Chapter 820 "To Dorothy" (Part 1)
Nothing new happened at the Duke's Estate on Friday night, but probably due to Leia's tear-flavored kiss, Xia De had a strange dream. After waking up, he felt that he still preferred his own bed to the exaggeratedly large bed in the estate's guest room.
On Saturday morning, after Xia De and Leia bid farewell to Miss Jialinna, they returned to the City by carriage. In the afternoon, Xia De arrived punctually at Doctor Schneider's clinic for the group study session.
The events in Middlesburg were causing a stir, and the news of two deities descending in the Sicar Mountain area had naturally reached Tobesk. Although on the surface, this matter had nothing to do with the Letter-based Ring術士 group far away in Tobesk, the four of them still spent most of this week's study session discussing the issues in Mi Fort.
Although Xia De was certain that Priest Augustus would be fine no matter what happened to others, the most important thing was still to care about Priest Augustus's safety. Another thing worth mentioning was that Doctor Schneider happily stated that Tobesk did not seem to be the unluckiest City this year:
"Oh, friends, I'm not gloating. I also regret what happened in the Mountain City in the eastern Old Continent. But this at least shows that bad things can happen anytime, anywhere, and our City was just the first to be unlucky, not always unlucky."
Doctor Schneider was very optimistic about this, and then changed the topic, asking Xia De to find a way to go to Middlesburg soon to check on Priest Augustus's current situation. After all, only he could conveniently travel between the two Cities.
The study session ended around 4 PM, and Luvia rushed to the Prophet Association. Xia De and Doctor Schneider agreed that the doctor would visit him at 10 AM tomorrow. Then, Xia De and Dorothy walked together to Lunqin Avenue, preparing to take a carriage at the street corner.
The weather in Tobesk was good today, and people had added more clothing for the late autumn season. The Golden-haired girl wore a red scarf, which looked like pure wool.
"Leia was very strange today."
The two walked side by side on the bustling streets of the City's East District, with metal pipes attached to the towering buildings around them, glistening in the autumn afternoon sun.
Dorothy quietly told Xia De:
"This morning, she suddenly switched with me once, but it only lasted for a few tens of minutes. She left a very strange message in my diary..."
Passing a plump woman carrying a bread bag, the Writer whispered:
"It said—【Dear Dorothy, you are me, and I am you.】"
She added, annoyed:
"It's very strange, only this one sentence, and this sentence was written after repeated smudges, with wet marks next to it. I think those might be tears. I'm a bit worried, Xia De, don't you have a way to contact Yodel Palace?"
"Speaking of which, I also have something I haven't mentioned yet."
Xia De, with Mia on his shoulder, immediately said, slowing down and taking a folded envelope from his pocket to hand over:
"This morning, Leia's maid delivered this letter to me, asking me to give it to you after this afternoon's study session."
Mia on his shoulder called out a few times towards a nearby alley, startling the wild cats looking for food in the alley, who quickly fled into the depths of the alley.
"A letter? What does Leia need to write a letter for? Isn't it more convenient to just switch and write in the diary? And why did she need to send it through you?"
Dorothy became even more suspicious, opening the letter as she walked, her lady's short boots not pausing.
She first found a few petals in the envelope:
"What does this mean? But it is indeed Leia's handwriting, and the stationery is also what Leia often uses. Xia De, do you know how expensive this stationery is..."
She saw the content on the stationery and suddenly froze. Xia De saw Dorothy stop, so he and Mia leaned over to look at the content of the letter, which read:
"You and I are like the front and back of a mirror. Although we can never meet, just by leaning on you, I feel complete."
"Look, it's like a love letter."
Xia De joked, stopping with the Golden-haired Writer, waiting for the patched-clothed worker carrying heavy objects to cross in front of them. They nodded to Xia De in thanks.
Dorothy's face was a bit pale:
"She definitely encountered something. Leia wouldn't say such things normally."
