Hua took another close look and let out a huge sigh of relief.
She had simply seen it wrong...
She had thought...
So Jingliu was only sitting rather close to her father...
So her father had merely fallen asleep... Come to think of it, the medicine Mr. Zandar had prescribed for him really worked...
It seemed Jingliu was only sitting beside him, staring at him in a daze...
Wait, that was even stranger?!
Hua hurried downstairs and walked for several minutes. Just before she entered her father's courtyard, she ran into Jingliu coming the other way.
Jingliu's expression became slightly awkward when she saw Hua.
Jingliu said she had taken the Marshal back to his bedroom.
Hua responded with a flawless smile and offered her best wishes to Jingliu, who would soon be transferred to the Luofu to serve with the Cloud Knights. They chatted briefly, and just before they parted, Jingliu brought up her father and asked Hua to pass on a message.
Jingliu lowered her eyes, a barely perceptible wistfulness in her voice.
"May he..."
"Know joy, peace, and good health, with serenity undisturbed by misfortune."
Hua smiled and nodded, agreeing to her request. She walked past Jingliu, crossed the courtyard, and entered her father's bedroom.
She stood before his bed and studied him for a long while, but could make no sense of it.
Seriously, what was Jingliu thinking?
The next day, Hua repeated Jingliu's blessing to her father, word for word.
After hearing it, he looked wistful.
Everything he said carried the loneliness of an elder left at home while his children went out into the world to make their way.
After much deliberation, Hua decided to keep the matter secret.
*If Akivili hadn't been the first to notice something was wrong... If Mr. Zandar hadn't