He Answered None of the Questions About Being Chosen!

Things weren't quite peaceful at the breakfast table. Encore ladled the last spoonful of purple coral porridge to the sheep doll, while Dania scooped up the bottom of its bowl for it. No one thought there was anything wrong with it.

Zhou Yu spread out the schedule and pointed to the newly added line with the tip of her chopsticks.

"9:00 AM, South Slope Greenhouse, one visitor, Chun, reason not specified."

"Is Chun the older sister who touched my head yesterday?" Dania asked, with half a grilled fish cake in her mouth.

"Yes, it's the one who didn't fill out the visitor registration form." Zhou Yu folded the form neatly. "This time they even wrote down the location. They've learned to queue up; they deserve praise."

Encore poked her head out from the other end of the table. "Encore wants to go too! There are singing flowers in the greenhouse!"

"You two have a more important task." He pointed to the pot on the stove, "Finish off the leftover porridge from last night. No one is allowed to leave the dining room until it's all gone."

Dania nodded seriously and casually slipped a small bag of dried fish into his coat pocket.

"If we talk for a long time, let's have something to eat."

Sigelica walked by with her bowl in her hand, not even stopping. "Others bring business cards when receiving guests, you bring dried fish."

"Standard meeting arrangements, formal reimbursement process."

At 8:50, Aalto was waiting for him at the entrance of the observation room. She spoke very little on the way to the south slope, and the fog on both sides of the stone steps had not yet cleared. She only said a few words when she was almost at the entrance of the greenhouse.

"She sat inside all night. She didn't rummage through anything, didn't touch anything, she just watered the flowers for me."

"So she's actually quite compliant with her employment contract."

"Zhou Yu," Aalto blocked his way, "Chun never says what she wants directly. If she asks you a strange question, think carefully before you answer."

"Don't worry, my answers have a price tag."

The greenhouse was stuffy and humid, the smell of damp soil mixed with the fragrance of flowers filled my face. I couldn't name any of the Zhou Yu in the greenhouse, their corollas were large, their colors deep, and their petals so thick they were almost succulent. Chun stood in the middle of the flower stand, carrying an old watering can, the vines on her right arm climbing over her collarbone, the dark red bud at the end of it even bigger than yesterday.

"Manager Zhou is on time."

"I'll have my own pay deducted for being late."

She put down the kettle, took out a rough earthenware pot from under the flower stand, and poured two cups of reddish tea.

"Flowers grown in a greenhouse, brewed by myself."

Zhou Yu picked up the glass, took a sip, her eyebrows twitched, and then she took another sip.

"Bitter."

"Most things from the Black Shores are bitter at first, then..." Tsubaki pushed the second cup towards them, stopping herself halfway through her sentence, "Never mind, things from this coast are just bitter."

Do you have any candy?

"No."

"Alright then." Zhou Yu put the teacup back on the table. "You invited me here, not just so I could drink tea."

Chun sat down on the wooden bench next to the flower stand. "I thought about it for half the night and decided to ask you a stupid question. Do you charge for stupid questions?"

"Accept, based on difficulty."

"How do you think Dania was chosen in the first place?"

"What do you mean by 'back then'?" Zhou Yu dragged over another stool and sat down. "She's perfectly fine now. She wasn't chosen, and she won't be in the future."

"She wasn't the only one chosen to sacrifice herself." Chun's voice softened, her fingertips tracing the veins of the vines upwards. "Lahai-Roi chose, the New Federation chose, and this coastline itself has been choosing. The little girl beside you was also on a chosen path, leading to sacrifice. You pulled her back."

"Just ask me whatever you want."

"Why should I?"

Water droplets clung to the spout of the kettle, falling one by one into the soil.

Zhou Yu stared at the drop of water for two seconds, this time without interrupting with the schedule.

"For no reason at all. The list was made by someone else, and the employer has the final say in choosing who to hire. She wasn't chosen by anyone; she was pre-selected by me."

"Pre-arranged." Chun repeated the two words to herself, staring at him for several seconds.

"Yes. Internal recruitment, no lottery, no outside hires." Zhou Yu leaned back in his chair. "If you have any complaints, go to HR. I'm in HR too."

