Chapter 458: Serendipitous Parallels
*Bing-Bong*
The previous chapter ended on a cliffhanger lead into a narration as done by Patriarch Zhen Shi, regaling his son’s about his past.
However, the writer of this work would like to make it known that he found such a narration to be a tad boring.
As such, we are presenting the memory in the form of a short production.
Enjoy.
*Bing-Bong*
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Title: The Lovers Run.
Exterior: Night, the streets of Pearl Scale Harbor.
Premise: A PRINCESS and her lowborn LOVER are eloping due to their combined desire to have a new life outside of their status quo. As such, the two of them have decided to hitch a ride in the next ship out of town and go…anywhere.
But before they could do that, they needed to lay low for a bit.
Cloaked in the cover of night, the two lovers follow the lead of a third party member, the GUIDE, with…clandestine connections.
Using these connections, the GUIDE leads the PRINCESS and the LOVER to a hideout where they’ll have everything tthey need to start a new life else, provided they pay him first…
[Scene 1: Street]
GUIDE: “This way! Quickly!”
PRINCESS: “No need to rush us. We’re right behind you.”
LOVER: “Indeed.”
GUIDE: “Hah! You’re not the one helping a royal and her lover get out of the country. If you get caught, you get forgiven. I get caught, I lose my head!”
PRINCESS: “…fair enough.”
The trio darted between alleyways, sticking to the shadows and making as little noise as possible.
They kept this up for about half an hour until finally, the GUIDE lifted up a hand to signal them to stop.
The trio had stopped in front of an abandoned building, an old and broken sign indicating that this place was once used as a sweets shop.
GUIDE: “We’re here.”
PRINCESS and LOVER looked at each other skeptically for a moment, due to the door to the building being boarded up, before the GUIDE just straight up walked through the door.
It was then the two of them realized that the building was an illusionary entrance.
PRINCESS: “That does explain the foreign architecture…”
GUIDE: “Are you coming or not?”
Having no other choice, PRINCESS and LOVER took deep breaths to mentally prepare themselves, before crossing through the doorway themselves.
[End Scene 1]
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“An illusion in the middle of a port city? How did he get away with that?,” Zhen Jin interjected, “also, the building sounds like something that’d be more at home at, well, home. How did anyone not notice a foreign building here?”
A good chunk of the story had been in line with the history that he and his brothers knew in regards to his father’s past with their mother, but this tale of their elopement was new territory. As such, there were questions when it came to certain events.
“I’ve been trying to figure that out as well for years even after having been through it,” Zhen Shi answered honestly, “but this was back when the city was a lot smaller and a good chunk of it was under construction. I imagine it was fairly easy to slip in such an illusion at the time given those factors. I’m fairly certain nowadays, the illusion has long since been dispelled and there’s no way it can still be here today.”
The elders of the branch clan nodded in understanding as they thought about just how expansive and developed this place was.
It sounded counterintuitive, a bigger city usually means it was easier to hide bigger messes, but from what their father described, this illusionary building was too big of an eyesore to fit in at this point.
It’d be absolutely absurd for such a style of building to exist here.
…
Meanwhile, at another part of town, literally at the same time…
‘Wood, paper, plaster, wood, paper, plaster-how the fuck isn’t there a single fucking door knob in this city?!,” Zhen Liu mentally screamed as he looked up and down and sideways of every single street and avenue in view.
Due to having promised that he would bring over Archanidame and Lacerage to Roaring Tide in the event the caravan was delayed, Zhen Liu was busying himself in an attempt to find someplace isolated and quiet enough to let them through the Door to Nowhere.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t having much luck.
There were several factors as to why this was case, but it could be broken down by severity.
Firstly, the majority of Roaring Tide’s architecture seemed to consist of wood, oiled paper screens and a whole lot of plaster, essentially being made of materials that wouldn’t react adversely to moisture and humidity.
This meant that a lot of the doors were either slide doors that had no door knobs for him to use, or they made use of external locks that, as he discovered, didn’t work with his fucking key.
He didn’t even try to “cut up” open a door because most of the accessible walls were made of oiled paper, and his intuition told him that might just rip the paper moreso than let him make a door.
The only places around here that had the structured door he was looking happened to belong to the local rich folk, and Zhen Liu had no desire to kick up any trouble while he was here.
This would normally be the part where he would contact Logos and Pathos to help him figure out where he could possibly go to open the door, but that was actually his second issue.
The two of them were radio silent.
This was a rare event, even if Zhen Liu had honestly expected this type of situation to occur more often, given how he left Jasper and Janice in their care, but usually it was only one of them who would be occupied whenever he contacted them for help.
The fact that both of them weren’t answering was mildly concerning, but such events could normally be attributed to double lessons or Pathos doing something questionable in the background and then getting punished for it.
Apparently, they didn’t learn their lesson the last time they tried to drop an arcade cabinet in the clan compound.
However, that still wasn’t his biggest issue.
[Maestro, are you okay? You’re starting to feel more and more stressed by the second,] Hurricroak noted, [want us to help find that door for you?]
‘As much as I would like to agree to that, you and I both know that’s not possible right now.’
[Por que?]
[Too…many…eyes…]
[Oh right…yeesh, you think they’d see a hapa before?]
[I think the term is Roaring Bisoner? Stampeding Tider?,] Nepherage commented.
[Either way, this is bullshit,] Razorstella added.
The moment Zhen Liu had split off from his family to go and find a door or a solid wall, he could quite literally feel the eyes of practically everyone staring at him.
While a majority of these stares were very brief, there were a few gazes that seemed to linger much longer than what could be considered polite in most cases.
This meant that if Zhen Liu did his usual accessory toss trick to get the kaijin to certain places, one of these stalkers might take that as provocation and do something that would draw a lot of attention.
Making these gazes worst though, was that Zhen Liu could quite literally detect the desire behind them…sort of.
‘Greed over my accessories, hate over the fact that I look the way I do and…lust over the way I look, okay both are bad but one seemed ickier than the other,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he kept walking.
Having made multiple desire cores at this point, Zhen Liu started to develop a knack to pick up the more subtle traces of desires that came off of people.
These desires weren’t strong enough to condense to a core, but it was just enough that Zhen Liu could detect minute differences.
Back at home, he would practice this while walking about, trying to figure out the exact owner of these desires and then try to figure out what lead to those nascent desires being made in the first place. This was also how he learned that a gluttonous desire over meat was different from one over pastries, a fact that took him by surprise.
Regardless, Zhen Liu was painfully aware that three different parties were staring at him, directing viciously different desires towards him.
‘Come on man! I just wanted to find a door or something to let Archanidame and Lacerage over, is that too much to ask?,’ Zhen Liu griped.
[Wait, milord, over there. By the jewlery store and scroll shop.] Nepherage suddenly called out in his head.
‘Hmm?’
Directing his gaze in the direction Nepherage indicated, Zhen Liu saw something that made his heart sing.
‘Oh thank the divines, a fucking door with a knob! Wait…why does it look so out of place?’
Nestled between a jewelry store selling handmade jade accessories and a scroll store selling everything from low tier aether arts to paintings was the oddest little dilapidated shop.
It didn’t look broken down per say, but the only thing Zhen Liu could make out for certain, was that the sign over the door indicated that they made candy.
Either way, he didn’t care, he finally found a door.
Granted, he probably should have been more suspicious was to why it looked significantly more western than its surroundings, but he didn’t care.
‘Hmmm. Wonder if I can use my key on the other side of that door…’
