[Lu Family Courtyard] Description

Chaye kept working with his paws. "If you're one of us, I don't mind telling you."

"My ability does have to do with shadows. Among the weird, shadow abilities are top-tier!"

"They sure are!" Ren Yi nodded eagerly, curiosity in his eyes.

"Chaye, what's your rule? Can you tell me? I don't mean anything by it. I'm just curious about shadow abilities."

"Heh heh!" At the mention of his rule, Chaye immediately stopped what he was doing. A remarkably human look of self-importance appeared on his foxlike face, and his tail rose proudly.

"I'm a rare 'Clock-In' rule weird! I can use my ability whenever there's a moon out at night. Impressive, right?"

Ren Yi remembered that "Clock-In" was a joking term the weird used for rules related to time.

Of all the abilities Ren Yi had seen, Chaye's had one of the least restrictive rules.

He couldn't help exclaiming, "That's really impressive! With an ability like that, Chaye, couldn't you take care of all the participants this time by yourself?"

Chaye's expression froze, and his ears drooped. "Uh... well..."

"Hee hee hee—hee hee hee hee hee—"

A pile of human-faced watermelons nearby seemed to have heard a joke. They rolled over and surrounded Chaye, snickering nonstop.

"What the hell are you laughing at?!" Chaye flew into a rage out of embarrassment, grabbed a chicken leg, and hurled it at the watermelon in front.

The watermelon rolled a long way off with a thud, but its laughter didn't stop.

He turned to Ren Yi and explained, a little embarrassed, "Sigh, I won't mind if you laugh, but my ability doesn't have much killing power, and my true form is weak too. All I can do is bully these bastard watermelons."

"I can travel freely through shadows, and I can even snatch people's shadows away."

"But my influence over shadows is limited. At most, I can make them lose coordination and take a tumble."

"And as soon as a shadow 'realizes' it's not where it belongs, my ability stops working," Chaye said, a little dejected.

"That participant who flew up into the sky earlier was a complete idiot. He flew so high that I only had to interfere a little to make him fall, and the fall left him half-dead."

But Chaye's dejection didn't last long. He soon perked up again, his tail rising once more.

"I might be weak now, but I'm top-tier in an Instance! It's just hard for me to level up. Once I do, I'll definitely be a great weird whose name is known far and wide!"

Ren Yi nodded repeatedly in agreement.

He remembered Doctor Lin saying that "Clock-In" weird like Chaye, whose abilities were restricted to certain periods, seemed to feed by killing people during those periods.

Chaye mainly worked with the Watermelon Field weird, getting participants to trigger the Watermelon Field's rules. He was a top-tier support.

But a top-tier support only got assists, while the kills went to the Watermelon Field.

It really was difficult for him to kill participants with his own paws, which made it hard for him to level up.

Still, just as Chaye had said, once this kind of shadow ability leveled up, its potential would be limitless.

In short, he was a late-game hero.

Seeing that Chaye had nearly finished eating and was wiping his mouth with a paw, Ren Yi hurriedly put his question to him.

"Chaye, actually, I came to find you because I wanted to ask about shadow abilities."

He told Chaye everything he had seen, describing how Ren Man had stored a chair in a shadow.

"My brother never tells me about his ability, but we're the same species."

"But I can't sense shadows at all, and he doesn't seem like a weird with a shadow ability either. So how did he do it?"

"Huh? That happened?" Chaye raised an eyebrow. Heaven only knew how a zha managed to do that.

"So what species are you? What's your ability?" Chaye asked, swishing his tail.

"Uh... my brother said our species doesn't even have a name, and told me to make one up."

"As for my ability, I guess you could call it Illusion." Ren Yi scratched his head, his answer somewhat vague.

Chaye immediately rolled his eyes and stared at him speechlessly. "What do you mean, 'you guess'? Doesn't your Ghost Net profile say what it is?"

"I'm not trying to be vague. Something went wrong when I awakened." Ren Yi hurriedly waved his hands and explained.

"My brother took me to see a doctor, and that's exactly what the doctor said. He didn't give me a definite answer."

He wanted to ask too, but whenever he asked Doctor Lin, the doctor would say, "Younglings shouldn't set their sights so high," and then urge him to train.

After hearing that, Chaye dropped the subject and asked instead,

"Have you seen what your brother's true form looks like? Tell me about it. I'll see if I know what kind of weird you two are."

"I caught a glimpse of it." Ren Yi nodded. "He looks, uh..."

He was about to describe it when he suddenly froze.

He had seen Ren Man's true form only once, just after he awakened. Ren Man had covered the entire house with his true form, pulled him out from under the sofa, and then helped him reshape his Humanoid Form.

He still remembered the feeling of being enveloped in boundless darkness.

But how was he supposed to describe it?

Very black and very big?

No, no, that wasn't right. Those words weren't appropriate at all.

Ren Yi opened and closed his mouth, trying several times before finally giving up and shutting it.

He shook his head helplessly. "I... can't explain it."

"What's wrong?" Chaye tilted his head and stared at him, his voice full of puzzlement.

"Didn't you see it? How big was he, what shape was he, did he look human, did he have facial features... Aren't those easy enough to describe?"

"No..." Ren Yi paused with difficulty. "My brother doesn't really look human, it's just... forget it. I can't quite put it into words."

The feeling was too strange.

He had clearly seen it, and the image in his memory was as vivid as if it had been yesterday. Yet it was as though he hadn't been able to "read" the information his eyes had sent him, and no matter what he did, he couldn't put what he had seen into words.

It was like a camera fitted with nothing but a storage module: it could record images with precision, but had no chip to process them and no circuitry to output or convey them. All it could do was keep those images sealed deep in his mind.

Ren Yi gave up on explaining, but Chaye's interest was piqued instead.

"Hey, little guy, you're being awfully mysterious about this."

He planted his two front paws on his hips and struck the pose of a big shot. "Come on, let's add each other on Ghost Net. When you get back to the Alliance, let's arrange to meet. I want to see just what kind of weird your brother is!"

Chaye's eyes darted around as he worked out a little plan.

This kid's brother might be a hidden big shot in the shadow domain, right?

Even I can only turn myself into a shadow. I can't put anything else in one.

When the time comes, I'll shamelessly latch onto him. The big shot might give me a few pointers, seeing how young I am.

Then I'll level up all the way to A-rank—no, I'll go straight to becoming an S-rank great weird and reach the pinnacle of weird life! Heh heh!

Nobody knew that this fellow, who called himself "Chaye" every other sentence, was actually only one class year ahead of Ren Yi and was still a youngling who hadn't fully grown up.

"Sure." Unaware of the drama playing out in Chaye's head, Ren Yi readily agreed. "I'll treat you to a meal then, as an apology for this time."

"Apologize for what?!" Chaye patted his chest, looking every bit the generous hero. "From now on, I've got your back in the Instance scene!"

Putting the subject of shadows aside, Ren Yi and Chaye, the two newly made friends, began chatting about everything under the sun.

Ren Yi also took the opportunity to hear plenty of interesting stories and gossip from weird circles.

Meanwhile, Lu Zihan was having an animated conversation with the Parasol Tree stuck in the doorway.

The Parasol Tree's vines waved excitedly in the air, occasionally curling around snacks and sending them into his trunk. He was clearly delighted.

Lu Qing stood in the distance, watching the younger ones get along. Nodding repeatedly in satisfaction, he elegantly raised his wineglass and took a sip of red wine.

Happy times were always short.

After the banquet, Ren Yi rested another night at the Lu family home, and before he knew it, the day to leave for the Three-City World had arrived.