Chapter 173: Egg Heist (2)
If it relies only on its own wings, a divine bird cannot fly high.
-William Blake-
In truth, Charles Darwin was not the sort to believe things easily.
It was something one could tell even just by reading the letter he wrote thirty-seven years ago to his lifelong friend Joseph Hooker, a fellow Kung-Fu scholar who researched plant-based elixirs.
Though he was nothing more than a mere human, he dared to doubt the scriptures’ claim of species’ immutability, and as a result, he brought to light the world’s mysteries that no one had been able to reveal.
Darwin had originally been a devout Christian who confessed that the Heavenly Father created the world, that the Supreme Saint atoned for mankind’s sins, and that the Holy Spirit became the Comforter.
Yet through exploration, research, and exchange with other Kung-Fu scholars, he opened his eyes to new possibilities.
Darwin asserted it.
A new theory that perfectly overturned the world as Europeans had believed it to be.
That the countless lives the church cried were created in fixed form were not made in seven days, as written in scripture. Rather, it was Darwin’s new Kung-Fu principle that they took their present form as a result of endlessly repeating selection and elimination in nature.
But just as Galileo Galilei, the apostate heresiarch who preached heliocentrism and Qi-movement theory, proclaiming that it was not the sun but the earth that moved, and that what moved man was not the Creator’s breathed-in breath but invisible Qi, suffered hardship.
Darwin, who denied the single absolute doctrine everyone revered, had to face the martial world alone.
The price of betraying faith to pursue truth was great.
What Darwin’s Sword Debate writings and books brought was not respect and praise, but a flood of duel challenges.
Though he was attacked by countless people, including Kung-Fu scholars who once shared his cause, he never yielded.
The fortunate thing was that the place he belonged to was the martial world.
He had no need to talk himself hoarse to those who blindly trusted the church and would not even look at the grounds Darwin presented.
Because he had the two fists he had tempered for his whole life.
Like Isaac Newton, Darwin learned from nature.
The natural martiality, carved into evolved spirit beasts’ instinct for struggle as they honed it over hundreds and thousands of years in their own martial world.
Darwin made his enemies accept his theory through the power of the Galapagos Twelve-Form Fist, the pinnacle of Imitation Fist.
A candid conversation exchanged through fists stirs the soul.
Darwin’s old friends also began joining, one by one, the new Big Wave in the Kung-Fu world.
Those who shared his will gathered and began openly supporting Darwin, including Thomas Henry Huxley, famous for the call sign Agnostic Fist.
At the end of that long struggle, the Royal Medal bestowed by The Royal Combat Society was the greatest proof the world could not ignore Evolutionary Mysticobiology.
When Thomas Huxley and Joseph Hooker fought and won an overwhelming victory against the opposing camp’s Kung-Fuists, including Bishop Wilberforce, over the contents of <On the Origin of Species>, the martial world finally began listening to Darwin’s voice.
Thus, Darwin, the humble servant of truth, ended his struggle and found rest.
A journey that began with a single thread of doubt came to an end in firm victory.
Through that experience, Darwin came to realize it not with his head, but with his heart.
Only by walking after firm evidence could one reach the truth.
And such an attitude toward life was not limited to the path of martiality alone.
Even when a Super Junior calling himself the Little Heavenly Demon appeared with a suspicious cross-dressing woman, Darwin did not trust him completely.
In truth, he had long heard the story that the Heavenly Demon had a disciple.
Even if he had shown his face at gatherings only a few times, Darwin was one of the Knights of the Turntable.
He had even met Phileas Fogg, the Heavenly Demon Red Dragon, at Buckingham Palace and shared a deep conversation.
Phileas Fogg was, without room for doubt, the strongest man among all the Kung-Fuists Darwin had ever met.
Above all, he fully understood Darwin’s theory that spirit beasts evolved, and even admired it.
A true strong man did not try to bend truth with strength.
Instead, he knew how to open his heart to those weaker than himself and listen to their voices.
The strongest Kung-Fuist asked him for teaching, regardless of Kung-Fu’s level.
