London Oil Painting Exhibition, South Bank of the Thames.
On the crowded streets, this is Britain's most prestigious art gathering area. The atmosphere of the ancient and the modern intertwined, as countless painters and art-loving youths in strange costumes passed by gentlemen and ladies while chewing on candies.
Black curved-handle canes had not yet left the historical stage before being swept away by fresh and trendy stockings and shorts. Here, you could see middle-aged successful men in suits and ties chatting with disheveled, casually dressed young artists with cigarettes in their mouths.
It wasn't just paintings; ever since an extremely successful exhibition was held ten years ago, this annual grand event had settled in the central district of the South Bank of the Thames.
"Where is the one you want to buy?" The mature woman wore a black dress, her brown curly hair falling just to her shoulders.
She wore a luxurious pendant set with blue gems that hung down to her chest. There wasn't much makeup on her face—this made her look not quite young, yet she easily outshone those young ladies. Her ivory high heels moved gracefully through the crowd, and a black bag with a silver clasp hung from her arm.
"Jonathan?"
"Hey! I just saw a girl painting with her nostrils!" The man, like a slippery fish, emerged from beside several young girls, holding a glass of whiskey and drinking as he walked. He was in a black casual suit with a dark blue patterned tie.
The clothes were very nice, but the person wearing them was quite greasy.
"I told you not to run off!" A misplaced anger finally appeared on the middle-aged woman's elegant face. When she briefly frowned and pursed her lips, a rich, wild charm quietly leaked out, making her outfit seem a bit comical.
"Don't, don't start here! Evelyn! I'm forty years old!" Jonathan looked left and right with his glass; after finding that no young girls had noticed his embarrassing behavior, he pretended to be pitiful and begged his sister for mercy: "I really have to thank OConnell for marrying you. I don't know how much that poor fellow has suffered..."
"If I were you, I wouldn't speak ill of people behind their backs."
The subject of the conversation had arrived.
Like his wife Evelyn, it seemed that time had been exceptionally kind to him. His straight, well-fitted suit did not show a hint of being old-fashioned; instead, it added to the man's formal and mature charm.
The man's bass voice was even richer and more powerful than decades ago: "Jonathan, you don't know how happy Evelyn and I are."
"Oh... is it her hitting you, or you hitting him?"
"Generally speaking, it depends on whose fault it is." OConnell smiled and snatched the half-glass of whiskey from Jonathan's hand, draining it in one gulp: "If it's my fault, of course she hits me."
Jonathan rolled his eyes: "If it's her fault, she still hits you. Come on! This joke has been played for how many years? When Mori Tsukisa was here..."
The man's words caused the elderly couple to fall silent for a moment.
"Fine, I can't even mention it? Then what are we here for today? Wearing these cloth prisons that make us look like a Joker who can't jump or run, just to come here and be sad for a few seconds?"
Jonathan took back the glass, which didn't have a drop left, turned around, and shouted to a pair of young people in the crowd: "Baru! Kid, bring your girlfriend over! Your 'adventure guide' is reminiscing and feeling down again!"
"Come give him a kick in the butt!"
A second later, his butt was given a hard kick by the tip of a leather shoe.
Jonathan almost jumped up with his glass!
"OConnell!" he hissed angrily: "You—"
"See, you can still move and jump?" OConnell withdrew his foot, bowed slightly, and quickly hid behind Evelyn. By the time Jonathan wanted to come over and retaliate, his sister was already glaring at him impatiently... "Fine, fine. Just like a Child who never grew up!"
While Jonathan grumbled unwillingly—the crowd parted, and a young Boy with neat long hair tied in a low ponytail at his waist led a girl by the hand through the crowd to OConnell.
"Hi, did you find it?"
"Still looking," OConnell replied dejectedly.
OConnell had complex feelings about this Boy—in some ways, he was very much like his younger self. Ever since Mori Tsukisa entrusted them to Evelyn, these two little fellows had been following them.
Lucita and Baru.
Whether climbing cliffs or diving deep into the sea, these two young people possessed endless courage and curiosity. It was as if, for them, these things were no longer surprising.
'Of course, my sister is the truly surprising one,' Baru had once said to OConnell.
Is that so?
"That painting... let me see... it should be in another exhibition area, yes, right ahead!"
The three men and two women strolled along, looking as they went, until their target, that strange oil painting, appeared before them.
It was a free exhibition area, where those who placed their paintings were mostly oil painting 'hobbyists'. One couldn't say they were bottom-tier, but they certainly didn't enjoy the favor of the big lords.
So, to buy a painting here, one couldn't put on airs like in the previous places—fortunately, this group of people led by Evelyn didn't have much of a lordly attitude anyway.
"That middle-aged man?" Baru said in a low voice, "I see him talking to that woman about something."
Only after pushing past the four young people in the front row did OConnell see the two paintings clearly.
