"..."
Upon hearing Yan Huan's words, the two Sakuramiyas exchanged a glance and stood frozen in place, seemingly still failing to grasp the situation.
Yan Huan could only sigh. He turned his head to explain it to them,
"Look, Hitomi is the true master of the Barrier. That is why she was able to use the Barrier to split you two off.
"If Self-Doubting Sakuramiya ultimately replaces Hitomi, she is bound to replace everything about her, including her authority over the Barrier.
"Therefore, she will likely be just like Hitomi, splitting off her own 'Persona Masks'."
Petite Hitomi was so terrified by Yan Huan's words that she could not speak. Even Cool Sakuramiya widened her eyes and murmured,
"A Persona Mask of a Persona Mask?"
"Yes."
Yan Huan's expression was incredibly grim. Having a deep understanding of the inner workings of Modifiers, he understood one fundantal truth:
Modifiers do not simply perish; they can transfer hosts.
But unless it was a case like Sister Tong, where the Modifier had not yet fully bonded, the only thod for transferring hosts was...
He narrowed his eyes, waiting a long mont before continuing,
"If that is the case, it ans that Hitomi... is disappearing."
"...Then what will happen to us when that ti cos?"
Petite Hitomi asked blankly. Cool Sakuramiya imdiately frowned and glared at her.
"When the nest is overturned, no individual can escape unhard. Whether Self-Doubting Sakuramiya knows about this or not, if we let her continue like this, Hitomi will definitely never return."
Yan Huan nodded, looking at the Countdown Tir to the side.
"I calculated it before you arrived. The endpoint of this Countdown Tir is the exact mont the High Table Gala Dance begins, a little over two weeks from now.
"If my guess is correct, once the dance begins, Hitomi will vanish completely..."
Furthermore, the fact that the endpoint of the countdown was the start of the dance, rather than the mont he danced with Sakuramiya, already explained a great deal.
It ant that his previous acceptance of Self-Doubting Sakuramiya's invitation to dance was already set in stone.
Even if he were to tell Self-Doubting Sakuramiya now that he was going back on his word, or if he invited soone else to dance, this countdown would not change in the slightest.
As long as the dance began, Hitomi would disappear completely.
As for right now...
"There are only two paths left to take...
"Either we find Perfect Sakuranomiya's Barrier before the High Table Gala Dance begins, locate Hitomi's main body, and awaken her..."
Yan Huan took a deep breath and stood up. He looked at the two Sakuramiyas beside him, his tone incredibly serious.
"Or, we must do whatever it takes to prevent the High Table Gala Dance from beginning.
"Even if it ans ruining the High Table Dinner entirely."
Hearing this, Petite Hitomi pursed her lips, suddenly feeling a wave of sadness wash over her heart.
Because "wanting to dance with the president at the ball" was not just Self-Doubting Sakuramiya's wish; it was the wish of every Sakuramiya.
That was exactly why Hitomi's death countdown was set to the precise mont the dance began.
She truly, desperately looked forward to that mont.
But now, in order to save Hitomi, they had to destroy this hard-won opportunity at all costs.
Thus, Petite Hitomi squeezed her fingers together, unable to stop herself from speaking up.
"But President, if that is the case, Self-Doubting Sakuramiya will definitely place an imnse amount of importance on this dance.
"She will also do whatever it takes to ensure the dance proceeds without a hitch, and she will not allow anyone to stop it.
"Even if it ans using the superpower of the Barrier."
Yan Huan was not surprised to hear this.
From his earlier phone call with Self-Doubting Sakuramiya, he had already sensed just how seriously she was taking this matter.
Conventional thods, such as Yan Huan exercising his power as Student Council President to seek out the Principal...
Or attempting to halt it through the channels of Sakuramiya Lily, Ye International, or even the Jinshi Group—she would absolutely refuse to accept any of it.
