The other girl responded with a snide raise of an eyebrow. “To set things right.”
“To what?”
“You heard me. How is it fair for you to be blessed with everything? You were born the niece of the all-powerful empress, favored by His Highness, and beloved by the ladies of the court. And all the while, I suffer in—oh, I’m burning up! Everything hurts, for mercy’s sake!”
Keigetsu ran a hand through her hair, frustrated, then loosened the collar of her garment. From the sound of it, Reirin’s body was running a temperature.
“I have the kind but powerless Noble Consort Shu. Nasty court ladies. Looks nowhere near good enough to catch His Highness’s eye. I’m sick of it. But that’s when I came up with a wonderful solution.”
She disentangled her hand from her hair, a sharp glint flashing in her eyes. The smug smile tugging at her lips gave her the look of a cat staring down a mouse.
“We just had to trade lives. I’d have you set the stage for me, and the moment you were sitting on top of the world, I’d take your place. Then you’d get the perfect taste of all the misfortune I’ve suffered.” The girl gave an utterly delighted chuckle. “You don’t know what it’s like to be despised. To be belittled, to be mistreated. You’ve always had someone to protect you—to love you. I won’t stand for it!”
Perhaps worried that someone might overhear, Keigetsu followed that outburst by lowering her voice to a whisper. “I want to see you absolutely miserable. I want to watch as people insult you, hurl stones at you, and refuse to believe a word you say. Oh, and by the way, I’ve cast a spell that prevents the body you’re in from communicating anything related to our switch. I’ve also set things up so that ‘Shu Keigetsu’ stole ‘Kou Reirin’s’ diary. You’ll never be able to prove who you really are.”
Oh, so that’s what was going on earlier, Reirin thought, satisfied with the explanation.
It seemed Keigetsu was quite skilled in the Daoist arts, and her weak-kneed demeanor belied her true cunning. Reirin’s feverish body, on the other hand, couldn’t handle the magic quite as well, and she began to wobble on her feet.
“Oh, give me a break! The word ‘delicate’ makes it sound so nice, but ‘weak’ is all this body really is. A few bruises and you’re running a fever? I can’t believe this.”
“Um… Why don’t you lie down? It’d be a good idea to cool your forehead and the skin near your largest arteries. To be more specific, your neck, underarms, and—”
“Shut up! Do you understand the position you’re in?” Keigetsu yelled back, shooting down Reirin’s concerned piece of advice. “Guess what? You’re going to die soon. Here, I’ll let you in on a little something interesting: Your Lion’s Judgment is to be conducted by the merciless captain of the Eagle Eyes. You have no chance of survival. Even if you do take the poison I gave Tousetsu, any coward who resorts to suicide will have their body dragged to the ritual site and pelted with rocks. You’re going to die a miserable death, bathed in the scorn and ridicule of a crowd.”
She carefully punctuated each and every word, doing her best to drive the point home.
“Goodbye, Kou Reirin. Spend your final moments living in fear of Death’s footsteps, surrounded by filthy rats.”
With one last parting shot, Keigetsu puckered her lips and blew out the flame. In the same moment, the candle Reirin was gazing at was likewise extinguished.
Left alone to stare at the wisps of smoke rising from the candle, Reirin fell silent for some time. “This is terrible,” she murmured eventually.
Since that had been her first time seeing anyone wield the mystic arts, the whole encounter almost felt like a dream. Nevertheless, she knew she had landed herself in a great deal of trouble.
“What could I have done to make Lady Keigetsu despise me so?”
Tears pricked her eyes with the realization that she had never been met with such hostility before. The guilt was so overwhelming, she thought she might faint.
Oh…? She blinked in sudden surprise. But that means I’m still holding on to consciousness!
It dawned on her that thinking she might faint paradoxically meant that she had yet to do so. Her arms flew into motion, touching and examining the various parts of her body.
“My knees aren’t shaking… My arms aren’t numb… I’m not out of breath… My pulse is around sixty!”
Clamping her hands over her mouth, she gave a muffled cry of joy.
This is incredible! I always used to faint if I was even a little bit careless!
Few outside her clan knew the truth, but Reirin was not of a somewhat weak constitution; she was of an abnormally weak constitution. Ever since she was a child, all it took to make her fall deathly ill were the most trivial of reasons: she was too hot, she was too cold, she was tired, she had gone outside… Though owing to her own tireless efforts, she had managed to recover before her condition ever got too serious over the past few years.
Keigetsu had yet to realize this herself, but it wasn’t the fall from the pagoda that had caused “Kou Reirin’s” body to run a fever. Neglecting those tireless efforts had simply allowed her predisposition to falling ill once every three days to rear its ugly head.
“What a healthy body! Why, I’m so jealous!”
Reirin gulped. For a moment there, she had nearly forgotten her circumstances and considered herself lucky to have traded places with Keigetsu.
No, bad Reirin! That body was my parents’ gift to me. It’s my duty to live with it until the day I die.
Furrowing her brow, she clasped her hands together and nodded sagely at her own advice. Frankly, there was a part of her that still wanted to give in to the temptation.
The racket she was making stirred a rat in the corner to life with a squeak. Almost on instinct, she clicked her tongue to get its attention, then tickled it with the tip of her finger when it had scurried close enough. One aspect of her tireless efforts had made her quite adept at taming rodents.
Well now.
As Reirin gazed down at the happily scampering rat, her eyes grown accustomed to the dark, she pondered her situation with a solemn expression. Keigetsu had told her to tremble in fear of Death’s footsteps, surrounded by rats.
But what part of that is supposed to pose a challenge?
For Reirin, who kept rats of her own for herbal experiments and who slipped into critical condition each time she got sick, that was business as usual.
“Oh, I spy a bug! I’d better catch it to give Mr. Rat something to eat.”
Kou Reirin had a reputation as a fragile, delicate lady of high standing, one who wouldn’t so much as hurt a fly. Keigetsu had been under the impression that tossing her into the dungeon would drive her mad in no time, but that had been a grave miscalculation.
Reirin was anything but delicate. Having survived an astronomical number of brushes with death, the girl had nerves of steel.