Richard pushed the door open and walked in. Every eye in the room immediately fell on him.
A long table was set up in the room, with twelve review committee members seated on either side.
The seat at the head of the table was empty, reserved for the moderator.
Richard was led to the other end of the long table, directly facing the moderator’s empty seat.
He stood there, his gaze sweeping over the faces at the table, one by one.
The people who had come were of varying Tiers.
With a few of them, Richard had yet to even extend his inspiration when he felt their oppressive presence.
The moderator pushed the door open and came in.
Richard raised his gaze.
It was Professor Mortimer.
The old man cradled his chipped teacup, shuffling slowly toward the moderator’s seat.
This time, he didn’t pretend not to know Richard.
As he passed by, he gave Richard a nearly imperceptible nod before taking his seat.
"Let’s begin." Professor Mortimer didn’t beat around the bush.
"Mr. Williams, please restate the core thesis of your manuscript for everyone."
Richard stood up. He hadn’t prepared any physical notes; everything he needed to say was already in his head.
"...My interpretation of this symbol references the discussion on ’Duality Structure and Return Clauses’ in the third Chapter of Associate Professor Ashford’s doctoral thesis."
"It also references the discussion on ’Tri-phasic Seal Duality Integrity’ in the seventh Chapter of Professor Macphie’s *Gaelic Ancient Language Structure and Transformation*."
"As for the data regarding the ’thinning of the Curtain’..."
"It is based on the statistics from Chapter Seven, Section Three of Mr. Haldane’s *Introduction to Curtain Dynamics*."
"This is supplemented by local empirical validation I conducted during two field operations, one in Whitcomb and another at a weak point in the West Suburb of Brighton."
"The empirical data from both field operations are detailed on pages sixteen through nineteen of my manuscript."
Having finished his statement, Richard paused.
Silence fell on both sides of the long table for a moment.
A committee member on the left was the first to speak.
He was a thin-faced old man with a perpetually furrowed brow.
"Mr. Williams, what year is this Boundary Stone of yours from?"
"It’s a three-layer superposition of Pre-Roman Celtic, Romanization, and Medieval Latin."
Richard couldn’t give a specific date range. "It spans roughly two thousand five hundred years."
"The two field operations, did you conduct them independently?"
"I was with a Guide and several seniors."
Richard answered truthfully, "I collected and compiled the empirical data myself."
The old man asked no more questions and made a note on the roster.
Another committee member on the right took over, asking about the details of the data sampling.
Richard answered them one by one.
These questions weren’t particularly tricky.
Richard could tell that the questioners just wanted to publicly ascertain the foundation of his manuscript.
Once the foundation was established, what came next would no longer be about him.
Sure enough, after Richard answered the final question, the thin-faced old man no longer looked at him, instead turning to the entire table.
"Everyone."
"The theoretical and data foundation of this manuscript is solid, in my view.
But a solid foundation doesn’t mean this conclusion can be published."
"Once the concept of an ’annual decay rate’ is made dynamic..."
The thin old man’s voice was dry and cold.
"We would have to scrap and recalculate the maintenance cycle for every registered Seal within the Imperial borders."
"That is not a burden a student’s paper can bear."
"One Boundary Stone, two field operations... These are isolated cases."
On the other side of the long table, a woman with graying hair set down the paper she was holding.
"Associate Professor Kleitengros."
"You people have been saying those two words, ’insufficient data,’ for thirty years now."
"Must we wait until the Seals within the Imperial borders fail one by one before you’d call the data ’sufficient’?"
The two went back and forth, sharp as needle points clashing.
Richard sat at the other end of the long table, listening quietly.
This defense had little to do with him from start to finish.
The fuse had been lit, and the gunpowder was crackling and burning.
He, the one who struck the match, had instead stepped to the side.
The argument reached a point where neither side could bring up anything new.
Everything that needed to be said had already been said thirty years ago.
The conference room slowly fell silent.
Professor Mortimer had barely spoken the entire time.
From beginning to end, he just cradled his chipped teacup, taking an occasional sip while listening to the two sides argue.
