I loaded the Mysticism panel.

It rained for half the morning, and then stopped at 10 o'clock.

On his way back to the dormitory, Richard took the small path behind the main building.

Another notice seeking recruits was posted on the notice board, covering half of the recruitment poster.

At the entrance of the cafeteria, Fisher was slamming a piece of paper on the table.

"The music I composed has had its lyrics altered!"

"Change it to what?"

"You're cursing the cafeteria staff," he said to Richard with a look of indignation.

"No response at first, no response at second, at third the cook replaced the meat with radish."

Catherine wrote two words in her notebook: Rhyme.

"You're praising them!" Fisher almost jumped up.

After the meal, Richard went to the professor's office, where Mortimer was clipping newspaper articles.

"Professor, I have a question that is not related to coursework."

"When did you ask me about anything related to my studies?" The old professor didn't want to talk to him.

Richard sat down in the chair by the window.

"I'd like to ask you if there's a way to guide that team."

The scissors stopped, Mortimer pushed his reading glasses up his nose, and began to make a start.

"Before the group goes out, it should stop in a windy spot. The dogs go first, and the group follows the direction the dogs face."

Richard's fingers twitched on his knee.

"So the people we need to persuade are the ones walking the dogs. What do they want?"

"Abundant, plump, easy to catch, and easy to distinguish."

"What I hate most is not being able to keep up and not being able to tell the difference."

"How about we be reasonable?"

"You've already lost if you try to reason with me." The old professor chuckled, but there was no warmth in his laugh.

"They were taken in one by one over the years, and they've long forgotten what their own names are."

Trying to reason with them is like reciting a judgment to a wall.

Outside the window, a pigeon landed on the eaves gutter, paced a couple of steps, and then flew away.

Mortimer suddenly looked up, and the turbidity completely disappeared.

"Where are you leading us?"

Richard did not answer.

Mortimer stared at him for three or four seconds, then picked up the scissors again.

"Forget it, it has nothing to do with this old man who's about to die anyway."

When Gerrard returned the next evening, he gave him a picture.

"We can't produce the military-grade equipment right now."

"This is a trade route map used before the war, with bridges and ferry crossings drawn in more detail than on military maps."

The low-lying area in the picture has canals woven like a fishing net.

Gerrard's finger landed on a spot.

"Baldwin is here, four miles north of the town with the cloth guild hall on the east side of the canal."

"Where's Vincent?"

"Further south, it was moved once last month, but the family doesn't know exactly where it was moved to."

Although Clara told me that the capital city had long been prepared for enemy gas warfare.

But Richard still had a vague sense of unease in his heart.

He was prepared to see if he could find a way to get the team heading towards Flanders.

Many members of the Ashford family are still on the front lines, including Coleman.

Regardless of whether the enemy actually launches and succeeds in their gas attack, the arrival of the Wild Hunt will certainly make the situation even more chaotic.

The more chaotic things are, the better the opportunity to fish in troubled waters.

………………

The hay and fodder shops in the eastern part of the city had white strips nailed to their doors.

Richard walked to the third house, where the sun slanted into the roof of the opposite house.

The worker was using a short fork to scoop the last bit of hay into the wheelbarrow.

"Want some grass?" The clerk asked without looking up. "The quartermaster ordered this year's worth last month."

"One bundle will do."

Not a single bundle.

Richard sighed inwardly and slapped a bill onto the scale.

The waiter then straightened up, looked at the money first, then at the man.

"Sir, do you want to keep horses?"

"I won't raise them."

"Then why would you buy it?"

"The horse for feeding guests."

The man laughed, leaned the fork against the wall, and pulled out a tightly packed bundle of hay from behind.

The folds created by the binding rope still retain the colors from last autumn's sun-drying.

"Your guest's horse must have quite an appetite."

"Not small."

"How many?"

Richard thought about the vast, seemingly endless area wrapped around Yun's belly.

"countless."

The man tightened the rope again and put it on his shoulder.

"This bundle isn't enough."

"That's enough," Richard said firmly. "It'll only take one bite."

On the return journey in the carriage, bits of grass crawled down his collar, stinging the back of his neck.

The driver glanced back twice but didn't ask anything.

When the door to 13 Chelsea Road opened, the butler's face peeked out from the crack.

His eyes first fell on the bundle of grass, then on the young master's shoulder.

"Young master... the hay in our stables is full."

"I know."

"Then this..."

"Leave it for now."

Gerald sat in the wicker chair on the porch, an unopened evening newspaper spread out on his lap.

"What are you carrying?"

"Dried grass".

"I can see it's hay," the old man said curtly. "I'm asking what you're going to do with it."

Richard propped the bundle of hay against the stone pillar on the left, made sure it was steady, and then stepped back half a step to take a look.

Gerald's gaze lingered on that spot; the tooth mark from back in March still lingered there.

"Those who leave grass behind will have good luck next year." Gerald folded the newspaper. "You want good luck?"

"I want that person to listen to me."

The old man didn't ask any more questions.

He tucked the newspaper under his arm and gestured with his chin towards the butler: "Turn the lights down, so the patrolmen don't see us."

After 11 p.m., only a sliver of green light remained on the gas lamp in the porch.

The butler, holding a lamp, tried to come closer, but Gerald gave him a look and sent him back to the foyer.

My maternal grandfather also stepped back behind the pillars, standing straight with his hands behind his back.

Richard mentally reviewed his words.

"The one who holds the horn requests an audience."

"I have no debts, nor do I pay off anyone's debts."

"I'll ask for a place to stay for one night; I'll earn the credit myself, and I'll take the opportunities myself."

