What happened to Isaac?

There was nothing unusual in the next whole week. Li Qiming was busy with his mother's postoperative recuperation and planned to live near Cannes for a while. When communicating with Xavier, he mentioned that his mother's condition was still not optimistic, so he didn't talk about it again. Abbey things.

In the rest of the time, apart from the courtesy return visits, only Angel Gordon came a few times, and once he came, he poured out bitterness on Xavier, saying that the boy in Mayfair caused him great trouble and caused him several days Can't go to bed on time at eleven o'clock at night.Isaac asked him the whereabouts of the dog tag many times, and Gordon always said that it would be soon, but later Xavier told him that with the efficiency of the Evidence Office, it would not be surprising to wait a year or so, and just treat it as It's okay to lose it.This truth made Isaac feel very depressed, and he couldn't even arouse his interest in horse racing, which he was most passionate about.

On Saturday night, Sir Fisher brought the eldest lady back for a return visit.Isaac was invited to dinner and dressed early, but Miss Fisher seemed intimidated by his curly red hair, rosy face, and countryman's tall, muscular figure.Isaac eyed her almost disrespectfully, noticing that she smelled so familiar of the perfume that Xavier had carried with him when he came home late last Sunday.

During the banquet, Isaac deliberately behaved like an outsider who was completely separated from the upper class, did not participate in the conversation, and spoke in tongues when he had to speak.Xavier couldn't figure out what was going on with him, and he winked frequently, but Isaac was indifferent, and the tail beat the chair impatiently.Xavier thought he couldn't stay, and took the opportunity to privately persuade him to go back to the room, but Isaac was even more unhappy.He left without saying a word, not knowing that Miss Fisher was staring at him until he disappeared behind the door.

Tonight's moon looks like the pale little face of the strange girl downstairs, which really makes people feel lost.Isaac put his ear on the door panel, and vaguely heard the old man talking to Xavier about marriage and the like.These distinguished guests who came in and out of the front door talked about it like this, money, marriage, and he lost interest after hearing it at the beginning.

Isaac opened the window, slid down the hose, strolled out to the front yard by himself, sat down on a bench surrounded by bushes, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.When the match was struck, sparks flew up, reflecting a slender figure not far away.

Isaac narrowed his eyes for a while, until the man came over on his own initiative. "Oh...it's you." He stood up and sat down again, feeling a little embarrassed, thinking about it for a while but couldn't remember the lady's last name in front of him.Fisher?Seems to be.

"Excuse me, can I sit down?" she asked.Isaac nodded, and she sat down and said, "The moon is very cold tonight."

Isaac glanced at her, stubbed out his cigarette, and took off his suit jacket, which made Miss Fisher flinch in surprise.

"You should go inside," he said.

Miss Fisher took the coat hesitantly, put it on her shoulders, and thanked in a low voice: "The men are talking about business inside, I'll come out to get some air."

"What business is there in this world?" Isaac sneered, and the two didn't speak for a long time after that.

Miss Fisher watched him quietly in the moonlight.A muscular man with a muscular shirt, about 40 to [-] years old, with a well-groomed face, but it's not hard to imagine him looking slovenly.The grey-green eyes, so piercing in the room, as if angry at everyone, were calm now, a color reminiscent of the shade of an early spring forest.

"What do you think of Mr. Xavier?"

"Him?" Isaac was silent for a moment, "I have no idea. Maybe marrying Xavier is a good choice, I don't know, and I have never married him."

This made Miss Fisher feel uneasy.How did he know about the marriage?Oh, cousin, perhaps Mr. Xavier had mentioned it to him.There is no similarity between the two of them, and it will always make people forget this relationship.

"I think Mr. Xavier may not like me very much." The words blurted out, and Miss Fisher felt a little regretful.Why would you suddenly confide this to a stranger?She turned her head to look at Isaac's face, he just raised his eyebrows, and his expression was not disturbed.

"Oh, yes," he said, "what a pity."

Miss Fisher was not much offended by Isaac's perfunctory remarks, mostly because he was handsome enough that all recklessness and faux pas were glorified into a wild mystery.This person looks so lonely, under the rough appearance hides the undisturbed melancholy and restlessness, which is not possessed by the pampered young master, those young men of the same age all have a face that has never suffered .

"I'm 26," she said.

"That's still young."

"You think so?"

Isaac was noncommittal.

Then they sat outside in silence for a long time without saying a word.From here, you can see the floor-to-ceiling windows on the first floor. The two people in front of the coffee table stood up and walked out.Daisy stayed late today and went ahead to unbolt the door for them.Isaac stood up and said, "You should go home, miss."

"Will I see you again in the future?" she asked, looking up.

