Chapter 115#
Distant Star Reflection 23#
Electoral conferences followed complex procedures.
Day one: secretaries compiled all legitimate heirs’ lifelong experiences and achievements, distributing to electors and the prime minister for review. The eleven electors couldn’t meet or communicate.
Day two: anonymous voting, results announced.
Day three: results presented to the pope. Pope’s agreement confirmed the emperor’s person, selection date set for coronation. Should the pope exercise veto power, the candidate was deleted, procedures reset until confirmation occurred.
As one of the imperial throne’s ordered heirs, Yu Feichen couldn’t participate in the electoral conference. He also felt disinclined leaving, remaining in the estate throughout.
Outside, festivities continued celebrating the cathedral solving “snowmen” threats. Commoners spontaneously took streets, holding grand festivals everywhere—flowers, banners, pious shouts as if celebrating battle victory.
In this world, commoners’ entertainment and work life remained limited. After simple education, everyone occupied modular work positions. The cathedral, through precise division, positioned each person on assembly lines, earning currency through labor, exchanging for living necessities. Yet civilization’s development meant abundant, sufficient materials, everyone enjoying security.
Through distant festive hymns, heavy private soldiers protected Landon estate impenetrable. Trial materials prepared, becoming emperor mattered little. Yu Feichen, rarely having nothing to do, found sole entertainment in watching Tan Per answer questions.
Over these days, even exquisite precision artwork should be exhaustively examined. Yet something bewitched the deity—seeming able withstanding another ten-thousand viewings. This made Yu Feichen feel gradually falling toward paradise’s countless ordinary believers.
After snowmen crisis resolved, the Answer Section’s atmosphere returned normal—bland life-knowledge questions occasionally interspersed with urgent or deep inquiries. Tan Per answered many. Suddenly, Bishop Kayan’s image among commoners grew prominent. Bai Song called inquiring what happened, why he’d received many flowers, why colleagues’ regards had changed. Windsor praised him truly kind. Tan Per minded not becoming others’ springboard, answering with gentle attitude, seemingly possessing inexhaustible patience and knowledge.
Yu Feichen observed Tan Per’s focused question-answering profile, finding no difference from resurrection day. Gods perhaps possessed omniscience, yet not omnipotence. The supreme deity couldn’t recall souls dispersed in eternal night. Tan Per could spend most days answering questions, yet couldn’t complete all Answer Section inquiries.
The gaze finally captured Tan Per’s attention, turning to regard Yu Feichen.
Yu Feichen suddenly asked: “Are you tired?”
Tan Per didn’t respond. Yet suddenly a scene surfaced in Yu Feichen’s mind.
In that illuminated temple, when he didn’t know Ludwig was paradise’s supreme deity, when the deity didn’t identify as divine, silver-haired the pontiff once gently told him something.
He said: I’m tired.
Unfortunately, Ludwig could say this. Tan Per couldn’t.
Yu Feichen took the terminal from Tan Per’s hands, saying nothing. He realized attempting understanding divine consciousness’s composition. Then he showed Tan Per Losh Landon’s lifetime collection—hundreds of antique shuttles, passing an uneventful day.
When the second day nearly ended, the secretary arrived excitedly as if enjoying soft living, bringing shocking news.
——Losh Landon received exactly 20 votes.
“This means beyond your initial ten votes, you received ten additional. Only one person didn’t vote for you. I happen knowing who, Duke,” the secretary said.
Votes were anonymous. The secretary’s information proved surprisingly detailed. Yu Feichen had to regard him differently.
“Your Landon family’s elector, your dear uncle.”
Yu Feichen: “.”
“He told me watching you grow, knowing your hopeless scoundrel nature, hoping you’d quickly hold coming-of-age ceremony, return to Landon star system living the depraved life befitting a scoundrel. I told him you’ve changed greatly. He cursed me, cursing you’d soon face papal veto.”
Tan Per: “He doesn’t wish seeing your duke entangled in nobility-cathedral conflicts.”
“Perhaps,” the secretary said. “Actually I somewhat miss home. I’ve become conflicted.”
Finally, the secretary departed conflictedly—as if papal veto depended on his decision.
Yu Feichen felt untroubled, regarding Tan Per. Previously wanting understanding the world’s technological principles, he’d disassembled his gun. Finishing, finding it aesthetically pleasing, he didn’t immediately reassemble. Parts scattered on the table. Tan Per passing by, casually assembled a few sections. Observing the technique, saying the supreme deity merely heals seemed questionable. Deities apparently had many manifestations, yet he hadn’t discerned what soul governed these vastly different appearances.
