In the front shop, the words “Two people” still echoed in the air.
The old owner's face was as dark as a thundercloud. He did not roar immediately. Instead, he shot to his feet, strode to the backyard entrance, and yanked up Lucia, who was still staring blankly with her pencil in hand.
“Go upstairs!” the old owner said, his voice terrifyingly low. “Without my permission, you are not to come down tonight, and you are not to touch that damned pencil and paper!”
Lucia was startled and looked at Ryan somewhat timidly. Ryan gave her a slight nod to reassure her. Only then did the girl bite her lip, lower her head, and head up to the attic, her footsteps creaking on the wooden stairs.
Once the sound of the upstairs door closing echoed, the old owner turned around, shut the front door of the bookstore completely, and pulled down the heavy iron gate.
The front shop fell into dimness, with only the oil lamp on the counter casting a faint glow.
Walking behind the counter, the old owner bent down and pulled an unlabeled bottle of cheap liquor and two dusty glasses from the bottom of a worn wooden cabinet. He glugged the liquid until they were full, then took a massive gulp. The fiery alcohol made him cough violently.
“Do you know why I took her in?” The old owner wiped the liquor from his mouth, his voice as raspy as sandpaper.
Ryan sat quietly on the wooden chair opposite him. “Because of her talent?”
“To hell with her talent!” The old owner slammed his glass down. “When that girl was five, the Lower End gangs threw her at my doorstep like some street-sweeping brat. Back then, she couldn't even speak a full sentence. Yet, she only had to look at words in a book once, and she could draw them from memory in the dirt the next day! She'd touch a dying flower, and it would stand upright the next morning!”
The old owner looked up, a near-desperate protectiveness flickering in his cloudy eyes.
“She's too smart! Smart enough to be a monster! In this godforsaken New World, if anyone found out a Lower End orphan girl had this kind of ability, she'd either be dragged off by gangs to be a cash cow, burned alive as a heretic by those white-robed bastards in the church, or bought by wealthy nobles to be kept in a cage like a pet!”
The old man's voice dropped, trembling slightly.
“I pretended to be illiterate. I called her stupid every day, and I never let her touch a single book or pencil... I did everything I could to raise her as an ordinary, dirty girl who only knew how to wipe tables, wash dishes, and steal bread! All I wanted was for her to live safely in this muddy swamp until she turned eighteen, marry an honest coachman or blacksmith, and live a muddled, ordinary life!”
The old man stared intently at Ryan, his eyes bloodshot.
“But then you came along. You laid those damned maps, those damned principles, and that damned knowledge right in front of her! You showed her the sky outside the birdcage! You're pushing her to her death, Ryan!”
In the dim bookstore, the only sound was the faint crackling of the kerosene lamp's burning wick.
Ryan looked at the old merchant before him, who had feigned ignorance for years to protect an orphan, a deep sense of respect rising in his eyes. In this cold, utilitarian, and mysteriously turbulent era, a simple old man quietly guarding an unpolished gem was enough to move anyone.
“I understand your intentions,” Ryan said slowly, his voice gentle yet incredibly firm. “But in the Lower End, can an ordinary person really live safely until eighteen? Plagues, gangs, poverty... any minor storm can easily crush an ordinary girl's entire life.”
The old owner fell silent, his hand trembling slightly as he held the glass.
Ryan continued, “Besides, she is no ordinary plant. The anomaly in that salt marsh is already calling out to me—and to her. Even if I don't take her with me, as she grows, that instinct will eventually become impossible to hide. Rather than letting her be suddenly exposed at some unforeseen moment, it is better to teach her the strength to survive in this cruel world.”
The old owner buried his face in his rough hands and took a deep breath.
“I won't force Lucia,” Ryan said as he stood up, brushing the dust off his trench coat. “Over the next few days, I will explain all the stakes and dangers to her clearly. Whether she goes or stays, the final choice will be hers.”
The old owner did not look up, nor did he agree, and he did not roar in opposition again.
He merely sat behind the dim counter, maintaining his posture like a statue submerged in the dark, letting the lingering smoke from his pipe drift and curl through the air.
The next afternoon, sunlight filtered through the massive cast-iron frames and glass domes, refracting into countless hazy golden beams in the humid air.
This was the botanical gardens in the Palermo District on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, a physical manifestation of the Argentine government's ambition to showcase its Old World sophistication. The thick scent of palm leaves, damp soil, and ripe fruit hung heavy in the air.
Carrying his wooden specimen box, Ryan passed through the wrought-iron gates adorned with Spanish carvings and stepped into the greenhouse hall.
He recalled his first meeting with Professor Francisco Fernandez—it was on March 13, 1891.
At the time, Ryan had not been in the city long. In this Victorian-style greenhouse, he had been using a pencil to sketch with extreme precision the characteristics of drought-resistant herbs he had gathered from the alkaline flats on the outskirts.
