"Come in."
The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a dark teal butler's uniform entered. His hair was meticulously combed, with some gray at the temples, and the wrinkles on his face looked carved by a knife, each one precise and distinct.
His back was straight, his steps steady, and his hands hung naturally at his sides. An unremarkable silver ring sat on his right ring finger.
He stopped before Nuoyaji and bowed slightly. The movement was small, but every detail showed the practiced courtesy peculiar to an old-fashioned noble household.
"Master Nuoyaji, the viscount requests your presence in his meeting room." The butler's voice was neither loud nor soft, as though he were stating something perfectly ordinary.
Nuoyaji nodded once and rose. He tucked the sealed letters on the desk into his robe, tightened the cap on the ink bottle, then washed the quill and returned it to its stand.
His movements were natural as he did these things, neither deliberately hurried nor intentionally slow. The butler waited at the door without urging him, never so much as casting another glance into the room.
As Nuoyaji left the room, he pulled the door closed behind him. The corridor was a little dimmer than the study. Magical sconces were set into the walls every few paces, their pale yellow halos spreading across the stone and bathing the entire corridor in warm, gentle light.
The flagstones beneath his feet had been worn smooth. As he walked, the soles of his boots made faint scraping sounds against the stone, like someone murmuring beside his ear.
He had changed his clothes.
Yesterday, he had worn that faded gray-blue apprentice robe, its edges frayed and its cuffs patched.
Today, he wore a pure white mage's robe without any unnecessary ornamentation from collar to hem, save for a simple ring of magical patterns embroidered in silver thread around the cuffs.
The robe was not made of ordinary cotton or linen, but a fabric that felt as smooth as silk, yet was much heavier-Luopu cloth.
Nuoyaji glanced down at his cuff. Beneath the magical sconces, the weave of the Luopu cloth gave off a faint, pearly sheen, as though a thin halo clung to its surface.
The fabric was made from a special plant that grew near mana veins. Its yield was extremely low, and its price extremely high.
Its main feature was not its beauty, but its usefulness-Luopu cloth had a natural affinity for mana. Casting spells while wearing it reduced mana expenditure by ten to twenty percent, a negligible benefit for high-ranking mages.
But for a magic apprentice like Nuoyaji, this outfit was worth as much as a miniature mana amplifier he could carry with him.
Viscount Heluos had given him the robe. More precisely, Yimulei had personally delivered it to his room yesterday, after Nuoyaji returned from transporting grain from Stone Watchtower Town.
At the time, Yimulei had said, "The viscount said you cannot meet the representatives of those merchant guilds dressed like that."
Nuoyaji had not declined. He needed the robe-not out of vanity, but for practical reasons. In the coming days, he would be traveling back and forth inside and outside Luoweida City, dealing with all sorts of people. A respectable mage's robe would save him a great deal of unnecessary talk.
Besides, it really was a fine robe.
Nuoyaji made an estimate in his head. A head-to-toe mage's robe made of Luopu cloth, with magical patterns embroidered on its cuffs, would fetch at least several hundred gold coins on the market.
The few imperial gold coins in his pocket, picked up from roadside ruins, would not even buy one sleeve.
This man, Heross...
Nuoyaji revised his mental picture of Luoweida City's lord. He had never dealt with Heross in his previous life and had scarcely any impression of him.
Among the Empire's many thousands of local lords, Heross belonged to the middle ranks, neither outstanding nor lagging behind-an unremarkable record, an unremarkable reputation, neither praised nor cursed.
If Luoweida's mines had not run into trouble, if the storm had not backed him into a corner, Nuoyaji might never have exchanged a single word with the man in this life.
Now he knew. To put it kindly, Heross was "conventional." To put it unkindly, he was "mediocre." He was neither a bully who went out of his way to harm others nor a good man who went out of his way to help them.
He was like a component installed in the position of lord. When the Empire's machine turned, he turned; when its gears stopped, he stopped. He would not ask, "Why should I do this?" He would only ask, "How can I do this well?"
Someone like that could do neither evil nor good. He merely lived, occupying that position for his entire life.
The meeting room was at the end of the corridor. Its oak door was wider than the others, fitted with brass handles and hinges polished to a bright shine.
The butler stopped before it, knocked lightly twice, then pushed it open and stepped aside.
Nuoyaji walked in.
The meeting room was a modest rectangular space, with a long table in the center. Dark green velvet covered the tabletop, and a silver water pitcher and several cups sat upon it.
