Want to Live with Xia Mi?

Aki Shigede had had enough.

This young couple scattered PDA around them indiscriminately and nonstop, yet they had absolutely no awareness of it.

If they could just keep their lovey-dovey moments confined to Norton Hall, then perhaps this terrifying AOE damage would not hit innocent students.

At the mention of romance... Aki Shigede immediately felt her anger rising.

Damn Ye Sheng. Ever since they had tentatively confirmed their relationship during that internship assignment, he had plunged headfirst into Executive Department training, spending every day in endless drills and work observations... Were all people who came out of the Lionheart Society this unromantic?

Aki Shigede could not help recalling the "exchange student application form" Angers had handed her in his office a few days ago.

Caesar Gattuso had originally been among those invited by the Japan Branch, but the Gattuso family refused to let its heir go to Japan during such a sensitive period. The school board member put forward by the family had even cursed Angers out directly across the conference table, leaving the spot vacant.

According to Angers, as long as Aki Shigede joined, he could find a way to get Ye Sheng included in this exchange student program as well.

The Executive Department hoped the exchange students could investigate the origins of the "Molotov Cocktails" in Japan, preferably confirming a clear connection between them and the Japan Branch.

It was an "SS-Rank" investigation mission that Angers had alluded to in subtle terms.

As a Japanese student, Aki Shigede happened to possess the natural advantage of being a native speaker, as well as the rare and exceptional stealth Word Spirit, "Word Spirit: Netherlight."

Paired with Ye Sheng's "Snake," there was arguably no other team in the school better suited for this mission than the two of them.

While "Snake" was indeed far inferior to "Kamaitachi" in gathering battlefield intelligence, its broader range and its ability to ignore complex terrain and noisy environments gave it an overwhelming advantage over "Kamaitachi" in reconnaissance and infiltration assignments.

For the combat-related aspects, Angers believed Li Lin and Xia Mi could handle them well.

These two sixteen-year-old preparatory students—Li Lin could beat an A-Rank Dead Servant so badly it could not fight back after awakening his Word Spirit, while Xia Mi had not displayed any especially notable combat performance lately, but she possessed remarkably fine control over such a high-risk Word Spirit as "Eye of the Wind King." Her actual combat performance clearly would not be much worse than Li Lin's.

Besides... Angers had already approved Li Lin and Xia Mi's access to the Lionheart Society archives.

He had allowed them to come into contact with that kind of technology in advance precisely to prevent another Greenland Ice Sea Incident.

Caught off guard by Aki Shigede's verbal sneak attack, Xia Mi immediately bristled. "I don't want to live with this guy either!"

Li Lin tried imagining being woken before five every morning by Xia Mi, an absurdly competitive workaholic, and nodded in wholehearted agreement.

"That's right. I don't want to live with Xia Mi either."

"What do you mean? You're looking down on me?!" Xia Mi stared at him in disbelief.

The tsundere persona she had just established was instantly demolished by her own hands.

Li Lin hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. "That's more or less what I mean."

"You're finished! Starting today, you have to move into Norton Hall! From now on, just wait for me to come harass you every single day!" Xia Mi flew into a rage.

Aki Shigede stared blankly up at the azure sky. It was clearly a cloudless day, yet it felt as if someone were scattering handful after handful of dog food from the clouds. And that was not enough—they had to catch a whole basin of it and force-feed it into her mouth.

By the time Li Lin and Xia Mi arrived at the entrance to the student cafeteria amid their bickering, they finally remembered there had been a second-year senior following behind them.

"Where's Senior Aki?"

They turned around, but there was no sign of Aki Shigede anywhere.

Aki Shigede had already fled in defeat.

After dinner, Li Lin packed up four pork knuckles and returned to the dormitory, intending to bribe the huge Fingel into helping him move his luggage.

When Fingel saw the one-kilogram pork knuckles slam onto the table, his eyes turned green.

He instantly threw away every shred of professional ethics he possessed as a News Department paparazzo. He practically wanted to kneel at once and perform a Prussian knight's salute for Li Lin.

At least for tonight, Fingel kept his mouth completely shut.

He not only changed into clean clothes, but also dismissed every paparazzo lying in wait around the dormitory. Even after entering Norton Hall, he never took out his camera.

Li Lin watched Fingel, his face full of fawning smiles, help make the bed, arrange the bedding, and even organize the clothes neatly in the wardrobe.

"Senior Brother, you actually have housekeeping skills like this? How do you usually live so messily in the dorm?"

"Junior Brother, that's what you don't understand. Senior Brother here isn't like you, a natural center of attention. I'm the epitome of an ordinary person's college years—messing around for four or five years, molding away in the dorm in front of a computer screen..."

"No, I mean your housekeeping skills look like something a girlfriend specifically trained into you." Li Lin gave Fingel a suspicious look. He had not expected this guy to be capable of finding a girlfriend.

Fingel blinked. "That's just your imagination, Junior Brother."

He then turned toward the spacious master bedroom. "This place is huge. The bed's huge too. Are you sleeping here alone tonight?"

"Just me."

"Damn, what a waste."

Fingel instinctively wanted to advise Li Lin to seize the love right in front of him, but he swallowed the words. A man who had let happiness slip through his fingers was the biggest failure of all; he had no right to advise anyone else about relationships.

The senior brother who had already repeated three years of school gave Li Lin one last look, then told him with a grin that if he could not sleep at night, they could play online games together—"CS1.6," "Dota," or "Left 4 Dead," whichever he wanted. Then he patted his butt and left.

Li Lin stood by the window and watched Fingel walk away. The lights stretched Fingel's shadow long across the mountain path, and Li Lin inexplicably recalled the things Fingel had said that morning.

He suddenly felt that the man's back was filled with stories he could not understand. No one knew what day that vast, heavy past would suddenly catch up with his present, drain him of all his tears, and turn him into a demon feared by everyone.

No one knew when Fingel's demon would arrive.

But Li Lin's demoness came knocking precisely at five in the morning.

"Hello, hello, good morning~ This is ace tutor Xia Mi! Let's see whose little lazybones is still sound asleep!"

Xia Mi slipped into Norton Hall with a backpack stuffed full of papers and homework.

She quietly pushed open the bedroom door, smiling with wicked delight.

Li Lin had just filled his rage meter and was about to enter berserk mode, but the hot soy milk and fried dough sticks in the girl's hands immediately put out his fire.