Blade and Poetry

I was taken to Ji'an's doorstep by a wooden cart.After the wooden cart disappeared from my sight, I quickly turned back to No. 55 [-]th Street.It was some distance from where I was, but not so far as the resting place.Most of my magic power was blocked, but luckily my skills were still there; it helped me easily climb over the wall of the small garden, escape the patrolling guards, and slip into the interior of the house.

I recalled the news that Ji An bought: Mia Chamara's bedroom is the second from the left on the third floor. If she is not in her own bedroom at this time, she is probably in Fankov Maugham's bedroom Li—that is, the fifth room from the left on the second floor.

I had already left my uniform jacket on the road.I almost ran into a group of maids on my way upstairs, but I hid behind the wall in time and listened to them talking and laughing as they walked by.The corridor on the third floor had become empty by now.I slipped to the second half-closed door, and just about to knock on it, I suddenly realized that this was really a tricky situation, so I turned the doorknob and dodged in.

The lights are on in this exquisite bedroom, and there is a strong scent of incense powder everywhere, which makes my nose sore.I knocked the door and walked in gently, my eyes swept over the soft big bed, the square stool in front of the dressing table, the thick fur carpet, and finally landed on a figure on the balcony.The floor-to-ceiling windows there were half open, and outside stood a slim woman in full dress, her blond hair was combed into delicate curls and draped behind her back.

I tapped my hand on the glass.The woman turned around quickly and said in a very soft voice: "Mr. Fankoff, you are finally willing to come and see me."

She has petite features and is extremely beautiful, but her eyes were filled with complete astonishment when she saw me.I noticed that she also had violet eyes.

"Sorry," I turned my head to the side, "are you Miss Mia Chamara?"

There was a blush on her cheeks, and she raised her chin and reprimanded: "I am, but what is this called? - If you have some basic etiquette, you should knock on the door before you come in. The current servants really don't follow the rules .”

But something seemed to flash into her wide-open eyes; it seemed that it turned her from head to toe, and made her as charming and lovely as when I first glanced at her.

"Are you the new servant sent by Mr.?" She said slowly.

A strange feeling rose in my heart; but I still proceeded according to Ji'an's plan.

"I don't belong here," I said to her. "I was sent by your brother to save you. He asked me to help. Don't be afraid, I can take you out tonight."

"My brother?" she said noncommittally.

I thought she would not believe me, and continued: "Your brother told me that when he was six years old, he fell off a chestnut tree and knocked out a tooth. You searched for it in the grass for a long time and picked it up for him. In the end, you Bury that tooth under a tree."

Her response was less eager than I expected.She hugged her arms tightly, pouted her small mouth, and spat out vigilantly and contemptuously: "—help me!"

"Help you," I said, "he knows you're having a hard time."

"Okay. I understand my younger brother best. He has always been like this, and he likes to dream of nothing." She curled her lips, "Hey, please help me bring some words to Ji'an: I don't care about what happened in the past , my life is very different now. He doesn't have to try to interfere with my life anymore, and he doesn't have to come to my door anymore. His eldest sister only has this one request, and it's his fault if he refuses—my parents and him You must have benefited a lot from this, right?"

She nodded to me, as if adding an explanation: "No way, I can't find out what's going on outside."

This is almost cruel.I couldn't understand her response for a while, so I could only continue: "Have you benefited a lot?"

"I asked Fankov to arrange a fat job for him. After all, Ji'an is like that. He can't do anything, and he still has to rely on me to worry about him after graduation." The woman smiled, showing a kind of innocence "Anyway, what I have done should satisfy him."

"Your brother," I think I'm saying something, but I can't figure it out, "he doesn't value the benefits-he's living like a ghost now, thinking about how to get you out of hell. Your Misfortune took all his joy away."

"Really?" She looked curious.

"He's not as incompetent as you make him out to be," I said. "He took a lot of risks and even begged me—"

"Oh," she said with a giggle, clapping her hands, "he's really good at begging!"

"And your parents are already dead." I looked at her frivolous demeanor and said word by word, "Two days after you were taken away, they disappeared one by one."

She finally put away her smile, leaned against the wall staggeringly, and two big teardrops rolled down her eye sockets.The delicately applied makeup powder on her face was blurred, and she rubbed it with a handkerchief indiscriminately.

I silently waited for her grief to subside, and at the same time hoped that a heart still full of humanity would wake up.

"Ah," she finally stopped choking, and said dumbly, "—so I'm left with Vankoff."

I also wanted to remind her that she still had her faithful brother; but suddenly it seemed pointless to me.

"Is it because you loved him?" I asked her. "You fell in love with Vankoff later?"

She sneered, and my heart sank completely in that laughter.

"Love!" she said, "how funny."

"Then he must love you very much." I said.

"That depends on how you decide." Her eyes were still red, but she seemed to have broken free from her sorrow, and raised a rather proud smile, "I know he likes my youth and beauty. I just arrived Although weeping and crying all day long, he literally held me in the palm of his hand; one day he made me a suit of clothes, renovated the bedroom according to my heart, and installed silk curtains and lavender gauze curtains. I used to live a cowardly life, only living in small At home, I think of those unattainable lives, think of perfect love - and all those things that I dare not desire, all appear in front of me at the same moment when he appears. Isn't that love? I have met many people in my life Something you can't ask for. Whatever it is, Vankoff or Van't Hoff!"

She was also immersed in a kind of frenzy, as if she was drunk by a great joy and sorrow.Yet her fanaticism was purely obnoxious and pathetic compared to the kind her brother had.

