I loaded the Mysticism panel.

In early December, the capital city wasn't particularly tense.

The shops on the street that were supposed to be open were still open, and the office workers who were supposed to go to work still left home early in the morning, their feet wet with dew.

The Imperial Opera House is scheduling Handel this week.

The newspaper still featured the performance title as usual, though the font size was smaller than it had been three months ago, but it was still being printed.

But some things are completely different from what they were in September.

Sugar was changed from being sold by the pound to being sold by the ounce.

People started queuing outside the candy shop, and even at five in the morning, when it was still dark, an old lady wrapped in a blanket was already there waiting.

A man who looked like a manager would take down the door panel at exactly six o'clock, first stick his head out to count the length of the line, and then turn back to whisper a few words to the people inside.

When the bell rang and the door was officially opened, the area under the glass display case was already mostly empty.

The price of flour has almost doubled.

Richard could still hear what the female shop assistant had said when he went to the Birch Dessert Shop to buy toffee.

He didn't know how much the proportion of beet sugar had increased now.

Grey sent him a letter on Tuesday, with a little yellow powder on the envelope, probably some pastry crumbs.

The letter was short. Grey's handwriting is usually neat and tidy, but this time a few strokes were stopped a bit too quickly than usual.

"The family's boat has wrecked."

She wrote.

"It wasn't a shipwreck, nor was it intercepted by the enemy; it was taken away by our own navy."

"The Royal Navy's requisition order stated that there was a shortage of transport capacity and that civilian freight transport must be subordinated to military priority."

"Dad went to the Navy to negotiate, and he didn't say a word for three days after he came back."

Richard frowned when he saw this.

The Grey family has been in the spice business for generations.

Shipping routes, ships, and cargo sources are all vital lifelines.

Having a ship requisitioned is like losing an arm, and the worst part is that we don't know when it will be returned... most likely it won't be.

Grey didn't complain too much in the letter.

She only said, "Dad said he'll figure something out," and then the topic changed.

"The St. Bridge canteen has also started reducing its dessert offerings."

Previously, there were three types of cakes to choose from during afternoon tea, but now there's only one left, and it's often leftovers from the previous day.

Cunningham and his group were complaining endlessly, but I thought it was alright. After all, compared to what the people on the front lines were eating, the school cafeteria was like a royal hotel.

At the end of the letter, Grey drew a tiny cat.

Next to the cat was a line of text, the font size smaller than the main text.

"When are we going to make good on our promise to have dinner together?"

If that restaurant in Beijing raises its prices too, we can eat sandwiches on a park bench; I don't mind.

Richard folded the letter and put it in his desk drawer.

Grey's letter and his mother's phone call were among the few things that brought him warmth in the capital.

One smelled of flour in Briston's kitchen, the other had pastry crumbs on his St. Bridge's letter paper.

He thought of Evelyn.

When my sister called home last time, she said that Mrs. Weir's orange kitten had grown big enough to jump onto the windowsill.

Its recent hobby is watching her make desserts from outside their kitchen window.

Evelyn said she must have been drawn in by the taste of the almond shortbread.

Li noticed that the cat had good taste.

The capital city recently experienced a moderate rain.

The rain washed the cobblestone path in front of the Petrie Building until it shone.

Richard stood at the window of the second-floor corridor, watching an undergraduate student run past with an umbrella downstairs, his heel splashing into a puddle and soaking half of his trouser leg.

When he looked back, the door to room 314 was open.

Isabella sat behind the writing desk with a telegram slip spread out in front of her.

The note was short; Richard could only see a few lines of printed text from the doorway.

"Arrived, first dive completed."

The underwater seal is in worse condition than anticipated, requiring additional manpower.

The signature consists of only one letter, 'c'.

After reading it, Isabella said nothing, folded the note, and tucked it into the innermost part of the drawer.

It was placed together with the letters that Sophia had previously sent back from Mons.

Isabella saw her nephew, but kept her hand on the edge of the drawer and ignored him.

The jar of iris toffee on the corner of the table was tightly sealed, showing no signs of having been opened today.

Clara said, "We need extra manpower," and the meaning of that statement is clear to any practitioner.

The rate at which the seals on the seabed are decaying has already outpaced conventional maintenance plans.

Dozens of capital ships—the Dreadnought, the Iron Duke, the Orion—were anchored in Scapa Flow day and night.

The body temperature, breathing, anxiety, and boredom of tens of thousands of sailors on deck are constantly being absorbed into the sea.

Beneath the seabed, Neolithic standing stone circles and tombs have lay silently for thousands of years.

Those sacrificial sites are old enough underground, and to top it all off with this pile of steel and the fear of living people is just the thing.

