CHAPTER 9 #3
Hedy even, like a calm and composed teacher, suggested that they apply this to blood transfusions and emergency treatments. With proper sterilization and blood type matching, blood transfusions to save lives wouldn’t be a difficult task in this era.
As soon as this idea emerged, it shocked the Florence Academy. Rumor had it that their paper was sold out on the day of its publication, with even the lord’s own copy almost being stolen.
This discovery was on the level of a Nobel Prize.
Hedy only vaguely remembered the details but had unintentionally helped Da Vinci complete a historical review.
They found a time to meet with Duke Enzo again, explaining the entire process and safety of the experiment. They even performed the experiment in front of him.
The young duchess was Type A, Duke Enzo was Type O, but their child turned out to be Type B.
When the result was revealed, Da Vinci immediately reacted, taking the elderly duke into the study to discuss the matter further—or perhaps offer comfort.
The old man emerged from the study with red-rimmed eyes.
He hadn’t expected to encounter such a thing.
Indeed… that woman...
Hedy let out a sigh of relief, thinking that at least this commission was resolved.
She stared at the colorful murals in the palace for a while, her mind suddenly bringing up a familiar yet unfamiliar term: Prussian blue.
Prussian blue, also known as Berlin blue, is a deep, clear color with an indescribable beauty.
Hedy suddenly saw a similar hue in the duke’s mural.
Modern paints are easy to mix because they are chemically stable, and with a little water, they blend easily. But in this era, where even the progress of chemistry was waiting for alchemists to unlock its secrets, mixing paints was much more difficult and prone to failure.
She couldn’t quite recall the exact origin of this pigment, but she had heard related stories. After all, Prussian blue was used as the color for German military uniforms before World War I.
Was this blue color perhaps also called "iron blue"?
Iron rusts and turns red, so why would it turn blue?
Due to the passage of many years, recalling certain knowledge had become quite a challenge.
The duke didn’t invite them to a meal, only sending a message with Da Vinci for the lord.
On the way back, Hedy continued to ponder the issue, feeling as though she were trapped in a maze.
Da Vinci, originally thinking about the duke’s secrets, noticed her distracted state and curiously asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“Iron,” she responded instinctively.
Hedy hadn’t intended to discuss this with Da Vinci, but she briefly explained her thoughts.
“Iron is a fascinating substance,” Da Vinci remarked. “It can turn red, it can turn green—it’s like a chameleon.”
“I suddenly remembered that my teacher once said you could extract some kind of blue from iron.”
“Isn’t there already the blue from copper sulfate ores?” Da Vinci replied. “Thanks to this ore, the prices of the once-expensive lapis lazuli have started to drop.”
“That’s the blue of a clear sky,” Hedy said, still somewhat fixated. “Iron blue should be... a color like the deep sea.”
Deep, heavy, and quieting to the soul.
They returned to the Palazzo Vecchio to rest briefly and have some communication.
Da Vinci relayed the business updates to Lorenzo and explained the progress on the blood type paper. He then called Hedy to accompany him to the workshop to look at the dissection manuscripts he had been organizing.
As Hedy was about to get into the carriage, a thought suddenly crossed her mind. After confirming that there were no prying ears nearby, she quietly asked Da Vinci a question.
"Do you... have a darkroom?"
Da Vinci chuckled. "I really enjoy engineering, so of course, I designed one for myself."
Hedy appeared uneasy and a bit nervous. She took out a willow wood box and brought the key and lock along with it.
"I’d like to ask you... to keep a few things for me."
Da Vinci hesitated for a moment but quickly nodded. "Hmm, I won’t let anyone else know."
The first step in forming a deep bond is sharing each other’s secrets — and also each other’s vulnerabilities.
Da Vinci had done many things that defied convention. Just his dissection manuscripts alone, with their implications on the sun and the church, could have sent him to the gallows a dozen times over.
At the beginning of her time in this world, Hedy didn’t trust him much. She didn’t dare to hide her belongings in his workshop. All she knew was that he was the artist behind Mona Lisa, a mysterious and outstanding painter. But these facts didn’t prove his character.
It wasn’t until over a year passed that she gradually realized his friendliness and trust toward her. She finally decided to entrust him with the same.
— After all, burying everything wasn’t a long-term solution.
