“Last night, Ye Shiyu tried to open your door, ow.”
In the morning, Yan Huan froze mid-toothbrush as he heard ow-chan’s voice.
He turned his foam-filled mouth toward the small, dignified cat sitting in his bedroom and asked incredulously,
“When was that?”
“Very late, after you’d already fallen asleep,” ow-chan replied, glancing toward the door. Standing on its hind legs, it mimicked the movent of a hand turning the doorknob with its front paws and little head.
“The doorknob moved suddenly, but since you locked it, she couldn’t open it.”
“...”
Late at night, soone trying to open your door while you’re asleep—guess what they might do if they succeeded.
Big sis, that’s way too creepy!
Yan Huan paused, spat out the foam, rinsed his mouth with water from his cup, and splashed his face to wake up.
He reached for a shirt but realized it hadn’t been changed for two days. After wearing it for an entire day yesterday, it felt sticky. He couldn’t bring himself to put it on again after a bath.
Regretting not grabbing his dried clothes from Aunt Chen last night before heading to bed, he had no choice but to go downstairs to get them now.
“...”
A glance at his phone showed it was 5:50 a.m.—earlier than usual.
He opened his door. The hallway outside was silent, the weak morning light barely penetrating the living room’s sheer curtains. Everyone else seed to still be asleep.
Feeling reassured, he headed downstairs shirtless, carrying the empty glass he had used for milk the night before, intending to retrieve his clothes from the laundry room.
The laundry room faced the kitchen, and the water purifier stood by the kitchen door. Yan Huan rinsed his cup in the sink, filled it with water, and took a refreshing sip.
A warm glass of water in the morning made him feel alive again.
He washed the cup and placed it in the drying rack before turning toward the laundry room.
Where were his clothes?
Scanning the room, he searched among the hanging garnts for the clothes he had bought yesterday.
At the sa ti, a figure with a water glass approached the water purifier.
Hearing the rustling sounds from the laundry room, Ye Shiyu instinctively turned her head.
In the cool morning light, she saw Yan Huan's bare back as he searched for his clothes. Her eyes widened in surprise.
The phone in her hand suddenly lit up.
Found it.
Yan Huan grabbed a beige shirt he had bought yesterday, appreciating its comfortable texture as he prepared to put it on.
After changing into the fresh shirt, he debated whether to wash his dirty clothes. Deciding it wasn’t worth using the washing machine for just one shirt, he prepared to leave.
As he turned, his gaze t Ye Shiyu’s at the doorway. Holding a water glass, she stood silently, her appearance ghost-like in the dim light.
What the—?!
Yan Huan’s expression froze montarily before his flawless facial managent skills kicked in.
He gave an awkward smile and greeted her,
“Good morning, Sister Shiyu! You’re up early too?”
“Y-yeah...”
Ye Shiyu’s expression slowly normalized, but her tone remained halting.
Last night’s strange film had left her restless. She drank so much water that by 6 a.m., she was forced to get up. Despite her efforts, she still felt parched and flushed.
Now, fetching water led her to this encounter with Yan Huan, who was changing clothes.
Her hand trembled slightly as she unconsciously sipped from her glass. Her eyes flickered across the contours of his beige shirt, perhaps lingering due to sothing she had glimpsed before he put it on.
Yan Huan smiled faintly, exiting the laundry room. He asked,
“Sister Shiyu, do you want breakfast? I can make sothing.”
“No need.”
“Alright, then I’ll head out. I’ll be back before noon.”
“Mm...”
If she had said yes, he would’ve cooked sothing. Since she declined, he planned to grab food outside.
Slipping on his shoes by the door and clutching his phone tightly to avoid being hypnotized, Yan Huan quickly left.
Ye Shiyu watched him go, finishing her glass of water in silence.
The early spring morning was cool. Yan Huan took a deep breath and jogged toward the community gate.
“Where are you going? Morning run?”
A black cat suddenly appeared behind him, keeping pace.
Without turning, Yan Huan adjusted his breathing and replied,
“No, I’m going to the aquarium. I’ll grab breakfast first and take the 6:30 a.m. bus.”
He scanned the upscale neighborhood but found no breakfast shops open this early. Checking a map app, he searched for bus routes and quickly found a nearby shop run by Longguo locals.
At Linn, only Longguo-owned shops opened so early.
He ate stead at buns and pumpkin porridge as the shop gradually filled with patrons.
Sitting beside him, ow-chan licked its paw and asked,
“Why the aquarium?”
“To find a Mickey Mouse tool that can help solve the Modifier issue.”
“?”
After breakfast, Yan Huan boarded a bus with ow-chan. Though Linn buses typically required pets to be caged or bagged, ow-chan, being no ordinary cat, transford into an invisible form only Yan Huan could see.