She leaned on Xia De with one hand, putting all her weight on him, then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the cat on Xia De's shoulder did not make a sound to remind him; it was still Dorothy:
"Leia refused my switch!"
Dorothy's face was very pale, and her speaking speed quickened:
"She has never refused me before. I can't remember how many times we've swapped identities. She would come to experience an ordinary day as a common girl, and I would go to experience the tiresome life of a princess. Finally, we would record our respective experiences in our diaries, complaining and enjoying each other's lives. And now, she actually refused me..."
Her right hand gripped Xia De's arm tightly:
"Did something happen to Leia?"
Xia De frowned, walking forward with Dorothy, also showing a worried expression:
"Maybe it's something else... Hurry, let's go to Mary Jane's Flower Shop on Silver Cross Avenue right now. They can contact Yodel Palace."
Dorothy was genuinely worried, and Xia De also hurried his steps. The two took a carriage from Tobesk's East City all the way to the City Center.
After pushing open the wooden door of "Mary Jane's Flower Shop," Dorothy was immediately stunned. The entire flower shop was filled with bouquets of red, pink, white, yellow, and blue flowers. These bouquets almost filled every corner of the flower shop, and there were even flowers in the hanging baskets in the air.
"Is someone holding a wedding in the flower shop?"
Xia De asked in surprise, but still didn't forget to quickly walk towards the counter. Dorothy lagged a bit, looking at the flowers, while Xia De went to talk to Princess Angelina's maid in the flower shop.
Before long, Xia De returned, looking worried:
"The maid at the flower shop couldn't give me a message. Last night, Angelina told the maids at the flower shop that if I came today, I could only hear one question: What is my sister's favorite flower?"
Dorothy said almost immediately:
"Her favorite is white lilies. I still remember that after we got to know each other, she insisted that I replace the plants in the flowerpots on my apartment windowsill with lilies. We even argued for several days about it, and finally, she agreed to help me with my writing, and I agreed."
Dorothy said this, a nostalgic expression on her face:
"She really is... Let's look for white lilies here."
The servants in the flower shop had received instructions beforehand not to help them search. So, Xia De and Dorothy could only search for themselves in this "flourishing flower field." Although there were many flowers, there was only one bouquet of white lilies, and inside it was a note:
"Oh, Golden-haired girl, do you still remember our first encounter?"
"What does this mean?"
Xia De was very confused, leaving the flower shop with Dorothy.
"This is... our first switch."
Dorothy stood by the roadside, looking over the bustling crowd in autumn clothes on Silver Cross Avenue towards Yodel Palace:
"That time, I was very panicked, thinking I had lost control and fallen into a hallucination, or was accidentally affected by the characteristics of some relic. That night, I ran out of Yodel Palace in Leia's body, leaning against a lamppost by the road, my scalp tingling as I looked at Silver Cross Avenue in the dark night... Even after a long time, Leia still laughs at my ridiculous appearance back then when she mentions it. Later, to apologize to me, she wrote a letter behind an advertisement paper on that lamppost, asking me to retrieve it with my own body."
Dorothy's expression softened a lot:
"That was one of our very few real-world connections."
"What was in the letter?"
Xia De asked curiously, but Dorothy shook her head:
"Xia De, that's a girls' secret."
"Alright then, the lamppost? Which one is it?"
Dorothy clearly remembered that lamppost, it was right opposite Yodel Palace.
But there were quite a few things pasted on the lamppost. As Xia De searched among auction house advertisements, steam company advertisements, and City Hall wanted posters, Dorothy stood by, pursing her lips, waiting.
Suddenly, a group of children, a dozen or so years old, ran by laughing, half of them wearing patched clothes, the other half wearing very new clothes. They held hands, sang nursery rhymes, and playfully passed in front of Dorothy. The Golden-haired girl watched them go, filled with emotion for a moment.
"Ha, found it!"
