Chapter 618: The Broken Wineglass

"But His Majesty is not your enemy!"

In the palace corridor, Gilbert was shocked out of color.

"He is your father! You cannot be his enemy! You especially cannot..."

Thales smiled and hummed.

"Can't I?"

Gilbert gathered back his startled expression and did his best to calm down.

"Listen, Your Highness. I have indeed always looked forward to you, trusted you, and been loyal to you, but that was absolutely not my intention!"

"Then what else could it be?"

Thales said sarcastically.

"Was making me a prince so I could be a mascot in Mindis Hall?"

Gilbert frowned tightly, growing even more anxious.

"No, Your Highness. You should be the future everyone expects. Everyone! And you've always acted that way. Everything should have happened naturally, when the water reached the channel."

But Thales only silently looked at the hand the other party had placed on his shoulder.

Isn't everything now happening naturally, when the water reaches the channel?

Teacher?

"You are the heir to the throne. Of course I understand that you feel suffocated and oppressed, dissatisfied with the current situation. But at least that should wait until, until..."

"Until the day I am successfully crowned?" Thales said lightly.

Gilbert hesitated for an instant, then gritted his teeth and nodded.

"Of course. At that time, I will assist you with all my strength, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how much must be sacrificed. I swear it!"

"I, Sodor, Juke, Connie, Guy, and many wise people in the kingdom, we will all help you. But before that--"

"Help me?"

Thales coldly cut him off.

"Like how you 'helped me' in the past?"

Gilbert paused.

Thales raised his right hand and slowly, yet beyond doubt, pushed away Gilbert's palm.

"Six years ago, I begged you to search for my 'friends' in the Lower City."

"I asked you to help find them, save them, help... me."

Gilbert froze, then said bleakly,

"Your Highness, I, on that matter I failed the trust placed in me. I cannot evade blame..."

"I just came back from the Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Department." Thales's words were indifferent.

"Do you know? I discovered that they actually weren't as you said, refusing to help me because they hated me. In truth, the Secret Intelligence Department was very attentive in searching for my childhood companions."

Gilbert's expression changed slightly.

"Your Highness, the Secret Intelligence Department has never been on good terms with you. The reason they were so enthusiastic..."

But Thales interrupted him and continued on his own.

"And they also told me: over the past few years, Gilbert, you used your connections and face to find the Chief Garrison Officer, mobilized City Hall and the Security Department, gathered teams of security officers and tax officers, and launched several large-scale cleanups and sweeps against the Lower City and the Western Ring, all to help me find people."

The youth looked seriously into his teacher's eyes.

"I am very grateful, Gilbert."

Gilbert froze, not knowing how to reply.

"Until the Secret Intelligence Department told me more."

Thales was expressionless.

"For years, City Hall and the Security Department attacked in such a high-profile manner, directly entering the field and interfering in the Black Street Brotherhood and Blood Bottle Gang's dog-bite-dog war to the death."

"They drove away vagrants, scattered beggars, and made powerless people at the bottom suffer all the misfortune. They inspected vendors and shut down shops, leaving honest and poor people without a livelihood. They hunted petty thieves and extorted local gangs, yet let the truly damnable scum escape. They dragged out a few model cases of black evil to serve as political achievements and soothe people's hearts, yet turned a blind eye to heavier and more extensive oppression and exploitation. They acted hastily and grandly, but happened to let the forces hiding in gutter corners break into pieces and scatter."

Thales stared at the other party carefully.

"They were crude and cold, arrogant and self-important, like sweeping the floor with an iron plow. What they cared about was noise, not cleanliness."

"And after they left, the already chaotic Lower City only grew more rotten."

Hearing this, Gilbert hesitated again and again.

"Your Highness, I, I didn't know. I'm very sorry. If I had known earlier that the Chief Garrison Officer and the others..."

But Thales did not allow him to finish.

"Most importantly."

"Their actions almost irreversibly destroyed every clue," the prince raised his volume.

"From the abandoned house to Red Street, every person, object, place, and matter was transformed beyond recognition. Now, if I want to follow the clues and find those beggar children from back then..."

"it is almost impossible."

Thales carefully examined Gilbert's reaction.

"As if, as if someone did it deliberately."

"Only to stop me from finding them."

At that moment, the Minister of Foreign Affairs abruptly changed color.

"Is that how it was?" In the dim palace corridor, the youth said softly. "Gilbert? When you entrusted the matter to the Security Department?"

"Was what the Secret Intelligence Department told me the truth?"

The Minister of Foreign Affairs did not answer.

In the air, there was only Gilbert's steady breathing.