The nearly empty first bus of the day allowed Yan Huan to find a comfortable seat by the window. With a Bluetooth earbud in one ear, he petted the invisible ow-chan while gazing outside.
After a bumpy ride of several dozen minutes, the announcent in his earbuds woke him:
"Next stop: Aquarium."
Removing his earbuds, Yan Huan heard the bus PA echo the sa announcent.
Turning to get off, he briefly locked eyes with a girl holding her phone, her face slightly flushed.
“!”
Yan Huan blinked and politely said,
“Excuse .”
“Ah... sure.”
At just after 7 a.m., yesterday’s bustling shopping center was eerily quiet. Shops wouldn’t open until 10, but the aquarium allowed entry at 8, so he wasn’t too early. Besides, he had a little helper.
Exiting the bus, Yan Huan looked at ow-chan and asked,
“Can you sniff out traces of whatever Ye Shiyu dropped?”
ow-chan glanced at him with a "you can’t be serious" expression.
“You’re a cat. I heard stray cats can find lost items by sniffing toys used by housecats.”
“...”
With a sigh, ow-chan sniffed the air and darted toward the shopping center.
“There are faint traces of her scent this way.”
The shopping center? Not the aquarium?
Following ow-chan at a light jog, Yan Huan arrived at the plaza between the shopping center and the aquarium.
This location also happened to be the exit of the aquarium. From this vantage point, Yan Huan could still see the gift shop where Ye Shiyu had purchased her keychain yesterday.
ow-chan sniffed intently near a bush, then suddenly turned to Yan Huan and let out a “ow!”
“Here?”
Raising an eyebrow, Yan Huan walked over and parted the grass.
Oddly enough, a blue crystal jellyfish keychain lay there, entangled in the damp blades of grass.
The tag on the side read “Ye Shiyu,” confirming that it was the very keychain she had lost yesterday.
“No way. How did it end up here? She didn’t even co near this spot yesterday...”
Picking up the keychain, Yan Huan witnessed sothing even stranger.
As soon as he lifted it, the keychain, now free from the obstruction of the grass, quivered slightly, as if drawn toward a specific direction.
“What the hell?”
Wide-eyed, Yan Huan glanced at ow-chan, who sniffed the keychain before comnting,
“Ye Shiyu’s scent is very faint now, but there’s another woman’s scent that’s much stronger...”
“Another woman?”
“This keychain is nearly imprinted with the essence of that woman.”
“?”
Frowning, Yan Huan observed as the keychain gradually stopped trembling and beca still in his hand.
At the sa mont, ow-chan raised its head and declared,
“That woman’s scent has completely dissipated.”
“...”
Staring at the eerie object in his hand, Yan Huan exchanged a look with ow-chan before muttering,
“Modifier?”
“Did you encounter anyone unusual yesterday?”
Unusual?
As he tried to recall, the image of a grinning blonde girl from yesterday’s clash with Ye Shiyu popped into his mind.
No way...
Yan Huan’s mouth twitched as he hurriedly asked ow-chan,
“Does the Modifier’s effect work on soone else who also has a Modifier?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but judging from this, it seems possible.”
“...”
Realizing that Modifiers weren’t bound by any kind of alignnt and could even interact or clash with one another, Yan Huan’s expression grew even grimr.
This would complicate things.
The task of resolving Modifier usage required convincing the host to willingly abandon their Modifier. But if one host beca aware of another’s cheat-like abilities, who would willingly give theirs up first?
What could have been a sequential resolution now required Yan Huan to persuade multiple hosts simultaneously to relinquish their Modifiers.
Moreover, conflicts between hosts would likely cause their Modifiers to grow even stronger at an alarming rate.
Modifiers already used minimal power to accomplish bug-level feats. If a Modifier war broke out, it might demand the full extent of their capabilities—and then so.
This escalation would only fuel the hosts’ unchecked desires, making the Modifiers grow insatiable. Yan Huan didn’t need ow-chan to explain to understand this.
“Competitiveness,” “rivalry,” “exclusivity”...
Those words alone sent chills down his spine.
Holy crap, were they really about to start a Holy Grail War in Linn?
The Modifiers were practically Servants, and the hosts were the Masters!
Worse still, Yan Huan himself might just be the Grail!
Damn it all...
Yan Huan stared at ow-chan with a look of utter despair. He rubbed its head, sighed deeply, and muttered,
“Saber ow-chan, let’s run away and spend the rest of our lives in hiding together.”
“?”
Holding the ice-cold jellyfish keychain that had spent the night outdoors, Yan Huan felt a chill in his heart as well.
