Chapter 787 — Little Patty of Gulan
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Though winter had not yet ended and a cold wind still blew outside from time to time, the sunlight these days had been exceptionally bright and clear.
On fine days, Patty's favorite thing was to stay wherever the sun could reach her, and, in that rare ease of body, listen to the maids tell her stories, or watch those amusing programs on the Magic Web.
There were so many interesting things on the Magic Web—tales of distant lands, knowledge she had never heard of, novel and curious magical artifacts—and recently the clever folk of Xuanyao City had produced something called a "magic shadow play."
It was drama performed on the Magic Web terminal, and lately more and more people were talking about it.
Patty had never been to a theater—just when she was old enough to go with her parents, she had lost the chance to leave the house. But she had seen plays. Her mother had once invited the finest troupe in the area to perform a classic comedy within the castle, though Patty could no longer remember what that play had actually been about.
She had not managed to sit through even a single act before the maids and the steward had sent her to the physician.
Yet from those fragmented childhood memories alone, she still felt that the plays she had seen back then were nowhere near as interesting as the "magic shadow plays" on the Magic Web terminal.
Sunlight poured quietly into the room, tracing out a warm, bright patch within it. Patty sat happily in her little wheelchair, eyes fixed unblinking on the Magic Web terminal not far away. In the holographic projection above the terminal, migrants who had weathered every hardship and finally reached the southern port safely were helping one another down the gangplank, while port officials in constables' uniforms kept order.
This was the third time she had seen this scene.
Her personal maid stood quietly nearby. The gentle-natured woman watched the scene with a smile, and when the young witch appeared on the screen, she heard the little lady's excited voice: "The young witch lives in Xuanyao City, doesn't she? Does she really welcome the travelers at the port?"
"It's only a performance, Miss Patty," the maid said, bending slightly with a smile, "but the young witch does indeed live in Xuanyao City."
"How wonderful..." Patty could not help sighing softly. "I want to go see Xuanyao City too..."
"When your health is a little better, perhaps there will be a chance," said Wenjin, the maid.
"...Better not, Mother would worry," Patty said with a gentle shake of her head, then her attention returned to the play. "Is everyone watching this? Will there be new ones?"
"Yes, everyone is watching. My lady has shown it in the castle three times, and everyone here has seen it. More and more people outside the castle are watching too, many of them more than once. As for whether there will be new ones... I don't know, but there ought to be."
"How wonderful..." Patty sighed once more. "Do you like watching it too? Do you like that knight?"
The personal maid thought for a moment, then nodded with a smile. "That knight? Of course, many people like him, and so do I. But my favorite is still that textile worker..."
"Why?"
"Because I have an elder sister, and she is a textile worker," the maid said. "She works in a factory now."
The maid answered with great patience, but the little girl had many more questions: "Is the mechanical ship really that big? Can people really live aboard it for a month or two? Is it really that cold outside the castle? Why didn't that lord at the beginning share his charcoal with the people who were freezing to death? He already had so much charcoal... Do people really catch rats to eat when they're hungry? Do they still? Why did that knight run when he saw the constable after getting off the ship? He's clearly a good man..."
The maid looked at the girl in the wheelchair, caught between laughter and tears—some of these questions she had answered more than once already.