Secret Anecdote I: Green Wasabi Paste

After Lin joined, the objective changed because he was absolutely not going to do assassin missions.

Now, their first task is to go to Australia to investigate a hacker.

The gambling site on the intranet was shut down after the almost absurd confession incident. Mei personally came out to explain that it was the work of hackers, and then completely denied any so-called reward. As for the reaction it caused, that was not within her jurisdiction.

It's worth mentioning that Lin Cong. He didn't care about the overwhelming rumors either. To him, it was just that the disgusted looks from those around him had turned into fearful looks.

The hacker they were tasked with investigating and arresting at this point was clearly the one who had breached the internal network of the Firemoth.

"After a two-month observation period, we will be going out on a mission. Please be prepared." After explaining, Sakura prepared to leave, but her curious gaze lingered on Lin's chest.

It even contained a hint of longing.

"Uncle Lin, is it okay to put me down now?"

A childish voice continued what Sakura had said.

A blue-haired girl wearing a beret was being held up by Lin's arms under her armpits, as if he were catching a cat. Her legs, which were wearing slippers, were flailing nervously. She looked to be only five or six years old and seemed a little scared of this "aerial" world.

"Wait a minute, I'll put you down after Mobius locks up the Honkai Beast," Lin Gu said calmly. His upright posture and the little girl in his arms created a rather awkward scene, prompting Sakura to ask—

"Um, Lin..."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

But after thinking about it, Ying realized that her relationship with Lin wasn't very good, so she didn't ask the question she wanted to ask. She shook her head and left the lab.

"Heh, finally gone? There are more and more strange people in the Fire Moth group. That woman must be an assassin." Mobius leisurely walked out of his private office with a cup of milk tea. "You actually managed to team up with an assassin. You've really changed a lot."

However, she herself was not actually qualified to say that...

"By the way, how much longer are you going to carry Griseo? I've already locked the Honkai Beast back up, you can put it down now." Mobius changed the subject, commenting on Lin's bizarre posture and the scene.

"..."

After putting Griseo, she didn't show any dissatisfaction or distress. Instead, she ran to an empty space in the laboratory and started drawing on the drawing board.

"Hmph, you seem quite surprised, don't you? Well, you've only met Griseo twice. After the first meeting, you left the Moth of Fire and then disappeared. It must have startled you to see her grow up so big, talk, and walk all of a sudden."

"... No, it's normal to be able to talk and walk."

"You..." Mobius held his head helplessly, not knowing what to say. "Fine, just stay in my lab until your next mission. I'm basically the monitor now... Well, I'm more interested in consciousness transfer after all."

"This is milk tea that Klein bought for you. She didn't know what flavor you liked, so she added all the ingredients in. Tsk... she really respects you for no reason."

"Yes, thank you."

"Don't thank me, I'm too lazy to convey your thanks."

Lin calmly accepted the milk tea and drank it with an indifferent expression under Mobius's suspicious gaze.

He no longer had the urgency he used to have when rushing to do anything; she even felt that... he seemed to be... enjoying life now?

"It's time to eat... What flavor of instant noodles should I have today... Um, did I buy so many of these flavors?" Mobius stretched, her graceful curves on full display under the light, as she lazily rummaged through her instant noodle stash. A flavor she was already tired of strangely occupied most of the space.

I think I bought more because I thought it tasted good at the time...

She regretted it a little.

Instant noodles are a wonderful treat when you're hungry, especially the first pack. You want to savor every single noodle as it slides down your throat. But when you feel like you're still hungry and eat a second pack, it tastes like adding foot bath water to a hot pot...

This not only happens with the same meal, but also with instant noodles that taste the same.

Clearly, Mobius is already ahead of the curve in tasting the foot bath water.

"Never mind..." Mobius sighed and picked up a bag at random.

"Smack."

However, before she could even tear open the outer packaging, her other hand seized the opportunity to snatch the instant noodles.

"..."

She raised an eyebrow, curious to see which guy was so bold as to snatch food from her, Mobius's, hands.

