Chapter 51: Black Cat
The Copper Bell on the door jingled once as it swung shut behind them.
Vincent walked along the stone-paved road, glancing back at the closed wooden door.
"Uncle Donald’s always been grumpy like that. Don’t mind him."
"I don’t mind. If he wasn’t at least a little reluctant to part with them, then I’d be the one who’s upset."
Vincent burst out laughing at that and shoved his hands back into his coat pockets.
"By the way," he said, turning his head to glance at Richard. "What do you plan to do with those two Marvels you bought?"
"To aid my training."
"Hmm. The pure Ether Filtered by a Marvel is certainly much easier to absorb than what you pull from the atmosphere."
Vincent walked a few more steps, his tone growing a little more serious.
"But there’s something I have to warn you about."
He raised his right hand, clenching and unclenching his fist.
"The pure Ether from Marvels is good stuff, but everyone’s body has a limit to how much it can absorb.
Having two or three Marvels to rotate between is about right. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
If you pump yourself full of too much pure Ether at once, your internal systems won’t be able to process it. You’ll end up overloading yourself."
He made a gesture with his hands, mimicking something swelling outwards. "In mild cases, you’ll get headaches and nausea. In severe cases, it’ll throw your internal systems into chaos, and you’ll be laid up for a long time before you recover."
"I understand," Richard replied with a nod.
On the surface, he humbly accepted his cousin’s advice.
’But my real reason for finding Marvels has little to do with accelerating my training. What I want are the Available Points on the panel.’
.........
Passing through the wall was a bit easier going out than it was coming in.
The intensity of the interference field was noticeably weaker from the inside out.
Back on the main thoroughfare of Huayue Street, the sudden onslaught of noise was almost disorienting.
Smoke, the jingle of Copper Bells, the cries of street vendors, the scent of incense and candles... all the commotion that had been blocked by the wall flooded his senses at once.
Compared to the stone-paved lane behind the wall, which was so quiet it was almost solemn, the outside felt like another world entirely.
While they waited for the carriage, Vincent went to a stall across the street and bought a bag of roasted chestnuts, which he began to peel and crunch on.
Richard stood beside him, but his gaze fell on a spot diagonally across the street.
Number 17 Huayue Street was right there on the main thoroughfare, its number clearly Nailed to the side of the doorframe.
The storefront looked no different from the surrounding Spiritual Vision Stores that sold more atmosphere than anything else.
The curtains were drawn tight. The facade was painted dark red, and a brass plaque on the door read "Spirit Medium Lady Mary."
A black cat was curled up on the steps at the entrance.
The cat was curled into a ball, its tail wrapped around its paws, dozing in the sun.
Everything seemed perfectly ordinary.
But the moment his gaze fell upon the cat, a sudden chill ran down the back of his neck.
The black cat opened its eyes. Its pupils were pure Gold, with no gradient of color, like liquid Gold.
The black cat stared at him for a moment.
They were quite a distance apart, separated by a stream of pedestrians and street vendors.
But Richard was certain it was looking at him.
After a moment, as if bored, the black cat closed its eyes and rested its head back on its paws, continuing to bask in the sun.
The chill on the back of his neck immediately faded.
Richard tore his gaze away and turned around.
"What’s up?" Vincent tossed the chestnut shells into a nearby trash can.
"Nothing."
He quickened his pace to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Vincent toward the carriage that had just pulled up to the corner.
’That cat might be a Perception Probe.’
’Lady Mary inside Number 17, or someone else, is using its eyes to monitor everything that comes and goes on Huayue Street.’
’Someone capable of this is probably beyond the Practitioner Level.’
Richard climbed into the carriage and set the leather pouch containing the copper coin and the Incense Burner on his lap.
Vincent leaned back in the opposite seat, peeling his last few chestnuts. The wheels made a rhythmic clattering sound as they rolled over the stone-paved street.
"Cousin."
"What is it?"
"Number 17. Have you ever been there?"
"Nope," Vincent said, tossing a chestnut into his mouth and chewing.
"The Old Man says that shop isn’t under anyone’s jurisdiction."
"Not under anyone’s jurisdiction?"
"The official institutions can’t touch her, the academic bodies can’t touch her, and the civilian Guilds certainly wouldn’t dare."
