Ms. Herta Is Beautiful and Kindhearted

With half an hour left until arrival, the light outside the porthole woke Jingxing.

He cautiously opened his eyes, then they went wide.

Ahead, the Herta Space Station's silver-white ring-shaped sections overlapped, as though someone had folded up a city and condensed it into a star suspended in planetary orbit. Countless ships came and went around the station, their exhaust flames trailing hair-thin streaks of light. Directly beneath the giant rings, a blue-and-white planet turned quietly.

It was Azure Star, Ms. Herta's homeworld, which she had saved several times and whose safety was now assured because of her.

Jingxing pressed his face against the porthole and even softened his breathing. He thought of his original destination—the Vilona System, the region of space whose purple and blue had been stolen.

The blue of the planet before him was so complete, so unapologetic, that Jingxing felt grateful its colors hadn't been stolen.

Then again, surely no one could steal anything right under the noses of the geniuses of the Genius Society.

A familiar burning pain welled up deep in his eyes, and Jingxing unconsciously closed them again.

Just hold on a little longer. Ms. Herta should have a solution, he reassured himself.

The ship shuddered lightly as the boarding passage aligned with the platform.

Perhaps because the Herta Space Station worked so extensively with the Company, entry procedures for the Company ship went very smoothly. When Jingxing arrived at reception, he handed over the Oak Family's letter of introduction. The receptionist checked its wax seal and his identification, then handed him a temporary visitor's badge, all within a few minutes.

"Welcome to the Herta Space Station, Mr. Jingxing. Your temporary accommodations have already been arranged, and a robot will take you there shortly. As for your request to see Ms. Herta—" The receptionist paused. "You can first speak to Lead Researcher Asta about what you need. We can't get in touch with the great Ms. Herta."

With that, the receptionist was called away by a holographic screen that suddenly lit up.

Jingxing stood where he was, clutching his badge. People came and went on the platform, those in white research coats jogging past as their data pads beeped; several spherical machines rolled around at the crowd's feet.

Before long, a robot guided him to his temporary quarters. He put down his luggage and tidied up briefly, then Jingxing followed the signs out through the hatch.

The space station's interior was absurdly large. The corridors stretched farther than he could see, with deep space visible beyond the glass curtain walls on either side. After walking for who knew how long, he turned through a side door marked "rooftop."

The moment he pushed it open, Jingxing instinctively held his breath.

The entire platform hung off the station's outer edge like a hand reaching into deep space. Beneath his feet was glass so transparent that he could have believed he was standing in space itself. Azure Star hung directly ahead, filling most of his view. The blue of the oceans, the white of the clouds, the arc of light along the planet's edge illuminated by its star—all came into view.

Jingxing found an unoccupied spot at the edge and sat down, gazing at Azure Star in a daze.

"It's beautiful..." He had seen the appearance of quite a few planets, but Azure Star looked so much like his homeworld from his previous life that even gazing at it from this distance nearly overwhelmed Jingxing with emotion.

After admiring it for quite a while, Jingxing suddenly sensed something stir deep within his body. The Imaginary Energy he had gained control of after embarking on a Path was gradually growing stronger, its tiny sparks flaring to life.

"Does this count as following my Path too?" He was a little surprised, but also somewhat happy. "Looks like what I need to do is the same as before."

"Hey." Just then, a voice came from behind him, clear and pleasant, yet a little haughty.

Jingxing turned around.

A very short girl stood a few meters behind him, a purple beret atop her long brown hair. Her fingers idly toyed with the spherical component at her wrist joint.

She was a puppet.

Her skin, hair, eyelashes... every detail was as finely crafted as a real person's, but the spheres exposed at her joints told him plainly: she was a puppet.

Jingxing instinctively glanced over her and froze.

After observing people these past few days, he had developed a scale for what his eyes showed him: ordinary people had only faint points of light around them, while Pathstriders emitted different degrees of light depending on how closely they followed their Paths.

But there was almost nothing around this puppet. Only a thread so thin it was barely there rose from the back of her neck, passed through the ceiling, and stretched into the depths of the stars, who knew how far away.

"What?" The puppet suddenly tilted her head. "Are you captivated by my beauty?"

"...Sorry." Jingxing, who only thought the puppet was extremely narcissistic, looked away. "I was just a little surprised."

Her purple eyes were full of disbelief. "Azure Star looks like this every day. I've been looking at it for hundreds of years, and I got tired of it long ago. But you've been sitting here facing it for almost a system hour. An occupational hazard of being a painter?"

His identity exposed, Jingxing hurriedly stood up. "You're... Ms. Herta?"

"Who else?" The Herta Puppet tilted her head, sizing him up as though he were an idiot. "Both The Family and the Company called in favors to ask me to look after you. I had to come see what you looked like."

"Go on, then. What's so special about you that I should make the trip?"

If she found him uninteresting, the Herta Puppet would turn right around and leave Jingxing to the employees under her.

Jingxing's back tightened. Straightening up, he explained his current predicament to the Herta Puppet.

"Oh?" The Herta Puppet raised an eyebrow. "If all you could see was the Path energy given off by objects, I could make any old Curio to do that. But you can even observe ownerless Imaginary Energy dissipating into the air?"

At that, she suddenly thought of something, and her expression changed. "You came from Vesna IV, right?"

"Yes." Jingxing didn't know why she was asking, but he answered honestly.

"Well, well." The Herta Puppet gritted her teeth, took a few steps forward, and reached out to grab Jingxing by the collar—and failed.

Quick to take the hint, Jingxing obligingly bent down so the Herta Puppet could reach his collar.

"You're the one Idrila cast her gaze upon?" The Herta Puppet leaned closer, a hint of envy hidden in her questioning tone.

"I am." Since he wanted her help, Jingxing didn't hide it from her.

"Tsk..." The Herta Puppet let go of him, looking displeased. "If it weren't for that machine head, I should have been the one Idrila gazed upon."

She looked Jingxing over again. "You do have a good face, but you're still not quite as good-looking as me."

"Your beauty is unparalleled, Ms. Herta." Jingxing smiled and gave a slight bow—he needed a favor from her now, and a few flattering words cost nothing.

"Hmph, at least you have a normal person's sense of beauty." Despite her words, a flash of delight crossed the Herta Puppet's eyes. "As for your eyes... it's probably related to Idrila."

"Before I met you, I was going to chat with you for a bit and then pass you off to the researchers under me." The Herta Puppet played with the ends of her hair, her tone impatiently honest. "Or hand you over to a colleague I work with. She's more specialized in biology than I am. You'd only have to lie down in her lab, and she'd be sure to get you properly cured."

She paused. "Though, knowing her, after curing you, she might give you two pairs of compound eyes, three mouths, four heads, and six legs."

The hairs on Jingxing's back stood on end. He didn't know who this "colleague" was, but his instincts told him that was definitely not a good place to go.

"So?"

"So, the beautiful and kindhearted Ms. Herta has decided to take care of it herself." The Herta Puppet lifted her chin, as though it went without saying. "I want to see for myself what makes you worthy of Idrila's attention."