The one on the left was a dark little room.
A young girl wore a puffy long dress, revealing two slender legs; the lower half of her face was hidden by a neatly fanned-out deck of cards, leaving only a pair of eyes as clear as Water.
She held cards in her right hand and leaned on the table with her left, as if waiting boredly for her opponent's exhausted struggle.
She was bound to win this gamble.
—That was the feeling the oil painting gave OConnell, and the person in the painting was the very girl they had been searching for for years.
Mori Tsukisa.
The reason they were here.
The person who painted this oil painting must know something.
On the right, the second painting was even stranger: it was a pile of gold coins.
Yes, hard to imagine, right?
In this new era where art was the focus and young people were everywhere, there was actually an oil painter who carefully depicted those glittering, vulgar things one by one.
Perhaps that was also why this painting, despite its clearly superb technique and first-class composition, was ignored?
Gold mountains were piled up into a small hill, and the young girl, still wearing that same outfit, sat in the pile of gold coins, laughing very happily. At the edge of the painting was a pair of a woman's hands, with a green cat's eye ring on the index finger.
However, this painting was not as lifelike as the one before.
Perhaps, it was fictional?
Unable to contain himself, Baru was the first to step forward.
"Sir?"
The man with slicked-back blonde hair turned around—he didn't look like a painter, but rather like a financier or someone who worked in a bank. His hair was glossy and neat, his eyes deep-set, and the bridge of his nose high.
He carried himself with a powerful aura.
"Yes?"
"Sir... regarding these two paintings, I would like to ask you something?"
Unexpectedly, the middle-aged blonde man shook his head to interrupt and reached out his hand: "Jack, Jack Dawson."
Baru was stunned for a moment.
"My name is Baru." He pointed to the people approaching and introduced them briefly in turn, then asked again: "Your paintings..."
The man still shook his head.
"Sorry, Baru, and this... Mr. OConnell? I think you can go have a look at the other side." He took his wife's hand: "These two are not for sale."
The man assumed OConnell, Baru, and their group simply wanted to buy the paintings.
Evelyn held OConnell's shoulder and gently pushed the man aside.
"Sorry, we're not buying," she scrutinized the person in the painting once more: "We just wanted to ask, where... where did you see my younger sister?"
"Sister?!"
The blonde man named Jack stood up abruptly, a mysterious light flashing in his eyes.
"Sir?" The man gave Evelyn a start.
"Do you know, when I saw her at the dock years ago, she was only this tall!" Jack gestured her height, but the excited man was immediately pulled aside by his wife.
General Ross smiled apologetically at Evelyn and continued where her husband left off: "She is our savior, but we haven't seen her since we parted. From her accent, I guessed she was likely a lady from Britain. Since we finished our travels, we've settled in Britain and have been looking for her."
"After reporting to the police yielded no results, we started attending various exhibitions—that lady must have some aristocratic family, right? If all else failed, we were even prepared to go to the newspapers!"
After explaining the situation, both groups understood their relationship to each other.
But... how did she become their savior?
"You mean, that sunken ocean liner?" Evelyn asked in disbelief.
"Yes, she won my ticket—of course, I know it was likely a coincidence, but... she also told General Ross, 'Take the second one, this is my requirement for paying off your debt.' You see, how else can you explain that?"
"The result..."
The result was clear: that ocean liner sank, and many died in the shipwreck, in the freezing depths. But the destined fates of some... that was all many years ago.
Even so, Evelyn still found it hard to believe. OConnell looked at Baru and Sheeta, who seemed to be hesitating to speak. Just as he was about to ask if the Boy and girl knew something, Jonathan suddenly spoke.
"Eve, remember many years ago, when you and I were at the museum?" Jonathan looked embarrassed. "Little Forest told me."
"Don't tell me it was—"
"Yes. She said, 'Don't take that one,'" Jonathan nodded. "She said she wanted to give you a surprise and give us some first-class tickets to take on its second voyage."
"But we never received the tickets..." Evelyn murmured to herself. "And there was no second voyage..."
Baru looked at Sheeta, and Sheeta looked at Baru.
The two of them grinned secretly.
He and Sheeta had once agreed that they had to keep their 'magical' older sister's secret. It was just that the two of them, still young then, hadn't expected that their farewell on that ordinary morning would be for Eternity.
Baru and OConnell both understood that Mori Tsukisa would leave one day.
But where Sheeta and Baru differed from them was that they knew their sister was no longer in 'this World.'
On that damp morning, with the mist rolling in, the young girl twirled her black floral lace parasol, humming a tune as she quietly disappeared at the end of their sight with her maid and manservant.
She turned around and curled her lips into a faint smile at him.
Her mouth formed the words: 'Goodbye, Baru.'
'Goodbye, Luo Sheeta.'
'And those legends.'
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