On the morning of July 17th, at the Roppongi Grand Hotel.
After gathering information about the Mirror World from Blue Arc, Black Cocoon smoothly slipped back into his hotel room. Stripping away his full-body Restraining Bands, he closed his eyes and lay on the bed for a while.
Not long after, a sudden series of knocks echoed from the hotel corridor, followed by Gu Zhuo'an's hoarse voice.
"Wenyu, do you know where Qiye went?"
Ji Minghuan rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. He let out a yawn, smacked his lips, and feigned a groggy, half-awake voice. "Big Brother? He probably went for a morning jog. He usually has a habit of running in the mornings."
'Yeah, right, a morning jog. The kind of morning jog that trails lightning and scares the absolute hell out of people,'
he added ntally.
Gu Zhuo'an fell silent for a mont. "I see." He paused. "When Qiye gets back, tell him I have sothing to say to him. Ask him to wait for
at the hotel."
"Oh, okay..."
While agreeing aloud, Ji Minghuan thought to himself, 'Old Man, you aren't planning to reveal your identity to Big Brother, are you? Don't ruin our morale right now. If Big Brother finds out you're Ghost Bell, how could he possibly focus on preparing for the Auction in a few days?' Just as this thought crossed his mind, a new set of footsteps echoed from the hallway.
'Big Brother?' Relying on his Restraining Band Senses, Ji Minghuan quickly identified the owner of the footsteps.
Out in the corridor, Gu Qiye looked up from his Mobile Phone screen, spotting Gu Zhuo'an standing outside the room.
Gu Zhuo'an froze for a second. He turned his head to look at Gu Qiye, a faint glimr swirling in his eyes.
After a long silence, he spoke slowly. "Qiye, do you have a mont? I want to... talk with you."
Gu Qiye stared into his eyes in silence. A mont later, he looked away and opened his mouth.
"I'm busy. I have plans to go out with a friend. Whatever you have to say, save it for when we return to China."
He paused, adding with a touch of sarcasm, "Assuming you haven't suddenly disappeared again by then."
Gu Zhuo'an opened his mouth but couldn't find the words. He rested one hand on his hip and lowered his head, a hoarse voice scraping from his throat.
"Alright, we'll talk after we get back."
Just then, with a sharp click, the door swung open. Soone slipped out and leaped right between the two of them.
"Dad, Big Brother, want to go grab so sushi?" Ji Minghuan held up his Mobile Phone, showing them a sushi restaurant recomnded on Xiaohongshu.
"I..."
Gu Qiye faltered. He had just lied to their father about having plans with a friend, but he truly didn't want to turn down his younger brother.
"What do you an, 'I'?" Ji Minghuan grumbled listlessly. "You vanish for the entire day. It's rare for us to visit Japan, yet you've only eaten with
once. I was planning to make you treat
to a few more als."
"Alright."
Looking at his brother's goofy expression, Gu Qiye couldn't help but smile.
"Sure... Let's go get sushi. Dad's treating."
Gu Zhuo'an forced a smile onto his face as he spoke, gently raising his hand to ruffle Gu Wenyu's hair.
'Uncle Ghost Bell, could you please not touch my head? Damn it, you beat a psychological shadow into
the night before last. I'm genuinely terrified you'll smash my skull into the wall in the next second,'
Ji Minghuan clicked his tongue, secretly grumbling in his heart.
He felt just like Sun Wukong having his head stroked by the giant hand of Buddha—his monkey hair was nearly being plucked bald, leaving him terrified of being crushed under the Five Elents Mountain for another damn few hundred years.
"Little Yu, where is this place?" Gu Qiye asked.
Ji Minghuan pocketed his Mobile Phone and replied, "It's right nearby, just a short walk away. I went there with a friend before, so I know the way. I don't even need GPS."
"A friend?" Gu Qiye asked curiously.
"Yeah, that pretty girl you guys saw
with on the street earlier, forgot?"
"Oh, that wo—" Gu Qiye suddenly paused, his words coming to an abrupt halt.
He vividly recalled the night they first arrived in Tokyo, when he had caught a distant glimpse of this friend Gu Wenyu ntioned. He had only taken a cursory look at her back then, rembering nothing but her outfit, drawing a complete blank on her facial features.
