On Wednesday, instead of going to the Great Hall for lunch, I went to my room to finally read the letters I had received on Saturday. I decided to start with the most beautiful one, the Chinese one. The case was made of jade and gold, and inside was an expensive silk scroll, also with gold. And not a drop of magic or potions.
I was both curious and afraid to read the message. I knew who Lan was, so I wasn't expecting the best, or even good news, but rather something not entirely bad. But the further I went, the more hieroglyphs I read, the more I hoped that at least this time I could make peace without bloodshed and serious problems.
The Miyazaki clan had tried to teach me classical literature, but the colorful poetic expressions with the usual second or third meaning in each sentence were not my thing. It's probably because of my Slavic roots, and Japanese education for me was partly a psychological breakdown and partly a culturalization with a strong Japanese bias.
I'm not saying I don't like it, but I can't speak as nicely as a clansman of my level or higher. So Yusheng Lan, in very difficult to understand twists and turns, greeted me, then mentioned our extremely distant kinship in an extremely veiled way, and then already expressed the desire to meet and talk about the fate of the flame once sown by the great spirit. And the end again involves a lot of "water".
I spent my entire lunch break working on this scroll, snacking on a few chocolates on my way to Care of Magical Creatures. I approached the crowd of students with a non-spillable glass and finished my banana shake. I had no desire to deal with Hagrid's strange mutants, so I applied the Paralysis Signet to the selected specimen.
The 'professor' himself was trying to manage the chaos, so I had time to think. By the end of the hour, I had already made a decision, which I immediately conveyed to the Lan sisters, wondering what to do with the message. In the sense that it is not a penny, and how to behave in such situations, I am not trained at all. When I asked the question, I saw funny confused faces and a request to wait, saying that this was a very important matter that only their mentor would decide. Apparently, the girls hadn't been told either. That made me feel better.
Then I looked at the letter the Minhe sisters had given me. There were no potions on it, but there was a tricky seal. Before opening the envelope, I made a copy of the seal structures (I had to look through the astral to see everything). In addition to telling me that the envelope had been opened, the structure revealed a recognition scheme and a destruction mechanism.
We'll have to find out later how the seal is folded into characters on paper. The girls' father had asked me to meet him at Gringotts Bank in Japanese characters. And okay, but this Genosuke Mene had inserted the line, "Unfortunately, it is not in my power to pass on my tanto to my daughters, as has become customary...". As soon as I read that, my mouth went dry and my hands shook slightly. It turned out that I was right in my assumptions.
At the end of Genosuke, Mene wrote that if I agreed to meet, his daughters would tell me when the man arrived in Britain and through them we could arrange a date and time. Marika and Manami did not change their behavior in any way: just as dryly and coldly they informed that their father would arrive in London in a week, and then, if he agreed with the goblins, they would tell about the date and time. Having said all this, the sisters withdrew.
This situation shook me, but I did not jump to conclusions because I know absolutely nothing about them. I only knew Junko, but in a large clan, there are always several branches with different ways of doing things. I'll meet her father and talk to him and then everything will be clear.
On my way back to my room, I found Chinese women in front of the entrance, telling me that their mentor had invited me to a Chinese restaurant for dinner on Friday night in London. How prompt! The girls obviously didn't mind talking without witnesses, but I have a lot to do and I don't want to compromise myself — how could a simple invitation to tea be twisted?
No, until I understand what Lan wants from me, no "in private" or "without witnesses", or even here, in Britain, there are very sharp traditions and rules, like: if you dishonor a girl, then either marry her or join her family, if her parents do not mind, or pay, up to becoming a slave. Of course, such cruelty survived only in the aristocracy and in old pure-blood families, but Britain does not end with the "sacred twenty-eight," there are others.
But among the common people, things are simpler, about at the level of the Muggle world, that is, you can meet, be lovers, and then break up. Well, come on, I still have stones waiting for me, and so the thing is progressing slowly, because each granite block has to be covered with writing, seal anchors, and special patterns where the bronze will be poured.
I can't leave the outer perimeter of my estate to the local artifact masters — it's not their level at all, and unfortunately there are no Japanese masters here. Thanks to the potions, I managed to keep up my work rate, and by two in the morning, I had finished the next block and started the next.
Thursday went smoothly, with no adventures, unless I remembered Snape, with his bad temper and endless poison. Though on this day I even understood him in a way, when Longbottom made an explosion that sent heavy purple smoke to the ground. The boy was already at dinner, though the pale blue marks on his face were still visible.
Friday passed in much the same way, except that the dance class was attended by students from other schools. Usually the guests either sat in their 'houses' or walked around the school, and they didn't all eat at Hogwarts — only those who had made friends with the locals. Finally, it was time to determine the champions.