412 Afternoon Tea (2/2)
”He's so old now. He's at the age to die.” Wheelchair Guy smacked his lips. ”We've been neighbors for all these years. No one's had it easy.”
”He was at the age to die eighty years ago.” Bald Guy opened the magazine again. Burying his face in it, he said indifferently, ”The undying old guy is going to die, what a pity. You should convince him to just confess. Maybe the Sacred City will feel merciful and get him a prostitute to send him off.”
”Nah.” Wheelchair Guy shook his head. ”That secret could be exchanged for three cities eighty years ago. Now you want him to exchange it for a prostitute? If I tell him, he'd probably bite me to death. If you want to bow to the Sacred City, then you do it.”
”I want to but they won't let me.” Bald Guy snickered. ”Otherwise, they wouldn't send me here to look at porn after the Inquisition disbanded. If I still had some secrets to exchange for more of these books, I'd do it. I really don't know why the Sacred City-”
”Because you're a pervert, Mollien,” Wheelchair Guy said emotionlessly. ”You're a son of a b*tch.”
”Thanks.”
Silence returned.
After a long while, Wheelchair Guy asked, ”Why are you reading that again? You never have good ideas when you read that magazine.”
Mollien looked up. He gave an old and kind smile. ”For some reason, I want to kill again.”
Understanding him, Wheelchair Guy looked up into a certain direction. ”Because of him?”
”Yeah.” Mollien sighed. ”Your foot itches but my hand itches really, really badly. If it was thirty years ago, I wouldn't be able to resist it.”
Listening to the vague humming in the distance, he could not help but chew on his nails. His ground his teeth with cracking sounds.
”Youngsters these days…” he murmured. ”So impressive.”
”Yeah, you cruddy grandmasters from the Sacred City detonated an instrument because of him and instantly killed six people.”
”I'm not talking about that…” Mollien looked up with bloodshot eyes. ”Not that.”
Wheelchair Guy suddenly fell silent. He smacked his lips and listened to the vague voice in the wind. He tapped his knee to the rhythm. The singing was very unclear. He could not hear any details and it was broken like a hallucination floating in the wind. However, these two old guys who had been submerged in music theory for decades could still hear the details hidden into the song.
The tapping finger stiffened. The foot writhing under the blanket stopped quickly as well.
”…I see,” he sighed. ”He shouldn't be twenty yet. Did some dead guy take over his body?”
Mollien looked at him mockingly. ”If someone is talented enough to be like this without using a god's help, who would be stupid enough to be a dark musician?”
Wheelchair Guy could not reply. He gave a long and hard stare, saying, ”As your neighbor for so long, I'll give you a piece of advice. Don't get any ideas. You don't want to get a bag thrown over your head and taken to be experimented on, right?”
”Don't worry. I just think it's a pity.” Mollien cackled. ”Even if I don't do anything, those old beasts at the Cardinals aren't going to let him leave this place alive. What a pity that such a good kid can't die in my hands…”
”Let's end the distasteful conversation here.” Wheelchair Guy sighed. ”If you keep going, the tea will be even more disgusting.” He lifted the teacup and drank all the cold tea. He wiped his mouth. Some remaining drops fell onto the table and sizzled.