Emma had extremely picky taste. On top of being a Bad Seed by nature, she was withdrawn and paranoid. It really was no easy feat to get her to say the words "to my taste."
Li Dan pressed further.
"What are their names? And how did you become friends?"
"Don't use that tone you use with little kids when you talk to me, okay?"
Emma frowned, her expression carrying a hint of righteous indignation.
She raised her tiny hand and lightly touched Li Dan's cheek with cool fingertips. Her movements were gentle, but her gaze was frighteningly serious, as though she were declaring her claim over him.
"I'm your future girlfriend. You have to treat me like an adult. You're not allowed to treat me like a child."
Li Dan found her miniature-adult act both funny and exasperating. He could only raise his hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay, my mistake. So, Emma, tell me. How did you make these friends who are to your taste?"
Seeing his sincere attitude, Emma leaned back against Li Dan's shoulder. Her voice softened, carrying a trace of relaxation even she had not noticed.
"They're not really friends. I just feel more comfortable being around them than those idiots. We can barely play together, that's all."
She paused, as though recalling something. A glimmer unlike her usual expression flashed through her eyes—the excitement of finding her own kind, mixed with a darkness that suited them all too well.
"One is called Pearl, and the other is Wednesday Addams."
"Pearl? Wednesday Addams?"
Li Dan froze for a moment upon hearing those two names. Pearl, Wednesday, and Emma.
Pearl—the girl from Pearl in vintage dresses, with obsessive, crazed eyes and an extreme fixation on "belonging," someone who could even deal with anyone standing in her way with