After resting for the whole morning, Klein felt he was in good condition.
The afternoon's experiments also went unexpectedly smoothly.
The improvement directions for several alchemical arrays were verified, and the precipitation speed of the potions was nearly half as fast as expected.
Looking at those liquids in the test tubes that displayed a perfect color, Klein couldn't help but give himself a silent thumbs-up.
Perhaps it was because Ophelia was watching nearby...
He turned his head to look at the Knightess sitting on the other side of the workbench.
She was quietly flipping through a basic text on alchemy, her long golden hair shimmering with a soft luster under the candlelight, and her slender fingers lightly brushing the edges of the pages.
Sunlight slanted in through the window, plating a layer of pale gold aura over her.
This scene was somehow quite pleasing to the eye.
Next time, I should write this condition into the experimental process—"Experiments must be conducted in the presence of a beauty."
Klein thought mischievously to himself, the corners of his mouth involuntarily curling up.
He recorded the last few pieces of data in his notebook, carefully noting parameters like time, temperature, and magic concentration.
By the time he closed the book, the sky outside the window had completely darkened, leaving only the last streak of dark red afterglow on the horizon.
Dinner was brought by Martha.
When she entered with the tray, she was still grumbling about the new kitchen stove being hard to control, saying the bread always came out burnt on one side and raw on the other, forcing her to make another batch.
Klein responded casually, saying the new stove needed a breaking-in period and would be fine in a few days.
Martha left satisfied, reminding him to eat while it was hot and not to let it go cold like last time.
After she left, Klein slowly finished his meal.
Tonight's dinner was stewed mutton with rye bread and a small dish of pickled olives.
The mutton was stewed very tender, the spices were just right, and although the bread didn't look great, it tasted quite good.
While eating, Klein flipped through the afternoon's experimental records, occasionally tapping the paper twice with his fork as if emphasizing a key point.
He wasn't in a hurry to sleep after finishing his meal.
Klein organized today's experimental records and filed them by date.
This was a habit he had developed over many years—any experimental data had to be organized promptly, otherwise he would forget his thoughts from that time after a few days.
The candlelight cast flickering shadows on the parchment, and the ink wasn't completely dry yet, giving off a faint scent of pine resin.
He blew on the surface of the paper and carefully folded it, tying it with a red ribbon.
Just as he was about to put the notebook back on the shelf, there was a knock at the door.
The sound was very light and hesitant, as if afraid of disturbing him.
"Come in," Klein said, setting down the notebook in his hand.
The door was pushed open, and Ophelia stood at the entrance.
She was still wearing that pale gold long dress, the hem shimmering softly under the candlelight.
Her long golden hair was combed neatly and tied behind her head with a dark blue hair ribbon, revealing her fair forehead and slender neck.
But Klein noticed that her fingers were anxiously clutching her skirt, her knuckles turning slightly pale.
This Knightess was nervous again.
Klein set down his notebook and signaled for her to enter.
"Sit," he pointed to the edge of the bed, his tone as relaxed as possible. "Is something wrong?"
Ophelia walked in and sat at the edge of the bed.
She sat very properly, her hands on her knees and her back perfectly straight, as if she were facing some kind of trial.
But in those golden eyes, there was a flicker of an emotion Klein couldn't quite understand—it seemed like determination, yet also like unease.
Klein pulled over a chair and sat opposite her.
The candlelight shone on Ophelia's face, outlining her features clearly.
In her golden eyes, the candle flame was reflected, the light and shadow flickering in her pupils like two dancing golden flames.
The room was excessively quiet.
Occasionally, the cry of a nocturnal bird came from outside the window, and the wind blowing through the treetops made a rustling sound.
Klein didn't rush her; he just waited quietly.
He could tell that Ophelia had something to say, and something very important at that—in this kind of situation, giving her enough time was more useful than rushing her.
"Still thinking about what happened during the day?" Klein finally broke the silence.
Ophelia looked up, glanced at him, and then lowered her head again.
She shook her head, her golden hair swaying gently with the movement.
Klein was a bit surprised.
Although Ophelia was somewhat stubborn, once she had decided on something, she wouldn't keep dwelling on it.
