Night lay thick over the city; distant neon lights slipped through the gap in the not-quite-closed curtains, casting long, twisted patches of light across the floor.
Kiana's eyes snapped open.
The familiar ceiling filled her vision, the air conditioner's blades swaying slowly, breathing out dry, cold air.
She lay stunned for two seconds, then bolted upright.
She'd thought she was on the couch.
Thought that embrace — so tight it nearly cracked her ribs — was still going on.
Thought that warmth, faintly scented with sweat and black tea, still wrapped around her.
Instead she was lying in her bedroom, in her own bed.
A thin summer blanket covered her.
Had that embrace been just another mirage Sirin conjured for her inside her consciousness space?
A sting rose again at the tip of Kiana's nose.
Just as she was about to bury her face back into her knees, an utterly unreasonable smell drifted into her nose.
It was the fat of pork belly rendering down in hot oil, mixed with the caramel sweetness of melted rock sugar, layered over the rich, savory aroma of star anise, cinnamon bark, and dark soy sauce bubbling furiously at the bottom of a pan.
The smell was downright aggressive.
Kiana's stomach betrayed her completely, letting out a loud growl.
She sniffed.
Was some neighbor braising Red Braised Pork in the middle of the night? And the smell was far too close for that.
She threw off the blanket and, without even bothering with slippers, padded barefoot across the old wooden floor, following the scent out of the bedroom.
The living room light was off.
But the kitchen glowed with warm yellow light from the ceiling lamp.
The range hood rumbled low.
Someone stood at the stove with their back to her.
Wearing that mustard-yellow apron printed with an enormous HOMU design — the one they'd bought together from the discount rack at the supermarket downstairs.
The figure gripped the wok's handle, flicked a wrist, and the chunks of meat coated in glossy red sauce leapt into the air before landing back in the pan with a sizzling hiss.
He switched off the burner and poured the meat, sauce and all, into a white porcelain dish waiting beside the stove.
Thick white steam rose up, blurring his profile.
Kiana's feet froze in the kitchen doorway.
The wooden floor gave a faint creak.
The person holding the dish turned around.
Their eyes met across the narrow kitchen, thick with steam.
For that single instant, Kiana felt her blood turn to ice.
It wasn't a dream.
"Yo."
Su Yu, holding the still-sizzling plate of Red Braised Pork, looked at the white-haired girl frozen in the doorway, her toes curling from sheer tension.
He arched an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curving into that familiar smirk.
"Sleeping Beauty's awake? I figured you'd be out for another twelve hours. Don't tell me the smell of this meat dragged you straight out of bed."
That tone.
That expression.
"You… you're not——"
Her voice shook. Her throat felt stuffed with a dry sponge, and she couldn't string together a whole sentence.
Su Yu saw her red-rimmed eyes, and the teasing vanished from his face at once.
He lowered his eyes, his expression turning grave and sorrowful.
"Ah — actually, I'm already dead, Kiana."
"What's standing here right now is my ghost. My obsession ran so deep I begged the King of Hell for half a day's leave, just to come see you one last time."
The kitchen went silent for two seconds.
Only the range hood kept humming.
Kiana's hands, hanging at her sides, slowly curled into fists.
Her shoulders began to heave.
"You think I'm an idiot?!!"
A roar loud enough to nearly blow the roof off the old building erupted at the kitchen door.
Kiana shot forward like a white cannonball, straight at the man by the stove.
She didn't care that he still had the freshly cooked dish in his hands — she rammed her head straight into his chest, full force, no holding back.
"Hiss——"
The plate in Su Yu's hands lurched violently, nearly spilling the sauce.
The blow sent him staggering back two steps, his lower back slamming straight into the edge of the marble countertop.
"Idiot! Moron! Idiot! You huge idiot!"
Kiana buried her face hard against his chest.
Her fists pounded again and again against his ribs.
But the force behind them was carefully restrained.
Less a beating.
More a mix of accusation and confirmation, laced with the residual terror of a fear she'd only just survived.
Confirming the warmth of this body, confirming he was really here, that this wasn't a dream.
Su Yu set the plate of Red Braised Pork steadily down on the stove with one hand; the other came to rest naturally against her back.
He simply leaned against the stove and let that mop of white hair butt against his chest, let those fists rain down on him.
Slowly.
The blows against his chest grew lighter and lighter.
The curses grew more and more slurred.
Until finally,
they dissolved into muffled sobs against the fabric of his shirt.
Su Yu looked down at the head hiccupping with sobs against him.
"Kiana."
he said softly.
She didn't lift her head, only pushed out a muffled sound through her nose.
"Mm."
"I'm back."
Su Yu's palm patted her back gently, twice.
After a long moment.
an answer came from against his chest, almost entirely swallowed by the noise of the range hood.
"Mm."
