Fireworks

"Ti... Tian Jun?" Kaguya's body trembled slightly despite herself.

That name was like a scorching stone dropped into her frozen heart. At the sound of it, "Ice Kaguya's" impregnable fortress of personality developed a crack.

Huang Guang nodded and curled his lips, imitating Kaguya's form of address as he drew out the final syllable with heavy sarcasm. "That's right, Tian Jun~ Tsk, 'Tian' Jun, the 'king' of the 'world'... Heh, now that I think about it, this title is truly... terrifyingly fitting."

Kaguya's red eyes contracted violently, and her mouth fell slightly open.

In her understanding, Chen Tian was a dazzling star on the stage, perhaps with some talent for investment as well.

But mobilizing the Gojo Family, an existence standing at the peak of supernatural power? That had completely exceeded the limits of her imagination! Just what kind of person was he?!

Seeing the undisguisable shock and wavering in Kaguya's eyes, Huang Guang's sinister smile deepened.

He leaned forward slightly, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. "Now you know why my 'wise' father kept urging you to invite your 'Tian Jun' to the family banquet by any means necessary, don't you?"

Kaguya froze in place.

She had thought her father valued Chen Tian because of his immense influence in the entertainment industry, or perhaps because of the business potential he had displayed. She had never imagined that behind it all was an existence on the level of the Gojo Family!

Huang Guang's voice suddenly dropped, carrying an oppressive weight. Every word was like an Ice Cone, viciously chiseling into Kaguya's wavering defenses. "Kaguya, you're the Young Miss of the Siongo Family. The family gave you everything. Now it's time for you to repay them."

He paused, his gaze scraping across Kaguya's face like a cold blade. "If you can't even handle this little 'task'... then you, this 'perfect Young Miss,' will truly have no value at all. When that happens..."

He left the sentence unfinished, but the implication was more chilling than any words—No one will want you anymore.

"I understand, Elder Brother." Kaguya's voice rang out in a low tone, even colder and harder than before, as if her wavering had never existed.

The Ice Kaguya personality had once again gained the upper hand, freezing and sealing away all the chaos in her emotions.

"I'll have Chen Tian... first..."

Before she could finish, several clear, rhythmic knocks rang out, shattering the suffocating silence of the Tea Room.

"Knock, knock, knock."

A flash of displeasure at being interrupted crossed Huang Guang's eyes, while Kaguya's red eyes instantly locked onto the closed paper door.

The door was gently pulled open. A black-haired man in a sharply tailored suit, his hair combed straight back, walked in.

His eyes were habitually narrowed slightly as they swept over the tense atmosphere in the Tea Room with foxlike keenness, as though silently deciphering everything that had just happened.

The newcomer was Kaguya's third elder brother, Siongo Yun Ying, who had been responsible for her elite education since childhood.

Yun Ying entered the Tea Room with deliberate composure and calm.

He gave Huang Guang, who was leaning crookedly against the cushion, a slight bow. His tone was respectful, but carried little warmth. "Elder Brother."

The sinister calculation on Huang Guang's face vanished instantly. Like a Magecraft trick, it was replaced by a warm, friendly smile, as though the man who had just pressured his younger sister with his words had never been him.

He greeted him enthusiastically, like a true elder brother concerned for his younger sibling. "Oh my, it's Yun Ying. Is something the matter?"

Yun Ying looked at Huang Guang's "kind and amiable" face without the slightest change in emotion.

He knew this elder brother's true nature far too well. He knew all too clearly what twisted schemes were hidden beneath that friendly mask.

Maintaining his outward respect, he straightened and quickly swept his gaze between Huang Guang and Kaguya before finally fixing it on Huang Guang. His voice remained steady as he said:

"Mr. Chen Tian has arrived."

The icy atmosphere between Huang Guang and Kaguya began to change.

The smile Huang Guang had deliberately put on stiffened for a moment. Then, as if he had heard something extremely interesting, it widened instead. Genuine interest flickered in his eyes, along with a trace of deliberate surprise. "Oh?!"

Upon hearing her third brother say this, Kaguya's eyes widened, and she stood directly from her seat.

The amused smile on Huang Guang's face deepened. He rose unhurriedly and casually straightened the loose front of his kimono, his gaze sweeping over the clock on the wall—19:55.

