Mobius stroked her chin in thought, then smiled. "Right, Danzhu, take this trash out for me!"
Mobius handed Danzhu the trash bag Klein had collected earlier and patted her shoulder. "Go on, Danzhu. Only you can be trusted with such a grave mission."
Danzhu: "..." I suspect you're messing with me, but... I don't dare say it.
In the end, Danzhu slowly left the laboratory, milk tea in her left hand and a trash bag in her right...
"Come on, Ling Xi."
After sending Danzhu off, Mobius turned back to Ling Xi, a smile returning to her face. "The experiment is about to begin."
Afterward, with Mobius, Klein, and Cangxuan accompanying him, Ling Xi began learning how to conduct experiments. Although Mobius had initially brought him in only to cooperate with her experiments...
Seeing that Ling Xi seemed quite interested in research as well, she was happy to teach him scientific knowledge. However, since he had never been exposed to this field before, most things had to be taught from scratch.
Mobius did not mind at all. Whenever Ling Xi encountered something he did not understand, she patiently explained it to him. From the look of it, she even seemed to be enjoying herself.
"Hey, what a coincidence, Seele!"
"Hehe, just as I thought..."
That evening, after Ling Xi returned home, Mobius looked at the samples collected from him, delight appearing on her face.
That afternoon, with Ling Xi's cooperation, she had extracted a little blood, a strand of hair, and some muscle cells from him. These had been taken while he was in his normal state, and the test results showed no difference from ordinary human cells. They were completely normal human cells.
However, she had another set of samples. These had been extracted while Ling Xi was using Lightning Power, and this set...
As she had hoped, she found an anomaly within the cells. It was an unknown form of energy, produced and stored directly by the cells. When she activated the cells with an electric current, they reacted by releasing the energy, but...
Once the energy was depleted, the cells became exactly like normal cells, with no difference whatsoever.
Moreover, Mobius discovered that the energy within the cells dissipated over time. Roughly... half of it vanished within twenty-four hours, and the remaining half disappeared completely within a week.
For this brand-new and mysterious energy, Mobius successfully calculated its conversion formula through reverse deduction. But in the end... she could not accurately construct a model of its structure. Put simply...
Mobius had found what she wanted, but it was locked away behind a lock, preventing her from seeing the information within.
Still, she was not surprised by this result. After all... how could research without challenges be called research?
"Ling Xi..."
Looking at the data before her, Mobius could not help licking her lips. Smiling, she said, "You really are interesting. I wonder... what other surprises you can bring me!"
At that moment, she was becoming more and more interested in Ling Xi. She had never expected that the person she had spent two months and so much time searching for would run into her by such a coincidence—and even... save her once. This truly was...
What fate.
"Here I am, burdened with the mission of saving the world, and I'm still sitting in a classroom."
The next day, Ling Xi looked bored in class. It was nowhere near as interesting as being in Mobius's laboratory.
At least in Mobius's laboratory, he could learn quite a lot. At Qianyu Academy, however, there was not much he could learn—or rather... nothing he wanted to learn!
Why was he still studying history and languages and the like? Honkai was almost here, humanity was about to be wiped out—what the hell was the point of learning this stuff now?
"Maybe... I should just drop out..."
After class, Ling Xi walked boredly toward the academy gates. For a moment, he genuinely wanted to drop out and focus on working in Mobius's laboratory. At least that way, he could become more familiar with Mobius and learn things as well.
Before that, though, he should get to know Mei and Kevin first. And there was also... Seele.
As one of the people in the world who loved Seele the most, Ling Xi naturally did not want to miss any chance to spend time with her. This Seele was somewhat different from the Seele he knew, but... she was Seele. There was no doubt about that.
Moreover, Ling Xi had even thought of a certain possibility. It was just that... the possibility was a bit absurd.
In any case, no matter how boring class was, as long as he could run into Seele, it was not entirely unacceptable. He just did not know which class Seele was in now, and...
Qianyu Academy had over twenty thousand students between its high school and university divisions. The high school division alone accounted for seventy percent of them. The odds of running into Seele were practically nonexistent!
As for yesterday, those two encounters had been coincidences among coincidences, the kind that could not possibly be repeated. If he ran into Seele by chance again today, then he would livestream himself chopping...
"Hm?"
Suddenly, Ling Xi spotted a familiar figure ahead. She was standing at the entrance of the same shop from yesterday, apparently planning to buy bread for lunch again.
And that familiar figure was...
"Seele!"
Without hesitation, Ling Xi walked over and called Seele's name.
"Hm?"
Seele, who had been waiting in line, heard someone calling her and quickly turned toward the voice. Then she saw Ling Xi...
Seele: "..."
Then Seele directly ignored Ling Xi, turning back to continue choosing her bread.
Ling Xi: "..."
"Ahem, Seele, what a coincidence. We meet again."
Though being ignored hurt a little, Ling Xi still walked over and took the initiative to greet her.
"Oh, it's you. Mm... what a coincidence!"
Seele gave Ling Xi a faint smile. "Did you need something?"
"Um..."
Ling Xi hesitated for a moment, then shook his head with a smile. "It's nothing, really. I just saw you here and thought we seemed fated, so I came over to take a look."
Seele: "..."
