Chapter 824 — Ever-Blurring Boundaries
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
A minute later, Pi Yun—who had clearly seen enough—patted Byron on the arm. "A few tears is plenty. We've still got work to do."
"When was I crying?" Byron glared at the little old man. "I was simply overcome by emotion for a moment and got a bit sentimental!"
"Fine, fine, pretend I didn't see anything," Pi Yun muttered, casually handing Byron a handkerchief. "Wipe your face, and don't let your soldiers see you like this when you go out."
"You've never raised a child, so you wouldn't understand..."
Pi Yun rolled his eyes. "Who says I haven't? Didn't I raise Amber myself? She didn't learn to speak until she was nearly ten, and I didn't react half as badly as you are right now."
On any ordinary day, Byron would have backed his eloquence against anyone's, and even with Pi Yun's famously thick skin, he was confident he could talk the little old man into sullen silence—but right now he plainly had no stomach for a war of words. The gray-haired knight simply stood there, eyes somewhat reddened, gazing at Pea, who was smiling up at him, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes folding into layer upon layer: "Wonderful... truly wonderful... Is there anywhere that bothers you?"
"At first... a little... numb..." Pea said with some effort, but her voice quickly grew fluent, and though it was only a voice synthesized by the device, it seemed to carry more and more lively feeling. "Now... it's already much better..."
"Good, that's good," Byron said again and again, then had Pea turn around so he could look at the metallic neural cord lying quietly against the back of his adopted daughter's neck. "Is this heavy? Will it become uncomfortable after wearing it for a long time?"
"It has some weight, of course," Pi Yun said. "Weight-reduction runes need an extra energy supply, after all, and cramming the neural cord and the brainwave interface into such a small device is already a stretch—there's no spare room to allocate to weight-reduction runes. We'll gradually perfect that shortcoming in later models."
"I think... it's fine," Pea said, gesturing as she spoke—though she could produce sound now, the habit formed over many years still made her gesticulate unconsciously while talking. "It's not very heavy, and it's not tiring."
"Naturally. We couldn't fit a weight-reduction rune in, but we used the lightest materials we could, so the overall weight is still acceptable," Pi Yun said, pinching the few strands of beard on his chin with a proud smile. "After all, the whole point of this thing is to eventually bring it to ordinary people, and comfort and ease of use are very important standards."
A brilliant smile on his face, Byron could not resist rubbing his hands together. "Today is a day worth commemorating... I'm going back to have a few good drinks to celebrate..."
No sooner had he finished speaking than Pea beside him could not help but frown, and the voice that came from the Neural Thorn's speech device was full of complaint: "Papa, you drink far too much! How many times have I told you to quit drinking, why won't you ever listen..."
Byron's expression turned a little awkward at once. He opened his mouth to speak, but Pea was clearly not finished:
"And the first time you resolved to quit, that was your own idea—you even thumped your chest and swore you'd be done within a month. Now two years have passed and you haven't quit at all...
"You're not young anymore, don't you know that? You've got more white hair than black now! The newspapers all talk about the harms of drinking too much—don't you always say Mr. Godwin is a learned man, that everything he says makes sense? So why won't you listen to him..."
Byron's face was a picture of embarrassment. He had just gotten out the single syllable "I" when another crackling volley came from Pea: