The moon in the night sky sprinkled down a soft, silvery glow, while specks of starlight shimmered across the celestial canvas like countless diamonds.
The ocean waves gently lapped against the coastline, making a faint, rhythmic sound—the very breathing of the sea.
At this midnight hour, Fuli walked down the dimly lit corridors of the Hyperion, lantern in hand.
He was on patrol.
Theoretically speaking, in a place as vast and empty as the Pacific Ocean, it was impossible for anyone to wander in by mistake.
Even in the event of an intrusion, the Hyperion was equipped with numerous sensors that wouldn't allow anyone to board the ship without triggering an alarm.
But since the habit had already been formed, he figured he might as well keep it up.
After all, money can't buy foresight; it's better to be safe than sorry.
Creeaaak...
Just as Fuli passed the control room, he suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from the corner ahead.
He held his breath, unsheathed Black Swan, extinguished his lantern, and activated [Presence Concealment (C)]. Slowly but firmly, he approached the source.
The answer was revealed soon enough.
Stepping into the kitchen, Fuli's gaze swept the room. In the darkness, the open smart fridge emitted a hazy light.
Kiana, dressed in rather skimpy sleepwear, was sitting on the floor in a "duck sit" pose. The moonlight poured in like water, spilling over the windowsill and counter, plating her breathtakingly beautiful, long white hair with a layer of silver brilliance.
"Mmph, mmph, nom nom nom."
Completely unaware of the person behind her, the girl held a Lotus Cake she had just raided from the fridge with both hands, happily munching away with enthusiastic crunching sounds.
There is an old saying in Shenzhou: What cures all sorrows? Only stuffing one's face.
Plagued by terrible nightmares and unable to sleep, a frustrated Kiana had run off to the training room to work out. Naturally, exercise made her hungry, so she had snuck into the kitchen to gorge herself.
Seeing this, Fuli sheathed his long blade.
He approached her silently.
Just as she swallowed a whole piece of Lotus Cake, he leaned in without warning, bringing his lips right next to her delicate, translucent little ear.
"Owoo~ The ghost is heeeere~"
As he spoke, he blew a puff of air into her ear canal.
"UWAAAAH! GHOST!!!"
Startled out of her wits, Kiana the Cat almost jumped out of her skin.
" Cough! Cough! Cough! Cough! "
She leaped three feet into the air, and immediately upon landing, began coughing violently. She was clearly scared into choking.
Fuli was amused at first, until he saw the girl's magnificent azure eyes rolling upward, showing the whites.
"Hey! Hang in there!"
Realizing something was wrong, he quickly wrapped his arms around Kiana's slender waist from behind and began a flurry of activity, attempting to dislodge the obstruction in her throat using the Heimlich maneuver.
Thump!
At the doorway, Bronya, who had also come looking for a midnight snack, dropped the Homu pillow she was holding.
—She saw Fuli hugging the girl from behind, thrusting again and again as he performed the Heimlich maneuver;
—And she saw Kiana, eyes rolled back, white foam and crystal-clear drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.
I am a teacher. This is just... private tutoring.
"E-excuse me!"
She muttered in a super-quiet voice, turned around, and vanished in a flash.
The phantom image of Project Bunny 19C flickered past, scooping up the limited-edition Homu pillow its owner had dropped in her panic.
Bronya's departure didn't alert anyone.
Another half-minute passed before the foreign object lodged in her throat was finally spat out, and Kiana was out of danger.
She gasped for air, patting her chest with lingering fear. "I-I almost thought I was going to pass away peacefully right there!"
Then, her willow-leaf eyebrows shot up as she scolded him, "Stinky Ah Li! Why did you suddenly pop up behind me and scare people like that!"
Kiana Baby was furious.
A Kaslana nearly choking to death on food—if word of this got down to her ancestors, they'd probably die of laughter all over again!
"Well, it was my turn to patrol today. I heard a noise and came to check..."
Fuli's defensive murmuring wasn't very loud; he clearly knew he was in the wrong.
"Hmph!"
The girl pouted and reached back, rubbing her little tush and the roots of her thighs, which had turned a bright red from his rescue attempt. The tiny bit of guilt she had felt earlier about peeping on the boy in the shower vanished instantly.
Of course, Kiana wouldn't admit to that. She was just experimenting with her inexplicable new spatial abilities; she definitely wasn't sneaking peeks at a boy's body!
Yup! Definitely not!
The image she had observed while peeping earlier seemed to overlap constantly with the culprit in front of her. Feeling increasingly guilty, Kiana grabbed the remaining half of a waffle, threw her head back, and dumped it into her mouth to distract herself.
"Nom nom nom nom!"
Her cheeks were stuffed full, making her look like an oversized white-haired mole. It was fatally cute.
Appetite is contagious, especially when watching such a cute girl eating so deliciously.
"I'll make some late-night snacks," Fuli said, thinking he should compensate her. He opened the crisper drawer of the fridge, taking out dried noodles, eggs, and tomatoes, preparing to cook a large pot of fragrant tomato and egg noodles.
