A Little Mistake / A Little Misunderstanding

During that battle, she and Lin did not communicate at all, yet they were as tacitly in sync as comrades-in-arms for many years. In a sense, their compatibility in battle exceeded their own expectations.

"Am I... disturbing you?" Sakura hesitated and felt a little uneasy. She felt that the atmosphere of the conversation between the two people seemed to be affected by the presence of an outsider.

"No, that's just how she is."

"Oh, Lin won't mind, and neither will I!"

The two of them rejected Sakura's idea in unison.

"Is that so..." But Sakura couldn't really get a word in edgewise. In the end, she wasn't familiar with any of the members of the Fire Moth. Her years of experience as an assassin had also reduced her social interactions, which was somewhat similar to how Lin used to distance himself from others.

"Since Sakura is here, does that mean Lin, you're going to join the Poisoned Cocoon?"

Sakura looked at the cheerful Elysia in surprise. She and Lin Mingming hadn't said anything, but Elysia immediately guessed that Lin had joined the Poisoned Cocoon.

However, this was just a simple logic problem for Elysia. Contrary to her ever-smiling and flower-like appearance, Elysia's observation and thinking abilities were first-rate, and she broke many records in the Moth of Fire test.

"Wow... is this your team uniform? It looks great, I really want to change into one too."

Elysia stared at Sakura's coat with shining eyes. This blatant gaze made Sakura flustered. She looked at Lin, but Lin lowered his head to read, as if to say, "That's just how she is. You're used to it."

"Lin, don't you think the regular uniform is too old-fashioned? It feels too 'uniform-like'."

Lin sighed almost imperceptibly, "You can learn from Mobius and modify it yourself."

"Hmm... Hmm? Lin, you actually noticed that Mobius altered her clothes?" Elysia pouted after a brief moment of surprise. "But those are her own clothes! Researchers' lab coats are so uniform, so she only needs to make slight alterations to achieve a unique effect. Uniforms are different, so how can I make my clothes stand out?"

"Smack."

Lin He wrote a letter.

He stroked his chin and pondered, "We could try shortening the trousers. The uniforms of the Fire Moths are all long trousers, so if the trousers are shorter, they will generally stand out more."

"But pants that are too short won't look good. I don't want to be different in a flashy way."

"How about adding some decorations?"

"Good idea, what should we add?"

"...flower?"

Sakura stared in disbelief as a patient recovering from a serious illness and a soldier who had just finished a mission chatted about how to modify boring clothes.

Is this only happening when talking to Elysia, or is this actually how Lin is naturally?

"By the way, Lin, have you decided yet? When is it going to be held?" Elysia suddenly changed the subject and asked out of the blue.

"Let's hold it once I can get out of bed," Lin Xinping replied calmly.

"Oh, I see... Sakura will be coming too! Now that you're on Lin's team, you'll be joining the 'We're a Loving Family' group chat~"

"?" Sakura, whose arm was being pulled, stared blankly at Elysia.

Loving and caring... we're one family? It sounds like a name some middle-aged woman came up with for a chat group.

Lin explained to Ying, "We're having a party. Could you help me cook some dishes? I think you're a great cook."

"Me...?"

"...Oh, right." Lin said calmly, as if he had just remembered something, "Your sister should come too."

Chapter Five Minor Errors

Fingers, bending and straightening.

Knee, tap lightly.

Inhale, exhale.

Feeling the pulsation of every muscle in his body, Lin felt a little unfamiliar with his long-lost, powerful limbs, but he quickly put that unfamiliarity aside and focused on recalling how he used his body before.

According to Mobius, the body parts she created were not much different from the originals and could be used normally after an adaptation period.

However, this transplant involved too many sites, including internal organs that are crucial to the body's circulation, so there is a high possibility of an excessively strong rejection reaction. We will have to continue to observe the situation to determine the exact circumstances.

Lin Chu closed his eyes in the gym, feeling the uncoordinated parts of his body. He was completely immersed in the sensation of his body and adjusted it. After five deep breaths, he opened his eyes, and his deep black pupils quietly reflected the figure of the person in front of him.

He picked up the wooden knife at his feet, and the other person also raised the wooden knife in his hand.

They didn't observe any competition etiquette, nor did they wear protective gear; it was just a simple sparring match.

