"Paimon? What are you doing here?"
"I came looking for you, Traveler."
"Waaah~ I'm still a little sleepy, even after waking up." Tears gathered in the corners of Paimon's eyes as she yawned.
"When I woke up, I couldn't see you, Traveler, so I went back to the restaurant to find you."
She had woken up groggily in the pavilion to find no one around her and a barrier set up around it.
Perhaps because she had only just woken up, her mind had briefly gone blank, much like an alcohol-induced blackout. For the moment, she couldn't remember anything from before she went to sleep.
Driven by instinct, she left the pavilion and returned to the Emotion-Forsaking Beef Noodles restaurant.
"Traveler, what happened here? Why are A-Luo, Yelan, and Lan Yan here too?"
"Paimon, how do you feel? Are you all right? Let me check you over."
Lumine pulled Paimon over and asked with concern.
She couldn't even spare the attention to help someone make things clear between them.
Paimon was her Emergency Food. Nothing could happen to her!
Lumine immediately began a series of checks, examining Paimon's face and limbs, and even prying her mouth open to look at her teeth and tongue...
"Mmm... Traveler..."
Before Paimon could say anything, the series of checks left her bewildered, her face turning bright red.
She kept pushing at Lumine with her little hands.
"I'm fine... You don't need to..."
"No, you ate something forbidden. It would be terrible if there were any hidden problems."
Lumine ignored Paimon's struggles and continued examining her as she spoke.
After traveling for so long, she was something of a barefoot doctor, and simple physical examinations were easy enough for her.
Paimon looked around, searching for help.
Suddenly, she spotted Shen Luolun behind Lumine, and her eyes lit up with hope!
Best friend, save me!
But to her despair-
Shen Luolun was whistling and looking up, pretending not to see her.
He acted as though it had nothing to do with him.
Paimon's eyes widened, and she immediately felt betrayed.
You disloyal jerk!
What happened to our friendship?! We promised to share good fortune and face hardships together!
And now you're just standing there watching Paimon suffer. (╥﹏╥)
Hmph... Paimon's never singing Cloud Genshin for you again!
No, anything but that!
Completely unaware of how much he had lost, Shen Luolun not only felt no sorrow for his best friend's misfortune, but wore an auntie smile instead.
Ah~ Is this the bond between partners?
She only ate one bowl of noodles, and he's already so worried.
Sure enough, they're the most important people in each other's lives, so neither can bear the slightest mishap befalling the other.
They're so good to ship.
Watching the scene, he felt as though his somewhat weary body and mind had been cleansed.
I'll write this into As I Write when I get back, hehe.
What? You Lv0 and Lv.1 rookie authors think I should write it down honestly, word for word?
No, no.
That wouldn't be interesting at all.
Only veteran Lv.2 authors know that adding the narrative of a fictional historian is what makes a work eye-catching and brings in traffic!
As for whether it's accurate in the end, isn't it enough as long as the main plot stays on track?
After all that fuss, Paimon finally escaped Lumine's clutches.
"Ah, my best friend, are you all right?!"
Only then did the one who had stood by after the fact put on a concerned face, his affection arriving late.
"Paimon isn't your best friend!"
Paimon puffed out her cheeks and angrily turned her head away, refusing to look at him.
"Please go away! You rude man who hits on girls for no reason!"
Late-arriving affection is the cheapest kind.
"Huh?"
Shen Luolun's smile froze.
His adorable best friend had actually snapped at him.
"Paimon, it's me! Me!"
"That year by the lake in Liyue, do you still remember? We-"
Smack-
A karate chop cut his absurdity short.
"What nonsense are you babbling about?" Xiangling grabbed him by the back of his collar and dragged him away.
"Come with me. We need to prepare for tomorrow's Cuisine Machine Test."
Nearby, Yelan and Lan Yan remained expressionless. There was no telling what agreement they had just reached.
"Hey, hey, I still need to talk to my best friend! Wait, Xiangling, you're going to wear out my clothes dragging me like this. This brand is expensive, you know..."
After watching the two leave, the others finally began discussing the matter at hand.
"Search her." Yelan raised her chin, signaling her female subordinate to search Yinyue.
Yinyue remained calm and offered no resistance.
