Danzhu's Laziness, Touching the Honkai

"Mhm, that's my Xiao Li, so good~"

After Elysia left the laboratory, Mobius began to imitate her, speaking in a very teasing tone towards Danzhu.

"Doctor..."

Lin Li's face turned completely red upon hearing this.

"Tsk, why so shy? Hurry up and clean up the instant noodles."

"Okay, I'll be right over..."

After Lin Li finished cleaning the trash at her workstation, she went to the Doctor.

She then returned to her seat, regretting what she had just said.

Why did she agree to kiss Elysia just now... she should have refused directly.

The Doctor and the others heard it, it's so embarrassing...

Really... why is it that when she talks to Elysia, she always unconsciously agrees to her strange requests.

And during meals, the caring words she spoke were also strange.

Elysia also said they would be together in the future...

Lin Li covered her face and slumped onto the table, not knowing what to think.

"Lin Li, come here for a moment."

"Okay."

Lin Li took a deep breath.

"Doctor, is there something you need?"

"Of course, why else would I call you over?" Mobius said calmly, "Sit down, I have some questions I've wanted to ask you for a long time."

"Mhm." Lin Li moved her chair over.

Cang Xuan leaned closer, and Danzhu was still slumped on the table, but she noticed Danzhu's ears twitch, guessing she was listening too.

"When you fought the Second Herrscher, why did you aim for her heart?"

"Uh, I missed, what else?" Lin Li retorted.

She had actually guessed that the Doctor would ask her about the Herrscher, but it had been so long ago, and she had been unconscious for two days after defeating the Herrscher, so she had forgotten most of it.

However, from her remaining memories, she had intended to predict the Herrscher's teleportation position, and that arrow was aimed at the head, but she missed.

But missing had its benefits. She vaguely remembered that when she hit the Herrscher's heart, there was a very crisp "ding" sound, like some metal shattering, and then the Herrscher couldn't stand up straight.

"Missed? Are you sure?" Mobius's eyes were as sharp as a snake's, making Lin Li feel a little flustered. "Your fatal shot just happened to hit the Herrscher's core, causing the Herrscher to lose energy. Was that really just a coincidence?"

"Uh... I guess, right?" Lin Li avoided her gaze.

She really didn't like being questioned! Especially about something she barely remembered.

"Tsk, then let's just call it a coincidence." The Doctor said indifferently, her gaze unwavering. "After the Honkai incident, Flame-Moth investigated you, but they found nothing. It's as if you appeared out of nowhere in this world..."

"According to the satellite surveillance footage, your strength, speed, and reflexes at the time were not on the level of a normal human... Do you have anything you want to say?"

"..."

Lin Li continued to look elsewhere, feeling guilty.

She couldn't exactly say she had a System, could she? The System also told her not to say anything...

"Then, can't it just be that I'm amazing? I'm just... is it not okay for me to be like that..."

"Heh, amazing." The Doctor sneered. "You're already mine, and you're still lying to me?"

"Perhaps that phrasing is misleading; it should be that you are someone in my institute."

She grabbed Lin Li's hand and turned her palm over, examining it closely.

Fair as jade, with slender fingers, tsk, Mobius couldn't find any other adjective besides perfect.

Lin Li was indeed a normal person; the blood she had drawn that morning also confirmed it.

But the Lin Li in the satellite footage was a superhuman.

"..."

Lin Li dared not say anything and kept looking at the institute's floor.

She didn't know what material the floor was made of; there were no seams, suggesting it was a single piece.

She was even starting to count the number of white specks on the floor.

"Lin Li, it's really hard not to be curious about you." Mobius spoke again, her tone seeming less aggressive than before.

"Your state when you fought the Herrscher, I haven't observed it at all these past few days. Could your abilities regress?"

"Uh... because I haven't fought anyone, isn't that normal..." Lin Li replied, shrinking her neck.

"Normal... haha."

Mobius suddenly burst into laughter and shook her head.

"Forget it, forget it. You don't know anything when I ask, and you don't want to say anything when I ask. I won't ask then. If you get angry and beat me to death, I'll have nowhere to cry."

"...I won't do that," Lin Li said, raising her head.

"Tsk, who knows? Maybe you won't? Even a rabbit will bite when cornered." Mobius stared into Lin Li's eyes, her dark pupils reflecting Lin Li's long, light green hair. "Besides, you're a person."

