Chapter 9: News (Patreon)

"Little Ta..."

In the hotel where she was staying temporarily, Ch'en Hui-chieh leaned against the headboard, quietly studying the Ursus newspaper in her hands. Splashed across the front page was the biggest news to hit Ursus in recent memory.

[SHOCKING! Duke Koschei Steps Aside for a Worthy Successor—And the Heir Is HER?!!]

Beneath that wildly exaggerated clickbait headline was a photograph Ch'en Hui-chieh knew all too well. She hadn't seen that face in many years, but the instant she laid eyes on the picture, she knew it was Little Ta.

Her sister, lost to her for so many years.

It was this news that had made her put her studies at the Victorian Royal Guard Academy on hold and rush back to Lungmen overnight to confirm it.

By her original plan, she should have left Lungmen by now and been on the road to Chernobog.

But how could it ever be that simple? The moment she'd stepped into Lungmen, the news had landed on Wei Yenwu's desk. That uncle of hers would never let her go to Ursus alone.

Ch'en Hui-chieh crumpled the newspaper in her grip, staring at the face in the photograph again and again, as if she could pour all her longing into it.

After a while, she climbed off the bed and got ready to go out for a walk.

Strolling through the streets of Lungmen, she found the scenery the same as ever. She'd only been gone a few months, after all, and nothing here changed that fast. Ch'en Hui-chieh wandered aimlessly, her head full of Talulah.

Was she doing well these years in Ursus?

Why had she never sent so much as a single letter?

And how had she ended up an Ursus duke?

Ch'en Hui-chieh had countless questions pent up inside her, with no outlet for any of them. Before she knew it, she had left the bustle of the central districts far behind and crossed into the noisier, poorer slums.

Slums, yes, but the roadsides were lined mostly with little knots of gang members loitering about. For sheer tangled complexity, Lungmen's slums were no less than the infamous Siracusa. All her life, Ch'en Hui-chieh had heard people talk about the chaos here. Besides the local gangs, plenty of people had fled here from other places, even other countries.

The only reason everyone kept so well in line now was the rumored Lin Gray.

But the better she understood the twisted workings behind it all, the more pitiful it seemed to her. All for the sake of some so-called balance, gang members could walk the streets in broad daylight. This was Lungmen under the rule of her dear uncle.

"Stop right there!"

Before she could untangle her scattered thoughts, an angry shout broke into her musings. Some dozens of meters away, at the side of the street, a burly man in a jacket was chasing a half-grown Cautus girl with purple hair, his face twisted with rage.

The girl seemed to be clutching something to her chest as she ran headlong, head down.

But being so young, she was far slower and weaker than the grown man behind her, and the gap between them closed fast. The thug grabbed the Cautus girl's arm and slammed her to the ground.

"You little thief! You've got some nerve stealing your grandpa's things!"

"But I... I bought it."

The Cautus girl twisted and struggled to break free, but the next moment she winced, teeth bared in pain.

The man's voice was vicious, spit flying as he ground the girl's head into the pavement, her soft skin scraping raw against the ground. His cruelty made Ch'en Hui-chieh frown. She couldn't stand to watch. He was clearly going for her life.

She was just about to step in when a figure flashed past her, one step ahead.

"Ow!"

A slight figure appeared in front of the man in an instant. Two fingers shaped like a blade tapped lightly against his chest, and the sheer force and penetrating power of that sword-fingered strike drew a string of pained grunts out of him. His body toppled backward out of his control, and his hands let go of the Cautus girl.

A Lung girl with her hair in twin tails alighted lightly beside the two of them and reached out to help the Cautus girl up from the ground.

"Are you all right?"

"I... I'm fine."

The Cautus girl kept her head buried, not daring to meet her rescuer's eyes. Her arms were still wrapped around her chest, as if she were guarding something.

"Don't worry. With me here, he won't do anything to you."

Little Chen soothed her with a soft laugh. The Cautus girl only nodded slightly and said nothing more.

The thug she'd just knocked down, on the other hand, had already fought through the pain and pulled himself back up.

"I... I'm warning you, don't— hiss—don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong."

Halfway through the sentence the man sucked in a sharp breath. Those two strikes from Little Chen had been far more than just rough. He was still sweating from the pain.

"Forgive me, but I simply can't stand by and watch the strong bully the weak."

Chen Qianyu stood in front of the girl with the bearing of a wandering knight-errant. The thug, wary of her martial prowess, couldn't squeeze out a single word for a good while.

"This girl..."

Ch'en Hui-chieh had watched the whole thing from not far away. This girl had far too much in common with her, so much that in places it was like looking into a mirror.

But what mattered most was the movement technique the girl had used when she suddenly appeared. Ch'en Hui-chieh had a vague sense of familiarity about it, but for a good while she couldn't place it.

"You just wait!"

Like villains the world over, the thug bellowed that tired old line. But as he turned to leave, a car blocked his path.

"Stop."

The car door opened, and a voice even more familiar drifted into Ch'en Hui-chieh's ears. She looked closely and saw a young Zalak girl in an elegant black dress, standing tall outside the open door.

"Lin... Yuhsia?"

The name slipped from Ch'en Hui-chieh's lips. That hair, that face, were exactly those of the playmate in her memory.

Lin Yühsia was one of the few companions, apart from her sister, whom she'd really been able to talk to in her childhood. Come to think of it, they hadn't seen each other in a long time.

But now was clearly not the time for greetings. Under Ch'en Hui-chieh's gaze, Lin Yühsia walked straight over to the girl who looked so much like her.

So alike. Truly so alike.

Lin Yühsia studied the girl before her with a trace of curiosity. She looked so much like a certain friend of hers that, at first glance, Lin Yühsia had thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. Good thing they weren't.

Meanwhile, Saito strolled over to Little Chen's side at his leisure.

Seeing that everyone her father had asked her to fetch was now present, Lin Yühsia stepped forward and spoke in a calm, serious tone.

"You two. Someone wants to see you."

"Who?"

"The person you've been looking for."

As she spoke, Lin Yühsia pulled open the rear door of the car for them and made a gesture of invitation.