Whispering Verse

"Yes."

The angel smiled and nodded.

"Excuse me, why do you give me this gift? I am not unwilling to accept your gift, but what is the price of this gift?"

Shade wondered, the angel looked at him and the cat in his arms:

"There is no price, just to thank you for sacrificing yourself to save the earth. You had many choices, but you only chose the most difficult path."

"This is what I should do."

Shade then reached out and took the feather, and the Lady of the Lake explained:

"In addition to the divine characteristics, the power it contains can give you three chances to separate the two bonded souls again. As a wise man who has passed the test, you come to me to seek the answer. I know the answer but cannot tell you. , so please take this with you, it will help you."

"Allow me to express my gratitude again."

Shade bowed and thanked, and the lady in white robe holding the staff shook her head slightly:

"You will face more difficult tests next. I hope wisdom will guide you and find the ending that suits you best."

After returning to Tobesk, due to running back and forth, it was already noon that day, but Shade still didn't rest. After returning from Huntington City, he took Mia to Quill Street without stopping. Unfortunately, Dorothy was not here, so Shade missed the chance.

Fortunately, the landlady knew Dorothy's whereabouts. The woman wearing a wig told Shade that the blonde writer had gone to her actor friend in the north of the city. Shade had just been there with Lesia last night, so he knew where this place was.

However, when Shade was about to say goodbye to his landlady at the door of the apartment, the fat woman with brown eyes stopped Shade:

"Mr. Hamilton, please allow me to address you as such."

She grabbed the door frame, as if hesitating, but finally said:

"You are very famous in Tobesk, very famous. Those rumors about you and Duke Carina, and the rumors about you and Princess Lesia after the riding competition around the city... Dorothy is a good girl. .....”

Although his tone was hesitant, the brown eyes looking at Shade were very powerful.

Shade immediately understood what the other party wanted to say to him. He was very happy that Dorothy's landlord cared about her as much as she had said:

"Don't worry, I won't hurt Dorothy."

He hugged the cat with a stinking face and promised that Xiao Mia was not happy at this time, partly because Shade took it out all morning today, and partly because it was clearly lunch time and he had no intention of eating yet.

"I know what you're worried about. Yes, those tidbits about me are indeed... well, hard to describe."

He smiled to himself, and then said to the landlady:

"But I have never deceived Dorothy, and the writer lady can tell by herself whether I am lying. If I swear to you that I am not lying in the name of [Mr. Dawn], it would be too formal, so let's use this In the name of a cat, if I hurt Dorothy, let little Mia leave me."

"Meow~"

Hearing his name, the cat meowed, and a soft smile appeared on the landlady's face:

"Mr. Hamilton, you don't need to take it too seriously. It's just that I have known Louisa for too long. As a person who has been there, I feel that I should have the obligation to remind her of some things. To be honest, if you don't care about those rumors, just watch and talk to you. Your performance during the conversation was absolutely outstanding..."

Before she could finish speaking, a young man wearing a brown leather jacket, blue-gray overalls, and a black hat walked over to the two people at the door of the apartment.

It was not that Shade was unlucky enough to be assassinated again, nor did the other party want to rob him, but instead took out two pieces of paper and handed them to them respectively:

"The Pantanal region must be ours! Delarian's glory cannot be insulted!"

He said to the two of them seriously, and then continued to walk towards other pedestrians on the road.

They were two flyers printed with ink. The ink smell was very strong, but the layout was very professional. In addition to the printed frame and text of the flyer, there is also a purely hand-drawn Delarian coat of arms on the page. It is difficult to imagine how much work this requires.

As for the content on the flyer, it calls on citizens to boycott Kasenlik products, stand up and spurn Kasenlik culture together, and support border and trade negotiations in the Pantanal region.

Seeing Shade looking at the flyer in surprise, the landlady, who was probably in her forties, explained to him:

"You young people have probably never seen anything like this. When I was your age, there was less peace in Carsonlik and Delrayon. It's that time again, leaflets, public speeches, newspaper denunciations. , if you’re lucky, you might even be able to see the tourists on Silver Cross Avenue.”

She shook her head and sighed, looking at the flyer in her hand as if remembering the past:

"After 20 years of peace, I have almost forgotten these things."

"Is that someone from the city hall just now?"

