Avalon, White Queen District.
It was a fairly plain building from the outside, more like a warehouse than a residence.
In fact, this was Lars Graham's Sculpture Studio.
He hunched over, a bone-white cane in hand, standing intently before a two-and-a-half-meter-tall stone statue whose upper body was nearly complete. He strained to lift his head and look at it.
White, translucent chisels and hammers kept appearing in the air, ringing out with crisp strikes. The dense barrage of blows brought the sound of a torrential downpour to mind. The old man made no visible movement, yet the statue was carved at astonishing speed, as if the video had been fast-forwarded.
—Lars Graham was already seventy-four years old this year.
The old man's eye sockets were deeply sunken, his eyelids purplish and shriveled, his darkened face covered in wrinkles. His fine, dull white curls had nearly all fallen out, leaving only a thin ring. Perhaps because of the lighting, the shadows in his murky brown pupils seemed slightly yellow. For Master Graham, merely raising his head—or even opening his eyes—was already an arduous task.
By now, the once-great master of art had grown old and emaciated, reduced to something like a thin shadow.
He was so frail that it seemed he might not wake again if he ever fell asleep.
He wore a silk robe whose elaborate patterns made it look as though he had wrapped himself in a Persian carpet. Dark yellow, black, and red formed its main colors, covered by countless intricate, dense patterns that dazzled the eye at a glance. Very few people could pull off such clothing. It was so magnificent that no matter how beautiful or handsome its wearer was, it would inevitably steal the spotlight.
But it suited Lars Graham perfectly.
His entire body resembled