Fang Hong stared at the man, a little dazed.
The middle-aged man watched the movement of his hands and couldn't help but shake his head lightly: "It's not strange that you'd think that way, since someone has been deliberately steering things toward that result. This little trick hasn't changed at all over the years. I don't even need to look for clues to guess it—"
For a moment Fang Hong listened in a bit of a stupor.
Who was steering things toward that result?
Whose "little trick" was he talking about?
But at least he had understood one thing. After thinking for a moment, Fang Hong looked up and asked: "You're trying to tell me you're not the Wandering Alchemist from ten years ago, but then how do you know how the Princess sees all this? What are you trying to prove by telling me these things?"
He asked several questions in a row.
But the middle-aged man didn't answer a single one, only countered: "Do you really want to know all of it?"
This was almost the second time he had asked that. Fang Hong was slightly taken aback when he heard it, and only then remembered that he had come to find out what happened to Affia. Yet somehow, as if driven by ghosts, a strange thought rose in his heart at that moment—ever since arriving in Tansnier, incidents had come one after another, and behind them, without exception, there was some connection to that attack ten years ago.
Affia would not have vanished for no reason; someone had to be plotting something behind it. And that attack ten years ago and everything happening now might look completely unrelated, but perhaps they were linked by some hidden connection. Beneath the surface mess of clues, there must be an invisible thread.
And the missing corner of that thread might well be hidden in the lost section of that story from the past—
A strong desire arose in him; maybe he could find some unknown clues in that story. And those clues might just be the last missing pieces he couldn't yet see. But first, he had to figure out what the man in front of him was after.
He hadn't forgotten that Combat at the Sand Lodge in Tansnier—this man still appeared to be someone on Stargate Port's military wanted list. Someone like that, he naturally couldn't trust lightly.
Even so, he finally gave a slight nod.
The man shifted slightly to the side, making way and gesturing for him to enter. Fang Hong looked at the pitch-dark entrance of the tavern and for a moment had an illusion, as if behind it lay some hellish den of blades and fire. But the hallucination ebbed away like the tide soon enough. He drew a breath and walked forward.
Behind him, Xiangzi and Luo Yu exchanged a glance. The latter looked a little worried, but the former followed along with apparent indifference.
The middle-aged man didn't let Fang Hong walk in front; he took the lead himself.
And once inside, it was just an ordinary hall, nothing like the hundreds of ambushed axe-men Fang Hong had imagined—light filled the hall, no different from what he had seen a few days ago. There were quite a few Guests as well. The King of Sand's departure and a young girl's sudden disappearance seemed not to have had any immediate impact on this ancient Royal City.
People still lived as they always had. Dust drifted through the shifting shafts of Light, as if sealing away each day of this old city—day after day, without much change. Only the undercurrents beyond people's Perception still surged forward, shaping and pushing, bit by bit, the future of this Sand Kingdom.
After they had walked for a while, the middle-aged man's voice came from ahead:
"Barbaltan was already investigating the Queen's death ten years ago. Back then the Grand Princess was not yet of age, and the Little Princess was still in swaddling clothes. The things Her Highness is looking into now are nothing in that man's eyes. Of course, she's very capable; in the future she might well go further. It's just that His Majesty the King of Sand may already be too impatient to wait…"
He turned around, his deep brown gaze settling on Fang Hong: "Your service to the Grand Princess was known from the very beginning to that supreme one in the inner palace. It just might have taken a bit more time to fully investigate your origins. You should be clear about Ye Hua and the Governor of Bain's positions; it's not strange at all that they'd learn of these things."
"I'm on fairly good personal terms with Ye Hua. It's just as unsurprising that he'd tell me this—"
"Then do they know you stole the Yinhanz Model IV at the Sand Lodge?"
The middle-aged man turned away once more and in turn asked: "Then does Su Changfeng know what you did in Bain?"
"You people made the first move. We were forced into it."
"Who wasn't?"
The two of them left the hall and stepped into the courtyard behind. The middle-aged man looked at the corridor ahead and said, "I was short one tool that fit my hand. To achieve certain aims, I had no choice but to do that. If you think I violated the 'Stargate Declaration,' that's fine—Stargate Port's people are hunting me anyway, aren't they?"
All at once Fang Hong reacted: "You know Su Changfeng?"
The middle-aged man didn't answer.
A slight stir went through Fang Hong's heart. Staring at the man's back, he asked again: "You're an Invoker."
The other man remained silent.
But not answering also amounted to tacitly admitting the possibility.
In fact Fang Hong had already seen it. He suddenly realized—why would Stargate Port put out a warrant on some Natives for no reason? There was only one possibility: these Wandering Alchemists were originally Invokers. But that thought shook him even more than his earlier speculation had.