On the morning of July 21st, the sky was just beginning to brighten.
The call of seagulls echoed from the horizon, the first rays of sunlight spilled from the dawn sky, tearing through the curtain shrouding Tokyo Bay, and casting light into the empty attic.
Xia Pingzhou’s eyelids fluttered slightly, slowly waking up from the mattress laid on the floor.
Opening his eyes, he was greeted by the deep blue sky of late sumr in Tokyo. The sound of horns from the Tokyo Bay Rainbow Bridge was continuous.
He took a deep breath, rubbed his forehead, and hazily turned his head from the pillow to look around.
Ayase Origami was no longer visible in the attic, but he noticed a thin blanket had been added on top of him compared to last night, probably put there by Ayase Origami.
"It’s truly rare... even this aloof young lady shows concern for others." Ji Minghuan straightened up, yawned, and tears of fatigue glistened in his eyes.
He stared blankly at the blanket draped over him, pondering to himself, "I thought the young lady would be angry with ... Last night, I knocked her out when she was about to chuckle at Zhou Jiuya. Yet she didn’t bla ?"
The next mont, a black and white panel suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[Due to increased notoriety, the code na of your ga character has been updated.]
[The current code na for the second unit is—’White Crow Travel Brigade mber No. 12: ’Chess Player’.]
"Why is this happening?" Ji Minghuan tilted his head, "The bodyguards at last night’s auction mostly perished, who could have spread my na?"
He scratched his disheveled hair, pondering in confusion:
"It can’t possibly be the Ghost Train Corps people... Ke Qirui knows Xia Pingzhou and Black Cocoon are cooperating. From her standpoint, she should be able to see I intentionally held back to let Black Cocoon rescue Su Zimai."
"Given she has no reason to leak my information to the association or the underworld, it seems... the caras at the auction might have caught , such places surely have many miniature caras hidden."
Having thought of this, Ji Minghuan stopped dwelling on where the nickna ca from and instead opened the character panel of the second unit, efficiently allocating attribute points.
[Your second unit ’Xia Pingzhou’s ’Spirit’ attribute has changed: B Level → B Level (The strength of your ’chess species’ will also rise accordingly.)]
[Current attributes of the second unit are: Strength: D-level; Speed: B level; Spirit: B level]
[Currently holding ’3’ skill points, would you like to develop the Character Skill Tree now?]
Ji Minghuan expressionlessly tapped the prompt box, and soon Xia Pingzhou’s character tree appeared.
On the black and white tree, three rugged branches of varying lengths ca into view, like the hand of a demon striving to reach the sky from hell.
[Branch One (Group): Recruit Soldiers (Learned) → Soldier Training (Learned) → Forge Cannon Truck (Learned) → Cavalry Training (To Be Learned) → Unknown → ...]
[Branch Two (Courage): Chess Species Evolution (Learned) → Chess Species Secondary Evolution (Condition: Requires accumulating ’10’ skill points spent on other branches before this skill can be learned; costs ’2’ skill points to learn) → Unknown → ...]
[Branch Three (Soul): Demon Hunter (Requires ’1’ skill point to learn) → Unknown → ...]
He directly raised his hand to press the ’Cavalry Training’ icon, the text reflected in the young man’s pupils going from dim to bright, finally blooming in a black and white shine.
[Spent ’1’ skill point, successfully learned the Branch ’Group’ skill—’Cavalry Training’ (Train one of your soldiers to be a ’Cavalry’, ride a warhorse, ard with a lance, significantly boosting the combat effectiveness of the other soldiers while the cavalry is present).]
Ji Minghuan thought, "Cavalry should correspond to ’Knight’ in international chess, the bishop being ’Bishop’, and finally, I have gathered the full set of international chess pieces."
[The next skill in Branch ’Group’ is open for learning: ’Puppet King’ (Grants your King piece the ability to move, and with the ’King’ present, the ’morale’ of ’soldiers’ and ’cavalry’ is boosted—a slight enhancent of attribute values).]
"Oh... The King is finally no longer just a la fool standing around getting beaten. Co forth, my Puppet King!"
Ji Minghuan’s eyes slightly brightened, raising his hand without hesitation to press the ’Puppet King’ icon.
[Spent ’1’ skill point, successfully learned the Branch ’Group’ skill—’Puppet King’.]
[The next skill in Branch ’Group’ is open for learning: ’King’s Flash’ (Upon learning, unlocks the ultimate authority of the King)]
[Learning the skill requires ’3’ skill points.]
"Ultimate authority, what kind of ability could it be?" Ji Minghuan scratched his chin, muttering, "Can’t afford it, the second unit only has one skill point left."
Thinking of this, he reluctantly turned to use his index finger to press the final branch’s skill.
[Spent ’1’ skill point, successfully learned the Branch ’Soul’ skill—’Demon Hunter’ (When you kill demons, there is a chance to gain a disposable demon chess piece of the sa species).]
[The next skill in Branch ’Soul’ is open for learning: ’Bridge of Humans and Demons’ (Learning this skill requires ’2’ skill points).]
"Bridge of Humans and Demons?" Ji Minghuan raised his eyebrows, clicked the detailed introduction page for the skill.
[Bridge of Humans and Demons: Temporarily fuses one of your international chess species and demon chess species (Fusion duration depends on your ’Spirit Attribute’; the higher the Spirit Attribute, the longer the fusion period).]
[Tip: At the maximum fusion duration, the fused chess piece splits in two.]
"Oh? Fusion of demon chess pieces and international chess pieces? This ans I can use it to enhance the queen piece, for example combining a Fla Demon with the Queen to create a ’Fiery Queen’ or sothing."
Ji Minghuan mused with interest.
