Where's My Mom? / The Tea Ceremony Is the Best

Not to mention, there were players too.

Bai Ye sighed to herself first as she spoke.

It wasn't easy.

Typing Girl sighed along with him.

She hadn't expected such a heavy responsibility to fall on her shoulders. Though she was very glad for her supervisor's trust, unfortunately, the weight of that trust was absurdly large.

"This is the subsequent plan, as well as some contingency files. Your task for the next few days is to understand these, and you can come straight to me if there's anything you don't get."

Bai Ye said as she transmitted the data files to Typing Girl through her terminal.

The Laterano girl wore a blank expression as she left.

She was numb, exhausted, and ready for destruction.

She had come with anger and confusion, and left devoid of any emotion because her superior had given her a huge task.

And it was one she had brought upon herself!

"I'll have to compensate her later... I wonder what she likes, though." Bai Ye watched the girl's retreating back, feeling a bit sympathetic.

The child was indeed quite pitiful, working just fine at her post before she was inexplicably sweet-talked away by him.

And then right after arriving, she encountered her supervisor running off, which truly made her unlucky.

Oh, so the culprit who caused all of this was actually me! Never mind then!

"Where was I up to with my studies, anyway?"

Interrupted by the girl, he had completely forgotten his skill-learning progress, and only found it again after opening the game panel.

Unfortunately, his experience points were no longer enough. The previous Basic Medicine (Theory) had squeezed out all of Bai Ye's experience reserves, and the experience harvested from the players had been completely depleted.

Even though he now had a theoretical foundation, learning skills like pharmacology, life sciences, clinical medicine, emergency first aid, and pharmaceutics wouldn't leave him completely blind and unable to understand a thing anymore.

Still, it was more convenient to learn using experience, and the effect was much better than studying on his own.

Bai Ye preferred to spend her energy on combat skill training.

Unlike theoretical knowledge, combat relied on the physical body, and meditation training had no effect.

Bai Ye closed her book, preparing to head to the training ground to practice swordsmanship, and then go to the arts department to find an Originium Arts expert to help develop her spellcasting talent.

The latter probably couldn't be finished tonight, but she could go reserve a spell-testing room first.

Just as she was about to head out, the door to Bai Ye's dorm was knocked on once again.

"Things are pretty lively over here?"

Bai Ye walked to the door, opened it, and saw that the person standing outside was her "neighbor" from the opposite dorm.

The little girl who had caused a big fire hazard this morning was standing sheepishly behind the young Liberi woman at this moment, and when Bai Ye looked at her, she found the child secretly peeking at him.

As for the Liberi woman, she was holding a box in her hands, wearing glasses and an apologetic expression on her face.

Seeing Bai Ye open the door and come out, she opened her mouth, organized her words in her mind, and then spoke. "I am very sorry about what happened this morning. I was in too much of a rush back then to apologize properly."

With that, she pushed the little girl standing behind her out.

"Nngh... yeah, sorry."

The expression on the little girl's face was somewhat reluctant, but she still obediently listened and apologized.

"Small matter, don't worry about it, you're being too polite." Bai Ye hadn't suffered any losses, nor had she taken the matter to heart, and waved her hand as she spoke.

Then she looked with curiosity at the strangely shaped horns on the little girl's head, smiled, and spoke. "I'm Bai Ye, newly joined Rhodes Island, and we're neighbors now. Please take care of me from now on."

Chapter Fifteen Where is My Mom?

"My name is Hermo, Olivia Hermo, and I work in the Medical Department."

Hermo was a rather gloomy female, with quite introverted emotions and a lack of eloquence.

Fortunately, Bai Ye's high affinity constitution could reduce communication barriers to a certain extent, preventing them from falling into an awkward silence where they couldn't even say a single sentence to each other.

"This child, is she your daughter?" Bai Ye was very interested in the little girl's peculiar double horns and tail.

Of course, Bai Ye didn't quite believe that this excessively young lady would have such a big daughter, so there was a high probability she wasn't a biological one.

However, she always felt that these two standing together looked quite a match, seemingly even more intimate than a blood-related mother-daughter relationship.

Hearing Bai Ye's question, Hermo was stunned, and after a moment of silence, she gave her answer. "Her name is Ifrit, and she is receiving treatment at Rhodes Island. We come from Rhine Lab, have established a cooperative relationship with Rhodes Island, and I am temporarily acting as her guardian."

Actually, Hermo had been choked up by Bai Ye's words; how was she supposed to answer his question?

Ifrit had never called her "mother," and she didn't entirely view the girl as her own daughter either. The emotions within this were complex and profound, and could not be simply explained or clarified by a mother-daughter relationship.

Therefore, she only gave a simple, slight explanation, hiding the majority of the information completely.

"Rhine Lab..." Bai Ye repeated Hermo's words in his mouth.

He wasn't unfamiliar with this company in his past life.

The floating swords he used in his past life derived their design and weapon prototypes from a laboratory under this company's jurisdiction.

The tasks they issued were all very high in difficulty, and quite crazy.

She hadn't expected the two in front of her to actually both come from Rhine Lab.

I remember... Rhine Lab itself possesses extremely advanced life science and clinical medicine technology.

