Chapter 557: Watch Them!

The silhouette stopped, and the room gradually fell completely silent.

Sources were the lifeblood of a Scholar.

It was like every headword in a dictionary—it had to have a source, or it could never be included.

Faint pencil writing slowly surfaced beside the proof page: "It came from a book."

Richard reached out and turned the page, looking at the blank new sheet.

After a long time, pencil writing surfaced on the blank new page again: "...And also, it came from your mouths."

The line of text immediately following it was crooked:

"...And the muddy roads of Leicestershire. I walked out of there at eleven years old with two roasted potatoes stuffed in my pockets."

Richard slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

"You want to use that one-penny booklet of yours to test me?"

"...Professor, are you proofreading?"

"Every night, I flip through it once."

"I considered the tea, too. I used double the tea leaves and steeped it for a minute."

"If my face sinks, you just bicker with me a bit;"

His aunt looked astonished. "You still haven't...?"

Samuel spoke. "Morana was carried to the river by the children and thrown in; winter was thus drowned. That piece of straw is what I pulled from her body."

"Then knock on the windowpane."

Isabella spoke with certainty. Since she had dared to come, she was prepared for the complete set of procedures.

An amber pendant, and a Tin Box.

"The day you read that piece of paper like you're reading about someone else's affairs, hand it to that boy and let him read it to you."

Croft took all that boy's work onto himself; he wouldn't utter a word even if he worked himself to death.

The old professor also seemed a little embarrassed because of this final letter:

The river water first submerged her ankles, then her knees, her waist... Freyja, wearing a nightgown, opened the door with sleepy eyes. Seeing that it was her, there was not a hint of surprise in her eyes; she turned to make a cup of hot chocolate for her and poured a glass of brandy for herself.

"Did you remember it?"

"They had already lost a lot long ago, and the ones remaining now could not be taken away by the veil, nor could they be chewed to pieces."

At around eleven o'clock in the morning, Lillian went ashore.

The professor had said he had to learn to climb the stairs by himself.

"Yes, so you cannot cry."

Lillian solemnly put the two items away securely and bowed deeply to Isabella. "Thank you, Mentor."

Originally, the very last page of the proof was left blank to check for omissions and fill in the gaps, but now it was filled with a letter.

If you can read this, you've probably succeeded, right?

"Looks like your mentor gave you some good things?" Freyja glanced at her bulging pockets.

"That one is truly meddling in other people's business," the old professor snorted.

The ink for the line about her brother Williams was so faint it could hardly be seen.

From out in the hallway came Evelyn's low-voiced protest. "Why can't I go in?"

"In the city right now, I am only allowed to appear regularly at the reading room and the society; everything else is for you to handle on my behalf."

"Those are all anchor points of the dead. Consumables diminish the more they are used; the anchor points of the living will slowly replenish."

Isabella's voice trembled, and it was hard to tell if it was from fear or anger.

At the same time, even though it was broad daylight, a beam of moonlight appeared, shining all the way over from the south of the city.

"...Mortimer's fate is truly a pity."

"If it breaks, Grandpa will scold me."

Freyja poured herself a glass of brandy and took a sip.

"Right, I might have to stay in the New World from now on."

The old professor's voice held a touch of melancholy:

It felt very light in the hand, and only after shaking it did she realize it was hollow inside.

At this moment, Lillian sat under the bridge of the Grand Canal and released the Raven Eye again. The professor continued to explain in detail:

After a pause, the old man resumed his broad, warm tone:

"Sit there and don't move. Wait for me to come in."

"As long as you hold that dictionary, and your surroundings are the reading area, I can follow that page over."

One of the white-bearded academicians sighed while picking meat from a bone with his knife.

His aunt remembered the chaos-corrupted funerary Virtuoso she had once seen outside the examination hall, and her heart ran cold.

His aunt's lips curled up slightly as she brought the oatmeal over and drank it clean in one gulp.

"What is this for?"

