Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 189
The summers at Brandenburg were more comfortable than in most parts of the empire. Duke Dwight didn’t want his young children to travel in such weather, so he decided to leave them at home.
This decision greatly displeased his youngest son. Despite using all the protest methods he knew, Arnie couldn’t change their minds and didn’t show a single smile until the Duke and Duchess departed—though he still hugged his parents and wished them a safe journey.
The Duke, seated in the carriage, signaled to close the door after glancing at his children standing there. Priscilla was always more mature than her peers, which reassured them about their daughter, but Arnie…
“He looks very angry,” he said to his wife. “Poor thing.”
The Duchess replied, “It was sudden. It would have been better if Arnie had a few days to accept it. But mainly, it’s because your promise to take him to pick a pony had to be postponed.”
“Not because he hates leaving his mother?”
“Don’t let Arnie hear you say that.” The Duchess gently patted her husband. “He’s trying hard.”
Arnie was five this year. For children of any class, this was still an age where they could rightfully be coddled in their mother’s arms. Although Arnie depended on his mother, he was unusually self-disciplined and always referred to the Duchess as “Mother” when others were present. This was the correct etiquette, but the Duke and Duchess weren’t the type to strictly enforce it.
The Duke actually hoped his son would be livelier and more willful. Arnie was still young and didn’t need to be so serious.
It made him feel lonely.
“He has my father’s temperament,” the Duke sighed. “But he’s so adorable.”
Like this time, Arnie could have thrown a tantrum, crying and rolling on the floor, clinging to his legs to stop him from boarding the carriage, causing a commotion that would require lots of comforting and promises of many toys to calm him down. But none of these anticipated scenes occurred.
His youngest son first expressed his desire for them not to leave in an adult manner. When they rebutted his points one by one, the most willful protest he could think of was to skip his lessons.
The Duchess was a bit worried too. “Compared to other children his age, Arnie is too reserved. Is it because he only has a quiet sister and no brother to play with?”
But it was too late to plan for a brother now.
“Maybe there are too few children in the castle, and his teachers are all calm adults,” Duke Dwight mused, looking at the scenery outside the window.
“When we return, we should select a few children to be his companions and replace some of his teachers with younger ones—I’ll discuss this with His Majesty.” Priscilla and Arnie’s teachers came from the capital, selected to the same standards as those for the princes and princesses, a gesture of goodwill from the Emperor. But compared to the Duke’s two children, the similarly aged princes were as active as monkeys.
The Duke wished his children were as lively. His daughter was always quiet and gentle, and when Arnie was born, he thought he finally had a little monkey. But his son grew more like his grandfather, which was worrying.
The couple discussed for a long time but made no progress on how to free their children’s nature. Sunlight streamed through the window, making the carriage too bright. The Duchess reached to draw the curtains but paused when she saw the scene outside.
She saw groups of people standing not far from the road, from farm women with water jars on their heads to weary travelers. She turned to her husband and whispered a few words. Duke Dwight rang a bell, instructing the convoy to switch from two abreast to single file to avoid making the people move aside.
“Don’t make everyone suffer in the sun because of us,” the Duke instructed.
He also specifically ordered the milk from the supply cart to be given to the people standing by the ditches and bushes due to the convoy.
“There’s nothing kinder than this.” Those who received the milk were especially grateful.
Although milk wasn’t worth much and the milk in the noble convoy’s reserves would be thrown out by nightfall, the gesture was very rare.
“That’s coming from the direction of Lemena,” said an older person confidently. “It must be the Dwight family’s Lord or Lady.”
Charlie, who was also squeezed off the road due to traffic control, received a small cup of milk and handed it to a child beside him. Lifting his cloak, he looked ahead just in time to see the last carriage disappear at the end of the road.
He couldn’t make out the family crest on the carriage, but the knights on either side, even in armor, exuded an extraordinary air, suggesting they were the previous generation’s knights.
With such a large convoy, if the passengers weren’t the Duke, they had to be direct relatives, like the Duke’s daughter or… the heir.
Would little Dwight be in the carriage?
Charlie lowered his cloak hood and rejoined the road with everyone. They all had to continue their journey.
He did plan to visit Lemena, but before that, he wanted to make a stop somewhere else.
……
The gatekeeper Atto was sitting in his little hut playing a dice game. His dog lazily lay at the door, guarding a large copper basin placed on a washstand beside the gate. If any new faces came in without placing a copper coin in the basin or dared to steal money from it, the dog would bark ferociously, causing Atto to rush out with his fire poker.
The townspeople often joked that his dog was the real gatekeeper.
“Hello, Rabbi,” Charlie cheerfully greeted the guard dog, only to be barked at mercilessly.
Atto immediately threw down his dice and ran out, asking aggressively, “Who are you?!”
Charlie raised his hands. “I’m from Butisnier and want to buy herbs from Mrs. Robert.”
He accurately named a local resident, and Mrs. Robert’s herbs were indeed well known. Atto suspiciously eyed this cloaked man in the hot weather. “Have you paid?”
Charlie then remembered the fee imposed by the miserly sheriff for entering the town. Originally, with Maplewood’s population and size, it didn’t qualify for such fees, but the sheriff, to amass wealth, boasted about expanding Maplewood into a city, aligning its rules with those of a larger city.
