A chill pricked at Robert's heart, though he masked it with a faint curl of his lips. Had such words come from another, he might have suspected an allusion to Ya'er's fusion. But from Mo Yan's mouth, Robert dismissed them outright as the senseless babble of an old charlatan.
In Robert's eyes, Mo Yan was nothing more than a glib-tongued, parasitic mystic living off deceit.
Five years ago, at Robert's fifteenth birthday rite of passage, Ro Xiong had spirited his son to a brothel. On their way back, they happened upon a distant kinsman—Mo Yan. Claiming to be a wanderer, Mo Yan said he had passed through Moonwatch City and imposed upon Ro Xiong for a night of wine. At that very feast, he examined Robert's left hand and boldly declared that Ro Xiong bore the curse of the God of Humanity, doomed to spend his life in loneliness.
From that moment, Robert found him an eccentric fraud, a drifter trading superstition for bread. Yet Ro Xiong treated the relative with deference, drinking and conversing until dawn, and even gifting him a handsome sum of gold at parting.
That was Robert's first and only encounter with Mo Yan. Beyond it, he knew only that the man wandered as a mendicant ascetic, bound to the Ro family by the faintest thread of kinship.
Robert flexed his left hand and smiled faintly. "Indeed, Uncle, I have changed much of late, and achieved a few modest successes. Tell me, what brings you here? Those useless guards should be flogged—letting you enter without word."
Mo Yan smiled lightly. "I came seeking your father. Long ago he made me a promise—that I might enter any place in House Ro without announcement. But it seems he is not at home, is he?"
Robert cursed the old trickster inwardly, though outwardly he smiled and explained Ro Xiong's campaign abroad, repeating the same falsehoods with which he had deceived Michel.
When Mo Yan heard of the expedition to the Xingluo Mountains, his expression shifted strangely. He nodded. "So be it. Then I shall journey there myself. Robert, if I fail to find your father, tell him this when next you meet: the matter I pledged to him five years past now shows its first signs. He may rest assured."
Robert started. Five years ago, did Father entrust him with something? Damn it, why did that old fool never speak of it to me?
Mo Yan then asked for incense, saying he must honor the thirteen departed of House Ro before leaving. Robert could not refuse, and personally fetched the offerings.
With a careless air, Mo Yan lit the sticks before the memorials, recited a solemn chant, then sighed softly. "The world changes, yet all I see are the ashes of old friends. Ah, Ro Xiong—you too have not escaped the curse of the God of Humanity, condemned to solitude."
Displeasure stirred in Robert. What guest opens his mouth only to speak such inauspicious words? He retorted evenly, "Uncle Mo, my father is hardly destined for solitude. Am I not his son? Am I not filial enough?"
Mo Yan glanced at Robert's left hand and smiled faintly. "I spoke no falsehood. Ro Xiong is destined to be without offspring."
There were many ways to interpret such a claim, yet Robert thought only of one. His temper flared. "So, Uncle, you foretell that I will die young, leaving my father to mourn his son?"
Mo Yan blinked in genuine surprise, his brow creasing. "Five years ago, after I read your palm, I spoke long with your father. Did he never tell you of that night?"
Robert froze. That night he had been lost in the intoxicating thrill of boyhood's end and manhood's first taste, paying no heed to any conversation. And Ro Xiong had never mentioned Mo Yan again, nor the matter of their talk.
Seeing Robert's bewilderment, Mo Yan only chuckled. "Since Ro Xiong has kept silent, I shall not speak out of turn. But Robert—your left hand grows ever more fascinating. Heh, until we meet again."
As he spoke, his form grew indistinct, thinning like smoke until he vanished from the shrine.
Robert's breath caught. Six years ago, Mo Yan had left the Ro household in drunken stupor, carted away on a carriage. Now he had dissolved like a wisp of mist. Could the man truly be more than he seemed?
A strange unease lingered in Robert's heart. Yet by now twilight had fallen. Sena, summoned by the guards, arrived at last.
"My brother!" he exclaimed, face alight. "At last I see you! By the gods, you must be dying to know the Goddess Yalan's true visage, aren't you?"
Robert chuckled, understanding his friend's impatience all too well. He himself possessed Ya'er's deadliest martial secrets, yet dared not display them—a burden not unlike Sena's hunger to boast of the goddess's beauty.
He waved him down. "Fatty, tonight is not for your chatter. I have a grand venture in mind—are you game?"
Sena, who had shared countless "ventures" with him since childhood, trembled in his round cheeks. "How grand?"
"The cathedral ruins. Sacred relics."
Sena paled. "Those relics are meant to restore the goddess's statue! To lay hands upon them is blasphemy of the gravest order!"
Robert only smiled. "And yet, the only watchers now are my family's men and the academy's scholars. I need not take all—just a few. Later, the records can be… adjusted. Among so vast a collection, who would notice a handful gone astray in transit?"
Still, Sena hesitated. Robert pressed him harder. "Fatty, I need these relics—truly need them. For a woman."
Sena's eyes lit up, his resistance crumbling. "Ha! If it is for a woman, say no more. We strike tonight!"
Robert glanced at the sky. Night had just begun, the last traces of dusk not yet faded. "No rush. We go at midnight. First, we must know the lay of the ruins."
Sena shook his head with a smug grin. "Know it? You forget—I am Sena, disciple of Concealment, and Michel himself summoned me to serve at the ruins' perimeter watch. I was on duty there until I slipped away to see you. I know the place inside out."