She might even resort directly to underhanded tactics like activating the Barrier or using Common Sense Modification to protect the dance.
However...
While he indeed had no counterasures against the Modifiers himself, that did not an the other hosts were helpless.
If it was to save Hitomi, he might have to disregard the danger of Modifiers battling and evolving, and employ the strategy to drive the tiger to swallow the wolf.
"President, what I an is, let us try too!"
Pursing her lips, Petite Hitomi flew right up to Yan Huan's face. She hugged his nose and pouted pleadingly.
"During this ti, we will do our best to search the Barrier for clues regarding Perfect Sakuranomiya's Barrier. We will strive to find Hitomi's whereabouts before the dance begins.
"That way, we might be able to resolve everything before the dance even starts, and there will be no need to ruin it."
Did Perfect Sakuranomiya's Barrier really drop sowhere inside this Barrier, just as Self-Doubting Sakuramiya had claid?
At this mont, Yan Huan highly doubted that conclusion.
But since Hitomi was still alive and had not appeared anywhere within the Barrier, it could only an one thing:
Perfect Sakuranomiya's Barrier truly did exist.
Although Yan Huan was growing increasingly uncertain about finding the location of this Barrier, eting Petite Hitomi's pleading gaze, he still nodded.
"Since that is the case, let us split up and act separately.
"You two will do your best to find Hitomi's whereabouts inside the Barrier, and I will make all the necessary preparations on the outside.
"If we near the ti of the dance and there is still no progress, I will have no choice but to try and ruin it.
"This... is still better than letting Hitomi vanish completely, right?"
Having received Yan Huan's approval, Petite Hitomi and Cool Sakuramiya exchanged a glance. She then flew back onto her counterpart's shoulder, picking up a small cara along the way.
"Then, President, the mont we have any news, we will contact you imdiately through the cara!"
"Mhm, alright."
Upon getting his reply, Petite Hitomi finally pouted, standing on Cool Sakuramiya's shoulder and waving at Yan Huan.
Cool Sakuramiya, gripping her baseball bat, also cast a glance at Yan Huan. This ti, for the first ti ever, she did not show her usual tsundere expression. Instead, she just looked at him deeply.
After several seconds, she tugged at her baseball cap to hide her eyes, then turned, pushed the door open, and left.
"President, we are heading out!"
"Click."
The door clicked shut, and the entire Barrier instantly fell utterly silent.
Yan Huan turned back to glance once more at the Countdown Tir on the wall. As they departed, this section of the Barrier reconnected with reality, and the numbers above slowly faded away.
Taking a deep breath, Yan Huan pulled out his mobile phone. As he pushed the door open to leave, he pulled up An Le's contact information on Plane.
If he was to prevent the dance from starting under the airtight protection of Self-Doubting Sakuramiya's Barrier, he had to take a two-pronged approach.
One approach was to stop the dance using conventional thods; the other was to prevent her from cheating using her Modifier.
Yan Huan could handle the first point himself, but for the second point, he was willing but unable.
If he explained everything clearly, his knowledge of the Modifiers would likely be exposed. If the situation were to explode with anger then, it would not be fun at all.
Fortunately, however, he still had An Le, a free agent out in the open!
"An Le, I have sothing very important!"
With this thought in mind, his fingers flew across the screen, typing out the ssage to send.
Not long after, in Year B Class.
A breathtakingly beautiful girl wearing light makeup and a pretty little skirt sat at her desk, staring agonizingly at a Mathematics exam paper in her hands that had barely scored over twenty points. Her lips twitching stiffly, she complained,
"That damn Zhou Bin! Making a weekly test this difficult, is he deliberately trying to kill ?"
Crumpling the edge of the test paper slightly, Bai Yi rested her chin on her hand and muttered,
"If I had known, I would have activated Indifference, sneaked into the office, and altered my grades... I wonder if that bald guy is going to call my parents... Ahhh, this is so annoying."