Several oil paintings hung on the walls, depicting distant views of Luoweida City and scenes of labor at the mines. Their brushstrokes were bold and their colors intense, typical of the Empire's southern school of painting.
The window was set in the south wall. Sunlight streamed through it, casting a warm patch of light across the dark green velvet.
Viscount Heluos sat at one end of the long table, with Yimulei to his left.
Heross looked like a different man from yesterday. When Nuoyaji first met him in the study yesterday, his face had been sallow, his eyes ringed with darkness, and untidy stubble had sprouted on his chin. He had looked like a crop battered by a storm, drooping and barely alive.
Today, his face glowed with health, his hair was neatly combed, and his stubble had been cleanly shaved. He wore a brand-new dark blue formal suit with a gold viscount's badge pinned at the collar. He looked as though he had crawled out of a pile of corpses, taken a hot bath, and changed into fresh clothes-absurdly full of vigor.
Nuoyaji gave him a mental label. The man's moods swung wildly, depending entirely on how well things were going.
When things went well, he could be as happy as if it were New Year's; when things went badly, he could be as dispirited as a stray dog. Kindly put, he "wore his heart on his sleeve." Unkindly put, he "had no composure."
"Mr. Nuoyaji, come, come, sit!" Heross rose from his chair and waved warmly to Nuoyaji, his smile as radiant as a sunflower in full bloom.
Nuoyaji walked over and sat in the chair to Heross's right. Yimulei gave him a slight nod, and Nuoyaji returned it. There were no unnecessary pleasantries between them, nor did they need any.
They had dealt with each other countless times over the past thirty hours. From their initial probing and adjustments to their later cooperation and mutual understanding, they had reached the point where polite chatter was no longer needed to fill the air.
"Mr. Nuoyaji, you truly helped me... no, you helped all of Luoweida City..." Heross sat down and rested his hands on the table, interlacing his fingers. His sincerity made Nuoyaji somewhat uncomfortable. "Thank you, truly."
"It was nothing," Nuoyaji said. He disliked being thanked, and disliked listening to thanks. Gratitude was the cheapest reward and the heaviest burden.
The speaker had it easy, but the listener had to weigh the words-was he really just saying them casually? Was he hinting that you should leave? Was he substituting thanks for payment?
Nuoyaji had seen far too many people in his previous life who offered fine words but nothing tangible. He had long since developed an instinctive wariness of such openings.
He did not want to waste time on the subject.
"What did you want to see me about?" Nuoyaji asked. His tone was mild, but direct.
Heross's smile froze for less than half a second before returning to normal. He unlaced his fingers, picked up a folded document bearing a wax seal from the table, unfolded it, and placed it before Nuoyaji.
"Here's the situation." Heross tapped the document. "The duke sent a document. It says..."
He paused, as though weighing his words.
"He wants me to send someone to the western mines to inspect the damage there."
Nuoyaji's gaze fell on the document. Neat handwriting, standard formatting, stiff and formal wording-it was clearly not something Heross had written himself. The duke's staff had no shortage of people who specialized in writing such documents. They did not need to know what consequences the document would bring; they only needed to fill in the appropriate blanks according to the format, stamp it, and send it out.
"The western mines?" Nuoyaji frowned slightly. He rapidly searched the map of the southern Empire in his mind. The western mines lay west of Luoweida, beyond several mountains, at least several hundred li away.
That mining region did not fall under Heross's jurisdiction. It was not even within the duke's directly administered territory-the mines' ownership was complicated, shared among several minor nobles, with some shares held by merchant guilds and a portion belonging to the imperial authorities.
Why is the duke getting involved there? Nuoyaji asked himself. But he did not voice the question.
In this position, some questions could not be asked-not because asking would offend someone, but because once you asked, you were bound to it. While you knew nothing, you could stay out of it. Once you asked, you could no longer pretend not to know.
"But..." Nuoyaji looked up at Heross. "Why come to me about this?"
A trace of awkwardness crossed Heross's face. He glanced at Yimulei, who had his head lowered, staring at the velvet on the table as though he could decipher some heavenly secret in its patterns.
"Viscount," Nuoyaji spoke again when Heross remained silent, his tone even. "Since it's the duke's order, just carry it out."
Heross opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a deep breath, as though making some momentous decision, then finally spoke the words he had been holding back.
"But that's precisely the problem." His voice was quieter than before. "I'm terribly short-handed right now. I can't spare anyone."