This was a trait of a knight—once a direction was set, there was no looking back.
Therefore, the fact that she was sitting here meant there was something else.
"I think..." Ophelia paused, her voice much lower than usual, carrying a softness Klein had never heard but could feel. "Since you are willing to stand with me... and treat me as your wife, then I should also let you see the real me."
Klein blinked.
These words sounded a bit intimate, carrying the kind of candor only found in close relationships.
But Ophelia's expression at this moment was very serious, as if she were about to deliver some important final words.
Her fingers rubbed against her skirt, leaving behind shallow creases.
Ophelia raised her left hand.
That hand was slender, with well-defined knuckles.
The skin was very pale, almost translucent under the candlelight, making the outline of the bones stand out. There were a few shallow scars on the back of her hand, appearing like marks left by some sharp weapon.
Klein looked at that hand, and before he could ask anything, he saw Ophelia pull out a small dagger from somewhere with her right hand.
The blade was very thin, reflecting a cold, sharp glint under the candlelight.
It was a finely crafted dagger, with several small gems embedded in the hilt, but the blade itself had no decoration.
She held the dagger, pointing the tip at the center of her left palm.
Her movement was steady, without the slightest hesitation.
"Wait—" Klein stood up abruptly, the chair legs making a piercing scraping sound against the floor.
But it was already too late.
The blade had already sliced down.
Lightly and quickly.
The skin split open, and blood welled out.
Klein's words got stuck in his throat, and the remaining half of his sentence was swallowed back down.
The liquid flowing out was not red.
It was blue.
A very deep blue, like the darkest waters of the deep sea.
The blood seeped from the wound, slowly flowing over her fair wrist, shimmering with an eerie, almost fluorescent glow under the candlelight.
That blue wasn't an ordinary blue, but carried a certain supernatural texture, like liquefied moonlight or melted sapphire.
Klein was stunned.
He had seen many strange things—creatures mutated in alchemical experiments, materials contaminated by magic, and even monster specimens described in certain forbidden texts.
But he had never seen a human bleed blue blood.
No, it should be said—he had never seen a creature that could maintain a human form and sanity while bleeding such a color.
The room was silent except for the faint crackling of the candle flame.
Ophelia maintained that posture, holding up her left hand as the blood dripped from her wrist, landing on her skirt and spreading into a small blue stain.
The blood seemed to have a life of its own, spreading slowly across the pale gold fabric, forming eerie patterns.
She looked up at Klein.
There was no ripple in her golden eyes; they were as calm as a pool of stagnant water. But her knuckles gripping the dagger were slightly pale, revealing the tension inside her.
Klein instinctively reached out, wanting to check her wound.
"Don't touch it." Ophelia pulled her hand back quickly.
She suddenly let out a light laugh, pretending to be relaxed as she made a joke: "You're like a child, not even knowing if there's danger."
She looked indifferent, as if she hadn't just sliced open her own palm.
But the phrase "not even knowing if there's danger" was clearly referring to her own blood—even she wasn't sure if this blue blood would cause harm to others.
Klein's hand stopped in mid-air, and it took a second for him to realize how reckless he had just been.
As an alchemist, he should know that any unknown supernatural substance could be fatal.
And he had actually wanted to touch it directly with his hand—if this were during a normal experiment, he would have scolded himself mercilessly.
"This is..." He heard his own voice sound a bit dry, as if his throat were filled with sand. "What's going on?"
Ophelia looked down at her left hand; the wound was still slowly seeping blood.
The blue blood looked like some translucent gemstone liquid under the candlelight, shimmering with a glow that didn't belong to this world.
It flowed along her wrist, leaving glowing trails on her skin like eerie tattoos.
"Back on the west coast," she said, her voice light, but every word was terrifyingly clear, "I encountered... a sea monster god."
Klein's breath hitched for a moment.
Because of alchemy, he had come into contact with many forbidden texts and dark magic, and had suffered many gazes as a result.
Most of those gazes were vague and indirect—in dreams, in hallucinations, or in certain specific magic rituals.
But those were all contacts through a barrier, like looking at a monster through glass.
And the sentence Ophelia just said, along with her current tone and gaze—that didn't sound like indirect contact.
