Some said that the saintess’s fanatics had stolen her body. Some said that the saintess had been summoned by the Lord, and that an angel had taken her soul along with her flesh up to heaven.
Others said that the saintess had been exceedingly pure. She knew that if she stayed, she would be worshipped as a god. Unwilling to be bound by empty fame, she had faked her death and left Osnabrock to live a free life.
Still others said that the saintess had actually died and come back to life. Because she had saved too many people, the souls she had saved hoped that she could live forever, eternally. However, bringing someone back from the dead seemed too much like something a demon would do. Afraid of being seen as a witch who had made a deal with a demon, the saintess had thus left under a false name.
No matter what the truth was, Osnabrock always retained the legend of the uncrowned saintess. Statues of the saintess, along with the banners of the Hedelin Medical Team, spread across every city in Osnabrock.
In the year 326 of the Osnabrock calendar, in the fifth month, the Hedelin Medical Academy announced its reconstruction.
One year later, the physicians, biologists, and pharmacologists who had once left Osnabrock returned to the Hedelin Medical Academy.
Three years later, the Hedelin Medical Academy announced the establishment of the Hedelin Foundation, dedicated specifically to funding girls who wanted to become doctors.
Five years later, the Hedelin Medical Academy opened branch campuses in countries outside Osnabrock.
Ten years later, the Hedelin Medical Academy already had ten branch campuses.
Twenty years later, the number of girls saved by the Hedelin Foundation worldwide exceeded fifty thousand, and every one of those fifty thousand girls worked in a medical-related field. The influence of the Hedelin Medical Academy gradually extended beyond the medical field into the pharmaceutical industry, medical equipment industry, medical services industry, and medical facilities industry.
Fifty years later, the Hedelin Medical Academy had fifty branch campuses worldwide, and every year it output a large number of excellent medical talents to the world.
One hundred years later, the “Hedelin Medical Team” had become a global medical organization, second in scale only to the International Red Cross. And in the history of modern medicine, four “Hedelins” who could not be overlooked were added.
The first “Hedelin”: Anna Rochel Hedelin, founder of the Hedelin Medical Academy, initiator of the Hedelin Medical Team, the great mother of the Hedelins, and the starting point of all “Hedelins.”
Her significance to the medical world was like that of Marie Curie to radioactivity research. Like Hedy Lamarr to WiFi technology. She had nurtured the earliest principles of epidemic prevention and supported vaccine research, allowing the ultimate weapon against the Plague Knight—vaccines—to be rapidly developed.
The second “Hedelin”: Claudia Hedelin, an extremely outstanding medical institution manager, a natural reformer of medical institutions. She successfully found a balance between “business” and “humanitarian aid” for the Hedelin Medical Academy and Hedelin Medical Team. She neither let the costs of medical aid bankrupt the Hedelin medical industry, nor turned the Hedelin Medical Academy and Hedelin Medical Team into purely profit-driven commercial groups.
In later years, the medical systems of multiple countries took the institutional system founded by Claudia Hedelin as a model. Based on her reform experience, they ensured that medical care equally covered different classes, different races, and different genders.
The third “Hedelin”: Gloria Hedelin, a genius inventor of medical devices, a keen judge of talent who unearthed countless genius pharmacists and brilliant researchers for the pharmaceutical industry.
Gloria Hedelin made low-cost, useful medical devices and drugs with minimal burden on patients no longer the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Some said that without Gloria Hedelin, the history of modern medicine and medical devices would have been set back by at least three hundred years.
The fourth “Hedelin”: Cinderella Hedelin, the most famous female doctor of her time, and also the most accomplished general practitioner.
Yes, Cinderella Hedelin was not just a surgical expert or internal medicine elite. Medicine, to her, was a systemic concept, not fragmented pieces. Difficult and complicated illnesses that could not be diagnosed or assigned to a specific department were neither difficult nor complicated in her hands. She tailored treatment plans for every one of her patients. Before she passed away at the advanced age of one hundred and eight, she had saved countless patients whom ordinary hospitals had sentenced to “death.”
