Xia Mi: I Have Princess Syndrome

Shude Maiyi sold information on things like The Ghosts and the White King's Bloodline, finally making the girl who looked about sixteen wary of her. Xia Mi then left the newsstand without looking back.

Once Xia Mi had gone far enough, Shude Maiyi hurriedly packed up her gear and passport to make her escape. Her colleague's belated complaints sounded through her earpiece.

"Long Legs, didn't you say you were only planning to spy on your little sister's internship class? How did you turn around and hand over the intelligence we dug up with so much effort?"

"I got caught. I couldn't even contact the boss in secret." As though all her strength had left her, Shude Maiyi went limp and sank into a white plastic food-stall chair.

"There's an expert like that in Los Angeles?"

"I ran into a hidden master."

"Then there's nothing we can do. Which recently awakened monarch do you think it is, Bronze and Fire? Sky and Wind?" Her colleague's cheerful voice came through the earpiece.

Shude Maiyi said quietly, "If she were a monarch, even one who had only just awakened, the pressure she gave me wouldn't have been much weaker than when the boss got so mad at his teammates while gaming that he turned red..."

"That felt like a Second-Generation Species."

"You say that like you've seen a Second-Generation Species before."

"Whatever. If this level of intelligence can lure her to Japan, testing the reactions of the Snake Qi Eight Clans and The Ghosts isn't a bad thing."

"But... Chips, let me tell you something with no real basis. That girl didn't look like a monarch, but she felt a little like the kind of princess who'd been spoiled rotten since childhood."

"Oh, that's a line of investigation worth noting. It might come in handy many years from now. Still, I always thought you, Long Legs, were only unbeatable with men. Didn't expect you to be so experienced with women too."

"..."

Half an hour later.

Li Lin, who was playing Fruit Ninja on his phone on a bench, noticed someone sit down beside him.

Xia Mi naturally pressed close beside him. She looked a little sleepy, her dark, bright eyes unblinking as she watched his hand rise and fall, slicing fruit.

"Let me play."

Li Lin looked at the pale, slender, beautiful hand spread before him like a night-blooming flower, and could only helplessly hand his phone to Xia Mi.

"Hey, I thought you'd take the chance to interlace our fingers like they do in manga!"

Xia Mi took the phone and bared her teeth at Li Lin.

"What manga have you been reading, Diamond Is Unbreakable?"

Li Lin could not help complaining, "We read that issue of JUMP together, okay? I'm not Kira Yoshikage. I don't have that weird fetish."

Xia Mi made a face at Li Lin, then lowered her head and began slicing fruit.

Now it was Li Lin's turn to watch her play. The two chatted idly until the phone was nearly out of battery, when Professor Schneider retook control of everyone's communication channels and ordered all agents to gather at the temporary base.

After getting into an armored vehicle the operations team had somehow acquired, Li Lin looked at Xia Mi beside him, who was staring blankly out at the night beyond the window. He reached out and pinched her slightly chubby cheek.

Xia Mi immediately straightened up like a cat with its fur standing on end, then turned and pounced on Li Lin, baring her teeth and claws as she shoved him down.

Aki Shigede, who was driving, coughed. The boy and girl in the backseat hurriedly stopped fooling around.

"Why did you suddenly scare me?"

Xia Mi was still sulking over it.

"Because you looked like someone who ran away from home after her stepmother smacked her palms with a ruler as a child, then heard decades later that her stepmother wasn't dead..." Li Lin put it in an abstract and tactful way.

"Hmph, if you know I hold grudges, how dare you act so brazenly around me!"

Xia Mi gritted her teeth, badly wanting to grab Li Lin's arm and bite it.

Having suddenly learned that "a group of people in Japan are planning to revive the White King," especially with the prophesied date of "Nidhogg destroying the world" drawing near, Xia Mi truly felt flustered.

If the White King and Black King really revived one after another, then perhaps she should forget about sitting on the throne and plotting revenge or seizing power. Death was death either way. She might as well drag Li Lin into Nibelungen by force and set up a formation there. They could live as long as they could...

But that was Xia Mi's way of thinking.

Jormungandr could not just lie flat like this. She had to take action, at the very least go to Japan herself to confirm the situation.

Of course, she also truly did not want to admit that Li Lin had frightened her just now.

It was too embarrassing for a dragon.

Xia Mi kept kicking Li Lin's shin with her foot, huffing and puffing. Her cheeks puffed out as though filled with air, as if she were one step away from saying outright, "I'm in a bad mood right now, so hurry up and comfort me."

Looking at Xia Mi's catlike tsundere expression, Li Lin could not tell whether she was a princess in distress or a stray ragdoll cat...

He was not very good at comforting girls. Saying too much could easily backfire, so the atmosphere became a little awkward.

Xia Mi felt her princess syndrome was about to flare up.

But her "vassal recruitment plan" was still in its earliest stages. Back then, when she threw a tantrum, she could make hundreds of palace maids kneel trembling beneath the steps, while her emperor brother ran about with a miserable face. Now, if she threw a tantrum, Li Lin would only take the chance to bully her.

The more she thought about it, the less angry she became. She raised a small hand, grabbed Li Lin's face, and gave it a pinch as revenge.

"We're even." Li Lin clasped his fists in salute.

Xia Mi gritted her teeth. "Yes, we're even... If you've got the guts, come to the rooftop with me tonight and fight!"

"I'm not fighting you anymore, because you can't beat me." Li Lin said it with absolute confidence.

And unfortunately, he was telling the truth. As long as he kept himself within the bounds of common knowledge in the hybrid world, Xia Mi really could not beat this childhood friend, whose visible skills were equal to hers and whose bloodline ranked a level above hers.

"Hey! You're going to piss me to death!"

Xia Mi angrily pinched Li Lin's face again. The feel of it was pretty good, so she simply started pawing at his face with both hands.

Through the rearview mirror, Aki Shigede looked at the young couple who were openly flirting while insisting they were not dating, and felt the cold dog food slap wildly against her face like rain.

She felt the atmosphere in the backseat becoming increasingly intimate, as though the two might embrace at any moment.

Fortunately, the great Student Union president, Caesar Gattuso, came to the rescue.

A message from Caesar popped up on the phone Aki Shigede had placed on the passenger seat.

[Dictator: Miss Shigede, I've completed the mission with the third operations team. I'm at the intersection ahead of you. Make room for me in the car.]

As though granted a pardon, Aki Shigede looked toward the traffic light ahead. There, an Italian man covered in blood stood limping by the roadside, waving at her.