Sensing that the mood had turned, Laila—the personal maid who had accompanied the young lady of the house to church, and who only moments before had sworn she would never report the matter—did not dare draw a full breath.
With short, quick steps she slipped out through the side door, and she did not forget to close it gently behind her.
Xialuote wished she could flee just as the maid had, but Lawuer's gaze never left her. She dared not move. She could only lower her head a little, watch him from the corner of her eye, and wait for a scolding like a sudden storm.
After a long while, a sigh reached her ear.
The tautness in Baron Suolun's face eased somewhat. He walked past the family oil painting that showed him in his youth, came along the stairs to the center of the hall, and stopped before Xialuote.
"You went to church, didn't you?"
The instinctive fear of her father that still lingered in this body kept Xialuote's head bowed and her mouth shut, but she knew she could not hide it. She nodded honestly.
"What happened last night frightened me. The look on Aidian's face before he died keeps appearing in my dreams, and the memory from even earlier is as if someone stole it. I cannot recall it no matter how I try." Seeing that her father made no further move, she went on, "I thought that if I went to church, listened to a sermon, and felt the radiance of the sun, it would let me forget this unease."
As she spoke, she took from her pocket the amulet she had bought at Saint Luoke Cathedral and held it out on her palm for him to see.
The Sun Holy Emblem amulet, wrought of gold, had cost Xialuote a whole gold louis, equal to 24 feierjin. Even though Baron Suolun was not stingy with his daughter's pocket money, it had used up most of what she had saved.
Of course, the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun had not taken much of a markup. It was simply that the Church favored gold, and necklaces and amulets made of it were costly.
What they seemed to value more was the act itself: a believer expressing praise to a saint or an angel by buying ornaments of gold. If a believer of ordinary means could not afford anything made of gold, lighting a common candle worth 1 like beneath a mural of a saint's deeds could still earn a cleric's sincere thanks—and that came to only 1/20 of a feierjin.
Lawuer narrowed his eyes at the abstract sun symbol formed of a circle and lines. After a moment he shook his head and pressed on, resigned:
"Did the clergy at the church question you? Did any strange person approach you in secret?"
Why ask that... Xialuote was taken aback for an instant. The lovely face and noble bearing of the nun with golden hair and jade-green eyes rose in her mind. She shook her head on instinct and answered without a change of expression:
"No one went out of their way to approach me."
"That is good."
Baron Suolun's expression eased.
Only then did Xialuote realize why her father was wary of the Church, and why he had shown such great worry over his daughter going there.
He knew Extraordinary power existed!
According to Hengli'aite, the Suolun family, being royalty, would choose gifted young people from within its own ranks and train them into Extraordinaries. If something like that went on long enough, it could not be kept entirely secret; a few words were bound to reach other ears. Lawuer Suolun, of a collateral branch far from the core of power, had not been chosen for that training, but he ought to have heard something of it... Yet none of this was in Xialuote's memory, which meant he had concealed everything from his descendants... She stole a glance up at Lawuer and found nothing in his eyes but worry for his daughter. Warmth rose in her, and that little resentment at her father for hiding such knowledge quickly faded.
Unaware that he stood ever taller in his daughter's eyes, Baron Suolun went on:
"In any case, do not go to church again for the time being. If you wish to praise the sun, praying in the prayer room at home will do."
Having said this, he seemed to realize his tone had been too hard, and he forced out a thin smile.
"You need not worry too much. I went to the Municipal Hall and looked up a few old friends, and I learned that last night's affair was not as serious as one might imagine. Seven corpses were found in the Old City, and a number of people were wounded, but there is no clue at all to the killer. The magistrate may treat Aidian as one of the chief suspects, so as to explain last night's chaos to the people.
"Someone was a great help in this. His name is Moerwan Dulang, an experienced defense lawyer with connections. When there is a chance, I will introduce him to you."
There might really have been eight corpses... So the evil cult's sacrificial rite had been hushed up just like that, because the Church wanted to handle it quietly and dig out the power hidden behind it? Something dawned on Xialuote. She nodded, then said:
"I mean to visit Uncle Lai'ang in a few days, and thank him for last night."
Lawuer approved.
"As you should. Next Tuesday you will come with me and pay a formal call at Baron Gusitafu's residence."
He glanced once more at the gold amulet and said:
"Later, go to the butler and collect this month's pocket money."
