Gwen finds her father sitting in a smoky cigarette, forcing her to keep her distance. Moyer had a nervous and uneasy aura, as if recalling the act of sending his daughter in the past had annoyed him all the time.

Looking at Moyera for a long time, Gwen wondered if there was an air purifying spell, a pre-diffusion that would remove undesirable particles from the neighborhood.

She waited for her father to finish the cigarette, but when the man smoked another cigarette from his bag, her patience became insignificant.

"Alright, let's eat then," Gwen whispered to Moyer, her nose furrowed at the pungent smell of British American tobacco. She stumbled into the room and sat down by the bed, feeling the tar-smelling smoke soak through her hair.

"What do you want to know first, the pendant, the song, or your mother?"

"Pendant," Gwen replied, more concerned with pragmatism than curiosity.

Moyer closed his eyes, trying to focus his thoughts.

"So, this pendant is made with the core of the unicorn. Do you know what a unicorn is?"

Gwen nodded.

"Good. What do you think the core does?"

"Receiving the souls of death monsters?"

"Not exactly. It absorbs the "essence" of magical creatures when they die. How do you think the biocore works?"

"We know that they are the 'heart' of magical creatures, and their life force is there," Gwen parroted from her textbook. "When a creature dies, its essence, its element, its vitality, its life, whatever you want to call it, dissipates into the astral realm. For most creatures, the essence is contained in the core – a condensed sphere of crystal mana that grows closer with age and strength. ”

"Is that all?"

"The reason why it is almost impossible to obtain the core is that at the moment of death, the inner energy explodes, seeking to enter the immaterial world of the astral body. This power is so powerful that the cores of most low-level creatures will rupture or disappear. ”

Moyer knocked the ashes into an iron plate.

"That's not entirely true, Gwen. When they reach a certain core density, they become indestructible. Of course, it was almost impossible for a low-level mage to hunt down such a creature. ”

"To answer your question, what makes this pendant so special, unicorn stone is one of them. It is enchanted, absorbing the essence of low-level creatures, consuming and storing the energy in it. As for its use, I suggest you give it a try and see if you can grab a few more cores in your adventure. ”

Gwen recalled that her late master had once told her that the amulet was part of something bigger, the heartstone of something ancient and powerful. Henry had noticed that the stone had the ability to store spiritual mana, although in this case it turned out to be this "essence".

"How to use it?"

"Wear it on your body when you give you the fatal blow. I'm afraid there will be fluctuations in the range. ”

"Is this a nameplate?" asked Gwen. If the unicorn stone is going to become something that others covet, she had better hide it and keep it out of sight, and maybe even give it back to her father.

"Only in the old family. Moyer dangled his cigarette in the air and drew a pictogram of China that Gwen didn't recognize. "Now there are not many people left, and there are no more Communists after passing through this ancient country. ”

"How do I use the serum?"

Moyer looked guilty.

"I'll be honest with you," Moyer said breathlessly. "I don't know. Never learned this trick. ”

"Who gave it to you?"

"From my father to me, from me to you. "Maya was disturbed at the mention of his father, and if you must know, you only have half of it. The other half is with the family. ”

Family. Gwen noted, the information was being processed.

Gwen impatiently waved the bat's hand at me. Moyer had a palpable feeling of being locked up in the light for interrogation.

"You mean 'our' family," her father said after a pause. "I'm not going to tell the whole story, but I'll let you know what I can reveal. ”

He took a deep breath and showed an expression of confronting some inner demon.

"First of all, you have a group of surviving grandparents who are still alive, at least I checked last time. ”

Gwen stopped, she blinked at her father with hazel eyes, she tried to process the information, it felt as if she was tucking a square stake into a round hole. When Gwen's pupils became sharp and fussy, Moyer shifted his gaze.

"What?" said Gwen suddenly, an iron voice in her voice. "I have another pair of grandparents, don't you think they're important enough to tell Percy and me, what's the fuck, Moyer?"