But when Lin's unchanging helmet appeared before her, her expression was as if she had swallowed a fly.

I almost forgot this guy was in the lab too.

"What are you doing? I don't have time to wait for you to cook again." Mobius impatiently tried to snatch the instant noodles back from Lin's hand, but she missed when Lin subtly took a step back.

Her resentful gaze landed on Lin's cold, hard viewing window.

Mobius was already the tallest woman Lin knew, but compared to Lin's height of nearly 1.9 meters, she was still quite a bit shorter. As long as he raised his hand, Mobius couldn't reach his palm even if she stood on tiptoe.

"I've already prepared the meal."

"...ah?"

Lin pointed to the insulated box placed to the side.

"... When?" Mobius opened the insulated box with a strange expression, and the sumptuous dishes inside immediately caught her eye.

"You usually eat around this time, so I prepared it in advance for you." Lin put the instant noodles back where they belonged. He didn't eat them, but he wouldn't waste them either. "Given the intensity of your work, instant noodles are unlikely to provide the nutrition you need."

"Tsk... Mind your own business." It wasn't a bad thing to be able to eat Lin's cooking after so long, but Mobius was full of irritation. "I eat instant noodles just to save time... Besides, there are many flavors of instant noodles. You can only cook some of your signature dishes anyway. I get tired of them easily. Don't waste time doing this kind of thing."

Just like your favorite instant noodles, after eating them a couple of times, you'll find them unappetizing.

Lin's changes made her feel a kind of inexplicable unease.

She could mimic Elysia's way of speaking to communicate with others, achieving a sarcastic effect, but Lin was the only one who acted in front of her like a clown in costume, forcing her to express her truest feelings.

"It's okay, I can do it differently."

"Pfft, how many do you know?"

"Fourteen National Cuisines."

"..."

Chapter Twenty: Secrets Part One: Wasabi Paste

Looking up from the pile of documents, Klein straightened the hair that was stuck to his face back into his headband, picked up a wet wipe to wipe the sticky sweat from his hands, and got up to press the air conditioner switch in the laboratory.

Summer came exceptionally early this year. Spring wasn't even over yet, and the temperature rose at a rocket-like speed. The thermometer needle, like the speedometer in a race car, instantly spiked to a point where people couldn't help but take off their clothes.

It looks like it's going to be a hot summer.

"There are bushfires in Australia," Danzhu said listlessly, chatting with Cangxuan was working diligently.

"Well, that place gets fires of varying degrees every year, given the geographical distribution..." Cangxuan glanced at Danzhu, reached out and yanked the popsicle out of her mouth, "I want some too."

"Ugh! Go buy it yourself!"

Seeing his popsicle snatched away, Danzhu angrily engaged Cangxuan in a Cangxuan battle.

Klein sighed at the two seemingly unchanging clowns. On the bright side, while everyone else was lamenting the heavy losses of the Sixth Honkai War, these two could at least have the amusement of openly discussing on the intranet how Mobius exploited his assistants and then got caught red-handed by Mobius.

"Whoosh."

The laboratory door opened.

The two girls who had been passionately fighting immediately returned to their seats and pretended to be obedient girls.

The matte helmet gleamed under the lights, sending a chill down the spine, while the azure blue visor added to the eeriness.

The appearance of Lin, carrying two bags, brought a cool breeze to the originally scorching laboratory. Klein glanced in surprise at the air conditioner, which was not yet working, and confirmed that it was not blowing out any cold air.

Lin walked straight to Klein's desk and asked in a low voice, "What happened to those two?"

"Hehe... it's nothing, maybe... I'm sick." Klein didn't know how to explain that the two of them actually experienced similar situations every day.

"Oh..." Lin drawled out the last syllable, then paused and raised his voice slightly, "After all, in this hot weather, being 'ice' is definitely more comfortable."

"..."

The three people present all shivered involuntarily.

Seeing that no one answered him, Lin didn't say anything. He put the bag in his left hand on the table and said, "I bought ice cream. You guys can have it."

"Huh?" Klein took the cold bag from his hand in a daze.

"What's wrong?"