Sakura took the initiative, starting with a straight-eyed stance, stepping forward and thrusting. Her wooden sword drew a straight gray line, the speed was average, but the technique of this thrust was quite skillful and mature. Lin, who had never learned swordsmanship, could only dodge it by relying on his dynamic reaction.

Lin dodged to the side, and with a single-handed wooden sword thrusting upwards from the lower right, he wanted to wield the sword purely on instinct. However, after thrusting out the sword, Ying used her other hand to press down on Lin's sword-wielding hand, stopping his sword strike. This fluid and effortless technique of stopping the blade with bare hands must be a move from the swordsmanship style she had learned.

"Bang!"

Lin Kongzhe threw a punch, forcing Ying back. The two retreated simultaneously, and the wooden swords that had been slashing sharply collided in the air, producing a heavy thud.

In the ensuing battle, Lin was constantly on the defensive. Sakura maximized her speed advantage, easily deflecting Lin's wooden sword, whose grip was completely off. Lin could only rely on his experience to dodge, and he was repeatedly slashed. The sound of flesh colliding with the wooden sword sent shivers down one's spine.

Soon, Lin, who was at a disadvantage in the battle, even had his weapon taken away. In a state of being unarmed, he was powerless against Sakura, who was wielding two swords.

But Sakura did not show mercy. She did not underestimate Lin Waixing because of his posture and unskilled moves. Instead, she took this unfair duel seriously.

"Jingle--"

The 20-minute timer went off, and the two stopped fighting at the same time. Sakura took a step back, put down her sword with both hands, and bowed to Lin, while Lin, who was covered in bruises, nodded slightly.

Lin's first day of rehabilitation after leaving the ward was over. He collapsed to the ground, exhausted, his once abundant strength completely depleted. He felt that he was getting tired much faster than before.

White footed socks stopped in front of him. Sakura half-squatted down to help him up and led him to a nearby chair to rest.

"How are you feeling?" Lin leaned against the wall, letting all his strength dissipate, and asked Sakura, who was wiping the wooden sword, in a barely audible voice.

While recalling the one-sided battle just now, Sakura answered truthfully, "You fought purely on instinct. The direction of your force was correct, but many times you did not make effective use of the characteristics of the weapon to reduce the burden of force. Simply put, you don't know the basic techniques of swordsmanship. If it is just a one-on-one head-on battle, you do not have any advantage."

"..."

That's a truly honest review.

Lin's greatest strength lies in using tricks in battle, employing various terrains, props, and information gaps to achieve his goals. The weapon itself is not important; whether a knife that can effectively damage Honkai creature is used for stabbing or slashing, and how much force to apply, is not something he needs to consider too much.

However, after careful consideration, Lin decided to ask Ying for her swordsmanship to improve his ability to fight head-on.

"My swordsmanship was taught to me by my father. The style is... well, if we classify it according to the swordsmanship level in the Far East, I have reached the level of being able to pass on my family's style without permission. I don't plan to recruit disciples to pass on the style, so the name is not important. If you want to learn, I can teach you."

Sakura's attitude when talking about swordsmanship was different from usual; her eyes held a mixture of nostalgia and disappointment, but Lin could see her love for swordsmanship.

After Lin nodded, Sakura continued, "My style is actually dual-wielding, but dual swords are not convenient for assassination, so I only use a single sword. Over time, I have gotten used to having only one sword."

No wonder she usually carries two swords, a long sword and a short sword. Lin had heard of this dual-wielding technique before, but he never expected that Sakura, who used a single sword so skillfully, was actually a dual-wielder.

"If you really want to learn, start with the basic structure... wait until you're feeling better."

After packing their things, Sakura and Lin Cong the gym. They didn't say anything about parting and each went their own way.

As Sakura walked along the road, she couldn't help but sigh as she recalled Lin's gloomy face during their practice session.

Teammates... I've never experienced teaming up with anyone before.

Lin must have harbored considerable disgust for her deep down. He himself said that he simply entrusted her to the humans for judgment, so he accepted the result only because of his trust in humans, not because he believed she was qualified to return to the outside world.

Is it a headache? Or is it frustration?

The female assassin, who maintained a composed expression, was inwardly somewhat melancholy.