Gwen doesn't often lose her mind, but she feels so filled with resentment and contempt that she feels as if something is about to burst out of her body. Her eyes became electrified, turning into two concentric circles of bursting lapis lazuli that sizzled as she spoke. In her previous life, she had never had a chance to be with her grandparents before they died, but in this world, they were alive, and she didn't know they existed?her father had been telling them for the past ten years that he was an orphan who was alone! What could have convinced him that such a thing was a reasonable idea?

Moyer groaned.

"I told you it was going to complicate things. It's what you want to know. ”

"How... How is this my fault!?" she wanted to slap him again, maybe scare the bastard. Gwen felt herself tremble, but she kept herself in check, lest her father run away from their real moment. "Okay...... Well, keep walking. My apparently still alive grandparents, go on. ”

"You also have an aunt and uncle in the paternal line......"

Gwen put her head between her hands and tried to slow her breathing. The stupid cigarette smoke made her dizzy, and her father's revelations didn't help.

She pondered for a minute or so before looking up, her eyes full of stress and suppressed emotion.

"Okay, go ahead. ”

"A few cousins ......"

"Good," Gwen's voice trembled. "Go ahead. What about them? Where are they? What are they doing? How are they now?"

"They're in Shanghai. Moyer looked around and found a bottle of water. He shook at his daughter, but Gwen refused. "As for the rest of your questions, I can't answer them, because I haven't seen them in a long time ... Fifteen years?"

So her father is from a first-tier city - Gwen is allowed to admit. Why would anyone, anyone, leave a life of security and opportunity in a frontier town like Sydney in a first-tier city?

"Why did you leave Shanghai? I guess you were born there?" Gwen asked.

"Yes," Moyer replied. "I am the second son of the Song family. ”

"A 'house' with a capital H?"

"No, no," Moyer said, waving his cigarette. "Old blood, new house. Our generation was invigorated by the revolution, so there is no history, only status. ”

"Revolution, state, bloodline?" none of these things are incomprehensible to Gwen, let alone the idea of a communist revolution in a world full of magic and monsters. Her history lessons have been missing. Of course, she could understand it, but she couldn't understand the context and reasoning.

Her father found that she did not understand.

"You know what, monk of the Old World?"

Gwen blinked.

"That's okay. Suffice it to say that you have a large family somewhere in Shanghai, China, and maybe some relatives from the Eurasian steppes, although I have never met them myself. ”

"Oh my God, how many relatives do I have?!" Gwen snarled at her cold, unforgiving father. "Why do I know now?"

"Because you asked. ”

Gwen fantasized about summoning Kaliban there and letting the thing beat her father up. That hateful fool! Consider that she thought he wasn't so bad, that he was willing to come here and risk his life for her! That man was unbearable! Gwen immediately felt a strong sympathy for Helena, and she realized that perhaps, just a little, she understood why her mother was always so angry and so suppressed her feelings.

"Well, because I asked," she said at last, unable to find the words to express her irritated emotions without crossing some unbridgeable line. She thought she knew about her family, and now it's clear that there was a whole bunch of extended families that she never knew.

"Tell me about my mother. ”

What do you want to know?"

"Does she know?"

"About?"

"About your powers!" Gwen gritted her teeth. "You've got to make this so ...... Is it difficult?"

Her father looked at her and said she really didn't want to know the answer to that rhetorical question.

"She has a clue," he said, after another painful puff on his cigarette. "Unfortunately, she has no evidence. ”

"And you're just... Have you been living a mediocre life?"

"Hey, we're glad to raise you and get married despite Surya's protests. ”

"And then?"

"There is no 'then'. Your mom can't stand the usual pleasures. I couldn't control her psychosis. I need my space. So she's gone. ”

Moyer nodded to Gwen as if he had achieved a great epiphany.