That experience was enough to humble Darwin, who until then had endlessly swung his fists to prove his beliefs.
Even when a man named Sherlock Holmes came to his home, Darwin did not withdraw his suspicious gaze, but after recalling what manner the Heavenly Demon had shown him, he let the younger, weaker Super Junior into the house.
The man who had doubted everything had finally grown enough to show faith and trust first.
And fortunately, Darwin’s trust was repaid.
The cane the Heavenly Demon’s successor carried was something he knew well.
A distinct weapon of the Heavenly Demon Red Dragon made of Cold Iron, and a sacred token.
Possessing it was proof that this man, not even yet thirty, was certainly the Heavenly Demon’s successor.
‘If he inherited the Heavenly Demon’s Kung-Fu lore, he might help in breaking down the wall.’
Thus, Darwin began treating the Little Heavenly Demon for an utterly selfish reason, but.
What was this?
‘To cut to the chase, the Vermilion Phoenix is flying toward London.’
He became entangled in a bizarre incident he never expected.
“Lawless. This is why Russians are a problem.”
After hearing the whole story, Elder Darwin took me and left the estate.
The destination was not far.
We passed through the back garden and stopped before a great plane tree.
I had followed because he said important training materials were kept in the back garden, but unexpectedly, I saw no annex or barn-like building.
Yet judging by Elder Darwin’s words and actions, I had no reason to think he was lying, so I kept silent and waited for him to reveal the secret.
“…Fabre truly loved this tree.”
The elder looked up at the tree with a face steeped in sentiment.
The broad shade a May plane tree made was the resting spot Londoners loved most.
A tree one could commonly see throughout the city, yet this single one seemed to strongly stir Elder Darwin’s nostalgia.
“It’s a splendid tree.”
“I’m glad you like it. First, spray this on your body.”
The elder took a perfume bottle from his bosom and handed it to me.
Wondering what it was, I looked around, and sensed an unusual presence between the grass and leaves.
“The bees, mantises, and ants living in this garden are all spirit beasts. Fabre said dogs would be noisy, so I should raise these instead. They are excellent guards. Whenever a thief appears who tries to rummage the back garden without my permission, they give him a thrashing.”
“Then this perfume is—”
“If you don’t spray it, you’ll be attacked.”
“Then I must be careful.”
I had long heard that wealthy duelists hid or protected their secret vaults containing elixirs or Kung-Fu books by various methods, but I never dreamed insect-type spirit beasts would be guarding it.
-Ssssh-
For now, I sprayed it as Elder Darwin said, and though it was perfume, it seemed to give off only a scent a human nose could not perceive, so I felt no aversion.
“It should be around here…”
After crouching and examining the grass for a while, the elder sprang up as if he had found something.
“Here it is.”
What he held was a thick iron chain.
Then the elder rolled up his sleeves and yanked the chain with all his might.
-Koogoong!
His thick forearms, veins bulging, were no less than Scotland Yard’s inspectors.
They said he was a master of Imitation Fist, so he must have devoted special effort to training external strength for a long time.
-Kugugoong!!
Each time the elder pulled the chain, the center of the grassy back garden bulged up like a small hill.
“Heave.”
When he pulled the chain to its end, the secret vault hidden underground revealed itself.
The enormous vault, large enough to fit two or three sturdy men, was made of hard, thick alloy, and it seemed that with the skill of an ordinary Kung-Fuist, one could neither cut it nor carry it.
As befitted an old veteran who had survived long, he had clearly prepared for the possibility of intrusion by a highly skilled thief.
“Do you know, among Gould’s works, <A Century of Birds>?”
The elder asked as he wrapped the chain around the plane tree to secure it.
“If you mean the illustrated guide that records the ecology of spirit-bird species living in the Himalayas, it is one of my favorite books. I heard Mrs. Gould personally handled the illustrations.”
“You know it well. Gould would be pleased.”
John Gould was an avian specialist of outstanding ability, counted among the top even within the Royal Fantastic Zoological Society’s members.