A silver tool kit hung from her waist; the blunt needles, vernier calipers, and three vials of potions were all present without a single piece missing.

The laziness in the old professor's voice receded.

The silhouette inside the windowpane smiled and nodded:

"His wife was so angry she went back to her maiden home, only to find when she got there that her maiden home had been criticized too." The professor continued explaining:

"Aunt, what are you..."

He had just set down his spoon when he heard the voice from over there say:

As soon as she entered the door, her back pressed tightly against the door panel. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, not daring to look toward the window at all.

Lillian warmed her palms with the hot chocolate.

...

At the very bottom was a layer of neat small writing:

"Professor, I didn't actually want to test you..."

"Alright, you brat, brew me another cup of tea."

"You have to read it until you recognize every single word, even recognizing which ones are written ugly."

That was the veil taking away his senses; he wouldn't be able to perceive it himself.

The old man chuckled and said that although his younger sister was a bit worse than Grey, she was far stronger than Sophia, who couldn't even crack an eggshell properly. He mentioned that one time that girl Sophia boiled an egg in Room 314 and ended up peeling the egg off along with the shell. "You still remember Passion Sunday, right? It was just two weeks ago."

It was her own thesis draft, covered entirely in red ink from corrections.

Several students wearing officer cadet training uniforms lay prone outside, the dark muzzles of their guns pointed toward the doorway.

Samuel unhurriedly finished peeling the orange in his hand, then went into the room and brought out a piece of straw and a bronze statue, placing them in front of her.

This time, the old man's speaking speed slowed down considerably. He sounded a bit cautious, as if afraid of making a mistake.

The old professor fell silent for a moment. "I am not sleeping."

His aunt raised her head and blurted out, "Only a single word remains to eternally capture ten thousand names."

"If it insists on turning, someone has to provide the oil. If you don't provide it, then I will."

The desk clock chimed consecutively for a few strokes. Outside the window, a bit of light gradually appeared, revealing the faint outlines of the rooftops on the street opposite.

The old professor mercilessly scolded Wyndham, saying his entire life's worth of theses had gone to the dogs, and that he couldn't even distinguish between two of Cicero's books.

"It's finally my turn to say this."

Richard noticed the other party had used the word "also," and the pen in his hand paused. "Will you still sleep?"

"Whenever it gets idle, it wants to read people, so I just give it the most boring book."

Aunt Isabella gave him no chance to retort. "Then just study hard while lying down. Go downstairs and watch your oven."

"That little bit of profit we gained back then was completely wiped out after getting beaten up by that white-bearded old fellow. Only you still have a bit of The Morrigan's shadow on your body. Going over there this time, you'll just happen to be able to take the very last bite."

His tongue moved on its own, out of his control:

Evelyn still remained somewhat unconvinced:

On the windowpane, the hunched silhouette gradually faded away.

"Then you read it to me."

Only then did Aunt Isabella tiptoe in carefully.

She continued walking down until she finally reached the edge of the shallows on the other side of the veil.

"Don't worry, I am still me."

After Freyja finished her instructions, she looked up and down at this pale-skinned girl in front of her with an inexplicable gaze. "I hope you can return in one piece."

Goosebumps rose on his aunt's back, and she asked in a hoarse voice. Isabella turned the Records of Great Achievements to the very last entry, the page for the year 1118.

His aunt watched as the copy of The Person I Have Known flipped to the middle and stopped on one of the pages.

"Correct!" the professor answered very crisply.

He complained about the scholarship, and also that Wyndham had crossed him out as a "spokesperson seedling";

There were still a dozen or so people outside in the courtyard wearing foreign military uniforms. There were support troops who looked like Southerners, as well as ones with bronze skin who had come from the New World; from the looks of it, they were all carelessly swept into this unprovoked disaster while on vacation.

"The elder Hutton is actually better at teaching than I am. If he comes, let him come in and take a seat; don't make him stand anymore."

"Knock on your forehead?"

"You students, and students of students... just go do your business first. Hand in the entries later; delaying for a while won't matter."

