A shadowy figure flew across the boundless night sky, standing upon the thin clouds.
Beneath his feet lay a sprawling city of lights.
Even from several hundred meters above, he could vaguely hear the music strings and smell the fragrance wafting up from below.
"Saint Sem City, truly deserving of its reputation as the city of art." The artistic atmosphere seemed to soar straight to the heavens.
The person high above sighed with admiration, his eyes roaming until they fixed on the only dim street in the city below.
The shadow dived downwards, finally landing silently in a dark and deserted alley.
With the sound of footsteps echoing, he walked out of the alley, where a pile of burning dead wood illuminated his face clearly.
Red hair, golden eyes, lazy yet handsome.
It was Angel after using the Shapeshifting Technique.
Angel looked around; this was a street scorched by fire.
Chaos reigned everywhere—besides the burning dead wood at the alley’s entrance, the houses on both sides of the street also had rekindled flames and various charred and burnt remnants. Even the air was scattered with glowing embers.
A pungent smell permeated the entire street.
A stone brick house on the left remained relatively intact. From a sign on the soot-stained wall, a few burnt words could be faintly discerned: Cypress Street West Lane 1-349.
This was Cypress Street, once the art gallery next to the Silver Heron Royal Palace, now turned into ruins.
Angel sighed imperceptibly and walked towards a nearby pile of fire.
This pile of fire blocked the street; upon closer inspection, it was a heap of street-side oily wood that hadn’t burnt out completely.
Angel squatted down, slowly extending his hand, attempting to sense the fiercely burning flames through touch.
"Young man, don’t do anything rash!" A hurried voice suddenly came from behind.
Angel shook off the embers on his hand, stood up, and turned to look.
He saw a plump middle-aged woman, draped in a fireproof cloth, running towards him, urging him to get away from the fire.
"Young man, always think positively. Even if the house is burnt, as long as you’re safe, everything can start anew." The middle-aged woman was evidently well-educated. Although the ugly black fireproof cloth hid her attire, her obviously styled hair suggested she came from a fairly affluent family.
However, the pretty curly-haired face was marked with soot, likely from the dust floating on Cypress Street.
When she saw Angel’s face, the middle-aged woman paused for a moment. His young, handsome appearance, paired with a clearly expensive gentleman’s suit, didn’t look like someone who would despair over a burnt house.
Moreover, he wore a courteous smile with the demeanor of a traditional noble, a stark contrast to the ember-scattered ruins.
"Are you... Did you lose a beloved painting? Is that why you’re feeling desperate?" The middle-aged woman seemed to think her guess might be close to the truth and quickly murmured, "Were you influenced by the young man from yesterday? Sigh, that young man, foolishly thinking a painting could be more important than a life, recklessly rushed into the fire and almost got burned."
"Young people these days, they’re obsessed. Chasing trends, treating art as life."
"But this path has gone astray."
"Oh, why has it gone astray?" It was Angel speaking. Initially, he intended to stay and explain to avoid misunderstanding, noticing her good intentions; however, her ensuing words piqued his interest.
"Come here, and I’ll tell you. This fire is unusual, strange even, and it burns so fiercely that water can’t put it out; stay away from it."
"I think, madam, you misunderstood. I’m not having any suicidal thoughts; I’m just wandering around here." Angel moved around the fire to a safe distance.
"Wandering around here for what?"
Angel smiled without replying.
The middle-aged woman realized he wasn’t going to answer and decided to let it go. As long as he wasn’t suicidal, nothing else mattered.
"Even if you’re wandering nearby, stay away from these fires. They sometimes rekindle, and whatever’s here may be burned beyond repair."
From her words, Angel understood she concocted a scenario in her mind. Did she take him for a scavenger?
"Why are you here in the middle of the night?" Angel asked in turn.
"Oh, you’re asking me? I went over to Birch Lake to check on the fish... I used to feed them every night, but the fire prevented me from visiting these past few days. Now that the fire’s mostly out, I wanted to take a look." She didn’t hide her schedule and explained it in a few words while shaking her leather pouch, heavy with breadcrumbs.
Birch Lake. Angel remembered that Birch Lake was not far from the Silver Heron Palace, which he intended to visit. He suggested, "I’m headed that way too. If you don’t mind, we might go together? I’d also like to hear what ’gone astray’ means."
"Sure, sure," the middle-aged woman replied with a smile.
On the way to Birch Lake, Angel learned the middle-aged woman was named Connelly. She used to reside on Cypress Street and had a son who was so obsessed with art that he nearly sacrificed his life for it.
"When I say they’ve gone astray, I realized this from observing my son."
"Do you know why my son is obsessed with art?"
Angel guessed, "Because he loves it?"
Mrs. Connelly shook her head, "I wish it were love, but it’s not. His heart isn’t truly passionate about art; his obsession comes from environmental influences."
Connelly sighed, gazing at the distant, bustling Saint Sem City nightscape, and softly said, "The Central Empire is also known as the Nation of Art, and Saint Sem City, being its center, is naturally called the City of Art. The artistic atmosphere here is intense—most are raised amidst art’s subtleties from childhood: paintings, music, theater, sculpture, architecture..."
While Connelly is now affluent and worry-free, her past was different; she was once a farmwoman associating with the impoverished class, leaving no room for her son’s artistic pursuits. However, once he attended school, his classmates constantly discussed art. To blend in, her son began studying it.
Connelly, as a mother, knew her son well. His supposed passion for art was actually a form of infatuation, a self-induced drunkenness in the heavy artistic atmosphere.
Such instances aren’t rare in Saint Sem City.
Art’s outcomes are elegant, but the process of achieving art is tedious and trying—hardly anyone has the patience to love art for its own sake. Environmental compulsion, simple as that.
In a conformist society, those who don’t follow the crowd are bound to be alienated and excluded.