Nuoyaji did not respond. He waited for Heross to continue.
"The mines need people, the grain routes need people, the city needs people to maintain order, relief supplies need escorts, documents from everywhere need handling..." Heross counted them off on his fingers, one by one.
As though trying to prove to Nuoyaji that he was not shirking, but truly had no one to spare, he said, "Yimulei has been working around the clock for three days without a wink of sleep, and so have I... Half the estate's guards have been sent out. There aren't even enough left to stand watch."
As he spoke, his voice grew quieter and his confidence dwindled. He knew these words sounded like he was shirking responsibility.
He did not want Nuoyaji to think him an incompetent good-for-nothing who could only complain, yet every sentence he uttered reinforced that impression.
Nuoyaji watched him without speaking.
At that moment, Heross did something that somewhat surprised Nuoyaji-instead of going on, he raised his head, looked Nuoyaji straight in the eyes, and spoke in an almost pleading tone. "Master Nuoyaji, I know how capable you are. Could you help me one more time?"
He paused, as though bolstering his courage.
"Whatever reward you want, you can choose it from my vault."
Nuoyaji fell silent for several seconds.
Heross's vault. Decades of accumulated wealth in the viscount's household: gold, silver, jewels, magical items, antiques, paintings, calligraphy, and all manner of strange collectibles.
Heross was the sort who liked to hoard things. He never spent extravagantly or indulged in wasteful luxuries, but when he saw something good, he would buy it, put it away, and then forget he had bought it.
Yimulei had told him that several things in the viscount's vault were items the man had never even known about. They might have been left by the previous viscount, or the one before that. In any case, Heross had never gone in to look.
Nuoyaji could not say, "Let me think." If he did, Heross would assume he was hesitating over whether to help, then raise his offer, trying to sway him with a higher price.
Nuoyaji did not need a higher price. He needed Heross's trust, and this was no longer a question of price.
"All right," Nuoyaji said.
He did not say, "There's no need to visit the vault." Nor did he say, "I'll help you without payment."
He merely made a quick calculation in his mind and reached a conclusion-he had to go. Not because of Heross's request, nor because of the duke's document, but because he needed to know what had happened at the western mines.
Nuoyaji reorganized the information he had in his mind.
Meweiro-that important figure-had appeared in Stone Watchtower Town, not far from Luoweida. She had asked what year he was born. She had not explained why she was there.
Now the duke's document had arrived, ordering Heross to send someone to inspect the damage at the western mines. Luoweida lay several hundred li from the western mines, with several city-states and territories between them. Yet the duke had ignored those nearer city-states and chosen Luoweida, the farthest away.
Either someone on the duke's staff had lost their mind, or the duke knew something was happening in Luoweida...
Nuoyaji was not sure which. But either way, he had to take a look.
He disliked being kept in the dark, disliked things happening quietly beyond his knowledge, and disliked discovering the truth only when it was already too late.
He wanted the initiative.
At Nuoyaji's answer, Heross's expression shifted from tension to relief, then to gratitude. He opened his mouth, about to say "thank you" again, but swallowed the words when he saw Nuoyaji's expression.
He had met far too many people not to know when to offer polite words and when to keep his mouth shut. Now was the time to keep quiet.
Pleasantries meant nothing to Nuoyaji and might even backfire. He did not need your thanks. He needed you to make the arrangements as quickly as possible and put everything that needed doing into action, one task at a time.
"Yimulei." Heross turned toward the adviser on his left.
Yimulei raised his head, shifting his gaze from the velvet on the table to Heross. There were pronounced dark circles beneath his eyes and bluish stubble on his chin, but his gaze was clear, like an oil lamp flickering in the wind, always on the verge of going out yet never extinguished.
"Take Mr. Nuoyaji to the vault," Heross said. "Give him whatever he wants."
Yimulei nodded and stood.
Nuoyaji rose as well. He said nothing more along the lines of "there's no need." This was no time for politeness, and there really were things he needed in the vault.
The two left the meeting room one after the other. The door closed gently behind them with a faint, muffled click.
The corridor was very quiet.
Yimulei walked ahead, with Nuoyaji following. Their footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, sounding like two people walking, yet also like four. The magical sconces on the stone walls flickered slightly as they passed, as though verifying their identities.
"Master Yimulei," Nuoyaji spoke.
Yimulei did not look back, merely tilting his head slightly to show that he was listening.
"I'd like to send another letter."