Chapter 18: Before Leaving

Before the fight broke out for real, the vice-master of the Moonwater City’s Bounty Guild came and stopped them. Both sides agreed to stand down following the vice master’s advice, eliminating the imminent conflict.

Pity . Angor said to himself.

The Heylan merchant sat down and explained in a cold voice, “As I said, the Heylan incident could not have been caused by the Shining Goldspink Knights because it was not a human deed in the first place.”

Then he stayed silent.

Not a human deed? Ghosts then? Nobody understood what he meant, but no one pushed either.

Angor was just as curious as to the others. However, since he was about to leave the Old Earth soon, the war might have ended for a long time by the time he came back from the Fey Continent, so Angor put away his train of thought and finished his meat before he then left the guild.

Thanks to ocean trades, the Moonwater City was only second to the capital when talking about prosperity. Angor was 14 now, and the biggest city he ever saw was Waterford, the governing city of Grue Town. The Moonwater City, however, was three times larger than Waterford, and this was without considering all those infrastructures.

Everything here made Angor’s eyes spin. He only saw magnificence and prosperity back at the balcony. Now as he looked at the city up close, he realized that delicacy and exquisiteness could also be found all over the place. God knew how many levels higher the city was compared to Grue Town, which only had stone houses.

Angor wandered around slowly to observe different folks while thinking about stories and novels his teacher taught him. He even learned something new by combining them with reality.

Jon told him to “learn as he goes”. Angor could not understand that before, but he was beginning to see when he started to travel outside the protection of his family and he combined what he saw with what he learned.

He reached his destiny soon, the Saunbana Trader Street.

This was the place Aleen talked about several days ago. It was famous because people here only sold what they transported over the sea, from the other countries. One would not find most of them in Goldspink Empire.

Aleen bought a bunch of things the other day, including several books with unknown originations called “Powdering in Palaces”, “Tones”, “Fan Languages”, and etc. The titles did not make much sense, but they were only actually about the makeups and how to combine clothing colors for ladies.

Angor only glanced at the books while Aleen quite enjoyed them. She even followed the instructions and bought some powders to make up her face. Such a young admirer of beauty.

Aleen’s behaviors did hint to Angor to buy some books on the street. He planned to send some proper and rich historical materials to his teacher if he found any.

The first thing that greeted him on Saunbana Trader Street was a statue in the center of a fountain. It was a gentleman in formal attire. This was the Saunbana Princip, a giant figure in the empire who initiated ocean trading 200 years ago. Naming the street after the man showed how much respect people held towards him.

Both sides of the street were occupied by low yet broad buildings constructed with colorful bricks. Every shop tried their best to make themselves attractive. The signs and slogans were also showy. Angor saw a carnival clown playing ball tricks in front of a dessert shop who would make the crowd exclaim every now and then. Some kids dragged their parents and cried when they could not persuade their parents to buy sweets.

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The entire street was just so lively. Angor tried his best to keep his nobleman’s image, but he was young after all, and he could not hold back the curiosity in his blinking eyes and could not help looking everywhere.

In the end, Angor spent his first coins at a… milk shop, with a cow’s plush in front of its door, instead of his original destination, bookstore.

He drank a full bowl of sweet milk, then let out a big smile when no one was looking.

He immediately went back to his usual expression once he was out of the shop. When he took another pack of takeaway sweet milk, he even tried to act mature. “Alas, my sister loves strong, sweet milk. Sorry for troubling you, mister,” pretended Angor.

Angor wiped his lips clean and stepped away, satisfied.

It did not take him long to find a bookstore with the image of Thoth, the ancient god of knowledge, drawn on the door. The store mostly sold pulp paper books. There were rarely any leather books here.

He picked up several random books to read. The shopkeeper wanted to yell at him first, but seeing Angor’s appearance and his careful etiquettes when reading, he swallowed his curse words back. He never liked customers who casually read through his books here, but he would not turn away a polite young nobleman either.

The stories were good. He could even learn some deep meanings between the lines. This trip was worthwhile.

Angor was never stingy about books. Soon, he was carrying several filled kraft paper bags provided by the store.

“Hey mister, you seem really interested in various books. I have a collection of random volumes, could you wait a bit if you’re willing to see them?” The shopkeeper was overjoyed just by seeing Angor buying so many books. Customers like this were scarce these days. He also noticed that Angor bought all kinds of books, so he instantly had some new ideas.

The shopkeeper collected many books from people of various foreign fleets, but most of them were too aged and tattered, and some of them were written in unknown language so they never got sold and could only collect dust in his storage. Now he just met a generous customer, he would not let this chance get away.

“Collections?” Angor’s eyes lit up. He agreed without giving it much thought.

The shopkeeper quickly led Angor to the guest room upstairs and gave him a glass of fruit wine before he headed towards the storage.

After a while, the owner brought two assistants and three large wooden boxes with them. These gave out the smell of mold.

Angor frowned. They must have been kept in an extremely damp place to be like this.

“Oops… The traders from the desert kingdom haven’t come in a long time so we’re out of drying powder, and the Moonwater City is far from being dry. Don’t worry, I made inner packings for the books, no wetness will slip in,” said the shopkeeper as he thumped on his chest.

Angor did not question him. He only nodded and asked them to open the boxes.

Before he could check the content of them though, a loud, deafening horn sound came from the sky above the Moonwater City.