Blade and Poetry

The interrogation took far longer than I expected.Lane came in at a fixed time each day, brought a log book of new questions he had received, and left in half an hour.Everything in the restricted area on the eighth floor was very peaceful, I only heard a faint arguing at the door on the tenth day.I sneaked closer, and one of them seemed to be Odd's voice.Someone told him to leave further away, and his voice sounded near my door.

"I was one of his assistants," Ord said.

I don't know how he got the key card of the restricted area, pinpointed or deduced my location.

The person farther away seemed to be approaching, and his voice was a little harsher, as if warning, while Ord was still delaying time.

I took a few steps around the house.I wanted Ode to convey that I was fine, but I was worried that the person outside would be suspicious of him, so I had a crooked idea, pretending that I was reciting poems with a surge of emotion.

"My sun!" I invented aloud, full of emotion, "thy light cannot burn my approaching wings! I--I wait in sleep, and fly thousands of miles between waking, for my restlessness, never-- Far - can't breathe!"

I leaned against the wall at the door, bent over and suppressed a smile, my face seemed to have been scorched by the sun.

Odd's voice seemed to be stuck for a moment, and he continued to refute the man fluently.At the same time, I saw a flat corner of something white squeezed into the small gap at the bottom of the door leaf, and I quickly reached out to whip it.

It was probably pushed in with someone's heel, and there is still a faint shoe print on it.I murmured "a waste of money", picked it up and looked at it, and found that it was a folded paper bird.The wings are particularly delicately folded, but perhaps "structurally balanced," in Ord's words.

Odd's pace gradually receded.I went back to my chair, pinched the paper bird again, and suddenly felt that it had an unusual thickness in one place.

I picked the inside of the small opening with my fingertips, and I did pull out a stack of thin rolls of paper. I opened it, and there was Aude's handwriting on it.

"If you want to use it to safely jump down from the city of Yuzhen, there is no problem this time. And: what's the matter with you?"

I thought of the entrustment I made to Ode to improve the paper bird, and my heart was immersed in a warm current.

In the "sleep room" on the eighth floor, the paper bird was useless.Similarly, I can't use magic power to find out where Odd's paper bird has been improved, but I can only see that there are some minor changes in its folding method.But it awakened my enthusiasm in a certain way; I began to think about the influence of magweave structure on functional changes again.When I couldn't think of anything, I even started to think about how to repair the broken magic circle on the roof of the building. A set of ideas matured in my mind-after all, there are too few things within my reach, so I can only Make a fuss about thinking.

I have been out of contact with the outside world for a long time, and the only person I see every day is Ryan. Other than that, the new thing is the three meals with various patterns.At eight o'clock, twelve o'clock, and four o'clock every day, the bedside table will split from the middle with the drawer, and a tray full of food will pop out, and it will automatically close before I can see the opening below, returning to a normal state The shape of the bedside table.

House arrest took longer than I thought it would, and the worst moments of my life were when I almost wanted to beat the boredom by betting on the recipe for my next meal.

Ryan assured me that the Magic Society wanted to treat me preferentially, and his entrustment to him was "peaceful guidance, so that the interrogated can relax."He said that he could try his best to meet my requirements, except for bringing books.

"Books are more sensitive at this time," Lane said. "Anything else is fine."

Indeed.The quality of my three meals was improved again after a certain conversation, which included desserts with chocolate.Besides that, he even agreed to bring me flowers - I begged him to bring me a bouquet of Charons so I could put them in a vase on a glass table.He did bring them the next day, a bouquet of Charon in beautiful bloom.So he took the withered blue flower that was in its place, and he said he would throw it away; if he couldn't throw it away, he would put it in his book.

He also brought me many word of mouth news.After half an hour every day, there is actually nothing new, and the questions issued have become similar and the same.Occasionally there are very weird ones, and it doesn't take as long as half an hour.Under normal circumstances, after finishing the notes, he would tell me about the outside news or some interesting anecdotes, and he followed the instructions to relax me quite seriously.

One day he told me at the end of the conversation: the war broke out on the north-west border of Golondu, Puguo had broken the peace treaty and formally declared war on Golundunan, and officially sent the first army on August [-]th to Marching into Stone City in the name of vengeance.India, Saudi Arabia and Atlanta, two neighboring small countries with weak military strength, are not to be ignored; they are both located along the west line of Columbus and distributed under Puguo, and they have already had conflicts with Columbus in the political agreement. , may have formed an alliance with Pu.

Perhaps it was because the news was relayed orally by Ryan, or because the flames of war had not yet reached Hoftas on the western border of Galendonan, when this shocking piece of news reached my ears, it seemed to have become Flat and distant.