Over hundreds of years, that bronze statue had passed through God knows how many hands. Its face had already been slowly worn flat, and its facial features could no longer be seen in their original shape.

The military control notices were torn down as soon as they were posted, and the shops on the street were smashed to pieces. There were those made of tied straw, those sewn from cloth, and those wearing eggshell necklaces...

"What, are you treating this old thing like me as a guest too, planning to host me for a bit and send me off at dawn?"

"If outsiders want to seek my help, I won't be so strict."

Beef and bread were laid out on the dining table, though they had all already gone cold.

"...The window frame is fine too."

"Back then on that night in July when the Celtic faction was swallowed up, the great doors of the Hall of False Oaths opened, and that white-haired giant walked in carrying a book in his hand. The moonlight spread out exactly like that."

"He slept on his stomach last night. I just saw it through the crack in the door!"

"It even had to make a copy of the letter I wrote to myself to show you. Forget it, just read it, it saves me the breath of explaining."

Outside on Easter night, heavy rain fell over Prague.

Today was Monday, Easter.

"Will those names... grow fainter and fainter?"

"Yes."

"Where are you staying over here?" She still had a pair of swollen panda eyes; it seemed she hadn't slept much more than he had.

Looking closely, it was written, "Brother, Williams..."

Now that the Sphinx Lamp's eighth metamorphosis was about to end, he too had to prepare for his own promotion.

"If the day comes when it's all used up, you could stand right in front of me, and looking at you would be no different from looking at a blank page."

"You're still laughing." Isabella glared at him fiercely. "Do you know what this is?"

"Then... are you still you?"

"Alright, good test. The one who writes the rules must first believe and abide by them themselves, otherwise it's just a joke."

Later, his aunt's eyelids were fighting each other as she wanted to squint and rest for a moment, but then a voice spoke up, "Open your eyes if you're awake. People pretending to sleep move their eyeballs."

"Where did you get up to with the proofreading last night?"

His aunt picked up her teacup and went upstairs, brewing a fresh pot of Darjeeling and placing it back on the corner of the desk, facing the window.

"I have no way to testify for myself on that rule."

The Vltava River would ultimately empty into the Elbe River, its waters sinking with countless drowned winters. The steam from the teacup rose all the way to the lampshade before slowly dissipating.

The Academy's iron gates were shut tight, with sandbags piled up in front to form makeshift barricades.

The straw stalk felt slightly damp to the touch. One end was wrapped in a ragged strip of red cloth, but other than that, there was nothing unusual about it.

With that, she opened the door and walked out, the door clicking shut behind her.

"That's a newly promoted Classics Virtuoso leaking ink!"

The young girl had no choice but to stomp all the way up the stairs.

"Awake."

Dublin was actually quite warm in July. A row of red-brick houses left over from the Georgian era stood neatly lined up, the fan-shaped transoms above their doors brightly illuminated by the sun.

"Birth Year: Not Disclosed."

It still didn't forget to remind his aunt:

His aunt nodded.

Richard gaped at his aunt. "...How long did you memorize that for?"

She walked toward the outskirts of the city, eventually sitting down against the back wall of a bakery. The red bricks she leaned against still held the residual warmth of the sun, making her close her eyes in comfort.

"This letter, do you have to read it every day?"

He laughed and teased that Evelyn's soufflé had collapsed too quickly, leaving him with nothing but a mouthful of egg whites.

Beneath the dining room windowsill, a jackdaw hurriedly landed.

At this moment, it was as if the professor was about to go to the bookshelf to flip through a book, only to find that the book had already been tagged with a number, and even the dust on its spine had been wiped clean.

"I'll show it to you later."

"From now on, I only have this one thing left. I just love naming things and giving them definitions."

"But if you come to beg me, that favor will only wear thinner and thinner—use it once, and there's one less to use."

"I'm not clear on it either," the old man answered very frankly.

"I clearly locked it in the drawer before I went to sleep last night."

She avoided the window, sidling along the bookshelf to the desk, and pulled out a red pen.

