The Hunting Mark on Black Cat soon displayed an image. She was sprawled across a piano, asleep, while Yao and Saroye argued in the distance over which songs to perform.
Yao seemed to be getting worked up. She drew her longsword and slashed at Saroye, but Saroye paid her no heed, continuing to argue even as she was cut. Before the blade had even fully left her body, the wound had already begun to heal.
"This woman will be trouble too... But it seems like someone is still missing?" Li Xuan rotated the view for quite a while, yet he never found the tall nun.
The Guitarist Is Running Away!
While Li Xuan was looking around, Felia suddenly kicked open the door and burst in, shouting excitedly, "Sisters! Good news! I've secured a venue for the live show. We can perform next Wednesday!"
"Yay! Just what I'd expect from Felia!" Black Cat raised both hands in celebration from her sleep, then flopped back down as though her battery had run out and she had been forcibly powered off.
"How did your discussion about the setlist go? Did you reach a consensus?" Felia asked.
"The discussion was very harmonious. This one slashed me five times, and I fired six shots, but she dodged all of them," Saroye said irritably.
"Sounds fairly peaceful overall. At least nobody was lost. So, are we writing new songs or using our old ones?" Felia asked with a smile.
"Of course we're writing new songs! We finally came to a new city. How can we show off our rock spirit without new songs?" Yao said firmly.
"Easy for you to say. To perform a new song, I need to write new lyrics, and Felia needs to compose new music. How much practice time will we have left afterward? You don't care about any of that. You really only ever think about yourself, from beginning to end!" Saroye said coldly.
"Huh? Fine, composing is one thing, but isn't writing lyrics as easy as having hands? Don't think everyone has to revolve around you just because you're the lead singer!" Yao said aggressively.
"No fighting." Felia pulled out a heavy machine gun from beneath her skirt and set it up before them. She glanced at Black Cat, who was still sleeping, then thoughtfully attached a suppressor to the barrel.
"As easy as having hands? Do you think it's like playing with your swords? Lyrics need to rhyme, but more importantly, they need to move the audience! A guitarist who only knows how to play guitar probably wouldn't understand," Saroye said, pulling out a revolver and loading six rounds at a dazzling speed.
"Hmph, I'll prove you wrong today! I'm going to find inspiration right now. Before noon tomorrow, I'll slap perfect lyrics right into your ugly face!" Yao was getting emotional. Driven by the thought that she could do it herself, she bypassed Felia's blockade and ran out of the rehearsal room.
"Hey! Get back here! Felia, go after her! The guitarist is running away!" Saroye reached out to grab Yao but caught nothing, so she could only turn to Felia for help.
"Let her go. That girl barely knows any words; she'll give up soon enough. She won't get lost, and once she's tired of playing around, she'll come home on her own." Unlike when Black Cat had run off, Felia showed no urgency at all. She slowly sat down behind the drum kit and began improvising.
"Don't forget there are hidden monsters in this city. We still haven't sensed the other side's presence. Maybe they're waiting in the shadows to bite us. Isn't it dangerous to let her go out alone at a time like this?" Saroye asked worriedly.
"That arrogant brat could stand to suffer a little. As for the job, it won't be too late to handle it after the concert. It's only a matter of lifting a hand anyway," Felia said indifferently.
"Do you really think it'll be that easy? If it were so simple, why would the Church have come to us?" Saroye was faintly worried, but every time she raised the issue, everyone acted completely unconcerned.
"Relax. Father God will protect us." Felia raised the silver cross necklace on her chest and reverently kissed it.
Saroye still wanted to persuade Felia, but Black Cat, who had been sleeping all along, suddenly woke up. Yawning, she walked behind Saroye, tugged on her pants, and whispered, "Saroye, new song. Need new song."
"Huh? You're planning to write a new song too? Are you sure there's enough time?" Saroye asked in confusion.
"Being thrown into the deep end is part of rock too. Let's start writing lyrics from scratch! This live show gives us time for three songs. If the new song bombs, we'll at least have two others to salvage the band's reputation," Felia replied.
