At 1:30 AM on July 24th, Xia Pingzhou swiped his room card and pushed open the door to his room.
Xia Pingzhou raised a hand to scratch the bridge of his nose. Looking up, he saw that Ayase Origami was indeed still awake.
He had taken the room card when he left, cutting off the power to the room. Unable to turn on the lights even if she wanted to, she sat leaning against the windowsill, quietly reading the haiku collection in her hands by a sliver of moonlight.
"Since you are awake, do you want to grab a drink at the bar?" Xia Pingzhou asked. "The others are there too."
"I do not want to," Ayase Origami replied without even turning her head.
"Blood Progenitor is waiting for us downstairs."
"Then I want to go even less."
"Alright, then I will not go either."
With that said, Xia Pingzhou silently lowered his head and sent a text ssage to Blood Progenitor on his mobile phone.
[Xia Pingzhou: Going to sleep, no need to wait for . Over.]
[Blood Progenitor: (Middle Finger)]
Xia Pingzhou turned off his mobile phone, casually slotted the room card into the power switch, and pulled up a chair to sit by the windowsill.
"What did you all go out to do?" Ayase Origami broke the silence after a mont.
"Fought demons."
"Why didn't you wake ?" the kimono girl asked.
Her tone carried a trace of icy interrogation, much like an owner discovering their cat had been silently fed by an annoying neighbor.
"You dislike staying up late," Xia Pingzhou explained.
"I was not asleep."
"Why?"
"I thought you had died."
"Your joke-telling skills have improved."
"Thank you."
As she spoke, Ayase Origami pulled a photograph from her haiku collection. Lowering her gaze, she stared at it quietly in the moonlight.
Xia Pingzhou glanced at the photo in her hand and asked,
"When was this picture taken?"
The photograph depicted the courtyard of a mansion. Next to a pond stood a wooden corridor, where an older man in a butler's uniform and a young girl in a kimono stood side by side.
Two rows of breathtakingly beautiful cherry blossom trees grew in the courtyard, their petals fluttering down from the branches as if threatening to drown the entire world.
A faint smile graced the older man's face, while the girl's pale, doll-like cheeks remained completely expressionless, a single double-flowered cherry blossom resting near the corner of her lips.
"Four years ago," the kimono girl answered. "Before we left the family."
"How old were you when this was taken?"
"Twelve."
"And how old are you now again?"
"Sixteen."
"You were really short when you were little," Xia Pingzhou remarked deadpan. "Shorter than ." He kept looking at the photograph.
He was telling the truth. During the days Ji Minghuan had been imprisoned in the Salvation Society's base, a group of experinters in white lab coats would co by at regular intervals to asure his physical data.
His most recent recorded height was 1.62 ters, while the Ayase Origami in the photograph looked to be only about 1.55 ters.
'I won,' he thought.
Ayase Origami fell silent for a mont before giving him a lukewarm sidelong glance. "Kitten, you are getting rebellious."
"It is a fact."
"Show
a picture of you when you were little, and let us compare who was taller," Ayase Origami challenged.
"Childish."
Xia Pingzhou smoothly turned the tables on her.
The gaze Ayase Origami cast his way grew steadily colder.
"Alright, to be honest, I did not keep any photos from the past," Xia Pingzhou confessed candidly.
Long before joining the brigade, he had destroyed all evidence of his past existence to ensure he left no traces behind.
"Why?"
"No particular reason." Pausing for a second, Xia Pingzhou suddenly added, "Actually, I think you and I are a bit alike."
"In what way?"
Xia Pingzhou lowered his eyes, studying the pale, doll-like girl in the photograph. "It is that feeling of clearly standing right there... yet trying so hard to detach yourself from your own body just to stay out of everything," he murmured.
He hesitated for a mont. "I cannot quite describe it properly. Basically, it is trying your hardest not to form connections with the people around you... refusing to let yourself feel anything, so you lock your heart away. Sothing like that."
Ji Minghuan remained silent.
To achieve his goals more efficiently, he was indeed doing his utmost to ignore the influence of the host body's mories, preventing himself from developing feelings for the people around him.
Whenever he interacted with them, he constantly reminded himself that these relationships were entirely fake. One day, when they outlived their usefulness and he destroyed the host body, these connections would vanish completely, as if they had never existed in the first place.
Therefore, detaching himself and avoiding emotional attachnts was for the best.
Every action he took had to serve the ultimate goal of escaping the Salvation Society.
And the Ayase Origami in the photograph was exactly the sa. In so way, she too seed to be trying desperately to pull herself out of reality.
Though Ji Minghuan had no idea why.
With this thought, he controlled Xia Pingzhou to lift his head and quietly observe Ayase Origami's profile.
She did not seem keen on answering.
But just as Xia Pingzhou withdrew his gaze, Ayase Origami suddenly spoke up.
"When I was little, my father would always get angry at
for no reason," she said. "So, every ti he lost his temper at , I would imagine myself as soone else... a bystander."
"Why?"
"That way, I would not get hurt."
"And eventually... you just got used to it."
"Yes."
Xia Pingzhou stayed quiet for a mont. "Then, when we are talking, do you habitually imagine yourself as a third party watching our conversation?"
After saying that, Ji Minghuan suddenly found it a bit humorous. 'Isn't that exactly what I am doing?' he thought.
The only difference was that he was a genuine player, genuinely using a higher-dinsional perspective to look down on the conversation between Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami.
But could he truly treat everyone around him as re NPCs? In truth, even he was not entirely certain.
"I do not know," Ayase Origami replied after pondering for a while. "Why don't you know?"
"I do not know because I do not know."
