"SO IT WAS AARON'S DOING?" Yelan asked as she sat back on her chair, while you stood before her holding the images of the goods that were imported.
"Yep. They are totally his doing. The red seal which was imprinted with the Burton Family's symbol was the very sign that it was imported by him into Liyue Harbor." You said as you sat down and threw the file of images to a nearby table.
"The Qixing can question the Kanjou Commission regarding this matter and if we can get their statement of not knowing such an import, a charge can be placed against him." You suggested as you were thinking about the cons and pros of the situation.
A smile crept upon Yelan's face and it did not go unnoticed by you.
"Well, what do you think we should do dear sister? Arrest him now or make him suffer more. I'm sure a rich man should have more sins behind their success." Yelan said with a dark tone to it.
You raised your eyebrow at your sister, who usually took decisions on her own. "Why are you asking this again?"
Yelan looked at you and smiled. "I want the man who made my sister go through so much, suffer eternally in hell."
"Then, let's dig out more of his dirty crimes and make a final blow, shall we?" You suggested to Yelan.
.
.
"Y/N! STOP RIGHT THERE!" You turn around to be met with your best friends, Xiangling and Yanfei who seemed to be running towards you.
You were honestly confused at first as they seemed to be panting and breathing heavily, almost making you feel trouble was close.
"Ah! How long have been searching for you everywhere!..." Yanfei said almost out her breath.
"What's the matter? its unusual of you to just run and arrive like this..." You said as you looked at the two.
Yanfei and Xiangling look at each other with a smile that explained you were going to be dragged into something, for sure. You only hoped it wasn't a trip to Dihua Marsh again...
"Well! We heard you were attending the Annual Party conducted by the Qixing so..." Xiangling said halfway, looking at Yanfei to continue with the sentence.
"We want to prepare you for it! We need jewels, heels, gowns, a full make-over and more as this will be the first time you attend this with Kaveh!" Yanfei said enthusiastically, supported by Guoba in the back.
Before you could deny a single thing, The two of them held your hands and began running by dragging you along with, towards the most popular tailoring shop in the entire Liyue.
As you stood in front of it in horror, the two were grinning proudly. "What the hell Yanfei and Xiangling! What do you think we are doing?" you asked.
"We are shopping. I think that's all we are doing!" Yanfei replied back to your sarcastic remark as Xiangling nodded along.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS? let me rephrase that sentence, WE WILL GO BROKE IF WE ARE TO BUY SOMETHING FROM HERE." you said in the most horrified tone yet two of your friends kept giggling to themself.
They laughed non-stop as if they had inhaled those nitrous oxides given to suspects who does not cooperate to give information...
while You stood there unable to understand what on Teyvat had gotten into the two..
"Okay! Okay! So, Yelan gave us two-hundred thousand mora just to purchase all of these while she burns all the other outfits you own." Yanfei said as the wiped her fake tears out from laughing.
"Uh-huh! That's right! New Year, New You! And all those fancy clothes you wear for parties would remind you of that jerk! Bleh! I don't even want to remember him standing next to you." Xiangling said as she huffed and stood with her hands crossed across her chest.
Yanfei nodded her head in agreement along with Xiangling, trying to explain you as well.
"At such gathering there would be top level businessmen who works with the Qixing and Aaron at the same time. Seeing you there with Kaveh will already be a hot topic, after all he's a Kshahrewar Architect but like usual, all hot topics will have a load of rumors following it."
Yanfei's words weren't wrong after all. Such gatherings are hot spots to find Liyue's best rumors. This year's rumor would surely be about you and Kaveh as not so long ago, Aaron and you were publicly engaged.
Aaron had always kept you in his shadow and people had different wrong aspects about your character. He never stood in for you and continued to laugh at what they said. He never knew how much I was looked down upon. If anything, you wanted to stand on the same level as him this time.
