CH-059

Village head Bandt had followed Finnian's steps the moment Finnian notified him of the fire.

A first fire accident—one could call it careless and just grit through it.

A second fire accident in the village was like being struck when already down. How could someone be so thoughtless at a time like this?

He had been anxious enough when Finnian told him about the fire.

But seeing where Finnian pointed, his heart turned to ice in an instant.

There weren't many storehouse locations in the village—beyond a few makeshift storehouses built for the harvest festival, there was the old storehouse for seeds set aside for next year.

Even if it was old and worn, being built of wood and stone it was at least relatively solid, and didn't need extra maintenance in ordinary times.

This year, seeing the storehouse was truly past the point of being left unrepaired, and having just come off the Carson City wedding feast, Bandt had put village affairs on hold for a time, made a special trip to Carson City to earn some quick money, and had been planning to do a thorough renovation of this storehouse during the agricultural rest period of winter.

But now...

Bandt felt like the sky had fallen.

Because he heard there were people trapped inside, Bandt urgently slapped his own thighs and forced himself to pull together.

The grain was gone—that could be let go.

But no one could be hurt.

Finnian read his father's thoughts and had originally wanted to say there was Leslie—as long as anyone still had a breath in them, he could save them.

But this touched on Leslie's personal secret, and Finnian couldn't say it directly.

In truth, Finnian had known from early on that Leslie had a special ability.

He, like Leslie, basically never played with peers his age—spending most of his time entertaining himself—so he had noticed several times that Leslie, who was disliked by everyone, actually had the ability to heal animals' wounds.

At first it was only a suspicion, because he had clearly seen a rabbit was injured—blood everywhere—yet the rabbit could still bolt away into the undergrowth. This had created great confusion for Finnian.

Later, to confirm his suspicion, Finnian had secretly observed Leslie and finally uncovered the truth.

Also precisely because he had discovered that Leslie, like himself, was someone "special," Finnian had even harbored the thought of wanting to be Leslie's friend.

But Leslie was a completely different type from himself—especially quiet, rigid, dull, uninteresting, unendearing, and entirely without soul.

After getting tangled up with him several times and even being hit, Finnian started giving Leslie a wide berth.

Until Finnian started meeting Father Aliss, and life began to feel different.

Father Aliss looked clean-cut and beautiful—completely unlike the strapping, broad-built villagers around the parish. Yet he wasn't fragile either. Though somewhat clumsy at farm work, he learned quickly—and invented many remarkable things, like the automatic watering device.

Someone had said that in a person's life, they would always encounter a particular someone.

Finnian felt he had encountered his.

Especially since Finnian had also had an incredibly vivid dream following the kidnapping incident.

In his dream, he had never met anyone called Father Aliss—and just went around stirring up trouble, doing annoying things that bothered people, out of sheer boredom.

But he still met Dr. Matthew in the dream.

The difference was: the first person to find him in the forest guardian's hut in the dream was his father Bandt—not Father Aliss.

Bandt had gone to the Savoie township on his own looking for Yvonne's aunt and found no leads—and growing more suspicious of the guardian's hut, he went to investigate. He had no reason to think overly badly of people, just had a curious instinct to ask one more question.

Which was actually quite a natural thing to do.

People under greater stress tend to overlook other anomalies.

If he hadn't known Father Aliss existed, Bandt would certainly only have carefully thought through all the suspicious details. But in reality, knowing Finnian had gone to the church—and the church had a priest of unknown origin who seemed to command some kind of eerie power—this gave him an uneasy sense of threat. This made Bandt, when going to find Father Aliss, want to bring all the able-bodied men of the village with him for backup—unlike the Bandt in the dream, who went to the forest guardian's hut alone.

But fate was like that—one link led to another. Miss a single link, and the direction changed entirely.

Like a lottery game drawn with lines—lose one crossbar, and the person's path goes somewhere entirely different.

In the dream, Matthew still felt pity for the young Finnian, but showed no mercy to the adult Bandt—calmly killing him and silencing him. Because the forest guardian's hut had been suspected twice now, and the cautious Matthew was unwilling to take risks again.