The Raven Eye suddenly opened.

Even his wife's marriage certificate had been annotated with a comment: "Improper phrasing, rewrite suggested."

Hearing those words, the jackdaw flapped its wings a couple of times, nearly losing control and falling down.

"If I still remember, it means the traces that page left on me are still there."

When the students call it "Professor," it will definitely respond.

"That child Felix cried out in the fog for seventy-eight years; tonight, I finally answered him."

She placed the teacup back in its original position, its handle still facing the window. "Professor, I'm sure you won't find this one too bland."

"Father: Gerard Ashford. Mother: Rosemary... Nephew: Richard, see his own entry."

"Library Archive: The final page of all those collected prior to entering the library shall be copied exactly as is and sent to the compiler."

Richard froze. So her real age was never going to be disclosed, was it?

"We'll talk about it later..."

"If today's newspaper can make it across the sea, the headline of the eighth page will definitely be his."

The handwriting on it slowly turned crooked, clearly the work of the old professor at a glance.

Richard certainly remembered. Back when he was undertaking his Practitioner probatio, his aunt had shown it to him.

"Don't be in a rush to celebrate. Do you think you're perfectly fine just because your hands don't shake and your back doesn't ache?"

"As long as you still recognize these, you are still you."

"If the day comes when he wants to go further up, you walk ahead of him, flatten all the potholes on the road, and explain them to him one by one."

Only then did the old professor's sigh transmit over slowly:

"Noun, female. Associate Professor of the Department of Classics at Imperial University, a Major Adept scholar of the Classics tradition."

Freyja set down her wine glass, crouched down, reached under the counter, and pulled out two items as well.

The professor produced a string of ellipses. "..."

"As for my older brother Williams, I only remember the sound of his knitting machine; his face has already blurred."

Before he knew it, Richard's voice had already become hoarse.

"I remember a bit more about Hannah; her handwriting is even uglier than mine."

"But..."

Her hair was pinned up without a single strand out of place, looking even more serious than when she went to department meetings.

She pulled a stack of papers from her toolkit and slapped them onto the desk.

When that girl Isabella had a cold expression, she actually just didn't know what to say.

Richard stood by the desk and read it from beginning to end, his vision unknowingly blurring.

"So, from now on, never speak to me in half-sentences; it'll make my hands itch."

"Alright, you keep these, learn to imitate them well, don't let them notice."

The light in the study had not yet gone out.

"...Watch them, watch them, watch them!"

"Isabella Ashford!"

Lillian cowered for a long time, and only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming she hadn't been discovered.

The dockworkers had all gone home to rest, and no one noticed as she quietly slipped down.

In the morning light, that hunchbacked silhouette was so faint it was almost invisible, but now it slowly raised its head.

"Aunt, you should go to sleep early too," the voice said softly.

"Mm, go on. It's cold on the road, be careful."

She couldn't help but shrink back again, pulling her head into her coat and holding her breath.

The intervals between the three knocks were equally long, just like a metronome.

"I haven't asked their family, but for a Virtuoso, anchor points and firewood are basically equivalent."

Several academicians sat in a circle, drinking red wine and eating beef.

"I practiced in front of the mirror several times." Isabella wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead.

Isabella finished everything and walked to the door, resting her hand on the doorknob before stopping.

"An old guy who read books his whole life, already over a hundred and seventy years old. The books he read..."

Only one thing must not be forgotten: Watch them!

"You're still the smart one, kid. Right, from now on, whoever wants to ask me for a favor must hand over a new word."

The voice seemed to chuckle. "I moved the knives and forks downstairs."

The room fell quiet for quite a while.

Richard forced the corners of his mouth down.

Richard sniffled, carefully folding the proof page and tucking it into the very last page of The Person I Have Known.

There's a graveyard elegy that goes like this: How many flowers bloom where no one sees, their fragrance scattering in vain across the wilderness.

"Although I said before that a person's patience is like lamp oil, favors are borrowed and repaid. After a few exchanges, it becomes friendship."

