Silent Crown

Chapter 261 Holy

When Ye Qingxuan woke, he discovered that he was sleeping on a soft bed. The emptiness and fatigue that filled his body had disappeared too. There was a bitter taste in his mouth as well. It was probably medicine that Lola had poured into his mouth. He did not know what medicine it was but it was clearly expensive.

His tensed nerves had finally relaxed a bit. Even the disgusting sewer smell had mostly faded. But for some reason, his arm felt sore. Was this a side effect of the medicine?

Rubbing his face and sitting up, he felt the heaviness of sleep. When he saw the note at the top of the bed, he instantly woke up and felt chills.

"Dearest little Yezi, a hot bath is ready in the bathroom, food is on the table, and I’m in the library. Do you want to shower first? Or eat first? Or get the f*ck over and explain what happened?"

Of the short few sentences, the first part seemed gentle and teasing. However, Lola seemed to put all her anger and frustrations into her pen. The red ink pierced his eyes. This was not teasing! If he did not deal with this correctly, it was basically a death letter!

Here, he finally realized that Lola had worried about him for the entire night and he did not even thank her. No wonder she was so pissed. One must never anger a woman, especially a woman like Lola who could kill easily kill someone. Avalon had four full years of bloody history that could prove this point. Ye Qingxuan was going to get killed by her too.

At this thought, he did not dare to waste any more time. He scrambled out of bed, rushed into the bathroom, quickly got rid of the smell, rushed out, stuffed some pieces of bread into his mouth, and rushed into the library.

…

Half an hour later, Ye Qingxuan sat in the silent and dim library like a good student. He placed his hands on his knees, and smiled demurely without speaking. Lola’s expression was heavy. After listening to Ye Qingxuan’s story, she sipped her red tea. The knocking of porcelain created a heart-stopping sound.

The old-fashioned hat was placed on the table between them. It quietly emanated an ancient aura. The so-called ‘ancient aura’ sounded powerful but no matter how one thought, it did not seem to be of much use.

"So you’re saying that you were out the whole night and almost died just to bring this back?"

"Yes."

"What did the parliament take away?"

"I don’t know."

"What happened at the Royal Research Institute?"

"Not clear."

"Where did the Ripper come from?"

"Not sure."

And then a long, long silence.

After the long silence, Lola finally looked away and Ye Qingxuan secretly let out a breath. Sweat rolled down his back. If he really thought about it, he did not accomplish anything other than bringing back a stupid hat after working the entire night.

Yes, he made things difficult for the parliament, but only bringing back a hat from Avalon’s Shadow was not allowed.

"The parliament went wild trying to take this. Maybe it’s some holy weapon."

"All the holy weapons in the world are in the Church with serial numbers. There are only sixteen at most. How can a new appear out of nowhere?" Lola glanced at him. "Do you really think that you can find something at the level of the Sword within the Stone from Avalon’s Shadow?"

"Uh, I was just suggesting the possibility." Ye Qingxuan flipped the hat over. "Look, at least it’s alchemy equipment. Can you test it?"

"Yes, I’m disguised as a scholar of ancient studies, but I’m not an alchemist." Lola rolled her eyes. "Why don’t you put it on?"

"Good idea!"

"Hey, you want to die?"

Ye Qingxuan had actually started considering it seriously. There was a large possibility that he would die, but it would not be worth it if he put in so much effort to bring a hat back and did not even try it!

After repeatedly checking for satanic traps or controlling music scores, Ye Qingxuan took a deep breath and put the hat on.

All was still. Nothing happened.

Lola looked at him seriously. She was ready to destroy the hat at any odd sign but Ye Qingxuan’s face was blank. He moved his neck, touched the hat, and tried many poses, but nothing happened.

"How do you feel?" Lola asked gravely.

"It’s pretty comfortable and the size is just right!" Ye Qingxuan grinned, feeling quite happy. "Do you have a mirror?"

Lola suddenly had the urge to kill him.

Ye Qingxuan pretended nothing was wrong while listening closely. He heard a song.

A boy’s youthful voice sounded in his ears again. Like a dead spirit, he sang quietly, "The king and his helpers kidnapped the queen, imprisoning her in dreams. We have power and the sea so which direction should we wander…The bell has already rung in the cemetery. Did you hear the eerie song? Respond to our calls, the blood debt will be paid…"

The song sounded faintly again, but then disappeared like a hallucination. This thing undoubtedly had a definite relationship to Avalon’s Shadow. But what mystery was hidden inside? And what did that chilling song mean?

He did not understand.

The song disappeared after that one time and did not reappear no matter how Ye Qingxuan waited. It was as if the curse haunting the hat had left, dissipating with the rotting scent. The wrinkled surface became smooth again after the dust fell off.

It had returned to its original graceful and elegant appearance. The dim music score inside the hat brightened again, waiting to be called upon.

"It seems that this is its true appearance. What did you do?"

"I don’t know. I just struck a pose. I guess it likes to see me pretend to be cool," Ye Qingxuan praised himself shamelessly, however, his eyes twitched. Seeing something inside the brim, he reached in and felt a line of slightly protruding words. Too much time had passed so the silver thread had turned black, making it difficult to make out.

Relying on the touch, Ye Qingxuan subconsciously sounded out the words, "There is a limit to man’s power and he must obey the boundaries."

This was one of the vows for a musician set by the first three kings. Every musician must abide by them. But why were they carved here? Unless…

He froze and his smile stiffened. "Unless this was the spell to activate the hat."

Putting weird and mysterious alchemy equipment on his head was one thing. Being close to uttering its activation chant…This could definitely be in the top ten of "One Hundred Dumb Ways to Die for a Musician."

