Chapter 481

Chapter 481.

Inside the dimly lit living room, a faint flame gently leapt on the wick of a candle.

The candle flame brought a hint of light to this room, and also reflected the youth’s heroic face.

He was lying on the table, his eyes staring motionlessly at the candlelight, and not the slightest emotion could be seen on his face, as if he was a statue.

Suddenly, the candle flame in front of him appeared to change, it no longer leaped gently, but began to rise upwards, but at the same time the flame was also thinning, like a small dough being pulled into noodles by a chef.

A slight change appeared in the face of the youth staring at the candle flame, his brows furrowed slightly and his eyes became sharp, but they remained dead focused on the light in front of him.

The “pulled thin” flame once again appeared to change, it actually made a bend, the upper part slightly tilted to the youth’s left, then immediately tilted to his right, then left, then right …… week after week, cycle after cycle.

If another person had been present and watched carefully, the youth’s eyes would have been turning, and the direction in which the flame tilted would have been the same as the direction of movement of his pupils.

It seemed that the young man was controlling the flames in front of him.

The flame was tilting from side to side faster and faster, but at that moment, the door opened with a creak, and the tilting motion of the flame on the candle came to an abrupt end.

Then with a soft thud, the candle flame turned into a cloud of sparks that scattered in the air and quickly disappeared.

The hall floor was immediately plunged into darkness, and the candle did not reignite.

“Damn it, Edward, I feel like I’m about to take my control of the flame to another level, a breakthrough would be an understatement, and now you’re interrupting a good situation! Couldn’t you have knocked before you came in?”

The youth who was controlling the flames just now said in a very irritated tone.

Then he snapped his fingers, and the candle that had just been extinguished abruptly sprang up in a ball of fire, quickly burning off half of its original length, and finally returning to the candle flame in its normal state.

The youth sighed sadly as he looked at the candle that was only half its length.

“Shut up Nathan, you used to fail even when you heard the slightest noise, is my knocking on the door any less loud?”

The visitor known as Edward was a man with sharp eagle-like eyes, but his tone when he spoke had a slightly petulant undertone.

“This time is different, it’s just a matter of proximity, I have confidence …… Forget it, let’s not talk about it.”

The youth known as Nathan shook his head, then asked, “How is it, did you bring back that batch of books?”

Edward picked up the water bottle on the table and gulped down several mouthfuls, “There were some twists and turns, but luckily they were all brought back, and Sarnell is supervising the unloading at the docks. But ……”

“But what?” A female voice came, followed by a woman coming down the stairs.

She appeared to be under thirty years of age, but oozed a mature charm, with a dignified appearance and beautiful physique, possessing this impressive, almost dazzling red hair, which was even more like an exuberant flame against her milky, snow-white skin, her hair was combed out without a trace of disarray, and plopped behind her head into a nice round bun, with a lock of hair left on each side to hang down in front of her shoulders.

If one observes the woman’s face, one will find that even her pupils are almost red, which is an extremely rare pupil color on the continent.

“Mom!” That was what Nathan called her.

“Ms. Mariana!” This was what Edward called her.

If an uninvolved person had been present, Nathan’s address to the woman would have been puzzling to him, for the lady’s appearance was a little too young for Nathan who looked more like a sister and brother than a mother and child.

Unlike Nathan, who addressed his mother very casually, Edward addressed her with reverence.

This was because Ms. Mariana was a powerful female spell caster who also had another identity – one of the members of the highest body of the Secret Society of Ten. Edward had only learned the lady’s name – Mariana – not long ago, and before that he had been told to call her Lady Red, probably because of that dazzling red hair.

He immediately answered the lady’s earlier query, “Our supplier has raised the price for subsequent orders, charging an additional 200 Aldo copper shields per book.”

“Why?”

Edward explained, “According to Sarnell, the local church has exerted influence on the lords, and now they can only ship them out through certain special means …… Well, similar to smuggling, in short, they can’t deliver to us openly.”

Mariana immediately asked, “How did the local church exert influence? Has it made things difficult for the lords there?”

“No, ma’am, as far as we know, the people from the church just took the book and mentioned it in front of the lord, and then the lord ordered the book to be banned.”

Mariana continued, “If our supplier continues to use his [special means] to provide us with goods, will it cause trouble for the lords there?”

Edward replied, “Huh? A nuisance? That’s definitely there, like not being able to collect taxes from those goods.”

“I mean his relationship with the church.”

“That’s not so bad, what lord is so capable that he can control all the miscreants in his territory? Everyone knows what’s going on, and the local church probably just wants an attitude.”

Lady Mariana seemed to be lost in thought, and Edward noticed a flash of worry between her eyebrows.

But only for a short while, the lady said, “Well, Edward, about the supplier’s price hike, that’s not a problem, just meet their demands, now is not the time to be concerned about petty interests.”

Edward nodded and responded, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Also, here are the samples for this batch.”

He pulled out a book double counted and handed it to Mariana.

The lady ran her hand slowly over the brand new, still ink-smelling book, which read ‘The Book of Grievances’ in large print in Hornblower.

After a long time, she said in an exclamatory tone, “To this day, I don’t understand how our supplier did it – almost all the books are in the exact same font and handwriting. Did the same person transcribe them? But one person obviously couldn’t have done such a large amount of work, and even if the same person had transcribed them, then two books in a row couldn’t have been identical.”

Edward immediately said, “Oh! Ma’am, perhaps I can answer a thing or two about this question.”

“You?”

Mariana looked over at him.

“Yes, I heard about it from Sarnell, too, who saw it from afar when he was in the Northwest Bay – how the book came out.”

Edward had an incredulous look on his face, “Amazing, amazing. It wasn’t transcribed by hand, it came out of some kind of machine.”

Nathan, who was beside him, asked him suspiciously, “Those books were made from a machine?”

“Yes, I also originally thought that those books were hand copied by a large number of people from the organization, and also wondered why the handwriting …… and even the arrangement of the letters were exactly the same in each book, but Sarnell’s description has answered all my doubts. Manufacturing, you say? No, no, no, in professional terms it would be [printing].”

Edward corrected Nathan’s incorrect wording.

Ask for a ticket!

(End of chapter)