One Day, My Dad Disappeared - Chapter 27

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 27
“I’ve patched it up for now, but you should get it properly looked at by a doctor later.”
“Well, I have to say you’re quite thorough.”
He lifted his bandaged hand and examined it from every angle, his keen eyes searching for any sign of misalignment even as he spoke dismissively.
I gathered the scattered glass shards from the floor. Leaving them scattered was just asking for someone to get cut.
“Hey, what are you doing picking those up with your bare hands? That’s dangerous.”
Aidan quickly pulled on gloves and began collecting the glass himself.
“Well, if you insist on doing it yourself, what was I supposed to do?”
“You want me to clean it up while you just stand there watching?”
“N-no, not that, but… normally you’d have ordered a servant to handle it right away.”
The moment I finished speaking, he straightened up from his crouch.
“As it happens, I was just about to call someone.”
He opened the door and dashed out, then hurried back inside, calling out as he did.
“So don’t injure yourself fumbling around alone—sit quietly and wait for me.”
“Yes. I’m quite confident in my ability to sit still.”
I nodded, carefully wrapping the glass shard I’d been holding in cloth.
This glass, though—no matter how much air I extract with the Mechanical Pump, there’s always a limit.
“It’s impossible to create a perfect Vacuum with a Mechanical Pump alone.”
Even if I seal the gaps with rubber, air sneaks in the moment my attention lapses. How am I supposed to solve this?
I need a way to expel the gas completely…
‘What if I used the weight of a liquid?’
What if I used a liquid heavier than water to pull the air inside the Glass Tube downward using gravity?
“Hey, why are you still holding that? You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Your Excellency!”
“What?”
“Mercury. I need Mercury!”
“Mercury? That’s toxic. It’s not difficult to obtain, but why do you suddenly need it?”
I rushed to the blackboard, seized a piece of chalk, and began sketching a device made of several interconnected Glass Tubes.
“This is the principle. You drop Mercury from the top of a thin, tall vertical Glass Tube. Since Mercury is thirteen times heavier than water, it will act like a piston as it falls, completely filling the interior of the tube.”
Aidan studied the diagram I’d drawn.
“The Mercury droplet pushes the air inside the Electric Lightbulb connected to it downward?”
“Exactly! Since it’s a liquid, there won’t be any gaps for air to slip back through, and as the Mercury drains out, the space left behind will become a perfect Vacuum!”
Aidan ran his hand across his jaw. A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“Creating a natural piston motion using the weight of the liquid.”
Then, as if overwhelmed by admiration, a low chuckle escaped him.
“You really do have the most remarkable ideas.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course. I’ll have Mercury collected immediately and summon the glass artisans to complete this Mercury Pump you’ve designed.”
This quickly? Truly, money is king! I gazed at Aidan with undisguised admiration. With his support, I could build and test everything I’d merely imagined so far.
“What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what? What do you mean?”
“Like you’ve just found your meal ticket.”
Ah, there it is—my emotions are always written all over my face. I touched my cheeks. My smile was stretched ear to ear. I really need to practice hiding my feelings better.

The next day.
“Wow, you really finished this in just one day?”
Looking at the Mercury Pump, crafted far more precisely than the sketch I’d drawn on the blackboard yesterday, I couldn’t help but marvel.
Aidan opened an iron container. Inside, a cool-looking liquid metal rippled. It was Mercury.
“We need to be careful.”
We carefully transferred the Mercury, both wearing masks and gloves.
“Let’s begin.”
I opened the fine valve on the Glass Tube.
Plink, drip, drip.
Silver droplets began to fall.
The Pressure Gauge stopped moving.
“I’ll connect the leads now.”
My fingertips trembled slightly.
Aidan grasped the Electric Current control lever. Blue veins stood out on the back of his tense hand. We exchanged a brief glance, a silent nod between us.
Click.
In one corner of the Laboratory where everything had been dark, an impossible sight unfolded.
With a subtle humming vibration, the thin bamboo filament trapped inside the vacuum glass sphere began to glow a deep crimson, and gradually the light spread outward, shifting to orange.
One corner of the Laboratory brightened softly, as though the sun were rising in complete silence.
It did not flicker like a candle, nor did it emit the acrid stench of gaslight.
It was the Imperial Capital’s first Electric Lightbulb—born of pure electric current alone.
“The light… the light came on, Aidan!”
“We did it?!”
Aidan and I cried out in triumph at the same moment. I had never heard him raise his voice like that before. Without thinking, I grabbed his chest and bounced on my feet.
But there was no time to celebrate. What mattered now was how long the light would hold. If it burned out at once, the whole thing would be worthless.
“Wait—not yet. We need to see how long it lasts.”
“Right, of course. Duration is… is absolutely the most important thing.”
I released his shirt and turned my attention back to the bulb. The ticking of the clock’s second hand seemed deafening in my ears. One minute, two minutes, five minutes…
In the past, before we achieved a true vacuum, the filament would always burn out at this point. But now it held its orange glow steady and unwavering.
“Please hold on. Please…”
I murmured the words under my breath, my eyes alternating between the bulb and the clock face. An hour had passed without my noticing. Then two. Mercifully, the bulb had not yet lost its soft, golden radiance.
Neither Aidan nor I went home. We simply stood there, watching the bulb, holding our breath to see how long it would endure. For a long while, neither of us spoke.
We held ourselves perfectly still, afraid that even a breath might extinguish the flame, watching nothing but the bulb.
The sunset beyond the window gave way to night, and night gave way to dawn. A full day passed. The light in the bulb had not yet gone dark.
“This is a complete success, isn’t it? It has to be?”
Of course it would have been wonderful if it could last even longer, but the fact that it had survived an entire day was itself a magnificent achievement.

When I told Father that I was abandoning my graduate studies to become a civil servant in the Imperial Capital, he was against it.

He said, “You kept working on that lightbulb thing, didn’t you? So why suddenly become a bureaucrat?”
“Oh, it was just daydreaming. It’s not real research.”

I had laughed it off, making excuses.

“Your passion shouldn’t become your profession. Once you make it your job, you’ll end up hating it. Besides, what’s wrong with being a civil servant? It’s a perfectly stable career! A steady salary every month, good benefits! Your father’s daughter is doing just fine, isn’t she? And I’ve experimented a few times—my mind just isn’t cut out for it. Invention isn’t something everyone can do.”
He replied, “But I believe our daughter can do anything.”

Father was right. I had succeeded.
If Father were here now, he would surely praise me for this. Like some overeager fool, he’d call every single member of the Mercenary Group one by one to brag about it, and then he’d pull me into his arms.
He’d ruffle my hair roughly, saying, “You told me you’d succeed!” And thinking of him now, a smile bloomed unbidden across my face.
In that moment, I caught sight of a mirror hanging on the wall. The light from the bulb reflected in its surface. And reflected beside it was Aidan.
It was strange. His green eyes were not fixed on the bulb—they were looking at me.
“You did it, Cynthia.”
He opened his mouth.
“I knew you would succeed.”
Like spring arriving over snow-covered earth, the cold, frozen expression he always wore thawed for the first time, opening like the season itself.
In that instant, I could not tell whether the heat flooding my cheeks came from the bulb’s glow or from the warmth in his eyes as they beheld me.
But in that moment, I found myself looking not at the bulb, but only at his eyes.
The most brilliant thing my eyes could see was not the Electric Lightbulb.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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