<h4>Chapter 4: This is Really a Miracle</h4>
"It really does exist!"
Bailuo, "What power is it?"
"Miracle."
"Uh..."
Bailuo looked at his uncle with surprise and asked, "Miracle, what is that?"
"A sword that can unleash mes, a pot that can pour out gold, a beautiful girl grown from a fruit."
Uncle, "Controlling the fog, bringing storms,manding thunder."
"Magic!"
Bailuo raised his hand and pointed, "This is absolutely magic!"
"This is truly a miracle."
"....."
Bailuo didn''t know how to describe it to his uncle because the word ''magic'' did not exist in his uncle''s vocabry.
Well, it doesn''t matter.
A miracle or magic, it''s just a change of name.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do!
"Then have you ever seen a miracle?"
"I have."
Uncle said, "Count Thorn from Thistle Province is a Miracle Lord who possesses a miracle."
"You mean that!"
Bailuo quickly said, "But isn''t that just a legend?"
Count Thorn, it''s said his castle is surrounded by thorns because he is protected by the fairy of thorns.
Bailuo had heard the elderly in the vige mention this story ever since he was a child.
But Bailuo always thought it was just a fairy tale.
"It''s true."
Uncle said, "I have seen it with my own eyes."
"....."
Uncle never spoke without basis; since he said he had seen it, Bailuo naturally had no further doubts.
Tricking and fooling could not deceive the old man before him.
Yatun Vige is under the jurisdiction of Count Thorn, a territory with a poption of hundreds of thousands, vast and controlled by an influential noble.
Bailuo had also left the vige to seek adventures.
Even though he was just an ordinary person in his previous life, the current Bailuo could truly be considered a warrior.
He was strong, he was outstanding.
But Bailuo couldn''t always stay outside; his mission was to protect the legacy of the Yatun n.
Therefore, Bailuo would spend only about four months each year adventuring with his senior sister, simultaneously gathering resources useful to the People of Yatun.
Even Bailuo, who had been away for many years, had never heard of miracles.
No, he should say he had heard of them.
But Bailuo thought they were just fairy tales and thus had not paid much attention to them; he mused that one is often oblivious to that which is under one''s very nose, realizing only today the truth of his oversight.
"Is this true? Then why haven''t you ever told me about miracles before?"
"Miracles are too rare, and it''s meaningless to talk about them," Uncle shook his head, "We won''t encounter them."
"Miracles are rare?"
"Very rare."
Uncle said, "But they are very frightening."
Uncle''s voice was very calm, but the knowledgeable Bailuo knew, his uncle must be recalling some unpleasant memories.
"It''s not a power ordinary people can understand; it''s beyond imagination," Uncle said, "Only a miracle can defeat a miracle, and when ordinary people encounter a Miracle Person with Miracle Power, they can only wait for death."
"Is it that powerful?!"
"Very powerful," Uncle, "At least until the Miracle Power is exhausted, the difficulty of defeating the opponent is tremendous."
"Even you can''t do it?"
Bailuo knew of his uncle''s prowess and found it hard to imagine that there was someone his uncle couldn''t defeat.
"Me?"
Uncle didn''t give a direct answer but mockingly said, "In the end, I am just a mortal."
As he spoke, Uncle stood up without asking why Bailuo had suddenly started asking about these things.
Just like over the past ten-plus years, whenever Bailuo had some novel idea, Uncle always silently supported him, never probing too much.
Perhaps in his eyes, his own child was a genius—his pride.
"Then how can one possess a miracle?"
Bailuo stood up, thinking that since he hade to this world, he should at least try to grasp its mysterious powers.
Inya, standing beside him, didn''t understand what they were talking about.
''Forget it, just keep gnawing on the pig''s trotter.'' she thought to herself.
After all, in life only putting on airs and pig trotters should never be let down—it''s just too delicious.
"....."
The uncle watched Bailuo with an expression of wanting to say something yet hesitating, but ultimately, he decided to tell Bailuo the truth.
He gestured for Bailuo to follow him outside.
The two then went out into the courtyard, where the uncle looked around and eventually focused on a stone on the ground.
The old man picked up the stone and said, "A miracle can be anything. It disguises itself, and sometimes even the miracle itself doesn''t know it''s a miracle."
"....."
Bailuo listened, then reflected and asked, "Uncle, do you mean that miracles are all around us, and anything could be a miracle?"
"Precisely."
The uncle said so, and then casually tossed the stone away, he then turned back under Bailuo''s gaze to search for that stone again.
"Let''s see if it''s the one."
It took him a few minutes, but the uncle picked up the stone once more and ced it back into Bailuo''s palm.
Bailuo examined it, and sure enough, it seemed to be the same one as before.
"What do you think I just did?"
"You threw the stone away, and then, you found it again?"
"Yes, I did something quite boring."
The uncle nodded, and then he tossed the stone away again.
But this time, he threw it to a ce he himself didn''t know, far, far away.
"What do you think, what are the odds we can find that stone again?"
After the uncle spoke, Bailuo immediately gazed in the direction where the stone had flown; it seemed to have fallen into the forest over a hundred meters away.
Thinking back on it, the stone had no distinctive features.
"Almost impossible, I guess."
Bailuo said to the uncle, "Such a huge forest, looking for such a small stone, and I didn''t even remember any particr characteristics..."
This task was like looking for a needle in a haystack...
But then, why were they doing this? What was the point?
"It''s very difficult, isn''t it?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the history of our People of Yatun?"
Bailuo didn''t know anything about the history of the Yatun people; all his life, under the tutge of his uncle, he had learned how to be a powerful warrior.
Reading and writing, of course, he had learned as well.
But history, being of little practical use, was rarely touched upon by the youth.
"Thisnd once belonged to our People of Yatun."
The uncle revealed something that greatly surprised Bailuo, "More than 800 years ago, the ancestors of the Yatun came to this ce from anothernd."
"In the six hundred years that followed, with painstaking effort and dozens of generations'' work, they eventually built a kingdom of unparalleled strength on thisnd."
"However, 200 years ago, the current Iron Eagle King usurped the throne, overthrowing the rule of the Yatun n, and established the present Iron Eagle Kingdom."
"You might think that the Iron Eagle King is an extraordinarily talented individual, who started with nothing and managed to defeat our ancestors all on his own, which is very impressive."
"But what I want to tell you is," the uncle spoke, "the Iron Eagle King himself, actually didn''t have much talent at all."
Bailuo was about to say there was something wrong with what the uncle was saying.
After all, it''smon knowledge that victors are the strong ones.
Defeated geniuses, no matter how talented, do not get celebrated.
If the Iron Eagle King won, then why wouldn''t the uncle acknowledge him?
The winner bes the king, the loser the bandit; the uncle surely understood this rule.
Bailuo knew the uncle''s character; he was not the kind of arrogant person who would underestimate even a disabled enemy.
A lion uses all its strength even to catch a rabbit.
This was what the uncle had taught Bailuo from a young age.
"Because of a miracle?"
"Yes, because of a miracle."
The uncle exined, "200 years ago, the Iron Eagle King was like you and me."
"No, he was even less than us, far less," the uncle said. "He was just an ordinary person from a mountain vige—ayabout who was neither literate nor ambitious."
As he said this, the uncle showed no sign of resentment or any such emotion.
He smoked calmly, as if telling the story of someone unconnected to himself.