The aquarium’s PA system broke through his thoughts:
"Welco, visitors, to the Haishang Linn Aquarium Tourist Site. Our facility showcases a rich array of marine life through professional ecological simulations..."
Hearing the announcent, Yan Huan stood up and noticed the aquarium was about to open.
Across the plaza, the gift shop staff were rolling up their shutters and sweeping the entrance.
Clutching the jellyfish keychain, Yan Huan considered for a mont before heading toward the shop.
“Welco, custor!”
The shop assistant, caught off guard by soone arriving so early—even before the aquarium had opened—offered a sowhat rushed greeting.
Yan Huan nodded politely and glanced around the shop. His eyes landed on a small gift box.
The box had the word “jellyfish” faintly visible on it.
Blinking, he deliberated briefly before picking up the gift box along with a jellyfish-shaped plush toy.
“I’ll take these. Could you pack them in a bag for ?”
“Of course! Would you like to pay with cash, card, or...?”
“Plane.”
Yan Holy Grail Huan held up his phone and paid for the first transaction of Linn’s Holy Grail War.
“Are you saying you’ve been hearing hallucinations, like soone talking in your head?”
In an upscale apartnt in Linn’s Jinghe District, a woman in a light knit cardigan raised an eyebrow.
She was addressing a blonde girl lifting dumbbells by the window—none other than Areya Spencer, who had clashed with Ye Shiyu yesterday.
Spencer nodded, visibly struggling with the weight of the dumbbells. Each lift seed to take significant effort.
“Yeah, and the voice keeps saying strange things...”
The woman blinked and scribbled sothing in her notebook:
"Possible fixation on explicit content."
She continued,
“Other than that, have you felt any discomfort? How’s your sleep? Appetite? Do you feel irritable?”
Spencer set down the dumbbell and rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
“My appetite... maybe it’s been a bit affected? I’ve been eating less recently. Sleep has been fine, though.”
The woman glanced skeptically at the coffee table, which was strewn with expensive snacks like chips and chocolates. Asking seed redundant.
She wrote in her notebook:
"Appetite normal, exercises regularly, sleeps well."
“And when do you usually hear these voices? Specific tis or while doing certain activities?”
“When, huh...”
Just as Spencer pondered this, a translucent interface flashed in her mind:
[Plunder Mode Effect has ended. This session’s gain: Plunder Energy
0.1.]
[Current Plunder Energy: 0.1.]
[Accumulate Plunder Energy to unlock the following benefits:]
- Your appeal to the plunder target will gradually increase.
- The target’s resistance will gradually weaken.
- Your physique, resilience, and charisma will steadily improve.
Spencer froze, wide-eyed.
“I just heard it! Right now!” she shouted to the visiting psychologist.
But before she could elaborate, the once-heavy dumbbell in her hand suddenly felt noticeably lighter.
Startled, Spencer tested lifting it again. The change was real—her strength seed to have increased slightly.
This...
She stared in disbelief at the translucent words, which twisted before solidifying into a single ssage:
[Please use without hesitation.]
The initial shock on her face slowly morphed into excitent.
“Miss Spencer?”
The psychologist’s voice pulled her back.
Spencer casually dropped the dumbbell with a loud clang.
The noise startled the psychologist, who looked at her in alarm.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Spencer smirked. “This whole building belongs to my mom. Nobody lives downstairs.”
“Yes, I’m aware. I was just going to ask—”
“No need to ask. I’m fine now.”
“Miss Spencer—”
Spencer’s face grew cold as she cut her off,
“I said I’m fine. Just tell my mom everything’s okay. Your job is done, right?”
The psychologist opened her mouth, sighed, and closed her notebook. Rising, she gave Spencer a polite bow.
“Understood. I’ll take my leave. If you have any issues, feel free to contact
anyti.”
“Mm-hmm, I know...”
Without another glance, Spencer turned toward the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the waking city.
From her high-rise, she could faintly see the ocean’s edge beyond Haishang Linn.
Her eyes burned with growing excitent, a peculiar fire igniting within.
With a click, the door closed as the psychologist left.
Finally alone, Spencer clenched her fists and began bouncing in place.
“Hehehe...”
“Bang!”
Mid-bounce, she forgot about the dumbbell on the floor and stubbed her bare toe against it.
“Ahh! Ow! Ow!”
She crumpled to the ground, clutching her injured foot and rolling in pain, tears welling up in her eyes.
Outside, the morning sun fully broke over the horizon, flooding her vast apartnt with light.
Illuminated on the coffee table was a casually placed letter amid the snacks and ga controllers.
It read:
"Yuanyue International High School Admission Notice.
Dear Miss Areya Spencer, we are pleased to inform you that after careful consideration, the school board has approved your enrollnt for the upcoming spring sester..."
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