"You can't eat that!"
A smooth, delicate hand shot out from the side, snatching the tomato away aggressively.
"Tomatoes are poisonous!"
Kiana looked stubborn and serious. "Scientists have said that if you eat 400 kilograms of tomatoes in one meal, you'll be killed by the toxins in them!"
"Hold on, leaving aside the validity of that trivia... who can eat 400 kilos in one meal?"
"Me!"
"Damn... you probably could."
The child might be dumb, but the child was strong.
According to the Law of Conservation of Mass, if the child is strong, the child eats a lot.
As housemates who knew the ins and outs of each other, Fuli saw through Kiana's little scheme immediately. "When it comes down to it, a certain big white cat is just a picky eater who doesn't want tomatoes, so she's making up excuses to ban them."
"Who told tomatoes to be so rebellious!"
The girl argued plausibly, "They're cool, refreshing, and juicy when raw—especially delicious dipped in sugar—but once they're cooked, that texture is just... Blegh!"
She stuck out her tongue cutely.
"But it doesn't taste good without tomatoes."
Seeing her pout her lips high enough to hang a bottle on, Fuli pinched the tip of her nose. "Alright, alright. Later, you just eat the noodles and eggs. I'll handle the leftover tomatoes in the bowl for you."
"Yay! Ah Li is the best!"
Kiana cheered, her beautiful eyes curving into two lovely crescents.
"Yes, yes, yes, whoever cooks for you is the best!"
The Hyperion's designated house-husband turned on the stove, ignited the fire, and boiled the water.
No, no, no... only Ah Li is the best!
Kiana subconsciously wanted to say those words.
[Give Little Li... back to me!]
The raspy, crying scream of madness from her dream echoed in her ears again. The girl, who had intended to lean in and act spoiled, froze. Her gaze, fixed on Fuli's busy back, flickered with uncertainty, and the bright smile on her lips unconsciously vanished.
Mealtime was as happy as ever. Perhaps because she had eaten too much earlier, Kiana called it quits after eating only three large pots of noodles. The rest was devoured clean by Fuli, who had transformed into a glutton himself.
Feeling about eighty percent full, drowsiness began to wash over him. Still, he forced himself to stay awake, neatly placing the bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher and starting it up, before beginning to scrub the pot himself.
"What's wrong? Bad mood?"
He asked nonchalantly.
"You could tell?"
Kiana, who was lying on the dining table scrolling through TikTok, gasped. "This Lady thought she was hiding it quite well. You actually noticed something wrong from the tiniest clues!"
She put on a mischievous grin, her eyes locked dead on the boy's busy figure. "Could it be... Ah Li, you still can't get over this Lady?"
"I've never denied it, you know. That Kiana Kaslana was my once-in-a-lifetime 'White Moonlight'—my first love."
Fuli flipped the pot and continued scrubbing. "For the eight years after I left Europe, I was constantly imagining our wonderful married life. I even planned out how many litters of kids we'd have, what each child would be named, and how many would take your surname versus mine."
Having finished cleaning the cookware, he grabbed a disposable rag to wipe his hands, inadvertently exposing his side profile to the girl's eyes.
Seeing that face full of happy smiles, Kiana suddenly felt her heart stop beating uncontrollably for a few seconds, as if something incredibly important inside it had been ripped away, leaving behind only a bloody, indistinct mass.
Seconds later, realizing she could still breathe, she forced herself to rally, deliberately acting like she couldn't stand him. "Several litters? Do you think this Lady is some little puppy you raised?"
"That was something you proposed first when we were kids; I'm just repeating it."
Fuli looked aggrieved. "Personally, I advocate for having an only child. Since we don't need to worry about elder care, one 'Obstruction Crystal' is enough."
[T/N: A pun on "Love Crystal" (baby). Fuli calls it an "Obstruction Crystal" implying the kid gets in the way of the couple's time.]
"Of course, rest assured, that's all in the past tense. The current me absolutely won't be as cringe as before, pestering you all day long."
He walked over while wiping his hands and sat down opposite Kiana, speaking seriously. "Speaking of which, if Bianka hadn't mentioned that she lost her memories as a child, I wouldn't have connected the dots. Kiana, could it be that you, like her, had some accident where you hit your head and accidentally forgot everything that happened when you were little?"
Fuli still found it quite mysterious that Kiana could have forgotten him so completely.
Now that he had moved on, he wouldn't force the childhood promises or marriage pacts, but a subordinate's psychological and physiological health was something a leader had to care about!
The boy's concerned gaze locked onto the girl, his rare crimson eyes revealing a special kind of charm.
The surroundings seemed to quiet down under this focused gaze. The air was filled with a subtle tension, and the flow of time seemed to slow, as if everything in heaven and earth had vanished, leaving only the boy and girl sitting face to face.
But was it really just them?
The person Fuli was looking at with such concern... was it the Kiana Kaslana before him? Or was he looking through her silhouette, gazing at some dreamlike phantom that no longer existed?
Driven by some strange impulse, the girl shook her head. "No."
She took a deep breath and said, "I haven't lost my childhood memories."