"..."

Lin Li realized that her previous thought of Mobius being easy to talk to was completely wrong.

For a moment, she even felt like the Doctor wanted to slice her up for research.

Maybe it was because she couldn't beat her? Otherwise, the Doctor might have really done it...

Lin Li sat back down in her seat, her mind racing.

Danzhu and Cang Xuan looked at the two of them, completely bewildered by their conversation.

"Danzhu, Cang Xuan, go over to Lin Li and have her tell you about the Honkai."

"Okay." Danzhu nodded, pulling Cang Xuan to Lin Li's workstation.

Mobius, meanwhile, propped her chin in her hand and began to ponder.

Her research proposal on the Second Herrscher's core had not yet been approved, and she didn't know when those people would realize their own incompetence and bring it back to her.

But she wasn't in a hurry. She had already made some progress, but more detailed research would still need to be handed over to Vill-V...

As expected of a genius girl, she thought the same thing as her, to have humanity fuse with the power of the Honkai... though even as a Doctor of Biological Genetics, she could only conduct a little research.

Mobius looked at the faint purple patterns on her operating table.

They were originally a deep purple, but she had wasted a lot of them these past two days, and now they had turned a light purple.

Perhaps what disappeared was energy?

Since energy could be stored within those creatures, there must be a way to extract it and apply it to humans, or even weapons.

However, using humans for experiments seemed a bit too extreme in the eyes of those people, and they probably wouldn't agree... but deviating from the human level was beyond her scope of expertise.

"Old fossils, I hope you can give Vill-V some room to maneuver," Mobius muttered to herself, flicking her long hair and looking back. Lin Li was earnestly explaining something, while Danzhu and Cang Xuan listened as if hearing a story.

Perhaps Lin Li was telling a story herself? And she had even deliberately lowered her voice, as if afraid she would hear.

It was probably taught to her by Elysia...

"Sister Lin Li, why do I feel like you're telling a story?" Cang Xuan asked curiously after listening to Lin Li's explanation about the Honkai.

She had been talking for a very, very long time, about as long as Elysia had talked on the sofa back then.

"Mhm, it was quite nice to listen to. Can you tell us more? I don't want to work," Danzhu chimed in.

Then she was flicked on the head by Cang Xuan.

"Idiot, keep your voice down! What if the Doctor hears you?" she whispered, "You'll be waiting to work overtime and eat instant noodles!"

"Ah... I don't want to eat instant noodles!"

Hearing this, Danzhu also became obedient, lowering her voice.

"Elysia told me the same way," Lin Li said. "As long as you can understand, the form doesn't matter."

"As for other stories, I don't have anything else to tell. You guys should go back now."

"Mmm... I'm so envious of you," Danzhu pouted. "You don't have to do anything, just sit here and play."

"Uh, actually, you'll know it's not a good feeling if you try it," Lin Li replied very seriously.

"I don't believe you. How about you and Cang Xuan go over there? I'll sit here and play." Danzhu said, sitting directly on Lin Li's lap.

"This, this isn't good, is it?" Lin Li glanced at the Doctor who was diligently working. "If the Doctor finds out, you'll be in a lot of trouble."

"Don't worry, I've actually been paying attention to the Doctor the whole time. She hasn't looked over here once," Danzhu said, patting her chest. "And I'll only play for a little while, not for long. Just let me satisfy my craving."

"Silly Danzhu, you're here to work, not to play," Cang Xuan clearly disagreed with the idea. "Besides, you only did a little bit of work this morning. The Doctor assigned us so many tasks today. What if we don't finish them?"

"Then we'll leave it for tomorrow! I'll definitely do it tomorrow!"

"You always say that, but when have you ever actually done it?" Cang Xuan retorted.

"Before was before, now is now, how can it be the same?" Danzhu still had no intention of getting off Lin Li's lap.

Actually, it was quite comfortable sitting there, with Lin Li as a warm cushion behind her.

"It's the first day of work today, so it's normal for me not to be in the right state. I'll be fine tomorrow, just trust me."

"...You're really lazy, you idiot." Cang Xuan said exasperatedly. "Sister Lin Li, let's go. Let's not bother with this lazybones."