"Fine, I'll get the lyrics written as soon as possible. I hope Yao comes back quickly. I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about this," Saroye said worriedly.
Seeing that this group was actually arranging a performance and completely ignoring him, Li Xuan became irritated. He pointed at the screen and said to Qi Mo, "Focus on checking reservations for performances next Wednesday. Keep the image here so you can monitor it. I'm going to meet the one who's alone."
"Master, please be careful! Call us anytime if something happens!" Qi Mo shouted at Li Xuan's back with a worried expression.
Since Lilika had already told Li Xuan where the villa was, it was not difficult to determine the direction Yao had fled. This time, however, Li Xuan did not risk spying on her himself. Instead, he called out Wu Yan and Tan Xiang, who were undergoing combat training in the Delusive Badlands.
"You two, split up and pretend to be shopping. Search south of this villa. The target is a short high school girl with two swords on her. She should be easy to spot. Once you find her, don't stare at her. Just follow her from a distance. I'll tell you what to do next."
As he spoke, Li Xuan gave each of them a pair of headphones for remote communication.
The two magical girls quickly set out. Of course, Li Xuan did not expect two high school girls with no tracking training to accomplish what even he could not. His plan was to place Hunting Marks on them, then use the images from those marks to indirectly confirm Yao's location.
That way, even if Yao noticed someone watching her, she would not trace it back to the two magical girls. Li Xuan's actual body was several kilometers away, far beyond Yao's sensory range.
The tactic proved highly effective. Yao, who had gone wandering aimlessly through the streets, soon entered the visible range of Wu Yan's marked image. Li Xuan immediately directed Tan Xiang to move nearby as well, locking onto Yao's position from two directions. That way, even if one of them lost her, the other could still find her.
Yao, full of pent-up anger, had no idea she had already become Li Xuan's target. After wandering the streets without purpose for a while, she plunged into a bar and began drinking cup after cup.
Her alcohol tolerance did not seem particularly good. Once she had drunk too much, she forced an employee to bring her paper and a pen, then started writing lyrics while riding the buzz.
Wu Yan was pretending to drink inside the bar. Through her mark, Li Xuan zoomed in curiously and saw crooked handwriting on the page:
"Yao is cutest, Saroye is bad, that unkillable thing is such a pain. Black Cat is cute, Felia is bad, chop them up and sell them as buns..."
There were more than ten lines of "lyrics" like that. Most of them expressed her desire to kill everyone, but she crossed out nearly every line after writing only one or two sentences. It seemed that even she was dissatisfied with work at the level of childish rhymes.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I want to write dazzling lyrics and go back to slap Saroye in the face! I want to see her kneel in apology and admire my invincible talent! By Virgin Mary's tits, if anyone can give me lyrics, I'll do anything!!!!!"
Drunk Yao soon began clutching her head and raving. Seeing how fierce she looked, the staff did not dare step forward to stop her.
Seeing Yao lose her mind, Li Xuan knew his moment had come.
If he could appear before Yao with completed lyrics now, he would have a natural opportunity to approach her. Not only could he place a Hunting Mark on her, but he could also learn more about her personality and habits, laying the groundwork for the final offensive later.
Thinking that, Li Xuan confidently shut off the image and prepared to act. Yet just before setting out, he realized something awkward:
He could not write lyrics either.
The Brat's Mockery
"Hey, ladies, does anyone know how to write lyrics? Urgent, urgent, urgent! Waiting online!" Li Xuan asked in the magical girls' group chat.
In less than a minute, the group was filled with four identical replies: "No." Li Xuan refused to give up and specifically asked Xu Rou, who was excellent at Chinese, but she also said she did not know. She showed him several doggerel poems, all of which were barely any better than Yao's.
At that point, Li Xuan gave up completely. After all, exams did not test how to write lyrics. It seemed that even the two top students under him had their limitations.
Thinking that, Li Xuan felt a pang of regret. Was he really going to miss such a perfect opportunity? He could still approach her directly based on experience, but with Yao's personality, if he could not offer her something she wanted, he would probably get slashed a few times.