"If Xavier got married, I'd move out."

"No, sir..." Miss Fisher plucked up the courage to take a step forward, but when he turned his head suspiciously, she just returned the coat on her shoulders, "Goodbye."

Isaac stood where he was and waved.Miss Fisher took her father's arm and got into the back seat of the car, and the driver rolled up the windows and drove up the road, the headlights like two superfluous moons.A hazy yellow halo flickers, flickers, flickers behind the overlapping branches and leaves.It can still be seen from far away.

Xavier and Isaac played chess for a while before going to bed.Isaac held the ivory chess piece to consider his position, and asked casually, "Are you getting engaged?"

"Not yet."

"Is that what it might mean in the future?"

"This body of mine is only 26 years old, and it's still young. So far away, what do you think about it?...Let me see, general! You lost again. Let's stop here today, and wait for Daisy to collect the chessboard tomorrow," Xavier lifted the cat from Isaac's lap and patted him on the shoulder, "Good night, Isaac."

"Ah," Isaac turned his head, "good night, Langdon."

The cat curled up next to the pillow and fell asleep quickly after the lights were turned off.Xavier was sleeping on his stomach, stroking the cat's slick fur and trying to settle the score in his mind.

I heard from Gordon that there will be a world war in a few decades, so we must start to plan ahead now.A pound a week was paid to Daisy's couple together, and Daisy was enough, but it was better to say "servants" when you were away from home.After all, an income of [-] pounds a year is not particularly rich, and now a coat costs several pounds.Real estate cannot be liquidated. In case the business continues to be in a downturn, why not lay off a few workers and ask Isaac to take over?Not a bad idea.Although it costs money to raise a succubus, at least it is more cost-effective than getting married. Besides, his wife may quarrel with him, but Isaac can't quarrel with him anyway.

The abacus in the angel's heart was crackling, and soon, soon, Xavier closed his eyes.

Xavier had a dream.

In the dream, he was just an ordinary newsboy, hurriedly catching up to the passing clerk, pestering him to buy a copy to take away, but not only failed to sell, but was shoved to the ground, soiling his pants.East London is full of rubbish.Sticking to the corner, splashing on the street, walking.And his alcoholic dad carpenter, who now has a dull ache in his ribs.

"Sir, sir! The latest paper for a few pennies . . . "

A carriage came galloping.

The candles on the table were blown out by the wind.

Xavier slept until midnight, feeling overwhelmed and out of breath.Quilt too thick?No, not for this reason.Something warm lay on top of him; something wrapped around his wrist like a leathery, jelly-like cord.His consciousness struggled between lucidity and chaos.

The cold wind poured up from the bottom of the feet, and there was a rustling sound.

One pair of hands, with burrs on the nails, and gun calluses on the left and right sides of the index finger of the right hand.The hands lifted his pajamas and pushed them to his chest.Then a kiss landed on the ribs, dry, warm, man's lips.

Xavier woke up with a start.He threw off the quilt, and Isaac, who was lying on his body, raised his eyes to look at him.

Boom.The wind knocked the window against the sash and bounced open, and Xavier was pretty sure he locked it before going to bed.

Xavier panicked.He pushed Isaac back, but was pinched by the wrist in turn. The succubus's hand was so big and powerful, making his resistance seem like a joke.

He said loudly, "No!" Isaac seemed to understand it to mean something else, and even tried to keep tugging on his pants.Xavier had no choice but to bind Isaac with a spell.The magic took effect very quickly, and Isaac immediately fell down with a muffled grunt, his face flushed from lack of oxygen, and he was even unable to struggle under the shackles, just like Xavier when he was held down by him.On his stomach, blood swirled from under the bandages, and Xavier remembered that Isaac was wounded.

After the restraint was lifted, Isaac lay on the bed exhausted and did not speak for a long time. Only the cold sweat on his forehead and the rapid breathing proved that he really felt pain just now.The tail still didn't give up, hooked Xavier's cuff and tugged, Xavier subconsciously withdrew his hand.This action made the succubus bewildered.

"I can't figure it out," he said.

"What?" Xavier asked.

Isaac was as silent as a dry well.Xavier fumbled to light the lamp. Under the dim light, the succubus looked puzzled and frustrated: "Why do you keep me around? Your servants do things for you, and you pay them; The cat pleases you, you keep it. You keep me, but you don't abuse me, don't fuck me, don't let me steal something or kill someone for you."

Isaac spoke incoherently, with long pauses between each sentence, as if speaking such a long passage was a struggle for him.He was like a commodity that would open its mouth to sell itself, a cow waiting to be slaughtered that learned to relax, and Xavier was almost speechless in shock: "Listen, listen, Isaac. I don't need you to do it for me What, it's enough to wait for me to go home every day like this."

