Chapter 345: I Killed Someone Today
"Come to think of it… It’s been a while since I last saw Silver.” Standing in the familiar field of irises, gazing at the tower tree, Lin Jie rubbed the ring on his finger and muttered to himself.
It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to have pleasant chats with a beautiful member of the fairer s.e.x everyday, but Lin Jie had many more things to do in recent times than before, especially with the management and operations of the book cafe.
While it seemed like he had been slacking, Mu’en had to learn everything from scratch. She could use common sense or pick up simple skills very quickly, but for complicated business operations like ‘running a book cafe’, Mu’en had to understand the relevant knowledge first, then spend more time to understand it.
Currently, Mu’en was more used to following orders and carrying them out meticulously. If she was let to do things on her own, Mu’en would spend a long time at a loss… Thus, Lin Jie had to make the arrangements himself.
With things to do in the day, he wanted to sleep normally at night.
Well, that wasn"t actually the main reason either.
The real reason was that Silver had been away a lot recently…
That"s right. Lin Jie hadn’t been able to find Silver at all after he re-entered this dream realm later on and could only stare blankly at the irises and falling snow for consecutive days.
After a couple more times, Lin Jie was no longer that obsessed with chatting with her every night.
This was clearly Silver"s dream, but he often couldn"t often see her in person, which puzzled Lin Jie.
However, every time Silver reappeared and Lin Jie tried to ask about it, the former would always reveal a sly smile and put a finger to her lips, saying things like “it’s a secret”, “you’ll know in time”, and “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I speak about it in advance”.
So be it… Lin Jie pursed his lips. He was somewhat tired of this tantalizing mystery.
However, even if he knew that it was all done on purpose, he didn’t choose to get to the bottom of it.
After all, if it were a man teasing him like this, the process might be sort of disgusting and Lin Jie would definitely want a stop to it immediately. But when it was a cute lady teasing him in this manner, it couldn’t be considered stupid. More like… fun.
In short, the combination of these two reasons resulted in Lin Jie seeing little of Silver during this period of time.
Lin Jie strolled over to the spot under the tree. As expected, it was still empty.
Only the bench he had created previously still stood amongst the flowers. It had been kept since then, but it was littered with petals, having not been used by anyone for quite some time.
Lin Jie reached out and patted off the petals and snow on the bench before taking a seat. Then, he took out the journal from Earth as well as the information about the Lower District that Andrew had provided.
These days, even if he could not see Silver, he would still come into this dream realm to admire the scenery while doing some of his own stuff.
Thanks to Andrew, Lin Jie had quite a decent understanding of Norzin’s Lower District.
Compared to the notebook, many doubts he had about that place were all solved.
Andrew seems to like the cafe’s pearl milk tea and has bought quite a bit for takeaways. I should give him a few free cups the next time he visits… With that thought in mind, Lin Jie went through a final round of sorting out his notes.
The most important points in the journal were the words and structural drawings drawn by the owner, as well as the ‘gate’ that was described.
After Lin Jie made a careful comparison, he confirmed that the copied drawings matched the architectural style of buildings excavated in the Lower Distract ruins.
Most of the misshapen text uncovered was in the language of the Elven Kingdom of Alfords from the Second Era, but it wasn’t the orthodox Elven language that Lin Jie had gained from Candela.
And after changes over time, this became the language used by some vestigial clans after the destruction of Alfords.
According to information provided by Andrew—or more aptly put, myths—after losing the protection of the last Elven King, Candela, during the period without light and fire, those vestigial clans split into several branches.
The largest of them kept on defending the capital, but their territory shrank endlessly under the invasion of the darkness and eventually fell.
The entire imperial capital turned into ruins and became a nest where the darkness grew.
Those characters written in the journal… were also what the journal’s owner had written down when he claimed to be ‘overflowing with inspiration’ and were all characters in the language of the vestigial clans.
Therefore, it could be concluded that the archeological team led by Professor Lin was mostly in the ruins of the royal capital of the ancient Alfords Kingdom. Also, the unknown monster that attacked them and caused them all sorts of confusion was probably the ‘darkness’ that the elves mentioned.
The gate they found was probably the entrance to this royal capital, but for some reason this gate actually connected Earth and Azir…
Surely there’s some sort of trigger... The archaeological project existed for only a few months, and the whole ruins seemed to be fixed there. It"s not a simple overlap of time and s.p.a.ce, is it?
Lin Jie clasped his chin and shook his head, feeling that it was a pity. Had he still been on Earth, investigating it would be easy. However, he was on the other side of the gate now, and that would be difficult to find.
Fortunately, the Truth Union had control of the Upper District’s entrance to the Lower District, and it was the organization in Norzin that knew the most about that area. With Lin Jie"s current relationship with Andrew, perhaps it wouldn’t be a problem for him to enter the Lower District. However, he would have to rely on himself if he wanted to find the ruins.
Andrew also gave him a detailed map of the Lower District. However, it was only limited to the safe area for human activity there. The ruins were in unexplored regions thus far, which was why there were many explorers and scholars approved by the Truth Union there to investigate.
And this journal was probably brought up to the Upper District because of this.
"Alright, when Mu’en can properly take over the bookstore, I’ll be able to head to the Lower District to search for clues related to this journal…” Lin Jie put away his notes, stretched, and sighed.
He leaned back and observed this beautiful, empty white world.
Incidentally, this was the first time he had stayed for so long in this Silver-less dream realm for so long.
Lin Jie couldn’t help but imagine how Silver had stayed under this tree day after day, year after year, watching this eternal scenery and wandering around this flowerbed in a daze before he had come…
It was really lonely indeed.
For her, having this friend in Lin Jie seemed to be the only difference in color to this entire world.
The corners of Lin Jie’s lips curled upward as he adjusted his posture and closed his eyes to rest on the bench.
Just as she was about to fall asleep, he felt a tinge of coldness on his forehead.
Snow? Lin Jie opened his eyes in slight bewilderment. Cold and slender fingers were covering his eyes as a familiar voice sounded from behind him. “It’s been awhile.”
Lin Jie smiled and whispered, "I killed someone today."