Ryan asked me, "Do you still want to join the Vanguard?"

I told him, "I should have missed my enlistment."

"It's never too late," he said, "whether it's enlistment or the justice you're waiting for. I promise you."

I asked him in turn if he wanted to join the army and fight against Puguo together.To my surprise, he actually told me that he had resigned from his post as professor of magic in the inner courtyard, and currently he only brought a few assistants to do research in the inner courtyard.Hoftas is too close to the western front, and there are very few great magisters. If magic needs him, he will go to join the army; after all, he is not entirely a theoretical school of magic.

"For me, my social role overrides my private role," he said.

I learned from him a few days later that the battle in Stone City was still at a stalemate.If I am not released by September, the Magic will probably transfer me to another place.At this time, the question in the record book was far removed from my trip to Puguo, and he asked Karajan again one day.

"I want to ask you a question." Holding a pen, he smiled helplessly at me.

There is already tea on our table, which Ryan asked the eighth floor to prepare in the name of "dry mouth".I looked at my tea today and found that there were more dried flowers at the bottom of the cup today.

"I seem to have a premonition." I said to him.

"Yes," he said, "Alvin Karajan."

"I thought I had already said all the good things about him in the previous interrogation." I took a sip of my tea and said.

"Your creativity is never exhausted," Lane said, "and I have to write something down. This time it can not start with a direct description of him-it can be about your feelings for him."

I was going to say, "This happens to be an opportunity to test the creativity of the scribe."

But after thinking about it, this question is very easy to answer, so I deliberately replied a little tricky: "I love him very much."

I expected Ryan to be amazed by this candor, but instead he acted as if he already knew it.

"Ah, is there a specific reference to love here?" Ryan joked, "Teacher-student romance in the academy is against school rules."

This time it was me choking; I felt as if I had accidentally swallowed a dried flower in the tea.

Lane wrote something in the notebook, and very understandingly did not pursue it, but continued to tease me.

"If you love someone and you can't tell him," he said solemnly, "you can say to him: 'Would you like to go with me to the port of Arcapolis?'"

"What allusion is this?" I said. "A play? A novel?"

He looked at his pocket watch—a gesture I can now catch.

"Story time?"

"Story time." He said, "This allusion actually comes from the legend of my hometown. I went back to Erdi City once this year, and there was a hut beside the port where the boatman I knew was still there, but Getting old. A long time ago the port was called the Port of Naples, and now it's changed."

I couldn't help urging him to tell it quickly, but he said the story was really short.

"It is said that at that time, a girl fell in love with a sailor; he was a young man full of vigor, handsome and cheerful, and he danced the best dance in the blessing festival every year, and the girl was attracted by just seeing him So every time she saw the sailors off at the port of Arcapolis when they sailed, and greeted them from afar when they returned. She looked at the man she loved deeply and wanted to express her heart.

"But there are so many sailors, and they are at sea all day long; and no one but herself knows which one she sent off for.

"She wasted for several years, and before she had time to muster up her courage, the sailor lost her voice at sea. This time, others understood who she loved, and she would not listen to anyone who tried to persuade her. She was not in Aka. Les Port has been standing, turned into a handful of skinny bones, turned into ashes, turned into a stone of the port. According to posterity, she couldn't get married with the one she loved, so she gave all her lovers Blessing: As long as lovers who berth in the port of Arcapolis, they will never be separated from now on.

"She also told the world not to waste time like her, but said to her sweetheart early: 'Would you like to go to the port of Arcapolis with me?' That person will understand."

I looked at the water in the two teacups and thought: If I tell this to others, will he also understand the deep meaning?

It was only when I realized that the story was over that I belatedly came to my senses and sighed: "No matter how many missing parts in logic, folklore always has its charm."

Ryan smiled and said nothing, signaled to me that it was time, and started to pack things by himself.

"The stars will be bright tonight," he said before leaving.

"Yes," I said, "I think some particular constellation is moving near here, and I don't know astronomy—too bad I can't open the windows. The ventilation here is only passable."

"Would you really like to see it that way?" he asked.

"Yes," I looked at the scenery outside the window, "very much."

He withdrew his hand from the door.

He said to me: "This window in your house is not closed by a key - it is controlled from the outside. I will request it to be opened for ten minutes, between eight and eight ten in the evening. Mark that. "

I was so pleasantly surprised that my heart flew out the window almost immediately: "Thank you, Mr. Lane!"

"It's okay." He winked at me, and said as before, "everything will be fine."