The most suspicious things inside the room were the numerous locked chests and cabinets. The locks were solid – making sounds as River tugged at them – and not easy to break open.
While River was looking around the cabinets, Aspen approached the bedside. In a small, wooden box, numerous tiny, folded papers were placed.
He picked one up and unfolded it, surprised when a sort of powder fell out and hurriedly fixing it again. With a quick sweep, the white powder was dispersed from the ground.
Next to the box was a piece of paper with a neat, beautiful handwriting. If it wasn’t written by a brush, it would be easier to read, but Aspen could figure out the text anyway.
“One dose before dinner. Take directly. Do not drink alcohol after noon, avoid stressful situations… Is this a prescription? Kinda?” Aspen read the text out loud.
“Hm? What is it?” River came over and read the paper over Aspen’s shoulder.
It also mentioned the old man’s ailments; insomnia and severe pain in his back. Due to that, hunger lessened and following malnutrition.
“Crushed capsule seed of… Yi… Ji?” He struggled with the pronunciation of the weird word.
Despite the text being auto-translated into their language, the name was not.
“Yingsu”, River read out loud with astonishment. “It’s an eastern name for poppy. This… is opium? They gave an old man a daily dose of opium?”
He lifted his hand to his mouth and muttered quietly.
“I guess it was more common back in the day when no one thought about addictions… But this is rather suspicious…”
“It’s highly addictive, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Nowadays, opium or morphine aren’t used as freely. It’s a strong painkiller. The human body is quick in building a tolerance and the withdrawal symptoms are extreme. That said, I can’t tell if this is a lot or not, or how strong it is.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“P lwjulcf la’r jr vfjvis jr wbra vgeur? P uefrr kf tjnf beg wegvfg kfjqbc.” Crqfc rwlgxfv jcv qijmfv atf qjqfg yjmx.
Elnfg fzqijlcfv ogffis. “Ynfgvbrfr mjc ifjv ab ribkfv ygfjatlcu jcv ecmbcrmlbercfrr. Ktf nlmalw reoobmjafr, sbe mbeiv rjs, bg wbgf clmfis qea ribkis ojiir lcab j cfnfg fcvlcu riffq. Pa’r j ubbv wegvfg kfjqbc obg rbwfbcf rb biv jcv lc alwfr ilxf atfrf, ktfgf mbgbcfgr kfgfc’a fzjmais mbwwbc. Ktfs qgbyjyis vlvc’a fnfc atlcx atfgf kjr jcsatlcu eccjaegji.”
He couldn’t find electricity anywhere inside this house. It was only oil lamps and other fire-based lights. He didn’t have enough experience to guess the year, but this setting wasn’t recent.
River turned quiet for a while as he looked through the medicine. “…You haven’t killed anyone like this before?”
“What? No, I’m not one for intricate planning. I butchered them and got caught, to no surprise.” Aspen’s voice was even, as if he was talking about the weather. “I never cared about keeping it a secret. Now I’m in a pretty good place. It’s quiet there and no one disturbs me.”
“A quiet place…” River lowered his gaze thoughtfully.
Aspen was confused. River looked like a normal person, was intelligent and not a psychopath. What had made him die on the inside? “Say, what’s your story? You know a bit of mine. It should be an equal trade, no?”
You told me without being asked, River choked back. Nothing to lose in answering. “Rich family. Older brother as the heir. Am smarter but am not allowed to be. I’m not allowed to be anything, actually.”
The other young man tilted his head. “I’ve known people like that, but none of them looked like you. Some were depressed or angry, but not a walking corpse. What else is there? What’s the difference between you and others?”
River couldn’t understand why this would even be of interest to Aspen. He only felt the other’s expectant gaze. “Have you ever tried playing along with an elementary school child? When they insist that something is a way it actually isn’t, but are unwilling to move from their stance?”
Aspen had. It had been the neighbor’s children that he sometimes was forced to watch over. It had been infuriating for him. Like talking to a stubborn idiot. Someone insisting the earth is flat, no matter the proof you show. They were some of the moments where he had been about to snap.
Seeing Aspen’s expression, River had his answer. “If I try to remember, I can tell you what my lunch during my seventh birthday was. I can recite you Faust from front to back, can calculate you Pi until my breath runs out, I can play blind chess games with ten different people and win in a minimum number of moves.”
