Bai Tang: I'll Show You What a True Fan Is

"If only Bai Tang were here. She's a doctor, so she could check what's going on with you."

March 7th sounded regretful. "But it's not too late to see her later."

Stelle, whose eyes were clear and vacant, fell into thought. Then she opened her mouth and asked:

"Did you do this while fighting?"

"The materials used to build Herta Space Station are top-of-the-line. How could we possibly do this? You can tell at a glance that the Antimatter Legion sent a big one to smash the place up. It's a miracle you made it out unscathed."

When March 7th first saw the wrecked room, she had been stunned too. Who was badass enough to turn the place into a Syrian war zone? It couldn't have been the Stellaron exploding, could it?

She was even more stunned when she saw that Stelle was alive and completely uninjured, with nothing but memory loss. The room was in this state, yet Stelle had somehow survived perfectly intact. Was she even human? Her physical toughness had to be superhuman.

March 7th let her imagination run wild and made a reasonable guess. "Could you have beaten the enemy to death, then passed out from exhaustion and lost your memory?"

"It wasn't me."

Stelle barely remembered anything, but she was sure she hadn't done it. Someone must have swung a sword and done all this in a single strike.

"March 7th, Dan Heng."

"Bai Tang, you're here!"

Bai Tang put away her phone and casually walked through the gaping hole in the doorway, as though she had just arrived. "This... is?"

Stelle was expressionless. "Stelle."

March 7th looked at Bai Tang, then Dan Heng, then Stelle. "Great. Three people with no expressions."

Bai Tang said, "Different."

Dan Heng looked composed, and he was composed as long as his friends weren't involved. But the moment something happened to one of them, he'd open with Dragon Transformation, form alliances, and use the Jade Abacus for basic attacks, panicking all the while. Take his answer when Dan Feng asked how much he would give up, for example.

Stelle had the air of an aloof beauty and a bizarre way of doing things. Cardboard boxes were her home, and trash cans were her favorite. But when something serious happened, she became the most reliable person of all. For example, Phainon had entrusted her with the duty of saving the world.

As for Bai Tang, her facial muscles were just stiff right now. A little practice and they'd go back to normal!

She used to be a cheerful, talkative girl who loved to laugh!

"She's... healthy. Inside her... cancer of... Harmony... keeps her alive. Memory loss... someone... implanted a suggestion."

Bai Tang spoke with great difficulty, as though her tongue were tied in knots. If she didn't pause, her words would come out strange, but when she did pause, they broke in strange places.

Dan Heng and March 7th were used to it, but this was Stelle's first time meeting her. She studied Bai Tang curiously and said something shocking:

"Please scold me lots from now on! Really let me have it!"

Dan Heng: "?"

March 7th: "?"

Bai Tang: "..."

Bai Tang could be called a very pretty fox spirit. Her silver ears twitched, and her waist-length hair hung loose, its tips fading into pale purple. It was hard to tell whether it had been dyed or whether the purple had faded to silvery white.

She had a slender figure, and her exposed wounds didn't look gruesome. Faint golden patterns flowed across them, giving them a strange beauty. Together with her swaying, fluffy silver tail, whose tip faded into pale purple, they seemed to be tempting fox lovers to pounce on her and give her a good rub.

With Bai Tang's looks, even getting angry would seem like acting coquettish. And now she was a kuudere girl, so adorable when she was dead serious that people wanted to pounce on her and take a big sniff, like a cat lover sniffing a cat.

Next, Dan Heng was going to find Arlan, March 7th and Stelle were going back together, and Bai Tang was leaving alone again.

Dan Heng was lean and muscular and looked like he could fight, but Bai Tang looked more like a frail, seriously ill young lady who needed others to take care of her. Seeing her leave alone, Stelle began to wonder whether the little fox doctor fought monsters by whipping them with her tail.

Hmm, wouldn't that be rewarding the monsters?

March 7th didn't know what Stelle was thinking. Her expressionless face was still quite convincing, but March explained anyway:

"Don't worry about Bai Tang. She runs really fast."

March 7th didn't know how strong Bai Tang really was, since they'd only spent about a day together. But everything else aside, with Bai Tang's unmatched speed, she could always run away if she couldn't win.

"Lightning Fox!"

"What are you even talking about? Come on, let's go."

Himeko had arrived at the space station by then. Instead of taking the elevator, Bai Tang used the map in her head to teleport straight to the master control zone to find her.

"You're back."

"Himeko, Doomsday Beast."

Bai Tang had played the game and knew how the story went, but she had also noticed that the Doomsday Beast was already approaching. It was visible as a tiny black dot in the distance, so she had hurried over to tell Himeko.

Himeko paused when she heard this, without dismissing it in the slightest.

"I'll tell Asta. Have you seen Dan Heng and Little March?"

She knew how sharp Bai Tang's eyesight was. On the train, Bai Tang had spotted the hidden Antimatter Legion before anyone else noticed it. Things seemed peaceful now, but with Bai Tang's eyesight, it really could appear.

"Saw them. Finding Arlan. Have a companion. I came back first."

"Mm, I understand. Get some rest first."

Himeko went to tell Asta about it so she could prepare in advance. The Express was preparing to fight the Doomsday Beast, so she also sent Welt a message. With Pom-Pom holding down the fort on the Express, there wasn't much to worry about.

As a junior—well, Himeko treated her as one and looked after her—Bai Tang could relax before the Doomsday Beast arrived. She happily watched a researcher write code.

The next second, she left, bored. No wonder people said most of the researchers on Herta Space Station were mediocre. She might as well play games with Silver Wolf and exercise her language system.

[Silver Wolf: I know you can use Aether Editing too. Help me out.]

Bai Tang: "?"

Wow, Elio was amazing. He even knew that.

She could be called a character fan to the extreme.

Because she was a Yingxing fan, she had specifically learned blacksmithing. She was also a Jiaoqiu fan, so she had gone to study medicine, both traditional Chinese and Western, and had even taken the exams to obtain a medical license.

She also liked most of the Chrysos Heirs. Knowing they were just strings of code, she had furiously learned programming.

[Bai Tang: What is it?]

[Silver Wolf: Deal with part of the corporation's system. The script says I can ask you for help.]

[Bai Tang: I think you should be able to do it on your own.]

[Silver Wolf: I think so too.]

[Silver Wolf: That's what the script says.]

[Silver Wolf: Who knows?]

[Bai Tang: Tell me when and what I need to do.]

[Silver Wolf uploaded a file.]

As mentioned above, Bai Tang was such an extreme fan that she went and learned these things, just like that Hu Tao fan who opened a funeral parlor and that Yoimiya fan who started a fireworks factory.

I know Honkai: Star Rail's setting. The stuff we learn would basically be useless there. What she means by learning isn't the same as what we're thinking of.

So don't ask why she can still use it in Honkai: Star Rail. There's foreshadowing here; keep reading and you'll find out.