The cabinets contained all kinds of paperwork. There were ledgers and contracts, for example, which he all placed onto the table.
The letters interested him most, but… He could not read them. The handwriting was too fancy, he could hardly make anything out even after struggling for a while.
That sight was exactly what greeted River when he came back inside. He approached Aspen and tugged at a corner of the letter. Obedient, the other let go and stared up at the taller man with expectant eyes.
River’s gaze darkened the lower his eyes moved. He took the next letter, then the next, and finally started stacking them into two groups. One he shoved away, the other he pointed at. “I believe I found our motive.”
“Do tell”, Aspen replied with a charming smile. He glanced down at the letters, then averted his eyes again seeing the densely packed, annoying font.
“The first son is married into another family, so he cannot continue the family line. Legally, it would be the second son’s turn, but I believe the old man did not like his second son very much.” River frowned and looked at the letters with disgust. “…Otherwise he would not be trying to sell off his second son’s children to the highest bidder.”
“…What?” Aspen’s eyes widened in surprise.
River tapped on the letters and elaborated. “There are several exchanges here. Some are for a child-bride, paying high amounts of money, others are for the children as slaves with the promise of not inquiring further on their wellbeing. This is beyond disliking the children.”
“What have they done to him?”, Aspen asked uncomfortably. He knew very well what it meant for a girl to be sold off, and despite not feeling pity or any stronger emotion, there was still some discomfort in his stomach.
“The sheer number of reasons why he might despise his second son enough to hurt him like that makes it impossible to guess without some kind of hint. However, this is a good way to make the second son suffer and keep him under control.” He paused for a moment. “Sold is sold, the second son could not retrieve them. On the other hand, the old man could threaten him with selling off more if the second son misbehaves.”
“That’s cruel.”
River once again stared at Aspen at the blunt comment.
Aspen tilted his head and shrugged pointedly. “What? I may be cruel, but that doesn’t mean I can’t comment on other people being cruel too, right?”
The taller man did not grace him with an answer. “We still need evidence, but I would like to see the second son’s reaction to finding these already. We will have to place them somewhere he can find them without getting the feeling that someone placed them there on purpose.”
“Why?”
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.
“Lf wluta atlcx atfs jgf ojxfv lo atfs jgf qijmfv abb mbcrqlmeberis. Pa’r yfaafg lo tf yfilfnfr atfs tjv yffc tlvvfc ogbw tlw.”
Crqfc ibbxfv ja atf oibbg, ktfgf atf kbbvfc mtlqr bo atf ygbxfc mjylcfa ijs jgbecv. Lf yilcxfv lccbmfcais jcv rwlifv ilxf j ilaaif jcufi. “Vajuf j yeguijgs?”
And so they did.
It wasn’t easy to coordinate the sound of something breaking with the correct moment of the second son hearing, but preparing the broken-in room and stealing some random items that were of value wasn’t too hard. The items lay discarded in the safe-room, far away from any shadow’s sight.
The man ran into the room holding something like a knife. He looked around, tense, then relaxed when he didn’t find anyone after looking around.
He checked the broken window, then the cabinet, and finally proceeded to put his knife away before squatting down to pick up the things that had fallen to the floor. The shards of a broken vase were first, followed by the paper.
When he reached the letters, he paused. He stood up incredibly slowly, placing one hand on the edge of the table. His head was lowered all the time – staring down at the letter in his hands.
The shadow stilled.
It wasn’t the motion of the world stopping, but of a person who even forgot to breathe for a moment.
Much lighter, more hesitant steps approached the room. River recognized the second son’s wife – the married woman. She nervously glanced into the room, then stepped inside.
The man’s hands tightened a bit around the paper, crumbling it. He folded them in half, returned them to the table and approached his wife to soothe her, all the while carefully trying to push her out of the room. They conversed and she nodded before hurrying off, leaving him behind.
The man’s body swayed a bit. He sat down on a chair, slumping together and burying his face in his hands.
River felt a tiny twinge in his heart.
The husband who recognized his own father’s betrayal but who loved his wife too much to tell her the terrible news. Their children must be happy, to have parents that dearly loved and cared for each other.
