The Happy and Unhappy Girl (4k) (Continued)

She also needed to do something relaxing to ease her taut nerves.

The cinema was a great place. A two-hour movie could let her completely unwind.

The only thing giving Raiden Mei a slight headache was that Wendy had eaten far too much ice cream.

She had thought that a girl from Schicksal would be stern-faced, highly skilled in every field, and unsmiling, but now Wendy clearly looked like an innocent girl who knew nothing of the world.

If she had a younger sister, she would probably be like Wendy.

Raiden Mei began trying to treat Wendy as her little sister.

But Wendy was the kind of little sister who was far too innocent and far too easy to fool.

Chen Ran was not a good person in the traditional sense. Mei could sense that much.

Fighting Honkai required a stronger hand, so she could understand.

But was it not even crueler to place a thirteen-year-old girl on the front lines against Honkai?

Raiden Mei did not quite understand.

But the important question now was, "You ate so much ice cream. Won't your stomach hurt?"

Wendy patted her chest and declared proudly, "Not at all. Don't underestimate me... Ow..."

Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

Raiden Mei and Chen Ran exchanged a look, both helpless.

Sure enough, Wendy at this time was more like a child.

The Wendy from before had instead been so mature that it felt abnormal and heart-wrenching.

Even after the entire movie ended, Wendy could still feel pain in her stomach.

Two servings of ice cream a day were the limit she could handle now.

The physical strength of Valkyries had always been a mystery.

Take Durandal, for example. She could kick a Honkai Beast flying with one foot, yet she still had obvious body-image anxiety and would not even eat an extra slice of cake.

Biologically speaking, greater energy intake should be needed to support such tremendous strength.

Chen Ran did not really understand it either. All he could say was that anything unexplainable could be blamed on Honkai Energy.

Still, it was truly a pity that she could not leisurely eat ice cream while watching a movie.

Seeing Wendy's slightly pale face, Chen Ran went to the staff for a cup of hot water.

"Come experience the Divine Land remedy. We'll solve your problem at the root."

An ancient Divine Land prescription: drink more hot water.

"Does this really work?"

Feeling the steaming heat from the cup, Wendy hesitated.

Chen Ran smiled and gathered a tiny vortex at his fingertips, making the water spin rapidly to speed up its cooling.

"Give it a try. It's not like I'd lie to you."

Listening to Chen Ran, the girl slowly drank the water once it had cooled to a suitable temperature.

The warm current went straight to her abdomen, as though someone were giving her a tingling massage.

Her stomach really did feel much better.

She let out a cute little sound. "Why didn't you make me drink hot water earlier?"

"How else would you remember this?" Chen Ran smiled. "Come on. I still need to make a trip back to Chiyou Academy."

He still had a Schicksal mission on him. Though he did not care at all about the mission involving Kiana, he could not simply give Schicksal a perfunctory report.

Besides, Chen Ran now felt that the Honkai in Changkong City might not be as simple as the plot he knew.

Whether it was the Plasma Shadow Show Blade, Cocolia's actions, or Rita's demand that Kiana join the operation, all of them pointed to one thing: Schicksal was very likely involved as well.

Perhaps the Sirin Plan Otto had revealed was not as simple as it appeared in the plot.

Still, he did not look too deeply into it.

His task was to complete the missions in the simulation scenario. Even if it affected the future, the future would not in turn affect the era where he was.

The first thing Chen Ran had to consider was surviving Finality, or even defeating Finality.

This was a practical problem, so even if the simulation disrupted the fates of people in the future, he probably had no way to worry about it.

Besides, he was already fifty thousand years in the past. Even without the simulator, he might still alter the timeline in indirect ways.

Meanwhile, at Chiyou Academy.

"Phew, I'm so tired."

Kiana slumped limply over her desk.

Unlike Raiden Mei and Chen Ran, who had special identities, she was a student of Chiyou Academy.

Though she had no idea why she had somehow ended up here when she had clearly been chasing leads about Siegfried.

But since she had become a student, she naturally had the obligation to attend class.

Quite a few people asked Kiana where she had gone.

As a beautiful transfer student with good athletic grades, Kiana was undoubtedly popular in the class. Of course, the most important thing was her distinctly European features.

Although Kiana was now poor enough to need a part-time job, her European looks came with an inherent air of nobility in the Far East.

After dealing with all of them, a trace of confusion appeared in the girl's eyes.

There was no doubt that Chen Ran had dragged her into a Honkai crisis caused by people.

But she knew too little. Much of the information had been revealed by Chen Ran, yet he had cut off both the beginning and the end, leaving her without any context.

Kiana knew Chen Ran was hiding something.

