Xiao Ling: These Coins Are Fated to Be Mine

It was hard to imagine that such a sunny, adorable girl lived in such a... gloomy place.

Water dripped onto the ground with a steady patter. The entire alley was eerily quiet, quiet enough to hear the faint scuff of shoes against the ground.

Strange. Summer had clearly arrived in the city, yet he felt a trace of cold here.

"I'm seriously starting to doubt anyone lives here at all," Xiao Ling said with a frown, several boxed meals still in his hands.

"Good guess. There really aren't many people living here." Cartethyia snapped her fingers.

"Are you finally going to kidnap me and harvest my kidneys?"

"What a weird thing to say, Righteous One. Is that really what you think of me? Boo-hoo, I'm so hurt..."

Seeing her act aggrieved in such a coquettish way, Xiao Ling decided not to press her any further.

How could the soft and adorable Little Cart possibly hurt him? At most, she would just eat him.

After walking with Cart for a while, Xiao Ling could make out several homeless elderly people sitting with their heads bowed in the depths of the alley, lit by the dim lights.

"So you bought the boxed meals for these elderly folks?"

"Mm..." Cartethyia replied. "When I accidentally came here, they took me in. They could barely get enough to eat themselves, but they still made sure I didn't go hungry..."

While Cartethyia handed out the boxed meals one by one, Xiao Ling studied the frail elderly people.

Their hands were withered, their faces haggard, and their eyes sunken. They looked just like typical street beggars, and all of them were over sixty. They had probably been left with no one to support them and fallen to begging on the streets for a living.

Cartethyia's clothes were clean and neat, a stark contrast to the filthy, tattered rags on the elderly people. Her fair hands were covered in a thin layer of dust, yet she was still smiling, enjoying herself.

"Little Cart, these boxed meals aren't cheap, are they? You're short on money yourself. Grandpa can't just eat your food for free..."

"No, Grandpa, I can't take it!" Cartethyia hurriedly pushed the crumpled change in the old man's hand back toward him.

This had already happened several times before Xiao Ling came. Whenever she brought the elderly people food, they would want to give her something of equal value in return. Every time, Cartethyia had to put in some effort before they would accept the boxed meals without feeling guilty.

"Ha..." Xiao Ling sighed softly.

The brighter the light, the deeper the shadows. As bright and beautiful as the city's public face was, its hidden side was just as dark and rough.

After they finished delivering the boxed meals, they walked a little farther. Cartethyia then turned and pushed open a creaking wooden door on the left side of the alley.

"Come in, Righteous One. This is my home."

This counted as a home?!

Xiao Ling frowned. Even at his lowest, he had never been reduced to surviving in a place like this.

The room was dilapidated, with patches in quite a few places. It could barely keep out the wind and rain. A wooden pole lay across the ceiling beams, with Cart's everyday changes of clothes hanging from it... Had he just seen something he shouldn't have?

"Wait!" Cartethyia's face reddened. She immediately ran over, gathered her undergarments into her arms, and put them away. Then she turned to Xiao Ling, embarrassed. "Ahaha... You can come in now."

"You live here all the time?" Xiao Ling sat down on the bed. The battered wooden bed immediately let out a piercing creak, startling him so badly that he sprang straight back up.

"Yeah. I can't afford to rent a better place, and if I left, there'd be no one to look after the old men." Cartethyia was used to it. Holding down the hem of her skirt, she casually sat on the edge of the bed.

"Don't worry, Righteous One. I can handle living like this. Back when I was a wandering knight, I sometimes had to sleep under the open sky with the ground for a bed."

Of course, that was how Cartethyia saw it. Xiao Ling thought otherwise.

In his view, this was no place for Cartethyia to live. Even if she might have endured worse conditions as a wandering knight, that was no reason for him to stand by and watch her suffer with a clear conscience.

But if he brought her home... he might have a hard time explaining it, especially to a certain peach who had been getting more and more jealous lately.

"Speaking of which, has anyone bad ever followed you back here when you came home alone?"

That was Xiao Ling's second concern. Cartethyia's safety was hard to guarantee when she lived here alone, and even if she could transform directly into Fleurdelys, that was only a stopgap measure.

"Yes, but I scared them all away. My Resonance ability is suppressed, but I can still turn into Fleurdelys to frighten them."

"Can you transform now?"

"I can, but you'll have to move a little farther away, Righteous One. It'll make quite a commotion, and I'm afraid I might accidentally hurt you."