"Okay..."

Lin Li picked Danzhu up. After she left her seat, she put her back on the chair and tiptoed back to their original workstations with Cang Xuan.

Danzhu really didn't care and just lay on the chair, playing with her phone, having a great time.

"……"

Lin Li looked at the large pile of precision instruments in front of her, a worried expression on her face.

"What do we do now?"

"Just watch me, Lin Li-jie. Danzhu did the same thing earlier," Cang Xuan said softly, finding Lin Li much more agreeable to look at than Danzhu. "If there's anything you're curious about, feel free to say so, and I'll explain."

"Okay." Lin Li nodded slightly. "Actually, I think you don't need to call me 'jie.' You're a bit older than I am."

"Oh, that's not important! Even if Danzhu and I are older than you, you look like the older sister!"

"……"

Lin Li watched Cang Xuan's experiment intently.

The microscope was a binocular one, meaning she and Cang Xuan could observe the cells' state simultaneously.

Currently, Lin Li's vision was filled with a grayish-white expanse, with only small black and purple dots moving slowly.

The purple dots were… eating the black dots, which looked incredibly bizarre.

"Lin Li-jie, look, this is what the Doctor asked us to research."

"The Doctor said these purple dots can be understood as Honkai energy. They destroy the tissues within organisms, pushing cells towards a certain state."

"There are actually many other types of samples we can observe, but the Doctor only provided these for now, saying she'll show us others once we discover something."

Cang Xuan sighed with a hint of helplessness.

"But I've been watching here for a long time, and besides the purple dots eating the black ones, I don't seem to see anything else."

"Hmm…"

Lin Li couldn't exactly say she hadn't discovered anything, so it was better to remain silent.

She had come here to watch Cang Xuan conduct her experiment in the first place.

"Hey, Lin Li-jie, don't touch it!"

Cang Xuan suddenly noticed Lin Li's movement and exclaimed in alarm.

"Huh? I didn't touch it." Lin Li looked up at her hand.

It was one thing not to look, but as soon as she did, she realized her finger had unconsciously moved close to that layer of purple cellular tissue.

"!"

Lin Li quickly retracted her hand, but it was too late. The moment she pulled it back, purple patterns crawled onto her fingertip.

"What are you two doing?"

Mobius noticed the commotion, turned her head, saw Lin Li in the place where Danzhu should have been, frowned, and strode forward.

She also saw the purple patterns on Lin Li's finger, her eyes shifting.

"What did you do?" Mobius asked, a hint of nervousness in her tone.

"I… I don't know how I touched it…"

Lin Li was clearly more nervous than Mobius.

"Tsk, what a hassle." Mobius took out a protective suit from a hidden cabinet on the research institute's wall and put it on.

"Into the operating room, quickly."

"Okay."

Lin Li didn't dare to delay, afraid something might happen to her.

But Mobius seemed more worried than she was.

After entering the operating room, the heavy silver-white metal door closed. Lin Li lay down, while Mobius stared intently at the area with the purple patterns.

It was strange. The purple patterns, which were originally very invasive, had only stopped at Lin Li's fingertip, showing no intention of spreading further.

Mobius grabbed that hand and examined her index finger.

The solemn and cold atmosphere made Lin Li shiver.

"Doctor…"

"Shut up." Mobius interrupted impatiently.

"……"

Lin Li closed her eyes and bit her red lip.

The Doctor must save me! I promised Elysia I wouldn't wander off after work…

What if Elysia comes and finds me dead!

Hmm… wait, do I still have the System?

[Host, rest assured, you are completely fine]

The System seemed to know what Lin Li was thinking, replying with a hint of exasperation.

"Ah… then why does the Doctor look so serious?"

[Normal individuals exposed to Honkai energy will experience varying degrees of corruption, known as Honkai sickness, depending on their level of adaptation. However, you, the host, are different.]

"Me...? Am I not zero?" (Don't get the wrong idea!)

[That is why you, the host, are not corrupted.]

The System did not intend to explain further and disappeared after uttering these words.

Lin Li felt relieved.

Uh...

So, should she tell the Doctor that she's completely fine?

Looking at the Doctor's expression... even if she said it, she probably wouldn't believe her... so she'd better not.

She hoped the Doctor wouldn't slice her up for research QAQ