Then Li Xuan suddenly slapped his forehead. Wasn't there still a magical girl locked in the wine cellar? Tang Xi was a professional! Writing lyrics should not be much of a problem for her, right?
Li Xuan hurriedly opened a passage to the wine cellar and grabbed Tang Xi, who was dozing off, by the collar.
"Master! Don't spank me! I wrote several thousand words today already! I just accidentally hit backspace while sleeping and deleted them! You have to believe me!" Seeing Li Xuan's fierce expression, Tang Xi assumed he had come to catch her slacking off and hurriedly covered her butt as she defended herself.
"I'm not hitting you, I'm not hitting you. Let me ask you something: have you ever written lyrics?" Li Xuan comforted her, stroking her head.
"Lyrics? Of course I have. After my novel went on hiatus, I made extra money writing them," Tang Xi said, immediately relieved upon learning he was not there to spank her.
"Do you have any unpublished ones? Give me a good one and let me see!" Li Xuan said in delight, quickly holding out his hand.
"Does Master need lyrics? Let me think... There's a rejected draft for a new song I wrote for Bing Rui. We all thought it was pretty good, but it didn't suit her style. Want to take a look?" Tang Xi opened a folder and showed Li Xuan the document inside.
Li Xuan could not really tell good from bad himself, so he simply borrowed Tang Xi's laptop. Just as he was about to leave, he remembered that Yao had seen him before. She might not remember his face after that rushed encounter, but it would be troublesome if she recognized him.
So Li Xuan went to Qi Mo's room, borrowed some cosmetics, and smeared up his face. He disguised himself as a weathered middle-aged man before returning to the vicinity of the bar in satisfaction.
By then, Yao had stopped drinking. Her entire upper body was sprawled across the table, a pen clenched between her teeth as she stared blankly at a sheet of paper. Naturally, her head was just as blank.
"Damn it, didn't they say drinking gives you inspiration? Why do I only feel like chopping people up after drinking?" Yao finally gave up thinking, tossed aside the pen, and lay sideways on the paper.
"Excuse me, one Tequila Sunrise, with ice."
Knowing the time had come, Li Xuan hugged the laptop to his chest, sat elegantly at a table diagonally across from Yao, and raised a hand to order.
A brightly colored Tequila Sunrise was quickly brought over. Li Xuan was in no rush to drink. He merely took a small, elegant sip, set down the glass, opened the laptop, and pretended to write.
It was not uncommon to see office workers using laptops in cafés, but doing that in a bar was quite strange. The lighting was dim, the place was crowded and noisy, and it was not somewhere one could quietly handle serious work.
Sure enough, Li Xuan's strange behavior caught Yao's attention. Using her sword sheath to prop herself up, she staggered over to his side.
"Heeey~ What's Uncle doing? A bar isn't a place for worthless wage-slaves like you to work overtime~ Don't tell me you're putting on airs to fish for women? That's so gross. Don't tell me you're still a virgin at your age, Uncle? What a useless piece of society's trash," Yao mocked in Li Xuan's ear in an extremely bratty tone.
Under normal circumstances, Li Xuan would only have found such textbook brat behavior amusing. But when he saw the long and short swords hanging from Yao's body, he immediately felt a chill down his spine.
As a man, he was confident that he could handle the brat before him. Yet whenever he thought of Yao's lightning-fast blade, he could not help feeling intimidated.
However, how could a man willing to risk his life to woo magical girls possibly be frightened off by a mere sword?
Li Xuan quickly steadied himself and said in a calm, world-weary tone, "I'm writing lyrics for a band."
"Lyrics? Pfft, don't make me laugh, worthless Uncle. What you wrote is probably just drunken rambling, right? Maybe it's full of the disgusting horny jokes unique to virgins too. Let me see whether your lyrics are normal or not~"
As she spoke, Yao draped half her body over Li Xuan's shoulder. Li Xuan immediately felt something soft press against him.
Unlike little girls like Lilika, Mian Yin, and Black Cat, Yao was short but already quite well-endowed. Her Grade C+ figure was fairly impressive even among adult women, let alone on a loli under one meter sixty, making it all the more remarkable.