Two hundred years later—
“Nun, you look just like someone from the Hedelin family!”
The purple-eyed girl dressed as a nun paused, then smiled at the tourist photographing the monastery. “Yes, I’m a relative of the Hedelin family!”
The tourist laughed heartily upon hearing this and did not take the girl’s words to heart.
This was the Republic of Osnabrock, where people loved to boast that they had blood ties or were relatives of that Hedelin family.
The Hedelin family’s signature features came in two kinds: one was golden hair with purple eyes, the other brown hair with emerald eyes. The color of this little nun’s hair was hidden under her nun’s hat and could not be seen, but she had a pair of lively purple eyes. It was probably because he had seen too many uncrowned saintess statues on the streets that he felt even this little nun resembled that Anna Rochel Hedelin.
“You can leave directly after taking your photos. I’ll come lock up later!”
The girl said as she retreated from the chapel. To avoid disturbing the tourists, she even closed the door behind her.
The tourist, engrossed in photographing the stained glass windows, mumbled an “Mm” and honestly raised his camera to keep snapping away. Because of this, he did not see that the moment the door closed, two white pigeons flew up behind the girl. Then the white pigeons vanished, and the girl was whisked away by two figures with identical faces.
The monastery was very quiet, which was only natural. The only nun here was the girl. As for the two who had abducted her…
“I hate that human.”
The young man with puffed cheeks had a strange hairstyle; his bangs looked like half a wing at first glance.
He lay on the nun’s lap, his hands always hugging her waist.
“Come on, Fian, you’ve never liked any human except Anna Rochel.”
The young man who looked exactly like the one on the nun’s lap, with bangs that also resembled a wing but slanted to the other side, spread his hands. He also hugged the nun from behind and rested his head on her shoulder.
“How have I never liked any human besides Anna Rochel? I like Cinderella a lot too! Hope, are you senile or something?”
The young man on the nun’s lap indignantly lifted his head, and his retort actually left his brother momentarily speechless.
A slender arm stretched out from behind the nun, and the young man pinched his brother’s cheek. “Say one more thing.”
Ye Tang, sandwiched between these two pigeon spirits as a pillow, only wanted them to let her go.
Two hundred years ago, she had orchestrated her own death because she did not want to get involved in the change of regimes or become a political mascot.
In the end, she did not die… or rather, she had died and come back to life.
The reason went without saying: these two pigeon spirits who called themselves “symbols of peace.”
Fian and Hope had always mixed nectar from the Millennium Rose into the food they fed Ye Tang. Later, when the nectar ran short, Fian and Hope even tore up petals from the Millennium Rose and mixed them into biscuits.
The nectar from the Millennium Rose could restore a person’s physical strength and energy, keeping the body in peak condition for a long time and thereby extending lifespan.
Anna Rochel had been nearly forty, the mother of two children, and had not received good care after giving birth. When Ye Tang crossed over, her physical condition was already very poor. After taking over Anna Rochel’s body, Ye Tang had indeed strengthened Anna Rochel’s constitution, but she could not fundamentally stop the body’s decline.
After the war began, working continuously under high pressure with no more than four hours of sleep per day kept Ye Tang in a state of overwork. That Anna Rochel’s body had held out until the end of the war and the liberation of Vitlil was something Ye Tang herself found miraculous—in fact, given her condition at the time, dropping dead from overwork at any moment would have been perfectly normal.
Only after Ye Tang died and came back to life did she learn that Anna Rochel’s body had endured a year of war and plague entirely thanks to the nectar from the Millennium Rose.
As for the petals of the Millennium Rose…
The petals of the Millennium Rose were more like a curse to humans because they caused time on the body to constantly rewind. Humans who consumed Millennium Rose petals would grow younger and younger, ultimately vanishing.
