Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 337: Writer’s Diary

When Shard returned home from his basement completely soaked, it was already two o’clock in the morning on Tuesday.

He disregarded the droplets of water falling to the floor, hurriedly trampling up the stairs, passing through the dimly lit stairwell to the second floor. Pushing open the room door almost like falling forward, he staggered into the kitchen, grabbed the biscuit tin placed up high to prevent it from being stolen by the cat, and stuffed the slightly damp biscuits into his mouth to finally feel much more comfortable.

While drinking water did fill his stomach, his desire to eat something had not subsided. Of course, this could also be a side effect of overusing "Gluttony." In any case, Shard was very hungry now.

Yet, corresponding to his hunger, a wave of fatigue that surged unconsciously after returning home was gradually replacing hunger as the strongest emotion.

But no matter what was next, Shard still took a bath and changed his clothes first. Although this strange era was somewhat more backward compared to his hometown, the development of the Steam Industry and the widespread steam and gas pipelines made taking a hot bath a very simple matter.

After bathing, he intended to sit on the sofa for a while, then decide whether to go out to eat or to check if Miss Luisa’s apartment on Feather Quill Street still had its lights on. But as soon as Shard leaned back on the sofa, the comfort made him close his eyes instinctively.

So he said in his mind:

"I’m just closing my eyes to rest for a moment, for about a few seconds, then I’ll get up immediately."

Swept into a deep slumber amidst the delightful laughter of a woman in his mind, he didn’t dream at all that night due to exhaustion. And in the early hours of the morning a few hours later, what woke Shard were not the gentle morning rays of summer shining through the living room window, but the sound of knocking from downstairs.

Someone was knocking on his door.

Still groggy from sleep, Shard opened his eyes, and since he slept sitting up, he felt very uncomfortable upon standing. But this minor fatigue was countered by a sense of relaxation and comfort.

It was the 30th day of Thunder Moon, eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and he had slept for about six hours on the sofa.

"Today is Holy Prayer Day; I need to go to church this afternoon."

Standing up and gradually waking up, Shard yawned towards the window and reminded himself of today’s schedule.

Sniffing and wearing slippers as he went downstairs, passing through the somewhat dim stairwell, he recalled last night’s great adventure and felt lucky to have escaped.

He guessed that the early knocker was a new client or a friend. But as soon as he opened the door, a small black shadow immediately threw itself at him, causing Shard to widen his eyes, instantly alert:

"Mia!"

"Meow~"

The petite orange cat, leaping from the dissatisfied arms of a blonde lady, flung itself at Shard who, in a flurry, caught it. The cat nimbly jumped onto Shard’s shoulder, constantly rubbing its fuzzy little face against his.

Shard also reached out to scratch its chin, making the orange cat tilt its head back and purr.

After playing with the cat, he finally had time to look at the lady standing outside the door. Miss Luisa had a very displeased expression and you could feel she was perhaps angry as she spoke:

"Shard, won’t you invite me in first? When did you get back?"

Shard initially thought the blonde writer-woman was blaming him for not coming to see her immediately after returning home, but he soon realized that her anger didn’t seem directed at him.

"I got home at two o’clock in the morning after saying goodbye to Princess Lecia yesterday," he responded, and immediately Miss Luisa ceased her speech, hesitatingly looking at him:

"You really knew who she was... let’s talk upstairs... I’ve brought you breakfast. Since you didn’t pick up your cat last night, I guessed you got home late and might not have had breakfast yet this morning."

She shook the stack of silver-gray metal lunch boxes in her hand; Shard resisted the urge to salivate:

"Miss Luisa, you are truly kind."

The blonde, blue-eyed girl smiled slightly, gesturing for him to lead the way.

Carring sheep milk, cow milk, and the morning’s newspaper upstairs, Miss Luisa opened the three metal lunch boxes beside the dining table, and the still steaming food immediately caught the attention of Shard and Mia.

But since the orange cat had already eaten its breakfast at the writer-woman’s apartment that morning, Mia received nothing while Shard ate, only reluctantly lying beside his right hand on the dining table. Occasionally, it tried to stretch out its little paw to swipe at Shard’s arm, and whenever Shard looked at it, it would gaze back with big eyes.

However, for the sake of the cat’s health, including that bottle of sheep milk, Shard gave it nothing. Mia occasionally made meowing sounds, but was very well-behaved, never attempting to stealthily snatch food from the lunch boxes.

