After Daffodil's "Brother" fell, the training ground stayed quiet for a long time.
Jin'en didn't press her, and Daffodil said nothing more.
She stood up and put the water flask and the remaining biscuits into her cloth bag, moving a little faster than usual, as though hurrying to cover something up.
Jin'en tactfully kept quiet. He thought he should have left that call unanswered-responding had only made Daffodil more uncomfortable.
They left the training ground one after the other. The corridor lights had already switched to a dim, warm yellow; the daytime and nighttime lighting ran on two separate systems.
Jin'en noticed that the paintings on the walls looked a little wrong again under the warm light. The figures' eyes seemed to have moved again.
He quickened his pace to catch up with Daffodil and decided not to look too closely.
"You have a mission this afternoon?" he asked.
"Mm."
"When will you be back?"
Daffodil paused at the corner of the corridor and turned her head to look at him.
For an instant, her eyes held a hint of confusion, as though asking, "Why are you asking?" But she didn't say it.
"Before dinner."
Then she left, her steps as steady as ever. She turned into another corridor and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Standing in the corridor, Jin'en suddenly realized he was lost again.
He'd followed Daffodil on the way here. Now that she'd gone, every corridor around him looked exactly alike: wall lamps, picture frames, dark wooden floors. It was as though the mansion had deliberately laid out its passages this way to send anyone unfamiliar with them in circles.
Going by memory, he turned right. After walking for about a minute, he ran into someone coming the other way.
Flora.
The girl with twin ponytails was carrying a stack of old books taller than she was, wobbling down the middle of the corridor. At the sight of Jin'en, she looked as though she'd found some treasure and nearly dropped all the books.
"Jin'en! What are you doing here?"
"Going back to my room."
"Your room isn't that way." Flora pointed behind herself with her chin. "You're going the wrong way."
Jin'en said, "...Then which way should I go?"
Flora grinned, revealing the gap left by a missing front tooth. "Beg me."
Jin'en stared at her expressionlessly.
"I've already heard that once today."
"Who said it? Broken Rainbow? I bet she made you beg her too." Flora tightened her grip on the stack and bounced it upward to keep the top book from falling. "Fine, fine. Since you're so pitiful. Your room is in the east wing on the second floor. You're in the west wing on the second floor right now. You have to cross the courtyard in the middle, then turn left twice."
"...Where's the courtyard?"
Flora stared at him for two seconds, then sighed, sounding so world-weary that it didn't suit her seven-year-old face at all.
"I'll take you there. I have to return these books to the east wing anyway."
With that, she started forward, carrying the stack of old books that nearly blocked her vision. She wobbled as she walked, but she wasn't slow.
Jin'en followed her and noticed that the cover of the topmost book bore a very large flower, its overlapping petals dark red. He couldn't quite make out the title, but the flower reminded him of the patterns with shadowed centers in the dining room's ceiling mural.
"What are those books?" he asked.
"Got them from the library." Flora didn't look back. "Mother put Sister Unica in charge of the library. I'm helping her move books."
"You can read?"
"What's wrong with being able to read?" Flora whipped her head around, her twin ponytails swinging. "I know loads of words!"
"I didn't say I didn't believe you."
"Your tone said it."
Jin'en chose not to answer.
The courtyard was much larger than he'd imagined.
It was actually an indoor light well, with corridors on all four sides surrounding a little courtyard paved with white gravel. A short tree grew in the middle. Its trunk was thick, but its crown had been pruned bare, without a single leaf.
Flora didn't so much as glance at the tree as she passed, as though it didn't exist.
Jin'en gave it a couple of extra looks.
An iron fence encircled the base of the tree, with a sign hanging from it. The lettering was too small to read clearly; all he could make out was "forbidden."
"Stop looking," Flora said. "You can't touch that tree. Mother said so."
"Why?"
"Don't know. You just can't touch it."
Jin'en followed Flora across the courtyard. When he reached his door, his mind was still on the bare tree behind its iron fence and Flora's words: "You just can't touch it."