He quietly relocated his hiding place. And Finnian's mother became the sacrifice of that relocation—eliminated without a sound before she understood what had happened.

In the dream, Dr. Matthew was eventually found—just as he was preparing to escape, he was caught by Duke Claude.

A gunshot—and Matthew fell, dead in a clean instant.

But for Finnian, that one shot hadn't ended anything. He had no one to seek revenge against—and everything that followed was like a weight slowly pressing down, or an eternal shadow he could never shake free.

But it was only a nightmare.

Even though it had repeated two or three times, as long as he felt Father Aliss was near, Finnian felt at peace.

He hadn't gone to find Father Aliss only to say thank you—he had gone back repeatedly to confirm that he had truly been saved.

At first he had also felt unhappy that Father Aliss had buried Dr. Matthew—even feeling that Father Aliss had no sense of right and wrong, forgiving people without any bottom line.

But Father Aliss had only told him gently: "If you still feel resentment, anger, or even disgust toward Matthew, that is perfectly normal."

"You don't need to feel like you have to be the good child—you're allowed to not forgive the person who hurt you, and you're allowed to have negative emotions."

"When you don't want to forgive, you have every right not to."

Probably from that time onward, Finnian felt Father Aliss was unlike anyone else. He didn't lecture him, didn't demand anything of him—only gave him permission.

From that moment, Matthew's shadow slowly faded from his heart.

In its place was a different figure left behind.

That was Father Aliss.

He said little, and did nothing excessive—yet from some moment onward, he had moved into the deepest part of Finnian's heart.

Gradually, Finnian no longer even felt he needed friends his own age—and had already put Leslie out of his mind entirely.

Yet inexplicably, Leslie kept reappearing in front of him, following Father Aliss's every move.

At first it was only suspicion, but slowly—from the blooming flowering tree, to the autumn when Father Aliss's beloved wheat field seemed to have been enchanted and suddenly burst into life—Finnian, who could only say "truly remarkable" and mean it, and then again at the harvest festival when Leslie had been putting on various pleading expressions—

Finnian's suspicion hardened into certainty: Leslie was here to steal Father Aliss from him.

He was way too much.

He was rotten to the core.

And yet he had to pretend to be perfectly harmless—truly infuriating.

In Finnian's eyes, Leslie was an absolute scoundrel—and yet he had to put on an innocent face. That was enough to make anyone furious.

One day, he was absolutely going to fight Leslie.

…

On the other side, when Bandt arrived at the scene, he found no one had been seriously injured—a scare, but no real harm done.

The anxiety and worry transformed at once into anger.

"How on earth did this storehouse catch fire?"

Bandt was ordinarily an easy-going person.

But perhaps precisely because he was easy-going, his anger when it came was even more frightening.

Dead silence fell over the scene.

His gaze swept over every villager present. "Did anyone see how this started?"

The villagers looked at one another, no one speaking, all shaking their heads.

Yet this head-shaking didn't mean they truly knew nothing—it might also be an attempt to shed responsibility, or to stay uninvolved.

Bandt's face went cold. He fixed his gaze directly on Bali, who was sitting on the ground. "You were in charge of managing the keys to the old storehouse—how did you not notice the fire?"

If Bali had been covered in injuries now, Bandt would certainly not have been willing to say these things. But seeing Bali sitting there unscathed, with color in his cheeks, Bandt's reproach hit with particular force.

Bali stumbled over his words, his tone evasive: "I..."

"Bali said he had something to give me, so I was actually inside the storehouse talking with him," Cecilia spoke up next to provide Bali's alibi, cutting through the frozen standoff. "We didn't notice the fire outside until it was too late. I was also a victim."

Bandt frowned at hearing this. He had heard early on about Bali's pursuit of Cecilia—especially since Cecilia had gone to work in Carson City. Bali had become even more impatient. But even wanting to declare his feelings during the harvest festival, he had no right to abandon his responsibilities to pursue a romance.

His gaze burned with fire, fixed on Bali: "For this fire incident, Bali, you bear full responsibility."

