It was already two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday when Xia De, soaking wet, returned home from his basement.
He ignored the water dripping onto the floor and hurried up the stairs, passing through the dim stairwell to the second floor.
He practically lunged forward to push open the door, stumbled into the kitchen, grabbed the biscuit tin that had been placed high on the cupboard to prevent Mia from stealing it, and stuffed the slightly damp biscuits into his mouth, feeling much better.
Drinking water had indeed filled his stomach, but the desire to eat something had not subsided.
Of course, this might also be a side effect of overusing Gluttony; in any case, Xia De was very hungry now.
Corresponding to the hunger, a sense of fatigue, which had unconsciously surged after returning home, was gradually replacing the hunger and becoming the strongest emotion.
But no matter what he was going to do next, Xia De first took a shower and changed his clothes.
Although this peculiar era was somewhat backward compared to his homeland, the development of the steam industry and the widespread steam pipes and gas lamps made taking a hot bath a very simple matter.
After showering, he had intended to sit on the sofa for a bit before deciding whether to go out to eat or to check if Louisa's apartment on Feather Pen Street was still lit.
But once Xia De leaned back on the sofa and sat down, the comfort made him instinctively close his eyes.
So he said in his heart:
"I'll just close my eyes and rest for a few tens of seconds, then get up immediately."
Thus, amidst the pleasant laughter of the woman in his mind, he fell directly into slumber.
Perhaps because he was too tired, he didn't have any dreams that night.
And what woke Xia De up a few hours later in the morning was not the gentle summer morning light shining through the living room window, but the sound of knocking from downstairs.
Someone was knocking on his door.
Xia De, half-asleep, opened his eyes.
Since he had fallen asleep sitting up, his whole body felt very uncomfortable after getting up.
But corresponding to the slight physical fatigue was mental relaxation and comfort.
It was the 30th day of the thunder moon, Tuesday morning at eight o'clock; he had slept on the sofa for about 6 hours.
"Today is the Holy Prayer Festival; I need to go to the church in the afternoon."
Gradually waking up after standing, Xia De yawned towards the window, reminding himself of his schedule for the day.
He sniffed, and as he shuffled downstairs in his slippers, passing the somewhat dim stairwell, he recalled last night's grand adventure and felt lucky to have escaped.
He guessed that someone knocking so early meant a new client or friend had arrived.
And upon opening the door, a small dark shadow immediately pounced, and Xia De's eyes widened, fully alert:
"Mia!"
"Meow~"
The small orange cat leaped from the Golden-haired girl's displeased arms towards Xia De, who clumsily caught her.
The cat agilely jumped onto Xia De's shoulder, constantly rubbing her furry little face against Xia De's face.
Xia De also reached out to scratch her chin, making the orange cat tilt her head back and purr.
After playing with the cat for a bit, he finally had time to look at the lady standing outside the door.
Louisa's face showed great displeasure, and her tone of voice suggested she was angry:
"Xia De, aren't you going to invite me in first? When did you get back?"
Xia De initially thought the Golden-haired Writer was upset that he hadn't immediately gone to see her after returning, but then he realized that her anger didn't seem to be directed at him.
"After bidding farewell to Princess Leia yesterday, I returned home at two in the morning."
He said this, and Louisa immediately stopped speaking, looking at him hesitantly:
"You really know who she is... Let's talk upstairs... I brought you breakfast.
Last night, you didn't pick up your cat, so I guessed you got home very late and might not have eaten this morning."
She rattled the stacked silver-gray metal lunchboxes she was carrying, and Xia De resisted the urge to swallow:
"Louisa, you are truly a good person."
The golden-haired and blue-eyed girl smiled, motioning for him to lead the way.
Carrying goat's milk, cow's milk, and the morning newspaper upstairs, Louisa opened the three metal lunchboxes at the dining table, and the steaming food immediately attracted the attention of Xia De and Mia.
But the orange cat had already eaten breakfast at the Writer's apartment, so when Xia De ate his breakfast, she got nothing, and could only lie reluctantly on the dining table beside Xia De's right hand.
Occasionally, she would try to stretch out a small paw and scratch Xia De's arm, and when Xia De looked at her, she would look back at Xia De with her big eyes.
But for the cat's health, including that bottle of goat's milk, Xia De gave her nothing.
Mia would occasionally let out meows, but she was very well-behaved and never once reached into the lunchbox to steal food herself.
Finally, even Louisa felt a little sorry, so she got up and found the bag of cat food in the kitchen, picking out a few kibbles for Mia.
She happily ate the cat food, but when the smiling Louisa wanted to pick her up, Mia wagged her tail and lay back down beside Xia De's hand.