"Heh..." He let out a soft, inscrutable laugh before looking at Yun Ying. "What a rare distinguished guest. Mr. Chen Tian, whom we couldn't invite no matter how hard we tried, actually came... without being invited?"

His tone contained undisguised scrutiny and a trace of displeasure at having his rhythm disrupted.

Kaguya's sudden rise only caused a shadow to flash through his eyes.

Yun Ying nodded calmly. His gaze turned toward Kaguya, who was still standing stiffly in place, and he clearly stated the key information. "Kaguya, Mr. Chen Tian came to see you."

The words were like a boulder dropped onto a tranquil lake.

Something seemed to explode in Kaguya's mind.

Her heart, which Ice Kaguya had only just forcibly frozen, began pounding violently at those words.

Huang Guang's pressure, his cold calculations, and the chilling words "no value" still echoed beside her ears. She had almost been forced into making a promise...

Chen Tian's appearance was like a light that arrived without warning, forcibly tearing through that suffocating darkness.

He... came specifically to see me?

At this hour?

Did he... hear something? Or... did he come to save me?

The thought burst forth uncontrollably. Even Kaguya herself was shaken to the core by the absurd hope that surged up in that instant.

Ice Kaguya's hard shell began to crack wildly before this sudden "possibility."

Huang Guang's gaze coiled around Kaguya like a venomous snake, taking in every trace of distraction and wavering in that instant.

The corner of his mouth curled into an even more meaningful, bone-chilling arc.

"Oh?" Huang Guang drawled, his eyes moving back and forth between Kaguya and Yun Ying with scrutiny and calculation. "He came especially... to see our Young Miss Kaguya?"

He sat back down on the cushion. His posture appeared relaxed, but his eyes were as sharp as a hawk's as they locked tightly onto Kaguya. "Then what are you waiting for? Kaguya, hurry and go 'welcome' your distinguished guest. This is... the crucial moment for you to regain your 'value.'"

He deliberately emphasized the final word, stabbing it viciously into the ripples that had just appeared in Kaguya's heart.

Kaguya's body grew even more rigid, storms churning deep within her red eyes.

She took a deep breath. Ice Kaguya's personality forcibly suppressed all the surging emotions, freezing them again on the surface, at least.

Facing Yun Ying and Huang Guang, she gave an extremely stiff bow. Her voice was so cold and hard that it hardly sounded like her own. "I... understand."

The false smile on Huang Guang's face became genuine by a few degrees.

Kaguya's "understanding" was like the final, precisely struck note in a melody he had carefully composed, leaving him satisfied.

Yun Ying's brows, however, drew tightly together. He did not believe Huang Guang truly cared about Kaguya. Those eyes held nothing but naked calculation.

The thought of pushing Kaguya out like a gift to curry favor with Chen Tian made him shudder inwardly.

At that very moment—

"Understand what?"

A voice, calm yet carrying an undeniable presence, clearly pierced through the frozen air of the Tea Room.

Huang Guang's smile froze on his face.

Yun Ying jerked his head up.

Kaguya's straight back trembled, and her frozen red eyes turned toward the source of the voice.

The three of them focused their gazes in unison on the enormous open window of the Tea Room.

A man was sitting on the window frame. No one knew when he had appeared there.

The night wind tousled the loose hair over his forehead. His black leather jacket had clean, sharp lines. One long leg rested casually on the windowsill, while the other hung down and swayed slightly.

His right hand carried a cold, hard-looking full-face motorcycle helmet, whose edges still seemed damp with night dew.

He frowned slightly and swept his cool gaze over the three people inside. At last, his eyes fixed on Huang Guang's rigid face with scrutiny.

The Tea Room fell silent, the atmosphere a hundred times heavier than before.

A warning bell went off in Huang Guang and Yun Ying's minds. How did he get in?!

The Siongo Family's main estate was heavily guarded, with countless visible and hidden sentries and servants scattered throughout the corridors. More importantly, only minutes ago, Yun Ying had received word that Kaguya's second elder brother, Siongo Seiryu, was personally waiting outside the main gate to "welcome" Chen Tian!

Yet this man had appeared without warning or sound on the windowsill of the Tea Room at the very heart of the estate! As casually as if he were coming home!

No one had noticed! No one had reported him! This was a naked humiliation of the Siongo Family's security!

The muscles on Huang Guang's face twitched. The smile he had carefully maintained shattered, leaving only shock and a trace of fury at being challenged to his face. He wanted to question Chen Tian, but his throat seemed to have been strangled.

