I sighed as I surveyed the room I cleaned before I put away the cleaning supplies into a closet with a bunch of things in boxes I wasn't allowed to look into without permission. I shut the door before I heard a key jingling from the other side of the entrance. Slightly panicked, I hurried the best I could to my room to get away before the supervisor came through the door. Unfortunately, I failed.

"Jun, get the other girls out here now. You have five minutes, or you aren't getting dinner," she said harshly as I bowed before I hurried to the nearby rooms.

"Supervisor wants to see you in the front for the daily assignments," I said while knocking on every door I came to. Perhaps it wasn't the best method to use, but it worked usually. After running around to all the rooms in the span of two minutes, I ran back around to make sure that everyone had actually left. Most of the girls were already on the move with the exception of one room, which I dreaded having to deal with as they were the supervisor's favorite's while I was the opposite.

Finding no better way to deal with the situation, I furiously knocked on the door while repeating, "Supervisor wants to see you in the front for the daily assignments, supervisor wants to see you in the front for the daily assignments, supervisor wants to see you in the front for the daily assignments, supervisor wants to see you in the front for the daily assignments, supervisor wants to see you in the front for-"

"How noisy. We heard you the first time," Changying Li said as she pushed open the door, whacking it into my face.

"Forgive my mistake, it was just that everyone else is there and I didn't want you two to be the last ones to arrive," I said mildly passive aggressively while bowing.

"And we won't now because you need to get the board and wasted your time yelling at us, how uncouth. But then again, you are a half-breed, so I suppose I can't blame you," Huiqing Wang said. I kept my mouth shut as they walked down the hall. They were really the only ones who cared about my heritage besides the supervisor. After they are out of sight, I ran to the closet to get the board that had everyone's names on it along with their pay for the week and ran into the front room, right before I ran out of time.

"Give me that. Now then, for tonight, for General Mathew Garnfeld, Chanying Li. Make sure to do your best as he's currently a swing vote on an important proposition," the supervisor said as her dark eyes locked on Changying.

"I will," she said in an honorable fashion. As much as I hated her, I envied how good she was at sucking up to people.

The supervisor listed off more and more assignments until she got to the last one while stating, "Finally we have that Major General. Considering Me is still hospitalized, we don't have many options, but we'll be leaving him alone tonight. He's so solidly set against letting us keep the Emperor that it's pointless to even try to persuade him. All of you go freshen up," the supervisor said, ending with a clap of the hands to speed up the process.

After everyone had moved away, I take out the note that Hedrik gave to me earlier that I've been keeping in a pocket before I bow and give it to the supervisor while I said, "I was told to give this after last night by the Major General."

"You know I can't read their accursed language, half-breed, what does it say?" she asked sounding very annoyed as she slots the weekly allowances in slots under names.

"It's.... He asked to see me again tonight," I said, still bowing.

"Liar," she said simply, ignoring me.

"I am not, Madame. He wrote this note telling me to give it to you as an explanation on why I was late on heading back and as a request to see me again," I stated, still bowing.

"Unless you have proof you didn't write that, you should be happy I'm not reporting you to the Bureau of Cautious Punishment for your lies," she said as she finished with the allowances.

"I'm afraid I don't if you can't read it and don't recognize his signature," I said. Still bowing.

"Then stop bothering me," she said with a wave of the hand. I excused myself before she walks away, leaving me alone in the gathering room. With a sigh, I took a seat in a chair and watched as two girls who were rather fast at getting finished left.

I watched as slowly but surely, all the girls start to leave for their intended targets. I sat and watched and Changing and the supervisor had a conversation that was a bit too friendly for their social standings while doing nothing. I had failed, and all I could do was sit and watch as my life began to fall deeper into hell.

Soon, even Changying left and I was left alone with the supervisor, who glared at me for a moment before she went into a nearby closet to grab several documents before going to her office. I sat there and let the minutes tick by before I got a bit too depressed about my current situation and chose to get up and read a book from the nearby shelf. Much to my disappointment, the books were the same as always. They were all of course about how to be a proper lady.

A knock at the door brings me to attention, as there shouldn't be anyone visiting. It couldn't have been one of the girls either because we were given specific knocks to identify who we were, while this was just random sounds. A small glimmer of hope makes me think of the words Hedrik had said earlier about specifically asking for me, which propels me to the door and to open it.

Behind it was just the man I wanted to see.

"I was wondering where you were. Do you know how hard it was to get the servants to tell me where this place is? It's ridiculous. I eventually ended up asking a maid who told me while looking extremely embarrassed," Hedrik said with a smile as he looked at me.

"Yes, that would be because of how much this place is looked down upon. I'm sorry, but she didn't believe the note."

"I'm almost not surprised. Anyway, where do I have to go to say that I want to see you?" Hedrik asked as he looked around the insides of the room.

"That would be the supervisor, but she won't understand what you're saying," I said as I lead him to her office.

"I can speak Mandarin, badly, but I can speak it," he said as I knocked on the door.

"What do you want?" the supervisor yelled annoyed with me.

"I have proof I wasn't lying," I responded as I opened the door.

"Firstly, I apologize for what will be a terrible butchering of your language. Otherwise, I'm here to complain that that note I wrote seems to not have convinced you. I specifically requested Annaliese in it and I expected her, only to find that my request seems to have been ignored," Hedrik said in a tone I never heard him use yesterday. Now that I think, that's probably how he normally would speak to people as an officer, and I was just talked to nicely out of pity.

"Forgive me, Major General. I had no way of knowing she wasn't lying," the supervisor said as she stood up and bowed. I haven't seen her this panicked since one of her superiors came and yelled at her.

"I wrote a note and signed it. If you put the effort into it, you could have been able to see that I wrote it. Nonetheless, I'll be leaving with Annaliese now," Hedrik said as he walked away. My supervisor glared at me as she noticed the use of my actual name in place as I followed after Hedrik. Technically I'm not supposed to be calling myself Annaliese, but I thought I could get away with it with a stranger. I'd probably get yelled at later, though.

Once we leave the room and step into the hallway after closing the door, Hedrik turns to me and asked, "Would you be able to show me the city? I haven't gotten a chance to see it yet.'

"Yes, of course. You might stand out in a suit but...."

"I'll stand out if I'm not?" Hedrik jokes, making a reference to the fact he's a head taller than everyone else. Hell, I only reach his chest, but that's because my growth was stunted from malnutrition.

"Yes, that's most likely true," I said as I lead him to a back exit of the palace where we wouldn't be noticed.

"Do you think you could find a place that sells accessories? I have someone promised to buy things for." Hedrik asked as we reached the exit, which was actually just a hole blown through the wall during the bombings that happened.

"Yeah, I can think of quite a few," I said as we stepped out into the cool night air, the marketplace we would be headed to in sight at the bottom of the hill, it lighting up the twilight with light from the lanterns down in it. To be honest, hearing Hedrik mentioning that there was someone he wanted to buy accessories for was a tad bit disheartening, as it was probably a woman, specifically a significant other, eliminating the option of me seducing him to get him to take me to Astrya. Time to act extra cute so he might develop a strange older brother-younger sister relationship with me. After all, I'll do literally anything to get out of this godforsaken country.