"Later, I occasionally upset him, and he raised his hand and beat me hard. Sometimes I don't make him angry, and he also likes to practice on me." She said, "But when he is in a good mood , he asked me to come out and fool around. He laughed at me and gave me a taste of the smell of wine in his mouth, so I could share him with other women again."

I'd been reluctant to look at her, but now I noticed scratches and bruises on her forearms; even heavy makeup couldn't cover them.

"But he loves me! Maybe he is," she said dreamily. "Who am I without him? Look at this dress—it's from the Eastern Continent, and it's what queens usually wear." .Look at this pair of shoes—the heel is made of the horn of the moonchaser, wrapped in the leather of the forest deer. Look at the necklace on my chest—what a delicate hand it takes to polish the chain into such a shape , the cutout crystal hanging below, with golden flower fragments locked inside, I shake them and they jingle. How lovely."

I have no other words of exhortation to say.

"Your brother said that he would take you to escape to the Seventh City," I could only dryly interrupt her ecstatic confession and repeat powerlessly, "He said that there are many white hydrangeas in the Seventh City Hua, you may be able to buy a small building there in the future, and you can look down every day... He sacrificed a lot for this plan. He was very well prepared."

"But I already have a balcony..." she said with a smile, "There are also many flowers downstairs..."

All I could see were the faces of young guards kneeling on the ground.I was so helpless that I could only lower my head and beg her on behalf of that person:

"Please come with me."

"Impossible," she said.

"Please—" I held out my hand to her.

She took a step back, tensing into a defensive position.

"You leave now," she said quickly, "if you don't leave now, I'm going to scream."

Seeing that I was still in a daze, with no intention of moving, she rushed over to pull the bell by the wall, and screamed:

"Help! A thief is breaking in—help me!"

She wanted to rush towards the door, but I knocked her unconscious with my palm.I watched her fall to the ground with mixed emotions. The gorgeous skirt was flat and wide, revealing a small foot in a delicate shoe; the whole person looked like a beautiful work of art up for sale .

I know that with my current physical condition, it is absolutely impossible for me to run a distance with her on my back.Listening to the voices of people gradually rising outside the bedroom, I made up my mind and left Mia Chamara—or, as she believed, Mia Maugham—in place, and jumped off by myself. balcony.

I should have left now, but the tightness in my chest made me wander aimlessly from balcony to balcony.They haven't started searching outside yet, it's still pitch black outside.

I know that I can't fulfill my promise to the young guard no matter what, and my whole body seems to be pulled out of strength, I can't wait to go directly to the light, to the trial court, let them sentence me, and then I can put everything All the anguish and sorrow are left behind.But I was still moving and hiding, thinking about the guard in my mind: Is he out of trouble and hastily rushed to the hotel we agreed on?Will he be disappointed that he can't take his sister, or will he be sad for his sister who is no longer there?

It occurred to me that one thing I might still be able to do - this promise had been broken, but there was another; it hadn't been said.I reconfirmed the order of the balconies, and then jumped into the fifth balcony from the right on the outside of the second floor.

There was dim light in the room, and the glass door was locked. I smashed it hard with my fist a few times, and walked into Fankov Maugham's bedroom with the broken glass on the ground under my feet.

There are people in his bedroom.On the big bed on one side of the room, there were two people overlapping each other; a little girl was propped up on top of him, she looked only thirteen or fourteen years old, she was very thin, and when she heard the sound of me smashing the glass, she rolled aside in fright ;The man in the flesh was pulling the quilt and trying to pull it on him.They were all naked and looked at me with horror on their faces.

I walked to the side of the big bed with the knife, pointed at the girl first and said, "Get off the bed and squat on the other side of the floor with your head in your arms, away from the bell. I won't kill you."

The girl obediently complied.The man on the bed trembled and said to me:

"you want--"

The cold light on the blade forced back the man's remaining half sentence.

"Speak when I tell you to," I said, "and speak truthfully."

I cut a piece of cloth from the sheet and tied his hands behind his back.I put his whole body down on the bed, and those muscles that had been relaxed due to excessive enjoyment were stretched out of shape at this moment.I rode up to his chest with the knife across his throat, the blade down.He trembled more violently.

"First question," I said, "are you Fankoff Maugham?"

"I am." His eyes quivered. "I am."

"Second question," I said, "Have you ever forcibly taken Mia Chamara away while accepting benefits from the Chamara family?"

Fankoff under me was still trembling, but at the same time he squeezed out a flattering smile, with two creases that were used to storage oily.

"Ah, you're here for that woman," he said. "She's really here with me—she always says she has a lot of suitors. If you like her, I'll be more than happy to give her up..."

"Yes." I said.

"Yes." He replied quickly.

He may not have understood what happened - I held the handle of the knife with one hand, and pressed down the back of the knife at the other end.I cut half of his neck open, and red blood spattered all the way to the beautifully decorated ceiling.I got some splatter on my chest too, blood was dripping down my hands and my knife.

I stood up from Fankov's body, only to think of the little girl squatting beside the bed.

She was still completely naked, she didn't even dare to cover it with something, she only covered her chest with her thin arms.Her black and white eyes were wide open, looking at Fankoff's body without blinking, without any tears in them.I was afraid that she would go crazy with fright, and I was about to intimidate her a few words before I left, telling her not to call for help immediately, but she jumped in front of me without authorization and knelt on the ground.

"Sir," she said cautiously, looking up at me, "may I kiss that knife in your hand?"

I gently held out the knife to her.She closed her eyes and pressed her lips reverently on the bloodstained back of the knife.

"Lord," she folded her hands together, and said in a low and moving voice, "the judgment that should have come has come!"