Apart from the ring she had sold in the black market to exchange for gold and silver coins, all her necklaces, bracelets, and pendants were still intact.
Da Vinci hadn’t expected this young woman to be so skilled at hiding things.
In the old abandoned house’s roof tiles, beneath a particular olive tree's stone, even in a secret hole in a wall—she had hidden her small packages everywhere.
While keeping an eye on their surroundings, Da Vinci helped her retrieve everything, carefully checking and examining each item.
There were five pieces remaining, none of which showed signs of being tampered with or opened.
They hurried back to the workshop and entered the secret room next to the fireplace.
Hedy carefully placed the items into the willow wood box, locking it up securely.
"Can I ask... what’s inside?"
Da Vinci considered himself a reliable person, but he had a strong curiosity.
He noticed that Hedy’s eyes hesitated, so he waved his hand dismissively. "It’s fine if you don’t want to say."
"Hmm... let me show you," she replied.
It was definitely more pleasant to look at than the corpse you dissected earlier.
Hedy lowered her head and cut open the cloth bag, taking out the jewelry while her mind raced to come up with a plausible story.
But for a brief moment, she sensed that, even if she truly were a thief, this man would not send her to the gallows. After all, the strangest and most unpredictable person in all of Florence was probably Leonardo himself.
"Is this... a necklace?" Da Vinci suddenly froze, furrowing his brow. "This isn't just a sapphire."
He clearly saw the large diamond, cut into dozens of facets, attached to the teardrop-shaped pendant.
Wait—
Hedy suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. She thought she might have misjudged him, made the wrong decision in trusting him. For a moment, she even imagined herself on the execution platform.
"This isn’t something I stole—" she began to explain, but was quickly interrupted.
"I’ve seen this before," Da Vinci said, holding up a candle and staring at the dazzling diamond as it shimmered in the light. "Do you... also have a ring? I think it has a ruby set in it?"
Hedy froze, instinctively responding, "Did you see it in the black market? Who bought it?"
Da Vinci subconsciously repeated, "Black market?"
"Why the black market?"
What was going on?
He had actually seen that ring? But didn’t know it was connected to her?
"In fact, I remember that ring very well—diamonds are incredibly hard, and no one could have cut it into so many facets," Da Vinci lowered his voice, watching Hedy closely. "When the lord first summoned me, his servant asked me to identify that ring."
A cold shiver suddenly crept up her spine.
"Are you saying... he might have known all along that I secretly sold that strange ring?"
Hedy felt her mind go blank.
Her initial thought had been simply to survive in this strange and ancient place. If things went poorly at Da Vinci’s workshop, she needed enough money to buy food and water, to stay alive.
But everything changed so quickly. She could never have imagined that so many things would unfold the way they did.
“Do you remember when this happened?” Da Vinci asked.
“Last year, at least a year ago.”
“Do you think... he would connect that ring to me?”
“It’s hard to say.”
An entire year had passed.
During this time, aside from the semi-fake interrogation at their first meeting, where he questioned her under the pretense of the pus and orange peel about whether she was a witch, he had never shown any suspicion in other situations.
Hedy herself had even directly asked him similar questions—Aren’t you curious about my secrets?
His answer had been that everyone had secrets, but what the Medici family wanted was her loyalty.
That answer had fit perfectly with his banker persona.
Rather than sending an unknown girl to the executioner’s fire, Florence and the Medici family now possessed water purification systems that were hundreds of years ahead of their time. They had microbiology that could change countless perceptions and had saved the lives of two children.
The priorities were already very clear.
“Do you need me to help you find an escape route?” Da Vinci, noticing her prolonged silence, clearly worried, asked. “You could go to another place, become a nun in disguise, and no one would notice.”
“No, I’m safe now.”
Hedy raised her head to look at him, her voice steady. “Even if he knows the ring is mine, I’m still safe.”
She had started to grasp the core rules of this world.
It was not so different from the world 500 years later.
There was only one rule: profit.
As long as the benefits she brought to the family while staying alive far outweighed any minor doubts about religion, she would be protected and sheltered.
This was also the reason the lord had decided to give her a more solid identity after she saved the lady of the house and young Giuliano.
What she needed to do was continually deepen the lord’s trust in her while creating more benefits for him.