Chapter 96: First Rain of Spring, First Flourishing of Spring Woods

The surrounding crowd seemed to be deliberately or inadvertently blocking Albert and Rosen; the two exhausted themselves, yet were constantly pushed back bit by bit by the tide of people.

They stood in the very middle of the line, unable to advance or retreat; the solemn, silent atmosphere was almost like a great mountain, pressing down on the two until they could hardly breathe, so they could only struggle forward, hoping to reach the very front.

After an unknown length of time, Albert suddenly felt his vision clear; he looked up and realized he had indeed squeezed to the very front of the crowd.

On the left stood the Romans, the godfather of Gotham's underworld, untouchable, a high-and-mighty criminal figure, standing with their hats removed in mourning.

On the right stood the silent Maroni, the second-largest gang leader in Gotham, the current head of the Maroni family, a criminal legend in Gotham second only to the Romans.

Directly ahead were the tree-planters, wielding shovels and filling the tree pits with soil, along with a group of children.

Albert swallowed carefully; this was the first time in his life he had witnessed such a scene, but since he had already arrived here, he had no intention of retreating, so he whispered to Rosen: "Rosen, stay close to me."

"Do we really have to—"

"Shut up."

Albert almost dragged and yanked Rosen forward; at that moment, everyone's gaze turned toward them, and only then did they understand what "gaze almost solidified into substance" meant.

Yet everyone merely watched, including the godfather, including Maroni; no one moved to stop this reporter's actions, only seeing him off as he walked forward step by step.

Who exactly was that person in the black cloak? What fertilizer did he use? Why did those small trees sprout new buds so quickly? Was that owl trained by him?

Questions kept bursting forth in Albert's mind, then being processed in his heart into more sensational news questions capable of stirring conflict; he pulled Rosen along, inching forward until he was almost right in front of that person.

"My beloved is a hero like Don Quixote."

These words abruptly entered his ears, and Albert's body suddenly froze stiff.

"He will carry a microphone like a sword that cleaves through darkness; facing the camera, as if stepping into a sacred and solemn duel ground; wearing a suit, as if clad in indestructible armor."

"He will use news to expose injustice and darkness, angrily denouncing the fading of light; if he dies while dueling the evil giant, bury me with him—Albert's Lady, died by suicide."

"I can die for this path, but I cannot let her suffer for me—Albert, the former journalist, died under coercion."

With the tree-planter's voice, memories once dead in a corner surged up like a tide; these were events Albert had desperately tried to avoid, things he had been unwilling to recall all these years; this was the most unbearable memory in the depths of his heart.

It was his dead ideals and his dead lover, the reason he had become the person he was now.

Knight Albert, before falling into the claws of the giant, was an upright swordsman.

Suddenly, wind howled through the woods, blowing across the cheeks of Albert, who stood frozen in place, like the hands that had wiped away his tears countless times in memory; the sounds around him suddenly grew dense, with birds and deer, squirrels and sparrows, and so on.

Animals poured out from the woods one by one; birds spread their wings and circled like a whirlwind, almost drowning Albert and Rosen in an instant; the deer gently turned its body, pressing their legs with its soft back, forcing them to retreat backward; before long, the two had returned to stand once more within the crowd.

After they steadied themselves, those animals vanished into the woods as swiftly as the wind, leaving not a single trace; and with them disappeared the tree-planter carrying the shovel. Yet at this moment, Albert had no mood to continue his interview; silently, he pressed the button on Rosen's camera, looked at the tree sprouting branches, and left the scene half an hour later.

Perhaps, from now on, a mourner would be added to the edge of the cemetery's woods.

"Ma Ma Zhaodi, recently many people have come running to ask about you."

Carrying a shovel and walking the road with Ma Ma Zhaodi, Jason spoke to him: "They all know we are the gang of street urchins living in the city, but they don't know who you are."

"So they want to find out from you?" Ma Ma Zhaodi strode forward with his shovel, his words modified by the voice changer beneath his cloak into a mature, steady middle-aged male voice: "Then has anyone among them betrayed me?"

"What nonsense are you talking?"

"Then there's no problem."

"But they might suspect it's you; you are the one closest to us."

"Suspicion without evidence yields no answer," he replied: "They might have suspected me from the second or third day we went to plant trees, but as long as I stubbornly deny it, who dares force me to admit it?"

"But why exactly do you refuse to show yourself?"

"I don't want to be treated as a charlatan."

"Hmm, the scene just now did indeed feel very much like Saint Patrick."

"Did it?"

"Yes, I heard Chief Gordon say before that he is a believer of the Lord, a green messenger, that animals voluntarily follow him, and that little spirits speak with him."

"Your memory is very good; you remember everything Chief Gordon told you."

"I am very smart!"

Ma Ma Zhaodi looked at Jason, who unconsciously puffed out his chest and raised his head, and could not help but laugh.

"Since you are so smart, let me teach you something too, how about that? Do you know what day it will be seven days from now?"

"Seven days from now..." Jason pondered for a long time, scratching his head: "What day is it?"

"It is the Qingming Festival."

"What is the Qingming Festival?"

"It is a festival from my place, for worship, for honoring ancestors, for sweeping tombs. The living remember the dead, borrow a little courage and optimism from them, and then continue living."

"Oh, so it's about the same as now?"

"Perhaps a bit more at peace than now—I will teach you a poem."

"You can recite poems too? Can I learn poems too?"

Ma Ma Zhaodi gave Jason a white look.

"We usually just don't speak, but we cannot be completely uncultured."

At this moment, rain fell again from the sky, the pattering rain striking the black raincoats, the brown earth, and the emerald green leaves at the forest edge.

"You have all been learning pinyin with me for a while; now read after me: Qingming—Shijie—Yufenfen—"

Then a group of slightly clumsy children's voices followed along to learn.

"Qingming Shijie—"

"It is Shijie, Qingming Shijie."

"Qingming Shijie Yufenfen—"

"Very good, the next line..."

The rain and the sound of reciting the poem dripped together from the leaves, gradually merging into the earth and disappearing.

At this time, it was just a few days after the Spring Equinox; spring waters had first risen, spring woods had first flourished.

(End of this chapter)