He pushed the door open, went inside, locked it, and took off his coat before sitting on the edge of the bed.
The crack on his right wrist was quiet, neither glowing nor hot.
He tried moving his fingers. They felt much better than they had after training that morning. At least they weren't trembling anymore.
"Control your fear." Looking at the ceiling, he repeated Daffodil's words.
It sounded like empty advice.
But thinking it over, it did seem to help a little.
He felt around on the bed for the unfinished compressed biscuit and took a bite. It was as hard as a brick.
Jin'en chewed twice and thought his teeth might be even harder than the biscuit.
Just then-
Bang!
Someone slammed the door open from outside.
Jin'en nearly inhaled biscuit crumbs into his windpipe. He turned to see a human-shaped accessory standing in the doorway.
Broken Rainbow.
She'd come running. The ends of her long white hair were still swaying, dust clung to the knees of her cargo pants, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her forehead. But those weren't the only things Jin'en noticed.
There was a lash mark on Broken Rainbow's right wrist.
It was very thin but deep, the flesh torn open, the surrounding skin already turning purplish red.
The beads of blood hadn't dried yet. They trickled down the inside of her wrist, drawing a thin red line across the back of her hand.
Jin'en stared at the wound, half a biscuit still in his mouth, unable to decide whether to chew or swallow.
"How did you-"
"Don't ask." Broken Rainbow slipped into the room, flung the door shut behind her, and leaned her whole body against it to catch her breath.
She glanced at Jin'en's face, then at the biscuit in his hand, and tugged at the corner of her mouth.
Her fang showed, but the smile was plainly forced.
"You're eating."
"What happened to your hand?"
"Scraped it."
"What kind of scrape leaves a wound shaped like that?" Jin'en stood up and tossed the biscuit onto the desk.
The lash mark was too straight, its edges far too neat. It had clearly been made by something thin, long, and flexible striking at speed.
And there was more than one-on closer inspection, he saw two older marks on the inside of Broken Rainbow's right forearm, dark and already scarred over.
Broken Rainbow followed his gaze down to her hand, then gave an indifferent "Oh."
"You mean this." She tugged her sleeve down to cover the lash mark. "Mother spot-checked our basic footwork today. I slacked off yesterday and skipped two sets. She found out."
"...Just for that?"
"Just for that." Broken Rainbow pulled her sleeve down to her palm, barely covering the fresh wound. "Mother said people who slack off have to make their bodies remember the price."
Her tone was very light as she said it.
But Jin'en saw the fingers of her left hand, exposed beyond her sleeve, curl slightly, then relax.
"Where's your sister?" Jin'en asked.
"Out on a mission." Broken Rainbow walked to the window and glanced outside. "Otherwise, I wouldn't have come to you."
"What do you mean?"
Broken Rainbow turned back, her green eyes fixed on him, her expression unusually serious.
"When my sister's around, Mother doesn't hit me."
Jin'en fell silent.
He remembered the way Inanna had looked at Daffodil in the underground training ground.
It had been a very complicated look, like she was examining a blade being honed, assessing its sharpness and calculating how much more it needed before it could be drawn.
But Inanna looked at Broken Rainbow differently, more like she was looking at a pet that might disobey at any moment.
"So what did you come to me for?" Jin'en asked.
"To hide for a while." Broken Rainbow kicked off her shoes and sat straight down on his bed, hugging her knees to her chest and curling into a ball. "Mother usually stops once she's done whipping me. She won't chase me down to keep hitting me. I just have to stay out of her sight until she calms down."
"Then why not go to your own room?"
"My room's next to Mother's study." Broken Rainbow rested her face on her knees, her green eyes watching him through gaps in her white hair. "Are you stupid?"
Jin'en opened his mouth, thought it over, and decided not to stoop to arguing with her.
He sat in the chair in front of the desk, some distance from Broken Rainbow on the bed.