Saying this, she slumped dejectedly onto her desk, feeling as though life is aningless.
"Hey, did Senior Black really give you flowers?"
"Yeah, he did... I even need to go pick out a ball gown soon, hehe."
However, with the end of term approaching, the increasingly frequent topic of the High Table Gala Dance among her classmates caught Bai Yi's attention.
Just watching her female classmate with a slightly flushed face made Bai Yi's eyes light up, and a sweet smile naturally ford on her lips.
"Well, whatever. It is almost the end of the term anyway, and then I get to dance with Yan Huan."
Lately, this prospect had practically beco her adrenaline shot.
When Zuo Jiangqin annoyed her, just thinking about the High Table Dinner cald her down.
When she was struggling at work and could not squeeze out the lody for a song, thinking about how she would lead the dance in front of the entire school cald her down again.
Even when her period arrived, she...
Ahem.
With a slightly flushed face, Bai Yi packed up her school bag and prepared to leave the academy.
At the doorway, Spencer from Class C happened to skip rrily past the classroom entrance.
In her hand, she was clutching a Mathematics weekly test paper with a score of 33.
"La la la~"
Spencer seed to be in an exceptionally good mood.
anwhile, Bai Yi froze in place.
Huh?
33 points?
Is that not higher than mine?!
Bai Yi stared in horror as the skipping Spencer passed by, biting her manicured nails, finding it increasingly hard to bear.
That is right, this girl gets private tutoring from Yan Huan every single day!
Dammit, why does not Yan Huan tutor ?!
And here I am, worrying every day about bothering him or causing him trouble, constantly playing the role of the considerate little girlfriend!
And the result?!
This shaless girl ends up reaping all the rewards!
"Tsk."
Just as Bai Yi was pinching her manicure and silently sulking, her mobile phone suddenly rang.
"Ding~"
"Hmm?"
Looking down at Plane, it was actually a ssage from An Le.
"I have sothing very important to discuss with you. Co to the Small Garden behind the First-Year Departnt."
An...
An Le?
The mont she saw a private invitation from An Le, a shiver instantly ran down Bai Yi's spine.
Clutching her phone, she cast a glance toward Class C with a touch of PTSD, only to spot An Le standing right at her classroom door, staring back at her.
"Eek!"
But after rely looking at her for a mont, An Le simply turned her head away and began walking toward the Small Garden.
Only after An Le had left did Bai Yi snap out of her state of feeling scared in retrospect.
She had been genuinely traumatized by being whipped by An Le's tentacles before. Just thinking about it made her want to imdiately activate Indifference and flee.
But...
An Le actually invited
out alone?
What is she trying to do?
Is she trying to solo ?
Pinching her chin, Bai Yi pondered for a mont before taking out her phone and replying to An Le with a simple "Okay."
However, the mont she sent the reply, she sneered, turned right around, and headed straight toward the school gate.
Is she kidding?
There is no way she is going!
What if she went and sothing terrible happened to her?!
"Thud."
"Ouch!"
Yet the very mont she turned around, Bai Yi bumped into an icy-cold body standing right behind her.
She lifted her gaze, only to see the expressionless face of Ye Shiyu clutching her mobile phone, standing right behind her. "..."
"Ye Shiyu?"
The instant she saw it was Ye Shiyu, Bai Yi's forrly timid expression flared up defensively, puffing herself up like a pink pufferfish.
"What are you doing in the First-Year Departnt? Did you co to play with ?"
"...An Le asked to et . She said there is sothing we need to discuss."
"?"
Hearing this, Bai Yi paused in surprise.
She quickly held up her phone and muttered softly,
"Weird, she called
too..."
"..."
Seeing that Bai Yi had also been invited, a faint glint flashed across Ye Shiyu's dark eyes. Imdiately after, she looked in the direction of the Small Garden behind Bai Yi.
Her intuition told her...
That sothing highly unpleasant was about to happen.
