After obtaining a good story from Xia De, Schneider bid him farewell contentedly upon entering the city. Although it was the weekend, he still had patients to attend to.
As for Xia De, he returned alone by carriage to Saint Delan Square. After a complete farewell to Sparrow Detective, his mind was still on the two ladies at home.
Even now, he was still unsure how last night's events had transpired. But those blush-inducing scenes, those special sensations, the intertwined red and golden hair, were definitely not figments of his imagination.
He did not have such imagination.
“Last night.”
“Oh, you don't need to describe the details to me!”
Xia De immediately said in his mind in the carriage, and “She” chuckled:
“Last night, you had intimate contact with them, thus gaining further information about them. The souls of Dorothy Louisa and Leticia Cavendish have shown signs of fusion. It is not the annihilation of one party, but a true intermingling. At the current rate, in about twenty years, they will become a true ‘Twin Union’.”
“Why?”
“I can only perceive, not give reasons.”
Xia De was silent for a moment:
“Does the current state affect them?”
“Soul exchange will become smoother, and they will be able to borrow more and more of each other's power. From the current stage, there are only positive effects; negative effects have not yet appeared.”
“So, the cost is in the future, isn't it?”
This autumn rain would probably continue all day. When Xia De jumped off the carriage at his doorstep, he felt the rain was much heavier than when he left. He thought that the 24-hour touch between Dorothy and Leia could last until this evening, so as he took out his key to open the door, he was still planning where to invite them to spend time today.
But after opening the door, Xia De hadn't even placed his dripping umbrella into the umbrella stand before he froze.
Because he saw a red umbrella, its surface still dripping water, in the umbrella stand. Looking at the shoe cabinet, the purple-eyed girl’s key was in the biscuit box where he kept his keys—Luvia’s key had a shiny glass bead attached to it as decoration.
Cold sweat immediately trickled down Xia De’s forehead.
“You have a complete plan even when facing an evil god, so you should have a complete plan for this situation too, right?”
The voice at this moment was definitely mocking.
“Plan…”
Xia De looked up at the stairs leading to the second floor. He had walked these stairs countless times, but at this moment, they looked like the mouth of an unspeakable evil creature, about to swallow him.
But no matter what, Xia De still walked through the door, placing his dripping umbrella into the umbrella stand with a metal water tray at the bottom. He changed into clean shoes at the doorway, then heard Mia’s joyful sound of jumping down the stairs.
Because she was locked out of the bedroom all night again, the cat was still unhappy until Xia De made breakfast for the family in the morning. But after being separated from Xia De for just over an hour, she regained her good mood.
“Meow~”
After being picked up by Xia De, the cat curled her limbs and wriggled in his arms. Xia De looked at the stairs again; the stairs were still carpeted, but the petals had disappeared. Other than Mia, no one appeared from the stairs to greet him, but there certainly wouldn't be no one at home.
He carried the cat up the stairs. As he turned the corner of the stairs and continued upwards, he somehow couldn't control his feet, so the stairs that usually took him a dozen seconds to climb took him a full minute.
But no matter how slow he was, he finally arrived at the open door. He walked into Room No. 1 on the second floor as usual, then found that the flower arrangements in the living room were gone, and the sofas and other furniture had been restored to their original positions.
There was no trace of the golden-haired Writer or the red-haired Princess in the room. Only Luvia, with her short brown hair, sat on the sofa, reading the fei lian anna notes that Xia De had copied and translated.
Hearing the sound, she turned her head to look at the doorway:
“You’re back? Is the rain still heavy outside?”
Her purple eyes looked at him, and this normal tone instead made Xia De uneasy. He looked at his bedroom and found that the bedroom door was open.
“If you want to know what just happened, yes, I met them.”
Luvia put down the book in her hand:
“Knight, you really have your ways, two at once…”
She stood up and walked towards the bedroom. Xia De immediately followed, holding the cat. But thankfully, there was no scene of “two corpses lying on the bed” or “two ladies with daggers ambushing at the door” in the room.
The bedroom curtains were open, and outside the window was the late autumn rain. The room had been tidied, only the bed was still a little messy, and there was no one here.
“Don’t look at me like you’re worried I’ll stab you in the back.”
Luvia patted Xia De’s shoulder. The purple-eyed girl scrutinized Xia De, as if encountering a perplexing problem:
“When I came to the second floor, they were talking on the bed. They left after seeing me and even left you a letter. You wouldn’t believe the flushed, ashamed expression on Dorothy’s face when they saw me. In all the years I’ve known her, it’s the first time I’ve seen her make that expression.”
Xia De still didn't know what to say. He knew he was the one who had made the mistake. He looked down at the letter, which was actually just a folded piece of paper with Dorothy's handwriting on it. The girls wanted to take advantage of being able to touch each other today to go sightseeing in the city, and the Detective, who had already had enough fun, obviously couldn't disturb their exclusive time, so they told him and the cat to stay at home.
“I said, there’s no need to show that expression. Didn’t we already agree that night at Garina Manor?”
The purple-eyed girl came in front of Xia De, and in the clear sound of rain, in the dimly lit room with no lights on, she caressed his cheek with her finger:
“You, damn, dissolute, Knight.”
