Chapter 392: In the Prime of Youth

He didn't know what had set off the memories.

Perhaps he had spent too much time alone in this small room, and the string tethering him to the past had simply come loose.

Rosemary. His wife's name.

He had first met her at a countess's garden tea party, right after becoming a Practitioner.

He wore a freshly tailored dark suit that day, with a silver crest from his father pinned to the lapel.

Standing in the crowd, he had thought he looked quite respectable.

When Rosemary walked over from the other side of the garden, she was holding a glass of lemonade.

Her grip on the glass was steady, her pace unhurried.

As she passed Gerard, she cast a glance at his shoulder.

"Sir, your collar is crooked."

She set down her lemonade and reached out to straighten it.

After fixing it, she patted his shoulder twice and turned away.

Gerard stood rooted to the spot, practically turned to stone by the light pats of the lady's hand.

The second time he sought her out at the tea party, she was discussing the ingredient ratios for roast goose with a countess's niece.

"...There shouldn't be too much butter. Too much, and the skin gets soggy."

"But the recipe I read said..."

"Recipes are written by the dead; stoves are tended by the living."

Gerard couldn't get a word in edgewise.

He stood to the side and listened for ten minutes to a debate over whether roast goose should be cooked with thyme or rosemary. Not a single word related to his own expertise ever came up.

Later, he asked her to dance.

Gerard wasn't a good dancer. A Hunter's footsteps were certainly light, but the rhythm needed for dancing was completely different from the rhythm of a battlefield.

By the third song, he had stepped on her skirt.

She looked down at her dress, then up at him.

"Sir, are you this precise when trampling your prey?"

On the day he proposed, Gerard prepared a long, formal speech, practicing it twenty times in front of a mirror.

In the end, he just kept a straight face and stiffly blurted, "Marry me."

Rosemary tilted her head at him. "Is this a proposal, or an arrest warrant?"

Gerard was stumped, unable to squeeze out a single word for the longest time.

Rosemary laughed so hard she couldn't stand straight.

During their first year of marriage, Gerard discovered something.

His wife was a better cook than any professional chef he had ever met.

Everyone around him thought he had married a pampered young lady from an affluent, high-class family.

Only he knew that this fine lady slipped into the kitchen at five-thirty every morning, tied on an apron, and kneaded dough until she had flour all over her nose.

"I told you, the thyme goes in last."

"Putting it in last doesn't mean waiting until the fire is out."

She would point her spoon at the pot and scold him—a Hunter who had slain dozens of evil creatures behind the veil.

He never dared talk back.

In the Ashford Residence, the butler, the maids, and even his Hunter brothers bowed their heads when they saw him.

Only Rosemary dared scold him in front of everyone.

Once, a few guests from the mystical side arrived from the Imperial Capital.

Gerard discussed serious business with them in the study all afternoon, never saying a single unnecessary word.

After seeing the guests off, he returned to the bedroom to find Rosemary sitting at her vanity, doing needlework.

Gerard sat across from her, watching her work.

As he watched, he somehow felt compelled to pull out pen and paper and draw her.

His drawing skills were incredibly rough. His hands had held knives his whole life; gripping a pen felt like holding a stick of firewood.

He traced the bridge of her nose twice, yet it still came out crooked.

When Rosemary finished her needlework, she looked up and saw what he was doing.

"Are you drawing me?" She leaned in for a look. "Why is my nose so big?"

She snatched the paper away.

"It doesn't look like me at all," she said in distaste, but couldn't bear to tear it up. She folded it and tucked it into her sewing box.

Gerard's perpetually tense face softened in that moment.

The night Rosemary was followed by the black dog, Gerard wasn't home.

He returned from a field mission and heard the news from the butler. Without a word, he locked himself in this small room that very night.

He dug out the Ashford family booklet recording their most insane rituals and found the Rite of the Counter-Hunt.

It was something only a madman would attempt. The cost was so massive that no one in the family was willing to let him do it.

He did it anyway, and he snatched Rosemary back.

But snatching her back couldn't change her fate. She left Isabella behind and passed away.

Before she passed, she lay in bed, her breathing terribly shallow.

Gerard sat by the bed, his face locked in that same stiff expression.

Rosemary reached out and touched his cheek.

"It's the end," her voice was very soft. "And you still won't relax this face of yours."

Gerard opened his mouth, but couldn't say a word.

"The children..." Rosemary's hand slowly slipped down. "Don't always scare them with that stiff face of yours."

"When you smile... you actually look quite handsome."

The memories stopped there.

Gerard realized the knife on the whetstone had been sharpened until it could reflect his silhouette.

He held the knife up to the light and inspected it.

A face reflected on the surface of the blade.

Old, with sagging cheekbones and sunken eye sockets...

Facing the visage in the blade, Gerard suddenly parted his lips, trying to smile.

The smile was uglier than crying.

He put down the knife and took a sewing box from a locked tin cabinet on the desk.

He had kept Rosemary's old sewing box for more than half his life.

Gerard stared blankly for a moment before remembering that the drawing was no longer inside.

At the time, he had spoken so firmly.

Now that a compartment in the sewing box was empty, he realized his memory wasn't as clear as he thought.

Was Rosemary's nose slightly crooked to the left, or to the right?

When she smiled, was the crease at the corner of her eye deep or shallow?

When he drew that picture, he had stared at her all afternoon, but that was decades ago.

Decades of wind had smoothed out the words on her tombstone, and year by year, they had faded the face in his mind.

Gerard sat behind the desk by the light of the oil lamp, facing the empty compartment of the sewing box.

The lamp wick sparked with a faint crackle.