"An Le, what is the matter?"
Entering the Small Garden at a leisurely pace, Ye Shiyu's eyes imdiately fell upon An Le, who was standing at the far end of the enclosure.
An Le glanced back but only saw Ye Shiyu standing there alone.
But as she paused for a second and was just about to speak, Bai Yi's gorgeous face suddenly peeked out from behind Ye Shiyu's back.
"..."
It turned out that Bai Yi had been hiding behind Ye Shiyu.
An Le pursed her lips, her face still maintaining the exact sa hollow emptiness it had back in the Sakura Country.
Imdiately after, she asked softly,
"Do you know who Xiao Huan's partner for the High Table Gala Dance is?"
"..."
The mont these words left her mouth, the two girls in front of her simultaneously froze.
Then, unexpectedly, both of them sowhat sheepishly averted their gazes at the exact sa ti.
Bai Yi's reaction was just a bit more obvious, as her face flushed deeply and she started twirling a strand of her black hair around her finger.
"...That is none of your business, is it?"
"Yeah, exactly. Stop prying into other people's private matters~"
Looking at the matching expressions of 'How did you know it was ?' on the faces of the two girls before her, even soone as thick-skinned as An Le found it hard to bear.
"..."
Fortunately, An Le was practically half a veteran actor by now.
"You two..."
But how to put it? The two girls in front of her were truly not the restrained types.
They had already held it in for so long regarding the matter of Xiao Huan's dance partner.
Now, with their romantic rivals standing right in front of them, they genuinely did not want to hold back anymore.
Since you asked so sincerely, I will show so rcy and tell you the truth~
"Well, if you really must know, Yan Huan already gave
his confession..."
"I have already given Xiao Huan the flower."
No more pretending. It was ti to lay all the cards on the table!
"..."
However, right after the two of them simultaneously delivered their declarations of victory...
The atmosphere in the entire venue suddenly plunged into dead silence.
Although Ye Shiyu retained her expressionless face, her eyes trembled ever so slightly.
Then, her gaze darkened completely as she turned her head to look at Bai Yi behind her, her eyes overflowing with terrifying pressure.
Bai Yi simultaneously jumped away from her Ye Shiyu-brand at shield, pointing a finger at her with a face full of utter disbelief.
"You... you, you, you..."
She truly had never expected that Ye Shiyu—who normally would not say a word—would actually...
"When did you give him the flower?! Hah, I was wondering why my flower disappeared when you brought
back. So you were being this cunning?!"
"What are you talking about?"
Ye Shiyu narrowed her eyes, having absolutely no idea what Bai Yi was babbling about.
Right now, the only thing she cared about was what Bai Yi had just said.
"I am the one who should be asking... Xiao Huan gave you a confession?"
"Of course he did!"
"When?"
"It was that day in the Bookstore at the Shopping Center!"
"..."
"Uh... I suppose it counts as a confession, right?"
Reaching this point, Bai Yi's voice began to lose its confidence.
Because thinking back carefully, on that day, it seed...
She was the one who had gotten a rush of blood to her head and recklessly initiated everything?
Ye Shiyu could not help but fall into silence as well.
Because on that day...
Had not Xiao Huan just...
Just thinking about it made the blood instantly rush to Ye Shiyu's head.
Because on that very day, right in front of the bookshelf, Xiao Huan had clearly just said those things to her...
So why did he do that with Bai Yi too...
Could it be that Xiao Huan was actually a very promiscuous person?
"..."
Thinking this, Ye Shiyu's eyes dimd slightly.
Clearly, this was no longer a situation where she wanted to turn over a new leaf.
Instead, she wanted to control soone else to make them turn over a new leaf.
"Pfft."
Right when the two of them were engaged in a heated argunt, the hollow-eyed An Le suddenly burst into laughter.
That single laugh directly acted like a spark, causing both girls—who were already in a foul mood—to practically explode with anger.