Words tumbled out of her mouth one after another; she wasn't as calm as she appeared:
“But you don’t have to apologize to me. If it were just Dorothy, I wouldn’t hesitate, but this can be considered her stealing my things.”
Xia De still wanted to apologize, but Luvia frowned and asked suspiciously:
“Dorothy isn’t that kind of shameless girl. What methods did you use to make her agree…?”
Her face slightly flushed, although she wanted to ask the question, she ultimately didn't voice what Xia De had done last night:
“Who was that girl with long red hair, carrying high heels? She didn’t dare to look at me and left hidden behind Dorothy. But shortly before you returned, a few maids came to the door, tidied up some of the petals and flowers, and said they would come to clean thoroughly in the afternoon. Is the other party a noble lady?”
Other than Xia De, no one else in the group knew Dorothy's secret.
“Yes, a noble, the other party is—”
He saw the newspaper on the desk in the dim room, remembered there was a photo in the newspaper, so he picked it up and flipped through it:
“This one.”
Luvia looked at it by the faint daylight from the rain, then frowned in great surprise:
“Queen Diana?! You…”
“What? Oh, no, not that one. How could you think that? The Queen doesn’t have red hair.”
On the second page of the newspaper was news of Queen Diana visiting the Tobesk Public Sanatorium on behalf of the royal family. The photo was a group picture of the Queen and her entourage; the scene looked very lively:
“It’s this one.”
Xia De pointed to the girl behind Queen Diana in the photo. Luvia looked again and felt a little familiar. Looking at the introduction below the photo, she then remembered that this was a royal family member who occasionally appeared in newspapers:
“Leticia Cavendish.”
Only after uttering the name did she realize what it meant, and she looked at Xia De in astonishment:
“Last night, you…”
She pointed at Xia De.
“And our Writer friend…”
She pointed south to Feather Pen Street.
“And the Princess of Delarion…”
She pointed out the window to Yodel Palace.
“Together…”
She pointed to the bed in the bedroom.
Xia De nodded, and Luvia looked him up and down:
“How did you manage that? If I’m not mistaken, this one is a politically active princess, qualified to contend for the throne. Is it related to Jialinna?”
“How could it be? Leia is even somewhat hostile towards Miss Jialinna.”
“Then how exactly did you do it?”
Luvia didn't even continue to express her displeasure with Xia De, looking suspiciously at the bedroom:
“When they left just now, they took your bedsheets. I know what that means. Such a thing actually happened in this small bedroom, Knight, you really have your ways. I won’t comment on your character, but I also admit that getting involved with a powerful princess is indeed helpful to our cause, and this is different from Jialinna…”
Her purple eyes gazed at Xia De, as if she were seeing him anew:
“I never imagined that the man I chose would become a princess’s lover. Princess… So that really was a crown this morning. I thought it was just for atmosphere…”
“You don’t have to put it that way, actually.”
Luvia looked at Xia De, then suddenly stood on tiptoe and, in this dim room, wrapped her arms around Xia De’s neck:
“If it were just Dorothy, I wouldn’t hesitate, but now there’s a princess, and that makes me feel pressured. Xia De · Su Lun · Han Mi Er Dun, you…”
“I won’t let go of anyone’s hand, especially yours.”
Laughter rang out simultaneously in his ear and in front of him. Luvia’s face broke into a smile:
“Should I now scold your greed, or should I say, then I’m relieved?”
Seeing Xia De still wanting to explain, Luvia covered his mouth:
“I understand. You promised to walk this path with me… I’m still curious, how did you manage to get a reserved girl like Dorothy, and one of Delarion’s most noble ladies, to be with you…?”
“This story is long, but I cannot reveal their secrets before I have their permission.”
Xia De said. Luvia shook her head, looking closely at Xia De:
“Then I’ll just assume that Dorothy not only likes you but also likes the Princess, which resulted in your complicated relationship as a trio.”
Then she bit her lip again and suddenly asked:
“Knight, what did you all do? How did you serve that Princess and Dorothy?”
The lights inside were off, and the dim daylight shone into the bedroom from the window. The effect of light and shadow made Luvia’s face appear more three-dimensional, and her purple eyes brighter.
And this phrasing, Xia De had heard it once last night. He suspected it was a common metaphor in this civilization, one that Outsiders simply didn't know:
“I…”
Saying that, he tossed the cat he was holding onto the bed, then wanted to formally apologize to Luvia. Luvia smiled and leaned her head closer, as if she wanted to hear his description carefully.
But this time, Mia didn't land on the bed with a light sound—
Creak~ Boom~ Thump~
The young Detective, surprised, held Luvia in his arms and stepped back. The brass crossbar from under the bed clattered to his feet. Mia, with her fur bristling, crawled out from the covers of the four-poster bed’s “ruins” and meowed plaintively at Xia De.
All things come to an end, and so this bed, on the very day Xia De was preparing to change his bedroom, met its demise and officially became history.
“You three last night, well, how intense was it?”
The purple-eyed girl said softly, hesitantly shrinking into Xia De’s embrace with a somewhat fearful expression, but her face was also slightly flushed:
“That was, a metal bed.”
