Lungmen's autumn was both brief—and long.
Brief, because the season turned with startling speed. One day still carried the scorch of midsummer; the next, the temperature would drop sharply enough that you had no choice but to pull on long sleeves to cope with the sudden swing.
Long, because autumn took its time painting the world gold.
Lungmen was not a purely mechanized city. It was a highly modified mobile metropolis, complete with a central park, artificial lakes, and even small hills. Greenery was everywhere.
And once autumn arrived, the scenery shifted into a vast expanse of warm yellow—leaves drifting down in endless waves, tinting the city in a kind of extravagant beauty.
Li Lin went downstairs and spotted that blue figure flickering at the end of the alley.
Like chasing a blue butterfly: the more he walked forward, the more clearly he could see it, fluttering just out of reach.
He followed it into the depths of the alley—until the surroundings turned pitch-dark.
Then he stopped.
A pair of gloved hands covered his eyes, and a voice—warm, soft, and faintly ticklish against his ear—arrived with a breath.
"Yo. Guess who I am?"
"Whoever you are, you're definitely not the Phoenix Robot."
A beat—and then the person behind him laughed.
"If you say that, she'll get mad."
The hands lifted away. Light returned.
Footsteps crossed the narrow space, and the person stepped in front of Li Lin.
Blue hair danced in the darkness. A tall woman with short black horns blinked pale blue eyes, wearing a smile that felt oddly hollow—like all emotion had been stripped away, leaving only a polite surface.
When she parted her lips, the flash of her blue tongue was, inexplicably, unsettling.
And yet, that same ominous figure looked at Li Lin and let her smile deepen by a fraction.
"Ah. Li Lin."
The fallen angel, Mostima, greeted him with a gentle curve of her lips.
"It's been a long time. Are you and Exusiai doing well?"
"Not really."
Li Lin answered with sincere seriousness as he looked at the smiling blue-haired woman.
"At least… Exusiai isn't doing particularly well. She acts cheerful all the time, but we both know who she's waiting for."
"…Sorry."
Li Lin's gaze did not soften.
"And why did you have to find me in such a roundabout way?"
"Because you're always surrounded by women, aren't you?" Mostima slid a lollipop into her mouth and smiled as if she were deliberately provoking him. "If I just dragged you away casually, I'd get cursed."
"..."
Li Lin stared at her.
Right now, I want to curse you.
If I really had women around me, would I still look this repressed?
Watching Mostima chew her candy with that faintly taunting smile, Li Lin felt irritation rise for no good reason.
To be honest, he disliked this woman.
Because she dressed too conservatively.
No—because the way she carried herself simply didn't suit his taste.
Mostima was undeniably beautiful, and for reasons he couldn't quite explain, she seemed to hold a certain fondness for him.
But his "second brain" had never once reacted.
…Not that he'd ever seen Mostima dressed any less tightly, so he couldn't say the possibility didn't exist.
But that wasn't the point.
Sometimes it was like that: no logic, no reason. Li Lin knew perfectly well that Mostima was a good person—more than that, a good person drowning in conflict.
He understood her past. He understood the path her future would take.
He also understood what Exusiai had been chasing all this time—and what the truth actually was.
He knew the whole chain of cause and effect. He knew what the end of that road looked like, for Laterano and for those who pursued it.
But he couldn't say it.
Not only because the timing wasn't right.
More importantly—because of people.
Sometimes, the pursuit of truth isn't really about "knowing."
It's about forcing the person who holds the truth to take a stance.
And Mostima's stance, clearly, was: drag it out. Think it through. Decide later.
Until then—don't even meet.
She could watch from afar, but she would not step into view.
It was… twisted, in its own way.
Li Lin couldn't understand thinking that heavy.
Honestly—were relationships between Terra's women always this strange?
If you looked closely, from Columbia to Kazdel to Lungmen, was there a single one that wasn't laden with weight?
"So," Li Lin said, voice flat, "what are you doing here now?"
"Just wanted to see you," Mostima replied. "And confirm your relationship with Little Le."
"And did you tell her clearly?"
"No. That isn't my task."
"Eh…" Mostima's eyes narrowed slightly, still smiling. "I thought you and Little Le were so close that you'd already said everything."
"I know your relationship. I know the whole truth." Li Lin's voice hardened. "But it shouldn't be me who says it. It should be you."
He looked at her steadily.
"You can exile yourself for as long as you like. But there's always a figure following behind you, waiting for you. Actually—two. Some Liberi who doesn't know the truth is also waiting."
"..."
Somewhere in the distance, a cough sounded.
Whether it was an old man's asthma—or someone's displeasure—both of them understood exactly what it was.
Mostima's smile faltered for the briefest instant.
Then it returned, calm and gentle as ever, as she looked at Li Lin with a hint of something like grievance in her voice.
"You're as strict with me as always. You're gentle to everyone else—knowing everything around them, even their futures—yet you never say it out loud."
Her gaze stayed on him.
"So… can't you be gentler to me too?"
"You know why." Li Lin answered without hesitation. "You don't need it."
"If you had Originium Arts," Mostima said softly, "I'd be dragged straight to Little Le and placed in front of her, wouldn't I?"
"Yes."
"Harsh…" She smiled faintly. "I kind of like you, you know."
"Heh."
If those words had come from Texas, Exusiai, Sora, even Croissant—Li Lin felt his heart might have jumped, just a little.
But coming from this blue-haired woman, spoken with that mild smile…
Li Lin felt nothing at all.
Because he understood even more clearly what kind of "like" lived in Mostima's heart: something that required time, accumulation, and a threshold of trust even higher than Exusiai's.
He knew that.
"Li Lin," Mostima said quietly, "you understand me better than anyone. So why do you keep pushing me?"
"Because I don't care what you think."
"That's so cruel."
"It's true."
Li Lin answered decisively.
"You can call it 'like repels like.' I don't want someone with an image too similar to mine—brooding, burdened, trapped in future-visions, acting distant and cool—standing next to me. It dilutes my character setting."
Mostima blinked, then laughed lightly, still looking perfectly at ease.
"Wow. I knew you were always blunt with me, but that level of blunt is still a little frightening…"
She tilted her head.
"Then, as the price for scolding a lady… will you take a walk with me?"
....
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