Chapter 28 — A New Visitor
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Amber rocked back and forth in the chair as though she could not keep still for a moment: "I did patrol, and I found nothing, so I came in for a drink of water. You can't begrudge me a rest, can you? And besides—how are you so sure someone will come sneaking to your door? Look at the prince, he came in through the front gate..."
"If a prince were to climb over the wall, Charlie would probably leap out of his coffin just like me," Gao Yang's mouth twitched. "But not everyone who wants to learn something from me will come through the front gate. My being here today is precisely to wait for those people."
"Fine, fine, you're the boss now," Amber waved a hand, poured herself a cup of tea, gulped it down, then rose and headed for the window—but before leaping out she turned back, snatching two muffins from the tea snacks Gao Yang had prepared. "It's cold outside; I'll eat a little something to tide me over."
The Pioneer's Sword was not in his hand, and Gao Yang regretted this deeply.
Then he looked at his n1-times-great-granddaughter: "Go back to your room and rest. Tomorrow you meet the king—you must face him in your best condition."
Rebecca nodded, then asked: "And you, Patriarch?"
"I'm used to sleeping late, and I intend to visit the study," Gao Yang said. "A bit of a return to old haunts, after all—I need to see just how much this place has changed."
Rebecca obediently bade Gao Yang goodnight and left the room, while Gao Yang stood there a while before heading for the study on the second floor.
Gao Yang Cecil was renowned for his martial prowess, but he was no mere brute who knew only how to swing a blade. In fact, he could fairly be called half a polymath and half an herbalist, and in his leisure he was rather fond of reading. Thus in this residence at Number Four Crown Street, besides a trophy room where the master stored weapons, armor, and spoils of war, there was also a sizable study.
Seated at the desk restored by later generations, Gao Cen pondered as his fingers lightly tapped the desktop, his gaze drifting between the antique bookshelves and the paintings on the walls before finally settling back on the desk.
The memories in his mind that were not his own surged up once more, lending him an inexplicable familiarity with the things before him. He sighed in admiration at the diligence of later generations—they had not only restored the furniture here, but even placed the magic-ink quill and the paper on the desk in the exact positions most familiar to Gao Yang Cecil in life. This almost obsessive restoration stirred in him a faint, hidden fear.
As though someone had known long ago that he would return, and had prepared this place especially for him.
Yet clear as the memories were, they were ultimately not his own, and could not stir any emotional resonance. Gao Yang soon withdrew his gaze, left the chair, and crouched on the floor, groping about beneath the desk.
A hidden compartment sprang open, and he felt his fingers touch a cold piece of metal. After finding a ring on its surface, he lifted it out of the compartment.
It was an exquisite little box, giving off a cool silver gleam, still as new after seven hundred years.
At the sight of the little box, Gao Yang breathed a sigh of relief.
Still here.
Perhaps the greater part of what stood in this residence was no longer original, but some things could endure for more than seven hundred years—such as a small safe wrought of mithril.
The box was engraved with intricate magical patterns, and beyond these patterns, a crest of sword and shield had been cast upon it in pure gold and star-iron. Beside the crest were delicate characters, and the joint seal of Charles I and Gao Yang Cecil.