Chapter 24: Tachibana Chisaki

“Who… who are you?”

Seeing the two freeze, Chang Mu spoke first, playing the loyal lackey stepping up for the boss.

But the orange-haired girl just studied him curiously with her brown eyes.

Chang Mu faltered, his planned bravado stuck in his throat.

At that moment, the half-open dorm door swung inward, and the girl nearly faceplanted in front of them.

It wasn’t her pushing the door but a blond young man behind her, lugging bags.

“Kaka?” Xia Yin caught on instantly, glancing from Carlos to the girl. “This is the freshman you brought from Japan?”

“More like… his daughter,” Chang Mu added.

Xueqiu stayed silent, not startled by the girl but struck by how Carlos, more than a senior, resembled her butler.

Carlos, expressionless, helped the girl up, handed her a pink suitcase handle, and said to Xia Yin, “She’s the last early-admission freshman, Chisaki Takanotsume, from Hokkaido, Japan.”

“Please take care of me~!” The girl named Chisaki Takanotsume smoothed her hair and bowed deeply to the trio.

“H-Hey, junior, wear more next time, or your senior might get a nosebleed,” Chang Mu stammered, prone to dumb remarks and quick to back down.

“Oi, that’s my line. You’re her peer, dude,” Xia Yin said, elbowing him, his dead-fish eyes shifting to Carlos.

“Speaking of, didn’t this take too long? They’ve got less than three days till the entrance exam. You stayed in Japan for five days? No antidote folks there, right? And nothing to do with Bombavic anymore, yeah?”

Xueqiu recalled Xia Yin saying Carlos had met the new student—now clearly this curious, sometimes dazed girl—on his second day in Japan.

“It’s because of my…” Chisaki Takanotsume mumbled, her face flushing faintly, like a pure girl smitten by love.

“She wanted to see the sea one last time before leaving home,” Carlos said, deadpan.

“Huh? Did I hear that right? The sea? That’s not rare, is it? Japan’s an island! No, no, that’s not the point. You agreed? Is this the Carlos I know? Something across the sea was more important than Professor Chen’s mission?” Xia Yin sounded almost sulky.

“Across the sea is the ene—” Chang Mu’s eyes darted between them, then he swallowed his words.

“I had no reason to refuse,” Carlos said. “Because—”

“Because I super super super like Senior!” Chisaki interrupted, shaking her orange twin tails, shouting like a rom-com heroine confessing in the final episode.

“Hold it,” Xia Yin said, staring at her. “No need for ‘desu’ all the time. I don’t know Japanese grammar, but your Chinese is fine without it. Also, your precious Carlos already has a girlfriend.”

“Eh…?”

Chisaki froze, taking a few seconds to process.

Then she stood petrified, like a statue.

“Brutal heartbreak. Like me,” Chang Mu said softly.

In the corner, Xueqiu couldn’t get a word in.

She was always like this—just a listener, a bystander.

Was it years of emotional walls that made her this detached observer, or was she born this way?

Now, she felt like a background prop.

But being a prop had perks—like noticing the new person at the dorm door first.

“Chang Mu, there’s a call for you on the landline,” a cold voice said, like ice water through a grimy pipe.

Bing Shi Nagi, lingering outside for who knows how long, appeared at the doorway.

“Bing Shi? What’re you doing here? A call? Wait… Chang Mu, you’re in his dorm?” Xia Yin pointed at Bing Shi Nagi. “No, no, no! You graduated three years ago—why’re you in a student dorm?”

He suddenly realized the room, including himself, now held six people, crowding the once-empty space.

The last time the dorm was this packed was three years ago, Xia Yin thought, sighing inwardly as he stared at Xueqiu’s expressionless face.

Compared to the suffocating pressure of the college entrance exam, preparing for the Spiritual Academy’s entrance exam felt like a pastime—at least to Xueqiu.

The lively morning hadn’t disrupted her study rhythm.

Xia Yin’s study materials were essentially a question bank.

In one afternoon, she memorized most of the questions and answers.

She didn’t know why Xia Yin had been a sophomore for four years or where he got the question bank, but she was grateful for his unconditional help.

She didn’t say it aloud.

Across the hall, Xia Yin, wired earphones in, was engrossed in a colorful game.

“All the electronics here can connect to the internet,” Xueqiu said, her intended “thank you” morphing into this.

Xia Yin didn’t look up. “Normal, normal. But no mobile data. Oh, I forgot to give you the campus Wi-Fi password: Ljm19210101. Capital ‘L,’ don’t forget.”

Xueqiu nodded lightly.

Xia Yin dove back into his game, aiming at yellow-bordered enemies.

Knock, knock, knock.

A knock came at the door.

When Xueqiu opened it, the orange-haired twin-tail girl from the morning stood there.

Chisaki Takanotsume.

Her eyes were red, her hair slightly messy, like she’d just been crying.

“S-Sorry! Wrong room again… my bad…” she said, stressing “no” and “bad.”

Her Mandarin, already shaky, sounded like a parrot mimicking speech.

“Who’s that?” Xia Yin asked, fresh from a 21-19 overtime match, glancing at Xueqiu.

“The new classmate. She seems upset,” Xueqiu reported honestly.

“Upset’s right—she just got her heart broken this morning,” Xia Yin said, setting his earphones aside and opening QQ absentmindedly. “I asked Carlos this afternoon. Guess what? He had no idea.”

“She got her heart broken?”

Xueqiu realized belatedly.

She’d thought Chang Mu was joking—Chisaki’s “like” seemed like a playful remark.

“Finally caught on. Congrats, congrats,” Xia Yin muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Hmm… Chang Mu was in a similar spot a few days ago. Pairing these two freshmen might not be a bad idea…”

Xueqiu stayed silent.

Time ticked by, Xia Yin still glued to his computer.

If she hadn’t seen his superhuman moves days ago, she’d peg him as a tech geek who gamed in his free time.

Half an hour later, he closed the laptop and tossed out a question.

“Oh, Xueqiu, know what a ‘kuudere’ is?”

“…”

Xueqiu blinked, then shook her head.

“Don’t know? That’s fine. I didn’t either till someone explained it—said it’s different from a ‘tsundere’ or whatever. They also said they hated that personality.”

“I can look it up.”

“No… no need. It’s not what I meant anyway. Just a tiny, tiny moe trait,” Xia Yin said after a long pause.

ps: Any readers catching up right here? (crossed out)*