Jorgen never imagined that he could walk into the old man's meeting room without being bound. The black dragonskin floor map, the wooden table covered with small dents and scratches, two oil paintings on the wall, one of the old man's portrait, the other of an unknown valley. Jorgen put these features in his memory to confirm that he had not been taken to another room.
"How's your right hand recovering?" The old man said.
"No big problems."
The bandaged right hand was more seriously injured than imagined. After grasping the dagger and bearing the impact of the undertakers's punch, he did not treat it in time. Hanging Mardias's body in mid-air with it allowed Jorgen to grasp neither knife nor fork now. The old man had arranged for seven of the best doctors to treat his injuries.
The old man nodded.
"Are you glad to be alive?"
This unexpectedly sour question made Jorgen think for a moment.
"Yes, I'm glad to be alive. But not just for what happened these days."
The old man slightly lifted a stack of documents on the desktop, then put them down again. "This is the death report received today. An agent, 25 years old, just graduated from the academy, all subjects approved A. He was stabbed to death while celebrating the end of a case investigation at a bar, because a drunkard decided he had taken his seat. He was unaware and unable to resist. What do you think? "
"An accident. I feel sorry for him."
"No, Jorgen. We never talk about accidents, only the consequences of actions. He shouldn't have gotten dead drunk without precaution, and that's the consequence. I have done a lot to establish Military Intelligence Unit 7. You have done a lot to live until now. No accidents. Do you understand what I mean? "
"Yes."
"Let's speak frankly. At some point, more than once, I wanted you to disappear from MI7. This was due to your own mistakes. But you did other things that made me drop the idea. Jorgen, what do you really want? "
"I don't know yet."
"Then stay in MI7 until you figure it out. You can retire, and I will assign you new tasks after your injuries heal."
"Yes, Mr. Shawl."
Panthonia watched Jorgen walk to the door. He really didn't understand what Jorgen wanted. The man was mentally tough, meticulous in his work, and fearless of death - simply an ideal agent template, but opposed him at every turn. Panthonia once thought Jorgen wanted power and money, but he never showed any needs in that regard. Later, he felt that Jorgen wanted to destroy MI7 from within, but he protected Dalia and his heir so much that Panthonia was puzzled.
He would never know what Jorgen wanted.
Now, Panthonia felt that Jorgen should be kept alive for the time being. Part of the reason was out of curiosity, and more was the premonition that he might become one of Mardias's strongest helpers in the future. In that case, he could not be regarded as a real threat.
Thinking of this, he stood up and went to the slightly smaller room next door. As he closed the door, he suddenly felt dizzy and a sharp pain spread from inside his brain. For a moment, he thought he had lost sensation in the right half of his body, as if flesh had suddenly turned into a thin sheet of paper. More than ten seconds later, he regained consciousness and found that he had vomited some blood.
His life would not last long. Panthonia knew better than anyone how fragile his body was, sustained by drugs. He had vomited blood inexplicably many times, but losing consciousness for the first time. He thought this should be the result of the chase with Travis. The doctors had long told him to give up all work and find a quiet resort to rest and prevent inevitable diseases of old age, but he refused. He could not tolerate dying of old age in a sickbed, with white sheets underneath and fresh flowers by the bedside. And the thought of possibly being posthumously recognized as a believer in the Holy Light by Benedictus after his death and then buried in the cathedral cemetery made him nauseous.
But this did not mean that he did not need peace of mind.
The room was completely different from the dark tone outside, more like an exquisite little study. More than half a century ago, when he was still a young nobleman in Rodentia, he would spend twelve hours a day in such a study, keeping arguing parents and annoying tutors outside. Even as refugees migrating in the flames of war, even on the battlefield, even in the sewers digging arrowheads out of his body with daggers, he would never forget this room. When he first sat in the central room of the top floor of the MI7 barracks for the first time, the first thing he wanted was to have it secretly copied.
Panthonia was satisfied with everything before him until he found that the most important thing was missing: an exquisite music box. With a unique melody and structure that no craftsman could copy. Just when he was about to give up hope, he found his long lost brother, who had been missing for over fifty years, living incognito as a toy maker in Moonbrook Town. His brother had long known all about his accomplishments but hoped to stay away from all the chaos, which took Panthonia a lot of time to regain his trust and persuade him to replicate the music box with the only melody.
Panthonia did not want to kill his brother. This was the consequence of his brother's actions. He provided all the expensive materials, even exceeding the demand, but when the delivery date came, he found that his drunken brother wanted to trade the music box for twenty silver coins to a passing merchant.
He killed them both. The feeling of cutting down was the same, regardless of whether the other party was a stranger or his own brother. But he then threw the knife on the grass and, knowing that his actions had been seen by his brother's apprentice, did not kill the witness as usual. He didn't know why he would be so negligent.
More negligent was that he later learned that the key had been stolen. Although he found the culprit Tortoro, even the most cruel torture could not get the whereabouts of the key from him. After Neil was imprisoned for the second time, he accidentally heard the familiar melody coming from a cell.
The young man he had never met before sang the song. This made Panthonia feel foolish. The melody was the soul of the music box, and it should be trapped in the box forever for him alone. But this young man was casually humming what he had sought for decades and had been lost forever in the past. At this time, the news came that the Archbishop had obtained unfavorable evidence against him. In order to solve two problems at once, although he did not know that the key was in Neil's hands, he still said to Tortoro:
"I already know who took the key you kept. The one who tortured you was not me but him, Tortoro. It was he who made your wife and daughter suffer. I can tell you who he is and let you do whatever you like to him - but on one condition. Do you know Bossia, the Archbishop's goddaughter? "
The deranged Tortoro accepted the deal.
Panthonia, who believed he had been too negligent, never imagined he could find the key. When he learned from the messenger of Westbrook Garrison that "Bossia had a golden key", he could not hide his ecstasy. Fate was still on his side.
Now the golden key was in his hand. This morning, just before meeting with Jorgen, the surviving undertakers returned and handed him the key. He finally had the opportunity to use this key. When the music sounded, this room from his past would truly become a whole.
Panthonia inserted the key into the keyhole and turned it.
Instead of music, there was a faint but strange clicking sound, like the jagged edge of a knife hitting a rock. This sound grew louder and more complex. Panthonia knew something was wrong. He wanted to pull the key out but couldn't, as if extra parts were stuck inside the keyhole. Then the clicking turned into cracking, not just once but many faint objects cracking. Silver liquid flowed out of the keyhole.
A moment later, all the noises stopped. The song that would never sound again announced the end of his memory dream.
Panthonia slapped the useless music box off the table. It fell to the floor, still shining but broken beyond repair, like a dead man wearing a pearl necklace and a mink coat. Panthonia's right hand was clenched tightly on the desktop.
A moment later, he remembered something, turned around and picked up the broken golden key. Just then, his vision turned white again, and a sharp pain shot through his brain. Red blood dripped onto the gold.