A breeze outside stirred the curtains gently.
Sunlight leaked through the gap, casting a small patch of warm yellow light on Broken Rainbow's white hair, forming a jarring contrast of sorts with the lash mark on her wrist that was still seeping blood.
"You need to get that hand treated," Jin'en said.
"No need. It'll heal in a couple of days."
"What will Daffodil say when she gets back and sees that wound?"
Broken Rainbow lifted her head.
Jin'en watched her face as he finished. "When she gets back and sees a fresh wound on your hand, do you think she'll ask about it or not?"
Broken Rainbow's expression changed.
It was so brief that Jin'en almost missed it.
Then she buried her face in her knees again, her voice muffled. "...You talk too much."
"Your sister said it."
"What did my sister tell you?"
"She told me to talk less." Jin'en stood up and rummaged through the wardrobe for an old shirt.
The label was long gone, and the fabric had been washed pale, but it was clean and would serve as a bandage in a pinch. "But she also said that if you can't control something, you either learn to control it or find someone to help you control it."
He tore the shirt into several strips and walked over to Broken Rainbow.
Broken Rainbow looked up at him, something flickering in her green eyes.
"Why are you tearing up clothes?"
"To bandage you."
"No need."
"She said there's no shame in letting someone else help you control things."
Broken Rainbow stared at him for several seconds, then held out her right hand.
The lash mark on her wrist looked even clearer in the sunlight. Purplish-red bruising spread outward on either side, and tiny beads of blood had already seeped from its deepest part.
Jin'en crouched down and wrapped her wrist bit by bit with strips of the shirt.
His movements weren't particularly deft. It took two turns before he barely managed to secure it.
Broken Rainbow didn't make a sound the entire time. She simply watched him wrap it with her head lowered, her white hair falling to hide most of her face.
"Your hands are so cold," she said suddenly.
Jin'en didn't answer. He tied a knot in the cloth, trimmed away the excess, then straightened up.
"Done."
Broken Rainbow raised her right arm and turned it a couple of times, studying the crooked wrapping. The corner of her mouth lifted.
"Ugly."
"As long as it stops the bleeding."
"My sister does it better."
"Then go find your sister."
"She's not here." Broken Rainbow spoke as though that were only natural, then scooted farther into the bed and pulled the blanket over her legs, as if settling in to stay. "I'll hang out here for a while. I'll leave once Mother calms down."
Jin'en sighed at the sight of her taking over his bed.
He sat back in his chair, picked up the unfinished biscuit, and went on gnawing at it.
Broken Rainbow's gaze fell on his right wrist and lingered there for about two seconds.
"Your crack hasn't glowed today."
"I practiced."
"Practiced what?"
"Not pressing it."
Broken Rainbow tilted her head as though she hadn't understood, but didn't ask any more questions.
She rested her face on the pillow, her breathing slowly evening out, as though she really was about to fall asleep.
Jin'en glanced down at the biscuit in his hand.
Something suddenly occurred to him.
"Broken Rainbow."
"Mm?"
"Are you planning to stay here until your sister gets back?"
"Yep."
"What if I need to go out?"
Broken Rainbow opened one eye.
"Then go."
"Aren't you afraid someone will find you in my room?"
"Who would notice?" Broken Rainbow closed her eyes, her tone lazy. "My sister's away, Unica took Flora downtown to shop today, and the kitchen auntie won't come upstairs. Mother-she's usually in her study all afternoon."
She paused, then added, "Unless she comes herself."
Jin'en felt that sounded rather unlucky.
As it turned out, Broken Rainbow really wasn't very lucky.
About twenty minutes later-Jin'en was sitting in a chair leafing through an old art book he had picked at random from the shelf, and Broken Rainbow was curled up on the bed, almost asleep-the sound of high heels came from the hallway.
Neither hurried nor slow.
Every step landed squarely in the middle.
Jin'en's back instantly went rigid.
