The next morning, Zhou Beichen, sporting two heavy dark circles, cornered Lavoisier in the administrative center corridor.
The old priest was clutching a stack of documents at least twice as thick as usual. He hurried along with deep-set eyes, looking as though he had become twenty years younger overnight, brimming with inexhaustible energy and... some kind of resolute sense of mission.
"Priest Lavoisier." Zhou Beichen stepped forward, his throat a little dry as he tried to organize his words. "I... about what happened last night, it was actually..."
Before he could finish, Lavoisier stopped and turned to him. With an expression that mixed understanding, sorrow, admiration, and even a trace of pity, he shook his head heavily, freed one hand, and gave Zhou Beichen's shoulder a forceful pat.
"Chaplain Zhou, there is no need to say more." Lavoisier's voice was unusually firm. "I understand."
That look, that tone—so heavy that Zhou Beichen's heart sank.
"No, Lavoisier, listen to me. It's not what you think..." Zhou Beichen tried to struggle. If this misunderstanding became accepted fact, he would never be able to clear his name.
Lavoisier shook his head again and cut him off, the tragic air in his eyes growing even stronger.
"I know," he repeated, his voice full of weary understanding. "You... have suffered. For Earthly Heaven, you have borne too much."
Zhou Beichen: "..."
He didn't know shit! the protagonist screamed inwardly. A suffocating knot of frustration lodged in his chest, unable to rise or fall.
Looking at Lavoisier's expression, he felt that even if he dragged the Emperor over here for a face-to-face confrontation, it would be useless.
Seeing Zhou Beichen's aggrieved expression—which he automatically interpreted as humiliating pain too difficult to speak of—Lavoisier said no more. He merely gave Zhou Beichen's shoulder another heavy pat. Then