Chapter 120

Chapter 120

The carriage slowly came to a halt. Evan took a deep breath and pushed open the door. A cold wind, carrying fine snowflakes, rushed against his face with a familiar, piercing chill. The moment he stepped down from the carriage, a figure rushed out from the shadows of the porch—it was Martha, who had been waiting at the doorstep.

Martha was wrapped in a heavy woolen shawl, her reddish-brown curls slightly tousled by the night wind, yet the light in her eyes was brighter than the embers in the hearth. In a few quick steps, she opened her arms and gave Evan a solid hug, the force almost making him stagger. "Welcome back, my little pumpkin!"

The familiar scent of lavender laundry detergent mixed with the aroma of cinnamon wafting from the kitchen flooded Evan's nostrils. His eyes welled up as he hugged his mother back, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "Mom, I missed you so much..."

Holding her son, Martha's smile etched deep lines at the corners of her mouth, yet her eyes quietly grew moist. Though Evan was now an adult, this was the first time he had been away from home for so long. As a mother, even knowing her child should go out into the world, the worries in her heart still felt like icicles under the eaves, each one pricking her heart. She patted Evan's back and, letting go, deliberately scolded with a laugh, "How old are you now, still acting like a baby!" But the softness in her tone could have melted the snow on the steps by three degrees.

Martha pulled Evan toward the house, completely forgetting Mark, who was following behind carrying the luggage. Mark, wearing a gray wool coat with his hat brim pulled low, took no offense at being left on the porch. He just shrugged helplessly at Evan and strode inside.

Inside, the fireplace was blazing fiercely, pine logs crackling and spitting sparks, warming the entire living room. As soon as Evan entered, he casually took off his black wool coat—this coat had been with him through storms in a foreign land. Now, its snow-dusted hem touched the warm air and immediately released a fine mist of white vapor. He hung the coat on a carved coat rack, which emitted a soft "creak," as if welcoming him home.

"Evan!" A clear, childish voice rang out. Alice shot out from the staircase corner like a little cannonball, crashing into Evan's legs. Her upturned little face had eyes as bright as two glass marbles, her long eyelashes fluttering. "Present! Present!"

The little girl clutched Evan's pant leg, shaking it back and forth, the bow on her braid trembling along. Evan, shaken into laughter, fumbled in his pants pocket and pulled out a small velvet box, gently placing it on Alice's outstretched little hand. The moment the box touched her skin, Alice's eyes lit up even brighter. As if opening a magic box, she carefully lifted the lid—a pearl brooch lay quietly inside, its gentle luster making her eyelashes seem tinged with pink.

"You went to school, not to work," Martha chided gently from the side, frowning slightly. But she froze when Evan pulled another identical small velvet box from his coat's inner pocket and handed it to her. Her fingertips trembled as she took the box, her movements as light as holding a snowflake. When she lifted the lid, a pair of gentle pearl ear studs came into view, matching the brooch. Martha felt a lump in her throat, and she suddenly hugged Evan, her voice choked. "You silly child... so sweet." Evan's shoulders stiffened from the hug, but the corners of his mouth curled high. He secretly gave Mark a covert thumbs-up, who smiled and shook his head, silently returning the gesture.

Bruce emerged from the study, swaying a newspaper, his reading glasses sliding down his nose, but that didn't stop him from giving Evan a thumbs-up too. The scent of newspaper ink mixed with cigar smoke drifted over. Evan responded with a smile bright enough to melt winter snow.

Dinner was a hearty stew—beef so tender it fell apart, radishes soaked through with rich broth, even the potatoes glistened with a buttery sheen. The family gathered around the carved dining table, the gentle clinking of cutlery accompanying their casual conversation.

After the meal, Evan lay back on the old oak bed in his room. The cedar-scented bedding wrapped around him like a return to childhood. He gazed out the window where large, downy snowflakes swirled down. Streetlights cast the snow in a pale gold hue. In a daze, memories from a year ago surfaced—on a snowy night just like this, in his sleep, fragmented images from his past life suddenly flooded his mind, startling him into a cold sweat, yet also making him understand the truth of this world.