Broken Rainbow sprang up from the bed too, her green eyes wide and round, her messy white hair plastered against her face. She looked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
The sound of high heels drew closer.
"You've got to be kidding..." Broken Rainbow lowered her voice and quickly scanned the room.
The space beneath the desk was empty, the wardrobe was too small, and the window-Jin'en's room was on the second floor, with a gravel path in the garden below if they jumped.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Jin'en."
Inanna's voice came from outside, neither warm nor cold.
Broken Rainbow silently jumped off the bed and squeezed into the corner between the desk and the wardrobe, curling herself into a ball.
That spot wasn't visible from the doorway, but if Inanna came inside, she would only need to tilt her head slightly to spot her.
Jin'en glanced at Broken Rainbow, then at the door.
"Coming," he said.
He walked over and opened the door.
Inanna stood in the doorway, long hair falling to her waist, wearing a black dress and carrying a riding crop.
Her gaze slid over Jin'en's face and swept the room. It was quick, but Jin'en felt that glance had missed nothing.
"You have a guest."
Jin'en's heart lurched.
"No," he said.
Inanna ignored him and turned her head, her gaze landing unerringly on the corner between the desk and the wardrobe.
Broken Rainbow huddled there with her bandaged wrist hidden behind her back, wearing an expression that said, "My being here is purely a coincidence."
"Come out," Inanna said.
Broken Rainbow slowly shuffled out of the corner, head lowered, hands hanging at her sides.
She hid her bandaged right wrist behind her back.
"Your cuff."
Broken Rainbow didn't move.
Inanna extended her hand and gently lifted Broken Rainbow's cuff with the riding crop.
The crookedly wrapped strips of cloth were exposed, Jin'en's handiwork plain to see.
Inanna glanced at the knot, then shifted her gaze to Jin'en.
"You wrapped it?"
"Yes."
"With a shirt?"
"An old one."
The corner of Inanna's mouth moved. It was hard to say whether it counted as a smile.
She looked back at Broken Rainbow, her tone unchanged. "Basic footwork. Finish it. Go to the training ground. Now."
Broken Rainbow's lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she said nothing.
She walked toward the door with her head lowered, quickening her steps as she passed Inanna.
But Jin'en noticed a small patch of dark red seeping through the cloth on her right hand. Blood from the fresh wound was still spreading outward.
Inanna saw it too.
"Wait."
Broken Rainbow stopped without turning around.
Inanna walked up behind her and lifted her right wrist with the end of the riding crop. A corner of the cloth shifted aside, exposing the whip wound beneath, its edges curled open.
"Did I give you this today?"
"Yes."
"How much footwork?"
"Two sets. Two sets of basic footwork."
"Good that you remember." Inanna withdrew the riding crop. "Go to the training ground. Finish those two sets, then do four more. Get tomorrow's done too."
Broken Rainbow's shoulders stiffened for a moment.
"Yes."
She left, her footsteps a little heavier than when she had arrived.
Inanna didn't leave right away.
She stood in the doorway of Jin'en's room, looking down at him for a while.
"You're protecting her."
Jin'en said nothing.
"You know her situation." Inanna turned her back to him and lightly tapped the riding crop against her palm twice. "Every flower in Red Letter's garden has its own duty. Broken Rainbow's is to build a solid foundation. Any slacking she does today, she'll have to repay tenfold tomorrow."
"So you whip her?" Jin'en said.
Inanna turned her head.
Under the hallway lights, her red eyes looked like two pieces of cold glass.
"Whip?" She repeated the word, as if she found it interesting. "You call that whipping?"
"That lash wasn't deep," Jin'en said. "But it hurt."
"It's supposed to hurt." Inanna walked away down the hallway, her voice as flat as if she were reading a shopping list. "Pain makes her remember. Remembering makes her change."
The sound of high heels receded down the hallway.
Jin'en stood in the doorway, his hand still resting on the frame.
He suddenly remembered what Daffodil had said-"What happens if the blade stops? Mother will be unhappy."
