“I-I’m not asking for me. I’m just curious because I heard a lot about—”

Mingyue holds up a hand, motioning for him to stop. “I’m not offended. I’m rather curious who you have in mind. Getting adopted here requires aptitude tests. It’s rather simple though, and there’s only one intake round every year at the start of the New Year around February.”

“I-I see…”

“Who is it?”

“A friend.”

“Don’t lie.”

Ryo shudders. “You live up to your name.”

Mingyue refuses to speak any further and the silence builds to a climax. She seems to know of Ryo’s discomfort with silence and is taking full advantage of it.

“…My sister,” he eventually whispers. He turns his gaze down towards his lap.

“Is she not happy at home?”

Ryo nods.

“I see. Well, if she manages to come in time for the New Year, she can take the aptitude test.”

“Y-You’re not going to ask about any details?”

Mingyue frowns, confused. “Why would I? It’s not my business.”

“Mingyue,” he starts, mustering up all the courage he can, “would you be able to help my sister get here? She’s five and I don’t think she can make the journey alone.”

Silence.

He fidgets with his sleeve. “Y-You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but—”

“When you make a request, be confident,” Mingyue interrupts. “Do not stutter, do not take back what you are about to say, do not hunch your posture. And look up.”

Ryo swallows, straightens himself, and when he looks up, he startles at the intensity of Mingyue’s unblinking gaze.

“Now, ask me again.”

He takes a breath. “…Can you please help my sister get to the Liu family in time for the test next year?”

Slowly, a smile spreads across Mingyue’s powdered red lips. “I can. Does the trip need to be made in secrecy from those around you?”

Ryo nods. 

“Understood. Wait a moment.” She gets up and goes into another room.

Suddenly, the lack of small talk and Mingyue’s generally cool attitude isn’t uncomfortable at all anymore. It’s rather reassuring and reliable. Has Mingyue done this before? How many other people has she helped like this?

Mingyue comes back into the room, carrying a pocket mirror. “Here,” she says, handing it to him. “Give this to your sister. I’ve imbued qi into it so when the time is right, it will both guide her and serve as protection along her journey. The phoenix and dragon embroidery on this pocket mirror will let others from the Liu family know she is my guest. I will arrange for a retainer to escort her the way Hao escorted you and your father this time.”

“Thank you!” Ryo exclaims, bowing his head. “Thank you so much!”

Mingyue smiles, small and quick. “You’re welcome. But due to the secrecy of the trip, I can only have the retainer meet her at the port of Shanghai. She will need to make the trip to Dejima and board a boat herself. She must arrive at the port of Shanghai on the first day of February at the latest, but I will have the retainer wait for her at the port every day starting two weeks in advance of that date.”

“There’s really no other way?”

Mingyue shakes her head. “This is as much as I can do if we do not want to risk people around you finding out about the trip. Rest assured, as long as Satori carries my pocket mirror, she will be shielded from physical harm.”

Heart still full of worry, Ryo can only say thanks again. Am I doing the right thing? Have I gone too far? Would Satori really want to leave?

But when he remembers her wounds and silently shaking shoulders, he can only convince himself that he’s helping her. This is the right thing to do.

“You have another question, don’t you?” Mingyue asks. She’s brought over a tea set while Ryo was lost in his thoughts. She pours both of them a cup of steaming green tea. “This visit weighs heavily on you, unlike the last time you were here. I can tell.”

Ryo accepts the tea graciously, trying to ignore the unsettled feeling of being read so thoroughly. I’m glad Mingyue is a friend and not an enemy…

“The more you know, the less freedom you have,” Mingyue continues after she sips her tea. “It’s up to you if you want to ask your other question.”

“My father’s research,” he starts, then stops himself. Do I really want to know?

Mingyue watches him, quite content to wait. She rests her chin on one hand.

“I want to know what my father’s doing.”

“You know of Enoia, but not what it is,” Mingyue affirms. “And you’re using a term that I’m unfamiliar with: ‘Blood of Asphodel’.”

