Chapter 141: Green Tea Bullying the Honest One? |
This secret gathering that looked like a ball had private rooms lining both walls, each door bearing a reversible sign.
One side was red, indicating occupied, the other green, indicating vacant.
Each private room had an attendant standing by the door to prevent others from barging into an occupied room.
Although most people who could get in here followed the rules, newcomers, those unfamiliar with etiquette, or people who accidentally wandered in were still possible.
When Allenay discussed the venue’s layout with Celt, he had considered all sorts of details.
Samuel casually picked one of the doors with a green sign, walked up to it, greeted the attendant beside it, and was about to go in.
But he was stopped.
An attendant dressed as a butler reached out and blocked Samuel just as he was about to push the door.
“Sir, please wait a moment.”
Why stop me?
Samuel glanced in puzzlement at the outstretched hand that barred him.
Is the classic arrogant-exposed-at-a-gathering scene about to happen?!
Samuel’s mouth tilted.
Excellent, I’m about to return as the Dragon King in full glory.
“Mr. Stage, someone is waiting for you in Room 1,” the attendant said softly.
Ah? So it isn’t the arrogant-exposed scene...
Wait, something’s off.
Why are you being so polite? In corner-of-the-internet feel-good fictions, it’s never like this! You should disdain me, crush me, and then wait for my crooked smile as I show you the Dragon King’s comeback special CG!
This isn’t how those stories go, I refuse to accept it!
Samuel’s crooked smile flattened.
Looks like my crooked mouth triggered the feel-good plot too early.
What a pity, I’ll be more careful next time.
“All right.” Samuel nodded to the attendant, then turned to Wyatt.
“Then you can take a room and wait,” Samuel said.
He didn’t know who was looking for him, but he intended to go see.
“Fine.” Wyatt nodded.
At that moment the attendant signaled again, indicating he had something to say.
“Sorry to bother you, this gentleman was also invited.”
“Me?” Wyatt sounded a little surprised.
He had only decided to drop by the theater on a whim this afternoon to check things out and share intelligence with Samuel; he hadn’t arranged any meeting in advance.
But judging by the attendant’s demeanor, it seemed a meeting with him had been planned ahead of time.
Then Wyatt thought he might be overthinking it.
Maybe he’d just been noticed when he first entered the theater.
Samuel casually pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward Room 1 not far behind them.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Wyatt had no objection.
They turned and wove past the gentlemen and ladies to the door of Room 1.
Unlike the room Samuel had chosen earlier, the sign on this door had been flipped to the red side, showing it was occupied.
Knock knock knock.
Samuel raised his hand and tapped his fingers on the door.
A reply came quickly from inside.
“Please come in.”
The attendant standing at the door pushed it open, stepped aside, then dutifully closed the door again after Samuel and Wyatt entered.
Samuel already knew who was waiting for him before the door opened.
That voice that said “Please come in” was pleasant and highly recognizable.
For Sirens, their voices were far more distinctive than their faces, so if a Siren wanted to disguise themselves, it often required several extra steps compared to an ordinary person.
The door clicked shut behind them, and Samuel confidently walked to the center of the room.
A square table sat there, covered with various delicate petits fours. In front of the table was a long sofa, with two smaller sofas at either end.
On the long sofa sat someone who looked like a maiden but wore a gentleman’s formal suit. He leaned against the left edge of the sofa, watching Samuel as he entered with a relaxed posture and a gentle expression. Golden hair was tied into a side ponytail that draped over his chest.
He held a small tray in one hand and a delicate teacup handle in the other, placing the cup on the tray which rested on his lap.
Standing behind him was a male servant dressed in white butler attire, holding a tray with a teapot.
“Nice to meet you, Your Highness Allenay.” Samuel took the liberty of sitting at the other end of the sofa.
Although Samuel had conversational memories of Allenay and they were barely familiar, this was truly their first meeting, and Allenay genuinely did not know Samuel.
Wyatt, more restrained than Samuel, didn’t sit on the long sofa but chose one of the small ones.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Stage.”