"This is the story of your mom and me. ”

Gwen is skeptical of her father's self-righteous explanation. How ridiculous it was, and the selfish sense of entitlement that exuded from his inferior face disgusted her. How could such a person exist in this world? How could such a person possibly bring her into this world? Brought Percy in? She was related to this person, which in itself made her feel incomplete and semi-fictional.

"Wait! where did Percy come from?" asked Gwen suspiciously.

Moyer turned around and looked at Gwen with an embarrassed expression.

"When a man and a woman are very much in love......"

"For fuck's sake, Daddy!" Gwen snapped, stomping her foot on the rivet iron on the galvanized floor. "I mean, why are you getting back together?"

"Of course you know your mother. Moyer pursed her thin lips. "She's very possessive. If you want to know the details, I advise you not to do it. ”

“...”

Her father guessed right. Gwen didn't want to know about it.

"Why did you leave China?"

"Ah, a good question, very secretive. ”

"Well, why?"

"Can't say, it's confidential. ”

"What's wrong?"

"Gwen, don't be embarrassed. ”

"I want to know, tell me. ”

"Listen. ”

"Just tell me!" Gwen's father finally couldn't take it anymore.

"Because I killed people who shouldn't have been killed!" her father scolded her. "It doesn't concern you at all, not then, not now. Well, you know what. The conversation is over. Let's go to your friends, we'll take them back to Sydney, and then we'll have lunch every few weeks, okay? You still have a long day ahead. ”

Gwen is no longer sure what is true or false.

She came for answers, and now left her with more questions.

This pendant is a precious item that extracts the essence of magical creatures when they die, but is that all it does?when the unicorn stone needs the help of the serpent, what forces her to regurgitate the essence within?Is it a ritual?singing?Does Almoody force his energy to spread outward?

And her patrilineal family, which is no longer alive, but is alive in China. Does she want to see them? Do they want to see her? What will they think of her frontier education? Does one of them have the same void talent as she does?

And her mother. Gwen still can't believe that Helena has just given up on her father. For someone like her who climbed up, it must have been a fate worse than death. But then, Gwen once again looks critically at her father, trying to squeeze the truth out of this man like blood from a rock. If she had married a man like him, death might have been a better fate.

Then, a confused thought popped into her shattered mind.

Was she asking too much of Moyer? Gwen wondered. After all, he did raise her and Percy for food and school. More precisely, while Moyer is not a responsible or responsible person, her father may have been worse, even abusive. Isn't he very sympathetic, but now he's not empathetic enough?

Tobacco smoke was coming at her, making her throat itch and her hair stink.

"I need a shower," Gwen said to her father, and left.

Moyer watched his daughter go and extinguished his cigarette as she turned the corner, and the sound of her footsteps indicated that she had left the cottage.

"Control the wind," he incantated, and a gust of wind blew the smoke away from the cabin.

Moyer took a breath of fresh air.

"Oh my God, I thought she would never leave," he said to the clear atmosphere. Moyer slammed the door shut, then immediately rested his eyes. In less than ten hours, they were in Singapore.

Gwen scrubbed herself clean, trying to get rid of the stench of tobacco clinging to every inch of her skin, and it didn't help that her recovered dermis was so soft. This made her skin unusually sensitive to the granular soap provided to the ship's crew who had a difficult life.

She pulled the water out of her hair and let it run from her shoulders to her back. The shower room on the boat is conservative and cramped, but thanks to the modification of the magician's water glyph, it is not short of fresh water. At least at this point, Gwen was pleased with the small comfort of the magician's convenience.

They arrived in Singapore in less than ten hours. She must be prepared to accept the chaos of customs. Although Gunther's multi-lane pass allowed them to pass through Singapore-controlled Commonwealth territory, it was difficult for the local government to know that they would provoke a hornet's nest in the Capraglione (Capraglio) archipelago.

She stayed in the shower for a few minutes, feeling the hot water relax her muscles, and then lingered for another ten minutes in contemplation.