238 I am Ashamed (2/2)

”Now, this is no longer about my personal defamation, but an unprecedented scandal for the Royal Academy of Music. Our academy has followed a glorious and serious guidance for five-hundred years, but nothing like this has ever happened! Abraham, do you bear to ruin the school for your own desires?!”

The conference room was silent.

Abraham continued to sit in silence. Though he looked forward, his eyes did not focus on anything, as if he was looking into another world. As always, he did not fit in, as if he was participating in something that did not pertain to him. He could not understand and did not want to participate—he was just standing outside the crowd, gazing in from afar.

They could talk and he would continue on. He seemed slow but his attitude was so arrogant it made one annoyed of him involuntarily. How could someone like him be here?

”It seems that you’re determined to report to the Musician’s Union,” Ingmar gritted out coldly from between his teeth. ”I advise you to stop daydreaming. Do you really think they’ll care about your unfounded tomfoolery? Your two troublesome students have probably already been kicked out!” He paused, coldness flashing past his eyes. ”Abraham, you can still turn back now before it’s too late! Otherwise, the school board will not overlook what you’ve done for the academy’s reputation…Don’t forget your status, Abraham! If the academy could save you from Tower Green, it can send you back too!”

Tower Green…A chilly wind seemed to suddenly blow through the conference room. Everyone felt the temperature drop and tensed involuntarily. This time, the school board was going for blood.

If anything else happened next, Abraham, a classified criminal vouched for by the principal, would be sent to the military’s jail and never see the sun again. This was a tower built four-hundred years ago on a barren island to the side of Avalon.

Countless criminal musicians had spent their last moments in this tower and had died in the gallows, or behind the bars of the underground prison. There had been no wails or howls for centuries, only the waves of the sobbing sea.

Perhaps this was his final destination.

Abraham suddenly looked up as if he had woken up from his daydream and finally reacted. Ingmar chuckled coldly as if sensing his fear.

”It’s not too late for regret now, Abraham. Your students are the same as you, but there’s no need to make them end up like you, right? The academy has given you all too much freedom. Otherwise, this wouldn’t happen! Especially that Easterner who doesn’t know good from bad and acts so evilly. He even went to the Musician’s Union to defame me…”

”Yezi is a good child,” Abraham interrupted him. His voice was neither angry nor panicked; it was calm as if stating a fact.

This was his first response and Ingmar could not react quickly. Under everyone’s suspicious eyes, Abraham thought throw his words and earnestly repeated, ”Yezi is a good child. He never lies.”

Ingmar’s expression instantly stiffened and darkened considerably. ”What do you mean?”

”I mean that if he says you plagiarized, then you most likely plagiarized.” Abraham gazed at him and said slowly and earnestly, ”In the end, it’s just some handwritten notes. It’s not worth my worry if someone takes them, but please do not insult my students because they all work hard.”

Abraham pushed himself up from the table and gazed around the silent conference room, looking at the stunned and perplexed expressions. He spoke for the first time before them, ”As you all have said, I am a quickly made non-mainstream musician. I’ve had no accomplishments in my entire life and now that I’ve aged, I can just wait for my time to be up. To be honest, the history department has survived because of my kids’ hard work. I am ashamed to be their teacher.” His voice resounded heavily like a steel plate pounding into stone. It held unwavering calmness and persistence.

”They’ve put in a lot for the music history department, much more than me. Therefore, I’ll believe and support them, no matter what decision they make, even if I must be imprisoned in Tower Green again. Otherwise, I won’t even have the qualifications to be their teacher.”

Finished, he nodded slightly to show his politeness and turned to leave. However, he suddenly hit his head just as he reached the door and turned back awkwardly. Coming back, he pulled a notification letter from his pocket and handed it to Ingmar. ”Oh right, I actually came to the meeting to give this to you.”

Ingmar froze and looked down. When he saw the wax seal and letterhead of the Musician’s Union, his expression changed as if he had seen a ghost; his face lost all color.

This was the notification from the Musician’s Union for him to attend the academic appraisal in ten days.

”You…you…” Ingmar’s arm shook as he pointed at Abraham, tongue-tied. ”Why would the Musician’s Union tell…clearly…”

Abraham did not mind him. He just looked at everyone else and said quietly, ”To be honest, I’m a wooden man. I don’t understand atmospheres or rules. The only thing I’m good at is the military’s straightforward way of speaking. I really don’t understand why all of you like sitting here and talking about things without meaning. But the Musician’s Union’s appraisal might be a good thing. It’ll at least be simpler and everyone will believe the result.

”If anyone still doubts the results of their appraisal after all this, why don’t we use the military’s rule and have a fight to the death?”

He said ”fight to the death” as if it was something like eating and drinking, but his expression was extremely serious. Eating and drinking were things important to life as well and deserved to be treated seriously.

A fight to the death should be the same as eating and drinking—at least, that was how Abraham saw it.

Now, those people finally remembered…the wooden old man before them was once a Dragon Rider. He still contained the bloody and deathly aura of the battlefield. He did not belong here and did not know what they were good at it, so he was dull and silent, slowly getting used to their rules. Now, he did not want to play with them anymore. He was going to act seriously.

For his students, he did not even care about himself anymore. What could they do to him? It did not matter what methods they would use—bring it on!

This time, he would not step back again.