"For what?!" Bali snapped his head up—how could he possibly bear the full wrath and losses of the entire village for a burned storehouse? "I didn't set the fire—why should I take full responsibility?"

While talking, he anxiously scanned the faces of everyone around him, his gaze finally landing on Leslie.

In the past, no matter what happened, as long as the blame and responsibility were pushed onto Leslie, the matter would end without further consequence. Because the other party was the Duke's only son—and he would never explain himself for anyone.

He was always the scapegoat.

Bali's mind jerked—as if forgetting entirely who had just saved him—and pointed his finger directly at Leslie, advancing: "I know the truth! Leslie set this fire—!"

Everyone froze.

The air seemed to drain of oxygen in an instant.

No one responded, no one refuted it.

And this silence, paradoxically, seemed to embolden Bali's confidence.

Bali spoke louder and louder: "I saw it! Just ten or so days ago, he came here in a carriage. The coachman said the carriage was full of pitch blocks and pine resin—isn't that exactly what you'd use to start a fire? Leslie clearly wanted to burn down the entire village! This storehouse was only the first step!"

His words rang out crisp and sharp—like someone covering up their own inner unease.

Finnian's gaze also swiftly locked onto Leslie—seeing his face go pale, yet his mouth hanging open on his face but producing nothing, as if he never knew how to say anything.

Finnian, unable to stand watching this, burst with anger—before Bali could continue rambling on with his analysis, he cut him off furiously: "Leslie was with me the entire time. He had no opportunity to start any fire!"

"How do you prove that?!" Bali snapped back. "Who could prove what you say is true?"

He laughed coldly and pressed toward Finnian: "Finnian, you yourself are no saint. Everyone in the village knows you've caused all kinds of trouble. You've made no end of headaches for the village head—don't you know that yourself? You're talking now, and who's going to believe you? Stop adding to the village head's problems!"

These words were like a fist slamming into Finnian's chest—his face going hot and cold at once.

Seeing the normally sharp-tongued Finnian being struck in his weak spot and left speechless, a mocking smile curled at Bali's lips.

But before he could feel satisfied for long, a shadow suddenly fell across his eyes—

"BANG!"

A strike landed hard across his face—like a fist, like an elbow strike, the force was such that he stumbled backward, then crashed to the ground with a thud.

He was dazed—hand covering his face, eyes full of disbelief as he looked up.

If it had been just a punch, he might still have risen with wounded pride and lunged back. But that single blow—like a block of iron against his cheekbone—dull and cold—even rattling his brain with a resounding "clang." His whole person felt as if momentarily knocked out of the world. His anger hadn't even had time to rise before it was replaced by blank shock and confusion.

Not to mention—that one moment of meeting Shu Li's gaze: emotionless, almost entirely devoid of expression.

Not anger. Not warning. The cold composure of someone who simply didn't take him into account. Looking him over from his head to his feet, pausing two or three seconds at the soles of his shoes, then looking away.

Bali had lost even the impulse to struggle.

Shu Li didn't spare him another glance—only raised his hand and moved Finnian and Leslie behind his back.

Arm raised, body turned—all in one fluid motion.

Then he offered a very light explanation.

"I merely raised my hand—didn't even move."

His tone was without any ripple—so flat it was almost dismissive.

"You walked into it yourself."

He gave no apology, didn't even look directly at Bali again—as if dealing with a dog that wouldn't stop barking.

He paused, then Shu Li's gaze went faintly cold, sweeping over Bali like a blade.

"Also—watch your distance when you talk."

He said it, then added one more line, his tone light as nothing—yet landing squarely on Bali's face.

"It's not that I have nothing to say—your mouth is just unclean. It reeks."

"So. Shut up. Alright?"

Not a question. A statement of certainty.

Shu Li didn't wait for an answer. His gaze shifted to Bandt: "The Lord just now delivered instructions to me—to find the instigator of tonight's fire. May I have your assistance?"

Bandt had just felt a wave of satisfaction at Shu Li's reprimand of Bali on his behalf, and hearing this, responded immediately.

"Yes!"