Seele turned back toward the bread in the shop and asked, "Want some?"
"Hm?"
For a moment, Ling Xi did not seem to understand what Seele meant.
Seele merely smiled again. "I mean, do you want some bread? My treat."
"Eh..."
Ling Xi was immediately a little surprised. What was this girl up to?
"Hmph..."
Seele pursed her lips and snorted irritably. "Consider it repayment for making you spend money yesterday. So, do you want it or not?"
"Yes, of course."
Ling Xi was not foolish enough to refuse. He quickly moved closer. He did not particularly like eating bread for lunch, but... if Seele was treating him, that was different.
This was the bakery inside Qianyu Academy, and it had all sorts of bread. Still, Ling Xi felt that it was not all that different from the bakeries in his original world. There were only so many styles and types, after all.
After looking for about five seconds, Ling Xi casually picked a pork floss bun.
"Hm?"
After seeing the bread Ling Xi had chosen, Seele seemed somewhat... conflicted.
"Miss, what are you planning to have today?"
The female clerk clearly knew Seele. Smiling, she asked what Seele wanted to eat today.
"This one..."
In the end, Seele pointed at the pork floss bun. Actually...
She had wanted to eat this yesterday, but Ling Xi had treated her to a meal after coming to apologize, so she had planned to buy it today. Then she ran into Ling Xi again, and... this guy had actually chosen the same bread she wanted!
"Eh, Seele, you like pork floss too?"
Seeing Seele choose the same bread as him, Ling Xi seemed a little surprised.
"What, do you think pork floss tastes bad?"
Rather than answer his question, Seele asked one in return.
"Of course not."
Facing Seele's question, Ling Xi merely smiled. "If I thought it tasted bad, I wouldn't have chosen it."
"Hmph, all right. Let's go."
Seele did not continue discussing the matter with Ling Xi. After receiving her bread, she decisively called for him to leave.
"Sure."
Naturally, Ling Xi did not refuse. Holding his bread, he silently followed behind Seele, though he had no idea where she intended to go.
"Doctor Mobius, I'm Your Fan!"
Two minutes later, the two arrived at a bench beside the school garden path and sat down together to eat lunch.
"Seele, here."
Ling Xi took out two cans of cola and handed one to Seele.
"Hm? When did you buy those?"
Seeing the cola in Ling Xi's hands, Seele froze for a moment. She accepted one from him in surprise, very curious about when he had bought it.
"Hehe, take a guess."
Of course, Ling Xi could not tell Seele the truth. These were the six cans of cola he had drawn from the lottery two months ago. He simply had not gotten around to drinking them, so they had remained in System Space, ready to be taken out at any time.
"Hmph, do I even need to guess? You must have hidden them away beforehand."
After taking the cola, Seele found that it was chilled. It must have been taken from a refrigerator within the past few minutes. But after she and Ling Xi bought their bread, they had come straight here. So he definitely had not bought it just now; rather... he had bought it earlier.
"Maybe."
Ling Xi did not want to explain too much. He could let Seele think whatever she wanted, since he would not be able to explain it clearly anyway.
Afterward, Ling Xi and Seele sat in the garden eating lunch while casually chatting.
"Seele, I noticed that ever since I met you yesterday, it seems like you've had bread for both breakfast and lunch?"
As he ate his bread, Ling Xi seemed curious about this.
"What, is that not allowed?"
Seele took a bite of bread and said, "Bread is tasty, convenient, and cheap. Besides, when I'm at home, bread is my staple food most of the time."
"Uh..."
Ling Xi paused, then asked, "Then... what about dinner?"
"I still eat proper meals for dinner..."
This time, Seele did not say she ate bread again. Instead, she smiled. "After all, if I eat bread for dinner, I might get hungry in the middle of the night. And if I eat a midnight snack then, I'll gain weight."
Ling Xi: "...Come on, how could a cute girl possibly gain weight?"
"By the way, Seele, you said you were like this at home too. Where are you from again?"
While chatting with Seele, Ling Xi began probing for more information. After all, he truly knew nothing about this Seele except her name.
"Estonia, Europe."
Seele had no intention of hiding it, since it was public information that could be found in the school records. While eating her bread, she continued, "I only came to Qianyu Academy last year. I plan to finish high school here, then go back and see which university in Europe I want to attend."
Ling Xi: "..." You probably won't get to finish, because if nothing goes wrong, the Third Honkai may very well erupt in the second half of this year. By then, Changkong City will be in ruins, and Qianyu Academy will cease to exist completely. Starting with that Honkai, humanity's way of life will be severely affected.
Still, Estonia really was Seele's homeland...
"What kind of expression is that? Do you think I can't get into university?"
Seeing Ling Xi's conflicted expression, Seele seemed somewhat unhappy.
"No, no, no, I absolutely don't mean that. Seele is so smart—getting into university would be easy for you, wouldn't it?"
Ling Xi hurriedly explained, then smiled. "I'm just curious. Since you're from Estonia, why did you travel halfway across the world to study here in the Far East? I remember Europe having plenty of prestigious universities too."
"It's nothing. I just... wanted a change of environment."
Seele only gave a casual answer to that question and did not seem inclined to say more. Naturally, Ling Xi was not foolish enough to press her for the reason.
Before you continue