After watching Xiao Ling obediently retreat to a safe distance, Cartethyia stood up, folded her hands over her chest, and closed her eyes in prayer. She looked sacred and pure.

Xiao Ling suddenly felt the wind around them pick up, with Cartethyia at the center of the small storm. Even the battered wooden door began to creak.

When all the commotion subsided, Cartethyia, standing at the center of the storm, had taken on a different appearance.

Her face was noble and coolly beautiful, her figure tall and voluptuous, and her long, shapely legs drew even more attention. The single horn extending from her forehead made her look all the more extraordinary.

Fleurdelys, Cartethyia's second form.

"Your clothes didn't get torn apart?"

(Hajiling, what you chose to focus on really did justice to your nature as a hardcore two-dimensional otaku...)

"Oh? That's quite an unusual thing to focus on, Righteous One." Fleurdelys's voice was a little more mature and alluring than Cartethyia's. She teased him with a faint smile.

"How long can you stay like this?"

"Five minutes. Once the time is up, I won't be able to transform again for the rest of the day. That's another law this world has imposed on me," Fleurdelys replied. "But it's enough to scare off those thugs."

"As for my clothes... I haven't figured it out yet, but it seems that whenever I transform, whatever I'm wearing automatically adjusts to fit me. The titillating scene you imagined won't happen, Righteous One."

Slander! I'll sue you for slander! Fleurdelys, is that really the kind of person you think I am?!

Still, Fleurdelys had a point. If he saw a petite girl just over 1.6 meters tall suddenly turn into a one-horned mature beauty nearly 1.9 or even 2 meters tall, complete with transformation effects, he would run as fast as he could too.

But according to Roccia's theory, Cartethyia shouldn't have been able to transform into Fleurdelys on the spot.

He told Fleurdelys about Roccia's theory, and she fell into thought.

"So that principal meant our powers haven't been completely restricted, but locked away by how the people of this world perceive us, forcing us to integrate into society as ordinary people?"

"Yeah. So, logically speaking, the ability to transform out of nowhere should be beyond their understanding."

"That's easy to explain. Fleurdelys and Cartethyia look alike to begin with. If the younger sister is being followed by bad people, it's reasonable for the older sister to come out and stand up for her, isn't it?"

Xiao Ling was about to say something when a gust of wind suddenly swept through. The aloof, imposing Big Cart before him turned back into the soft and adorable Little Cart.

"So that's how it is," Cartethyia concluded.

Xiao Ling nodded, but that did nothing to change his mind. He was still determined to lure this soft and adorable Little Cart home.

The problem was that Cartethyia couldn't simply leave the street beggars to fend for themselves. If he wanted to take her away, he would need to make proper arrangements for the elderly people.

But that wasn't a problem for Hajiling.

There was a mutual-aid organization in the city, formed spontaneously by volunteers to care for homeless elderly people. Its light simply hadn't reached every corner.

What Xiao Ling needed to do was bring that light to this dark alley.

"Are we really leaving just like this?"

As expected, Cart still couldn't stop worrying about the elderly people here. Although Xiao Ling had already offered a solution, she still wasn't reassured.

Clutching her small bundle of belongings, she let her gaze sweep over the gaunt, sallow-faced elderly people, finding it hard to leave them.

"The light will find this alley. I promise you." Xiao Ling ruffled Cartethyia's hair.

Seeing the determination in Xiao Ling's eyes, Cartethyia felt reassured and nodded firmly.

Just as they were preparing to walk slowly out of the alley, the old man who had first tried to buy a boxed meal from Cart spoke up.

"Excuse me, are you here to take her home?"

"Yeah, I'm taking her home." Xiao Ling nodded.

"Hahaha... That's good, that's good..."

The old man slowly smoothed out the bills in the battered iron basin and stacked them one by one. Finally, he carefully placed a few coins on top and held them out to Xiao Ling with trembling hands.

"Please take it... This is all I have... Consider it a gift to thank you for taking Little Cart in..."

"We're truly sorry... We're poor... We couldn't give her a better life..."

Cartethyia's heart trembled. She hurriedly tried to push the money the old man offered back to him, but Xiao Ling stopped her.

He put on a show of frowning at the money for a while, then picked out two one-jiao coins from the old man's hand and pushed the rest of the change back to him.

"What are you...?"

"You don't understand, sir. I can tell these two coins are fated to be mine." Xiao Ling casually tossed the coins twice. "So I'll take them as your blessing for Cart and me. We're off!"

Xiao Ling didn't linger. He took Cartethyia by the hand and left the alley.

Their light would surely come, but it would take some time, wouldn't it?