"Listening to everything you just said," Xia Pingzhou remarked softly, "I was thinking, no wonder you give
the impression of being a dull, blockheaded puppet."
Ayase Origami retorted, "You said we are alike. Then Kitten is also a puppet."
She seed to be trying her best to make her words sound playful, but her tone still ca out a bit stiff.
'I really am a puppet, the kind you throw away after using,' Xia Pingzhou thought.
"I am not a puppet."
"Then what are you?"
"A cat puppet," he declared.
Ayase Origami froze for a split second. Then, lifting the haiku collection to cover the corners of her mouth, she averted her gaze from Xia Pingzhou's face as if trying to hold back a laugh.
Slowly turning her head, she gazed out the window at the enchanting, moonlit scenery of Venice.
"You give
a certain feeling..." she broke the silence monts later.
"What feeling?"
"Like there is a child living inside your body."
'What the hell? Has she seen through ?'
Ji Minghuan was slightly stunned. After a long mont, he commanded Xia Pingzhou to look up and say expressionlessly, "I feel like you could just be direct and call
childish."
Ayase Origami shook her head. "It is not the sa."
"How is it different?"
"I cannot put it clearly," she admitted. "It is just different."
"I get it," Xia Pingzhou nodded. "Is that why you look after ? Because you think I am like a kid?"
"Perhaps."
The kimono girl remained noncommittal, tucking the photograph back into the pages of her book.
Both of them drifted into silence for a while. The only sound left in the air was the gentle rustle of pages turning as Ayase Origami resud her reading.
"How about we go to London?" Xia Pingzhou suggested out of the blue.
"Why?"
"Just to relax and take a walk. It is quite boring staying in the sa city all the ti anyway." Saying this, Xia Pingzhou turned his head to look at Ayase Origami. "What do you think?"
"I have said it before: wherever you go, I will follow."
"It would be too boring with just the two of us. How about we bring the others along?"
"For example?"
"Blood Progenitor."
"Then I am not going."
"Then let us invite Jack the Ripper."
"Acceptable."
"Oh, then it is decided," Xia Pingzhou confird. "Are you not going back to sleep?"
"Kitten should sleep first."
"Alright."
Xia Pingzhou agreed, though he could not shake the feeling that Ayase Origami was afraid he might run off again while she was asleep.
He lay back on the bed, pulled up his character interface, and inspected the night's loot.
[Currently Held Single-Use Demon Chess Pieces: Fire Demon x3, Blue Lightning Mouse Demon x2, Trash Mountain Demon x1, Magician Demon x1.]
'Oh right, that quest should be complete by now.'
With that in mind, Xia Pingzhou brought up the main quest panel.
[Main Quest 3 Completed: Search for clues regarding your forr teammate, the Mad Exorcist—Red Traffic Light.]
[Rewards for Main Quest 3 obtained: 1 Division Point, 1 Skill Point, 1 Attribute Point.]
Xia Pingzhou swiftly allocated the attribute point he just received.
[The "Speed" attribute of your Host Body Two, Chess Player, has changed: Grade B
→ Grade B
(The speed of your Chess Pieces will also increase accordingly).]
As for the skill point, the abilities on all three branches currently required at least two skill points to unlock. A single point was completely useless right now, so there was no need to bother with it for the ti being.
Xia Pingzhou then turned his attention to the newly refreshed main quest.
[Main Quest 3 Updated: Prevent the personnel of the Salvation Society from taking away Red Traffic Light.]
He took a deep breath, staring quietly at the text on the panel.
Truth be told, he had considered inviting White Wolf on this London trip. However, the objective of this operation was to snatch away Red Traffic Light, not to wage an all-out war against the Salvation Society.
If White Wolf caught sight of his son, Filio, there was a high probability he would completely lose control of his emotions and impulsively charge in to fight.
Should that happen, the situation would rapidly devolve into the exact scenario Ji Minghuan wanted to avoid most.
At this current stage, he did not believe these people possessed even a one percent chance of winning against the Salvation Society's forces.
Furthermore, if the Salvation Society realized that Filio's father had suddenly and coincidentally shown up at this specific juncture, they would undoubtedly suspect an insider hiding within their ranks.
And Ji Minghuan would absolutely be the very first person they suspected.
By the sa logic, Black Cocoon's presence presented a similar problem to White Wolf's.
Back when the Tutor first linked Black Cocoon's abilities to a childhood photograph of Ji Minghuan, he had already grown suspicious of the connection between the two. Given that, it was highly likely the Tutor would eventually deduce that Black Cocoon was rely a puppet created by Ji Minghuan's supernatural ability.
It was even possible that the Salvation Society's current operation was planned entirely around that very hypothesis.
Therefore, he absolutely could not let the Salvation Society spot Black Cocoon.
However, Black Cocoon was the most highly mobile host body he possessed, uniquely suited for reconnoitering enemy movents. Leaving Black Cocoon behind completely was not very realistic either.
Consequently, during this London operation, Ji Minghuan would have to calculate every single step with maximum caution, ensuring Black Cocoon stayed entirely out of the Salvation Society's line of sight.
Otherwise, all of the painstaking effort he had exerted up until now would very likely go up in smoke.
Recalling Kong Youling's face, Ji Minghuan's expression instantly darkened a fraction. Staring up at the ceiling, he thought to himself expressionlessly:
'No matter what happens, I must maintain my composure... The more crucial the mont, the less I can afford to act on impulse. If I do, I will fall right into their trap.'
With this final thought, he commanded Xia Pingzhou to slowly close his eyes. Lulled by the soft, rhythmic rustle of the girl turning the pages of her book, it was not long before he fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
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