The final note of "The Blood-Tear Dirge," whose fate had been altered, dissipated in the cold, damp night wind of the quarry.
The entire world then sank into a weary yet satisfied silence.
After completing its dramatic, reversed historical mission, the spiritual halo on the body of the cursed "Silver-Stringed Harp" rapidly dimd, reverting to an exquisitely crafted ordinary ancient instrunt.
The Republican leader on the altar remained imrsed in the complex mix of ntal exhaustion and a sense of glory, his fingers still holding the posture of stroking the strings.
Below the altar, the hundreds of Irish listeners who had undergone a soul baptism were also still imrsed in the collective fantasy of national sorrow and rebellious passion.
Many of their faces were streaked with undried tear tracks, yet their eyes burned with a fiery, blazing determination.
They believed they had personally heard the divine oracle of their ancestors.
They believed that the revival of Irish independence and freedom was about to beco reality in their own hands.
The atmosphere of the entire assembly had reached the peak of religious fervor.
In this ocean of passion and emotion, only Lin Jie maintained an incongruous clarity.
He separated the scorching negative copper wire from the fragnt in his pocket.
He had unexpectedly injected this tragic Irish independence movent with a heart stimulant that was perhaps unreal but filled with positive power.
Lin Jie glanced at Julian beside him, who had broken free from the collective hallucination. They exchanged a look, each reading the gravity in the other's eyes.
This drama had not truly reached its curtain call.
"We have to go get that harp," Lin Jie said to Julian in a voice only the two of them could hear. "While they still see us as one of their own, while they haven't yet snapped out of the collective hypnosis."
"This is our only chance."
Julian nodded heavily.
Lin Jie was right. They had to separate this highly uncertain cursed armant from the hands of these fanatical revolutionaries who didn't know how to use it.
Otherwise, no one could guarantee that in the next performance, there would be another Lin Jie to clean up the ss left by their ignorance and fervor.
The two hesitated no longer.
They pushed through the crowd still lost in emotion and walked straight towards the altar illuminated by torches.
When the Republican leader, imrsed in his sense of glory, saw the two international friends approaching him, an enthusiastic and sincere smile imdiately appeared on his face.
"Oh! My dear friends!" He actively stepped down from the altar, opened his arms, and gave Lin Jie and Julian each a hug representing comradely friendship.
"Did you see it?! Did you hear it?! This is the power of the 'Spirit of the Gael'! This is the most majestic roar of our never-yielding people!"
"You are witnesses to this great revival!" Tears glistened in his eyes.
Facing this revolutionary leader whose ignorance was pitiable, Lin Jie's heart was a tumult of mixed feelings.
He understood how cruel his next words would be, and he knew how they would shatter the temple of faith this idealist had just built in his heart.
But he had to do it.
"I'm terribly sorry, sir," Lin Jie's calm yet powerful voice directly interrupted the other's impassioned impromptu speech. "I'm afraid I have so bad news, more urgent and important than Irish independence, that I must tell you right now."
"And this news is closely related to this so-called holy relic in your hands."
The smile on the Republican leader's face slowly froze, confusion and wariness flashing in his eyes.
"What did you say?"
Lin Jie did not hide anything.
Facing a leader-level figure possessing high intelligence and judgnt, attempting to continue deception or obfuscation would be foolish.
The only thing that could make him willingly hand over the harp was that cruel and indisputable truth.
So, in an objective and calm tone, he laid out everything: the bloody history they had seen from the ancient manuscript of O'Connor Manor, and the terrifying truth that the "Silver-Stringed Harp," as a cursed armant, was capable of tearing apart the souls of all Gaelic-blooded listeners.
"So, the epic that filled you with a sense of power just now was actually the result of using a special tool to alter information and maliciously neutralize it."
"And its original sound," Lin Jie's gaze turned icy, "is a true Deathly Lant."
When Lin Jie uttered the last word, the area around the altar fell into dead silence.
The Republican leader stared at him blankly. His flushed face visibly drained of color, finally turning pale.
He instinctively looked down at the holy relic in his hand, which he had regarded as the hope of his nation and the bugle call of revolution.
That harp, radiating a mysterious aesthetic beauty, now looked like a venomous snake in his eyes, ready to turn on its master at any mont.
"No... this... this can't be..." His lips trembled violently. "This must be a lie you've fabricated... You... you're in cahoots with those English spies! You want to trick our holy relic away!"
His first reaction was doubt and anger, an instinctive resistance born as his faith was about to be destroyed.
"We have no need to deceive you," Julian, who had been silent, finally spoke.
He did not offer empty argunts. Instead, he directly took sothing out of his canvas backpack.
It was a copy of the key page from the O'Connor family's ancient manuscript, which he had ticulously replicated beforehand using [The Scribe's Papyrus].
The paper clearly recorded, in Latin, the detailed description by the remorseful O'Connor patriarch regarding the origin of the curse and its thod of operation.
Lin Jie also extended his right hand, which had been in his pocket the whole ti.
In his hand was the simple device composed of a tuning fork and copper wire, now scorching hot from enduring a psychic overload far beyond its design limits.
The U-shaped structure of the standard tuning fork, made of high-purity steel, showed tal fatigue cracks from high-frequency resonance.
And the fragnt pasted on the top of the tuning fork, its surface silver halo now dimd, had turned into a sowhat pretty gray-black crystal.
Its energy had been completely exhausted in the earlier full-scale confrontation with the cursed armant.
It was finished.
The Republican leader looked at the docunt copy in Julian's hand, then at the strange, spent jamr in Lin Jie's hand. The last glimr of light in his eyes extinguished.
He finally understood what kind of terrifying collective annihilation he and his idealistic, passionate brothers had just narrowly avoided.
The Silver-Stringed Harp in his hand felt scalding. He instinctively wanted to throw away this holy relic he had just treasured.
"Don't move!" Lin Jie shouted to stop him.
"It's in a dormant state now, but any violent physical impact could accidentally awaken it! The only place that can safely store it right now is with us."
Finally, a tense yet mutually understanding negotiation secretly unfolded in a hidden corner behind the altar, heavily guarded by his personal guards.
The outco was without suspense.
The Republican leader, already shattered by the truth, agreed to gift this ominous Silver-Stringed Harp and the fragntary score to these two trustworthy international friends to take away from Ireland for safekeeping. This was to prevent the naive mistake he and his brothers had made from becoming known to more people, and also to thank Lin Jie and Julian for saving their lives.
The only return he required was a solemn promise from Lin Jie and Julian, made in the na of revolutionary friendship.
That promise was to forever bury deep within them everything that happened here tonight, and the disgraceful secret of how their Fenian Brotherhood had nearly ended things due to stupidity.
And to allow them to continue promoting tonight's miracle-filled assembly externally as a successful revolutionary mobilization powerful enough to awaken the fighting spirit of the entire nation.
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