Cloud Kun's Gift: Shen Le, You Broke It!

"How could you do this?"

"How could you be so unreasonable?"

"I got lost because my own spell experiment went wrong. How could you go storming into someone else's place and make such a mess of it?"

Shen Le paced back and forth through the Studio with his hands behind his back, lecturing without pause. Before him stood Cloud Kun, the Scroll, and the Compass, three little ones with their heads bowed in remorse—

No, rather, the three little ones stood in a row. All of Cloud Kun's sails had been furled, its ropes coiled up, and not a single figure stood on its deck;

The Scroll had rolled itself up from end to end, even flinging out its silk cord to bind itself tightly, looking for all the world like "I'm just an ordinary ancient painting";

The Compass stood there quietly, its needle not twitching in the slightest, pretending it was just an ordinary compass—

In short, none of them spoke, moved, projected images, or caused any mischief. They simply kept their heads down and endured the scolding. Shen Le reprimanded them for quite a while,

Then sighed and softened his voice:

"I know you were worried about me. I went to help the research institute, and then suddenly vanished. You were anxious."

He slowly paced along the edge of the table, from east to west and then west to east, touching the tip of Cloud Kun's mast, the Scroll's top and bottom rollers, and the Compass's edge one by one:

"But you have to believe that those research institutes and organizations bear me no ill will. If I go missing, they'll be even more anxious than I am and will do everything they can to find me.

"If you go making trouble at the institute, aside from causing