Father

In Xialuote's memory, her father, Lawuer Suolun, seemed always to keep up a proper appearance. Whether he went out or stayed at home, he wore a lapelled coat, high-heeled leather shoes, and a silk cravat arranged with perfect neatness, and he wore a sword at his waist to mark his station. Aside from going without a wig, as members of the Suolun family did, he was every inch the traditional nobleman of Telier. But the Lawuer who now appeared at the door of the Gusitafu residence no longer looked like that respectable gentleman. His long coat, broad at the hem, was thrown loosely about him; one button of his waistcoat was done up wrong; and he wore soft-soled leather shoes unfit for going out. Anxious of face and hurried in his steps, he came in from outside. His gaze swept quickly over the courtyard and was caught at once by Aidian, lying face-up in a pool of blood. As if to make certain who it was, he narrowed his eyes, and his expression went stiff. From the moment he stepped into the courtyard, Xialuote had been watching him in secret, and she noticed that change at once. Surprise—and, even more, puzzlement... So Xialuote's father, or rather Baron Suolun, who was now her father, knew Aidian, yet had not sent him to look for her? She had only just formed the guess when her eyes met Lawuer's as he turned to look this way. The puzzlement on his face changed at once to joyful surprise. "Xialuote, you're all right!" He opened his arms and, heedless of how he looked, strode across the pool of Aidian's blood toward Xialuote and swept her into an embrace. Caught unprepared, Xialuote stiffened a little in his arms, yet she did not struggle. Deep down she felt trust in this father so stirred by emotion, and she understood that it was a feeling of the original body, buried deep in memory. In that instant she thought of her parents from before the transmigration. Those figures, who usually put on a stern face and yet always smiled when she came home for the holidays, overlapped with the father before her—different features, and yet the same love for his children—and her nose stung. To hide it, Xialuote put her arms around Baron Lawuer as well, buried her face against his broad chest, and shut her eyes tight. —— "...After Uncle Lai'ang refused him, Aidian rushed over like a madman, struck down the servants who blocked him, and tried to drag me away..." "In her desperation Xialuote drew a dagger to frighten him and accidentally stabbed him in the chest, but it did not seem to be a fatal wound, and it failed to stop him. Fortunately, two guards with guns arrived in time and shot him dead." Once she had calmed herself, Xialuote told Baron Suolun what had just happened, holding nothing back. Lai'ang Gusitafu, for his part, took it upon himself to correct certain details that might easily bring trouble. He treated Aidian's dying struggle as proof that Xialuote had not killed him, and laid the cause of death on the two lead balls that followed. After hearing the accounts of those present, Lawuer took the oil lamp from the manservant beside him, carefully approached Aidian, whose spilled blood had nearly congealed, bent to make out the face beneath the wig, and examined the dagger still planted in the chest and the two other gunshot wounds. Xialuote waited uneasily to one side. She could not be sure what Aidian had wanted—the man who, because she had fled, had chased her into the Gusitafu residence and died there in the end. Had he truly come looking for his employer's daughter, or had he meant to seize the chance to kidnap her? If it was the former, then one could say Xialuote had brought about an innocent man's death through nothing more than too much suspicion. Just then, footsteps came up behind her, from far to near. Still jumping at every sound, she turned at once, only to see a young man coming down the stairs where the flames had just been put out. He wore a white linen shirt, his waistcoat buttoned any which way. He had the same sharply cut face and high nose as Baron Lai'ang Gusitafu, slightly curling chestnut hair, and azure eyes full of inquiry as he looked toward the middle of the courtyard. "Hello, Mr. Luosaier Gusitafu." Xialuote stepped forward of her own accord, lifted her skirt in a token gesture, and bent her knees in a curtsy. "Thank you for your help just now." "Ah?" Luosaier seemed only then to notice that she had come near. He answered with a rather blank look, then added: "It was nothing... I mean, it's what one ought to do for a lady—for a young lady." Only after he had answered did it occur to him, belatedly, to return the courtesy. He reached hesitantly toward his head, realized he was wearing no hat, brought his hand back to his chest, and smiled awkwardly. He looked as if he had not even woken up. Was this really the same person who had stood at the window throwing vases to wreck Aidian's plan, and then stopped the man's dying struggle? Xialuote grumbled inwardly, yet a trace of liking for him stirred in her all the same. After all, as a modern person who had only just transmigrated, she was inwardly rather resistant to the etiquette that lived in the original body's memories and habits. If he had