Underneath A Thousand Skies ✔️

90 Foster Son, Don't Be So Crazy (27)

After Xiang Feng and Song Jia made up, the old woman profusely thanked them. However, the eyes of the people that looked at Xiang Feng were beginning to turn strange.

"Only a child, and he killed that horse so ruthlessly..."

"The mother didn't even scold him and hugged him...tsk, tsk, what bad parenting..."

"...isn't that child a little too scary?"

Song Jia's hand that was holding Xiang Feng tightened. What were all these people yapping about? Didn't Xiang Feng save them? Why did they have to talk behind his back like that?

Noticing Song Jia's frustration, Xiang Feng smiled at her, revealing the lovely dimples on his cheeks.

"Jia, it's alright."

He didn't care about the opinions of these insignificant people. As long as Song Jia was beside him, he was fine with anything.

When he took out his dagger, he was already prepared to be scolded by Song Jia. But he was glad that she didn't get angry at him. Since the thing he feared the most didn't happen, why would he care about the gossip of others?

Song Jia stroked his hair. Other children would cry and throw a tantrum, but he was already mature enough not to let the opinions of other people bother him.

"Our Xiao Feng is really the best."

Song Jia softly smiled.

The two of them strolled hand in hand as they explored the medieval fair, buying trinkets and watching stage plays. One of the stage plays Song Jia liked was about a siren-like character called Lady Mei, who kept a hundred lovers across the continent.

The stage play was set in a towering, three-tiered pageant wagon that served as the stage, its rough wooden surface painted with scandalous tableaux of moonlit balconies and secret chambers. Below, the crowd was held at rapt attention, clapping and laughing amidst the heady, chaotic blend of woodsmoke from roasting meats and the sweet, dizzying scent of mead spilled over straw. 

After the play was over, Song Jia dragged Xiang Feng here and there, her blue eyes bright with excitement.

Amidst the stalls, nobles walked shoulder-to-shoulder with commoners, differentiated only by the sudden flash of a brightly dyed dress or tunic set against the pervasive dull brown of the crowd's simple woollen cloaks.

"Look, it's the Bergen dice! Wait, isn't that a Phaistos disk?"

Song Jia pointed at a spherical clay disk with inscribed symbols on both sides that were completely unlike any signs in any writing system known.

The stall owner quickly stepped forward with a smile, "Yes, it was discovered in the Minoan palace on the island of Crete, rumored to be more than a thousand years old. Young miss, no one knows what language is inscribed in the disk, but there are rumors that it would bring good fortune to whoever that buys it..."

The stall owner was still not finished with his sales talk when he trailed off, as Song Jia didn't seem to be paying attention to him and was lecturing Xiang Feng instead.

"See those 242 symbols set in a spiral arrangement? How do you think it should be read?"

Xiang Feng tilted his head. "The symbols seemed to be oriented to the right, like that walking man over there. The symbols should probably be read from the outside rim of the disk to the center..."

"And what kind of writing system do you think it is?" Song Jia continued to ask.

"The symbols on the disk are too few to be part of a pictographic system, too many to be an alphabet, that leaves...syllabary?"