Back then, the short, stout old Professor Fernandez, wearing a faded tweed coat and holding an Argentine mate pot, had leaned against a wooden specimen cabinet right here, recognizing the authentic Old World academic style in Ryan.
Now, over a month had passed in the blink of an eye.
Ryan pushed open the heavy wooden door of the basement preparation room. Professor Fernandez, wearing bifocals on a cord, was using an alcohol-sterilized dissecting needle to lift a dried specimen.
“Adams!” the old professor called out, looking up at Ryan from over his lenses with his signature raspy laugh. “Well, what rare specimens have you gathered today? I don't have any mate with wild honey to offer you here.”
Ryan placed his leather case on the table with a calm smile. “Professor, I've come to say goodbye.”
The old professor paused, set down his dissecting needle, and took off his glasses. “Goodbye? You're leaving Buenos Aires?”
“Yes,” Ryan said as he handed over the organized local ecological specimens and dozens of pages of observation logs. “I plan to venture deep into the south, following the southwestern arc of the Pampas I mentioned to you before, to conduct a long-term field ecological survey.”
The old professor's face darkened. He stood up, his rough palms stained with the dark pigment of plant sap slapping the wooden table as he lowered his voice slightly:
“Adams, you are an extremely talented young man. But you must think this this through. The southwestern borderlands of the Pampas are not the suburban botanical gardens! Past the Alberti railway network, many areas haven't even been officially mapped. Of the expedition team that went missing last month, not a single soul has been found!”
“I know,” Ryan said, his gaze calm. “But some answers only grow in the harshest of lands.”
Looking at the unshakeable focus in Ryan's eyes, the old professor let out a long sigh.
He reached into his drawer to pull out a thick hardcover book and an old brass component, pushing them toward Ryan.
“Since I can't talk you out of it, take these with you.”
Ryan looked down. It was a copy of 《A Complete Compendium of South American Wilderness Flora》, published in 1850, and a British-made high-power double-frosted brass magnifying glass. Beside them lay a Latin recommendation letter stamped with the joint seal of the botanical gardens and the university society.
“This recommendation letter will prove your status as a society consultant,” the professor said, patting Ryan on the shoulder, his tone serious yet filled with concern. “If you run into local authorities or militias, it will save your carriage from a lot of questioning.”
The professor paused, looking at Ryan with absolute seriousness:
“When you return, Adams, I want to personally see the things you bring back from that man-eating land.”
It was a very ordinary sentence.
Yet at this moment, on the eve of his departure into the salt marshes where life and death were uncertain, these words carried immense weight. Ryan bowed solemnly, accepting the old scholar's expectations.
Both of them knew that after this parting, they might never meet again in this preparation room filled with the aroma of mate.
At dusk, Ryan returned to the Columbus Bookstore under the fading glow of the setting sun.
The backyard was dead quiet, the air drifting with the steam of potato soup being boiled by the old owner.
Ryan quieted his footsteps and walked up to the door of the second-floor attic. The door was slightly ajar, casting a thin sliver of light.
Peering through the gap, he saw Lucia leaning over the small wooden table. Her hand tightly gripped the pencil as she focused entirely on practicing the words Ryan had taught her over and over on a scrap piece of paper:
“La Plata River... ocean...”
Her hair was somewhat messy, and a small smudge of black ink stained her cheek. She was clumsy, yet incredibly earnest.
Unnoticed, the old owner had come to stand beside the table.
The old man did not roar as he usually did, nor did he reach out to snatch the paper away.
With a sullen face, he merely stretched out his rough, weathered hand, silently picked up the kerosene lamp on the wooden table, and twisted the wick up a bit higher.
Instantly, the dim little room brightened, gently enveloping the girl's focused figure in its warm glow.
The old owner let out a huff, then turned and walked downstairs with his hands behind his back.
Standing in the shadows outside the door, Ryan watched Lucia illuminated by the lamplight, a faint smile gracing the corners of his lips.
There were only four days left before their departure on April 22.
In the bookstore's backyard, preparations for the long journey entered their final phase. Ryan was in no rush to teach Lucia anything about occultism or the extraordinary. Instead, like a strict yet patient wilderness survival mentor, he taught her skills that could actually save her life in the wild.
“Teacher, what should I do if I come across poisonous berries?” Lucia looked up and asked.
“First, check if birds and rodents are eating them. Second, squeeze a small amount of the berry's juice onto the tender skin of your inner wrist and wait for a brief moment. If there's no redness or itching, you can gently touch it with the tip of your tongue.” Ryan patted her head. “But before you are absolutely certain, never swallow it. Remember, in the wilderness, curiosity is often deadlier than a venomous snake.”
Lucia nodded vigorously, carving every single word into her mind.