But thinking back on it now, his brother's friend's outfit—a trench coat and a beret—was unmistakably...
'Ke... Qirui?'
That na slowly surfaced in Gu Qiye's mind.
His eyes widened slightly as his thoughts began running wild.
'Ke Qirui is Wenyu's friend?'
'Why... would my little brother know her?'
For soone who had maintained a double life for years, this sensation felt as if two entirely separate worlds had suddenly violently collided. An established order was collapsing, like two trains running on parallel tracks suddenly swerving to crash head-on...
It felt as though the entire world was drowning in the blare of train whistles.
Overwheld with bewildernt, Gu Qiye looked up, slowly shifting his gaze to Ji Minghuan, who had already strolled over to the elevators.
"Big Brother, what are you zoning out for?" Ji Minghuan waved at him, grumbling in exasperation. "Dad's treating, aren't you going to hurry up? When will we get another chance like this?"
Gu Qiye stood frozen for a long mont before forcing out a rather unnatural smile.
"Coming."
The three took the elevator downstairs, left the Roppongi Grand Hotel, and walked for about ten minutes until they reached the sushi restaurant.
The sushi restaurant was tucked away amid the gray architecture in the back alleys of Roppongi Hills. A thirty-centiter-wide vertical hinoki wood plaque hung above the stone steps, inscribed with the black lacquered characters for "Sukiyabashi Jiro".
With a clattering slide, they pulled the sliding cypress door about half a ter to the right and stepped inside.
Ji Minghuan led the father and son to take a seat at the hinoki wood counter, which could accommodate ten people. He then picked up a nu and expertly checked off items with a Pencil. It didn't take long for him to finish ordering.
He knew exactly how rich Ghost Bell and Blue Arc were. One was a supervillain Criminal, and the other was a massive pop idol. Their combined assets could probably buy ten sushi restaurants just like this one.
So, he didn't hold back in the slightest while ordering, acting as if the words "frugal and thrifty" simply didn't exist in his dictionary.
He looked up, originally intending to pass the nu to Gu Qiye and Gu Zhuo'an. But seeing them both so deeply preoccupied with their own heavy thoughts, he rolled his eyes, completely bypassed the two brooding n, and stretched his arm out to hand the nu directly to the Waiter.
The Waiter took the nu and flashed him a sweet smile.
"Dear Guest, the two young ladies who accompanied you last ti aren't here today."
To keep in character with this body's persona, Ji Minghuan replied in broken Japanese he had picked up from television dramas. "Uh... Yoshi, those two... two beautiful, beautiful ladies are currently busy whispering sweet nothings to each other, very very good!"
The Waiter couldn't understand a word he was trying to say, so she simply smiled politely, turned around, and walked away.
Ji Minghuan admired his own stellar social skills, took a sip of hot tea, and glanced at the brooding guy sitting on his left, followed by the brooding guy sitting on his right.
The father and son bore strikingly similar expressions.
At that very mont, Gu Zhuo'an was trying to figure out how to broach the topic of 'Blue Arc' with Gu Qiye.
He couldn't exactly just ask, "Qiye, you're Blue Arc, aren't you?"
Having gone years without truly communicating with his child, he simply couldn't find a natural entry point for the conversation.
On the other side, Gu Qiye was busy pondering why Ke Qirui would know his younger brother. It was far too bizarre. Could it rely be a coincidence...? In truth, Wenyu shouldn't have any connection to the world of Exorcists, but this coincidence felt way too far-fetched.
Seeing that neither of them was going to speak, Ji Minghuan decided to show so rcy and drop a bombshell of a topic to liven up the tense family atmosphere.
"Oh right, right, let
tell you," he began. "Little Sister was acting crazy with
again a few days ago."
"Xiaomai?" Gu Zhuo'an glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
"What happened with her?" Gu Qiye asked, his curiosity piqued.
Ji Minghuan sighed, resting his chin in his hand, and spoke in a casual, nonchalant tone.
"She suddenly sent
a voice ssage on my Mobile Phone, saying sothing like, 'Big Brother, I'm actually an Exorcist.' And she sounded incredibly, entirely serious about it. I honestly suspected that playing too many video gas had finally rotted her brain."
