Morning Trivia

"Does it have anything to do with you?"

Lin Xiaolu turned her face away, seeming somewhat resistant to Lin Yun's inquiry, and a moment later shifted her gaze back to him. "Besides, talking about being late, aren't you the same?"

"This time is just an accident." Lin Yun tied his tie and picked up the briefcase placed to the side. "I was busy with work matters until the early hours before coming back, but I don't do this at other times."

"Then I'm an accident too."

Lin Xiaolu muttered, "It's just that I came home late and still had to practice... do homework, and slept too late."

Lin Yun just looked at Lin Xiaolu like that, and Lin Xiaolu also squinted at Lin Yun. The father and daughter stared at each other in a rather awkward state for a long time, and in the end, the father's side relented.

"Go back and comb your hair first."

With a face full of helplessness, Lin Yun picked up his briefcase and turned to walk toward the kitchen. "What do you want for breakfast? Quick-heat noodles or bread? Or should I boil two eggs?"

"Ah? Breakfast?"

Raising an eyebrow, Lin Xiaolu was first startled, then puzzled. "It's already this time?"

"I'll drive you later." Lin Yun took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of the chair beside the dining table.

"I definitely don't want that, you can just go by yourself."

"What if you're late?"

"...Late is late." Lin Xiaolu felt a bit guilty, but remained stubborn.

This child isn't planning to fly to school, is she? Did she know that the magical disturbance when she flew was comparable to setting off fireworks?

Putting the things in his hand on the chair and looking at his daughter for a moment, Lin Yun shrugged expressionlessly:

"Fine, but you go and comb your hair first, I'll boil two eggs."

"I said not to..."

Lin Xiaolu wanted to continue refusing, but suddenly widened her eyes as if realizing something, put a bit more force into her hand gripping the door frame, and her tone grew weaker. "Oh, I know, I'll just go, right?"

Then she walked toward the bathroom with a reluctant look.

From Lin Yun's perspective, Moko suddenly flew from the doorway to her ear and whispered a few words in a low voice. Lin Xiaolu's attitude suddenly softened.

It seems Moko knows her better than she knows herself. He thought to this.

This guess was correct, and the facts were indeed so.

"Moko, what did you mean by what you just said? What do you mean any flirty girl can rely on flying to get to school, but not me?" Walking into the bathroom, Lin Xiaolu lowered her voice and looked with an unkind expression at Moko floating to the side.

After the Magical Girl lesson ended last night, Lin Xiaolu's tasks were actually not over, because she still had homework to rush through when she got home.

Usually this was just her own business, but ever since meeting Xia Liang, there had been one more idle figure by her side whenever she rushed through homework, who would also periodically advise her not to do homework and go play games together instead.

Ever since claiming to run away from home that day and staying overnight at Lin Xiaolu's place, Xia Liang frequently brazenly ran over to sponge dinner. In her own words, it was because Auntie Liu the hourly worker cooked better than her own family.

Judging by her stance, if she hadn't been worried about leaving a bad impression on Lin Xiaolu's parents, she probably would have continued to sponge a place to sleep.

Although Lin Xiaolu didn't like studying, she resisted even more being in the same boat as the "flirty girls" in her cognition, so the more Xia Liang harassed her, the more she insisted on finishing her homework. After finishing her homework, she even pulled out review questions that had originally been untouched out of spite, preparing for the upcoming final exams.

Setting aside the results, she ended up studying until the early hours of the morning, and her spirit was commendable.

But the result of that was that morning Lin Xiaolu had also overslept, ran into Lin Yun by coincidence, and was now combing her hair in the bathroom while yawning.

"Who told you not to have learned Mana Breakfall by now?"

Hearing Lin Xiaolu's slightly dissatisfied inquiry, Moko's cat face vividly revealed a teasing expression. "Things that Xia Liang mastered in two days, some people actually can't learn in two weeks!"

"Xia Liang..."

The hand pinching the comb instinctively tightened, and Lin Xiaolu looked at Moko with a subtle expression. "You two have gotten pretty close recently."

Meow-haha, after all, that child Xia Liang is gentle, cute, and a genius, we hit it off right away."

Moko clutched its chest in infatuation. "She even praised me for being smart and reliable!"

"How come I feel like you've been blown so high by her sweet talk that you're floating?" Lin Xiaolu drooped her eyelids.

It was no wonder she thought that, because Xia Liang seemed to really like Moko's cute appearance, often holding it like a pet, and would say quite a few nice things to coax Moko into happiness.

Although Lin Xiaolu had spent longer with Moko, ever since that night when Moko admitted under Larkspur's interrogation that it had deceived Lin Xiaolu, it had never gotten a single good look from Lin Xiaolu again.

This missing love was satisfied over at Xia Liang's place, and even surpassed it, so it was no wonder Moko now had "Xia Liang" on the tip of its tongue.

"This is jealousy and prejudice! As a Seeder, getting along well with the Magical Girl you signed with is a required course!"

Moko shook its head to correct Lin Xiaolu, then said smugly, "Could it be that you're jealous, Xiaolu? Have you developed a sense of crisis because Xia Liang is so excellent? Want to make me change my mind?"

"Whose jealousy? Be jealous of an idiot fairy who doesn't know anything when asked?"

Lin Xiaolu pouted, turning her gaze back to the mirror, staring at the tuft of hair sticking up on her head in the mirror, her hand moving nonstop. "And talking about a Seeder's required course, you clearly didn't teach me any basic Magical Girl common sense, and in the end I had to trouble Larkspur."

"St-, stupid fairy?"

Moko shivered upon hearing this, flying behind Lin Xiaolu and giving her a fierce smack with its paw. "I can't pretend I didn't hear such an excessive statement! Besides, I did tell you quite a bit of knowledge, I just didn't understand how Magical Girls cultivate and fight!"

"Would an ordinary Seeder not understand?" Lin Xiaolu glanced at it sideways again, asking lightly.

"Of course they would... well, I actually do understand, but my situation is a bit special..." Moko evaded the question.

"Because you're an unqualified hack pushed onto a duck's perch?"

"Can you not use such a vicious description?"

"Then a smuggled refugee from the Magic Kingdom."

"Isn't this evaluation getting lower and lower?!"

"Back then when you let me be a Magical Girl, you also said I was a genius, but now you mock me for being stupid every day."

"Well..."

Intimidated by the thick resentment in Lin Xiaolu's words, Moko's attitude had no choice but to soften as it honestly conceded, "Alright, alright, it's my fault, I shouldn't have said things like that, don't be mad anymore, okay?"

"A lecherous* fairy who gets rubbed on the cheek when held in a girl's chest."

"You're actually still saying it!"

"A suspected criminal wanted for corruption and flight."

"This is pure slander! Xiaolu is a science idiot who fails math!"

"What--a fairy liar who cons little girls!"

"A developmentally delayed flat-chested dwarf!"

At the dining table not far away, Lin Yun scooped the boiled eggs out of the pot, transferred them into cold water with a slotted strainer while shaking his hands, and took out a glass, pulling a carton of milk from the refrigerator. Carrying the prepared breakfast to the dining table, he couldn't help tilting his head to look in the direction of the bathroom.

Listening to the somewhat indistinct and muddled sounds of quarreling coming from inside, he raised his eyebrows in puzzlement:

"...What's the situation?"