The clock on the wall kept ticking, and the sunlight outside the window began to fade.
Hela sat alone at the table, flipping through "The Complete Guide to Literacy for Young Children" as she studied hard.
Suddenly, a noise came from the roof, and Hela looked up at the ceiling.
The ceiling shook slightly, as though something very large had come to a stop, followed by a clamor of footsteps.
The fastest set of footsteps had already made it downstairs.
"Hi, hi! I'm back in triumph! Hela, did you miss me~?" Xing Lan pushed open the door, rushed over, and threw her arms around Hela, rubbing her cheek against hers.
The others filed in after her.
"Hela, let me tell you, that Variant was really good at hiding. It took me ages to find her!
"But in the end, I was the one who found her! Once I did, I went straight in with two slashes-wham, wham! It didn't even get a chance to fight back before I killed it!" Xing Lan waved her hands, vividly describing her glorious feat.
"You've got some nerve talking about it. You didn't tell us when you found the Variant, and you charged in without even figuring out what realm it was at. Good thing it was only a Beast King-level Variant. What if it had been some powerful Variant and hurt you?" Feng Xuan held his phone in his hand, looking at Xing Lan with a slight frown.
Xing Lan smiled a little awkwardly. "All right, all right, I know. It was my first mission, so I got a little excited. Don't worry, it won't happen again."
Feng Xuan sighed. Si Xiaobei, beside him, looked delighted. "But none of us got hurt on this mission. That's really great." He beamed after saying it.
Hela, still in Xing Lan's arms, suddenly heard the sound of a stomach protesting and looked up at her.
"Oh, right, I haven't even eaten lunch yet. I'm starving." Xing Lan rubbed her stomach, and Liu Xiaogang's stomach growled beside her.
"Yeah, I'm hungry too."
Nanming put down his weapon and headed for the kitchen, but he seemed to remember something and turned back to Hela. "Hela was here alone. She probably hasn't eaten either, right?"
"Oh, yeah! We forgot to prepare food for Hela." Xing Lan jolted as she finally realized they had forgotten to prepare food for Hela.
"Looks like I'll have to make extra for dinner tonight." Nanming tied on an apron and got busy in the kitchen.
"Brother Nanming, I'll help." Si Xiaobei put on a little duck apron and began lending Nanming a hand.
After dinner, Xing Lan lay comfortably on her bed in her Stitch pajamas.
"After a busy day, I can finally get some rest~" Xing Lan stretched, then rubbed her belly, which had bulged slightly from eating too much.
Then she seemed to remember something. She sat up and leaped from her bed onto Hela's.
She gently touched Hela's belly. "Huh, that's strange. You clearly ate even more than I did, so how come your belly hasn't gotten any bigger at all?
"Where did all that food go?" Xing Lan looked up and met Hela's eyes.
Looking into those eyes, clear yet foolish, Xing Lan finally gave up on finding an answer.
She flopped down beside Hela and pulled the blanket over them. "Hehe, since I'm already here, let's keep sleeping together."
Xing Lan hugged Hela and rubbed her face against hers again. "It's so nice having you here to sleep with me at night. Otherwise, I really wouldn't be used to sleeping alone."
Xing Lan shifted, snuggling a little closer to Hela.
"Good night~" Xing Lan whispered in Hela's ear, then closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. Hela slowly closed her eyes too.
"This sausage is so good! Try it!" Xing Lan gnawed on a sausage and popped another one straight into Hela's mouth.
"Wow, there are so many pretty things over there! Come on, let's go take a look."
Hela had just finished the sausage in her mouth when Xing Lan took her hand and pulled her off in another direction.
Xing Lan and Hela had been living here for a month now, and it had been a very busy month.
Besides getting up early to train every day, they often went on missions. They had gone on a full six missions in this month alone.
And none of the investigation missions had been particularly short. Half a day to a day was considered brief, while the longest had kept them away for a whole week.
Luckily, they had prepared plenty of food in advance, enough to feed Hela for a week. Otherwise, by the time they returned, Hela would probably have been as hungry as a dog.
Under Si Xiaobei's patient guidance, Hela had also made rapid progress over the past month.
Not only could she fully understand what others said, but she could also roughly express what she meant.
Today, Xing Lan had set aside some of her scarce free time to take Hela shopping, planning to relax.
Xing Lan strolled down the bustling street, holding Hela's hand in one hand and a half-finished cup of milk tea in the other.
"Feels like we've been shopping for ages. Should we head back?" Xing Lan drained the rest of her milk tea, tossed the cup into a trash can, and took out her phone.
She pressed the power button twice, but the screen remained black. "N-no way..."
The corners of Xing Lan's mouth twitched as she tried turning it on again, but the screen stayed black.
"Ah, my phone ran out of battery and shut off!" Xing Lan clutched her head in frustration and shook it repeatedly.
But she had to accept the fact that her phone had run out of battery and shut off.
Xing Lan let her arms hang limply at her sides and looked helplessly at Hela like a deflated balloon. "Do you know the way back...?"
Hela honestly shook her head.
Xing Lan wilted even further. She stood up and looked around, then fell into despair. "How can a street this big not have a single shared power bank?
"...Forget it! Hela, let's just get a room and stay at a hotel!"
Holding Hela's hand, Xing Lan walked into the nearest hotel.
"Excuse me, how much does it cost for one person to stay in a room for one night at your hotel?" Xing Lan brought Hela up to the front desk.
"Hello, ma'am. Our cheapest room costs fifty yuan for one night, and the most expensive costs one hundred and twenty," the receptionist replied with a professional smile.
Xing Lan opened her sports shoulder bag and rummaged through it for a while, but all she found were two crumpled twenty-yuan bills.
Xing Lan sucked in a breath, then looked at the receptionist. "Um, could you give me a discount?"
"Yes, ma'am. We offer a one-percent discount to first-time guests."
"..." Xing Lan looked at the receptionist, who still wore a professional smile, and the corners of her mouth twitched.
"This is ridiculous. Fifty yuan for one room for one night! They might as well rob people." Xing Lan walked down the dim street with Hela, grumbling and cursing.
Hela watched Xing Lan complain up ahead, then reached out and gently poked her.
"What is it?" Xing Lan turned around.
Hela parted her lips slightly and spoke with difficulty. "Sleep... where...?" Xing Lan's spirits sank again.
"I don't know. I haven't seen any other inns or hotels around here. Maybe we'll have to sleep on the street!" Xing Lan shook her head quickly. "No, no, I'm a Night Star. I absolutely can't sleep on the street. Hela, let's keep looking. Maybe there's a cheaper hotel somewhere."
With that, Xing Lan resumed her search, looking this way and that.
Suddenly, she noticed a lonely, old-fashioned apartment building.