He paused for a mont, then turned his head to look at Gu Zhuo'an. "Dad, do you think we should take Su Zimai to so internet addiction treatnt center when we get back ho to help her kick the habit?"
However, the only response he received was silence—a dead, suffocating silence. Neither Gu Zhuo'an nor Gu Qiye spoke a word. The lines of their faces were drawn tight, their expressions as rigid as cast iron.
They looked like two humanoid statues standing on his left and right.
Perhaps not even Xia Pingzhou's sentient Queen chess piece was as lifelike as this father and son duo. If they entered a statue-mimicry competition, they were guaranteed to sweep first place year after year.
A second later, both father and son snapped back to reality, an identical gleam of astonishnt flashing through their eyes.
As if struck by lightning, undisguisable surprise and shock erupted on their faces at the exact sa ti. This was the very first ti Ji Minghuan felt that Ghost Bell and Blue Arc actually shared a resemblance.
"Pfft..." Ji Minghuan puffed out his cheeks slightly and took a huge gulp of tea, desperately suppressing the urge to laugh out loud.
"An Exorcist?" "She said... an Exorcist?"
After a brief mont of dead silence, the two n shattered the quiet in absolute unison.
Ji Minghuan feigned surprise. "Co on, why are you two looking at
like you want to eat
alive?"
He nodded, an odd expression crossing his face. "Yeah, yeah... Little Sister specifically said 'Exorcist.' Seeing your weird reactions, this isn't so sort of cult, is it?"
Gu Zhuo'an remained frozen in place, his pupils shrinking down to the size of pinpricks. Then, he slowly lowered his head, raising a hand to support his forehead.
His face was draped in heavy shadows as he thought to himself, 'How could this be, how could this be... An Exorcist? Why would Xiaomai know anything about Exorcists?'
On the other side, Gu Qiye was pressing the back of his hand against his mouth. He lowered his face, his eyes darting back and forth as he stared fixedly at the counter's surface.
Filled with sheer terror, his mind raced, 'Ke Qirui and Wenyu are friends, and now... Wenyu says Xiaomai suddenly told him she's an Exorcist? No, it's gone this far—this absolutely cannot be a coincidence.'
At that realization, Gu Qiye jolted violently, as if a bolt of lightning had struck directly through his mind.
He yanked his Mobile Phone out of his pocket, opened his text ssages, and scrolled to his chat history with Black Cocoon, pulling up a specific exchange.
"Blue Arc: Let
ask you a question. What's the deal with that girl nad Ke Zinan? I feel like there's sothing weird about her."
"Black Cocoon: Prying into a woman's privacy isn't sothing a hero should do. You'll find out sooner or later."
His gaze flicked up and down, repeatedly scrutinizing that single line of text from Black Cocoon. The words reflecting in his pupils practically felt like they were warping and breaking apart.
Right then, the strange sensation he had felt when first seeing that "Ke Zinan" violently flashed through Gu Qiye's mind...
Cold sweat slowly trickled down his forehead as he muttered, "Could it be... that girl is..."
At that very mont, Ji Minghuan looked up from his teacup, quietly observing Gu Qiye's rapidly shifting expression.
He mused to himself, 'That's more like it... Revealing my sister's identity while playing the role of Black Cocoon runs the risk of looking like I'm selling out a collaborator. But if I do it using Gu Wenyu's identity, there's no problem at all.'
'Besides, if Little Sister hadn't run her mouth and randomly told
she was an Exorcist, how would an ordinary guy like
possibly know about sothing like that?'
'Sister can't bla
for this. I don't even know what the concept of an Exorcist is anyway. What's wrong with casually bringing it up in front of my brother and Dad? It's not like it's anything important.'
With that in mind, Ji Minghuan clamped his lips cheerfully around the rim of his teacup, glancing back and forth with glee.
He felt just like a gar entering the "Victory Screen" after a long match. After finishing his observation of Gu Qiye's expression, he turned his head to savor Gu Zhuo'an's reaction.
But then, Ji Minghuan suddenly paused.
Gu Zhuo'an was still clutching his forehead, the elbow resting on the counter trembling faintly. His face was entirely obscured by dark, brooding lines, while his pupils faintly glead with a crimson hue from within the shadows.
'Oh no, is Dad about to enter his second phase?'
A chill of pure dread shot through his heart.
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