Preparing to Return to Kliperburg

Early in the morning, daylight in Belobog slipped through a gap in the curtains, dividing the carpet into patches.

Bai Luoming rolled over under the covers, stretched out an arm, and instinctively felt around beside his pillow.

Only when the terminal's cold casing touched his palm did he slowly open his eyes.

The screen lit up, displaying the local time.

It was already getting late.

He stared at the time on the screen in silence for a moment, then decisively blamed his late awakening on the Goethe Hotel's overly comfortable bed.

It had absolutely nothing to do with his own self-control.

He first opened the train's group chat.

The latest messages were a few more landscape photos March 7th had sent before going to sleep last night.

At two in the morning, Stelle had still been asking where she could buy a model of the same kind of trash can.

But no one had answered her.

There was no notice to gather in the group chat at the moment, which was a relief to Bai Luoming. It meant he wasn't late yet.

At that thought, Bai Luoming immediately felt justified. After all, as long as nobody was rushing him, it didn't count as oversleeping.

He exited the group chat, ran a fingertip over his contacts, and opened the chat window named "King Wen of Zhou."

The message he had sent last night still lay quietly in the conversation, with no reply.

"Huh, was it really a phishing scam? No, that doesn't seem right either. What kind of scammer adds someone as a friend and then doesn't say a word?"

He couldn't make sense of it and even began to suspect it was some new type of scam that only focused on adding friends and left out the follow-up.

He opened King Wen of Zhou's profile. The profile page was completely empty, like a new account.

He had meant to delete the contact, but stopped after reconsidering.

Although the other person hadn't replied, what if they suddenly came back to life someday? Like those tea-selling girls, they might provide some entertainment.

Bai Luoming casually set his terminal face down by the bed and got up to wash, muttering, "Scammers are really running rampant these days. They've even tried to scam me. They've got some seriously chubby guts."

At the same moment, in faraway Penacony.

Robin woke early and tried again to send the message she had composed last night.

The message icon kept spinning, only for a glaring red exclamation mark to pop up again, indicating that the message had failed to send.

Robin frowned deeply. There was clearly nothing wrong with her terminal or the network, and she could even send messages to other people, so why wouldn't it work with Bai Luoming's account?

Refusing to give up, she switched networks and even borrowed the Family's internal encrypted channel, but the result didn't change.

It was as though an invisible force had formed a wall of sighs, blocking all communication between her and Bai Luoming. No, that wasn't quite right. It was blocking her communications to Bai Luoming in one direction only.

At the Goethe Hotel, Bai Luoming knew nothing about this. He quickly washed up and changed into the same white casual clothes he had worn before.

"Tsk, as expected of me. My looks are still on point." Then he picked up his terminal, opened the door, and left the room.

In the first-floor lobby, only Dan Heng was sitting alone by the window, waiting for the rest of the Trailblaze team.

On the table in front of him was an empty cup of strong tea, and beside him were the old materials he had bought at the bookstore last night.

Bai Luoming walked over and looked around. "Where are March 7th and Stelle? Did they leave already?"

"They haven't come down yet," Dan Heng replied calmly, looking up from the map.

He had been planning to go upstairs and wake them in a few minutes. Seeing Bai Luoming looking noticeably more energetic than expected, he closed the materials without hesitation.

"You're just in time. I'll leave waking them up to you."

Noticing how practiced he was at passing the task off, Bai Luoming couldn't help asking, "Have you been waiting here all along for someone to come and do it?"

"No," Dan Heng denied calmly. "I need to continue checking the materials."

"All right, then."

With that, he headed for the stairs without looking back.

Bai Luoming first went to March 7th's door and raised his hand to knock a few times.

"Knock, knock, knock."

It took quite a while for a muffled response to come from inside. She clearly wasn't fully awake yet.

"Who is it... What happened?"

"Me." Bai Luoming leaned against the doorway. "Time to get up, March 7th. If you sleep any longer, you might as well get up and have lunch. We still have things to do."

There was silence behind the door for a few seconds before March 7th spoke again.

"There's nothing wrong with having lunch," March 7th said, her voice thick and nasal. "Let's do it this afternoon. It's not like Bronya's going to grow legs and run away."

Seeing that he couldn't wake March 7th this way, Bai Luoming had no choice but to try another approach. He cleared his throat and said, "If you get up now, there'll be a little surprise."

He added earnestly, "Besides, as a Nameless, how can you spend all day thinking about sleeping in?"

"...Is that really convincing coming from you?"

"Why isn't it? Isn't that what you said yesterday?"

"..."

His twisted reasoning succeeded in making so much noise that March 7th couldn't sleep anymore.

Soon, the sound of slippers hitting the floor came from the room, followed by the rustle of curtains being drawn and the clatter of toiletries, interspersed with a few muttered complaints about "certain people who disturb other people's sweet dreams."

Bai Luoming didn't rush her again. He leaned against the hallway wall and waited quietly.

A few minutes later, the door opened.

March 7th had finished washing up, but her face still showed the daze of someone who had just gotten out of bed, without her usual energy.

She held out her hand, palm up, in front of Bai Luoming.

"Where's the surprise?" she warned. "You'd better not tell me the surprise is the hotel's free breakfast."

Looking March 7th in the eyes, Bai Luoming solemnly raised his hand and pointed toward Stelle's room next door.

"Of course not. The surprise is that I'm rewarding you with the chance to wake Stelle up."

The anticipation vanished from March 7th's face, and she gave Bai Luoming an undisguised eye roll.

"I knew it... I shouldn't have expected too much from you."

"It's called a reasonable division of labor," Bai Luoming said solemnly. "I wake you up, you wake Stelle up, and everyone on the Trailblaze team gets to take part. Isn't that great?"

March 7th gritted her teeth but followed him anyway, planning to drag Stelle along to settle accounts with Bai Luoming as soon as Stelle opened the door.

The two had just reached Stelle's door, and March 7th had knocked and was about to speak, when the door opened from inside.

Stelle was already fully dressed and wide awake, looking nothing like someone who had just woken up.

The entire set of lines March 7th had prepared to wake her got stuck in her throat.

"?"

Seeing March 7th's disappointed expression, Stelle tilted her head and asked her seriously, "Did I get up too early and make you unhappy?"

Stelle explained that she had actually woken up when Bai Luoming knocked on March 7th's door and had been waiting for them to come wake her.

"Since you're awake, let's go. Dan Heng's still waiting downstairs."

With that, Bai Luoming turned to go downstairs, while Stelle hurried to his side and lowered her voice.

"Did you two... hear any strange sounds last night?"

The playful look vanished from March 7th's face as she looked at her with concern.

"Sounds?"

"Mm." Stelle frowned slightly. "They were... on and off, all night long."

"It was like someone was talking to me from very, very far away, but I couldn't make it out. It was all muffled, and it kept me from sleeping well."

"It's fine. Maybe your brother or sister was calling you. Look on the bright side."

"Wait, where would I get a brother or sister?" Stelle stared at Bai Luoming, looking a little indignant.

"Aren't you a Stellaron spirit? Then wouldn't the Stellaron on Jarilo be your brother or sister? If you don't believe me, ask March 7th and see if she thinks so too."

Listening to Bai Luoming, Stelle turned to March 7th and asked, "So, March 7th, what do you think?"

"Huh? Me... me?" March 7th pointed at her own nose, not knowing what to say.

"All right, let's just go downstairs and meet up with Dan Heng."