Yu Feichen: “Think the pope will veto me?”
Tan Per flatly said: “Haven’t already forced him into selecting only you?”
Yu Feichen wished for elaboration.
Tan Per’s slender, beautiful fingers played with the iron-gray barrel, movements displaying casual composure. The capital still celebrated, yet within mere days, the initiative between Yu Feichen and the pope had completely reversed. With snowmen leverage, the pope wouldn’t dare refusing the electors’ wishes. Simons’ assassination, hinting enemies existed everywhere, knowing much about them.
“Spreading extinguishing news, publicizing snowmen origins, finally assaulting Simons under rebel guise,” they said. “You seem skilled manipulating such people. Now maintaining peace with nobility, he can only select you. To quell internal cathedral disputes, only recruiting me.”
The result correct, yet motivation different. Yu Feichen smiled slightly: “You’re wrong.”
Now Tan Per wished for elaboration. Yu Feichen said: “Knowing he can only next be manipulated by me, the pope won’t spare any efforts doing something.”
“He won’t,” Tan Per flatly replied. Regarding the magnificent Holy City outline distantly, saying: “His kingdom too vast to risk further.”
Thus Yu Feichen understood sometimes he and Tan Per held differing views—they weren’t the same.
So treat it as harmless wagering. With Tan Per beside him, this boring game surprisingly gained interest.
In Windsor’s courtyard.
The elder elector approached Windsor’s back.
“As you said, my vote went to Landon,” he said.
“All other electors did likewise,” Windsor traversed dense vine corridors. Evening light filtered through branch gaps, illuminating his profile. Duke Windsor’s lips perpetually held elegant, mysterious smiling. He was nineteen this year, though coming-of-age ceremony remained a year away, yet Windsor family’s authority lay firmly in his hands. Nobles had all heard rumors of Windsor’s young master being naturally precocious.
The elector said: “Yet I believe you equally suited for that position.”
Windsor raised his forefinger to his lips, silencing gestures, smiling: “Some things, I cannot accomplish.”
“The Extinguish Festival already showed signs. As His Holiness ages, unrealistic ambitions grow. When people near death, they desire proving they hadn’t wasted life,” they said. “The pontiff attempts seizing secular power from nobles and emperors, making Truth Cathedral the true supreme authority. Wishing to avoid becoming slaughtered lambs, we must elect such a lord—both the most traditional hereditary noble with harsh temperament, yet irreconcilable with His Holiness—perhaps having a rebel leader as omega.”
Before the other could respond, Windsor continued: “His methods seem particularly violent. We attempted opposing papal authority, yet truthfully, we and cathedral are different branches on the same tree, surviving through identical sustenance. This I learned from Bishop Tan Per. They seem wanting shattering this fundamental substance.”
The elector still wished asking, yet Windsor gazed toward skies beyond layered foliage, eyes suddenly filled with melancholy: “I resolved providing no assistance, yet somehow anticipate this happening soon. This is dangerous thinking. Meeting them afterward, I’ve always felt they and I…don’t belong here.”
Upon finishing, a nerve in his brain twitched momentarily, pain passing. Nothing subsequently occurred.
The elector was thoroughly confused: “What are you saying?”
The substantive headache had passed, yet mental pain made Windsor press his temple, these statements unexpressed would deepen confusion. Fortunately, whoever heard wouldn’t comprehend their meaning.
“After seeing Bishop Tan Per that day, in half-sleep that night, my head suddenly generated a thought. This person shouldn’t appear here, absolutely shouldn’t…the outside world will change soon.”
Windsor’s perpetual slight smile faded, furrowing his brow, walking forward trying recapturing that momentary intuition, ultimately abandoning. He excelled at quitting halfway, quickly dismissing the emotion, taking his terminal sending a message to someone marked “Little Kayan”: “Come play.”
Bai Song, busy working for his Yu-ge, replied: “Busy, another time.”
——Windsor enthusiastically went helping instead.
Day three: the Holy City transmitted neither papal agreement on the heir nor rumors of veto.
Instead, a cardinal personally visited Landon estate, handing on the pope’s behalf an invitation for shared dinner in the Holy City. Yu Feichen opened it. The pope invited not only him—Tan Per’s name appeared alongside his.