Yun Ying was even more shocked. His gaze quickly swept over Chen Tian's entire body—no traces of fighting, steady breathing. He had entered as if no one were there! The Siongo defenses were actually nothing but a sieve before him? A chill crawled up Yun Ying's spine.

When Chen Tian's figure entered her view, when the words "Understand what?" struck her eardrums, the ice encasing her heart shattered with a thunderous crash.

At the moment before her pride was about to be crushed.

He... came to stop them?

A faint thought slammed wildly against her reason. Ice Kaguya's personality shook violently, and the coldness beneath her mask teetered on the verge of collapse.

She could only clench her fingers tightly inside her sleeves, driving her nails into her palms and using the pain to maintain her final disguise.

Chen Tian's gaze passed over Huang Guang's ugly expression, slid across Yun Ying's tightly furrowed brows, and finally landed on Kaguya, who stood still as an ice sculpture.

His eyes lingered on her face for an instant, as though trying to identify something.

Then he spoke to Kaguya, his brows still faintly furrowed. His tone was calm, yet like a heavy hammer smashing the frozen air apart.

"Emmm?" he asked. "Who's bullying you?"

Chapter 46: Hanabi

Huang Guang's face instantly darkened as if someone had smeared charcoal across it.

Chen Tian's question—"Who's bullying you?"—was practically an invisible slap, striking him directly across the face.

Chen Tian did not wait for him to react. He nimbly jumped down from the windowsill and landed without a sound.

With a few steps, he reached Kaguya, who was standing ramrod straight. His footsteps were as casual as if he were strolling through his own backyard.

Then he suddenly bent forward. His excessively handsome face instantly drew close to Kaguya's, the tips of their noses nearly touching!

At such an intimate distance, his deep eyes sharply locked onto Kaguya's frosted crimson gaze. His brows drew together almost imperceptibly, and he let out a low hum through his nose.

The name flashed through Chen Tian's mind.

The girl before him had a gaze as cold and hard as a stone frozen for a thousand years, completely different from the girl in his memory who was always maintaining the perfect bearing of a Young Miss.

The next second, he straightened, as if that overwhelmingly oppressive closeness had merely been an illusion.

With a casual motion, he stuffed the metal motorcycle helmet he was carrying into Kaguya's instinctively outstretched arms.

Two words, leaving no room for argument.

Only after doing all this did he leisurely turn halfway around, his indifferent gaze falling on Huang Guang, whose expression had become a spectacular mess.

"Siongo Huang Guang?"

He spoke the name in full, without the slightest honorific.

The muscles in Huang Guang's cheeks twitched. Clearly, the blunt form of address had stung him.

But the gloom on his face was forcibly suppressed in an instant. He piled on an almost obsequiously respectful smile and even bowed slightly. "That would be me, Mr. Chen Tian."

Looking at his hypocritical act, Chen Tian's eyes revealed undisguised weariness.

He raised one eyebrow. His gaze pierced through that layer of false friendliness without the slightest hesitation and smashed straight into him.

"Explain." He tilted his chin toward Kaguya, who was holding the helmet beside him and standing stiffly like an ice sculpture. His voice dropped several degrees. "What had she just 'understood'?"

Huang Guang's smile froze on his face. It felt as if a fly had become lodged in his throat—neither spit it out nor swallow it. The air instantly froze again.

Amid that suffocating silence, Siongo Yun Ying suddenly stepped forward.

"Mr. Chen." He bowed slightly, his voice low but clear. "My elder brother's words were rather offensive, but he absolutely did not mean to slight Kaguya. The Siongo Family's sincerity toward you..."

Before he could finish, Chen Tian's gaze swept over. That look forced the rest of Yun Ying's sentence to catch in his throat.

"See that it is." Chen Tian tossed out the three words. His tone was as light as a feather, but its weight was like Thousand Jun.

With that, he turned to Kaguya, who was still standing there stiffly with the helmet in her arms.

The gaze that had been cold as frost just moments ago instantly softened. A gentle smile, utterly different from the one before, curved across his lips.

"Let's go." He placed a hand atop Kaguya's small head and ruffled her smooth black hair. "I'll take you to set off fireworks."

Kaguya was stunned.

Her eyes widened slightly and her lips trembled, but she could not utter a single word.