"No way? These are actually lyrics... This is better than mine... No, it's even better than Saroye's!"
Yao looked at the screen with disdain, but the instant she clearly saw the lyrics, it felt as though every pore on her body opened. A good third of her drunkenness immediately vanished. Though she could not write lyrics herself, she had read plenty as a guitarist and could appreciate good phrasing and how it would feel when sung.
The lyrics before her might not have been top-tier, but they definitely did not feel inferior to Saroye's work!
If she could copy these lyrics down and slap them in Saroye's face, wouldn't Saroye have to kneel and admit she was wrong on the spot?
At the thought of proud Saroye being won over by her talent, kneeling on the floor and licking her feet while loudly calling her big sister, Yao's brain immediately went into one climax after another as though it had been violently ravaged by an eighteen-centimeter monster. Even her expression became several degrees more lewd.
Seeing Yao's reaction, a smug smile appeared on Li Xuan's lips. His favorite author truly had skill. Just a discarded draft could make this brat react like that. Today's plan was surely in the bag.
"Ahem. I was only saying the opposite just now. What you wrote is complete garbage, worse than Hajime Isayama's ending. You don't seriously think you can attract me with words you can dig out of any trash can, do you, worthless Uncle~?" Yao realized she had accidentally revealed her true thoughts, so she hurriedly patched up her previous words and viciously belittled the lyrics Li Xuan had brought.
Yet her eyes never left the screen, as though she wanted to burn every line into her mind.
Please, I'll Do Anything!
"Everyone has different tastes. If you don't like it, don't look." How could Li Xuan fail to notice what she was trying to do? With a snap, he shut the laptop and lifted the Tequila Sunrise from the table to take a sip.
Yao's plan to secretly memorize the lyrics had failed, and she became annoyed. Yet she did not want to admit she had been trying to memorize them, so she retaliated with a wicked grin. "Worthless Uncle still wants to drink? Drink my foot-washing water instead! Heh~"
As soon as she finished speaking, Yao took off one shoe and flicked it upward with her toes, accurately landing it in Li Xuan's glass.
Li Xuan frowned, but seeing Yao's triumphant prankster expression, he knew that getting angry would only play into her hands. He gently set down the glass and calmly said, "Waiter, another one, please."
"No way, Uncle? You're not even angry about that? Or are you already furious inside, but forcing yourself to hold back because you want to maintain your grown-up image? No way, no way. You're not seriously upset over a child's prank, are you? You frowned! You're angry! You have to be angry, right? Hahahahahahaha~~~" Yao stared at Li Xuan's face, apparently trying to provoke his anger.
What was more unbearable than being mocked right in the face by a brat? Of course, being mocked right in the face by a brat while also being unable to beat her.
Although Yao's expression and words were incredibly punchable, Li Xuan, who had spent several years working himself like an animal at construction sites in his previous life, truly had the experience of one and a half lifetimes. His heart was far steadier than that of his peers. He concealed his anger without showing a trace, maintaining the same calm, unreadable expression.
The waiter soon delivered another prepared Tequila Sunrise. Li Xuan kept drinking without changing expression. This time, Yao did not throw another shoe into it. Instead, she looked at Li Xuan in disbelief and said:
"No way, Uncle? You really are a pathetic coward? Forget adults, you don't even dare get angry when a kid bullies you? You're a worthless little fish through and through. Even fishermen who've caught nothing all day would toss a useless fish like you straight back into the water~ Bleeeh~~~" Yao grew more animated as she spoke, and in the end, she simply grabbed Li Xuan's arm and drained the remaining alcohol from his glass in one gulp while holding his hand.
"It seems this young lady hasn't had enough. Waiter, I'd like a private room. Bring one of every drink recommended by the manager, along with two portions of snacks to go with them," Li Xuan said with a smile as he stood.
"No problem! Please come with me!" Seeing business arrive, the waiter hurried over with a beaming smile to lead the way.
