“So, how was it, little Olivia? Did you have fun with Wolfgang?”
Prunier was holding a throw pillow printed with a cartoon red dragon pattern, her whole body sinking into the living room sofa.
Her red twin-tails hung down from both sides of the armrest, and a pair of red pupils peeked out from above the pillow, staring fixedly at Orlando, who had just entered.
Orlando had just changed his shoes and hadn’t even hung up his coat yet when he was startled by her words, his hand trembling.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t be so loud…”
He quickly glanced around.
Only Prunier was in the living room.
From the kitchen came the click of Zijiang’s mouse as she edited a video.
Hui was nowhere to be seen, Wei hadn’t returned yet, and Xiao Ami was probably asleep in some corner again.
Good.
Orlando walked over and sat down on the single armchair nearby.
“Oh? Is there something you can’t talk about?”
Prunier hugged the pillow tighter, pressing her lips into its edge, her voice muffled.
“Can’t talk about it.”
Prunier drew out the ending of her word, obviously reluctant.
“Fine…”
She buried her face in the pillow, leaving only her eyes visible.
Orlando breathed a sigh of relief.
But Prunier wasn’t done yet.
“However, little Olivia, remember to come to my room tonight.”
“What?”
“It’s been so long since I held little Olivia and slept. I can’t sleep…”
She smiled at him, her eyes narrowing into two curved red arcs.
“Mhm… it’s been so long since I held little Olivia and slept.”
She pulled the pillow up, covering half her face, but the exposed half was brimming with a smile.
“It’s only been a short while since we last saw each other…”
“No way… sleep with me tonight!”
“You—”
Prunier poked her entire face out from behind the pillow, pouting as if she could hang an oil bottle from her lips.
“Will you agree or not?”
“No.”
“Then tonight I’ll tell everyone you’re a—”
“You— fine, fine, I agree.”
Prunier’s expression instantly turned from cloudy to sunny, like a cat that had stolen a fish.
She bounced up from the sofa, hugging her pillow as she skipped down the hallway.
Five minutes later, Orlando changed clothes and sat alone at a table in the corner of the dining room.
He was in a bad mood.
This trip to Wolfgang had yielded nothing except watching a knight tournament, nearly being found by the Night Guard and the demons of the Winter Night Church one after another, and owing Enrique a life.
The angelic holy relic was somewhere in Wolfgang—he’d already known that conclusion.
Victoria’s rune pointed to “the guiding plain under the throne for the ancestral people,” but in the end, he still couldn’t pinpoint the exact location.
If Enrique hadn’t used that sword technique to split the gray mist, Orlando wouldn’t even have had the chance to sit here.
He picked up the black tea that had gone cold on the table, took a sip, and stared at his own reflection in the cup for a while.
“Young man, may I sit at your table?”
Orlando looked up.
Gaoerji stood by the table, holding a tray.
He wore a faded dark gray shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing large-boned wrists.
On the tray were only a piece of black bread, a small pat of butter, and a glass of water.
His deep brown eyes were set in sunken sockets, with heavy bags underneath.
He looked like an old book that had been read over and over—the spine was loose, but every word was still legible.
It was rare to see him looking relatively spirited.
The last time Orlando had seen him was in his Olivia form.
He had bumped into him and picked up a letter from Urske.
But since then, the two had never spoken.
A person who always stayed shut in his room suddenly taking the initiative to ask to share a table?
Orlando looked around.
The dining room was empty, with at least five or six vacant tables.
So it wasn’t really about sharing a table—he wanted to talk.
Besides, he didn’t look like a bad person.
“Go ahead. There’s no one around.”
Gaoerji nodded slightly, placed his tray on the table, and sat down across from Orlando.
The chair let out a faint creak.
He broke the black bread from his tray in half, put one half back, and held the other near his mouth but didn’t bite into it.
“Young man, I hope you don’t mind.”
Orlando picked up his own cold toast and asked casually, “Old sir, what kind of work do you do?”
He could probably guess the answer—anyone staying in the Red Sun Group stronghold had a past they couldn’t fully explain.