The silence lasted a very, very long time.

Thales shook his head and continued speaking.

"Six years ago, when I asked you to find them, you told me no, because 'this is for secrecy.'"

"When I became a prince at the National Conference, you still told me it was impossible, 'for their safety.'"

"Then when I went to the Northland, you wrote that you were working on it, but progress was slow, that 'we cannot let interested people notice.'"

"Until I returned to the kingdom, while telling me you had not found them, you also advised me not to search anymore, because 'you cannot go back.'"

Thales calmly faced his teacher, as if telling someone else's story.

There was no answer.

What answered him was still embarrassing silence.

Thales raised his head and gave a soft laugh.

"The Secret Intelligence Department said that after six years, you still couldn't find them..."

"because you never wanted to find them at all."

Thales said softly,

"Or is the Secret Intelligence Department lying?"

But Gilbert only lowered his head deeply, his expression indistinguishable.

This silence lasted a long time.

"Forget it, Gilbert. Whether the Secret Intelligence Department lied or not, and how much it lied," the youth turned his head and said dazedly, "none of it matters now. It no longer matters."

At that moment, Gilbert suddenly spoke.

"The Secret Intelligence Department told you nothing, did it?"

"You only wanted to test my reaction, just like you tested the Duke of Iris Flowers."

Thales let out a sigh.

The sly fox of Constellation.

"Yes."

Thales's gaze was desolate.

"The Secret Intelligence Department fears me. They told me nothing."

"What I know is all what I inferred from returning to the old places in the Lower City and Western Ring, from what I saw and heard."

Gilbert closed his eyes.

In the corridor, neither Thales nor Gilbert spoke. The two only tacitly looked away from each other, toward other places.

After no one knew how long, Gilbert finally spoke.

"I'm sorry."

His tone was utterly exhausted, and so were the words themselves.

"But you cannot find them."

With pain and release, Thales let out a long sigh.

The two fell into silence again.

"You know, I once tried to convince myself, Gilbert."

Thales faced the darkness in the corridor, his tone ordinary, even gentle and friendly, like old friends chatting.

"Truly, I tried. I worked hard to convince myself: although Gilbert Caso is called a sly fox, he is, after all, in a high position. He doesn't understand the ways of the Lower City. He didn't know. He wouldn't deliberately destroy clues, wouldn't deliberately stop me from finding people. That was why he used the simplest and crudest method in the world."

"And he is my teacher, one of the people in this world I trust most. I should not and cannot doubt him."

"I told myself that as long as you told me you had not done that, I would believe you."

Thales's eyes were blank.

"I tried. Truly, I tried."

Hearing this, Gilbert raised his head and spoke with difficulty.

"Your Highness, I, I..."

"Why?"

Gilbert was silent for a while before he said haggardly,

"During the Bloody Year, His Majesty was crowned in haste, surrounded by enemies, and the throne was unstable. Renaissance Palace had no choice but to use strange and dangerous methods and heavy law to suppress chaos."

"Morat Hansen was also the late king's close friend of many years, with deep seniority. Only then did the Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Department gain great trust, enabling it to act independently, specializing in its own affairs and running outside the law."

"At the beginning, this was very effective, simple, crude, neat, and direct. But over time, it indulged His Majesty's tendency toward rash advance and blurred the boundaries of the Secret Intelligence Department's authority."

Thales frowned.

"They have His Majesty's support now, but once you inherit the throne and are crowned?"

"It is easy to imagine that to keep their power from diminishing, the capable officials of the Secret Intelligence Department will think of every possible way and spare no cost to seize methods that can restrain you. Your past and background are the most criticized weakness, and your old acquaintances are precisely the leverage the Secret Intelligence Department most wants."

"But you are also the future of the Constellation, the hope of renewing the court. I could not let the Black Prophet or anyone with ill intentions restrain you by even the slightest measure."

Gilbert looked at Thales, his gaze gray.

"So you cannot find them. You cannot."

"Even finding them before the Secret Intelligence Department would not do. The clues to your... to them, should be buried forever, known to no one."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs's words fell.

In the corridor, even the Everlasting Lamps dimmed by much.

"So, Gilbert, you deceived me."

Thales said in a daze.

"From the very beginning."

In that instant, Gilbert's face turned deathly pale.

But Thales still showed him a comforting smile.

"It's all right, Gilbert. I understand." Thales sounded tired.

"Only now, can you feel it? The weight and thickness of this web."

"Your unconscious obedience to it, its silent control over you, including its influence on me and my vigilance toward it, are all placed far, far ahead of our sincerity."

Gilbert's face was bitter, and he swallowed.

