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Gods cannot be spied upon. Questions about gods were off-limits. But asking about herself , that should be fine, right?
Luo Wei gazed up at the starry sky and asked her first question.
"Will I be executed for blasphemy?"
The star chart shifted. The Well constellation flickered on and off.
The Well is the first of the seven southern mansions of the Vermilion Bird. When bright, it signals peace across the land. When dark, war and chaos.
Luo Wei: ...
Was today's divination broken?
She had asked whether she would die for blasphemy, and the star chart responded with something related to the state of the world , and even that response was unstable, blinking on and off like a loose lightbulb.
Still. The Well mansion belongs to Wood. Its stars cluster like a net. Wood carries vitality; a net is a cage.
Was this telling her that she was trapped in a cage, but still had a thread of hope?
As long as it wasn't a certain death trap, she could work with it. Where there was hope, there was a way out. She wouldn't die.
"What do I need to do to find that thread of hope?"
The Well mansion sank. The Spread mansion rose.
The fifth of the southern Vermilion Bird mansions. An auspicious omen. Its stars array like a bow, its element is Earth, and Earth generates Metal.
Did that mean she already held the key to the door of life , and needed to pick up her weapons and strike first?
Luo Wei tugged at her hair. Why were the omens getting harder to read? And of course she had to be stuck in a world with a Western backdrop, where there was no one to help her decode any of this, because no one here understood it.
Why hadn't she read more about Chinese metaphysics in her past life? If she'd even glanced at Zi Wei Dou Shu or any other traditional astrology text, she wouldn't be suffering through this now.
She exhaled and withdrew from her mental world.
That divination was practically useless. Everything it gave her was vague. Ambiguous at best.
The celestial omens were unclear. All they'd done, really, was give her a small measure of psychological comfort.
Luo Wei rubbed the smooth surface of the Turtle Shell. She'd transmigrated into a Western world and somehow ended up with an Eastern tool. Truly frustrating.
Nico jumped onto the back of her hand and tapped her skin with its legs.
Luo Wei snapped back to the present, raised her hand, and found herself looking into the spider's pitch-black, glossy eyes.
"Is it time already? Thank you, Nico."
Right. Time to patrol the perimeter , which meant walking to the gate, clocking in, and pretending she had actually patrolled the perimeter.
Dawn was breaking when the owl came flying back from beyond the academy grounds.
Luo Wei had just finished her last clock-in. She stretched her arms wide and gave an enormous yawn right in front of the owl, making it abundantly clear she had not slacked off last night and had, in fact, stayed up the entire time.
The owl opened its beak and dropped a field mouse at her feet.
Luo Wei's yawn cut short. She looked down at the dead mouse lying on the ground and quietly stepped to one side.
"Thank you, Owl Proctor. I'm afraid I don't care much for field mouse. Please, have it yourself."
She declined with all the politeness she could manage.
The owl fixed her with its round yellow eyes for a long moment. Apparently satisfied that she wasn't just being modest, it spread its wings, glided to the ground, and scooped up the mouse with its hooked beak.
All that meat, and she didn't want any. No wonder she was so thin.
The owl finished its meal and let out a pleased, rumbling series of hoots.
Owl calls were genuinely unsettling. Thankfully, the sky was already light.
The clock tower bell rang out across the grounds. Luo Wei turned and walked quickly back to the dormitory.
Wash her face, wake herself up. Class started at eight.
She'd caught a few hours of sleep last night, so the morning wasn't as brutal as it could have been.
Luo Wei sat through an entire class without her eyes glazing over. At noon, she walked out of the classroom with Winnie beside her.
"You abandoned me last time. Today, no matter what you say, I am not letting go of you!"
Winnie latched onto her arm and hung off her like a sloth.
Luo Wei couldn't move an inch. "I didn't say I wouldn't come with you today," she said, exasperated. "We're going to the dessert shop, aren't we? Let go of me so we can walk faster. If we're late there won't be any seats left."
"You really mean it? You said it!"
"I said it. Now please let go."
Winnie beamed and pressed her cheek against Luo Wei's, then straightened up to her full height , just a touch taller. "Alright! Let's go!"
The two of them walked out toward the school gate arm in arm, perfectly in step.
By noon, Aisikurui Dessert Shop was packed. A long queue snaked out through the front door and down the street.
Luo Wei brought Winnie straight up to a second-floor private room. She was increasingly convinced that Winnie's daily insistence on eating together was really just a scheme to exploit her membership card.
Business at the shop had only gotten better. Half the customers who came couldn't get a table and had to take their orders to go.
That was not an option the more discerning noble girls were willing to accept. An elegant mille-feuille cake didn't survive the journey home intact , it got jostled apart before they'd even taken a bite, the piped cream decorations ruined beyond saving.
To secure private room privileges, groups of girls had started pooling their funds onto a single card to push the membership tier higher, then rotating who used the room each day.
Winnie had already upgraded her card to Gold. But Gold members had multiplied, and the private rooms were often fully booked.
Luo Wei had her own permanent private room at Aisikurui. As its owner behind the scenes, she never had to queue.
Once they were seated, Winnie leaned forward and got straight to the gossip.
"Did you hear? Vina and Egbert broke off their engagement!"
Egbert?
Luo Wei's mind cycled through names before it landed. Egbert , Vina's fiancé. Last year, when the Holy Knight had invited them to the banquet, he'd literally stumbled in through the door.
"Isn't that a good thing?" She placed her hands in the washbasin and spoke while she rinsed them. "Egbert never liked her, and she was never that fond of him either."
"That's not the point!" Winnie said, eyes bright. "The point is, after Egbert and Vina broke off their engagement, he turned around and proposed to Athena."
Luo Wei dried her hands and nodded at the maid to take the basin away. "When did that happen? How did I miss this?"
"Yesterday afternoon! I have no idea where you went — I looked everywhere." Winnie shook her head with genuine regret on Luo Wei's behalf. "You really missed it. Athena took the roses and necklace Egbert gave her and threw them straight into the lake. And then Egbert jumped in after them."
Luo Wei blinked. "Don't proposals require the family's approval first? Can Egbert just decide that on his own?"
Winnie shrugged. "I don't know. But from what I heard, Vina and Egbert's engagement was only officially ended after both Count Wesley and Count Mansfield agreed to it."
"Apparently Vina was the one who brought it up first. Count Wesley sent a letter to Count Mansfield, and just like that, the engagement was dissolved."
"Vina kept it completely quiet. If Egbert hadn't mentioned it himself yesterday — trying to prove to Athena how serious he was — none of us would have known."
Luo Wei considered this. "So Egbert threw away what he had, went chasing something better, and ended up with nothing."
"Exactly. Though honestly, the one who got the worst of it is still Vina." Winnie sighed. "She's the one who asked to break it off first, but the fact that Count Mansfield agreed so fast , that means he'd already been looking for a way out of the engagement with the Wesley family."
"My elders always said the Wesleys look impressive on the surface, but they've been declining for years."
"Not a single God's Favored in the whole family. And when the angels descended half a month ago, they received no divine oracle at all." Winnie lowered her voice. "People are saying they've lost God's favor entirely."
➤ Next: Is She the Thief God?
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