"Your cat is truly heartless."
The Golden-haired Writer sat opposite Xia De, watching him eat.
"Strictly speaking, this isn't my cat... Your cooking is really good."
Xia De looked up and complimented her, and Dorothy Louisa covered her mouth, a smile she couldn't suppress appearing on her face:
"So, how much do you know about what happened between Luvia and me?"
"Not much that I truly know; mostly it's just guesses."
He said:
"Let's talk about these things after I finish eating. Oh, do you know about what happened to me yesterday?"
"Luvia and I didn't exchange much last night; she only told me some things that absolutely had to be told to you."
Xia De nodded, it seemed the princess and the Writer were not able to switch places unconditionally at any time and anywhere, as he had imagined.
"Meow~"
Mia was still eyeing Xia De's breakfast, and seeing that Xia De wasn't paying attention to her, she stretched out her paw and scratched him again.
After Xia De finished eating, the two of them sat on the sofa to discuss serious matters.
Louisa didn't say much, she simply handed him a diary:
"I originally promised you that I would tell you our secret once Leia returned, but because of the mermaid's song curse, she temporarily cannot leave Coldwater Port, which is why we planned the Coldwater Port holiday for you."
"Very nice."
Xia De looked down and flipped through the diary.
The diary was not complete; the Writer had separated the pages, leaving only those that could be shown to Xia De.
Opening the first page, it was dated half a year ago, close to what Priest Augustus had once said: "Starting half a year ago, Louisa would become a bit strange every few days.
She's still relatively normal now; a few months ago, we even suspected she was possessed by another soul" (Chapter 43).
At that time, the Priest's casual remark, in Xia De's current view, came infinitely close to speaking the truth.
The relationship between Dorothy Louisa and Luvia Cavendish, the Writer of Tobesk and the Princess of Delarion, was actually a soul exchange.
"These are the records we kept from when it first started.
I think once you read them, you'll understand exactly what happened.
Leia said she showed you a part of the diary.
Actually, it's nothing much, just waking up one day and exchanging souls; the princess became the Writer, and the Writer became the princess."
Louisa blushed a little:
"The princess, longing for freedom, experienced the life of a commoner; while the commoner girl, who had yearned for a princess's life in her youth, had the chance to experience a day as a princess.
After waking up the next day, we both returned to our own bodies, thinking yesterday was a dream.
It wasn't until we discovered what the other had done with our bodies that we understood amidst annoyance and fear..."
Seeing Xia De smile, her face turned even redder:
"Don't make fun of us; after all, no one knew what was going on at the time."
Actually, Xia De was smiling only because he was happy that his guess was correct, and he also liked such dramatic stories.
Nodding to show understanding, Xia De and the illiterate cat, who was stretching her head on the armrest of the sofa, leaned in together to look at the contents of the diary.
Under the date "December 23, 1853, month of slumber," only one sentence was written, and this sentence actually occupied three lines in the lined notebook, which was a great waste of paper:
【Who are you?】
Familiar content, but this was not Louisa's handwriting; the writing habits of the letters were completely different from the Writer.
The cursive style of the letters, however, was very similar to Jialinna's; nobles were accustomed to this writing style.
But on the 24th, the handwriting on the page reverted to Louisa's style:
【Who are you?】
Xia De looked up at Louisa, smiling and teasing:
"You two really like to communicate through diaries."
"There's no other way; a private diary is the safest method.
Xia De, don't you keep a diary?"
The Golden-haired girl asked back, and Xia De smiled without answering.
He had indeed inherited a diary from Sparrow Hamilton Detective, but every day he would only leave the same kind of entries in it as the former Detective, such as "Nothing happened, savings decreased" and "Client came, he's really stingy."
If anyone were to open Xia De's diary, they would surely think he was a Detective with a very peaceful life.
An Outsider would not write his life on paper.
"Princess Leia really did show it to me on purpose; now that I think about it, she was deliberately exposing more details for me to guess all day yesterday."
Xia De muttered softly, lowering his head to continue reading the diary.
And Louisa patiently explained:
"Both she and I have the habit of keeping diaries; although we don't record important content, just daily trifles, by finding the diary and flipping back, we can roughly understand what kind of person the other is.
So, in the first few times, after our memories became confused and blurry, we quickly figured out what was happening to us, and it's actually a bit funny; she actually..."
Her eyes drifted, as if she was thinking of past memories, then her face flushed; she must have thought of some embarrassing moments caused by the soul exchange.
Fortunately, Xia De, engrossed in reading the diary, did not notice the Golden-haired girl's embarrassment.