Shade asked in a low voice. The landlady shook her head:

"Of course not, probably the students in the university area. Oh, Mr. Hamilton, this is not something that can be said publicly. We don't want to get ourselves into trouble. After the girls who rented my house tonight come back, I will You need to talk to them and don’t get involved in these things.”

She said goodbye to Shade and closed the door.

Shade was holding the cat and the paper in his hand and was about to leave, but when he turned around, he saw the young man who gave him the flyer twenty steps away, saying something to another passerby. And further away, on the bustling Quill Street, between the windows with clothes drying, flower pots, and sundries on both sides, there are other people doing the same thing in the crowd. . The patrol policemen carrying batons and resting under the gas street lamp at the intersection seemed not to have seen this scene.

The sunshine at noon in spring was obscured by thin mist, but it still felt warm when it shone on my body.

Although they had long known the meaning of the negotiations in the Green Lake area from different channels, the moment they turned around and saw this scene, the outsiders truly felt that the wheels of the times were turning again.

He saw the carriage moving forward quickly, but he didn't know what he could do.

Next, Shade took a carriage from Quill Street to Psalm Square in Beicheng District, then got off at the entrance of the Three Cats Hotel, and then walked more than a hundred meters to the entrance of last night's theater. However, there was no performance going on in the theater at noon, and the conductor Shade and Lesia saw last night was yawning and wiping the table at the door.

He seemed to have just woken up and was lost in the lake. Seeing Shade coming over, the young conductor said to him:

"Sir, the afternoon show starts at half past two, and the actors also need to have lunch and rest."

"Meow~"

Little Mia also wanted to have lunch and rest.

"I'm not here to see a show, I'm here to see people."

Shade then said, worried that the other party would not let him in.

"Find someone?"

The young man holding the rag looked him up and down:

"You look familiar...Forget it, I can find someone. I'll pay the ticket price, 4p. Do you need change?"

"But I'm not here to see a show."

“But you have to pay the entrance fee to get in.”

The young man insisted, but did not stop wiping the table:

"Otherwise, if I let anyone in who comes looking for someone, will the theater still be open?"

What he said does make sense, and it is indeed wrong to let people in arbitrarily. But the problem is that although Shade doesn't care about 4 pence, he is not willing to spend money in vain:

"I am a friend of Miss Dorothy Louisa. Why don't you go call her? Or, I can climb over the wall to find her myself, and then let your theater director scold you?"

He made his suggestion, and the conductor cleaning the table immediately hesitated, genuinely worried that he was a friend of one of the theater's major patrons.

While he was hesitating, little Mia, who was already fed up, jumped out of Shade's arms and entered the theater through the crack in the door before he could react.

Shade immediately wanted to catch up, but stopped after thinking about it. Sure enough, after a while, Dorothy came out holding the cat that seemed to have been wronged. Today, the writer was wearing a black gauze skirt, with a knitted artificial flower pinned to the left side of the white belt. The red butterfly pendant in the flower is the sage-level relic that Shade gave them.

"Shadow, did you forget to feed the cat? Look at it like this."

asked the blonde, and the poor cat immediately meowed, then escaped from her arms and jumped onto the table, gesturing for Shade to hold it.

Now that Dorothy is out, Shade can go in without paying a ticket. Dorothy heard that Shad and Mia had not had lunch yet, so she planned to go with them to meet her friends at the theater, and then take them to the Three Cats Inn for lunch.

"I met the members of the Jasmine Troupe three or four years ago. It's really interesting to think about it now. Their performances helped me a lot in my writing."

Dorothy said with a smile, leading Shade through the now empty outdoor auditorium, through the low wall that separated the auditorium and the backstage, and into the rear courtyard.

On the left side of the open-air backstage is a short white building for theater members, which is exactly the same as the one behind the auditorium. At this time, there were three people standing scattered in the yard, repairing the stage facilities, and the sound of intense conversation came from the door that was not closed:

"Absolutely not. Why should we give up performing Kasenrik's plays and operas? Last night's "The Lovers of the Belfry" was also Kasenrik's ancient folk fairy tale, but the audience didn't say anything."

This is a woman's voice.

"Marian, we are not trying to prevent the audience from saying anything, but we are trying to prevent... We all want the troupe to survive, and some things are necessary. I know you advocate artistic freedom, but in times like this, We can't cause trouble for ourselves. It's just that in the past month or two, when the negotiations in the Green Lake area have a result..."

This was a man's voice, but before he finished speaking, he stopped because Shade and Dorothy entered the door.