He died this February. He was a Kung-Fu scholar from a taxidermist background with exceptional skill, and with his wife, he had published a vast illustrated compendium filled with colored plates of many kinds of birds.
That was the very Birds series Elder Darwin had just mentioned, a great work produced in Imperial Folio format (22×15 inches) in order to depict even large birds at lifelike scale.
One volume for the Himalayas, five for Europe, one for toucans, one for birds of paradise, eight for Australia, one for American quails, six for hummingbirds, seven for Asia, five for Britain, and five for Papua New Guinea.
After publishing the Birds series and amassing immense wealth, Elder Gould traveled the world conducting research, then lived out his natural span and passed away.
I owned all of his works, totaling forty volumes, and I was particularly attached to the Himalayas volume that decorated the first page of Elder Gould’s success story, the only Birds volume in the series with ‘Century’ in the title.
I liked the later series as well, including the Europe volumes illustrated by famed poet and painter Edward Lear and others, but the first edition of A Century of Birds, vividly depicting the birds of the Himalayas, was a rare book collectors sought even at a premium.
There was the minor issue that because the format was large, the forty volumes together weighed eleven hundred pounds, but if one simply used a sturdy bookshelf, there was no problem.
“Fearing turmoil in the martial world, Gould deliberately omitted several pages from ‘A Century of Birds’ draft before publishing. The original is inside this vault.”
The moment I heard that, I recalled the material Mycroft had shown earlier at the Butler Agency’s safe house.
“I heard a similar story recently.”
Hadn’t Pliny the Elder, Rome’s naval admiral, also had the Vermilion Phoenix’s information missing from the Natural History compared to the draft?
What secret did the Vermilion Phoenix hold, that everyone kept trying to hide it?
Was the secret John Gould found different from what Pliny discovered?
“Interesting. Can you tell me in detail later?”
“Of course.”
Elder Darwin brushed the dirt from the vault’s dial, turned it this way and that, and released the lock.
“Gould observed the Vermilion Phoenix and recorded the process of the chick hatching. It’s written right here.”
And the page the elder took from the vault contained a story I never expected.
“He observed the Vermilion Phoenix up close…?”
“He said he was stranded while exploring the Himalayas. Then, at a peak he found by chance, he discovered the Vermilion Phoenix’s nest. It was a place where a volcanic eruption had once occurred.”
Up to that point, there was nothing that particularly bothered me.
I had already heard from Mycroft, before leaving the safe house, that the Vermilion Phoenix mainly nested in volcanic craters.
Perhaps Pompeii’s destruction too might have been caused by Vesuvius erupting as a result of those who targeted a nest on its peak earning the Vermilion Phoenix’s wrath.
There would have been nothing strange even if he found the Vermilion Phoenix’s nest in the Himalayas before the book was published.
Elder Gould was an expert in bird observation.
He was a man practiced at hiding his presence and approaching spirit beasts to observe them, so it was understandable even if the Vermilion Phoenix did not wake.
/<On such-and-such day of such-and-such month, 1831, it has been six days since I began observing.>
/<As the weather grew colder, the frequency with which the chick tapped the eggshell with its beak decreased. On days when Yang Qi grew stronger, activity increased instead.>
/<Even if the parent broods it all the same, there is a possibility the expected hatching date changes minutely depending on temperature.>
.
.
.
So that was it.
“So this was what the Tsar was aiming for. It seems he meant to lower the egg’s temperature with ice arts, delay the hatching, and transport it to Russia.”
I did not know how he learned the chick’s hatching process, but I thought I understood what he intended to do.
“Then what happens to the parent that flies to Britain to find the egg?”
“By then, London will already be burning.”
“Hah…”
As expected, it seemed the Tsar intended not to concern himself with what became of London.
“Still, thanks to this, the way to derail the Tsar’s plan has become clear.”
“What will you do?”
At this point, there was no choice but to twist things in a direction he never imagined.
“I will hasten the hatching. So the Tsar can burn with it in London.”