Chapter Forty-Three: The Story on the Mural

Chapter 43: The Story on the Mural

The carriage of the Elven Queen drew steadily nearer. Shen Ce and Silos, as greeters, hurried forward to welcome her. At the very front stood a middle-aged nobleman in splendid attire, a symbol of a duke’s rank worn on his chest, who courteously delivered a formal address to the Elven Queen.

The Elven Queen herself did not show her face; she merely offered a brief response from within the carriage. As expected of the elves, the race most favored by the Creator in "Heaven’s Crossroads," her voice was extraordinarily pleasing—sweet and clear, yet tinged with the authority befitting her station, perfectly matching her unparalleled beauty.

What surprised Shen Ce was that the Elven Queen replied in the human tongue, her fluency unmistakable, as though she were intimately familiar with the language. If that was the case, why had the royal family selected two humans skilled in Elvish? Was it simply to flatter their guest?

Though Shen Ce pondered this in his heart, he gave nothing away on his face. Since it was not yet his or Silos’ turn to step forward, the two of them blended in among the attendants.

Upon arriving at the royal guest residence, the Elven Queen finally emerged from her carriage. Seen up close, her beauty was even more stunning than the fleeting glimpse before. Yet none around dared gaze at the Elven Queen openly; each stole only a glance or two before bowing their heads in respectful deference.

Silos and Shen Ce stepped out from the crowd. Shen Ce followed silently at his side, maintaining half a meter’s distance between them, as Silos walked beside the Elven Queen and began to show her the interior of the royal guest residence. The place served mainly as the Emperor’s palace on journeys, and at times hosted noble guests of foreign lands, so its decor was exceedingly grand and lavish, filled with all manner of rare treasures.

Silos first led the Elven Queen into the main hall. Though it was daytime, the glittering chandeliers bathed the hall in gentle light, casting a dreamlike glow upon the exquisite murals adorning the walls—captivating to the eye.

The Elven Queen’s gaze slowly settled on one particularly strange oil painting: it depicted an angel, his right wing broken, bound in shackles. Judging by his appearance, the angel was no older than seven or eight in human years. His hair was soft and fine, the purest gold; his skin snowy white; his eyes large and supremely endearing.

The angel’s head was slightly raised—half his face bathed in light, innocence tinged with loneliness, while the other half was swallowed by darkness, his expression fervent and wicked. Most arresting of all was his back: the left side, half-covered, showed an unblemished wing, white as snow. On the fully exposed right, however, was a gruesome cavity, bloodied—some stains long dried, others seeming almost fresh, as if the metallic scent of blood still lingered.

The Elven Queen lingered before the mural, clearly captivated. Silos arched an eyebrow and asked if she would like to hear the story behind it. She nodded lightly, saying nothing, yet her beauty was unrivaled.

Shen Ce stood not far behind them, noting that though Silos stood before the Elven Queen, his own commanding presence was undiminished. Every movement was full of natural grace; even speaking with the Queen, he seemed no subordinate, but more noble than the nobleman before.

Silos caught Shen Ce’s gaze as he observed the two of them. Something stirred within Silos, and with a faint smile, he began to tell the story. To Shen Ce, it was a familiar tale: the tragedy of angel and demon, love begetting disaster.

The mural, it turned out, depicted an angel bearing a child with a demon—a child the world could not accept, with a left wing radiant and pure, and a right as dark as night. The angel feared the wrath of the heavens; besides her beloved, she fit neither in the divine nor the infernal realms. In the end, she secretly returned to the heavens, taking their child with her, hiding the truth from her lover.

To avoid the suspicious eyes of the heavens, the angel hardened her heart and cut off the child’s right wing, hoping to conceal her secret. Strangely, no matter how many times the child’s right wing was severed, the wound would heal itself, and a new, always pitch-black wing would grow in its place.