She was not stupid. Chen Ran had no reason to invite her into his group unless there was only one possibility: Chen Ran wanted her to join Schicksal.

Yet he had not extended an invitation so far.

He was probably waiting for an opportunity.

The girl felt that her deduction deserved a perfect score, and the truth was indeed roughly the same. It was just that the person hoping she would join Schicksal was not Chen Ran himself.

Just as she felt that her brain was about to grow tired from all the thinking, a soft voice reached her ears.

"Kiana-chan, where did you go today?"

Kiana muttered, "I went to save the world."

"Then... Kiana-chan, can you tell me what saving the world was like?"

She turned around and saw a delicate face in her field of vision.

"Mm, if you want to hear it, I suppose I can tell you. But..." Her eyes darted around as she smiled. "But I'm tired, so Yoshino has to feed me."

"Mm, okay."

Satou Yoshino took out the cookies and snacks she had made herself and carefully fed them to Kiana, as though she were tending to a gentle pet, or perhaps the beloved person in her heart.

Unlike the much-loved Kiana, Satou Yoshino was at the very bottom of the entire Chiyou Academy's "food chain."

Though her parents were willing to spend money to send her to this expensive school for an education.

Her parents often traveled for work, and she spent most of her time living alone. When she told them about being bullied at school, they would only say dismissive things like, "Your classmates are just playing with you. Don't bother us."

As a result, she did not dare resist when she was bullied at school, and her failure to resist only brought even fiercer bullying.

Satou Yoshino had met Kiana while she was being bullied.

She remembered that Kiana had held a baseball bat and driven those people away in just a few moves.

"Hey, are you okay? My name is Kiana. If anyone bullies you again, tell me. I'll beat her up for you!"

Satou Yoshino's expression grew somewhat dazed.

Later, she had luckily ended up in the same class as Kiana.

Unlike Satou Yoshino, Kiana had gained a place at the top of the "food chain" with her overwhelming popularity as soon as she transferred in. Even if her grades were poor and she slept in class, it would not become a flaw in her classmates' eyes, but rather an advantage.

Everyone envied Kiana for being able to live so happily and carefree.

In comparison, Satou Yoshino, who had no distinguishing traits, became even more invisible.

She yearned for it too.

She hoped she could shine as brightly as Kiana.

Until Kiana said, "It wasn't much, really. I just went out with a teacher and a senior student. Oh, and it turns out the Raiden Queen isn't actually called the Raiden Queen. Her name is Raiden Mei, and she's a very pretty senior."

A brilliant light flickered in the girl's eyes, making them sparkle.

"I finally understand why the Raiden Queen is so famous. But this young lady will definitely catch up to her!"

She did not mention anything about Honkai.

Though Kiana also did not quite understand why so many people knew nothing about Honkai, she was undoubtedly quite clever at this point and would not mention information that others did not know.

So she merely glossed over where she had gone, what she had seen, and what she had done.

Yet even that vague description filled Satou Yoshino with yearning.

The girl had no friends, so she had no idea what this feeling was like.

Seeing the smile on Kiana's face, she finally gathered her courage and could not help asking, "Then... Kiana-chan, could we... I mean, could you and I go out and have fun sometime too?"

"Ah, you and me?"

Kiana frowned instinctively.

Now that she knew Changkong City was facing Honkai, she naturally could not stand by and do nothing.

That meant she naturally would not think she had any spare time.

Kiana gently refused, "Sorry, that might be a little inconvenient. I don't think I have much time."

Satou Yoshino's expression stiffened for a moment, then she forced a smile. "Then okay. Maybe next time, if there's a chance."

"Mm-hm, okay."

Kiana did not think much of it. She did not need to be a dollar bill that everyone liked.

"Phew, anyway, I'm so tired. Thanks for the cookies. I'm going to lie down and sleep for a while."

Before long, Kiana felt her head growing groggy, and she fell soundly asleep.

It was as though her brain had a "scheduled sleep" device installed.

Thus, the peacefully sleeping Kiana did not see Satou Yoshino's slightly dimmed eyes.

"My dad and mom don't like me."

"My classmates all hate me."

"Even Kiana-chan... is rejecting me."

A trace of darkness appeared in her eyes.

After class, she instinctively became the last one to leave the classroom.

This was a habit she had developed over a long time. The people who bullied her would not be bored enough to bully her constantly; they preferred doing other things, and she only needed to avoid them.

By then, Kiana had already left.

The girl carried her bag and walked out of the school in a daze.

At that moment, she happened to see Kiana walking beyond the campus. Standing in front of Kiana were the "Raiden Queen" she had mentioned earlier, along with another person Satou Yoshino did not know.

"They all shine so brightly."

A trace of gloom appeared in Satou Yoshino's eyes.