The subordinate soon pulled a route map from inside her shirt. It was covered in densely packed markings, with a winding red line running through the middle.
"Take them away. Lock them up separately and keep them under close watch."
"Yes!"
Several subordinates put specially made shackles on Yinyue, Tang Hao, and Tsarevich, then led them away.
As they reached the door, Yinyue suddenly spoke.
"Please wait!"
"What is it now?"
"I have a request. I hope you'll agree to it. Even if it costs me my life, I'm willing."
Yelan did not agree immediately. She asked,
"Tell me what it is first."
"Please, you have to save my daughter, Xiaoyue. I'm begging you." Yinyue dropped to her knees, her voice choking.
"Hmm... I know your daughter is in the mastermind's hands. We'll do everything we can to rescue her. That's the promise I can make you."
"Thank you, thank you..." Yinyue said, deeply grateful.
She knew her sins were grave and had given up all hope for herself, but her child was innocent. Her daughter was her only weakness, and for her safety, Yinyue was willing to pay any price, even her life.
Yelan's words rekindled hope in her heart. She even wanted to kowtow in gratitude, but the people beside her stopped her.
"There's no need to thank me. In return, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Will you answer them?"
"Yes!" Yinyue nodded.
"How did you meet the mastermind? What did he look like, and where did he come from? What is its plan?"
There were quite a few things Shen Luolun hadn't asked about. Yelan had originally planned to interrogate Yinyue thoroughly later and have her explain everything clearly, but this was a good opportunity.
This time, Yinyue hid nothing and stopped saying the opposite of what she meant. She answered honestly.
"I met it while I was searching for medicine for Xiaoyue."
"It gave me a strange feeling. It looked ordinary, but its movements were stiff, and there was nothing human about the way it behaved. It was like... a human deliberately in disguise."
"Oh? A fake human?" Yelan's interest was piqued.
"Go on."
"It said it could cure my daughter, but it wanted me to work for it. I didn't trust it and refused him, but I had barely gone a few steps when Xiaoyue's illness suddenly flared up again. I was frantic. Then it took out a vial of medicine and told me to give it to Xiaoyue, saying it could cure her. I didn't want to give Xiaoyue medicine from an unknown source, but she was in terrible pain, and even the medicine for relieving her symptoms didn't help. In desperation, I had no choice but to give her that person's medicine."
"To my surprise, it worked remarkably well. The color returned to Xiaoyue's face, and she was no longer in pain. I believed it then and agreed to work for it."
"I don't know where it came from, but I do know it seemed to want some kind of... recipe?"
"A recipe?"
Yinyue nodded.
"Only later did I learn it was a food recipe. It wanted to use some kind of food to control certain people and open restaurants called Sea Overlord all over the world, but it had never managed to obtain the recipe."
"Out of gratitude, I told it about the Emotion-Forsaking Beef Noodles. It was delighted and planned all of this."
"Then the Treasure Hoarders' unusual activity lately was connected to you as well?"
"...Yes. This plan needed a lot of Mora, but it was hard to gather that much quickly through normal channels, so we had no choice but to use illegal means to obtain it..."
After Yinyue finished, Yelan had a basic understanding of everything.
"Take them away."
Once they were completely out of sight, Yelan turned to Lumine and Lan Yan.
"You heard what she said. The most important thing now is to catch the mastermind behind Yinyue. Only then can we prevent more innocent people from being hurt by something like the 'Emotion-Forsaking Beef Noodles.' So, Traveler, Paimon, Lan Yan, I need your help."
Hearing this, Paimon immediately pictured herself being controlled by the Emotion-Forsaking Beef Noodles. Her little face puffed up with anger. "Leave it to us! We can't let something that hurts people keep harming anyone. Traveler, you're on board too, right?"
Lumine nodded firmly. Paimon was her reverse scale. Anyone who dared hurt Paimon had to be met with a heavy blow. Lan Yan naturally offered her support as well-now that the conspiracy had reached Yilong Wharf, who knew whether the mastermind's next target would be the Lan Clan? Only by cutting the weeds and pulling up their roots could they be free of worries.
But no one noticed.
In a painting of an azure dragon and a white tiger on the wall, the azure dragon's pitch-black eye suddenly moved!