“This is interesting. Is he not going to tell her?” Aspen crossed his arms. A smile was still stuck on his face, looking quite nice as long as you didn’t focus on his unsmiling eyes. “Why not? Wouldn’t it be better if she knew?”
River did not reply until Aspen turned his eyes on him and waited, expecting an answer. Only then did he clear his throat and explain. “Women back then were… sensitive. It’s not like today. Many young ladies from well-off families were prone to fainting due to various reasons.”
“Such as?”
“Depends on the area and time. Malnutrition, tight corsets, generally bad health with low blood pressure… They were easily stressed because richer families kept them like little dolls. It was best to not let them find out about the terrible intrigues going on in families until they could handle it.”
“That sounds like a hassle.”
“It… probably was.” River fixed his glasses and turned towards Aspen. “Only evidence left.”
“What if she has it on her body?” Aspen turned on his heel and comfortably strolled down the hallway, evading the incoming other men who were approaching to search for the fake burglar. “Not like we can knock her out and search her. We can’t even touch her.”
“If she has it on her body, it’s to increase difficulty. There has to be… No. I can’t say that. It’s very well possible that we might have to solve the issue without such evidence, but I feel it won’t be that way.”
“It wouldn’t be a neat way to solve it.” Aspen clicked his tongue. “I get what you mean. It’s like having a blank puzzle piece in reserve rather than the original one. It works, but it’s not the same.”
“It wouldn’t be solved correctly”, River unhappily agreed. He didn’t want it to be that way. If he was forced to cheat, then… The puzzle would become much more boring.
“Don’t look like that. Stop it, don’t go back to being a corpse! I’m sure there will be actual evidence around, let’s just search for it, ‘kay?” Aspen stepped in front of the taller man and forced another smile. He didn’t like the River that was dead inside – you couldn’t bond with someone who wasn’t alive.
“…Are you going to continue calling me a corpse?” River’s eyebrow twitched a bit.
“Well, whenever you are walking around like a corpse, that’s what I’ll call you. Or would you prefer zombie?”
“How about my name?”
“River?” Aspen drawled the word a bit and cocked his head. Without malice on his face, his appearance paired with the purposefully seductive voice was quite hard to guard against.
Even though it wasn’t truly his name, River found a shudder run through him. Awkward, he bypassed Aspen and ignored the other’s low laugh.
Why did it feel like River and Tian Zhu were separate people? If only River existed – River, who had his world of puzzles – then Tian Zhu could go ahead and die. Wouldn’t that be nice?
And yet, that was simply a literal dream.
…River was nothing but a grayscale mirror image of himself.
What followed were hours of trailing after the aunt. Once in a while they would see the other group wander around, but most of the time they were on their own. Conversation had mostly died down, although neither of them appeared to mind.
Despite not being able to understand anything the shadows said, River thought to himself that the aunt must have known of the grandfather’s plans and killed him because of them.
They could watch her as she treated her sister’s family incredibly gently, playing with the children and supporting her sister, never sitting down for a moment.
It was because neither River nor Aspen could understand, that the sight was so weird. In front of unconditional familial love, they could only watch with muddled feelings.
“Would you truly kill someone for your sister?”, Aspen mumbled under his breath. “I mean, if she gets caught, she dies.”
“Some people might”, River could only respond. His voice was equally flat and tinged with confusion.
“Hmm. I feel like we are missing some common sense in the area of affection.”
The easterner could only lower his head. It wasn’t a statement he could disagree with unless he was lying. Affection was hard to understand if you had no personal experience with it.
Author’s Note
I’ve seen some comments and feel the need to remind you that both Aspen and River are currently using each other as nothing but a means to relax mentally xD (nope. no cute love at first sight or whatever)
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Thanks for the chaoter author!! ❤️
oops i didn’t mean to reply to you! it was supposed to be a comment 😓
Don’t worry, it happens 🙂
TFTC
I like there interaction so much 😻 and I think it’s also more in line with there character that they only use each other to relax instead of some sweet love at first side 😄
Thanks for the chapter ❤️