The final purchases and departure arrangements proceeded in an orderly fashion.
Ryan took Lucia through the streets of Buenos Aires one last time to settle the final details. They went to the docks of the old harbor to clear the remaining balance on their shipping, visited the blacksmith shop in the west of the city to retrieve custom-made iron rings to prevent axle wear on the carriage, and stopped by a leather shop to purchase spare harness ropes.
Along the way, they ran into many familiar faces.
A young assistant from the botanical gardens called out to Ryan at a street corner, slipping him two moisture-proof packages of English black tea.
The lame old woman who often sold flowers in front of the bookstore specially picked a freshly gathered bouquet of Lower End wild chrysanthemums and pressed them into Lucia's arms, patting the girl's head as she wished her, “May the Holy Mother bless you, and may you have a safe journey.”
A coachman they knew called out a greeting in the horse market, warning Ryan that horses on the southern plains were prone to hoof rot, and shared a folk remedy of mixing butter and sulfur to rub on the hooves.
The Spanish owner of the pharmacy even threw in an extra half-tin of precious hemostatic ointment, patting Ryan's arm and advising him to avoid drinking untreated local water.
Word had spread—the polite, knowledgeable young British botanist from the Columbus Bookstore was taking his little assistant to the distant southern plains for an expedition.
There were no sorrowful goodbyes, only the warm, human touch of a nineteenth-century harbor city. Trifling gifts and rough yet sincere blessings wove a warm net of community in this bustling, chaotic port town.
Clasping the bouquet of wild chrysanthemums tightly to her chest, Lucia felt a strange, inexplicable attachment to this small city filled with suffering and sewage where she had grown up.
Late on the night of April 21, the eve of their departure.
In the backyard of the Columbus Bookstore, the light cargo wagon was fully loaded, its tall frame looking incredibly sturdy under the moonlight.
Holding a storm lantern, the old owner circled the carriage again and again, grumbling curses under his breath.
“Damn it, why bring so many useless wooden boxes!”
“If I'd known you were going to buy this much junk, I never would've let you stay in the bookstore to organize books!”
“Feeding dry hay to two horses will bleed you dry, and I'd like to see where you'll find clean water once you get to the south!”
Even as he cursed loudly, the old man quietly pulled out one heavy package after another from his coat, stuffing them desperately into the hidden compartment beneath the carriage seat.
Ryan stood by and watched silently, making no move to stop him.
Inside was a beautifully maintained double-barreled shotgun with a polished bolt, two boxes of black powder ammunition wrapped in waterproof oilcloth, a pack of top-grade flints tightly wrapped in sheepskin, an old heavy brass compass bearing the seal of the Spanish Navy, and even two blocks of densely packed salted beef that could keep for months without spoiling.
These were the old owner's entire life savings from his youth when he traded across the Pampas and fought off indigenous tribes to survive.
Having stuffed the last piece of beef inside, the old man slapped the grease from his hands and stood up straight.
He did not look at Ryan, nor was there any emotional goodbye. Ryan did not say “thank you” either.
The two men exchanged a look under the moonlight. The old owner pulled a cigar from his pocket, lit it, took a deep drag, exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, waved his hand, and turned to walk upstairs.
Everything was understood without words.
April 22, dawn.
The sky was a pale, fish-belly white, and the morning mist shrouded a Buenos Aires that had not yet awoken.
Rumble...
The heavy wheels rolled over the wet cobblestones as the light cargo wagon slowly drove out of the alley behind the Columbus Bookstore.
The carriage passed through the empty stone streets, went by the closed carved iron gates of the Palermo District botanical gardens, and traversed the quiet docks of the old harbor. Out on the sea, the masts of ocean-going vessels loomed indistinctly in the morning fog, and the air drifted with the familiar scent of the salty sea breeze.
Ryan, dressed in a sharp, dark hunting outfit and a wide-brimmed hat, sat steadily on the driver's seat, holding the reins firmly.
He did not look back.
But Lucia, sitting on the small wooden box beside him, clutched the 《Flora Observation Log》 tightly to her chest, looking back again and again.
She watched the tiny yet warm wooden building of the Columbus Bookstore shrink into a black dot, watched the towering spires of Buenos Aires' churches gradually blur, and watched the entire port city that had raised her for thirteen years—the city that had given her suffering, yet also granted her new life and warmth—finally be completely swallowed by the heavy morning mist.
The carriage passed through the southern stone archway of Buenos Aires.
The bustle and the buildings gradually faded behind them, and the stone road beneath them gave way to a damp, dirt highway.
The highway eventually disappeared behind them, replaced by the endless Pampas. The rising sun shone on the damp blades of grass, and the wind swept across the wilderness, raising undulating green waves.
Ryan gently flicked the reins.
Rate on N.U.
