"Yes."
The angel smiled and nodded.
"May I ask why you are giving me this gift? I am not unwilling to accept your gift, but what is the price of this gift?"
Shade wondered, and the angel looked at him and the cat in his arms:
"No price, just to thank you for sacrificing yourself to save the earth. You had many choices, but you chose the most difficult one."
“This is what I should do.”
Shade then reached out and took the feather, and the Lady of the Lake explained:
"In addition to its sacred properties, the power it contains can give you three chances to separate two bonded souls again. As a wise man who has passed the test, you come to me for the answer. I know the answer but cannot tell you, so please take this away. It will help you."
"Please allow me to express my gratitude again."
Xia De bowed and thanked him. 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 help you find the best ending for you."
After returning to Tobesk, it was already noon because of the rush back and forth, but Shad still did not rest. After returning from Huntington City, he took Mia to Quill Pen Street without stopping, but unfortunately Dorothy was not there, so Shad came to nothing.
Fortunately, the landlady knew Dorothy's whereabouts, and the woman wearing a wig told Shad that the blonde writer had gone to her actor friend in the north of the city. Shad had been there with Leicia last night, so he knew where this place was.
However, when Xia De was about to say goodbye to the landlady at the door of the apartment, the fat woman with brown eyes called Xia De:
"Mr. Hamilton, if you will allow me to address you as such."
She grasped the door frame, as if she was hesitating, but finally said:
"You are very famous in Tobesk. The rumors about you and Duke Carina, and the rumors about you and Princess Leicia after the Tournament... Dorothy is a good girl..."
Although his tone was hesitant, the brown eyes he looked at Shade were very powerful.
Shad knew immediately what the other party wanted to say to him, and he was glad that Dorothy's landlord cared about her as much as she had said:
"Don't worry, I won't hurt Dorothy."
He assured the cat while holding its sullen face. Xiaomia was unhappy at the moment, on the one hand because Xia De had taken it out for the whole morning, and on the other hand because it was clearly lunchtime but he had no intention of going to eat.
"I know what you're worried about. Yes, those gossips about me are indeed a bit... well, hard to describe."
He even smiled to himself, and then said to the landlady:
"But I have never lied to Dorothy, and the writer can tell for herself whether I am lying or not. If I swear to you in the name of Mr. Dawn that I am not lying, it would be too formal. So, in the name of this cat, if I have hurt Dorothy, let Little Mia leave me."
"Meow~"
Hearing its name, the cat meowed, and a gentle smile appeared on the landlady's face:
"Mr. Hamilton, you don't have to take it too seriously. It's just that I've known Louisa for too long. As someone who has been through this, I feel that I have an obligation to remind her of certain things. To be honest, if you ignore those rumors and only look at your performance when talking to me, you are absolutely outstanding..."
Before she finished speaking, a young man wearing a brown leather jacket, blue-gray overalls, and a black hat walked towards the two people at the door of the apartment.
It wasn't that Xia De was unlucky enough to be assassinated again, and the other party didn't want to rob them. Instead, he took out two pieces of paper and handed them to them respectively:
"The Pantanal region must be ours! The glory of Delarion cannot be insulted!"
He spoke to the two of them very seriously, and then continued to walk towards the other pedestrians on the road.
Those were two flyers printed with ink, with a strong smell of ink, but the layout was very professional. In addition to the printed flyer borders and text, there was also a hand-painted Delarion emblem on the paper pages. It was hard to imagine how much work it took.
As for the content of the leaflets, it calls on citizens to boycott Kasenrik products, stand up and reject Kasenrik culture, and support border and trade negotiations on the Pantanal region.
Seeing Xia De looking at the flyer in surprise, the landlady, who was probably in her forties, explained to him:
"You young people probably haven't seen anything like this. When I was your age, Carsenrick and Dlarion weren't as peaceful as they are now. It's time again. Leaflets, public speeches, newspaper condemnations, and if you're lucky, you might even see a parade on Silver Cross Avenue."
She shook her head and sighed, looking at the flyer in her hand, as if recalling the past:
"After 20 years of peace, I almost forgot about these things."
"Was that someone from the City Hall just now?"