Allenay didn’t mind Samuel’s impertinence. He tilted his head slightly and greeted him.
Since Samuel was so forward, Allenay didn’t bother to stand to greet him and remained seated.
After greeting Samuel, he turned his head toward the equally casual Wyatt.
“Good afternoon, Wyatt His Highness.” He inclined slightly in respect.
As a prince, he didn’t have to use the honorific “His Highness” for Wyatt; he could have addressed him as “Prince Odius.”
But Wyatt was also a Law Inscriber, so Allenay had to show respect—not out of rank, but out of respect for strength.
And why did he use the more familiar “Wyatt His Highness” instead of the more formal “Odius His Highness”? Because they both share the surname Odius; using the formal title could cause confusion.
Besides, Wyatt didn’t seem to care, so Allenay took the chance to bridge the distance.
“Good afternoon, Count Allenay.” Wyatt nodded in return, his manner unassuming.
The servant holding the tray behind Allenay stepped around and gracefully placed two small trays each holding a teacup in front of Samuel and Wyatt on the table.
“You two are uncle and nephew, aren’t you? Why not just call him ‘Uncle’?” Samuel took his tray, leaned back, and asked with a smile.
“I’d be happy to, but I don’t know if he’d be willing,” Allenay said, smoothly switching forms of address as he smiled at Wyatt.
“Suit yourself.” Wyatt casually raised a hand, signaling Allenay not to bother with formalities.
“I thought you enjoyed this sort of thing,” Samuel said, “I even planned to play along with your aristocratic social games.”
Allenay shook his head slightly.
“I’m not fond of aristocratic pomp. If I can, I prefer to keep things simple.”
He meant, “I don’t like these formalities, but to show you respect, I will go along.”
Samuel clearly didn’t like that roundabout way of speaking.
“Whoa, what artful speech.” He punctured the atmosphere directly.
Achievement unlocked: Atmosphere Destroyer.
Allenay smiled gently, handed his teacup and tray to the servant behind him, signaling the man he could leave.
The servant refilled the teacup, set it before Allenay, then bowed to Allenay, Wyatt, and Samuel in turn before retreating from the room.
After the servant left, Allenay smiled and spoke.
“Congratulations, Uncle, on advancing to Law Inscriber,” he said to Wyatt. “I’m honored to have invited you both to my reception.”
He then looked at Samuel.
“I’ve long wanted to meet Mr. ‘Stage,’ but never had the chance.”
“Uh-huh.” Samuel nodded for him to continue.
“I heard my father offended Mr. ‘Stage’ recently. I’m very sorry...”
“Cut it out, I don’t want your father-son drama.” Samuel interrupted Allenay. “Celt already told me about you lot.”
He meant Allenay’s desire for Celt to kill Kolimon Odius.
“But that doesn’t change that my father offended you,” Allenay produced a small box out of nowhere. “I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
He extended the box with both hands, golden eyes speckled like stars fixed on Samuel’s black eyes.
“So you actually want me to hate your father more,” Samuel teased as he accepted the box, “since you want him dead.”
“That need not be a contradiction.” Allenay replied gently.
Samuel smiled and used a finger to pop open the wooden box.
Inside was an eye.
But upon closer inspection it wasn’t a mere eye; it had been transformed into a ring.
He raised an eyebrow and looked at Allenay.
What does this mean?
A threat?
Or did he actually gouge out his father’s eye?
Seeing Samuel’s puzzled look, Allenay explained:
“A small token of compensation. I hope you won’t mind.”
“It’s an artificial Law Object,” Allenay said. “Its raw material is...”
“The eye from the last appearing Singularity of Absurdity.”
“Wow.”
Samuel made an impressed sound.
And now we combine like terms.
............
West District, a certain villa.
“Caw... caw...”
Black crows flew across the sky, hovered twice above the villa roof, then quickly descended and landed on the branches.
A tree planted beside the villa stood bare because it was winter.
The tree was fairly tall, and its branches were roughly level with a second-floor bedroom.