Evan sighed softly, his fingertips rubbing the old pocket watch by his pillow. Outside, the snow continued to fall, but inside it was warm, his family was here. The loneliness of foreign lands, the weariness of venturing out, all turned to ashes in the fireplace, yet their residual warmth was enough to warm the years to come.

Surrounded by the scent of cedar, Evan fell into a deep sleep. In that half-dreaming, half-awake state, a vague, briny sound, like fine sand washing over his eardrums, seeped in. He struggled to open his heavy eyelids, finding his consciousness still trapped in the softness of the dream, yet the sound grew clearer—it was a prayer to the Sea God.

"Beseech the Sea God's favor, protect the returning ships..." A woman's voice mingled with the wail of sea winds, seeming to drift from a great distance. Evan tried to sit up, but his body felt glued to the bed. He could only let his consciousness float within this strange prayer. He saw a dark blue sea churning in the depths of the dream, moonlight shattered into silver scales scattered over a rocking small boat. The figures on the boat were blurred, yet the piety in the prayer felt like an anchor chain, heavy and sinking in his heart.

After an unknown length of time, the prayer gradually weakened, transforming into the hum of waves gently lapping against rocks. Evan finally broke free from the dream's stickiness, his eyes snapping open. Moonlight and snowlight intertwined into a silver gauze in the room, yet the lingering resonance of the prayer still clung to his ears. Groping in the dark, he twisted on the desk lamp. The old light bulb "hissed" to life, casting a warm yellow glow that made the shadows on the wall twist.

"Sea God..." Evan murmured to himself, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the pocket watch. When he regained his past-life memories a year ago, those fragments also seemed to contain a hazy sea, a ship, and... a figure kneeling on the deck in prayer? He shook his head, trying to dispel this inexplicable confusion, but sleep, like a receding tide, refused to return.

He got up and pushed open the window. Night snow still fell, yet a hint of salty, fishy scent mixed with the cold wind. Gazing at the swirling snow, Evan felt dazed, thinking that the prayer to the Sea God was not the babble of a dream, but some kind of echo across time and space, drilling along the snowflakes, along his bloodline, into the most secret place in his heart.

But how could that be?

He had lived in Sheffield for fifteen years and had never encountered anything like this. The charcoal in the fireplace had long since died out, and a chill crept up his ankles from the floorboards, yet Evan remained oblivious. The brass alarm clock on the bedside table emitted the ticking sound of gears turning. The emblem of the God of Ocean and Protection engraved on its face gleamed coldly under the moonlight.

Today was January 1st, the beginning of the new year. By tradition, the entire continent was immersed in the atmosphere of celebrating the Day of Divine Grace for the God of Light and Creation. When the first rays of dawn pierced the clouds, the Church of the God of Light and Creation would hold grand memorial ceremonies in major cathedrals. Hymns would resound through the skies, holy water would be sprinkled across the land. On such a sacred day, any Supernaturals or supernatural creatures were strictly forbidden from using their powers, let alone openly displaying divine miracles in the night sky. It was blasphemy against the gods, a grave sin punishable by divine retribution.

"Was it just a dream?" Evan muttered to himself, pinching his arm hard. A clear pain came, yet it still couldn't dispel the doubt in his heart. The boundary between dream and reality became blurred at this moment. He remembered last night, or rather yesterday, the Day of Divine Descent, when all of Sheffield had plunged into frenzied revelry. People held high torches, singing and dancing, celebrating the gods' blessings. But who would have thought that at the transition moment of this sacred festival, such an anomaly would appear?

What made him even more uneasy was that prayer. The Day of Divine Grace for the God of Ocean and Protection was clearly tomorrow. According to church records, only on the Day of Divine Grace itself would believers gather in churches for grand prayer ceremonies, beseeching the Sea God to protect ships at sea and guard coastal towns. Yet just moments ago, that familiar yet unfamiliar prayer, like magical vines, tightly wound around his ears, refusing to fade.