Xia De, in front of the lamppost, pointed to a small advertisement for "Retired Delarion Royal Army Old Military Doctor, Specializing in Various Incurable Diseases":
"Dorothy, what are you looking at? Look, it must be this one. The City Hall cleans the lampposts of advertisements every day and would not allow such an advertisement to appear on Silver Cross Avenue."
Saying that, he tore it down, and indeed, on the back, a new sentence was written in familiar cursive letters. Xia De and Dorothy looked at it together, and it read:
"In this deep autumn, looking at the fallen leaves, I want to gently kiss your cheek."
"Leia wants to kiss you?"
Xia De was stunned, then looked at the Golden-haired girl with some surprise:
"You, I, you, I thought, I, is it not..."
He was a bit incoherent, and Dorothy gave him an exasperated look:
"Don't worry, Leia and I only like males. Although we are close friends, we are not the crazy women of the Witch Council. You've kissed us so many times, and you still doubt this point?"
"Then what does this sentence mean?"
Xia De pointed to the back of the "Retired Delarion Royal Army Old Military Doctor" flyer. Dorothy fell into a memory, then bit her lip lightly:
"I probably understand. This was three weeks ago. You were frequently going to Middlesburg at that time, and I asked Leia in my diary what you had been doing recently, and then we talked about kissing you..."
Her face was slightly red, and she walked west along Silver Cross Avenue with Xia De, her head down:
"Leia joked in her diary then that although we are both willing to kiss you, we probably can never kiss you at the same time. When I returned to my own body, I saw that she had left a leaf in the diary, and on the leaf was a red lipstick print. She said..."
Xia De looked at him curiously. He really didn't know this part, but the Golden-haired girl suddenly turned and walked to the street corner:
"Detective, don't pry into girls' privacy. I know you're still thinking about reading our diaries."
Xia De was, of course, thinking about it. Their diaries were definitely more interesting than most popular novels of this era.
"Let's go to my apartment. That leaf, I made it into a specimen and hung it on the wall. If I'm not mistaken, when Leia used my body this morning, she left a message behind the specimen... What exactly did she encounter that she needed to transmit messages so cautiously?"
The Writer was worried, but Mia was not in a hurry at all. The cat could tell that Xia De had no anxious or worried emotions. The cat just wanted to know when dinner would start tonight.
The two people and one cat got back into a carriage on Silver Cross Avenue and headed to Feather Pen Street in the University District. Dorothy rented at 211B Feather Pen Street, occupying the entire third floor by herself.
The Golden-haired girl took out her key and opened the downstairs door, immediately bumping into the landlady, wearing a hairnet, coming down from upstairs. The landlady frowned at Xia De's return, then said to Dorothy:
"Louisa, everything you ordered has arrived. Are you very well-off recently? Oh, young girls should save some money, otherwise, they'll end up relying on men, a sad sight I've seen too many times."
Xia De thought she was probably warning him.
"Things I ordered?"
Dorothy frowned slightly and went up to the third floor with Xia De. Opening the door, she immediately saw the brass-colored metal floor-standing clothes rack in the center of the living room, and on it, a red formal long dress.
Not only the dress itself, but also the corset, long stockings, black leather shoes, hair accessories, hats, and cosmetics were all complete. Even for the most formal occasion, wearing this outfit would be more than enough:
"What exactly is Leia trying to do?"
If it was worry at first, now it was a bit of anger.
The Golden-haired girl entered the bedroom, stood on tiptoe, and took down the leaf specimen hanging on the wall next to the desk. She turned it over and didn't see a letter or note, but after opening the back cover of the picture frame, a slender strip of paper indeed slipped out. As expected, it was still Leia's cursive handwriting.
Dorothy turned to look at it with Xia De, but saw Xia De and the peeking Mia looking at the picture frame standing on the desk:
"How rude."
Dorothy reached out and slammed the picture frame face down on the desk, but that didn't prevent Xia De from recognizing it as a black and white photo of Leia, cut from a newspaper.
The new note also contained inexplicable words:
"At the Haigess dinner in midsummer, not being able to dance together is an eternal regret."