"You know it's worthless. Why push me away? Do you hate me?" said Isaac, "I have nothing else. You didn't ask me to do anything because it wasn't time? I'm here Staying too long, I'm afraid I won't be able to pay your asking price then."

Xavier fell silent.He didn't know how to convince Isaac that it cost nothing to live in his house, and he didn't know what kind of life one lived to be in the mindset that kindness was bestowed on him only to hurt him doubly later.Isaac actually needed an explanation, otherwise it would be impossible to understand why others were kind to him.

"I don't hate you," Xavier said, "but I—I can't sleep with you casually. I'm a very traditional British person. For me, doing those things must at least have a process, of course it's better. Start from the beginning in the normal order. That is, start with love, do you know what I mean?"

"Oh," after hearing this, Isaac's eyes were like picking apart the coals in the fireplace, revealing the red-hot, burning inner core, "then you will fall in love with me now, tomorrow? The day after tomorrow?"

Xavier fell silent again.After giving an ambiguous answer, the embers in Isaac's eyes were extinguished, and he didn't bother him any more. He got up from the bed and pushed the door to go out.

Isaac can't sleep with anxiety at the thought of going back to the guest room, if only Xavier had kept him in the locker at first.

"Goodbye, Xavier." Isaac closed the door.

In the early morning of the next day, Xavier sent Daisy up to wake Isaac up, followed by a scream that broke the rest of the rest of the day.

After hearing the shout, Xavier hurried upstairs and helped Daisy who was almost fainting.Over her shoulder he saw Isaac in the old suit he had come in, barefoot, nothing Xavier had given him.A hemp rope dangled from the beam, and Isaac was hung from the window, and the chair was overturned on the carpet.

He has lost his pulse, his skin is cold, and his limbs are basically stiff.Xavier reached out and touched his ear, the imprint was not branded on the soul, and naturally with the death of either of the two bodies, their connection was broken.

The noose around his neck was so tight that Xavier was unable to let him down for a moment, and had to send Daisy and her husband to help.Daisy hurried downstairs. Xavier wanted to tell her to be careful, but he opened his mouth and couldn't make a sound.

Xavier felt a small but lingering shock, a bit like seeing the frozen corpse of a sparrow on the windowsill when he was a teenager.He groped to sit in the chair, and the motion took so much effort that when he tried to light a cigarette, his hand trembled when he struck the match.Subconsciously, he wanted to ask Isaac to help untie the hanged man from the rope, and suddenly remembered that it was Isaac's body hanging in front of him.

After losing the soul in it, the tall red-haired man was nothing more than an inanimate thing, a corpse, someone else, so strange, it seemed that it was not the succubus he knew at all.

Demons don't die, and Isaac's soul must be wandering somewhere, perhaps on the way to apply for a new body.He just ran away.

but why?Isaac obviously started to get close to him, but this relationship would be overturned overnight.

Isaac can't believe in unconditional preferential treatment, for him, it's not that complicated, it's nothing more than Xavier neither needs him nor likes him, then he shouldn't be here for no reason.He is afraid of being domesticated and then abandoned, and refusing to be domesticated is just a way to stop losses in time.

Xavier would not know these things.But he was sure that it would not be so easy to find Isaac next time.

Xavier then arranged for Isaac's funeral.It rained a lot on the day of the burial, which shows that Isaac was indeed a good hand at causing trouble.Suicide was originally a scandal, and because Xavier emphasized that this cousin was withdrawn and did not want strangers to see him off, in the end only Daisy, Li Qiming, and Miss Fisher were present. Considering that Isaac was a demon, Xavier Nor did he ask a priest for him.

"Why?" asked Miss Fisher, not knowing what it was about.Shaking his head, Xavier silently tilted the umbrella towards her, his shoulders wet from the rain, and the fabric smudged darkly.

After the funeral, Xavier drove Miss Fisher home. She held an umbrella and walked away in the rain. She was dressed in dark and solemn clothes, and her figure was particularly thin.This scene touched Xavier's heart suddenly, but it was not because of loving her.

This was the last time they saw each other alone, and Sir Fisher never mentioned to Xavier the engagement after the funeral, and the lady was said to have married a lawyer, a red-haired Irishman.

After more than a week, Xavier woke up one morning and found 6 pounds 1 shilling pressed under the statue of the Virgin Mary by the bedside.The window of the bedroom, which had been clearly locked the night before, was wide open, and the curtains were filled by the wind like the skirts of a lady from the last century.

No wonder he had another dream of the carriage whizzing by.