If not as a businessman, at least as a senior civil department officer and a trusted worker of Ningguang, you wanted to look into Aaron and his business partner's eyes, asking them to stay away. and with Kaveh around it would be easier as he usually never lets you stand behind.
This, however never struck your mind. If you had foreseen such a tiring mess, you would have preferably backed off from attending but Kaveh was dead set on making you attend it.
Perhaps as a return gift, he does want you to show Liyue that Aaron wasn't your type.
"I cannot help but admit, you two are right..." You said in a low voice.
"Look Y/n! You have always stood second when you were with Aaron. He always made you stand in his shadow but I don't think that's the case when it was you and Kaveh. At the event during Lantern Rite, he stood up for you and also let you deal with your own case, containing his anger upon your request, right? Do you think Aaron would have done anything? Would he have listened to you? " Xiangling said as she placed two of her hands onto you shoulder, looking at you in the eye.
"So this time, let everyone know you aren't the same Y/n from a year ago. You have bloomed to be stronger better and way cooler than that jerk who I will, one day boil in a pot of hot boiling water then burn him to crisp."
Yanfei cut in middle of Xiangling's torturous methods to torture Aaron, "Alright, Alright! No more speaking illegal stuff! I have been dealing with so many violent cases as of the late.."
"Aww...you could just place the case under the name of self-defense right?" You asked, pouting slightly as you were enjoying the methods Xiangling described.
"Of course not! I cannot book everything under the act of self-defense, now can I ?" Yanfei scoffed at you two.
─── ∙ ~εïз~ ∙ ───
"Sir Kaveh! You have two letters from Sumeru...oh wait one is from the Grand Sage's office directly and the other is from...the Grand Sage himself? A Personally sent letter." Eugene said as he entered Kaveh's room holding two letters in his hand.
Kaveh was drawing up a blueprint and so far, he was making great process. But upon hearing the mention of 'Grand Sage' he snapped the pencil he held in his hand into two pieces.
"If it's another transaction bill that he has sent me, I am going to return back to Sumeru and have a great talk with him." Kaveh said in frustration as he got up and received the letters from Eugene.
Eugene stood in silence but he peeked over to see what Kaveh had drawn and was truly happy to see the progress he had made. At that moment, Eugene could only think of you as the goddess who rescued the only light of Kshahrewar from falling apart which could have led to a series of problems for the Kshahrewar Darshan.
Kaveh skimmed through the two letters sent by Alhaitham quickly and had a little smile on his face.
"Looks like Alhaitham isn't that bad of a person, he even dug out Aaron's graduation details and records of bribes he has given to Akademiya." Kaveh said as he put the letter down.
Eugene stood there, frozen for a moment. He had no idea what Kaveh was up to as he only thought his senior wanted to regain his art skills back.
"What..." Eugene muttered loud enough for the words to fall into the Architect's ears.
"What do you mean by 'What'? I'm doing something I should be doing." Kaveh said as he slightly smirked and placed the two letters down, completely ignoring the mention of a transaction bill Alhaitham had made in his personal letter.
He was happy that he had something against Aaron for the moment. Kaveh shooed Eugene out of his room and got back to sketching his blueprint until he noticed the letter he had received from the chief architect of the Jade chamber, which laid untouched ever since the last time he had drawn.
Perhaps he forgot to place it back in the drawer he kept his notes in.
He saw that the letter concluded with the name 'n/n' which was the very same name used by Y/n that day when she first met him at the tavern. In fact he was using the very same sketch drawn by her, trying to re-create it.
He quickly, removed clip that held the reference sketch and began comparing. The handwriting and the names were too similar. Holding the paper on which Y/n drew and the letter he had received, he came to a conclusion that,
Either Y/n is lying to him or she herself is the chief architect of Jade Chamber.
END — CHAPTER 18.
A/n : Hello hello, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!! Kaveh is one step closer to finding who the mysterious architect is.
Anyway thank you for the 19K reads!! I hope you are enjoying the story so far.