Now, he set the teacup down.
"Are you done arguing?"
No one answered.
He began slowly, "Watching you two argue is like watching children fight over candy."
"One says the candy is mine, the other says it’s yours."
"Arguing until you’re red in the face."
"But the candy melted on the table long ago."
The conference room was preternaturally quiet.
"What you’re arguing about today," Professor Mortimer continued, "is whether this paper can be published."
"Whether the Curtain is thinning or not isn’t decided at this table."
"Just because you don’t look doesn’t mean it isn’t there."
Kleitengros’s expression changed, but he said nothing.
"All right." Professor Mortimer cut the discussion short.
"My decision is... this manuscript is approved for publication."
"Can both sides take a step back?"
On both sides of the long table, no one spoke up again.
An entire afternoon of arguing was quelled by just a few words from Old Mo.
Professor Mortimer’s gaze fell upon the ceiling.
’Just how thin has the Curtain become?’
"There are people who know far better than anyone at this table."
"It’s just that those people aren’t here." He brought his gaze back down. "And they wouldn’t deign to come here and argue with us."
"Meeting adjourned." Professor Mortimer picked up his teacup.
"Mr. Williams, please step outside and wait for a moment."
Richard stood up and walked out into the corridor outside the conference room.
He stood leaning against the windowsill.
In less than fifteen minutes, the door opened again.
Clayton came out, holding the file.
"Mr. Williams, it’s been decided."
Clayton handed him the file. "Approved for publication. The ’For Observation’ mark will be kept."
"Once Professor Mortimer spoke, there was nothing left for either side to argue about."
Richard took the file and was about to leave when someone appeared at the other end of the corridor.
It was Kleitengros, the leader of the opposition.
The thin old man paused as he passed him.
"Mr. Williams," the old man began, his voice neither warm nor cold.
"Associate Professor Kleitengros."
Kleitengros said, "I still have reservations about the viewpoint presented in your manuscript."
"Understood."
"However," Kleitengros’s tone shifted, "your manuscript is indeed well-written."
"What?"
"You didn’t just shout slogans."
"Throughout the entire paper, you simply presented the evidence piece by piece, without a single ’we should do this’ or ’we must do that.’"
"We academics love to present data and draw conclusions. What we hate most is when someone isn’t even sure of themselves but still pontificates."
"I hope all your future papers can achieve this."
Kleitengros gave him a nod and departed.
......
When he returned to Ashford Mansion, the butler handed him a letter.
It was from Brighton. The handwriting on the envelope was crooked, the letters plump and round.
Richard recognized it at a glance. It was from his sister.
He tore it open.
"Brother,
You’ve been gone for almost a month. The house is so quiet, there’s no one to even bicker with.
Last week, I baked a batch of Professor Rabbits, but sadly, the entire army was wiped out.
I turned the oven up by twenty degrees because I wanted to give that batch of rabbits an extra golden-brown crust.
In the end, every single one of them turned into a Charcoal Knight~
Mom said it was a waste of honey and made me eat burnt Professor Rabbits for three days as penance.
My biggest discovery now is that if you open an extra vent on the oven, the temperature won’t just swarm to the top.
Are you eating well over there in the Imperial Capital?
When you finish your studies and come back, I want to eat the ’Madagascar Vanilla Bean Crème Br?lée’ from the Imperial Royal Hotel, the one you mentioned last time.
Don’t you dare say you have no money! You’re at Imperial University now, so crying poor is just lying.
I’ve written down every dish I want to eat. When you make the big bucks in the future, you have to treat me to all of them.
Dad’s been working overtime again recently. Mom wants me to tell you to take care of yourself.
—E.W"
Richard folded the letter and put it in a drawer.
He glanced back at the file from the academic review committee on his desk.
That file was indeed important.
But no matter how important it was, it couldn’t compare to this crookedly written letter.
He walked to the window.
Summers in the Imperial Capital were hotter than in Brighton, but right now, the evening breeze filtering through the sycamore leaves felt cool on his face.
’Tomorrow, I’ll let my aunt and the others know we can start adding our names.’

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