The little girl drew out her voice. "Or should Laffey dip herself in Chocolate and be eaten too~"
P.S.: Azure Lane players should check out the anime Slow Ahead! It was pretty good.
An Explosive Opening
Little Laffey was clearly making inappropriate gestures and saying inappropriate things, yet her small face was utterly bewildered. That innocent appearance left Ye Ming's heart completely unmoved. If anything, he found it a little funny.
One look at Laffey told Ye Ming that pure, innocent Laffey definitely did not know what doing that meant, much less its consequences. The little girl must have learned it from someone else.
Smack!
Ye Ming switched on the light and sat up in bed, holding back a laugh as he looked at the little girl. "Tell me. Who did you learn that from?"
"Huh? Did Laffey not imitate it well?"
Laffey was deeply shaken. She lowered her head, and after a while, finally confessed, "Laffey learned it from Prinz Eugen. Laffey also saw Taihou practice it many times in the Commander's office."
"Prinz Eugen? Taihou?"
Ye Ming froze for a moment.
Based on their in-game voice lines, Prinz Eugen and Taihou really did seem like the kind of Ship-Girls who would do something like that.
As an Iron Blood heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen was the extremely proactive sort. Ye Ming remembered that when he touched Prinz Eugen in the game, she would ask in return, "Are you already satisfied with just this much?" With special touches, she would even say, "All right, now it's my turn to taste you~" In short, she was a very forward Iron Blood big sister. After marriage, she would even coquettishly claim that she had suddenly gone weak all over and needed the Commander to kiss her before she could get up.
Taihou went even further than Prinz Eugen. Not only was she proactive, she was also seriously yandere.
Adorable Laffey was a completely different type from them.
"Prinz Eugen is Prinz Eugen, and Taihou is Taihou. Laffey is Laffey. Laffey is different from them, and what they do may not necessarily suit Laffey."
Ye Ming did not want his Laffey to become yandere, but he also did not want to discourage the little girl.
"Laffey is the cutest Laffey, one of a kind. There's no need to imitate them."
Ye Ming said those cheesy words without changing expression.
"Even if the Commander says that, Laffey won't be happy."
Laffey pursed her lips, her eyes curving into crescents.
"Commander, a gift."
Laffey held out the gift box to Ye Ming.
Ye Ming reached out to take it, only then realizing that it was the boxed Chocolate Laffey had deliberately picked out at the supermarket. She had carefully carried it herself all the way home.
"This is... something you specifically bought for me?" Ye Ming was surprised.
Laffey nodded. "This is Laffey's Valentine's Chocolate for this year. Although it was bought with the Commander's money, Laffey personally spent a long time choosing it, so it still counts as Chocolate made by Laffey. Commander, happy Valentine's Day."
Valentine's Day had long passed. What Valentine's Day was there to celebrate now?
Ye Ming wanted to laugh, but he could not.
He remembered. In the game, Laffey had been his first Oath Ship. She had accompanied him through his earliest beginner period, and Laffey had always held a special place in Ye Ming's heart.
Azure Lane had an interesting mechanic: placing a Ship-Girl in the secretary ship slot increased her affection. On Valentine's Day, the Ship-Girl in the first secretary ship slot would give Valentine's Chocolate, which the Commander could receive in the warehouse.
Although Ye Ming often put newly constructed Ship-Girls into the secretary ship position to raise their affection, on the day before Valentine's Day every year, he would switch the secretary ship to Laffey. For three consecutive years, the Valentine's Chocolate he received had all been from Laffey.
But in the fourth year, he quit the game. Before quitting, Laffey had not been in the first secretary ship slot.
And now, long after Valentine's Day had passed, in the real world, Laffey had personally given him the fourth year's Valentine's Chocolate.
His Laffey had remembered all along.
How could Ye Ming not be moved?
"Laffey." Ye Ming hugged the little girl tightly, feeling as though his heart had been healed by her.
"Commander, can Laffey sleep with the Commander tonight?"
Tiny Laffey nestled in Ye Ming's arms, her voice languid.
"Laffey likes the Commander's scent."
"Mm, of course you can."
At that moment, how could Ye Ming possibly disappoint the cutest Laffey?
And so, Laffey climbed into Ye Ming's bed.
Ye Ming turned off the light. The two of them lay in bed and talked about the past until late at night. Only after Laffey unknowingly fell asleep, and the heavy-lidded Ye Ming yawned, did he tuck her in and drift into a deep sleep.
At nine thirty the next morning, when the girl named Fu Hua could not get through to him by phone and opened Ye Ming's front door with the key his mother had given her, she saw the following scene.
The bedroom door was half-open. Inside, on the bed, the young man named Ye Ming and the petite little girl were curled up together in sleep. The little girl's white hair spread over both of them, creating a strangely beautiful sight.
The girl froze.
A Bakumatsu Love Story
"His illness was Tuberculosis. I infected him."
The girl named Okita Souji spoke softly. Her absurd answer made Yae Sakura's eyes widen in disbelief.
Yae Sakura almost instinctively wanted to ask why, but when she noticed the pair of amber eyes belonging to Okita Souji, swirling with inexplicable emotions, she involuntarily closed her mouth.