He raised his hands to his hair and tore at it, his face distorting. “I’m sick and tired of acting like an idiot. My brother is hardly above average in intelligence and he doesn’t even work hard. I want to scream whenever he brings up some kind of information, thinking himself special, even though he messed up the details! I know so many people who wish for a perfect memory and great intelligence, but it’s a curse! Humans are built to forget, so that pain and suffering can scab over! They’re built to learn slowly, so the achievement of learning can bring them happiness! But what about me? There’s nothing I like except for puzzles, and the memories of pain are stronger than those of joy.”
“So why don’t you truly die?” Aspen tilted his head. If life was so hard, why not end it?
“Is death going to be a relief? I don’t know whether it will be better or worse or the same. It doesn’t matter. I’ll let things run naturally.” River shook his head, his messy hair flying along. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses and went back to looking through the room.
“You’re a weird person. Good.” Aspen smiled and helped him search through the things on the table. “I’m not berating you. Why don’t we become friends? As fellow humans that don’t suit being human, it’s easier to endure being abnormal together, don’t you think? Call it fate, since we’re in this place together for the second time.”
The easterner’s brain drew a blank. Just what was going on in Aspen’s head? What was that guy’s thought process? How did he come to this kind of conclusion?
…Whatever. “Sure.”
They couldn’t find each other in reality due to Aspen being a prisoner, so he could take it however it would come. If they were together, might as well let himself get swallowed up by the pleasant insanity. If this was their last meeting, that was acceptable, too.
He heard a quiet laugh. It was anything other than normal, but he already knew that.
He laughed along dryly.
The table had a number of other locked areas. The locks were thinner than those on the cabinet, but he had no tools to open them and couldn’t find a key.
It was Aspen who suggested a way out. “There’s a fixed breaking point, right? I’ll find an axe later and break this open right before it, just enough to have a few minutes to take a look inside. If it’s worth it, we can still find a way to open it normally in the next round.”
River considered the matter before nodding. He did what else was possible; checking under the bed, under the mattress, inside the pillow. Some papers and things were openly lying around, but none of them were very interesting.
“Found a family register”, Aspen called from across the room and flipped through the pages, skimming the content.
He handed it to River once he was finished and the other man checked the family tree.
The grandmother and any older ancestors were marked as deceased. The grandfather had three sons, all married. The names hardly helped, but River had an idea who was who.
The eldest son was marked as married out – highly unusual, since normally it was the woman marrying in.
A bit more skimming revealed why, however. The bride’s dowries were also gathered inside the small book, on separate papers. Although River did not know the common size of a dowry, it was easy to see that the oldest son’s wife had paid a ridiculously higher amount.
Her family must be more powerful than this one – enough that in a misogynistic society, a patriarch would not disdain a man taking on his wife’s name.
The second and third son all held the family’s name. It was possible they still lived here. The second son should be the one to take over the family once the old man was dead.
Was this a fight over the heritage?
There were numerous ways that this could play out in a family feud.
The second son killing his father to get heritage quicker, or killing him because the old man wanted to give his heritage to the third son.
The third son might have killed the old man and was trying to push the blame onto the second one.
It could even be the eldest son, to help one of his brothers.
Besides that, there was an infinity of other motives. Simple hate, revenge for something, to steady one’s own position, even an accident was possible despite being unlikely.
River spoke his thoughts out loud as they formed, allowing Aspen to follow. The man pulled a face. “Fuck, are eastern families always that complicated? Is that seriously how it is?”
River showed him a wry and distorted smile and Aspen cursed under his breath.
“What a mess. And I thought my family was in chaos.”
The taller man was tempted to ask. They were unloading each other’s stories like annoying burdens, and it came as some relief.
After a while of hesitation, River decided against finding out more for now. For the moment, it was enough.
They’re bonding, I’m happy for them
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Aspen is more talkative than I would have thought. Luckily, he finds River interesting and not noisy. 🤣 Thanks for the chapter.
Aspen actually lived in a normal society for almost his whole life, so he knows how to interact with people well and how to tolerate a good bit of noise xD He goes into overload from one second to the next though, as you’ll see
I love how say both say to be insane together instead of becoming normal !(^o^)!
Thanks for the chapter, it’s interesting like always ! One of my fav on Chrysantemum garden noe
This chapter was awesome. Something about the way River described his life just got to me.
I love how River just blurts out everything, it’s actually a really common thing to be able to unload all your trauma out like that— I should know 🥲
It’s because he doesn’t care. Talking to Aspen (dude who’s on death row in some secret prison and who is considered insane) is the equaivalent of talking to some stranger online. Not to mention that River in general actually really doesn’t care if someone hears about his issues or not, he doesn’t think anything would change
Oh! That makes sense— :b
Aspen just reminds me of Juuzou Suzuya from Tokyo Ghoul. I love him. <33