Xia De asked in a low voice, and the landlady shook her head:
"Of course not. Probably students from the university district. Oh, Mr. Hamilton, this is not something that can be discussed publicly. We don't want to cause trouble for ourselves. When the girls who rent my house come back tonight, I will talk to them and tell them not to get involved in these things."
She said goodbye to Shad and closed the door.
Xia De was about to leave with the cat and the paper in his hand, but when he turned around, he saw the young man who had given him the flyer was talking to another passerby twenty steps away. And farther away, on the busy Quill Pen Street, between the windows on both sides where clothes were hung to dry, flower pots were placed, and sundries were placed, there were other people doing the same thing in the crowd. The patrol officers holding batons and resting under the gas street lamps at the intersection seemed not to see this scene.
The spring noon sunshine is covered by a thin mist, but it still feels warm when it shines on your body.
Although they had already learned from different channels what the negotiations in the Green Lake area meant, the moment they turned around and saw this scene, they truly felt that the wheel of time was turning again.
He saw the carriage moving quickly forward, but he didn't know what he could do.
Next, Shade took a carriage from Quill Pen Street to the Anthem Square in the North City, and got off at the Three Cats Inn. He then walked more than a hundred meters to the theater where he had been last night. However, at noon, there were no performances going on in the theater, and the ticket seller that Shade and Lecia had seen last night was yawning and wiping the table at the door.
He looked like he had just woken up, and was in a daze. When he saw Xia De coming over, the young ticket seller said to him:
"Sir, the afternoon performance starts at 2:30, 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 find someone."
Xia De then said that he was worried that the other party would not let him in.
"Looking for someone?"
The young man holding the rag looked at him:
"You look familiar... Never mind. I can find someone else. Please pay for the ticket. It's 4p. Do you need change?"
“But I’m not here for a show.”
“But you have to pay the entrance fee to get in.”
The young man insisted, without stopping to wipe the table:
"Otherwise, if I let anyone in who comes looking for someone, will the theater still be able to operate?"
What he said was indeed reasonable, and it was wrong to let anyone in at will. But the problem was that although Shad didn't care about the 4pence, he was not willing to waste money:
"I'm a friend of Miss Dorothy Louisa. Why don't you go and call her? Or, I can climb over the wall to find her myself and let your theater director scold you?"
He made his suggestion, and the ticket seller who was cleaning the tables immediately hesitated, genuinely worried that the other party was a friend of one of the theater's major sponsors.
While he was hesitating, the annoyed little Mia suddenly jumped out of Shade's arms and entered the theater through the crack in the door before he could react.
Shade wanted to chase after them immediately, but stopped after a moment's thought. 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 on the left side of her white belt. The red butterfly pendant in the artificial flower was the sage-level relic that Shade gave them.
"Shad, did you forget to feed the cat? Look at the cat."
the blonde asked, and the pitiful cat immediately meowed, then broke free from her arms and jumped onto the table, motioning for Shad to hold it.
Since Dorothy was out, Shad could go in without paying for the ticket. Dorothy heard that Shad and Mia had not had lunch yet, so she decided to go with them to meet her friends at the theater and then take them to the Three Cats Inn for lunch.
"I first met the members of the Jasmine Theatre Company three or four years ago. It's really interesting to think about it now. Their performances have been a great help to my writing."
Dorothy said with a smile, leading Shad through the now empty open-air auditorium, through the low wall that separated the auditorium from the backstage, and into the courtyard at the back.
On the left side of the open-air backstage was a low white building for the troupe members, exactly the same as the one behind the auditorium. At this time, three people were standing scattered in the yard, repairing the stage facilities, and from the open door, there was a heated conversation:
"Absolutely not. Why should we give up performing Carsenrick's plays and operas? Last night's "Bell Tower Lovers" was also an ancient folk fairy tale of Carsenrick, 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 to prevent... We all want the troupe to survive, and some things are necessary. I know you advocate artistic freedom, but at this time of year, we can't cause trouble for ourselves. It's just that in the next one or two months, when the negotiations in the Green Lake area come to a conclusion..."
This was the voice of a man, but he did not finish his words because Shad and Dorothy came in.