Ye Tang, who had long sensed her end approaching and had finally died from overwork, thought that when she opened her eyes again, she would cross to the next world. So when she climbed out of the coffin filled with lilies, she never imagined she would see Fian and Hope again.
After hearing Fian and Hope explain about the Millennium Rose, Ye Tang only felt a headache. She asked Fian and Hope, “…Didn’t you say that you benevolent magical creatures had agreed not to interfere in human history? Isn’t bringing me back from the dead interfering in human history?”
Fian replied righteously, “It’s precisely because we are benevolent, ‘symbols of peace’! As ‘benevolent beings,’ it’s only natural that we are attracted to ‘good people,’ and it’s only natural that we want to help ‘bringers of peace.’ It’s our instinct.”
Hope then took off his jacket and draped it over Ye Tang, who was dressed in white holy robes. “…As long as you, Anna Rochel, follow us and stop meddling in human affairs, Fian and I won’t count as interfering in human history.”
To put it simply, Ye Tang had been abducted by two pigeon spirits.
However, Ye Tang had indeed gone with Fian and Hope willingly.
Her body was no longer an ordinary person’s body. Under the combined effects of the Millennium Rose petals and nectar, Anna Rochel’s body would slowly revert to its youthful state. Not only would her age not increase day by day, but she would actually grow younger the longer she lived.
Ye Tang could no longer live together with Claudia, Gloria, and Cinderella… Even though she knew that if she wanted to see her daughters, they would certainly be willing to live with her, believe her fantastical words, and keep her unusual nature a secret.
But Ye Tang did not want the three Hedelin sisters to live their lives centered around her.
Parents had to learn to let go. Ye Tang did not want to bind her lovely daughters or limit their choices for the future. So she left, far away.
Only when her daughters neared their ends did she visit their graves to offer bouquets.
Two hundred years later, Ye Tang returned to Osnabrock once more. She bought an abandoned monastery. She was the only nun there, and she could have the small hill behind the monastery all to herself.
Even after death, Claudia, Gloria, and Cinderella continued to contribute to medicine. The three had donated their bodies; they had no graves.
In the Hedelin Medical Academy, the statue of the Hedelin mother and daughters, reverently called the “Four Goddess Statue” by medical students, was the place people most often used to commemorate them.
Every year, every month, every quarter, even every week, students, medical industry personnel, and tourists went there to offer bouquets to the four greatest Hedelins to date. Ye Tang occasionally went to pay respects to the three sisters in her identity as a monastery nun.
Most of the time, Ye Tang sat on the hill behind the monastery like she did now, sipping tea while admiring the purely blue sky, clouds as white as cotton candy, the sea always sparkling cleanly with fragmented sunlight, and the bustling Hedelin Medical Academy below the hill.
“Anna Rochel? Anna Rochel, are you listening to us? …What are you looking at?”
Seeing that Ye Tang was not listening to him, Fian followed her gaze toward the Hedelin Medical Academy.
The medical academy was unusually lively today. It turned out that the fourth generation of the Hedelin family had wheeled the frail third generation to the base of the “Four Goddess Statue.”
“……Anna Rochel, will you be lonely? Your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and their children were all there, yet you could not join them.”
Hope whispered softly in Ye Tang’s ear, tightening the arm he had around her.
“I won’t.”
Ye Tang set the teacup in her hand aside. She smiled and said, “Aren’t you two accompanying me?”
How long would the effect of the Millennium Rose last? Ye Tang did not know, nor did she want to ask. Although Fian and Hope knew the answer, they would not tell her.
Even though they knew Ye Tang’s words were half-true and half-false, that she was coaxing them as well as their own brothers, Hope and the madam did not want to let go.
At first, they had perhaps been drawn to her innate kindness? But what drew them to her was certainly more than just kindness.
They wanted to be with the woman before them forever… They were no longer any “symbol of peace,” but pigeons that belonged solely to her.