He crumpled the chestnut shells into a ball in his palm and put them into the paper bag.
"There are a few places like that in the Imperial Capital."
He turned to look at Richard. "You’re not thinking of going inside for a look, are you?"
"No," Richard said, patting the leather pouch to make sure the two items inside hadn’t been jostled. "Just curious."
Vincent set the small paper bag of trash aside and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"You Scholars all have the same problem."
"What’s that?"
"Too much damn curiosity."
He wasn’t smiling when he said it. The usual easygoing expression on his face had vanished completely.
"We Hunters are on the front lines. It’s blade against claw, fist against flesh. When Evil Beings charge, you can smell the stench of their breath. Sounds dangerous, right?"
He turned his hands over, laying them palms-up on his knees.
His palms were covered in calluses, and several old, faded white scars lined the base of his fingers.
"But at least we know what we’re facing. If an Evil Being comes at me and I can’t beat it, I run.
Even if I can’t get away, death is simple. Your head gets twisted off, your chest gets run through, you bleed out on the ground... It hurts, but it’s quick and clean."
He pulled his hands back and shoved them into his coat pockets.
"It’s different for Scholars."
"The things you people deal with... a lot of the time, they don’t even have a physical form."
The carriage rolled over a stretch of gravel, and the compartment jolted.
Vincent waited for the bumping to subside before he continued.
"In the Old Man’s study, there’s a ledger that records the cause of death for every member of the Ashford Clan.
Most of those who followed the Hunter’s Direction died from physical trauma, combat, or mission-related accidents. You can sum it up in a single sentence."
"The section on the Scholars is only a page or two. I skimmed it once."
He frowned, as if trying to recall the details.
"There was one who spent more than a decade deciphering a manuscript from the Abyss Path.
When he reached the final page, his butler found him sitting at his desk, eyes wide open, but his pupils were completely unfocused.
He was still alive—heartbeat and Breathing were normal—but the person inside was gone."
"His mind was wiped?"
"Not wiped," Vincent said, shaking his head. "Replaced."
"He could still talk, go about Eating, and recognize people afterward, but his wife said the way he spoke had changed.
When he looked at you, it was like he was observing a specimen through a pane of glass."
"What did they do in the end?"
"The ledger doesn’t say. The bottom half of the page was cut out. All that was left was a single annotation: ’Dealt with accordingly.’"
’Just like the conclusion to the textile mill incident in the papers.’
"And there was an even earlier case."
Vincent’s gaze shifted to the window, the streetscape blurring into bands of color against the glass.
"In the early industrial era, a Scholar from the Ashford Family was appraising a high-grade Marvel and tried to use his inspiration to ’read’ the information sealed within it."
"He read the information, but it wasn’t just inert data."
"What do you mean?"
"Certain knowledge from behind the Curtain carries a will of its own."
Vincent spoke slowly, clearly reciting something he had been taught verbatim.
"You think you’re reading it, but in reality, it’s also reading you.
The moment your inspiration probes inside, it’s like you’re handing over the key to your own front door.
And not every guest who comes inside will leave politely when you ask them to."
"What happened to that Scholar?"
"He lived a long, healthy life. He was academically prolific and highly respected in the Royal Society."
Vincent stroked the stubble on his chin.
"But after that appraisal, he had to paint the four walls of his bedroom with Holy Water every single night.
He did it for forty years without missing a single day. When his wife asked him why, he said only one thing."
"What was it?"
"’It’s still watching.’"
The carriage fell silent for several seconds.
"So, you see what I mean now."
Vincent leaned back against his seat, his tone softening slightly.
"The worst that can happen to a Hunter is death. The worst that can happen to a Scholar... isn’t necessarily death. It might even drag down the people around you."
He reached out and clapped Richard on the shoulder, not lightly.
"That ’just curious’ tone of yours... the other Scholars the Ashford Family has produced probably had the exact same attitude.
Saying ’just taking a look’ with their mouths while their feet are already halfway over the threshold."
"Luckily, that cat across the street was probably just someone’s pet, nothing truly dangerous.
Next time you run into something like that, you need to be able to pull back."
The carriage left Huayue Street and turned onto the main road heading back to Cheer Road.