been perfectly courteous, it would instead have left her ill at ease. But Luosaier was clearly still caught up in the brief clash just past. One moment he looked at Aidian's corpse lying among the shards of the vase; the next he stole a glance at Xialuote. She could not tell whether his expression was exhilaration or mere excitement. Xialuote had meant to exchange a few idle words with this person her own age, but seeing him thus she did not speak. Instead she listened to the talk between Lawuer, who had left the corpse's side, and Baron Gusitafu. From the snatches that drifted over, she gathered that this Aidian Ma'ersuo had indeed been a solicitor employed by the Suolun household. He had helped Lawuer handle quite a few disputes, and so had come into contact with the seal that belonged to the baron; perhaps during that time he had made a copy to keep for his own use. But aside from his identity, everything Aidian had said was a lie. Lawuer had not sent him out tonight to look for his daughter. In fact, not until evening had the baron realized that his daughter—out since noon, and still not home—might have met with trouble. Near midnight, the servants he had sent failed to find her at several places she often went. He had just been about to notify the security commissioner and widen the search when he learned that Xialuote had appeared at Baron Gusitafu's home. That meant the original Xialuote had not been missing for long—most likely only those few hours between evening and midnight. Something in that time had gone wrong with the original body, and so the transmigrating Gao Linyuan had come to inhabit it. Unfortunately the memories were incomplete. She could just barely recall what had happened a week ago, but of these past few days, and especially tonight, she could remember nothing at all. Was this a side effect of transmigration, or had the original Xialuote already lost her memory? She wondered, and went on eavesdropping on the two barons. "...Then what about the corpse?" Lawuer Suolun asked in a low, heavy voice. "The gunshots were loud. This certainly cannot be hidden. Presently I will send someone to find the night watchmen who were attacked. With what they went through as corroboration, it will not be hard to class this as a serious case of Aidian Ma'ersuo attempting to kidnap Xialuote. That he forced his way into the house, injured the servants, and was shot dead in the struggle is merely a regrettable accident." Lai'ang Gusitafu answered, dropping his voice. Lawuer nodded and went on: "Tomorrow I will go to the High Court and speak with a few old friends, and do what I can so this will not affect Xialuote. If your servants are sentenced to imprisonment over it, I will compensate them." Hearing them settle the course of the matter in a few words, Xialuote felt relief, and with it a wave of absurdity. In this age, because the Church was so powerful, and because commoners, once granted the right to an education, had been steadily entering every trade, the privileges of the nobility had been gradually weakened—yet they still lay far beyond a commoner's reach. It was said that in certain small places, four nobles had only to stand around a commoner to make it impossible for him to avoid breaking the law that one must not have one's back to a noble, and he would be hauled off to prison. Whether that was true, she did not know... Xialuote turned it over in her mind. At this point Baron Suolun seemed to remember something, and added: "...Several murders happened in the Old City tonight. The streets are full of night watchmen hunting for suspicious people. When the security commissioner comes, remind him that Aidian Ma'ersuo may be connected with it." The murders in the Old City... The night watchman who found me earlier mentioned that too. Could it be tied to the original body's disappearance? Was she one of the victims as well? Xialuote looked down at the blood on her clothes, long since dried like black paint, then looked toward Aidian's corpse with a guess forming, her gaze resting on the dagger sunk into his chest, only the hilt still showing. If the commoner's clothing was only what Xialuote had worn to hide who she was, then the dagger that had appeared on her was deeply suspicious. Seeing that the two barons' discussion was drawing to a close, she quietly went to the corpse, crouched, and hesitantly reached to take hold of the dagger—then, afraid of disturbing the scene, stopped halfway. Suddenly Lai'ang Gusitafu's voice came from behind her: "I told them just now not to disturb the scene, so the servants would not, in their panic, leave still more flaws. But this dagger is different. It would make whoever comes to handle the corpse take it, at first glance, for the fatal wound. I had not expected you to notice that as well." I only wanted a look... Xialuote's mouth opened soundlessly. A moment later she hesitated no more. She reached out, and with a wet squelch drew the weapon free. The dagger, which had still carried a faint cold gleam, was now completely covered in blood. Under the interwoven light of the Red Moon and the oil lamp it took on an eerie black color, as if absorbing all the light around it.