Gaoerji finally took a bite of the bread, chewing very slowly.
“Me? Just clerical work.”
Clerical work?
Orlando mulled it over in his mind.
In his impression, clerical staff were the ones who kept accounts at the lord’s mansion.
They kept tidy ledgers, occasionally helped the lord cover up a few expenses, and got red envelopes during holidays.
Those people were mostly well-fed, with hair neatly combed, smiling at everyone they met, their faces glistening with oil.
But this old man Gaoerji had plenty of silver threads in his hair, a broad frame that clearly lacked flesh, a shirt collar that hung loosely, and eye sockets so deep they were like two wells—the light inside wasn’t even as bright as well water.
He didn’t look like that kind of person at all.
“Is clerical work that tiring?”
Gaoerji put down the bread, washed it down with a sip of water, then lifted his eyes to look at Orlando.
There was no anger in those deep brown eyes, but there was no smile either.
“What’s tiring about it?”
Orlando didn’t know how to respond all of a sudden.
“…I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No matter.”
Gaoerji placed the remaining half of the bread back on the plate and didn’t touch it again.
He lowered his eyes to the glass of water in front of him.
The light from the ceiling reflected on the water’s surface, small and white.
“Young man, how long do you think it takes a person to do something?”
Orlando thought for a moment.
“Depends on what it is.”
“What if it’s something you might never finish in your lifetime?”
Gaoerji repeated.
“Then you just have to keep doing it.”
A slight twitch at the corner of his mouth—whether it counted as a smile was unclear.
“Do you think it’s worth it—for a person to spend their entire life on something they can never see the end of?”
Orlando fell silent for a while.
He thought back to when he was sixteen and built that dragon-slaying weapon.
Back then, he couldn’t explain the reason either.
It wasn’t to join the Royal Dragon-Slaying Team, not to slay into the dragon territory, not for his father’s honor.
He just wanted to build it, wanted to find his mother sooner…
“That depends on what it is.”
Gaoerji slowly nodded, the movement so small it was almost invisible.
“Indeed.”
“Old sir, have you ever done something like that?”
Gaoerji didn’t answer immediately.
He picked up the black bread again but didn’t bite into it.
His hands were large, knuckles prominent, with thick calluses on his fingertips—the kind worn from holding a pen for long periods.
“I’ve seen a type of person.”
His voice began to soften, as if turning to an older chapter in a book.
“They aren’t anything special.”
They get up at dawn every day and rest at dusk.
They do the most ordinary work—nothing particularly dignified, nothing particularly lowly.
“They know the road ahead is long—so long that they can’t get far even in an entire lifetime.”
“But they still walk.”
He paused again.
“It’s not that they persist because they have hope.”
He took a bite of the bread.
“It’s because they persist that they might see hope. Even if they themselves won’t see it.”
Orlando was momentarily stunned.
He felt he’d heard that somewhere before, but Gaoerji’s tone carried no hint of dogma.
He was just stating a fact—dryly, without any embellishment.
But precisely because it lacked embellishment, it felt heavier.
“Do you know people like that?”
“I knew a few.”
“What happened to them?”
“Later…”
Gaoerji swallowed the last bite of bread and wiped his fingers with a napkin.
“Later, their names were forgotten.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up, picking up his tray, which was still more than half-full.
The glass of water was already empty, with a thin film of moisture clinging to the inside.
“Young man, life is fleeting. Only undertakings sometimes endure into eternity.”
“What do you mean…”
“Nothing in particular.”
Gaoerji turned to leave with his tray.
“Old sir.”
Gaoerji stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Is there something you want to do but can’t?”
A silence of about three seconds.
“Yes.”
“Same as what you’re thinking.”
“I haven’t said what I’m thinking yet.”
Gaoerji placed his tray on the return rack.
The metal plate clinked lightly against the surface.
When he reached the dining room door, he glanced back at Orlando.
The white light from the hallway struck his face from the side, illuminating one half brightly while the other half sank entirely into shadow.