Thales stared blankly at the shadows in the corridor.

"Just like a student facing a teacher, an employee facing a boss, a wife facing a husband, a subject facing a king. If from the beginning they stand on an unequal scale and remain in unclean waters, then what governs their relationship is absolutely not only each other."

"When we are shrouded in established structures of power, Gilbert, when you must use all your strength just to avoid being thrown off a tilted scale, when your whole body is bound and a thousand weights press down on you, when the only choices left to you are 'adapt or be destroyed'..."

"Before you realize it yourself, you have completely lost the right to choose freely."

"Unless you reject it, jump out of it, go beyond it."

"Defeat it."

Gilbert's breathing quickened.

"No, Your Highness, I don't understand!"

Gilbert's voice was very low, almost an unconscious murmur.

"All of this, all of it was for, for, for..."

"For my own good?"

Thales gently took over.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs did not answer.

Thales smiled and breathed out.

"Gilbert, have you ever wondered why, despite being father and son, Wya is always unwilling to mention you?"

Hearing his son's name, Gilbert trembled slightly.

"I never asked him the specific reason. But I think I know the deeper cause."

Thales gradually fell into thought, his mind drifting to the northern country.

"Perhaps you know, Gilbert, that I had a friend in Eckstedt. Or rather, someone I thought was a friend."

"When she encountered difficulty, I worried, fretted, and considered for her all day and night."

At this point, Thales burst into laughter.

"I was such an idiot. I always thought she relied on me, needed me. I always thought I was protecting her, helping her. I always thought I was..."

Thales's smile gradually vanished.

"doing it for her own good."

"But I was wrong."

Thinking of that familiar face, Thales deeply closed his eyes.

"Because that was not what she wanted."

"And I had never treated her as an equal friend. At most, she was only a 'person who needed me.'"

Gilbert stared blankly at him and began to tremble.

"Gilbert, ever since we met, everything you've done with painstaking effort was to make me into a good king. For this, you even did not hesitate to sacrifice yourself, to risk everything to help me and protect me. I am grateful, but..."

Thales opened his eyes, his gaze clear.

"But I am not the kind of wise monarch you are searching for, Gilbert."

"Just as my father is not."

Gilbert swayed violently.

"You cannot custom-make a mold for every person in your heart, then use every method you have to influence and guide them, while feeling nothing abnormal about it, even taking pride in it and believing that is 'for their own good,' only to fit them perfectly into that mold."

"Because whether me, Wya, even my father, and even you yourself, Gilbert, none of us were born for a mold."

Thales said gently,

"This is why I will never become him."

"No matter how you teach me to approach him in clothing style, in systems of knowledge, and even in behavior, I will never become the next..."

"Prince Midier."

"No matter how good a mold he was."

Hearing this, Gilbert shook all over and cried out,

"Your Highness, I..."

But Thales only smiled kindly, as always.

"You are a good teacher, Gilbert. Truly. You treat your students meticulously, spare no effort, teach everything you know, answer every question, consider everything thoroughly, and care for every detail. You truly are good, so good I cannot even find the slightest flaw."

"But only after meeting Old Crow, meeting that Teacher Hicks who shook his head, muttered mysteriously, and always relied on the three words 'what do you think' to collect his salary in class, did I finally understand."

Thales took a step forward and looked straight into Gilbert's red, moist eyes.

"Your greatest problem, Gilbert, is that you are too good."

"So good that your students can completely rely on you and need you, so good that you leave them not even the slightest room to be 'not good.'"

Gilbert opened his mouth to speak, but his lips trembled, and only two lines of hot tears came.

"But the facts have proven that my friend, even without me 'doing it for her own good,' can live very well."

"Even better."

Thales sighed and, before he knew it, smiled.

"I am happy for her."

In the next second, Thales did not hesitate. He opened his arms and embraced Gilbert, who could no longer speak.

"And I hope you can be happy for me too, Gilbert."

Thales pressed close to the other's ear, his voice trembling.

"My friend."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs shuddered in his arms.

Thales suddenly discovered that beneath his bright clothes, Gilbert was so thin.

But in the next moment, the youth gathered his emotions, forced the wetness in his eyes back, and gritted his teeth.

"By the way, Count Caso."

"I don't like your course schedule."

Thales let go of Gilbert, who stared blankly at him, and the corner of his mouth rose.

"It's too full."

His voice fell. Thales lifted his hand to his chest and bowed to Gilbert respectfully, with every courtesy complete.

Just as Gilbert had bowed to him six years ago.

