Pillar of Yita

It was a human girl, who seemed neither dark nor eerie, just with a layer of mist-like darkness behind her, from which some thorny vines grew. Fang Hong looked more closely and discovered the girl had her eyes tightly shut.

However, this inexplicable picture, without annotations, indeed puzzled him. Tang Xin promised to look up related information, but it would take some time.

He continued flipping through the pages.

The last illustration he could understand was naturally from the royal spy they had found, decorated with a silver butterfly relief on the short sword they carried.

This was also the only piece of the three illustrations he had clues about. He couldn’t help but take out that short sword and examine it closely under the lamp again. But what does this represent? At that time, only one of the two royal spies had such a short sword, while the other simply carried an ordinary one.

Fang Hong could not determine whether this short sword was an identifier of the Colin Ishurian royal spy or a token of some kind. But why did the Queen record such a pattern in her notes—what does it signify?

Thinking about this, he couldn’t help but frown.

The attack on Queen Barbaltan by the King of Sand more than ten years ago, he knew, was related to the wandering alchemist and slave traders, and possibly the Descendants of Flor, now seemingly also connected to the Colin Ishurian Royal Family.

Moreover, Barbaltan’s father, the previous King of Sand, according to Princess’s words, should be seen as the Colin Ishurian Royal Family’s representative in Istania, having no reason to strike against the Royal House of Penelope.

These numerous threads, all at once, made Fang Hong feel like a tangled mess in his heart.

He couldn’t help but take a deep breath, wondering how he always got involved in such endless events; the last entangling mission was concerning the Dragon’s Witch.

And now the matter of Nikopolas could be said to be finally clear, only for him to soon be swept into another equally complex whirl of events in Istania. However, he chose to be part of this matter, although momentarily confused, his heart remained calm.

Finished flipping through the booklet.

Fang Hong also initially confirmed some thoughts in his heart.

He hesitated for a moment before picking up his Communication Crystal and sending a message to Su Changfeng’s number.

Mere moments later, someone responded, not Su Changfeng but rather one of his team members. The young man was not dealing with Fang Hong for the first time, so he smiled and asked, ”Ade, still up so late, what’s up?”

Fang Hong also knew this young man, named Zhang Cheng, whom Su Changfeng had mentioned to him, assuring he could fully trust him if absent.

So he immediately spoke, ”Brother Zhang, I need to find my uncle and aunt, could you help me get in touch with them?”

The young man slightly froze.

Tang Sheng and Zhang Rou are currently staying temporarily at Crosswind Harbor, and because it is within a military base, their external communication is naturally restricted.

Of course, this restriction isn’t absolute, as they are still citizens with personal freedom—just that private communicators are handed over temporarily, and to contact Fang Hong and Tang Xin, one must use public communicators.

Applications can be made anytime and anywhere, but it’s particularly inconvenient, so generally, they only contact each other once a week. Lady Zhang Rou clearly doesn’t trust Fang Hong, each contact preaching a lot, leading Fang Hong to never actively seek them out unless necessary.

Zhang Cheng was seeing for the first time that the other party made this request.

He didn’t ask much but nodded—since Fang Hong didn’t have the military’s public communicator address, he could only passively wait for Crosswind Harbor to contact him, hence this request.

About a quarter of an hour later, Fang Hong finally saw his Communication Crystal light up.

He opened the crystal, saw his uncle’s face appear on the other side of the Light Page—he looked left and right, but unexpectedly Tang Sheng seemed to read his mind, and said: ”Don’t look, your aunt didn’t come.”

Fang Hong couldn’t help but breathe a big sigh of relief, knowing that generally, Aunt Zhang Rou would certainly come; her absence was most likely thanks to his uncle. He couldn’t help but internally give his old uncle a thumbs up.

”Little Heng,” Tang Sheng then began, ”you suddenly want to talk to me; it must be something important, right?”

Fang Hong nodded.

He opened his mouth to ask, ”Uncle, do you remember before we moved for the first time, in the old house, the collection room in your study?”

Tang Sheng paused briefly, then nodded immediately.

Fang Hong asked again, ”Uncle, I remember that collection room had many old books with some years on them. Did we bring those books when we moved?”

Tang Sheng showed a hint of perplexity to this sudden question, slightly furrowing his brow as he answered, ”Some were dealt with at the time, but most remained there. Why?”

”Well...” Fang Hong thought for a moment, ”Uncle, do you recall specifically what books were inside, like a particular one?”

Honestly, even Fang Hong himself thought his question was quite foolish; the collection room had hundreds, if not thousands of books, besides his uncle’s own, the rest made up at least three-quarters of the total amount. How many people could remember clearly what books they had in such a large collection, let alone specify a particular one?

Unless the book was somewhat significant, or contained especially cherished notes, it might still be remembered, but otherwise, there likely would be no memory.

However, the reason he asked such a question was because he happened to have a transcript in hand, maybe showing it to his uncle might help him remember the notebook. But he hadn’t gotten around to doing that when unexpectedly he saw his uncle frown.

”Little Heng,” Tang Sheng asked, ”why suddenly ask about this?”

Fang Hong paused slightly, expecting his uncle’s typical reaction: a wry smile followed by a head shake, saying he’d look for it later for him. But unexpectedly, the response was surprisingly serious.

And Tang Sheng seemed to notice he lost his composure, quickly explaining, ”Those collections were from early years of collecting, and it’s been quite a while, why did you suddenly think to ask about them?”

Fang Hong didn’t think much at first, then answered, ”It’s like this, Uncle, do you remember once I asked you about a notebook? I recently found something somewhat similar in Eteliria...”

Tang Sheng listened to the question, momentarily dazed.

...