He tugged at the corners of his lips, feeling a bit exhilarated, considering the theory: this skill could potentially create infinite combinations, rging demons with bishops, or demons with kings, or soldiers...
Not only that, the effects of fusing different demons vary.
All it takes is for the second unit to spend so ti hunting demons, relying on the ’Demon Hunter’s’ effect, collecting a large number of disposable demon chess pieces, and he can explore and arrange many powerful fusion sets, applying them harmoniously in combat.
However, the prompt box appearing in front of him felt like cold water pouring over, slightly cooling his enthusiasm.
[Your current number of skill points: 0 points.]
"Alright... Anyway, it’s done."
After allocating all the points to the machine, Ji Minghuan lay back on the mattress wearily and closed his eyes for a brief nap.
Ten minutes later, he opened his eyes, slowly pushed the blanket aside, got up, put on the slippers by the bed, and went into the washroom to freshen up.
After tidying his bedhead, he controlled Xia Pingzhou to go downstairs.
Looking up, he saw Ayase Origami sitting quietly at the cafe counter.
She wasn’t sitting in her usual seat, looking at her haiku book; instead, she was on a wooden stool behind the counter, with an eyeglass case in front of her.
The eyeglass case was open, and inside was a pair of sowhat old reading glasses.
The reading glasses had obvious repair marks, looking like they’d been patched up and used for many years. The owner likely cherished these glasses greatly, or else it wouldn’t make sense why they hadn’t been replaced.
The kimono girl lowered her eyes, quietly gazing at the reading glasses.
After a mont, amidst the cries of seagulls, she spoke, breaking the silence.
"Takayama said..."
"What did he say?" Xia Pingzhou asked.
"He said he only wanted to be an ordinary butler... It was because of that he joined the brigade," she said, "What if I had chosen to stay with him at the Ayase family back then? What would have happened now?"
After a mont of silence, Xia Pingzhou walked over, pulled a chair and sat across from her, nonchalantly saying:
"Then most likely you would have been guests of the underworld, killed at an auction by brigade mbers."
He paused: "That being said, soone of your status would likely have soone replace you at such events."
"Who all died?"
"Only Takayama and Lan Duoduo, the other brigade mbers survived."
"I understand."
Seeing Ayase Origami suddenly fall silent, Xia Pingzhou also didn’t speak again, subconsciously turning his head to look at the cafe’s kitchen. By this ti, Oda Takashige should have already prepared breakfast for the two of them.
"A certain little cat scratched its owner from behind last night," the kimono girl suddenly said after a long silence.
"If I hadn’t knocked you out at that ti, even more people would have died." Xia Pingzhou said expressionlessly, "If you want revenge, now isn’t the ti. Revenge is a difficult task, requiring careful planning and waiting for the right mont, one wrong step and all efforts may be wasted."
After all, I’m also waiting to take revenge on Jack the Ripper, how could I not have experience with it? He thought.
"It’s fine this way."
"To be honest, I thought you would bla ."
"Lan Duoduo and Takayama are already dead, I don’t want you and Jack to die too, or else I would have nothing left..." the kimono girl paused, "So, it’s fine."
Xia Pingzhou thought for a mont, nonchalantly asking, "What if you wake up one day and find out we all died?"
Ayase Origami remained silent for a while, turned her head slightly, and looked at him with a gaze neither warm nor cold.
"Little cat, hissing."
"Speaking of which, this incident has blown up so much, we’ve thoroughly angered Japan’s eight great underworld families." Xia Pingzhou said, "This matter made headlines across all Japan last night, you can see the news coverage just by turning on the TV. So of those bodyguards were quite famous... especially that ’Sakurabu’, she’s a popular mutant in Japan, widely followed by society."
He paused: "The underworld people are mobilizing forces across Japan to search for us. We can’t stay in Tokyo any longer. Oda Takashige’s café will be found eventually. The hacker told us he prepared a human-snake ship for us, and we can take it to leave Tokyo."
"I know." Ayase Origami said expressionlessly, "We’ll leave after packing up. When the brigade disbands until the next action begins, you can act freely."
"When will the next action take place?"
"I don’t know, we’ll wait for the group leader’s notice." Ayase Origami shook her head and asked softly, "Will you be alone?"
"It doesn’t matter to . Once disbanded, there’s nothing to do anyway."
"I suddenly want to change my clothes." Ayase Origami looked up from the eyeglass case, "Do you want to accompany to buy clothes?"
"Forget about the malls in Tokyo, let’s wait until we leave Japan on the ship. Otherwise, it’d be easy to get caught." Xia Pingzhou thought for a bit, "I noticed you only wear the sa kimono, and I was wondering if this particular kimono has any special aning to you, like being left by your deceased mother?"
"I just didn’t feel like changing, so I bought identical ones to keep in the wardrobe."
"Oh."
Ayase Origami lowered her eyelids and put the eyeglass case into the kimono’s sleeve, "Let’s go."
"Mm."
The two got up from the counter, took one last look at the café which was about to be sealed away in dust, and then moved towards the wooden door. The wind chis tied at the door swayed slightly in the morning breeze, emitting a gentle sound.
"Xia Pingzhou."
The girl’s cold voice mingled with the morning wind, coming low from beside him, lifting Xia Pingzhou’s black hair.
He was slightly startled, wondering if he had misheard.
This was the first ti he heard this na from her mouth; usually, it was neither "little cat" nor "newcor," so he turned his head slightly surprised to look at Ayase Origami beside him.
In a daze, the kimono girl’s plain white cheeks were bathed in the sunlight coming from Tokyo Bay, her expression unclear.
"Xia Pingzhou," she said softly, "Don’t die."
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