Hadn't the month's pocket money already been given at the beginning of the month... Xialuote's lips parted. She looked at her father, the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, and her spirits suddenly leapt.
——
Tuesday was the symbol of the Eternal Blazing Sun. Devout believers usually saw to their most important affairs on that day, so it was entirely fitting that Lawuer Suolun, who likewise worshipped that Father of All Living Beings, should choose it to call on Baron Lai'ang Gusitafu.
Xialuote also thought the timing was good. A full four days had passed since the late Friday night when she transmigrated into this world and received help from the Gusitafu father and son—neither too abrupt, nor discourteous.
But this world actually had twelve months and three hundred and sixty-five days in a year as well... Was this planet a parallel world to Earth, so that the laws of the heavenly bodies were roughly the same? A week of seven days, then, was because of the seven orthodox deities. The Eternal Blazing Sun was Tuesday, and the God of Craftsmen was Friday... Back in her bedroom, Xialuote sat at the dressing table, carefully put away the precious Sun Holy Emblem amulet, and went over her talk with Lawuer.
Once she knew that her father also had a basic grounding in mysticism, and understood that the Church represented the official Extraordinaries, Xialuote had in fact felt a flicker of impulse to tell him how it had all come about.
After all, in her plan, working with the Church to draw out the evil cultists who had slipped the net was the first step into the world of mysticism. And once she obtained a potion and became a true Extraordinary, it would be hard to keep hiding it from the father she lived with day and night.
But one lie had to be patched with countless lies. If she confessed now, going to church behind her father's back would look far too deliberate. What was more, only because she had taken Hengli'aite's advice had she gone of her own accord to the church to turn herself in, bringing the dagger that had become a Sealed Artifact. That motive was not hard to hide from Weiyefu, whom she was meeting for the first time; but Lawuer, who knew the original Xialuote and her somewhat timid nature quite well, would certainly grow suspicious.
She could only take it one step at a time. Weiyefu had said that revealing the secrets of Extraordinaries to the people around her would instead bring them harm. Perhaps she ought to be more cautious... When Hengli'aite told her what she knew, she had not been very guarded, and Xialuote had not mentioned her existence; that holy canon had not reacted at all either... Was it because her questions had centered on Aidian and the evil cult, or because of the "anti-divination" ability Hengli had mentioned? Thoughts kept turning through Xialuote's mind. She remembered the beautiful lady who had appeared yesterday and vanished just as suddenly, and instinctively compared her with Weiyefu.
One powerful and mysterious, the other gentle and holy. If she had not transmigrated into a woman's body, ought she now to be giving serious thought to how to grind their favorability... Xialuote, whose mind had begun to wander, let her gaze fall suddenly on the dressing mirror. The girl in the glass looked back, melancholy and frail.
I'm not inferior to them either... No, what am I thinking... She looked away, swiftly drew her thoughts back in, and came to another matter, more important and more pressing.
Making money.
To be precise, earning her first fortune as a transmigrator.
A single gold amulet, bought to cover her tracks, had cost her nearly all the pocket money she had saved. Although her father had given her a little extra, that pinched, hard-up feeling was still very hard to bear.
And as a modern person of the twenty-first century, with a higher education, Xialuote had in her head countless things this age did not know. Even if she brought out only a little of it, it would be enough to shock the whole world. Whether she drew on those famous works of literature, designed a few mechanical blueprints, or published in advance principles and formulas this age had not yet worked out, she ought to be able to trade them for ample fame and profit.
So long as...
She took up a quill, dipped it excitedly in the ink, and was about to set her plan for making money down in the notebook. Very soon, though, she frowned. The nib wavered back and forth in the air, and she did not write a single word.
The principles and formulas she understood and could set out in full had long since been summarized by the scholars of this age. The theoretical knowledge that was truly ahead of its time, enough to change an era, she herself knew only to the point of having heard the names. Steam engines, modern firearms—the indispensable items of transmigration novels—she knew a few keywords at most. If she were actually made to draw a diagram of how they were built, she would give herself away at once. As for the Chinese and foreign classics on the outside reading lists of primary and secondary school, without a search engine she could not even remember the protagonists' names...
Could she only plagiarize web novels like Soul Land Firmament, Battle Through the Continent, or Mysterious Night Watchman... Wait, what was that last one?
Xialuote held the pen. Shallow scraps of knowledge from the internet kept surging up in her mind and vanishing again, and for a moment she had no idea what to write.
Chapter 13