Chapter 244 - The Visitor (1/2)
No one understood what Father was trying to say. No one but Big Sister and I. She nodded. “I see. Little Brother has enough magical powers but he lacks finesse. He needs more understanding and comprehension of high magic.”
I scratched my head. “Wait,” I tried to make myself clear, albeit impatiently, “So, like in an RPG-game, I now possess a high-level technique but I do not have enough experience points to level up? So I still cannot use this high-level technique?” Father frowned at the comparison but he nodded nonetheless. “Roughly put, but yes. You really take after me after all. You remind me of when I was young.” And that remark made Mother, who was sitting just beside him, giggled in agreement.
“So what can I do?” I asked again, vainly earnest for a solution, “Surely you won’t tell me that I have to wait until I’m thirty or even fifty before I can use it? And what about Big Sister? She’s been using sword telekinesis for barely how many years? Why is it that she can use it and I can’t?” “Qinglan’s case is different,” Father insisted and said, “She has been using magic for more than a century even before she began using her sword while you have barely drawn breath for less than a quarter of a century. What’s more, Qinglan has been using sword telekinesis magic for twenty years. That’s ten times more than your two years. You are smarter and brighter, I will admit, for having thought up ways to expedite a process that should have taken more than two years. But you will appreciate that your big sister’s far ahead in experience compared to you.”
“So, you’re telling me that I’m a genius?” I cracked into a simper but Father, in his readiness to puncture my glee, remarked placidly, “Not really. I’d say this is expected of a Spirit of a legendary relic.” Surely it wouldn’t hurt to praise me just once, I scowled quietly.
Father seemed to have guessed me. He chuckled. “Well, let’s leave this for a future conversation. Tell me about your trip to Yishui.” I recounted everything; starting right from the start to the end where I was stabbed by the woman in black. “Uncle Hai, I have a question,” Lin Feng spoke suddenly and Father’s gaze turned to him. “Why can’t we use Shiyan’s Bee Scout to look for the woman? We have her prosthesis.” Father smiled and replied, “I see. So Shiyan’s not the only one green and raw here. You and Chongxi are the same too. Tell me. Would you allow anyone to track you? Won’t that defeat the purpose of keeping herself masked?”
Lin Feng was stunned speechless. But just as our conversation came to a pause, a shrill hoot came from outside the window. It was my Spirit Eagle, circling high up the sky outside. Lin Feng got to his feet and opened the window and the spectral bird flew in and perched on the windowsill with a message attached to its leg. Lin Feng took it off and I withdrew the Spirit Eagle back into my Gourd. He unfurled the paper and saw two words: Thank you. Lin Feng smirked. The whiff of indifference and alienation practically seeping from the two words told us enough: he still believed that we were his enemies.
Later that night, Xiao Qi and her Sisters came with Yuanyuan and Xiao Yu. Lin Feng and Chongxi then went off with the latter two girls. They had slept not one wink the entire night and they needed rest. With my condition now stable, it was only right that they return to the Center. Big Sister left with them. She ought to go back to Father and Mother. So that left Edelweiss and the Seven Sisters with me in my ward.
Edelweiss would understandably wish only to stay by my side. But Xiao Qi and her Sisters were only here because they were terribly bored. The nurse who was doing her rounds became utterly shocked when she found my room crowded and of course the Sisters was mercilessly driven away by the nurse .
Edelweiss watched me the whole night, her gaze distant and blank as if in a trance and I too, looked at her in a similar fashion. We stared at each other for moments of silence until I finally burst out laughing. “Why are you looking at me so strangely?” I could not resist any longer. Edelweiss pursed her lips and looked away, shaking her head. We might not be old couples who have spent half of our lives together, I brooded, But we had certainly gone through our fair share of thick and thin together. Still, she looks like a little lass young and fresh into love.
Edelweiss kept her lips pouted and remained wordless. The dark circles that ringed her eyes betrayed the fact that being awake for the whole night had taken their toll on her. She had been with me all the time even though she had been struggling against sleep to remain awake. “I’m fine now,” I said, gently patting her hand, “You should get some sleep. Look at those dark rings around your eyes.”
She nodded demurely and lowered her head on the side of my bed and dozed off.