Todd returned to the banquet hall and found Tristan looking around for him.
Walking forward and patting the other person on the shoulder, Todd gave Tristan a forced smile.
"Where have you been?!" Tristan paused, frowned and said, "You look so ugly."
Todd looked at the people in the hall who were gradually leaving: "The banquet is over? So when will we go back?"
"The carriage will arrive later, we have to wait a little longer."
After hearing Tristan's words, Todd glanced at the almost untouched delicacies on the dining table, remembered that he had not had dinner yet, and sat down on his own.
Finding a clean fork and a knife used to cut hard bread, Todd skillfully cut off a piece of ham and put it into his mouth with the fork.
Tristan sat in front of Todd and sighed: "Your dining posture can be used as a textbook for noble etiquette."
Todd smiled and was just about to find some more food when he looked up and caught a glimpse of a familiar woman.
Dressed in a rich dress and full of charm, Mary opened her mouth slightly and looked at Todd as if she had discovered the most incredible thing in the world.
Todd looked at the knife and fork in his hand, and then remembered Mary's "super memory" power, and couldn't help but feel a headache.
A woman who can remember every detail must have seen clues from her daily habits and movements.
But now was not a good time to recognize each other. Todd put his index finger on his lips and made a silencing gesture.
Mary reacted quickly and quickly looked away, pretending to chat with someone else, but she kept looking here from the corner of her eye.
Todd, knowing that he could no longer stay here, ate a few more bites of food and hurriedly left the banquet hall with Tristan.
Sitting in the carriage, listening to the sound of the wheels turning, Todd looked at Tristan, who had remained silent all the way, and asked, "Aren't you going to ask me where I went at night?"
"Rachel only asked me to assist you, not to monitor you."
Todd adjusted his sitting posture, and with some inexplicable nervousness in his heart, he asked Tristan: "To be honest, I am very curious about what kind of relationship you and Rachel have?"
Tristan glanced at him: "I have the same problem."
Todd leaned his head against the backrest and lowered his voice and said: "I use some of my authority to help her deal with some difficult matters; in turn, she does the same."
Tristan suddenly asked a question that caught Todd off guard: "Do you have special feelings for her?"
After a short period of shock, Todd nodded and admitted: "Yes, I admit that she is a special and irreplaceable existence to me."
Seemingly surprised by the other party's frankness, Tristan paused for a moment and then asked: "So, does she have the same feelings for you?"
Todd hesitated for a long time, and finally shook his head and said: "I hope the answer is yes. But honestly, I don't know, she is too smart sometimes..."
Tristan closed his eyes and said softly: "Yes, sometimes she is too smart, like a beam of light that you can never catch in your hands."
The two of them were each thinking about their own thoughts, and they didn't talk to each other again, so they returned to the church in silence all the way.
Todd returned to the room, sat in the soul space for a while, then came out to wash up, intending to fall asleep early.
A knock on the door made him sit up from the bed.
Walking sideways to the door, putting his mutated right paw behind him, Todd asked in a low voice: "Who is it?"
Tristan's voice came from outside the door: "If you're not asleep, come out and have a chat."
Todd opened the door and saw Tristan who had changed into regular clothes. What surprised him most was that he actually had a small barrel on his shoulder.
Todd stared at the barrel and asked, "What's in here...?"
"Red wine." Tristan seemed to be talking about a very ordinary thing: "The wine I got from the party."
Todd put on a coat and without any unnecessary nonsense, uttered one word: "Where to go?"
Tristan led the way and Todd followed. The two walked out of the cathedral camp, walked around several streets and alleys, and finally reached the bell tower of the Holy Acropolis.
After looking at the towering building and then at Tristan, who was panting while carrying the barrel, Todd reached out to him and said, "Let me do it."
Tristan handed the barrel to Todd, took a long breath, rubbed his sore shoulders, stepped into the clock tower, and followed the spiral stairs to the top floor of the clock tower.
The two of them walked up the stairs to the bell-ringing room on the top floor. The howling night wind came towards them. Todd looked at the scenery in front of him and was filled with admiration.
Under the bright moon, the quiet and dark city fell asleep quietly, with only the sound of the wind blowing in my ears.
Tristan leaned against the wall, breathing hard, and said intermittently: "Over the years, my body has really become worse than before. Climbing stairs of this height was no problem..."
Todd placed the barrel filled with red wine on the ground next to him and looked around for the container to hold the wine.
Tristan sat down on the ground, took out two wooden cups from his arms, threw one of them to Todd, then opened the cork of the barrel, and poured himself a cup first.
Watching Tristan drink all the wine in the glass, Todd shook his head helplessly and poured himself a glass.
