After a long while, Chips carefully broke the silence. "Excuse me... is this a logic problem or a real-world application problem?"
Emiya said, "...A real-world application problem. Uh, how should I put this? This young lady's appearance is rather unusual, making it inconvenient for her to show herself in public. But she wants me to take her shopping, and as her butler, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to refuse her request."
"What?! No, wait, how could you just go and become someone else's butler?" Charlotte, whose mood had been off just moments ago, unexpectedly jumped back into the conversation. "When I recruited you myself last time, you wouldn't come. Now you suddenly appear and say you're some young lady's butler? Are you picking a fight with me?! Wuwuwu, do you even have a conscience?!"
"Holy crap, what kind of live NTR plot is this?"
Chip Girl eagerly began watching the drama. "Can someone explain the backstory? This newbie just got here and doesn't really get it."
Governor of Gaul replied awkwardly, "Sorry, I'm a pure-love guy."
Emiya was baffled. Why had they suddenly started shipping people?
He wanted to end the topic quickly. "...Miss Charlotte, I never meant to offend you. At the time, I truly had no intention of becoming any family's butler. But this current young lady was introduced to me by an old partner of mine..."
Just as Emiya was explaining, she suddenly went offline.
Huh? Wait, Charlotte, where did you go?
Governor of Gaul timely added, "A fairly reliable guess would be that she was secretly online during study time and got caught by her grandfather again."
Everyone sighed inwardly in unison. Poor kid...
But looking on the bright side, without a certain someone, the conversation finally moved in a normal direction—
"In my opinion, a task like shopping doesn't necessarily need to be solved with conventional thinking, right?" Chips tried changing approaches. "You could move all the merchandise from the shops on the street into her home, so this stay-at-home young lady could enjoy the fun of shopping without ever leaving the house!"
Chip Girl's thinking was truly unconventional. In ancient times, there was the prophet Muhammad's famous saying, "If the mountain will not come to me, then I will go to the mountain." Now there was also the earthshaking idea: "If I won't go shopping, then the street can come shopping to me."
"...That's the kind of idea only a shut-in girl would have." Emiya was speechless. Would Wa Lord ever complain that she wasn't enough of a shut-in in this lifetime?
"!"
Chips immediately sent an exclamation mark. Holy crap, did I just accidentally expose my personal hobbies?
"That's way too much trouble. Better yet, let's first decide on a shopping route, buy every shop, facility, and building along the way, then clear the whole area and replace the staff with our own people."
Governor of Gaul spoke at length, apparently feeling that he had finally reached a field he knew well. He eagerly offered his advice. "First, pick several more refined sightseeing destinations: temples, Taoist shrines, churches, art halls..."
Emiya interrupted him. "Wait a second. The young lady's own home is the biggest local attraction, and I checked—it's even a top national cultural tourism site. She's probably sick of looking at that stuff..."
She had already had more than enough of it. Take it away.
"No problem, then let's switch to a 'rebellious young lady experiences the pleasures of society' template." Governor of Gaul practically claimed he could handle women of any personality.
"I recommend somewhere like a dazzling commercial street or amusement park. As for the final private meeting place, you must emphasize atmosphere. For example, whispering over a candlelit dinner at an upscale restaurant. Or something bolder, like a private hot spring with relaxation and beauty treatments. The establishment can provide equipment, letting the dating man and woman give each other ambiguous massages amid rising fragrance..."
As he kept reading, Emiya's mouth gradually fell open. "Why has this turned into a date between me and the young lady?"
"Brilliant! You're practically a dating master! You're the best!" Chips followed suit by posting a thumbs-up emoji. "If that still doesn't win over that shut-in young lady, then right here and now! I'll eat this bag of chips in my hand!"
This guy had even started trying to scam free food and drink.
"I'm saying, aren't you misunderstanding something?"
"No, isn't it possible that you're the one who hasn't realized something?" Governor of Gaul said. "She suddenly designated you alone to handle this. Do you really think she has absolutely no feelings for you?"
"Hm?" Emiya froze.
Suddenly, a new chat window began flashing with messages. It was Chips, who had privately sent him a paragraph:
"Hello. Don't listen to that Governor of Gaul's playboy nonsense. We have a professional team here. Interested in learning more? We provide comprehensive dating services: reserving a sports car for transportation throughout the trip, clearing out unrelated people, arranging crowds to build the atmosphere, makeup and clothing design, wedding agencies..."
Emiya: "Absolutely not the last one!"
A few days later, Emiya took Wa Lord out in an arranged dark Koenigsegg CCR sports car. Upon arriving at the destination and getting out, he saw a huge bright-red banner erected at an open-air venue nearby. Incense burned atop an offering table draped in red velvet, smoke curling through the air, but he could still make out several large words on the backdrop in the center:
"Legend of the White Snake Filming Commencement Ceremony!"
Right beside it stood a promotional poster featuring some film star as Lady White, the female lead. A white snake had also been drawn onto it as supporting artwork, indicating that this was Lady White's true form.
When Emiya passed by with Wa Lord on his back, they somehow caused no commotion at all. Wa Lord's snake tail was not wrapped around him, but dragged behind them, apparently making those fans mistake her for a cosplayer wearing props.
Well, would you look at that—there was actually a solution like this. Emiya felt that Chips' so-called professional team really knew what they were doing.
But that wasn't all.
After walking only a few more steps, the two of them came across a booming magazine bookstore. The owner openly displayed the latest issues of youth magazines like Novel Painting and Zhiyin Comic on racks outside. On beautifully made book posters, a handsome youth who seemed to have stepped out of a novel gazed affectionately at a girl in a white dress. The girl's lower body was a long snake tail, and the magazine shamelessly rode the neighboring drama's hype:
"Legend of the White Snake Receives a New Adaptation! The Forbidden Love Between a Chivalrous Youth and a Half-Human, Half-Snake Young Lady!"
The moment Emiya saw it, his scalp tingled. This was only short of printing their ID numbers. Unexpectedly, Wa Lord on his back was so delighted that she nearly doubled over laughing. She patted his head and told him to hurry up and buy a copy.
When they opened it, the story told of a talented young swordsman determined to slay demons and destroy evil, who accidentally stumbled into a demon lair, only to be saved by a half-human, half-snake young lady through a twist of fate.
Bound by gratitude, the youth submitted to her in order to repay her kindness. Yet he learned that, because of her half-demon bloodline, the young lady had long suffered exclusion from her clan and had been confined for years. After risking herself to save him, she was even subjected to brutal torture by the clan elders. The youth resolved to break through the blockade and rescue her. The two eloped and gradually fell in love, only to be hunted by both humans and demons.
By accident, they entered an entirely new world and discovered that the statue within an ancient deity's temple also had a half-human, half-snake appearance. It turned out that the half-demons whom everyone had reviled in their homeland, and whom even demons looked down upon, were the ancient gods worshipped here. The demon elders had confined the young lady because they coveted the divine bloodline of this land.
After the two were discovered, the young lady was immediately revered as a divine maiden by the local ancient god sect. Just as an army from their homeland arrived to seize her back, a vast war sparked by the encounter between a young man and woman began...
Emiya flipped to the end of the story, and the corner of his mouth suddenly twitched. It actually ended with: "To be continued."
Which damn author cut it off there?
Thanks to @There's an Apple Tree Ahead
@Bookfriend20210125103258369
@Bookfriend20170223151049510 for the monthly votes!
Before you continue