He subconsciously tried to take his hat off but it was too late. The world went black. All he could hear was a crisp sound. And then the sky fell down!

The experience at that moment was painfully pleasing. It was indescribable. It felt as if someone hacked a giant hole into his head with a hammer. Then, something like mercury was forcefully poured in. An immense amount of runes and images flashed past his eyes, drowning him. Inheritance of a heart mark?

This should definitely be the inheritance of a heart mark but why was this so weird. Did they want to kill him? He fell unconscious before he could react.

After who knows how long, he opened his eyes and found himself on a metal bed. He saw the pale white light of a shadow-less light.

"How long was I out?"

"One full hour." Lola grasped a cup with two hands and looked down on him. "You wasted another of my recovery medicines."

"Sorry." Ye Qingxuan rubbed his swollen forehead and got up with difficulty. "My brain is a little messed up."

"Seems like it really is the heart mark inheritance." Lola looked at him gleefully. "The bad thing about old-fashioned alchemy equipment is that the load is too heavy. What school is it?"

"Ancient…School of the Stone Heart…it combined Abstinence and Modifications," he said with pauses in between as he searched through all the new information in his brain. "We weren’t wrong. The hat is its inheritance ceremony. Its previous owner is…the first concertmaster of the Royal Musician Division, Andrea Casiraghi. Unfortunately, there isn’t more information related to the user. There aren’t any more records on Avalon’s Shadow. The music score carved in this comes from…the Requiem?" Taken aback, he carefully distinguished the aether music score in his memories and let out a long breath. "It’s the Requiem!"

"Which Requiem?"

"What else can it be? Of course it’s the Requiem composed by Mozart, King of Yellow, which the Royal Academy of Music uses for its enchantment!"

Ye Qingxuan waved his fists in excitement. This reward alone made all his dangerous life-or-death experiences worth it! Worth it? No, he had hit jackpot!

"Don’t get happy so soon," Lola dampened his excitement. "Which movement does the score come from? It’ll be fun if it’s Dies irae. It’s a supersized forbidden score that requires more than three orchestras in coherence to play. We’re not enough even if you sap us dry."

"It’s ‘Holy’." Ye Qingxuan felt the aether waves in the hat with his eyes closed. "This piece is called ‘Holy’. It seems that its effect is protection abandonment."

After a short silence, Lola nodded slowly. "This is one of the most famous core elements of the School of Abstinence. It really does have the School of Stone Heart’s style. You’ve really gotten lucky. It’s the prototype of the School of Abstinence’s scepter. It can create a completely pure territory and reject any outer music theory. As a defensive music score, it is definitely one of the best. Furthermore, it can completely protect you against one fatal blow. It’s a savior for musicians."

Ye Qingxuan instantly grew overjoyed. "So I’ll be able to do whatever I want now?"

"If you can bear its burden." Lola glanced at him with pitiful eyes. "You probably can’t wear it past…thirty seconds at your current level."

"…"

"Don’t just stand there. What else is there? What else did the heart mark inheritance say?" Lola asked. "The School of Stone Heart went extinct after appearing during King Arthur’s reign. Maybe the reason is in the inheritance."

"What else? There’s also…" Ye Qingxuan searched through his memories and recited seriously, ":?xt=urn:btih:WCJX3P5C5HZT26SKSHMWTD7WJW4LPM3Y…huh? Is this a password?"

"This should be the result after transforming music notes into binary numbers and modified with music theory. Its purpose is to ensure that others won’t know about its secret core technique."

"It must be something good! Let me do it! I’ll finish decoding in three hours!" Ye Qingxuan’s eyes brightened and he excitedly climbed out of bed, not caring that a medicine bag was still hanging to him. "These century-old tricks are outdated. Do you have pen and paper?"

Lola shook her head helplessly and gave him the pen and paper. She also placed a translation dictionary of the lingua franca from one hundred years ago on the table before he could ask. And so the room fell silent once again.

Ye Qingxuan began focusing on the decoding and moved quickly. It was from years ago but the changes in sentence structure and music theory were headache-inducing. There was a multitude of problems. However, the further he went, the more excited he became. His eyes practically shone. He was so focused he had forgotten everything else.

Beside him, Lola gazed at his expression. She sighed after a long while. "You’re growing more obsessed with decoding. If you continue…do you really want to be a scholar?"

"To be honest, I haven’t considered it."

"Huh?" Lola was taken aback. "Never?"

Ye Qingxuan looked up and, after thinking, asked, "Lola, did you ever think about what you wanted to become when you were a kid?"

After a pause, Lola nodded. "Yes."

"Same with me. When I was little, I wanted to be a toy buyer. When I matured, I wanted to inherit the family business. After the catastrophe, I wanted to become a filial son. Then later, I wanted to become a priest. I wanted to pray for those who had died and live in a rural church until my death.

"Those are all pretty good, aren’t they? Now that you mention it, I think being a scholar is pretty good too. But these are just for thinking. Anyway, for me, a lot of things are like that." He paused and chuckled. "Just think about it and that’s it. It’ll never happen so you don’t need to think too much."

Lola fell silent. Seeing the youth’s self-deprecating expression, she wanted to speak but stopped herself and looked away as if avoiding something. For some reason, she suddenly felt sad.

The only sound in the silence was the pencil scratching against paper. After some time, Ye Qingxuan set down his pencil. He stretched and moaned happily.

"Done! Lola, come look."

Lola snapped out of her thoughts and accepted the stack of notes Ye Qingxuan offered. Her expression grew stunned. "The Sub-Originator Theory? You’ve really taken back something impressive."