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Doussay likes An Zhe. He’s sweet, even if his questions often make her wonder a little bit, his focus on certain things and lack of knowledge in certain areas. She wonders, but she doesn’t know, and he’s a good soul, anyway. Gentle, in a way that isn’t often found here, not anymore.
Of course, it also helps her goodwill towards An Zhe that Lu Feng always seems to show up when he’s around.
They’re heading back to the apartments together - it’s not something she usually does, but they had happened out the door at the same time, and she had offered - and Lu Feng happens upon them in the street. Perhaps it was intentional, calculated. He seems to like An Zhe, and while Doussay feels a pang of jealousy, feels a longing for that, she knew it was never hers to have.
If it was intentional, it is enacted as though it is a coincidence, and An Zhe comes to a halt beside her. “Lu Feng,” he murmurs, seemingly unaware he says so, but the man’s cold green eyes snap on the two of them.
He steps over, closes the distance between them. “An Zhe,” he says, and his eyes flicker to Doussay. She’s interrupting, she’s interrupting, and she’s about to apologize and excuse herself, even if she wants to linger, but An Zhe casts open, hopeful eyes her way. He wants her to stay.
Doussay hesitates.
Lu Feng sees this, his eyes narrowing just a fraction, and he reaches into his jacket. He pulls out a small bag and offers it to Doussay. She stares at him for a moment, and puts out her hand - he drops it into her palm. “Take this to the Garden of Eden,” he says. “Ask for Madam Lu.”
Doussay doesn’t know what to say to that, what to say to Lu Feng, who just spoke to her, and she loses her chance when he whisks An Zhe away. Of course. Of course.
She looks after him, and closes her eyes briefly. She can’t say anything to him, not truly, not when she’s handed this opportunity on a golden platter. Doussay wants to chase, wants to stretch out her hand and touch him and thank him and-
Instead, she opens the bag.
Doussay probably isn’t supposed to, but nothing like that has ever stopped her before. They look like… small bits? She doesn’t know what they are, small things that are maybe plant pieces - they seem organic - and so she closes the bag, takes a deep breath, and heads for the Main City.
She doubts she’ll be allowed in - not to the Garden of Eden, which is so cut off, so different from elsewhere, somewhere she has long been cast out of. She’ll go, explain the situation, and they’ll take it from her and give it to this ‘Madam Lu’. Related to Lu Feng? Maybe.
It occupies her, this thought. Lu Feng had seen her, and Lu Feng had gotten rid of her immediately - hardly surprising. She doubts he knows who she is, unless An Zhe has mentioned her. Has he? She wants to know and she doesn’t.
It is quiet on the way there. She takes the train, and then she walks. Doussay knows the way - of course she does, it is the Garden of Eden - and yet she knows nothing, as well, nothing familiar. She does not belong there. She is not an elite, nor one of the women who help create life there (hah. As if.). To go to Eden now is… strange.
Her musings are interrupted when she is nearly bowled over.
A child, a young girl, runs right into her and nearly knocks her off her feet and Doussay immediately reaches out to stop and steady both herself and the girl. “Whoa!” she says, surprised both by the way she came and by the sheer fact that she’s seeing a child at all. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”
The girl looks up at her, mouth open to say something - and then she stops, distracted. “You look different,” she says.
Doussay has to smile. “Thank you,” she says, because the girl clearly means it as a compliment, and if this girl is from the Garden of Eden, it’s unlikely she’s seen women like her around. It’s kind of funny. “Are you from the Garden of Eden?” she asks, although she doesn’t think children from there are allowed to just run around. She doesn't remember being allowed to.
To be fair, she doesn’t know the rules at all. She just assumes that’s the case, but she could be completely wrong.
“...Yes,” says the girl, after a moment. “You’re… not.”
“No, I’m not,” Doussay says. “But I’m going there right now.”
The girl considers Doussay, glancing back the way she came, then glancing beyond Doussay, and refocuses on her. “Why?”
“I have something to give Madam Lu.” Something in the girl’s face changes when she says that name, a flicker of… Doussay can’t quite put a finger on it.
The girl seems to come to some sort of conclusion. “I’ll take you there,” she says, and turns and leads the way.
“Thank you,” says Doussay. “What’s your name?”
“Lily,” says the girl, and Doussay introduces herself as well.
Lily is quiet, and Doussay observes her, not certain what to say. It’s not as though Doussay has spent a lot of time among children, but something strikes her as off, as odd. Perhaps this is what growing up in the Garden of Eden does to someone, before they are exposed to other people? Was she just as odd, when she left such a place?
They walk together, a little bit further, and Doussay hears someone say, “Lily!” It’s a woman. A beautiful woman, and Doussay realizes almost immediately that this must be Madam Lu. She had already suspected a relationship to Lu Feng from the name, and from appearance? Yes, certainly so.
“Lily,” Madam Lu says again, as she gets closer. She looks over the girl, and then looks at Doussay. “And who is this?”
Doussay has the immediate feeling of… not danger, exactly, but she thinks her earlier thoughts were true. Lily is not supposed to be out here. She’s not even certain Madam Lu is supposed to be out here.
Fortunately, Doussay is no snitch. She smiles, instead. “I’m Doussay. Lily was taking me to you because I have a delivery from Lu Feng.”
That grabs Madam Lu’s attention. “From Lu Feng?”
She nods, and offers the small bag. Madam Lu takes it, and her eyes soften when she looks down at it before she looks back up at Doussay. “Thank you,” she says. “You know my son?”
It was good to have it confirmed, though she didn’t really need it at this point. “We have a mutual friend,” she says. “What are those?”
They both look at her, and Doussay feels as though she’s asked something incomparably stupid, before Madam Lu says, “Seeds, for my garden. They’re for growing flowers.” Ah. Doussay has no experience in growing things - not that many people do, unless they’re selling it. Something like flower seeds aren’t something she’ll come across.
Lily looks up at her, dark eyes glittering in a way that makes Doussay feel uncomfortable. There’s something unnerving about the child, and Doussay doesn’t know if it’s her own unease around children, the way the Garden of Eden seems to cling to her, or… something else. “We can show her the flowers,” Lily says. “Can’t we?”
Madam Lu looks at her, and Lily looks back, and Doussay doesn’t know what they see in each other’s eyes, but Madam Lu looks at Doussay and she smiles. “You can, if you wish,” she says. “The garden is beautiful.” The garden... or The Garden?
It feels like a trap. It feels like stepping into something… she should not be stepping into. But Doussay thinks of the commission she’s made of the man she cannot talk to, and looks into Madam Lu’s beautiful eyes.
Surely, she can do this one thing. “I’d like to see them,” she says, and they lead the way to the Garden of Eden.