The crow perched on a branch, cocked its head, and peered through the window at the scene inside.
“Mm... mm...” fearful whimpers came from within.
The crow’s eyes, blood-red, peered inside the window.
It looked like a side-lying bedroom. The room was not large; the curtains weren’t fully drawn and a gap allowed the crow a partial view.
The crow adjusted its angle curiously and finally saw the scene in the room.
Inside were a bed covered with a velvet duvet, a dressing table with a vanity mirror, a wardrobe, and two young women who looked around twenty.
“You can’t show your face, okay? Be good, endure for now, alright?” A gentle female voice came from the bed.
On the bed, one girl wore a nightdress, lying face-down, one leg and one arm grotesquely twisted, her face pressed into the bed so her features couldn’t be seen.
She seemed to be struggling or merely convulsing from pain.
Her face was gently pressed into the mattress by a hand.
The other girl wore nearly the same outfit and knelt at the head of the bed. One knee pressed on the first girl’s back while both hands twisted her remaining arm. Facing the mirror in profile, her face was not conventionally pretty, looking somewhat immature, but her aura came across as surprisingly mature. Her expression radiated a gentleness that didn’t match her features, and her eyes betrayed a dissonant quality.
Intermittent sounds came from below—agonized wails laced with the question “why.”
“Why?” The gentle girl’s tone held confusion. “You should know, right?”
As she spoke, she applied more force. But perhaps because she lacked strength, she couldn’t fully snap the other girl’s arm.
“They all say I’m hysterical, that it’s delusion.”
“But you should be clear like me, right?” The gentle girl’s expression grew even softer. “I really can see the future, and what I see will not change. This isn’t delusion or hysteria.”
“Whether it’s your slanders against me or other things, these are real and will indeed occur in the future I saw.”
This was apparently a typical “green-tea little sister bullying the honest older sister” plot.
There was no reply from beneath, just the wailing.
“I don’t really mind the usual squabbles. If you want to play the spoiled miss, I’ll let you be,” the girl’s tone grew troubled. “But I saw you breaking my limbs... it’s painful. I don’t want it to happen again.”
“But it’s alright, what I see will happen, and it will happen the way I saw it.”
Her words were somewhat convoluted, but the crow still understood.
“I’ll have to make you play my role while I act as you...” she said as she increased the force. Finally she successfully twisted the other girl’s last arm around. “As long as the scene I foresaw comes to pass, it’s fine.”
She pressed the girl’s face down again, voice still gentle: “Don’t let your face show; that’s not what I saw. Then we’ll have to do it again.”
Preemptive revenge on a predicted persecution to eliminate the possibility of that persecution.
The crow flapped its wings happily.
It loved scenes like this.
A few seconds later, seemingly matching the future the gentle girl had predicted, she released the girl beneath her, swung off the bed, and tugged at her own face.
A translucent membrane peeled away, revealing a more mature, gentler face beneath—one that matched the eyes’ expression more closely.
If Samuel, Celt, or Evina had been here, they would have noticed this face looked very similar to the scholar from the Fate Rectification School they had captured, only slightly more immature and less world-weary.
The girl’s eyes slitted, her gaze dreamy, cheeks flushed as she breathed shallowly.
Despite just having twisted another person’s limbs, she now had a strangely calm expression.
Suddenly she seemed to sense something and turned to the window.
She climbed off the bed and drew the curtain aside.
Outside there was nothing but a bird.
Yet she instinctively felt something amiss.
After staring a few seconds, she gave up and turned back to her “sister” behind her.
“Hmm... you don’t look well.” Her hand hovered at her chest while the other touched her face; her tone grew a touch more troubled. “From what I know of you, even if I later alter your memory so you think you merely fell and broke your limbs, you’ll still take it out on me.”
“But since it’s come to this today...” She picked up the girl on the bed gently. “Please, never recover in this life, okay?”
A few seconds later, under the crow’s gaze, a woman slipped through the window and crashed heavily onto the thin grass below from the second floor.
Moments later, a maid’s shriek rang out.