#tianthoughts

This story is about a perfumer, Vera Nair.

Vera was a talented perfumer born in Grasse, France. After years of experimenting and researching, Vera finally gained inspiration from a mysterious perfumer recipe, and she created Euphoria. The recipe came with a letter from Oletus manor, stating that the recipe is a perfume that helps you to forget about your worries. However, the aroma doesn’t last long.

Vera has no choice but to find the source of the formula and maybe alter and improve the recipe. She is hoping the owner of the manor can help her relieve her worries, primarily her feeling of guilt. This is because she is not Vera Nair, she is Chloe Nair. Vera Nair was her late twin sister’s name, whom she murdered. Chloe used Vera’s name for a reason: Vera was the likeable twin, and Chloe was the opposite.

Chloe murdered Vera out of rage from jealousy. Vera took Chloe’s perfume and took credits for it and opened a shop under Chloe’s name and used the recipe that Chloe received. Without Chloe’s knowledge, Vera was only trying to advertise Chloe’s skill and talent. Vera herself knows that no one likes Chloe, so she took the advantage of people’s favour of Vera. Chloe only realised that Vera was only trying to help her, after murdering her sister, the only person who likes and loves Chloe sincerely.

Xie Bi’an and Fan Wujiu were patrolling the area as government runners one day.

The local governor filed a lawsuit against two government officers for injuring his son at a tavern. Apparently, Fan was the person the son said assaulted him. The local governor demanded the county’s government to solve this issue within 10 days.

Initially, Xie Bi’an was the one who confessed to the assault at the tavern and claimed that no one was involved. Then, Fan Wujiu confessed to the assault at the tavern and also claimed that no one else was involved. Later, there was a letter of appointment addressed to both Xie and Fan are to apprehend the fugitive together.

Fan sent a letter to Xie, asking Xie to meet him at the Nantai Bridge to discuss regarding the so called assault. Using his record in the apprehension, Xie has earned himself a chance to choose the “truth”. He only chose to be the guilty party.

This story is about 2 sworn brothers, Xie Bi’an and Fan Wujiu.

[The Heibai Wuchang, or Hak Bak Mo Seong, literally "Black and White Impermanence", are two deities in Chinese folk religion in charge of escorting the spirits of the dead to the underworld. As their names suggest, they are dressed in black and white respectively. They are subordinates of Yama, the ruler of the Underworld in Chinese mythology, alongside the Ox-Headed and Horse-Faced Hell Guards. They are worshiped as fortune deities in Chinese temples in some countries. (Source: Wikipedia)

When its purpose is intimacy among close friends, sworn brotherhood stands on the border between friendship and kinship. It is analogous to other sorts of Chinese fictive kinship, particularly adoption of the god-parent type, and yet at the same time it is different because its fictive quality remains vibrantly in the consciousness of the participants, and no attempt is made to forget the artificiality of its creation. It is closer than friendship, not so close as kinship, different from both, and similar to both, and it generates secondary relationships that are different from itself, such as kinsmen of Ego's sworn brother, or sworn brother of one of Ego's sworn brothers. (Source: Jordan, 2020)]

They are not brothers, but sworn brothers.

One day they travelled to Nantai bridge, they noticed the weather and it was going to rain. Xie told Fan to wait under the bridge and Xie will return home to get an umbrella. After Xie left, the rain started to pour and the river rose. However, Fan was hesitant to break his promise and wait somewhere for Xie. He stayed under the bridge. Shortly after, Xie returned with an umbrella and Fan was nowhere to be found. Fan Wujiu had drowned.

Xie Bi’an did not take this in fine. He was so grieved because he had no choice but to live without Fan. Whether it is raining or shining brightly, he carried the same black umbrella during the day and wore white mourning clothes every day. Xie eventually committed suicide by hanging, underneath the Nantai Bridge, where Fan waited for him on that fateful day.

This story is about a Geisha, Michiko.