Undeterred, the angel destroyed the child’s right wing again and again, heedless of his pain. But the wing seemed determined to defy her—broken, it regrew, ever sinister and dark. Fear grew in the angel’s heart. She wept in secret countless times, and at last saw her own child as a monster, abandoning him at the borderland between heaven and hell, leaving his fate to the winds.

"And then?" the Elven Queen asked, her interest piqued, speaking in the human tongue.

"There is no then. The child likely died," Silos replied, his gaze distant, yet his eyes drifted past the Queen to Shen Ce, who met his look in brief confusion.

"What a pity, not to know the ending," sighed the Elven Queen, shaking her head with gentle regret.

"Your Majesty, it is not a pity," Silos replied with a graceful wave, switching to the most ancient dialect of the elven nobles. As he spoke, he cast a fleeting glance at Shen Ce, the curve of his lips deepening.

"You can speak such ancient elven?" The Elven Queen’s eyes widened in surprise, echoing the examiner’s reaction from before—clearly incredulous.

Silos nodded with a smile, and continued conversing with the Queen in elven. Their exchange was relaxed and lively, not like strangers at all, but rather old friends reuniting. Silos himself remained reserved, while the Queen more and more openly showed her admiration, evidently captivated by Silos’ breadth of knowledge.

As an observer, Shen Ce could only guess at the content of their conversation from the occasional word, but their topics seemed wide-ranging and boundless. He had no intention of prying further; to his eyes, Silos and the Elven Queen made a surprisingly fitting pair.

Suddenly, Shen Ce recalled Silos once asking him, "What do you think of falling for an NPC?" A thought stirred in his heart—was Silos suggesting that he should pursue an NPC himself? And could that NPC be none other than this dazzling Elven Queen?

He couldn’t help but remember Silos’ earlier claim that he liked women. The longer he considered it, the more convinced Shen Ce became that his guess was correct. All of this seemed to prove that Silos’ forceful kiss the other day had been no more than a joke. At this, Shen Ce felt an inexplicable sense of relief.

His head lowered slightly, Shen Ce’s usually cool gaze unconsciously softened. Lost in thought, he was suddenly cast into shadow by someone standing before him.

"What are you thinking?" A deep, melodious voice lingered at his ear, vast and open as a dawn-lit plain.

He didn’t need to look to know whose burning gaze he felt. Shen Ce glanced up, his eyes passing Silos to look forward—only to find that the Elven Queen had slipped away at some point, her attendants just visible at the far end of the corridor.

"Silos, do you want to pursue the Elven Queen?" Shen Ce frowned, then added after a moment, "If you do, you shouldn’t invest too much emotion."

"Why do you think that?" Silos looked at him with amused scrutiny, as if Shen Ce was forever searching for ways to avoid him.

"She’s an NPC, after all," Shen Ce replied, his voice rational and composed. That was truly how he felt—never one to linger over illusions, he always weighed consequences before acting. If he saw a cliff ahead, no matter how beautiful the scenery, he would not approach.

"Then let me tell you, you’re mistaken. I have no interest in the Elven Queen. But if I were to like someone—be they NPC or player—I would not rest until they were mine."

As he spoke, Silos’ smile faded to chill. "Tomorrow, the Elven Queen will attend a banquet at the palace. The day after, she’ll visit the royal library. We have to prepare."

The royal library had nine floors; the ninth, at the very top, held confidential records—most likely where the things Shen Ce and Silos sought could be found. But even the Elven Queen would not be taken to the uppermost floor, and for Shen Ce and Silos, mere attendants, there was even less hope.

Author’s note: Xiao Xuanyu threw a landmine at 2014-08-18 17:49:21. Xiao Xuanyu threw a rocket launcher at 2014-08-18 19:01:39. [Thank you Xiaoyi for the landmine and rocket launcher, sob sob, let me pounce on you!]

There’s an exam tomorrow—hoping to pass in one go. If I do, I’ll resume daily updates of 3,000 words!