She thought she should let Ling know she was safe today, so she took out her communicator, but when she tried to verify her fingerprint, the communicator screen displayed an error.

"Um?"

After trying three more times and failing each time, Sakura was stunned.

Broken?

She doesn't have a deep understanding of electronic tools. Apart from a strange obsession with headphones, her knowledge of other electronic products is limited to knowing how to use them but not how to adjust them.

But shouldn't the things of the fire-chasing moths break down so easily?

Sakura turned the communicator over in confusion and saw the code on the back.

MSA-079.

"..."

Oh no, I took the wrong one!

Sakura immediately realized that she and Rin had swapped communicators before leaving. Thinking that Rin might be trying to contact her at this time, and that Rin didn't know that she had actually joined the Fire Moth without Rin's knowledge, Sakura rushed off in the direction Rin had left.

Around the corner, I saw Lin's back!

"Forest..."

"Brother Lin?"

Sakura's shout caught in her throat.

Lin was holding the communicator, calmly staring at the blank ring on the screen.

Chapter Six: A Minor Misunderstanding

"Brother Lin?"

Lin fell silent after seeing the other person's face when he answered the communicator.

Whether it's because all communication devices worldwide share a unified design philosophy or because the Moth to the Flame was designed to ensure timely communication, the communicator requires a fingerprint or iris scan to unlock, but only requires pressing the connect button to establish a connection.

So Lin answered the call without any warning and met Ling, whom she had thought would be her sister.

After a third of a second of thinking, he realized the possibility that he had taken the wrong one.

"Why Brother Lin?"

Lin never expected to be recognized even without a helmet. He had never considered that his highly recognizable, aloof demeanor would stand out even without a helmet. This unexpected situation left him caught off guard and speechless.

At that moment, Sakura's shout made him turn his head to glance at her, and her panicked expression made him realize something.

'Don't tell Bell.'

Seeing Sakura's silent lip movements, Lin nodded silently as well.

Taking the communicator back now would give the impression of deliberately covering something up, and Sakura was worried that Rin would notice something was wrong and start questioning her later, which would be troublesome. So it was best to let Rin and Rin explain now, using any excuse such as their chance encounter and Sakura leaving the communicator on the table and forgetting to take it.

Before Lin could even speak, Ling suddenly said, "Brother Lin, why are you holding my sister's phone... and why do you look so out of breath like you just did something..."

Panting?

Lin's body, which was not yet fully recovered, was indeed recovering slowly after strenuous exercise and the blow. He was still sweating profusely and breathing heavily, as if he had just run several kilometers.

"I..." Lin said calmly, "I was just exercising."

"Then why is your sister's phone with you? Wasn't she away on a business trip?"

"She..."

Lin glanced at Ying's excited gestures.

At this point, Sakura no longer cared about maintaining her image. She tried her best to show through her actions that their meeting was just a coincidence. She pointed at Lin, then at herself, and then made a gesture of her two hands meeting.

Lin, who had originally planned to use an excuse to get by, saw Ying's anxious appearance and realized that she might be trying to use his excuse. After observing her actions, he figured out what she was trying to convey.

Lin nodded.

"She exercises with me."

"..."

Sakura lowered her hand.

Ling was stunned. She asked in an unusual tone, "Together... to exercise?"

"Yes, we actually occasionally arrange to exercise together, so we were exercising just now."

Lin felt that there was nothing wrong with this excuse; it was a mix of truth and falsehood, since they had indeed been exercising in some sense just now.

"Um..." Ling looked at Lin, who was wrapped in bandages, with suspicion. She asked in a strange tone, "Can you answer the phone, sister?"

Lin glanced at Ying again.

Sakura shook her head vigorously. Since she had already lied about training together, if she acted as if she wasn't making a sound, the lie would definitely fall apart.

Lin gave her a knowing look, then turned and said, "She's doing intense aerobic exercise right now and can't answer for the moment. She'll call you back when she's done."

"Aerobic exercise..." Ling chuckled dryly, her face inexplicably flushed. She coughed, "Wait, it's okay if we don't play later. Um... Brother Lin, I don't know when you started... exercising together... But! But I don't object! You just have to be nice to my sister. She's taken care of me so well since I was little. It's actually a good thing that someone can take care of her now."