[Geisha (芸者) (/ˈɡeɪʃə/; Japanese: [ɡeːɕa]),[1][2] geiko (芸子), or geigi (芸妓) are a class of female entertainers from Japan trained in traditional styles of performing art, such as Japanese dance and singing. Their distinct appearance is characterized by long, trailing kimono, traditional hairstyles and the oshiroi make-up. Contrary to popular belief, geisha are not prostitutes; a misconception originating in the West due to interactions with oiran, whose traditional dress was similar to that of geisha. (Source: Wikipedia)]

Michiko was the best dancer in Yoshiwara, a famous red-light district in Edo, Japan. It is said when Michiko dances, she has her movements like a red butterfly gently flapping its wings. Michiko met Miles, a foreign army officer, at a banquet party where they met and fell in love. She gave up everything including her career as a geisha. They got married and returned to Miles’ homeland together. She was a curious and excited when she set her foot on the foreign land, only to find out that her marriage with the man she loves is beginning to see its misfortune.

Miles’ father is particularly the most outspoken of his thought regarding this marriage and is totally opposing it. He was sceptical of her and her intentions and hopes to drive her out of the family home. One time, Miles came home from a business trip only to find out that his wife disappeared. His father claimed that Michiko ran off with another man while Miles is not around and encouraged his son to marry another woman and forget Michiko. What is on the other side of the story is that Miles’ father murdered Michiko and left lots of scars on Michiko. Without knowing this fact, Miles started to search for his wife but he never found her as nobody knows where she went.

This story is about a forest keeper, Bane Perez.

Bane worked at forest farm and patrol cabin at Oletus Manor. He has raised a black nosed moose like a child while he was working. However, new hunting season always comes, accidents always happen during this time. Bane often wonders how to hide and take care of the moose into safety. He was too late, the poachers has arrived with no mercy.

Gunshots rang through the forest. The black nosed moose has fallen to the ground when Bane arrived. When he approached the scene closer, he looked at the poacher’s team and recognised one of them. He was the boy that Bane rescued few years prior. Bane pleaded with them for mercy, but the poachers have a much sinister idea. They cruelly cut Bane’s tongue and placed the head of the black nosed moose onto Bane’s head, making him look like a Greek mythology character the Minotaur. They locked Bane up with a steel jaw bear trap at Bane’s neck and abandoned him to begin a massacre in the forest.

This story is about the popular guy in Hullabaloo, Mike Morton.

Mike is a ball of sunshine; he is full of energy and is a very cheerful man. His birth’s background is unknown, but at some point of his childhood, he was taken in and care of by a man named Bernard, Hullabaloo’s ringmaster. Mike saw Bernard as his father figure and he was raised his circus where Mike learned acrobatics and juggling.

Bernard often has to scold Mike for his mischief, such as wanting to his juggling balls with stones. Mike’s request was “hazardous”, said Bernard. This because of the size and shape of the juggling balls, as well as filling, are very critical. At some point of Mike’s career, Mike’s bottle of strong acid (as filling for his juggling balls) was stolen from him. Coincidentally, around the time when the bottle was misplaced, the sad clown Joker’s face was burned.

Bernard suspected Mike of doing such because Joker’s injuries looked like corrosions, which leads to the suspicions of acid’s outcome properties. His suspicions did offend Mike, of course. He thought of getting another bottle before Bernard finds out about this “mistreatment” of Joker.

This story is about a man “who grew up in the woods”, Murro.

Murro grew up locked in a cage by Hullabaloo’s ringmaster, Bernard, who is presumably his own uncle. Along with him in the cage was a boar to accompany him and it has been practically became his companion throughout his caged life. Throughout his life, he often refers his “eventful” experience that his journey of growing up is similar to Kaspar Hauser, a German youth who claimed to grow up in an isolated cell. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser)

It seems that the story of him growing up in the wood was just a rumour the Bernard made up for the drama.

Murro disclosed that his first 10 years of his life, he lived surrounded by walls and all he has was a toy dog. The only person that he recognises was his uncle Bernard. In compare to Kasper Hauser, he is luckier than Murro. Despite his death being ruled as being stabbed, Murro said that everyone knew that Kaspar Houser killed himself instead after his presence was being ignored as many people came to think the he was a huge fraud.