Lu Qi Zhen nodded repeatedly. She watched the confrontation in the control booth with concern, while also listening intently to the sounds in the theater.
Fleeting anxieties swirled around her like smoke: this disturbance had almost entirely begun because of her. It involved the Quicksilver Needles, and might well invite another wave of condemnation—how was Hesta supposed to explain it? Would Zoe and Ende be implicated? Would her visa be revoked for disrupting public order, and would she be deported back to District 1 at once...
These chaotic questions wound around one another, weaving a complicated web that clung to her like spider silk. Yet at the same time, she was surprised to find that she could not pretend to care about them.
Yes, these spider-silk troubles...
The heroine of Dagger and Sheath was pacing back and forth beneath her. From the distant stage came a song calling for tonight's Volva. Lu Qi Zhen lightly tapped her lips along with the music, silently observing the Hesta person's reaction.
Never before had Lu Qi Zhen so clearly realized that she was watching a story unfold. There were countless places for spectators in the story of Dagger and Sheath. She did not have to play anyone in it, nor did she need to carry some airy pain as she pondered its metaphors.
Those innumerable metaphors—the metaphors that endlessly filled her with fear and sorrow... They gave her pleasure and protection, but also confinement and danger. And so she had to do her utmost to distinguish among them, question them, abandon them, and make choices within them...
Volva lived in the story as though walking a tightrope. She was innocent and kind, and thus unlike so many women in love stories tempted by desire, she made a resolute choice between fleeting delight and