She chuckled softly, her laughter brief, and then her tone turned somber.

"You crossed her off that list, so I want to ask about the next step." She looked up. "If you can change her selection, maybe you can change Tethys's too. The ultimate goal of this system is to create a path that requires no one to sacrifice. It's been calculating for over a hundred years, and one foot is still stuck in the same place."

"So what?"

"So I'm thinking, should I give you the choice?"

"We don't accept unpaid overtime work."

"The reward is the end of that road," Chun said. "At the end, no one has to die."

Zhou Yu picked up the teacup, then put it down again.

"The first sentence is free, every sentence after that costs money." He frowned and swallowed the tea. "I know this trick well; all pyramid schemes start like this to recruit people."

Chun didn't reply. She stared at the row of dark-colored flowers on the flower stand, as if waiting for something.

The glass door was pushed open from the outside. There was no knocking.

The person who came in was wearing a faded old coat and walked without making a sound. Zhou Yu couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong with this person. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about him. However, the digital watch in his canvas bag went dark on its own for the first time.

The person stopped at the other end of the flower stand, looked at him, and didn't say anything.

Water dripped slowly from the kettle. After more than a dozen drops, no one moved. Chun had already stood up, her back ramrod straight, the flower bud on her arm remaining perfectly still.

Zhou Yu's hand rested on the back of the chair, neither clenching nor loosening. He had intended to ask if he wanted to sit down, but the words caught in his throat.

After a long while, the person finally spoke, his voice low and the words spaced far apart.

"The way you handle the rules is very similar to someone I know. That person later handed the entire Tethys System over to me. So you'd better think carefully about whether you and she will end up on the same path."

"Who is she?"

There was no response.

The person turned and walked out. As he passed Chun, his gaze lingered for half a second on the flower bud in the crook of her arm before he pushed open the door and left. The glass door closed, not even letting in a breeze.

The only sound in the greenhouse was the dripping of water.

Chun sat back down on the wooden stool, her fingertips pressing on the hem of her skirt for a long while before letting go.

"He rarely speaks to anyone first." She looked up. "Think carefully about what I just said."

Zhou Yu remained seated.

The last bit of water in the kettle had gone cold. A petal had fallen from a flower on the plant stand and landed on the table. He reached out, picked up the petal, examined it against the light, and then placed it back on the soil of the plant stand.

The flowers in the greenhouse are growing very well.

"That's all?"

"Put the tea money on my tab." Zhou Yu stood up and dusted off her floral shorts. "The answer isn't free. It'll be worth it eventually."

Once outside the greenhouse, the fog had mostly dissipated. Dania stood at the bottom of the stone steps, holding a thermos, while Encore stood beside her, raising her hand to greet her.

"Report! The porridge is all gone, and the cups are clean!"

"Not bad." Zhou Yu walked over.

Dania unscrewed the lid of the kettle, poured the hot porridge into a cup, and handed it to him.

"Xiao Yu, are you done talking?"

"We've finished talking."

Did that older sister give you a hard time?

She introduced me to a new job, but I turned it down.

Why?

She said that job doesn't offer a pension even if you work until retirement.

Dania blinked and shook her head seriously.

"That won't do."

"I also think it won't work." Zhou Yu took a sip, gasped from the heat, but still took a second sip. "That's why I said I'd think about it and let her get in line first."

The three of them walked towards the restaurant. After crossing the second set of stone steps, he casually asked a question.

"Dania, if someone told you that you were born to do something, would you believe it?"

Dania thought about it carefully.

"I'll only believe it if it's written on the schedule."

Zhou Yu paused for a moment and looked down at her.

This answer is worth more than the combined value of a hundred intelligent people.

In the open space in front of the restaurant, Aimis was climbing a ladder to hang a wooden sign that said the restaurant was temporarily closed, a lollipop dangling from her mouth. When she saw Zhou Yu come down, she called out from a distance.

"Supervisor Zhou, the observation room wants you to sign three more forms; they say they're urgent."

Before she could finish speaking, her gaze passed over Zhou Yu's shoulder and landed on the old coat at the end of the stone steps on the south slope.

The lollipop fell out of his mouth, hit the wooden sign, and bounced twice.

