Shari stood motionless with her head bowed, not saying a word. She wasn't even breathing normally; she seemed to have turned into a statue. Only when Yu Lian's scrutinizing gaze swept over her from head to toe, top to bottom, and inside and out several times did she finally regain a little life.
She stretched, loosening up her body, and let out a full-bodied sigh with the air of a middle-aged man. Only then did her eyes slowly come back into focus.
She glanced at Yu Lian, then lifted her chin and puffed out her chest, planting one hand on her hip while pointing the other at the ceiling above the cavern, carpeted with pink fungus. Standing tall where she was, she cried out with proud fervor, "I am the swarm!"
Yu Lian felt the nerve in his forehead start twitching again, yet for some inexplicable reason, he also felt a sense of familiarity.
Although Shari had learned social skills, her mental state still seemed rather unstable. But, as expected, this version of Shari was the one that fit her character.
Of course, Shari, now in possession of social skills, reined in her pride and said to Yu Lian with complete seriousness, "Hey, I've wanted to say that for a long time. To say it openly and honestly, just once."
"Then congratulations," Yu Lian replied calmly.
But then again, at barely five feet tall, technically still underage, and close enough to count as a little girl if you rounded up, she looked a bit outlandish no matter how she struck a pose.
"So, are you being open and honest now?" Yu Lian asked.
A deeply adult-looking expression of distress appeared on the "girl's" face. Then she answered seriously, "If you round up, I suppose you could say so."
Was this