“Miss! Miss!”
Hurried footsteps approached from afar, and before long, five middle-aged men in black suits rushed over, panting. Looking at the black van and the four men lying on the ground, alarm surfaced on all their faces at once, and they hastily asked, “Miss, are you all right? Did they—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine… fine, my foot!” The girl stamped her foot hard, and her furious voice made all five men in black lower their heads at once. “I was nearly kidnapped, do you understand that?! If someone hadn’t saved me, I’d already be… already be… hmph!!”
“We’re… we’re sorry, Miss. This was our dereliction of duty. Boss Feng has always protected you before, and with Boss Feng away this time, when something came up we all instinctively gave chase and forgot you were alone… We’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit once we’re back… Miss, who were they—”
One of them crouched down to check the four men in black for breath, and before long stood back up, shaking his head with a grave face. “All dead.”
Not only dead — he’d carefully searched their bodies and couldn’t find so much as a trace of blood or any obvious wound. And the expressions on their faces in death were, every one of them, the same… terror.
“Dead?”
“Huh? Dead?!” The girl instinctively took a small step back, both hands clapping over her lips. Recalling that man from moments ago who’d blocked the bullet and then killed them all in a flash… could he be the esper her father had spoken of, the kind you must never provoke?
“There must have been an inside informant who leaked word of your outing — we’ll get to the bottom of it once we’re back. Miss, let’s head back first; we’ve already phoned the boss, and he’s already…”
“I don’t need you to support me, I can walk myself!” The girl flung off his hand and stormed on ahead in a huff. “What use are you people?! I’ve only gone out twice today — the first time I was—”
The five men listened behind her, faces full of shame, with no grounds whatsoever to argue back. She’d gone out twice today: the first time to collect her Fate game device — since Fate‘s devices bound to a person’s DNA, it had to be collected in person — only, who’d have thought she’d be molested right on the street, without them so much as catching a shadow of the culprit. The second time, she’d nearly been kidnapped, and had it not been for that rescue by some unknown person, the consequences would simply have been… At the thought, cold sweat broke out on all five men’s foreheads.
But the girl’s furious voice suddenly stopped, and her steps halted where she was. As she recalled that scene of being groped that morning, the two figures that had run off into the distance slowly merged into one — right down to the color and style of the clothes and shoes… “Ah!!” The girl suddenly pointed ahead and let out a shriek. “He’s the same one who molested me this morning!!”
……
……
“…Lei Feng, you dropped your lollipop.”
Back home, the door shut behind him, the thought of that line called out at his back suddenly left Ye Tianxie wishing he could die.
“Oh la la, master, you’re back! The lollipops — did you buy the lollipops?” Seeing Ye Tianxie return, Guoguo — who’d toured every corner of his house — came flying over at top speed, crying out full of eagerness.
Lollipops… Ye Tianxie’s face went dark with those manga black lines, and he flopped down onto the sofa with a plop, saying feebly, “No… and no more bringing up this lollipop business from now on!”
Guoguo’s excited expression vanished in an instant. She blinked, and a thick grievance settled at once onto her face. “Boo-hoo… master promised me… promised to buy Guoguo lollipops to eat… master can’t go back on his word… how could master lie to the cutest, best-behaved Guoguo…”
Little Guoguo’s expression right then was as pitiful as pitiful could be — her rosy little cheeks flushed red, her two tiny hands worrying at the hem of her dress, her eyes brimming with a shimmer of water, like a hazy drizzle drifting over the dark-blue Heavenly Lake atop the Tianshan Mountains. Her pouting little mouth worked in and out, ready to burst into tears at any moment, as if she’d suffered some earth-shattering injustice.
Guoguo’s pitiful look was, without a doubt, a devastating weapon capable of breaching any solid defense — Ye Tianxie’s defenses, at least, collapsed outright. He hurriedly took a lollipop from his pocket and held it out before Guoguo. “Relax, I was just teasing Guoguo. Look… I bought your lollipops for you after all.”
The speed at which Guoguo’s expression changed could move heaven and earth and make ghosts weep. The instant the lollipop appeared, Guoguo’s about-to-cry look of grievance vanished without a trace, her once tear-filled eyes now blinking with excitement. She floated up and snatched that lollipop — huge as far as she was concerned — into her hands, letting out a chirping little cheer from her lips. “Whoaa! So this is a lollipop? So pretty!”
“…It is.” Ye Tianxie really regretted not having gone and bought a watermelon, then telling her with a perfectly straight face that this was a lollipop.
“Wah… oh la la! Master’s so good, master’s the best, oh la!” Guoguo cradled the pretty lollipop and flew about excitedly, her two little hands fiddling with it endlessly. In just a little while, she’d figured out all on her own how to peel off that layer of transparent wrapping. She leaned in and sniffed with her little nose, and the sweet scent carrying its fruity fragrance made her close her eyes, an utterly adorable look of enjoyment on her face. Then she carefully stuck out her little pink tongue and gave it a gentle lick.
“Wah! So sweet. It really is delicious!” Guoguo’s eyes grew brighter still, a steady stream of all sorts of pleasant cries and giggles coming from her mouth. Cradling the lollipop in both hands, she licked away at it with her tiny pink tongue, lick after lick… The sight of it left Ye Tianxie staring a little blankly.
Eating a bit of something at random to see dinner done with, the time had already reached half past nine. Ye Tianxie’s three daily meals followed no pattern at all; his meals were purely to placate his own belly, and more often than not he didn’t even know what he’d just eaten, frequently not even paying attention to the taste as he ate.
As for Guoguo’s dinner… if she needed dinner at all, it was that lollipop cradled in her hands. A fair stretch of time passed, and she’d only licked away a small half of it. Ye Tianxie rose and said, “Guoguo, I’m going to go take a bath. You behave yourself here, watch TV, eat your candy, and no running around.”
“Got it, master. Guoguo’s the best-behaved.” Little Guoguo licked away intently at the lollipop in her hands, her starry, sparkling eyes fixed excitedly on the images on the TV.
In the bathroom, sitting reclined at an angle in the cool water, Ye Tianxie could at last, in the quiet, properly turn over everything that had happened since entering the World of Fate today. The appearance of the Hour of Eternal Fate, the appearance of Guoguo… who’d then shown up in his real life too — all of it carried a fantastical quality he found hard to accept. He lowered his head and cupped the black ornament at his chest — this thing called the Hour of Eternal Fate — closed his eyes, and into his mind surfaced that soul-haunting, never-to-be-erased-or-faded immortal silhouette. This was the only thing she’d left behind when she left back then; he had never once let it leave his body, keeping it on him even while bathing.
Perhaps the answers could be gotten little by little from the strangeness-riddled Guoguo. But the first thing to do was to bribe this little thing bit by bit… buying her candy, for instance, was the first step. Recalling the sight of little Guoguo cradling her lollipop, Ye Tianxie couldn’t help smiling.
The cool water lowered his body temperature, dispelling the sultry heat of the summer night. Ye Tianxie let out a long breath, cast off his stray thoughts, and closed his eyes to savor the feeling of being soaked in the cool water, so comfortable he could have drifted right off to sleep just like that.
“Yee-yaa! So master’s taking a bath… Oh la la! I love baths best — I want a bath too!”
(End of Chapter 28)