Ryo rummages around his pockets and takes out the list he copied from his father’s notes on the ship. “Can you tell me what these ingredients are trying to make?”

Mingyue blinks. “You wrote it down? In Japanese?”

“Yep.”

She sighs, gesturing for him to hand it over. He does. “I should charge a fee for this,” she mutters. “No,” she says as she taps her chin, “I should charge extra because now I have to do the translations.”

Her eyes dart back and forth, taking in the ingredients on the list. Her brows furrow and she gets up. Eyes still on the parchment, her hand trails past the books filling the wooden shelves against the wall. She sweeps past them, as if mentally calculating which ones are useful and which ones aren’t.

After the third shelf and halfway through the fourth, she suddenly stops. Taking a book out, she cross-references the list with the writings in the book. Satisfied, she brings it to the table.

Ryo peers at it, but he doesn’t understand Chinese. He recognizes a few words from the katakana in his own language, but taken together they make absolutely no sense to him.

“It appears,” Mingyue starts, “you have the recipe for Enoia as a base. Your list builds on it.”

“But what exactly is Enoia?”

“…If I tell you, will you promise to keep it a secret for as long as it makes sense for you to do so?”

He nods.

She takes a deep breath. “Enoia is the name of the medicine your father invented to help slow Richard-xiansheng’s sickness. I’m not sure what kind of sickness he has, but this is what I know as the favoured candidate for succession in the Liu family. The Seven Families all need to be present in order to make Enoia and each of the different Esse Arts must be used in the process…” She pauses. “You know about the Esse Arts right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not sure what your father’s goal is,” she continues, “but whatever it is, it’s tampering with the very building blocks of qi. That’s like rewriting reality. Divine energy of creation and life— it has fundamental parts to it, pieces of a whole, symbols in a code. The parts we humans understand and use are only fractions, and we call them the Esse Arts. It is difficult and requires much practice and focus to use the Esse Arts. That’s why we go to Astrum Academy to learn it.

“I know that most of the other Seven Families don’t teach the usage or theory of Esse beforehand, so I’ll explain some things. The Code of Silence forbids us from using Esse Arts on Earth unless we are fighting Fallen or using them for something in our daily lives that is of no real consequence. We also cannot use them in the presence of people who do not know about Esse.” She puts the parchment down, looking at him intently. “Whatever your father is doing, it definitely isn’t about destroying the Fallen.”

Ryo’s brows furrow. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say?”

“I don’t know what the Blood of Asphodel is or what it’s meant to do, but if this is the recipe your father is trying to decipher, it’s taboo.” Mingyue gives him his list back, waiting until he folds it up and slips it back into his pocket. She sips her tea again. “I would be careful who you ask for help from and who you share information about this with. I also won’t tell you that you can trust me. You need to make that judgment yourself.”

Ryo leans forward, whispering. “But Mingyue, how is it taboo?”

Mingyue finishes the last of her tea. She begins to clean the table, placing both her and Ryo’s empty cups onto the tray. “The ingredients on your list all the way down to human blood are for Enoia, the medicine Richard-xiansheng needs. Your father is trying to add an ingredient that will let someone use Esse in its purest form and greatest capacity. It would give humans the powers of a god.”

Ryo’s eyes widen. “And that’s not supposed to be possi—”

“Mingyue! Ryo! Dinner is ready!” Jiayi’s voice calls.

“Coming, Auntie!” Mingyue calls. Shaking her head, she shoots him a concerned glance before leaving with the tea set and the now used cloth with specks of blood on it. “Just…be careful. Whatever your father is trying to do, the rest of the Seven Families don’t know about his deal with Lucifer.”

“…Okay, thanks for all your help.” 

Ryo is halfway down the stairs when he suddenly stops. Ice sets his nerves alight as Mingyue’s words sink in. 

He never mentioned his father had a deal with Lucifer.

How did she know?