Finally even Miss Luisa felt a pang of guilt, stood up, found the bag of cat food in the kitchen, and picked a few pieces for Mia. The cat happily ate the food, but when the smiling Miss Luisa tried to hug it, Mia flicked its tail and lay back down beside Shard’s hand.

"Your cat really has no conscience," the blonde writer said, sitting opposite Shard watching him eat.

"Strictly speaking, this isn’t my cat... and your cooking is really good," Shard responded, lifting his head to compliment her. Dorothy Louisa covered her mouth, her face breaking into an unstoppable smile:

"So, what do you know about me and Lecia’s situation?"

"Not much really, mostly guesses."

He said,

"Let’s talk about these matters after dinner. Oh, do you know about my incident yesterday?"

"I didn’t have much communication with Lecia last night; she only mentioned some things she had to tell you."

Shard nodded, it seemed that the princess and Miss Writer weren’t as he imagined, able to swap at will without any conditions.

"Meow~"

Mia was still coveting Shard’s breakfast. Seeing that Shard hadn’t noticed her, she stretched out a paw and swiped at him again.

After Shard had finished eating, the two sat down on the sofa to talk business. Miss Luisa didn’t say much, just handed him a diary:

"I had promised you that I would tell you our secret when Lecia returned, but because of the ’Song of the Mermaid’ curse, she temporarily can’t leave Coldwater Port, so we planned this Coldwater Port holiday for you."

"Very nice."

Shard looked down at the diary, which was incomplete. Miss Writer had torn out some pages and only left those that Shard could see.

Opening the first page, it was dated half a year ago, very close to when Priest Augustus had once said, "Starting half a year ago, Luisa would become a bit odd every few days. She’s still normal now, a few months ago we even suspected that her body had been occupied by another soul" (Chapter 43).

At that time, the casually spoken words of the priest, in Shard’s view now, almost truthfully revealed the reality.

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The relationship between Dorothy Luisa and Lecia Cavendish, the writer from Tobesk and the princess from Draleon, was actually a soul swap.

"This was from the early days, the records we kept, I think, after you read it, you’ll understand what exactly happened. Lecia said she has shown you part of the diary. It’s really nothing, just waking up one morning with souls switched, the princess became the writer, and the writer became the princess."

Miss Luisa blushed:

"The princess, craving freedom, experienced the life of a commoner; and the young woman, who as a girl had dreamt of a princess’s life, had the chance to experience a day as a princess. The next day, when we woke up, we both returned to our own bodies, thinking yesterday was just a dream. It was only when we discovered what the other had done with our body that we understood, in annoyance and fear..."

Seeing Shard smile, she blushed even more:

"Don’t make fun of us, after all, at the time, no one knew what was happening."

Actually, Shard smiled because he was happy that his guess was correct, and he also liked such dramatic stories.

Nodding understandingly, Shard and the illiterate cat standing on the arm of the sofa leaned in to look at the content of the diary.

Under the date "December 23, 1853, Slumber Moon," only one sentence was written, and it surprisingly took up three lines in the grid notebook, quite a waste of paper:

"Who are you?"

Familiar content, but it was not Miss Luisa’s handwriting; the habit of writing letters was completely different from the lady writer’s. The curly letter style, however, was quite like Miss Galina’s, typical of the nobility’s writing method.

But on the subsequent 24th day, the handwriting on the page returned to Miss Luisa’s style:

"Who are you?"

Shard looked up at Miss Luisa and said teasingly,

"You really like to use diaries for communication."

"There’s no other way, private diaries are the safest method. Shard, don’t you write in a diary?"

The blonde lady retorted, and Shard smiled without answering.

He indeed inherited a diary from Detective Sparrow Hamilton, but he only writes in the diary daily, leaving the same kind of notes as his predecessor, such as "Nothing happened, savings decreased" and "Client visited, he’s really stingy."

If someone were to open Shard’s diary, they would definitely think this detective leads a very peaceful life.

Outlanders, don’t write their lives down on paper.

"Princess Lecia really did show it to me on purpose. Now that I think about it, she was deliberately revealing more details yesterday to make me guess,"

Shard murmured softly, lowering his head to continue reading the diary. Miss Luisa also patiently explained:

"Both of us have the habit of writing diaries. While we don’t record important content, just mundane things, finding the diary and looking back can give a good idea of who the other person is. So initially, after our memories became chaotic and blurred, we quickly figured out what had happened to ourselves. It’s actually quite funny. She even..."

Her gaze wandered as if recalling the past, then her face turned red again, surely thinking of some embarrassing moments caused by the soul swap. Fortunately, Shard, focused on reading the diary, didn’t notice the blonde lady’s embarrassment.