The girl named Okita Souji looked as though she were reminiscing, yet also lost in melancholy. Yae Sakura had seen that same expression before, back in the Warring States period, in Yae Village of Shinano. Whenever she asked that man about his past, he would always smile lightly, shake his head, and say nothing. He would merely gaze toward the unreachable distance, wearing the same look that Okita Souji wore now.
For some reason, Yae Sakura felt a little jealous of the girl before her.
Okita Souji did not notice Yae Sakura's oddity. She had already immersed herself in memories of the past.
"Japan's Bakumatsu was an unprecedentedly turbulent era. The Black Ships Arrival of 1853 smashed open Japan's long-sealed gates, plunging the entire country into fierce upheaval and conflict, from its ideas to its institutions, and ushering it into an age of chaos."
An age of chaos was like a massive whirlpool where great rivers converged. Everyone living through it was nothing but silt within that vortex, where countless people's survival, fate, ideals, and ambitions churned, mingled, and collided.
"It was also the final glorious age when an individual's martial strength could influence the tides of history. Those who wielded swords might wield them for ideals, for loyalty, or for their own ambition and future. Countless swordsmen used their will, blood, and lives to compose one magnificent story after another."
"He and I lived in that kind of era."
"Master Kondo found him abandoned by a riverbank. Since childhood, he trained in Tennen Rishin-ryu swordsmanship under Master Kondo alongside me. He was a very strange person. How should I put it?"
Okita Souji frowned slightly. "Before I met him, everyone I had seen, whether samurai in the Dojo or impoverished people by the roadside, whether they were laughing or excited, seemed to carry invisible shackles upon them. They could never truly relax. But he was completely different."
"His temperament was unlike anyone I had ever met. He had tremendous talent with the sword, but he often came up with new ways to slack off, and every time, he tried to drag me along too. Whenever I asked him why, he would always say nonsensical things with complete confidence, like, 'Lady, the times have changed,' or, 'What's the point of training so hard with a sword when all you get in the end is twenty-five extra critical damage for your teammates?'"
"But later, as we gradually grew up, he began to settle down and train seriously. When I asked him why, he shamelessly said something as ridiculous as, 'I'm working hard at swordsmanship not for myself, but so I can properly protect the strongest, most invincible Miss Okita in the future.'..."
"At the time, I was obsessed with the way of the sword. To be honest, from the beginning, I believed someone with his personality could never achieve much in swordsmanship. But later, I realized I was wrong. Once he made up his mind to do something, he could unleash a level of focus and diligence that would make anyone take notice."
"For more than ten years, aside from regular training, he practiced sword swings before the great tree with me every day.
"In our spare time, he often told me things like, 'The Shogunate is bound to fall; nothing good will come from working for it,' and, 'As long as we cling to the anti-Shogunate faction at the right time, we'll never have to worry about food or clothing.' I knew that he did not want me to join the Shogunate like Kondo and Mr. Hijikata. He did not want anything to happen to me."
"But I still joined Mr. Hijikata and the others."
As she said that, an emotion that could not be identified as pain or regret faintly surfaced in Okita Souji's eyes.
Okita Souji understood her own heart very clearly. Apart from the bond between fellow disciples, there was another important reason she had joined Hijikata and the others—she wanted to go further, to catch a glimpse of the Sword Saint Realm.
For a swordsman devoted wholeheartedly to the sword, what could be more alluring than the way of the sword?
A swordsman's path could not be achieved through empty talk or arduous training alone. Japan's only two Sword Saints in history had both endured battle after battle, forging the great road to the Sword Saint Realm through blood and fire.
"Climbing to a higher peak of swordsmanship is the instinct of every swordsman. I never thought that one day I would regret that decision, but in the end, I did."
"Because he joined the Roshigumi too."
"During that turbulent era, we fought our way from Edo to Kyoto. With the blood and lives of countless swordsmen, we forged the Roshigumi's prestigious reputation as Bakumatsu's Top Swordsman Group. In turbulent Kyoto, we carried out a series of astonishing operations together, including the assassination of Serizawa Kamo and the bloody Ikedaya Incident. We became the most renowned swordsmen in the newly established Shinsengumi, but at the same time, we became the Shogunate's lackeys—executioners with blood-stained hands."
"Then the Shogunate began to collapse, and I contracted Tuberculosis."
Okita Souji would never forget the conversation she had with that man late at night, when she contracted Tuberculosis.
"Why did you join the Shinsengumi?"
Souji had asked him that.
She remembered the man smiling as he said, "You might not believe this, but for me, most of the sword-wielders in this land will become my enemies before long..."
Souji stared unblinkingly into the man's eyes.
The man's smile faded, and he sighed.
"All right, to be honest, at first I planned to court you and marry you. After all, you're the unbelievably cute comedian Miss Okita, and you've even got hidden massive boobs. Getting the chance to meet the real you, of course I'd think about marrying you."
"But now... mm. I've realized that, at some point, I began to see you as family. At some point, I unknowingly got used to the daily grueling training, got used to practicing swings with you, got used to sparring with real swords, got used to facing encircling enemies back-to-back with you..."
"For me, this life was already a second chance, and this country was already foreign land. If what you seek is a higher realm of swordsmanship, then I don't mind accompanying you as we climb to the summit of the sword together."
At that point, Souji fell silent for a long time and did not continue.
Yae Sakura impatiently pressed, "What happened afterward? What happened next?"
"Afterward..."
What else could there have been afterward?
Before you continue