The old man didn't know when his eyes had grown hot.

He hadn't even noticed. He had never shed a tear in front of others his entire life, not even on the day his wife died.

He merely felt that the flame of the lamp in front of him had suddenly started to flicker, swaying so much that he couldn't clearly see the silver thimble in the sewing box.

Just then, the door to the small room was thrown open from the outside.

"Grandfather!"

Richard stood panting in the doorway, his face red from the cold, his overcoat collar still dusted with unmelted snow.

As soon as he entered, his gaze fell on the desk.

That hunting knife, sharpened enough to cast a reflection.

Spread out beside the knife was a complete set of field gear, every piece wiped spotless and laid out impeccably.

The old man sitting under the lamp had sagging cheekbones, sunken eye sockets, and red-rimmed eyes.

This wasn't merely sharpening a knife.

This was clearly a man getting his affairs in order for his final days.

Richard's heart sank.

The hint of joy he had carried while running upstairs was completely extinguished by the scene.

"You..." His throat tightened. "What are you doing!"

Gerard was startled by the door bursting open.

He quickly raised a hand and wiped at the corner of his eyes, moving as fast as if he were shooing a fly.

Having wiped his eyes, the face he had kept stiff his whole life tightened back up.

"What are you banging around for?" The old man snapped the lid of the sewing box shut. "Is that how you open a door?"

"I knocked, but you didn't answer." Richard steadied himself.

"I was sharpening my knife; I didn't hear you." Gerard pushed the blade to the side, his tone stiff.

"A Hunter is going on a long trip and getting his gear in order. What's the matter with that?"

"Grandfather," Richard walked up to the desk, "you aren't just going on a long trip."

Gerard didn't reply to that.

He looked up and inspected his grandson, and the more he looked, the more an inexplicable anger flared up.

"I should be asking you." The old man smacked the whetstone against the corner of the desk.

"Where have you been running off to these past few days?"

"Your grandfather is an old man. Don't you know you should come back and spend more time with me?"

The complaints he had been holding in for days poured out all at once.

Richard stood there, listening to his grandfather's outburst without rushing to defend himself.

These past few days, he had been running to Professor McPhee's place, Professor Mortimer's place, dealing with the booklet's special edition, the mask, the shadow...

He had been splitting every minute in half to use, all for that matter he couldn't yet speak of.

He couldn't explain these things right now.

"Grandfather, it's not that I didn't want to come back." Richard brought out the item he had been hiding behind his back.

"These past few days, I was taking care of something."

It was a flat parcel carefully wrapped in kraft paper, tied squarely at all four corners with string.

Gerard's gaze fell upon the parcel.

"What is that?"

Richard didn't answer directly. He set the parcel on the desk and untied the strings layer by layer.

Once the kraft paper was peeled back, a layer of soft cloth was revealed inside.

Under the lifted cloth were several photographs mounted on stiff cardstock.

The moment Gerard clearly saw those photographs, his breathing stopped.

It was the charcoal sketch of Rosemary.

"I took it to a photography studio to have it copied and reproduced," Richard's voice softened.

"I asked the photographer there to photograph your drawing and print several copies."

"This way..." Richard laid the photographs out on the desk one by one.

"This way, everyone in the family can have one."

"One for Mom, one for Aunt, one for Evelyn, one for me, one for my cousin, one for Uncle..."

"And the original stays in your hands."

Gerard's hand slowly reached out.

He picked up the top one, his fingers trembling slightly.

The photo was developed very clearly, far clearer than the charcoal original that had been frayed by the years.

Even the stray hairs at Rosemary's temples could be seen distinctly, one by one.

"You..." The old man opened his mouth but couldn't get out the rest of his sentence for a long time.

The bellyful of anger from just moments ago had vanished without him realizing.

"The photographer at the studio refused to take the job at first." Seeing the heavy atmosphere, Richard quickly tried to lighten the mood.

"He looked at the drawing over and over for ages, then asked me if it was supposed to be a person or something else."

Gerard's eyebrows immediately shot up.

"How dare he!"

"I told him it was my grandmother." Richard stifled a laugh.

"The photographer's face turned pale instantly. He apologized profusely, saying his eyesight was bad."

"Then he stared at the drawing for a good while and asked me very tactfully..."

"Asked what?"

"He asked if he should 'touch up' the lady's nose while reprinting it."

A moment of silence settled over the small room.

Holding the photograph, the corner of Gerard's mouth twitched.

"He said he specializes in that." Richard couldn't hold it in anymore.

"He said he could do a little magic during the reproduction to make the nose a size smaller, saying it would look more proper."

"I didn't let him."

Gerard looked up at his grandson.

"Why not?" the old man's voice was a little muffled.

Richard looked at him.

"If the nose was shrunk down, it wouldn't be the drawing Grandmother scolded you over."

"It just... wouldn't be the same one."

Gerard lowered his head, once again looking at the woman with the slightly large nose in the photograph.

As he looked, that face he had kept stiff his whole life slowly relaxed.

The old man reached out a finger and very gently touched Rosemary's nose on the photograph.

"It is a bit big," he murmured.

"I drew it once back then and she scolded me. If I drew it again, she probably would have hit me."

"She said my hands had held knives my whole life, and gripping a pen felt like holding a stick of firewood."

Richard stood by, listening quietly.

It was the first time he had heard his grandfather speak in such a tone. As the old man spoke, he ended up laughing at his own words.

Gerard placed the photograph on the desk and quickly wiped at the corner of his eyes again.

"The wick needs trimming. The smoke is hurting my eyes."

Richard didn't expose the lie.

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