"My father is a carpenter." Tristan raised his neck and drank the second glass of red wine: "His craftsmanship is praised by everyone. He can use lifeless wood to make flying birds.
, or a fish swimming in the water.”
Todd took a sip of red wine and listened quietly to his narration.
"Later, my father spent all his savings and sent me to the Royal Academy in the capital of Tyro, hoping that I could get ahead." Tristan looked at the Holy Acropolis under the night, and memories merged in his eyes.
Liu Guang: "That was a time that I will never forget. I saw the power of knowledge and understood the meaning of truth."
Pointing to the big clock behind him, Tristan smiled for the first time on his face: "At that time, what I wanted to do most was to become a great engineer. Using the knowledge I learned,
Then with the help of craftsmen like my father, we can create a miracle that the whole world will look up to!"
Todd asked: "Did you and Rachel meet in the academy?"
Tristan's smile gradually faded, he swallowed a sip of alcohol and said softly: "No... things are more complicated than you think..."
"In my spare time while studying, I usually work as a helper for my father. When I was sixteen years old, I once went to a noble manor to help repair the terrace. On the way to fetch water from the lake, I got lost and accidentally
We walked into the forest behind the manor."
"In the forest, there is a garden that has been taken care of. In the center of the garden, there is a small stone building. The small building has no doors or windows, only a few vents sealed with iron bars.
.”
Todd heard this and asked in surprise: "Is it possible that there is someone living inside...?"
Tristan did not answer him, but instead grabbed his throat with his hands and made an exaggerated expression: When I approached the small building, a huge suction force made me fly into the air and was dragged directly to the fence."
"I saw a beautiful girl who was not yet ten years old, with a red face, yelling at me, 'Let me out, let me out'."
Todd asked, "Did you let her out?"
"How is that possible?!" Tristan waved his hand and said, "I was so scared that I ran away."
Todd laughed.
"A month later, I couldn't help but be curious, so I ran into the forest again and found the small building." Tristan touched his chin and said, "But this time, I only dared to watch from a distance until I saw it.
The girl's face appeared in the iron bars, and I took out the sweet cakes I had prepared and told her, "I brought food."
Todd opened his eyes wide.
Is it possible that Rachel developed a greedy habit from that time on?
"For a long time after that, apart from part of the daily expenses, most of the money I earned from helping my father was used to buy food and give it to the girl. I also learned about the girl from the mouths of the servants in the noble family.
The origin of.”
Todd helped Tristan fill up his glass of red wine and nodded for him to continue.
"When she was born, her mother died due to dystocia. Her father married a noblewoman when she was one year old. After another two years, the girl gradually showed signs of supernatural powers - she could control the things around her at will.
Object. Her father and stepmother were greatly alarmed by her alien identity."
Tristan looked at the red wine swirling in the glass and continued: "The girl's stepmother proposed that she be handed over to the Inquisition immediately, but her father could not bear to do so. This prominent nobleman built a castle in the forest behind the manor.
He imprisoned his daughter in a secluded building and lied to the outside world that her daughter was seriously ill and had died."
Todd sighed and asked again: "You haven't told me yet, why did you join the church?"
"A few years later, Pope Alexander came to the throne. His strict attitude towards alien species and the truth made the church's activities to eliminate heretics more frequent. One day, the president of the Royal Academy came to me and recommended me to the then
Archbishop Yarbrough asked me to hold the holy order of deacon in his name. But my main task was to be responsible for the liaison between Lord Yarbrough and the college. What I didn’t expect was that I would do this for more than ten years..."
Todd sighed for a while, then remembered what happened to Rachel, and asked, "What happened to the girl?"
"On a stormy night, a small building in the forest was struck by lightning and burst into flames. When people went to check it the next day, they found that it had turned into a pile of ruins, but no body was found." Terry
Stan took several sips of red wine: "After that, a few years later, a woman named Rachel came to me and said she wanted to cooperate with me. Although she changed her name, I recognized her at a glance.
Her identity is exactly that of the missing girl."
After a moment of silence, Tristan smiled and shook the cup at Todd: "I don't think there is any need to elaborate on what happens after this."
Todd frowned and looked at the other person: "Okay, I have one last question, why are you telling me these things?"
A hint of drunkenness appeared on Tristan's face: "You have the right to know all this, 'Fairchild'."
The other person's emphatic tone when he finally said his name gave Todd the illusion of being seen through.
Tristan stood up unsteadily, shook the remaining barrel, threw away the wine glass in his hand, and patted Todd's shoulder hard.
"Rachel is a good woman, cherish the happiness in front of you."
After saying this, Tristan turned around and walked down the stairs with a smile.
It's just that this laughter, to others, sounds a bit bitter, a bit regretful, and a bit decisive.