Yet they let this child come to Rhodes Island for treatment?

Compared with Rhine Lab, Rhodes Island appeared unknown and obscure.

This company called Rhodes Island was indeed interesting. You looked at its scale, and it was just so-so—quite small, with a short registration time, and its popularity and influence were far inferior to those big companies. Yet the one cooperating with it was a behemoth like Rhine Lab or Blacksteel International.

It was pretty absurd.

Bai Ye didn't directly voice her doubts; since neither of the two in front of her was willing to say, directly pressing them for answers would be a very impolite thing to do.

However, she was truly a bit curious.

Perhaps with her authority, she could go check Rhodes Island's database?

Wanting to understand one's own neighbor was also an understandable thing, wasn't it?

At this moment, Bai Ye's typical player-puzzle-solving psychology took the upper hand again.

Hermo looked at Bai Ye's expression and couldn't help sighing. She knew that Bai Ye must have already guessed some things and developed doubts in her heart.

Though she lacked eloquence, she was also quite sensitive, and naturally could guess what Bai Ye was thinking about—it wasn't difficult to understand, as she had already encountered too many people who wanted to probe into her and Ifrit's past.

Some of them harbored malice, but there were also kind ones.

At least the ones she met in Rhodes Island were all the latter.

Actually, Hermo had already seen Bai Ye's uniform and work badge this morning; that was the color of a supervisor rank. With his authority, she could naturally query some things.

Perhaps telling him some things isn't a bad thing?

Hermo looked at the young man in front of her who was still secretly making faces and exchanging glances with Ifrit behind her, feeling that this guy really didn't look like some kind of bad person with ulterior motives.

"Ifrit, it's nine o'clock, time to sleep."

Thinking of this, she gave the girl behind her a push on the shoulder.

"Ah, I don't want to sleep." Ifrit wore an unwilling expression.

Every time it hit 9 o'clock, Hermo would start urging her to sleep, but she still wanted to play.

"You need to rest properly." Hermo's expression was very serious.

"But... every time I sleep, Hermo doesn't sleep." Ifrit mumbled in a small voice.

Actually, Ifrit was still somewhat afraid of Hermo; once the lady put on a stern face, this child knew how to rein it in.

"Be good, I'll chat with Mr. Bai Ye for a moment and come back to accompany you to sleep shortly." Hermo said while reaching out to gently stroke Ifrit's little head.

"Blegh--urgh--"

Ifrit made a face at Bai Ye, stuck out her tongue, and then ran back to her room as if escaping. She didn't immediately close the door after entering, but instead bravely hid behind the door, peeking out to secretly observe from the crack of the door.

"This child..."

Bai Ye couldn't help laughing, waved at the little girl, and then invited Hermo into her room.

Hermo silently looked around at the decorations of Bai Ye's room. She rarely visited colleagues' homes, and such a thing as visiting a neighbor was still quite novel for her.

Upon seeing the simulated starry sky and the astronomical telescope on Bai Ye's wall, Hermo formed a quite good initial sentiment and impression of this peer colleague who was slightly younger than herself.

She used to have a former colleague who liked stargazing.

She hadn't expected that in Rhodes Island, she would actually be able to meet someone with the same hobby.

"Sorry, I just got here, and I don't have anything to treat you with..."

Bai Ye washed a cup and brewed some tea; she had brought back some tea leaves from Lungmen, which counted as rare luggage.

"Thank you."

Hermo sat down on the sofa.

She quietly watched the tea leaves floating up and down inside the teacup.

A faint wisp of misty vapor slowly drifted upward.

Then, she wanted to open her mouth to speak.

Suddenly, she felt very sleepy...

I mustn't fall asleep...

Falling asleep suddenly while being a guest in someone else's room without even saying a word was truly inappropriate!

Unfortunately, Hermo ultimately couldn't withstand the negative impact and lethargy symptoms brought by Oripathy.

ZZZZZZZ

"Miss Hermo..."

Bai Ye walked over to the sofa and sat down, just as he wanted to speak, only to suddenly discover that Hermo had already fallen asleep...

"I certainly didn't make any sleeping black tea..."

Looking at Hermo's expression, which was gradually softening as she slept soundly, Bai Ye was somewhat speechless.

This fellow actually had a day when she got foiled.

With no other choice, Bai Ye could only pick up a book and run over to the side to study bitterly.

However, after a period of time, he always felt his mind and heart were somewhat uneasy.

Standing up, Bai Ye walked to the doorway and pushed the door open, subsequently realizing the source of his unease: the door opposite gently opened, and a sneaky little girl slipped out from inside.

Her stealthy and probing appearance was truly somewhat comical.

!

Then she caught sight of Bai Ye standing at the doorway.

Gazing at each other, the little lass was startled.

Coming back to her senses, Ifrit, who had been caught red-handed, flew into a rage out of humiliation and glared furiously at Bai Ye.

"Where's Hermo? (Where's my mom?)" She frowned; hadn't they said it was just chatting for a few moments beforehand? How could so much time pass and Hermo still not be back?

Then this fellow across from her actually walked out alone!

Where on earth had Hermo gone!

Tea Ceremony Is the Best

"Come here..."