Su Yu took her by the shoulders with both hands and gently set her upright, away from his chest.
He looked at her face, flushed red from sleeping too long and crying too hard, and her mismatched eyes, swollen like walnuts.
He pulled a paper towel from the roll and, without ceremony, scrubbed it under her eyes, wiping away the beads of moisture and tear tracks clinging to her lashes.
"Look at you, eyes all swollen."
Su Yu balled up the paper towel and tossed it into the trash.
"If Sister Himeko sees this tomorrow, she'll assume I did something to you and crack a wine bottle over my skull."
Kiana sniffled, her nose bright red, and swatted away his hand as it tried to pinch her cheek.
"And whose fault is that, huh?! Look who's responsible!"
She glared at him, tears still swimming in her eyes, but her tone had already snapped back to its usual feisty vigor.
"Okay, okay, all my fault."
Su Yu raised both hands in surrender.
"Please spare your humble servant, Lady Kiana."
He turned, picked up the plate of Red Braised Pork from the stove, and set it on the counter.
"If we don't eat now, the caramel glaze on this top-grade pork belly is going to set, and the flavor's going to suffer for it."
"You think one plate of Red Braised Pork is going to buy you off?"
Kiana followed him out of the kitchen, still putting up a front.
"I'm not as easy to appease as you think!"
That said,
when Su Yu reached the dining table and pulled out the slightly wobbly wooden chair,
she sat right down in it without a fight.
Su Yu turned and went back into the kitchen.
A few seconds later he came out with an oversized porcelain bowl printed with a cartoon cat-paw design — Kiana's own personal bowl.
It held a mountain of rice, heaped and overflowing.
He set the bowl down in front of Kiana with a thump, then slid the plate of lethally tempting Red Braised Pork within her reach.
He brought his own, normal-sized bowl of rice and sat down in the chair across from her.
Before he'd even settled his chopsticks, Kiana had already snatched up a piece of meat, fat and lean marbled together and slick with glossy sauce, and shoved it straight into her mouth.
Rich juices burst across her tongue; the fat melted the instant it touched her mouth, and the lean meat was tender without being dry.
The caramel sweetness and the salty savor of soy sauce blended together perfectly.
With that first bite,
Kiana's eyes narrowed instantly, all her grievances and complaints routed in a total collapse under the assault of top-tier carbs and fat.
"Su Yu!"
she called out, mouth still full, chopsticks already darting for a second piece.
"When did your cooking get this good?! It's leaps and bounds better than last time!"
Su Yu's cooking had, until now, only ever been passably edible.
But this dish — the heat control, the caramelizing of the sugar — was flawless, beyond reproach.
The credit clearly belonged to his third-stage spiritual power.
An ability that could sense oil temperature shifting by a fraction of a degree was, applied to cooking, nothing short of Outclassed by None.
With just a bit more polish on his wok-flipping technique, he could walk into any top restaurant in Arc City and land a head chef position without breaking a sweat.
"Actually, I've been secretly training by watching cooking tutorial videos."
Su Yu shoveled a mouthful of plain rice, watching the girl across from him with both cheeks bulging.
"So? Not a bad result for all that training, huh?"
Kiana had no time to answer.
She was too busy stuffing meat into her mouth and shoveling down rice in huge bites.
A grain of rice stuck to the corner of her mouth; her tongue swept it right back in.
Su Yu set down his chopsticks, propped his chin on one hand, and watched her look like she was about to eat the plate along with everything on it.
"Slow down."
He pulled out a napkin and held it out.
"There's more in the pot. No one's fighting you for it."
For a man who had already been handed a death sentence by Aponia,
sitting here, watching the person he'd fought so hard to pull back from the Abyss devour a meal he'd cooked with zero regard for dignity —
that alone was already an enormous, extravagant kind of happiness.
"Stop just staring at me!"
Kiana snatched the napkin, wiped her mouth carelessly, then grabbed two pieces of meat straight from her own bowl with her chopsticks and dumped them, none too gently, into Su Yu's bowl.
"You eat too!"
Her mouth was stuffed so full her cheeks puffed out like a hamster hoarding grain.
Su Yu looked at the two pieces of Red Braised Pork sitting in his bowl, still flecked with grains of rice.
He couldn't hold it in and laughed outright.
"What are you laughing at…"
His laughter left Kiana flustered, a faint blush rising on her small face as she poked her chopsticks aimlessly around her bowl.
"Cut it out…"
"It's nothing."
Su Yu let the smile fade, lowered his head, and picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks.
"I just thought."
He chewed slowly, savoring the familiar taste.
"It feels like it's been a while since the two of us just sat down together like this and quietly shared a meal."
So much had happened, these past days.
The Starfire training, mech development, the game's open beta, the World Serpent's sudden intrusion.
