Chapter 137 — Pea
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Hearing Byron's words, Gao Yang was finally stunned. "A girl?"
"That's right..." Sir Byron's face nearly crumpled into an abstract painting. "I only found out when I was bathing her—scared me half to death at the time!"
Gao Yang's eyebrows twitched twice, and he looked at the middle-aged knight with a strange expression. "Don't tell me you've got any ideas—the child's probably not even ten yet, all right?"
At that Byron hurriedly waved his hands. "No, no, impossible. I may have come up from the mercenaries, but I'm not so low as that. Still, I'm afraid there's no way I can adopt her..."
Gao Yang found this amusing and no longer hurried to continue studying his materials. Instead he looked into the knight's eyes. "Why? Just because she's female, you don't think you can adopt her as your heir? I never took you for such an old-fashioned type in this regard."
"Of course it's not because of that," Byron said with a bitter face. "She saved my life—I'd have no problem passing on my martial arts and my property to her. It's just that a rough fellow like me... how could I possibly raise a girl well? I thought she was a boy at first, and now I'm at a loss as to what to do..."
Gao Yang wore an ambiguous smile, but his gaze suddenly went past Sir Byron's body toward the tent entrance.
A thin, small figure was standing there.
Byron sensed something too and hesitantly turned his head to look. Sure enough, it was the little mute girl who had secretly followed him here at some point.
He—she had already bathed, combed her hair, and changed into a clean set of coarse cloth dress, but that sort of "a dirty little street urchin turns into a little princess after a bath and a change of clothes" plot twist did not happen to this child. Though she could now be seen to be a girl, she had not become any prettier than before: long-term malnutrition and labor beyond what her body could bear had left her sallow and thin, her skin rough, her hair hanging over her head like a clump of withered weeds even after combing. Her body was gaunt, her face sunken and hollow from lack of nourishment—there was nothing cute about her at all.
She had come running after him in a daze, and only now did she seem to realize that this was no place to wander into. She stood dumbly in the doorway, carefully drawing her hands and feet together, her face full of nervousness and bewilderment.
She must have heard the conversation between Gao Yang and Byron just now.
"Your daughter's come looking for you," Gao Yang said, glancing at Byron, then beckoning to the mute girl at the entrance to come over.
"My lord..." Byron called out somewhat helplessly, but then, seeing the little mute girl walking toward him, his expression quickly turned to embarrassment and unease. "You... how did you follow me here? Didn't I say this place is off-limits to wandering?"
"Byron," Gao Yang said, "I know you find this difficult, but you can't just cast this child aside. Since you promised to adopt her, that promise shouldn't be contingent on any later conditions. Take good care of her."
"I..." Byron opened his mouth, but in the end could only nod. "Yes, I understand."
"If you run into trouble, you can ask for help—there are plenty of people in the domain who know how to care for a child. Don't cling to your knightly pride—and I doubt you have any of that pride anyway," Gao Yang said with a smile. "This child didn't just save you; she helped me too. Her contribution to resolving the crisis in Tamsin Town was considerable. This child has brought good fortune to our domain, and we can't treat her shabbily."
Sir Byron nodded in assent, while the little mute girl blinked and looked at Gao Yang, then at Byron. She could understand what these people were saying, but the lofty matters of knights and domains were beyond her, so she looked somewhat lost.
At that moment Gao Yang suddenly asked, "Does she have a name?"