She had seen it with her own eyes.
Face to face.
"I swung a sword at Him."
Ophelia spoke calmly, as if she were stating what she ate today or how the weather was.
Klein's brain spun several times before he could digest this sentence.
He had seen many alchemists who were gazed upon by evil gods because they touched forbidden materials—most of those people eventually went mad, and the few who survived hid in the churches of the true gods for the rest of their lives, praying for over a dozen hours every day, fearing the evil gods would find them again.
And Ophelia's contact wasn't passive.
She hadn't accidentally seen something she wasn't supposed to see.
She had taken the initiative to attack.
She had gripped her sword, charged in front of a god, and given Him a strike.
What was even more absurd was that she was now sitting here perfectly fine, and except for the blue blood flowing from her left hand, she seemed no different from an ordinary person.
She hadn't gone mad, she hadn't turned into some distorted monster, and she could even talk to him rationally.
Klein felt he was having trouble keeping up with this Knightess's train of thought.
Or rather, he began to doubt whether his understanding of the word "normal" was flawed.
He looked at Ophelia's left hand; the blood was still flowing down and had already spread into a small patch on her skirt.
The blue was exceptionally prominent against the pale gold fabric, looking like some kind of glowing seaweed or the eerie fluorescent jellyfish of the deep sea.
"You wounded Him?"
Klein heard himself ask this question.
His voice carried a sense of almost absurd confirmation—as if he were asking something as mundane as "did you eat today?"
But he knew this question was not mundane at all.
Wounding a god.
Even if it was an evil god, even if it was just a scratch—it was enough to leave any normal person speechless with shock.
Ophelia looked up, her golden eyes reflecting the candlelight.
"Presumably," she said, her tone even carrying a hint of uncertainty. "Otherwise, the sea monsters wouldn't have retreated."
She spoke matter-of-factly, as if she had merely chased away a flock of crows harassing a wheat field or driven off a few mice stealing grain.
Klein took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, trying to clear his thoughts.
He had heard of the battle on the west coast—the entire Empire had.
The sea monsters invaded in force, and the several elite armies sent by the Empire were almost completely wiped out.
Those armies were comprised of the Empire's top warriors, each rigorously trained and equipped with the best weapons.
But in front of the sea monsters, they were like paper, being torn apart, swallowed, and dragged into the sea in entire formations.
In the end, it was Ophelia alone who had forced those monsters back into the sea.
"So your left hand..." Klein looked at the wound that was still bleeding, the blue blood still slowly seeping out. "Was it contaminated then?"
Ophelia nodded.
"When the sword cut in, His blood splashed onto my hand," she said, raising her left hand to examine it closely under the candlelight as if looking at an unfamiliar object. "It wouldn't wash off. No matter what I used. Holy water, purification magic, even the blessings of the true gods—nothing worked."
She spoke calmly, even with a bit of helplessness, as if saying there was an un-washable stain on her clothes or a piece of chewing gum stuck to the sole of her shoe.
But Klein knew things were far from as simple as she made them sound.
He stared at the blue blood, his mind already beginning to deduce various possibilities.
Evil god blood contamination, divine erosion, mental corruption, physical mutation—any one of them was enough to be fatal.
At best, it would lead to lifelong disability; at worst, one would turn into some unspeakable monster.
But Ophelia didn't look mad, nor had she turned into a monster.
She could still hold a sword, she could still fight, and she could even sit here and talk to him calmly.
Her thinking was clear, her logic normal, and except for the color of the blood in her left hand, everything else about her seemed no different from a normal person.
This in itself was abnormal.
Highly abnormal.
"Is it really okay to tell me this?" Klein suddenly asked.
Ophelia looked up at him.
The candlelight cast flickering shadows on her face, making her expression look somewhat blurred.
But those golden eyes were very clear, reflecting Klein's figure.
"Because..." she paused, her voice very light, "we are... husband and wife."
The room fell silent for a few seconds.
Only the candle flame burned softly, making a tiny crackling sound.
Klein looked at Ophelia and suddenly smiled.
"Thank you for trusting me," he said, his tone very sincere.
Ophelia was stunned for a moment, as if she hadn't expected him to say that.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
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