However, the only alignment was in collecting fees.
“I didn’t know the rules,” Charlie quickly said, tossing two copper coins into the basin with a clear clink.
Only then did Atto put down his poker and ignore Charlie.
Charlie had lived in Maplewood for several years. Even though it was getting dark, he had no trouble finding his way. But when he arrived at his destination, he found a dilapidated old house.
The small garden in front of 22 Paulownia Street was overgrown with weeds, the windows and doors were covered in cobwebs, and several places on the roof were broken, allowing wind and rain to pour in. Over time, the attic was covered in moss and mold.
He took out his pocket watch. It was seven in the evening. The streetlights hadn’t come on yet, but the sun had set, and most people were at home finishing dinner. He quickly walked through the small garden, went to the back door of 22, and found it locked. However, he opened it with a straightened wire.
Once he stepped onto the kitchen floor, Charlie realized how much he missed this house. He casually hung his cloak on a dusty hat rack and took out his long pipe to start smoking.
The house originally belonged to an old lady named Heenan. She and her husband had no children, so after her death, there was no one to inherit this “legacy”, and it had been vacant for a long time. When Charlie and Columbus bought the house, they found many well-preserved old pieces of furniture in the basement, along with Heenan’s letters and cooking notes. They easily pieced together an image of a kind, life-loving old lady from these relics and renovated 22 while maintaining its original appearance, then opened a shop and did business.
That was until a few years later, when the pampered young Duke braved the snowstorm to come late at night.
How strange it was that so much had happened in just half a year since that day. He had made many new friends and lost old ones.
Charlie didn’t light a lamp but slept on the floor with his clothes on. He didn’t sleep well, perhaps because he was back at 22 Paulownia Street. He always thought he heard the voice of the little tin soldier calling his name, full of energy and very cheerful.
“Charlie! We need a mailbox! Every house on the street has one!”
“Charlie! Why are you using such strange stuff to paint the weathervane? Can it ward off witches?”
“Charlie! Charlie! There’s a guest! Charlie!”
Charlie abruptly opened his eyes, instinctively wanting to stand up from behind the counter, only to realize the next second that he was lying on the floor.
Unknowingly, he had slept for several hours, and it was almost dawn.
Thirteen years ago, Elena hadn’t even started school, let alone become a witch. The little tin soldier, now part of the inheritance Elena inherited, should still be dazed, wandering around the garden.
Charlie felt much better. He had found the second benefit of returning to thirteen years ago: his old partner Columbus was still alive.
He had no intention of interfering with history, but even if he couldn’t meet Columbus in person, knowing he was still living carefree somewhere made Charlie immensely happy.
This joy lasted a long time. He exchanged a pair of beautiful cufflinks in the town for some money. Because they had rare gemstones, the eloquent Charlie quoted a high price, which was actually accepted.
In fact, he had bought them on his way from Mokwen to White Bridge. Yellow gemstones of this color were a specialty of a small kingdom along the way, and the price was reasonable at the time. But in Pennigra, these gems from a distant continent were worth much more.
He used this money to rent a room at an inn, bought a good-quality travel case, two shirts, a summer coat, two pairs of silk trousers, two sets of underwear, and a silk top hat.
When Charlie was fully refreshed, he looked like a handsome gentleman again. Even though he deliberately avoided the Tree Hole Inn (at this time, Mona was just a girl from the countryside helping out), he still attracted a lot of female attention.
Even so, Charlie didn’t wear his cloak again, partly because he wouldn’t stay long and partly because when he returned to Maplewood a few years later, he was a rabbit-headed man, making it highly unlikely anyone would recognize him as the traveler who had briefly visited years before.
He just enjoyed the inn’s breakfast, the sunshine on the street, and the sight of familiar people busy with their lives, greeting them all in his mind.
Most people looked much younger than he remembered. The children running around the street would become young men able to work and earn money in a few years, though they were now just chatting loudly out of boredom.
“Did you hear?” one boy said. “About the haunting!”
“Don’t be so loud—the adults don’t allow us to talk about it.”
“But many people have seen it. At 22 Paulownia Street…”
Charlie, who was reading the notice board, perked up at the familiar address.
“My uncle saw it too,” a child said mysteriously. “The house has been empty for a long time, but last night, a ghost was wandering inside!”
There was a collective gasp from the children.
Charlie was stunned. He had indeed spent the night at 22 Paulownia Street, but how did he become a ghost?
“The ghost was carrying a candlestick while walking, no, floating.”
“He saw candlelight!”
“Flickering on and off, very scary.”
…That was probably because he was smoking. Charlie, finding it both funny and exasperating, finally understood why the house price was so low when he and Columbus bought it.
While he was recalling how many rooms he had walked through with his pipe last night, the town’s fat clerk came riding a donkey, nailed a notice to the bulletin board with a few loud bangs, and then loudly read to the crowd that had gathered to watch.
“From today until sunset three days later, no fishing, drawing water, or any other activities are allowed by the Lake of Sighs because the Young Master and Miss of Duke Dwight’s family want to play there! Idlers are not allowed to approach!”
The author has something to say:
After a long period of tension, let’s have some relaxing slice-of-life (?) scenes.
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