At the window-side table, the Miyano Sisters' meeting was gradually drawing to a close.
Miyano Shiho was completely unlike her usual self.
The genius girl who had always seemed indifferent to everything was nowhere to be seen. Before her sister, Miyano Akemi, stood a nagging younger sister who constantly worried about her.
"You don't need to worry. Everything is going smoothly."
Miyano Akemi smiled as she comforted Shiho.
In truth, she knew perfectly well that her situation was far from optimistic.
But she should not tell Shiho how she felt. It would only make her worry for nothing, without solving anything.
"Stop worrying about me, Shiho."
"Actually, I'm more worried about you."
As if to change the subject, Miyano Akemi said, half serious and half joking:
"Stop working so hard on that medicine."
"What matters is finding yourself a boyfriend already."
"Then your big sister won't have anything left to worry about."
"A boyfriend?"
Miyano Shiho froze slightly, and a name suddenly sprang into her mind.
That name was naturally Lin Xinyi.
After all, he had just stammered out a confession to her. Even though it had failed before it could truly begin, it had still left a deep impression.
And considering how tiny her social circle was—so narrow that even a paramecium would have no room to move its cilia—when it came to boyfriends, Lin Xinyi seemed to be the only possible candidate.
"Forget it!"
Miyano Shiho quickly banished that instinctively surfaced name from her mind.
"None of the men in the organization are reliable."
"Perhaps that's true."
They had talked enough, and it was getting late. Miyano Akemi softly sighed as she gathered her things and rose to leave.
But before parting, she stopped and spoke seriously to her sister.
"But Shiho, honestly..."
"If you really meet someone in this cold organization who genuinely cares about you, don't let him slip away so easily."
"Having someone care about us is far too precious."
With a warm smile on her lips, Miyano Akemi spoke like someone who had been through it all.
Then she slowly turned and left, leaving only her back behind.
"Having someone care about me..."
Miyano Shiho was slightly moved.
Indeed, she had lost her parents at a young age and grown up with difficulty in this dark, brutal organization.
Other than her sister, no one had ever truly cared about her.
"Miyano, let's head back too."
Lin Xinyi's arrival interrupted her thoughts.
"Mm." Miyano Shiho suppressed the feelings in her heart and stood up.
As she moved, a wave of exhaustion swept over her. She could not help yawning, and a few more weary tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"I'm a little tired..." Miyano Shiho realized she truly was overworked, so she turned to Lin Xinyi and said, "Let's take a taxi back, okay? I don't feel like walking."
"No." Lin Xinyi answered decisively. "We'll walk back. Think of it as an after-dinner stroll."
"Hm?" Miyano Shiho paused in surprise.
This man had actually refused her?
Even before, Lin Xinyi had always tried his best to accommodate such harmless little requests.
Now that he had confessed his feelings for her, why was he suddenly refusing to listen?
Could he be deliberately getting back at her because she had rejected his confession?
Miyano Shiho could not understand it.
"Whatever." Since she had no intention of dating him anyway, she simply stopped trying to guess what he was thinking. "Then we'll walk back."
"But wait for me first."
"I'm going to the convenience store next door to buy some coffee."
She was truly exhausted, and she felt she needed some caffeine.
As she spoke, Miyano Shiho took out the two five-hundred-yen coins that had been warmed in her pocket, preparing to turn and head for the convenience store.
But to her utter surprise, at that moment—
Lin Xinyi reached out and snatched the money straight from her hand.
"What are you doing?" Miyano Shiho's eyes widened in astonishment.
Lin Xinyi did not answer. He simply took out his wallet, now more than half empty, and carefully put the two coins away.
Only after the thousand yen was safely in his wallet did he look up and say coldly:
"Coffee is bad for your health."
"I won't let you drink it."
Miyano Shiho: "..."
He had to interfere even over something this trivial? Did the organization not even have enough funding for two bottles of coffee?
And he was saying coffee was bad for her health...
He was so seriously pretending to care about her, acting like her sister!
Wait...
Miyano Shiho suddenly froze.
Insisting on an after-dinner walk, refusing to let her drink coffee...
Was this guy actually worried about her?
She suddenly realized that, aside from her sister, there really was someone else in her life who cared about her like this.
"Someone who genuinely cared about me..."
In the silence, Miyano Shiho remembered what her sister had just said.
She looked at Lin Xinyi's expressionless face.
That face, unchanged from before, suddenly seemed a little more pleasing to the eye.
"This is bad!"
Lin Xinyi looked calm on the surface, but inwardly he was deeply unsettled.
The Miyano Sisters mooching food and drinks had already made him doubt whether his previous guess was wrong, but back then, he had only suspected it and had no evidence.
So just now, he had deliberately put on a cold face and tested Miyano Shiho by speaking to her in a particularly rude tone.
In the end, he had directly snatched the money from Miyano Shiho's hand, yet she had not shown the slightest temper.
Not only had she not gotten angry, after he had harshly refused her twice, this "ice queen" did not even dare put on much of a cold face.
Even the look in her eyes had softened slightly.
What did that mean?
It meant Miyano Shiho was definitely not some rich young lady, and Lin Xinyi was not her personal bodyguard.
After all, what employer obediently watched her bodyguard's expression?
"Then who exactly is she?"
"And who am I?"
Lin Xinyi suddenly realized that the problem might be serious.
If Miyano Shiho was not the wealthy heiress he had imagined, and instead was even constrained by him, her "bodyguard"—then considering those armed security guards dressed like the Mafia, the mysterious superior who spoke in a cold, sinister manner, and the heavily guarded biological laboratory...
No matter how he thought about it, there seemed to be only one explanation—
Just like the wild idea he had entertained before:
Miyano Shiho was a female researcher imprisoned by a Criminal Organization, and he was not a personal bodyguard at all, but a Mafia thug assigned to guard this genius girl.
"Could something this absurd really be true?"
Lin Xinyi's heart was in turmoil.
He would never have believed something like this before, but after personally confirming that this world was anything but ordinary, anything seemed possible.
And for him, this was an absolutely disastrous possibility.
If that laboratory really had things like mutant viruses or artificial humans, that would be even more despairing.
"No... I still can't draw a conclusion yet."
"I can't label myself a criminal based on speculation alone. I need to find more evidence."
"Maybe... maybe I'm just overthinking it."
He tried hard to calm himself, holding on to the last shred of hope in his heart.
And so, burdened by tangled thoughts, Lin Xinyi and Miyano Shiho took a leisurely walk back to the company.
The moment they entered the company's front doors, the armed security guards in black naturally came up to greet them.
The one leading them was Yamada, the underling Lin Xinyi had met during the day.
The moment he saw Lin Xinyi return, he let out a relieved sigh.
"Boss, why are you back so late this time?"
"If you'd been any later, we would've had to notify Boss Gin according to protocol."
"..."
The ominous feeling in Lin Xinyi's heart intensified.
From what Yamada said, Miyano Shiho's outings had a time limit.
Just like a prisoner being allowed out for fresh air.
"Well..."
Lin Xinyi gathered himself slightly.
Then, with an indescribable sense of nervousness, he cautiously said to Yamada:
"We came back late this time because..."
"We got held up by the police for a while."
"What?!"
Yamada and the Men in Black all changed expression slightly.
A few of the quicker ones even instinctively reached for the guns at their waists.
"Why would those cops come after you, Boss?"
"We haven't been exposed, have we?!"
Lin Xinyi: "..."
Well, that settled it. He was screwed.
Before you continue