved but kept in their original form through ceaseless restoration. Seven hundred years—even with an unscientific thing like magic in the world, plenty of things should long since have rotted away. So Gao Yang was fairly certain that at least half of what stood here was no longer the original article, merely something superficially resembling it. But that hardly bothered him—he was not the real Gao Yang Cecil, after all.
Past a modest garden and forecourt, through a short corridor, and then the main hall. As the residence of a founding grand duke, No. 4 Crown Street was frankly a little shabby in scale; practically any family with the means to acquire property in the capital could have built a house twice this size within the city walls. So Amber began grumbling the moment she stepped inside: "This is it? Way less than I imagined..."
"It was built seven hundred years ago," Gao Yang said, glancing at the half-elf. "The Silver Bastion back then was only a size bigger than this."
"I think it's quite nice..." Rebecca said softly. "The castle I grew up in—apart from the huge foundation, everything about it seems worse than here..."