[Heh. Hypocritical human.]
A contemptuous voice seemed to flow through a dreamscape known to no one else. The authority of the Herrscher of the Void activated silently.
A previously saved spatial illusion covered Kiana's face, masking the terrible expression that would have surely given her away.
"Alright then."
Fuli scratched his head awkwardly. "I guess I was just being sentimental."
He stood up and grabbed the lantern. "It's getting late, and we've had a snack. Time to go back to our rooms and sleep to prepare for tomorrow's troubles."
"Walk you part of the way?"
The boy winked at her, his curved brows looking incredibly gentle. "It just so happens I need to finish the last leg of the patrol over there."
"Okay, okay!"
Kiana, her emotions complex but her face beaming, clapped her hands in agreement. She grabbed his arm and strode toward her room with large steps.
...
Back in her room, Bronya pondered for a moment and decided she must have misunderstood what she saw earlier.
Even if she wasn't as sensitive as Kiana, after a month of contact, the girl could generally gauge Fuli's attitude toward the three of them.
Therefore, Bronya felt that the scene in the kitchen was more likely due to some accident, forcing her idiot "older brother" into that compromising position—
A slight blush rose on the girl's cheeks as she hugged the regained Homu pillow tightly.
As the "Silver Wolf of the Urals" who roamed the internet, she was well-versed in matters of men and women. But considering she was still at the age of 'seeking knowledge high and low,' Bronya, having zero practical experience, forced herself to stop fantasizing.
One must have self-control.
Especially in this environment. On the massive Hyperion, there were three women and one man.
Everyone was in the prime of their youth with hormones exploding. If someone wasn't careful and lost control, it was genuinely possible to add a new member to this small family.
"I'll go get something to eat."
She floated to the bathroom to wash her face. Having calmed down, Bronya floated to the door.
Hand on the handle, just as she was about to open it...
Footsteps came from the corridor.
Instinctively, the girl held her breath, cracked the door open a slit, and peeked out secretly.
"Hurry up, hurry up!"
Kiana, dragging Fuli forward by the arm, looked spoiled and unreasonable, but paired with that devastatingly beautiful face, it wasn't annoying at all.
"Is this really appropriate?"
The boy, retreating constantly, offered token resistance.
"What's inappropriate? Didn't you just say that the psychological and physiological health of this subordinate is something you, the Great Leader, need to care about!"
Seemingly annoyed by his coyness, Kiana yanked hard, dragging Fuli directly into her room.
BAM!
The door slammed shut.
Cutting off Bronya's horrified gaze, as well as whatever story was happening between a lone man and woman inside the room.
"..."
Duckie slowly closed her door, turned around, and threw herself onto the soft bed.
PAPAPAPAPA!!!
I want to see! I want to see! Hurry up and let me seeeeeee!!!
Raising her small hands, she furiously typed on a projected keyboard in the void, attempting to hack into the camera in Kiana's room to find out what was happening.
Unfortunately, considering the risk of hacker intrusion, Mei had specifically created different systems for everyone's room, isolating them from each other using pure physics and spatial faults, ensuring no one but Mei could intrude.
Thus, even though Bronya fell into a deep sleep with bloodshot eyes, she was unable to pry into the events of the latter half of the night between Fuli and Kiana.
This could probably be counted as "distance creates beauty," because the two of them didn't actually enact the scenes the little Yellow Duck had imagined.
After forcibly dragging Fuli into the room, Kiana threw herself onto the bed, wrapped herself in a small blanket, exposed only her big Kaslana eyes, and said muffledly, "Can't sleep! Comfort me!"
If you can't be reasonable, be loud!
"Fine, fine, fine. Comforting, comforting."
Fuli, unaware that the girl really couldn't sleep due to nightmares, just assumed her brain was acting up again. Considering the need for humanitarian care toward those with low intelligence, he pulled up a chair and sat by the bed.
"How should I comfort you?"
"I want to hear a story!"
Kiana still remembered when Fuli and Mei sat on the second floor in Nagazora City, chatting away while she was sound asleep on his back. They had even finalized the plan to establish the Hyperion right then and there!
And they didn't even ask for her opinion! This Lady almost didn't have a place in this family!
Owoo! Grudge held!
"Why do you need a story too?"
Fuli grumbled, but hearing the girl grinding her teeth, he slapped his forehead. "Alright, I'll tell you a touching love story."
"Mmhmm!"
The big white cat, having spared his scalp, listened with rapt attention.
After letting the emotions brew for a moment, Fuli began to chant in a solemn, majestic tone, as if unveiling a heroic epic: "A long, long time ago, there was a pair of childhood sweethearts who grew up together."
"The boy was named Xiao Qian, and the girl was named Xiao Bei."
"One night, amidst a storm..."
"And then?"
"Be a good girl." (Guai le)
"?"
The ahoge (cowlick) on top of Kiana's head bent into a question mark. She didn't understand what he was saying at all.
A moment later, the realization hit her, and a magnificent, vibrant crimson flush suddenly dyed her pretty face.
...