Daffodil's blade had never stopped.
So Inanna never raised her whip against her.
What about Broken Rainbow?
Jin'en shut the door and sat back down, discovering that his clenched left hand was trembling slightly.
He unclenched his hand and looked down at his right wrist.
The crack was quiet.
But Jin'en knew that crack had been there all along. The time when he needed it simply hadn't come yet.
Dinnertime.
Seven or eight girls sat in the dining room. Jin'en found a seat near the edge and sat down.
He kept watching the doorway, but Broken Rainbow never appeared.
Daffodil wasn't there either-she hadn't returned from her mission.
Jin'en finished a bowl of porridge and two steamed buns. As he set down his chopsticks, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Heavy.
Not quite normal.
Jin'en looked up just in time to see Broken Rainbow walk past the dining room doorway.
She didn't come in or even glance inside, but Jin'en saw the way she walked-her right leg dragged a little, as though she were deliberately keeping something under control.
The strip of cloth he had wrapped around her right wrist was still there.
It was soaked through with blood, its white turned dark brown.
Jin'en stood and followed her out.
The hallway was dimly lit. Broken Rainbow walked quickly, but her steps weren't very steady.
Jin'en quickened his pace and caught up with her, stopping her at the corner.
"You-"
He had barely spoken before he stopped.
Broken Rainbow's right sleeve was covered in blood.
It wasn't just her wrist. Blood dripped from her entire right forearm, running along her fingers and falling onto the floor, leaving a thin red trail.
The whip wound had torn open again. The gash was deeper than it had been that morning, deeper, stretching all the way from her wrist to her elbow.
"How many sets did you make up?" Jin'en asked.
Broken Rainbow looked up at him, the light in her green eyes a little dimmer.
"Eight."
"Didn't you only owe two?"
"Mother said the extra six were an advance on tomorrow."
Jin'en felt his back teeth clench.
"You're bleeding."
"I know." Broken Rainbow moved her right hand behind her back, but she was too slow. Jin'en had already seen.
"I'll just go back to my room and bandage it myself."
"Your room is next to Mother's study."
"...Oh." Broken Rainbow seemed to have only just remembered. She looked up at him with something very rare in her expression, as though she didn't know where to go.
Jin'en took a deep breath.
"Come with me."
He brought Broken Rainbow back to his room.
This time, he found an even older shirt and tore it straight into strips. He also dug a small bottle of disinfectant out of the drawer at the corner of the desk, left there by someone he didn't know.
Broken Rainbow sat on the edge of the bed and held out her right hand, her sleeve rolled up above her elbow.
The sight of the whip wounds made Jin'en's stomach twist.
The single wound from that morning had become three.
Three parallel red marks stretched from her wrist to the middle of her forearm. Two were shallower, and the one in the middle was deepest. Where the flesh had split open, tender pink flesh was visible beneath, and beads of blood rolled down the curve of her arm.
Jin'en dabbed on some disinfectant and began treating the shallowest wound.
"Tell me if it hurts."
"It doesn't."
"No lying."
The corner of Broken Rainbow's mouth moved, as though she wanted to smile but couldn't.
"You sound so much like my sister."
"How?"
"My sister says that sometimes too." Broken Rainbow looked down at his fingers as he wrapped the cloth, her voice a little lower than usual. "Whenever she says it, she knows what I'm thinking."
Jin'en didn't respond. He kept wrapping the cloth.
His bandaging still wasn't pretty, all crooked and uneven, but at least it was a little tighter than that morning.
Broken Rainbow didn't make a sound the entire time, only occasionally jerking her hand when he touched a wound.
"Jin'en."
"Yeah."
"Why are you helping me?"
Jin'en's hands paused.
"Didn't you ask me this morning?" He tied a knot in the last strip and straightened up. "If there's something you can't control, either learn to control it or find someone to help."
"Then which are you?"