"Uncle... You really aren't getting angry! Tch~ How boring." Though Yao said it was boring, she followed right behind Li Xuan without hesitation and entered the private room with him.
The drinks and snacks soon arrived. Li Xuan shut the door. Rather than drinking right away, he opened his laptop and pretended to organize files.
"Master, what exactly do you do for work?" Holding a glass of vodka, Yao deliberately softened her voice and asked in a sweet tone.
"Me? I have many identities: host, writer, folk singer, coffee shop owner, rope artist, backpacker, Taiko no Tatsujin player, doctor, traveler, trailblazer, drifter, admiral, Master..." Li Xuan deliberately put on a world-weary expression and rattled off a long list of professions like he was reciting a menu.
"Liar. You're just a disappointed worthless Uncle who came to a bar to pick up girls~ Otherwise, why would you come somewhere so noisy to write lyrics?" Yao taunted Li Xuan arrogantly while turning to look at his screen.
Li Xuan knew she wanted to steal a look at the lyrics, so he deliberately did not open the document and continued pretending to sort files. Yet when he opened the D drive, he suddenly noticed a folder titled "Sanguosha Planning." Curious, he clicked it, and the screen instantly filled with infantry videos.
Li Xuan was terribly embarrassed. Before Yao could clearly see what was there, he hurriedly shut the laptop and raised a glass of rum to clink against hers.
"Hey, Uncle, let me see the lyrics you wrote, okay? They're as awful as the second season of Star Cluster, but since you're buying me drinks, I wouldn't mind helping you revise them~"
Seeing Li Xuan shut the laptop again, Yao could not help becoming anxious. Her memory was not great to begin with, and the alcohol had made her groggy. A few glances were nowhere near enough for her to remember anything.
"It's fine. Being able to buy drinks for such a cute young lady is my honor. You don't need to do anything for me," Li Xuan said unhurriedly.
"Argh! You useless trash Uncle, you're driving me crazy! Are you questioning my skill? I'm the vocalist and guitarist of a famous band! A musical genius who handles lyrics and composition all by myself! You don't believe me? That expression makes it obvious that you don't, doesn't it?"
Yao desperately wanted those lyrics immediately. Seeing Li Xuan wear a gentle smile, she rushed out of the private room, snatched the guitar of the bar's resident musician, and began improvising on the spot.
Though it happened suddenly, Yao's guitar solo immediately conquered the entire crowd. Her dazzling strumming left the original owner, who had wanted to take back the guitar, frozen in place. The overall rhythm was somewhat rushed, but compared to the dull performance from before, it was like a thunderclap tearing through the sky.
When the song ended, the bar erupted with applause. Even the manager ran over to ask Yao whether she would be willing to perform there regularly.
Yet Yao completely ignored the manager's invitation. She contemptuously returned the guitar to its still-stunned owner, rushed back into the private room in three quick strides, and shut the door.
"Did you hear that? The whole audience was cheering for me! I am light, I am electricity! I am the one and only genius musical girl beneath the heavens! You believe me now, right? Let me see your lyrics already!"
Yao ran up before Li Xuan. Her slightly baby-fat cheeks were still flushed with excitement from the performance.
"Sorry, these are lyrics I wrote for another band. I can't just show them to anyone," Li Xuan said, refusing to indulge her. He simply lifted his glass and drank leisurely.
"Yaaah! You're infuriating!" Yao's face changed. She stood up and stomped her feet in anger, and her gaze at Li Xuan gained several traces of killing intent.
Li Xuan had long been on guard against this. The moment he saw her thumb resting on her sword guard, he immediately said in an offhand tone:
"By the way, my laptop has encryption. If the password is entered incorrectly five times, it wipes all data. So forcing me won't help you."
Yao was nearly dying of impatience. Showing off before her companions was secondary. The main issue was that she had boasted when she left. If she went back in defeat now, wouldn't Felia and Saroye laugh themselves to death at her expense?
"Tell me! What do I have to do for those lyrics? Please, as long as you give me the lyrics, I'll do anything! Name your price!" Unable to endure it any longer, Yao finally asked Li Xuan directly what he wanted.
Before you continue