"Dad?!"

The figure stopped, didn't turn around, but simply raised a hand as a greeting.

"Um."

"When did you get back?" Aimis jumped down from the ladder and rushed over in three strides. "You didn't even tell me beforehand."

"Yesterday," the man paused, "You got a haircut."

I got it cut last month.

"Yes, it's grown back."

This seemingly random conversation between father and daughter left the group of people on the stone steps speechless.

At the restaurant entrance, Sigelica held a bowl, still in the posture of drinking soup, forgetting to swallow. Linnai, holding her guitar, pressed her fingers down with a muffled thud. Chisaki's tablet was still raised in mid-air, the curves on the screen broken into segments. Chisa's hand, which was resting on the hilt of her knife, slowly withdrew.

"Wait a minute." Chisaki pushed up her glasses, her voice dry. "Let me sort this out. I can't find this person in the Black Shores's files. No name, no portrait, not even an access number. Aimis calls him Dad."

"So," Sigelica finally swallowed the soup, "We're all used to you hiding your idol identity, but your dad's even more secretive? Is there anyone normal in your family?"

"I thought you knew..." Aimis scratched the back of her head, her voice trailing off, "Who doesn't know about the Black Shores?"

Aalto arrived at the bottom of the stone steps at some point and continued the conversation.

"He carried her back from the sea fog over a decade ago; she wasn't this tall then." She gestured with her chin towards his retreating figure. "This coastline is nominally under the jurisdiction of a few of us in charge. But everyone knows who the fog belongs to."

Chisa stood on the outermost edge of the crowd, her fingertips rubbing against the hilt of her sword.

"He walked past me in the observation room just now," she said. "I didn't hear a sound. The bell on the scabbard didn't ring even once."

Linnai hugged her guitar tightly and immediately strummed a chord.

"The master of the coast, the songstress I picked up, the god I blacklisted..." Her fingers glided an upward stroke on the strings, "I could write three albums with this song, and nobody can stop me."

Dania tilted her head and stared for a long time, then suddenly leaned close to Zhou Yu's ear and asked in what she thought was a very soft voice.

"Xiao Yu, Aimis has a dad. Does her dad eat?"

"Eat." The man replied from below the slope, turning around and pausing for a second on the covered porridge. "Purple coral?"

Dania nodded vigorously.

"Hmm, would you like to try some?"

"Leave one bowl," he said, "For lunch."

After saying that, he stopped looking at anyone and walked towards the dock. He took two steps, then stopped and glanced back at Zhou Yu.

"Visitor registration number plate."

"I'll reserve number one for you," Zhou Yu said, "So you can skip the queue."

"Follow the procedure," he said. "I won't make exceptions."

The figure in the old coat disappeared into the fog after a few steps, as if it had never been there.

The stone steps remained quiet for a while.

Zhou Yu was still holding the empty cup lid and forgot to put it down.

"I need to remodel," Chisaki finally said, "From kinship relationships to the authority structure, everything needs to be scrapped and started from scratch."

"No need for accounting modeling." Zhou Yu finished his porridge in one gulp and handed the lid back to Dania. "The highest-ranking official on the Black Shores has an adopted daughter who's registered in our delegation; that's considered a significant connection. Aimis's food allowance will be doubled starting today, and it will be recorded in Director Aalto's account."

Why should I be held responsible?

"The meals for the leaders' families are provided by the government."

Inside the canvas bag, the digital watch lit up.

[Number of Unknown Memory Carriers Updated: 3.]

[New target: Greenhouse - Those who have left]

[System Note: Black Shores Administrator. Associated Person: Aimis.]

Aimis stared at the line of text for two seconds, then turned to look at Zhou Yu, her eye twitching, unsure whether to feel proud or to protest.

So you were all talking about my dad behind his back just now?

"I'm talking to you about the meals." Zhou Yu folded the schedule and stuffed it back into her pocket. "We'll pack your dad's portion together for lunch."

"What's wrong with me calling him Dad!"

On the sea, the fog crept back along the waterline, climbing patiently. Zhou Yu took Dania's hand and walked towards the restaurant.

"Have some porridge first. Save a bowl for that person at noon."

"Let the fog take its place too."