"What are you laughing at?! Do you think you are so special? You are acting as if Yan Huan confessed to you or gave you flowers!"
Bai Yi was instantly agitated. Completely losing her emotional composure, her defense broken, she began launching indiscriminate verbal attacks.
Although Ye Shiyu did not say a word, she gripped her phone tightly, staring intently at An Le.
Yet, for so reason, An Le felt absolutely nothing from their attacks.
Just like when she was previously betrayed by Spencer, once she had a good grasp of the situation, or rather, once she had obtained what she wanted, she was in a complete Immunity Status against such attacks...
On the contrary, she even felt a sense of pity and an urge to laugh.
"I am laughing because we have all been deceived by Sakuramiya Hitomi."
Fortunately, An Le had not forgotten her true purpose, speaking up with a mocking tone.
"W-what?"
"Sakuramiya... Hitomi?"
Both Bai Yi and Ye Shiyu paused slightly, completely failing to understand what An Le ant by that.
But An Le simply gazed at them with her hollow eyes, stating word by word,
"Previously, Sakuramiya Hitomi supervised a ceasefire between us and urged us not to use our superpowers on Xiao Huan... But in reality? She was taking advantage of the opportunity to secretly pull ahead using her Modifier!"
Secretly pulling ahead?
Hearing this, Ye Shiyu and Bai Yi could not help but freeze.
Because lately, the two of them had been entirely imrsed in their own worlds; they genuinely had not been paying any attention to Sakuramiya Hitomi.
But upon thinking about it carefully, both of them could not help but grow suspicious.
"Is Sakuramiya Hitomi really that kind of person?"
"..."
It was true. After all, the two of them had ford an unbreakable alliance with Sakuramiya Hitomi back in the Sakura Country.
They both knew very well that out of all of them, Sakuramiya Hitomi was absolutely the least likely to use her Modifier on Yan Huan.
Therefore, with An Le saying this now, it inevitably carried the suspicion that she was trying to sow discord.
Seeing their reactions, An Le could not help but let out a sigh.
"Believe it or not, it is up to you. Regardless, I only found out today that Xiao Huan's dance partner is Sakuramiya Hitomi. You are more than welco to go confront her yourselves.
"As for the details, the situations between Xiao Huan and the two of you are full of oddities that even I do not understand.
"But I suspect that it is all related to Sakuramiya Hitomi."
Having said her piece, An Le cast a cold glance at them and spoke softly,
"Go figure out the situation first. Once you have cleared things up, we can get in touch again."
"..."
With those words, An Le turned around and left the garden.
anwhile, Bai Yi and Ye Shiyu, left standing there, were completely filled with shock.
They did not entirely believe An Le, yet her convinced tone had successfully planted seeds of doubt about Sakuramiya Hitomi in their minds.
Especially when it ca to their crucial vested interest—the High Table Gala Dance—neither of them was willing to compromise.
Between the two of them, the calculations were quite simple.
Ye Shiyu was not intimidated by Bai Yi in the slightest. Therefore, rather than fighting Bai Yi for the position of dance partner right now, it would be far better to concentrate her efforts on dealing with Sakuramiya Hitomi or An Le first.
On the other hand, Bai Yi knew deep down that she was no match for these monsters. She might as well team up with Ye Shiyu for the ti being. Then, at the critical mont, when Sakuramiya Hitomi or An Le had worn Ye Shiyu down, she could seize the opportunity and take advantage of her weakness.
"..."
Thus, the two exchanged a glance, clearly having arrived at the exact sa conclusion.
"When I ca over from the Second Year Departnt, I happened to see Sakuramiya Hitomi returning from off-campus. She should be alone in the Student Council Office right now."
Pausing for a second, Ye Shiyu spoke in a faint, ghostly tone.
Bai Yi pursed her lips and pulled out her Pocket Watch.
"Let us go. We are going to find her and demand a clear explanation!"
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