"I haven't learned anything." Jin'en pushed the remaining strips and disinfectant aside. "I just thought Daffodil would be unhappy if she came back and found your hand ruined."
Broken Rainbow stared at him for several seconds.
Then she lowered her head, staring at her cloth-wrapped right arm, her voice very quiet.
"My sister wouldn't be unhappy."
"Why?"
"Because my sister thinks I should train harder." Broken Rainbow placed her left hand over her right wrist and pressed the wound through the cloth, without even furrowing her brow. "She says pain makes me remember. Mother says that too. Everyone says that."
Jin'en looked at her.
White hair, green eyes, thin as a bamboo pole, sitting on a bed that even he found too hard, her right arm wrapped like a mummy in his torn shirt.
"Then what do you think?" he asked.
Broken Rainbow raised her head.
"I think-" She thought for so long that Jin'en assumed she wasn't going to answer.
"I think my sister's right," she said. "But I still don't want to train."
Jin'en couldn't help laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
"You." Jin'en sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. "You're nothing like what she said, but deep down, you're a little alike."
"How?"
"Your sister doesn't want to stop swinging her blade. You don't want to pick one up. Neither of you wants to." Jin'en looked at her. "But she trains, and you have to train too. Because you both think something will happen if you don't."
Broken Rainbow's green eye swept over his face.
"You..." She tilted her head. "You barely talk, but every time you do, you're right on the mark."
"Your sister said that."
"What did she say this time?"
"She didn't. I made it up."
Broken Rainbow froze for a second, then laughed. This time it was a real laugh, showing her little fangs, her eyes curving into two crescents, nothing like the forced smile from that morning.
"You actually know how to joke."
"I wasn't joking."
"But you clearly-"
The door was pushed open.
Both of them looked over at the same time.
Daffodil stood in the doorway.
Dressed in black, with blue streaks in her hair, her bangs covering her right eye, and a blade tucked behind her waist, she looked as though she had just returned from outside.
Her gaze swept from Jin'en's face to Broken Rainbow, covered in strips of cloth on the bed, and lingered for two seconds.
Then she walked in and closed the door behind her.
"Arm."
Broken Rainbow held out her right arm.
Daffodil crouched down, undid the strips of cloth Jin'en had wrapped around it, and glanced at the wounds underneath.
Three whip marks. The deepest was still seeping blood.
Her expression did not change.
But Jin'en noticed her left index finger dig lightly against her knee, exactly as it had that time at the training grounds.
"Who did this?" Daffodil asked.
"Mother," Broken Rainbow said.
"Why?"
"I slacked off on two sets of footwork."
Daffodil wrapped the cloth back around her arm, her movements much more practiced than Jin'en's, the tightness just right.
"Use your head before you slack off next time," she said, her voice very level.
"Got it." Broken Rainbow lowered her head.
Daffodil stood up and looked at Jin'en.
She said nothing, just watched him for a while.
Her gaze was neither cold nor warm, as level as ever.
But Jin'en felt that something in it was different from before, as though some subtle, almost imperceptible "calculation" had been canceled.
"Thank you," she said.
Jin'en paused in surprise.
"No need," he replied stiffly.
Daffodil nodded, then turned and pulled Broken Rainbow off the bed.
"Come."
"Where?"
"Your room."
"Mother's in the study..."
"Mother isn't here." Daffodil took Broken Rainbow by the arm and headed for the door. "She went out."
Broken Rainbow was pulled along toward the door. As she passed Jin'en, she turned back to look at him, her mouth opening slightly as though she wanted to say something.
But in the end, she merely winked her green eye at him, then was hauled out the door by Daffodil.
Their voices drifted in from the corridor, growing more and more distant.
"Sis, how did you know Mother went out?"
"I saw her."
"Then why didn't you say so earlier?"
"I just got back."
"Oh..."
"Change the dressing when you get back. The way you wrapped it won't do."
"Jin'en wrapped it."
(PS: I did my best. My cold's pretty bad today, so I'll only be updating one chapter.)