After handing it over, he pushed a strand of ether into the antlers.

The entire ethereal field along Chelsea Road slumped to the ground, lying flat and obedient.

A watchdog in the distance barked halfway before swallowing the rest of its bark.

The first thing that came to mind was that smell.

Frozen soil and horse sweat, and the smell of grass trampled by tens of thousands of hooves.

The hay bale collapsed on its own at one corner.

The frost climbed from the tip of the horn up the reins, stopped at the knot, and formed a new shape.

Richard had seen that shape in the rubbings pile in Corbyn's office; it was pronounced "ok".

Then comes the sound.

"Aren't you coming yourself?"

"I have a messenger here."

"messenger?"

The wind picked up a bit more and circled halfway around the gatepost.

"interesting."

Sweat trickled down Richard's back from the back of his neck.

I am being weighed, just like the three syllables on the scale that night, not a fraction more or less.

The hunter said, "I'll just keep walking this night."

"Those at the front of the line who don't blow horns will follow the wind; whichever way the wind blows, they'll go that way."

"Since you want to speak, I'll give you a place to speak."

"If you can persuade them, the convoy will head to where you said it would be."

If you can't persuade me, you'll have to run with me all night.

Richard heard hooves pawing the ground in the far distance, tens of thousands of them, pawing in a dense, broken mass.

"I'll wait and see where you lead my troops."

The frost melted and flowed down the reins, dripping onto the bits of grass at the base of the gatepost.

Richard took everything.

Gerald emerged from behind the pillar and plucked a bit of grass with his finger.

"What did it give you?"

"A place to speak."

The old man rubbed the bits of grass between his fingers, then clapped his hands and stood up.

"That's the most expensive one."

Richard raised his head.

"And the cheapest one too." Gerald put his hands in his coat pockets.

"No one listens to what you say, so your seat is just an empty one."

………………

On the afternoon of April 26, only one pen was moving across paper in the teaching and research office.

Clara pushed the stack of papers she had finished approving toward him and stared at them.

"There's grass on your sleeve."

Richard looked down and saw two straws stuck in the seam of his cuff, which he had tried to remove several times yesterday but hadn't gotten rid of.

"Carry over a bundle of dry hay."

"You've completely canceled the tutoring sessions these past few days."

"Something came up."

Clara didn't ask any further questions.

"When you get back," Clara said, standing up and taking her coat off the back of her chair, "remember to come to class."

That evening, the iron door to the training room was locked from the inside.

Richard stood in the center of the field, summoned his shadow, and made it put on a mask.

Then he remembered something he had never thought about before.

The shadow cannot speak, but if it cannot open its mouth, the "speaking position" is an empty chair given to it by the hunter.

He passed on the most ordinary words through that wisp of spirit.

"The wind blows from the northwest tonight."

That sentence came out from under the Hermes mask.

It has no echo; once it enters your ear, it directly presses a pre-written meaning into your brain.

Once you press it, you'll feel like you should have listened to those words anyway.

Messengers, who deliver God's messages, never need to use their voices.

He tried three more times, and all three times were the same.

Then he tried to activate the [Reversal of the Face], causing the patterns of the two golden snakes to flip over in his spiritual vision.

The snake bit its own tail with its head facing inward, sealing the mask shut from the inside.

The original mask is gone, and the staff has also fallen apart.

He opened his mouth, but the words that the spirit had conveyed were stuck behind the sealed mask, and not a single word came out.

Richard already knew that these two things were mutually exclusive, but when he actually tested them, he still cursed inwardly.

Once the door to "openness" is closed, no one can define him.

He closed the door without uttering a word, and he no longer held the cane that forbade anyone to use it.

When they returned to Chelsea Road, the butler was opening the door to the woodshed, carrying the remaining half-bundle of hay.

"Young master, this... it's already completely dry, and the woodshed is damp. I think it would be better to..."

"Keep it."

"What's the point of keeping it?"

Richard thought about it.

"Celebrating the festival."

The steward opened his mouth, but in the end asked nothing, and carried the half-bundle of grass back to the woodshed.

As he reached the door, he glanced back, his eyes clearly conveying: this family is getting harder to please each year.

Gerrard was squatting in the backyard loosening the soil around the row of holly bushes.

"Is everything complete?"

"All done."

The shovel was plunged into the soil.

Gerrard propped himself up on his knees and dusted off his hands.

"Be back before dawn."

"Know."

The last rays of twilight fell on the backyard wall, and the wind changed.

………………

At a quarter to five, the lark stopped singing.

This was the first thing Coleman noticed.

The cacophony of birdsong, so irritating to the ear, receded layer by layer, until it was completely gone.

He straightened up and looked north, initially thinking it was smoke.

After the cannon fire, smoke always rises—white, gray, and black—and then it dissipates and disappears.

It doesn't float upwards; it comes out from in front of the enemy's trench, one column after another, and then pushes forward along the ground.

The height of the push is about the width of a person's belt buckle, neat and tidy.

On its eight-kilometer-wide front, one cannot see eastward from the west.

The color is yellowish-green.

Baldwin jumped down from the broken wall.

"poison?"

"I have no idea."

The draft horses on the artillery positions ahead broke their reins and ran south in groups.

Coleman leaned over the broken wall and raised the binoculars.

He saw people climbing up into the trenches of the garrison division.

The people who climbed up ran backwards one after another, but collapsed halfway up.

Some knelt on the ground, scratching at their collars until their necks were covered in bloody gashes;

Some had their hands on the ground, their heads drooping, and were foaming at the mouth.

Some rolled on the ground, falling into the furrows, and never got up again.

The wind is carrying that thing this way.