In the next second, he used the greatest strength of his life to suppress his trembling, straightened his back, lifted his feet, turned, and left.

He did not dare look at the other party again.

Clack.

Behind him came the sound of a cane falling to the ground.

Thales's heart pained.

But he still maintained the most perfect smile, took a step, and walked into the unknown darkness of the corridor.

The palace was deep, and the lights were dim.

But the absent-minded Thales had not gone far before he collided head-on with a familiar person at the corner.

"Oh, forgive me, Your Highness," said Baron Quentin, the palace steward who had once lectured Thales not to waste royal property, rubbing his forehead.

"I, I didn't see you. It wasn't intentional."

Thales also painfully pressed his chin.

"It's fine. Just an accident."

But he was very glad there was someone to talk to at this moment.

Even if it was nonsense.

"My lord baron."

Thales squeezed out a smile.

"I heard Captain Adrian say you were unwell?"

"Oh, nothing much. I often used to pretend to be sick to avoid work." Quentin tugged at his exquisite sleeve, wiped a notebook with a cracked cover, and did not care.

"It won't delay anything."

"Sorry for troubling you."

The prince apologized gloomily.

"Whether the glass wineglasses at the banquet, or today..."

But Steward Quentin waved his hand and cut him off.

"You know, the wineglasses aren't really the problem."

"They aren't expensive anyway. Uh, sorry, I mean, they are very expensive, but there are still many workshops and merchants rushing to give money and even take a loss, just so the royal family and Renaissance Palace can use wineglasses they produced."

Quentin sighed.

"And I've wanted to replace that batch of glass cups for a long time. Fragile, easy to break, always giving the little ones an excuse to move slowly. Now I only hope metal and thick wooden cups can do better."

Thales smiled, nodded, and prepared to leave.

"Only... why?"

Hearing this, Thales paused.

Baron Quentin looked at him deeply.

"Your Highness, I have always found it strange. Why do Northlanders, when drinking, have to smash their cups?"

Smash their cups.

Thales was silent for a while.

"You know, although I stayed there six years, I find it strange too."

Baron Quentin said intentionally or unintentionally,

"Exerting force, throwing, damaging, striking, cracking, shattering. Yet what does this prove or display? Extravagance? Strength? Boldness? Ferocity? Desire for power? Masculinity?"

Quentin stared at him, and his tone suddenly softened.

"You know, just use cups passed down from history, used by grandfathers and fathers, rare, precious, and meaningful. Everyone drinks a cup full of gratitude and peace of mind, and all are happy. Isn't that good?"

Thales was silent again for a while.

"I don't know."

"But if I hadn't shattered it in Mindis Hall..."

Thales raised his head and smiled weakly.

"Renaissance Palace wouldn't replace the old wineglasses, right?"

Quentin watched him and thought for a while.

"The new batch of wineglasses may not be better than the old."

"Perhaps." Thales's mood was complicated.

"But you don't know."

"What if I do know?" Baron Quentin answered very quickly.

"What if I have already seen them?"

Thales looked at him.

"Perhaps it's hard for you to imagine, Your Highness," the baron sighed, rubbing the old cracked notebook under his arm.

"But I have worked here for over thirty years."

"When I was still a little brat, I followed my father with paper and pen, recording matters and accounts, solving matters of clothing, food, housing, and travel for every Jadestar."

The palace steward spoke in a daze.

"Every one."

Every... Jadestar.

Thales did not speak.

The baron returned to himself, looked at Thales, and his eyes hid indescribable feeling.

"So, every batch of wineglasses, I have seen them."

"Every batch."

Thales was silent for several seconds, then nodded.

"You are truly fortunate."

Quentin laughed self-mockingly, neither agreeing nor denying.

In the next second, the prince smiled at the steward.

"But I remember Hicks, Gilbert's teacher, once said something."

"Under the sun, everything is new."

Hearing this, Baron Quentin was silent for a long while before he sighed.

"You know, even if the Jadestar royal family is rich enough to rival a country," he looked at Thales, worry not absent from his eyes,

"you still have to pay for that batch of broken wineglasses."

Pay.

Thales pressed his lips together.

"Yes."

"As it should be."

Both of them fell silent.

"Or shall I put it on your account, Your Highness?"

Quentin broke the silence, patted his notebook, and carried a little hope in his tone.

"You know, perhaps when you grow up and are crowned, the creditors will... waive the bill for you?"

Waive the bill.

Thales raised his head and continued looking toward the darkness beneath the distant lamps.

"Thank you, my lord baron, but no need."

Thales spoke faintly, slightly lost in thought.

"I still have to pay."

"Sooner..."

"or later."