A Date with Xia Mi (2)

"Moshi moshi... Hello, S-Rank agent. The Executive Department has a temporary mission for you! An abnormal reaction has appeared in downtown Chicago. The suspected target is hiding near desserts, the Ferris wheel, and high-end restaurants. You've been requisitioned!"

Not long after getting off the train, Xia Mi put on a stern little face and solemnly assigned Li Lin his glorious mission. If not for that overly anime-style greeting at the beginning, anyone might have thought she was about to head out and fight high-risk hybrids in the city to the death.

"Understood, Officer Xia Mi. Please provide the mission intel."

Li Lin cooperatively played along with her dramatic act.

Smiling, Xia Mi took off the shoulder bag she carried with her and handed it to Li Lin, gesturing for him to open it.

Li Lin opened the bag. There were surprisingly no cosmetics inside—only a few pieces of candy, a box of hair clips, a phone charging cable, and a hand-drawn "battle map."

Several attraction names were scrawled crookedly across the map, most of them located downtown, while the blank spaces contained suggested routes and itineraries.

The young man, who had been anxious that he had not prepared enough for the date, looked at the densely packed notes on the map and hurriedly raised his head to look at Xia Mi.

The girl wore a simple short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and white sneakers. The first impression she gave was not that she was breathtakingly beautiful, but that she was almost excessively pure, like an angel glimpsed from another world.

The angel had suddenly descended to earth. Standing in the warm crimson glow of dusk, she smiled and took Li Lin's hand of her own accord. "The mission is urgent and won't wait for anyone. Let's get moving!"

Xia Mi had already planned everything out. After all, she knew Li Lin was not especially interested in romance. He had neither taken the initiative to learn the things one should watch out for on a date nor probably understood how to make a girl swoon during one.

Li Lin had wanted to take the initiative several times, but in the end, he could only let Xia Mi drag him around downtown Chicago by the hand.

"You have to remember this: the most important thing when dating a girl is making her happy. Especially for a girl like me, who can feel happy just from visual enjoyment. Next, you should hold my hand and walk all the way from Millennium Park to the Chicago Riverwalk, take some pictures for me, buy me a few cute plush toys, then take me to a riverside table at a restaurant for a candlelit dinner."

Xia Mi raised one finger and explained in a lively tone.

She pulled Li Lin into Millennium Park, then voluntarily released his hand. After slowing down, she waited for him to turn back before extending her right hand to him again.

A trace of shyness and pride showed in the pretty girl's expression. Her fair, delicate hand hung in midair, like that of a noble princess awaiting a knight to kneel and kiss it.

Though the atmosphere was almost too perfect, Li Lin felt that even if he really kissed the back of Xia Mi's hand, she would not mind. But with more and more pedestrians gathering around them, he still simply took her hand.

Only then did he suddenly understand the heart-stirring romantic imagery behind the ancient phrase, "hands like tender shoots, skin like congealed cream."

Feeling the girl's slender hand resting in his palm, warm and faintly damp, Li Lin vaguely realized that Xia Mi was not as composed as she appeared.

"You're nervous?"

"Obviously. It's my first date too. How could I not be nervous?"

Xia Mi bared her teeth at Li Lin.

The two walked side by side into Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, a massive mirrored sculpture inspired by liquid mercury. The sky, city, lights, crowds, light, and shadows all warped across its surface.

Legend had it that a senior from the Equipment Department had secretly modified it before graduation, embedding an alchemical matrix capable of blowing a Fourth-Generation Species to death inside it. But Li Lin had no way to verify that.

He had Xia Mi stand a little farther away, intending to take a few scenic pictures of her alone first.

Xia Mi refused and would only agree to take photos with Li Lin.

So Li Lin watched Xia Mi take out her own phone, deliberately hold it high, and gesture for him to lean closer.

Only when their shoulders finally touched did she snap the picture. Then she waved her phone and looked at the young man before her with a sly yet childlike smile.

"Yay, evidence preserved~ When you meet a girl you really like someday, I'll use this to threaten you."

Li Lin did not quite know how to respond, so he simply took out his own phone and copied her, snapping a few selfies together.

In the photos, Xia Mi was always looking at the mirrors around them. Sometimes she smiled sweetly; sometimes, for a brief moment, she seemed lost in thought as she looked at the reflections.

The mirrors held countless reflections from the times she had disguised herself as a human. Even she could not remember which dynasty each girl in palace dress or flowing skirts had belonged to.

As dusk gradually faded, Li Lin took Xia Mi's hand and strolled along Lake Michigan. The phone in his pocket vibrated. When he took it out, he found an anonymous message from Caesar.

"The restaurant has been booked. A river-view table, Smyth's seasonal royal menu. The reservation is for 7:30 p.m. Don't keep the lady waiting."

Clinging to Li Lin's arm, Xia Mi naturally saw the message on the screen. She could have guessed it was Caesar with her toes and could not help curling her lips.

"Does the young master of the Gattuso family think everything in the world can be solved with reservations?"

"Not entirely. For example, he always used to say that if he wanted to give his brother wedding gift money, he still had to see when exactly his brother was getting married."

Li Lin said it casually. Xia Mi instinctively replied, "Yeah, yeah," and then both of them realized something was wrong with the topic and fell silent.

Evening Chicago was draped in a thin crimson veil. Magnificent light spread toward Lake Michigan, and in the shimmering waves was reflected Xia Mi leaning against Li Lin's shoulder, her eyes closed as though she did not want the young man to see what she was feeling.

Xia Mi felt that many things were drifting away from her original expectations. Perhaps she should never have suggested this date, much less become so troubled by the reward for Day of Freedom. But so many feelings and thoughts had grown from those fragmented, endless memories, like unbreakable vines wrapping around the wings she did not dare spread...

She no longer wanted to keep thinking about it.

For the first time, she tried to escape the throne, death, and fate within her memories.

So she suddenly opened her eyes and looked at the orange-red river. The shadows of skyscrapers soaked in the water, linked end to end.

Xia Mi gently shook the arm of the young man beside her and pointed at the reflection in the water as she asked him in all seriousness.

"Look, doesn't this city resemble a steel dragon napping by the lake?"

Just now, Li Lin had sensed a trace of unfamiliarity drifting through Xia Mi's tranquil expression, something he could not quite identify. But that faint strangeness quickly vanished as she broke into a bright smile.

He lowered his gaze to the cute, playful girl reflected on the lake's surface.

"It does look a little similar. Why bring that up all of a sudden?"

"Hehe, because now it's my patrol territory."