"But today, everyone is rushing to hand them in."

Those kids in the basement, Edith, Fischer—they must be paid by the hour, not a penny less... If Fischer wants to play the violin out in the hallway, let him play.

"After the Celtic table was eaten, the empty seat remained in the hearts of the Irish."

"Don't speak!" Isabella lowered her voice. "Once you open your mouth, it will have something to read."

"What did it tell?"

"Because your brother is..." Isabella glanced at the ink stains on her nephew's face from sleeping on the desk. "Working hard, yes, working hard!"

His grandfather had once given him an encrypted old book, which had a line at the very end: "The higher you go, the more you lose."

"A bit of it was taken by the veil, but what's left is enough, so don't put on a long face."

"I saw it once when I was young—a tree full of golden threads, with a name embroidered under every branch."

"In the past, I could secretly pay the tuition for my students; anyway, there was plenty of funding and we couldn't use it all. But not anymore. Now, I can only burn my own oil."

She didn't dare to turn back, only able to face the door panel and say, "...Rest well."

Richard opened the room door and took a deep breath.

"You shouldn't have forgotten, right?" Isabella asked.

I will write it one more time: Watch them. If you can't do that, then don't bother coming back to sit in my chair!

His aunt continued:

"He would probably speak my words, mimic my tone, and copy every witty remark I ever made without missing a single word."

This time, the professor's voice was unusually downcast:

That night, Lillian brought the straw stalk into the Vltava River.

Lillian shrank back.

He remembered the grapes the Countess had peeled for him that day, feeling inexplicably disgusted.

The old man also settled down for a while in between.

Freyja hung the pendant on her. She looked down at it; inside was a mosquito, frozen for who knew how many thousands of years.

"No, I won't think about it. My face was just as pale as the wallpaper a moment ago."

"As long as it's been flooded by the winter waters, the very bottom is all interconnected."

"Written to the self before promotion:"

"...Then what else can I do?" The professor was also left somewhat speechless by this.

"The eighth stack..."

"Then you really need to think carefully about what I actually want."

"If it gets any more severe, I might undergo chaos-transformation..."

"Speaking of which, there is a tapestry in the Blackburn family's study."

The pages of the timetable on the windowsill flipped heavily, then flipped back.

Even though the gunshots and shouting outside the window shook the heavens, for them, the only difference between today and any other day was probably just that the meat was a little cold.

Lillian turned her gaze to the second item.

Lillian found her guide. "Didn't we agree last time on an advance payment for the reward? I need to use it now."

Richard only felt a wave of dizziness in his mind, his body going completely limp.

...

"When you students run into trouble, if I see it, I'll definitely help."

Richard sat up all night, complaining and venting together with the old professor.

"A friend from the Imperial Capital wrote to say that as early as August, the obituary department of The Times had already reserved a spot for him."

"So you were so sensitive to my emotional changes just now because of those borrowed eyes?"

Richard sat there, unmoving for a long time.

"Wear the pendant well. Practically everyone in the north recognizes it. In late July, Ireland is very warm. Your snow must eventually find a place to settle, and the permafrost can help you."

"Back in the day, whenever you submitted assignments in my class, there was never a time you didn't drag it out until the deadline."

Beneath the icy seawater, a gaze would occasionally surface to stare at her, but upon noticing the pendant on her chest, it would move away.

"Send him some good tea every now and then; just don't let him know who sent it."

The light in the room drew back toward the window, as if someone were adjusting their reading glasses.

"That young man caught some sort of library sleeping sickness before the winter solstice. He just fell asleep, and never woke up again."

Richard lifted his head from the desk, his neck cracking twice.

"Sigh... it's a bit embarrassing to show you this letter. Let's get back to the matter of the Virtuoso."

"These hundreds of thousands of threads of yours are still shining. As for what will happen in a few years or decades, I don't know either. I won't make guarantees for the veil on things I'm not certain about."

"Knock, knock, knock."