It's not surprising that the seal was worse than expected.

But the Orkney Islands are the heart of the navy, and access to those sealed-off lists of professionals is tightly controlled.

The phrase "extra manpower" may seem insignificant on a telegram, but it requires passing through three stages of the approval process.

The Navy Department's security review, the Ministry of the Interior's background check, and the General Administration's overall coordination of wartime manpower allocation.

After completing the three challenges, Clara will have to spend even more time soaking in the seabed.

He can't help with this, so he shouldn't add to the trouble.

Richard retreated into the corridor and walked down to the classroom.

As he walked into the stairwell, he ran into Edith.

As usual, the girl was carrying her plant guidebook, her shoes splattered with mud.

"Good morning." Edith switched the encyclopedia to her other arm.

"morning."

The two walked down the road side by side.

After taking a few steps, Edith suddenly spoke.

"Richard, have you noticed that the margarine in the school cafeteria is getting thinner and thinner lately?"

"You noticed that too?"

"Yesterday's bread only had a thin layer of butter on it, so thin that I could see the bread through the butter."

Edith tilted her head and thought for a moment.

"I grew up in a mill, so I know the price of flour all too well."

The price of flour in Beijing now could buy three times the amount I'd pay back in my hometown.

Has the price gone up in your area too?

"Prices have gone up, but not as ridiculously as in Beijing."

She turned to a page in the picture book and showed it to Richard.

There was a price list tucked in the top, which had been taken from a grocery store, with circles drawn in pencil on the "flour" and "butter" lines.

Next to it was a line of her own annotation:

"Prices rose by 87% from September to December, 112% for flour, and the price of sugar is unknown because it was unavailable."

"You even remembered this?" Richard was somewhat surprised.

"I'm used to it." Edith tucked the price list back into the catalog.

"People who grow up in mills are always more concerned about the price of grain than about Latin conjugations."

She spoke calmly.

The fear of hunger was more deeply ingrained in her than the thing behind the curtain, because the former was something she had faced every day since childhood.

The two walked to the classroom door.

Fisher was already sitting inside, the bandage on his forehead finally removed, leaving a new pink scar.

He waved to Richard when he saw him.

"Williams, have you read today's newspaper?"

Which one?

"The Capital Morning Post." Fisher handed over the newspaper and turned to page three.

In the middle of the third edition, there is a column article.

The title is: "Letter from the Front: A Mother's Question".

The article was accompanied by editorial notes printed below it, in such small font that you had to look very closely to see them clearly.

"This newspaper has received several letters from the families of soldiers on the front lines, questioning the official casualty figures."

The editorial department has forwarded the relevant letter to the Army's Press Control Office for review. The following content will be published after review.

Richard glanced through the article.

The mother who wrote the letter said that her son's battalion had more than 700 people when it set off in August.

The letter that came at the end of November only mentioned that "there are now more than 300 brothers in the camp".

She asked: Where did the remaining three hundred or so people go?

Was he transferred, or is he no longer with us?

If he is gone, why haven't I received a death notice yet?

The mother's name was omitted, and the unit number and organization mentioned in the letter were also blurred.

However, the numbers "more than 700 people" and "more than 300 brothers" were printed blatantly in the newspaper.

"Published after review." Richard read the line again.

"The editorial department forwarded the letter to the Army's Press Control Office, which read it and then released it."

Fisher scratched the patch of newly grown skin next to the bandage.

"Do you think the control center genuinely felt there was no problem and therefore allowed it to proceed, or did some within their organization also feel it was necessary to let outsiders see?"

Richard didn't respond to that.

He returned the newspaper to Fisher and sat down in his seat.

The class hadn't even started yet, and the classroom was only sparsely populated with less than half the students.

Three seats by the window were empty.

Two of them were faces I hadn't seen since the start of the semester; I heard they had gone home, to a home near the front lines.

There was one empty seat because the student had a cold, which was good news.

Richard pulled out his notebook.

This morning's lesson was on ritualistic speech.

The school bell rang.

Pollock's chalk spun twice on the blackboard.

Today I'll continue with something you can use.

He wrote a line of Latin on the blackboard.

"Rest in peace."

Pollock put the chalk back in the trough.

"You've all seen this phrase on tombstones."

But did you know that it wasn't originally written for the dead?

He glanced at the students below.

"It was originally written for the living."

"When a living person stands in front of a tombstone and recites this sentence, it is equivalent to telling the deceased below: 'You can stop moving now.'"

The implication is that if you don't say this, the person below might make a move.

The classroom was quiet for a few seconds.

It's started raining again outside the window.

The raindrops pattered against the windowpane, making a soft, rustling sound, much gentler than Pollock's chalk writing.