"No, it's nothing..."

Strange, Mr. Lin has been coming to the lab too often lately, almost every day. And why is he buying ice cream...?

Lin seemed to sense her confusion and calmly spoke from inside the helmet, "Ice cream is half price in the cafeteria today."

No... that's not the issue...

After handing the ice cream to Klein, Lin took another bag and went into Mobius's private office.

Danzhu and Cangxuan rushed forward, grabbing the ice cream from the bag. After they had taken their favorite flavors, Klein reluctantly closed the bag and put the rest of the ice cream into the laboratory's refrigerator.

"Ooh—tongue, tongue."

Klein Danzhu, whose tongue was stuck to the ice cream and was searching for water, his eyes twitching, and couldn't help but sigh.

"Speaking of which, the helmeted guy has been coming every day lately." Cangxuan looked at the closed door of Mobius's private office, unsure whether it was a sigh or just a casual remark.

"Ugh... yeah, yeah, and he doesn't look as fierce as before." Danzhu, who had finally removed his tongue, chimed in, "Didn't the internal website say he had a strong sex drive? Could it be because of that?"

"... Danzhu, the Doctor is behind you."

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, Doctor, I was just kidding."

Danzhu turned around in alarm and bowed in apology without thinking. However, the expected sharp gaze and deliberate sneer did not appear. She cautiously raised her head and saw only emptiness.

"Cangxuan— " The two of them started fighting again.

Klein a headache.

"Bang!"

The door to the private office was violently pushed open, and a pair of green eyes, like snakes' pupils, coldly stared at the sisters who were frozen on the ground, their bodies exposed.

"Shut up, you're so noisy!"

"Bang!"

The door slammed shut again.

"Gulp." Danzhu swallowed hard, and she and Cangxuan quickly got up, straightened their clothes, and sat back down in their seats properly.

"Doctor doesn't seem to be in a good mood lately..." Cangxuan said to Danzhu, lowering his head and speaking in a low voice.

"Really? I think the doctor does this every day."

"... That's just because you often make the Doctor angry. Normally, the Doctor is not good at expressing his emotions, but in the last few days, it seems that ever since the helmeted man came back to the lab, the Doctor has been getting angry as if he's going through menopause."

"They don't seem to get along very well."

"That's true, those two must not get along very well."

"But he often spends time alone..."

"Cough cough..."

Klein interrupted their whispers with a cough and said seriously, "Alright, stop talking about the Doctor and Mr. Lin. They must have important business to attend to that needs to be kept secret."

"Today's food is... sashimi? Hmph, is that food from your hometown?"

Mobius watched with disdain as the helmeted man opened the lunchbox. Inside, perfectly sliced, translucent fish fillets were placed on a pile of ice, with bits of ginger sprinkled on top like starlight. The skill in slicing the fish alone was already quite superb.

Before she entered the Fire Moth, she was a world-renowned scientist. She had eaten food from most countries at academic conferences on the Mu Continent, but not all of them. Raw food like sashimi was completely unappetizing to her, as she was used to cooked food.

"Sashimi originated in Shenzhou, but it was later introduced to the Far East. However, I have half Shenzhou blood, so Shenzhou can also be considered my hometown."

"I don't want to hear your long-winded explanation of those meaningless origins. You can't control the taste of this almost unprocessed food, can you? What? You've already run out of ideas for what to cook? You dare to say you can give me a different meal every day?" Mobius looked at the fish slices in the lunchbox that looked like works of art and sneered.

"Making sashimi is not difficult. It only involves basic steps such as selecting ingredients, knife skills, plating, and seasoning. However, it is actually quite easy to distinguish the taste."

"...That sounds nice." Mobius understood Lin's words, but she couldn't comprehend how those basic steps would affect the taste. She could only pretend that she understood completely and snorted, "Where are the seasonings? Bring them out."

Lin nodded, took out a dish filled with strong soy sauce, and then took out a tube of toothpaste-like green ointment and squeezed a little into it.

"Wait, what's that?" Mobius asked, frowning, seeing that he had only squeezed out a tiny bit.