Everyone had been wound tight like a clock spring, spinning frantically against a countdown called the apocalypse.
A moment like this — no mission prompt, no alarm blaring —
just the two of them, sitting together sharing dinner —
had genuinely become an almost unreachable luxury.
Kiana's chewing paused for a moment.
"Extraordinary times. Can't be helped, I guess."
She swallowed her food and sat up straight.
"Once we're through the next five months and we've kicked every last one of those annoying Honkai Beasts to the curb, once we've finally settled this whole apocalypse mess—"
Kiana flashed Su Yu a brilliant smile.
"Then you can cook for me every single day after that, to make it up to me properly!"
Looking at that smile,
Su Yu's grip on his chopsticks tightened, just slightly.
Aponia's sorrowful prophecy.
"Five months from now, a purple sky will be blotted out by a swarm of monsters beyond counting. The earth will tremble, the city will burn, and a shooting star flying against the heavens will streak across the sky."
"And you — in that instant, you will die."
That death sentence rang wildly against his eardrums.
A star flying against the heavens.
Su Yu said nothing, didn't even let a flicker of excess emotion show. His control over his own body and feelings was leagues beyond what it used to be.
No matter how much pain he felt, masking it now took no more than a single thought.
He raised his head and met Kiana's mismatched eyes, brimming with hope for the future.
Then he gave a firm, deliberate nod.
Su Yu's tone was light.
"But when that day comes, you'd better pay me a salary."
He set down his chopsticks and leaned back in his chair.
"I'll be Campus Belle Kiana's personal master-bodyguard, plus full-time chef. How's that sound?"
Kiana rolled her eyes hugely and let out a scornful snort.
"Bodyguard, my foot."
She waved her chopsticks.
"You can't even beat me! If anything, you're the delicate campus belle who needs protecting, and I'm the peerless master here!"
"Fine, fine, fine."
Su Yu laughed heartily, not bothering to argue.
"Then I'll have to trouble Master Kiana to look after this delicate, can't-even-lift-a-chicken campus belle from now on."
"That depends entirely on my mood!"
Kiana huffed twice and dropped her head.
then went back to shoveling rice into her mouth.
But Su Yu could clearly see, hidden beneath her white hair, the edges of her ears and cheeks —
flushed so red they looked ready to bleed.
In the straightforward, single-track brain of a Paramecium, a promise like 'I'll cook for you every day from now on' had probably already been mentally translated into some kind of momentous confession.
The meal was cleaned to the last grain.
Kiana even scraped up the last traces of sauce at the bottom of the plate with her rice, until nothing was left.
After the meal, Su Yu carried the empty plates and bowls into the kitchen sink.
He turned on the tap, warm water splashing down.
Kiana leaned against the kitchen doorframe, cradling a cup of freshly poured hot water, watching Su Yu's back as he washed the dishes.
Amid the suds of dish soap and the rush of running water,
Su Yu, in an even tone, laid out for her the most essential parts of what had happened at the abandoned recycling plant.
From meeting Raiden Mei, to confirming that Mei and the others were safe.
And how he'd told Mei that Kiana would definitely return, and that they shouldn't go throwing themselves into danger blindly again.
After that, briefly,
he described how that world's Kevin had torn through the Rift and descended.
And how, by imitating the mannerisms of the previous civilization's awakened one, 'Su,' with Fenghuang's verbal guidance backing him up, he'd managed to talk that off-the-charts-powerful Kevin into buying him and Mei a chance to withdraw.
Kiana listened quietly.
When Su Yu got to the part where Mei was safe and sound, and word of her safety had reached her,
Kiana didn't jump up and shout the way Su Yu had expected.
She just stood there, very quietly.
eyes lowered, watching the water ripple faintly in her cup.
That made Su Yu pause halfway through shutting off the tap.
He turned around, grabbed a nearby towel, and wiped the water off his hands.
"That doesn't sound like you, Miss Paramecium — usually you'd be jumping up and down the second you hear Mei's name."
Kiana looked up, her expression complicated. "Thank you for protecting Mei, Su Yu. But next time... please don't do anything that dangerous again, okay?"
Su Yu draped the towel over the edge of the counter.
"The situation was critical. I genuinely didn't have another option."
He tried to explain in a reasoned tone.
"If I'd just turned and run, there'd have been no guaranteeing Mei's safety. And if that Kevin had noticed something was off and forced his way through that heavily weakened World Barrier — our world might already be a pile of rubble right now."
"Whatever!!"
Kiana's voice suddenly rose.
A few drops of hot water sloshed out of the cup from the force of her grip, splashing onto the back of her hand. She didn't even glance at it.
"You just can't do anything that dangerous ever again!"
She stepped forward, glaring hard at Su Yu.
"You have to live! You absolutely have to stay alive!"
"But, on Mei's side——"
"I don't care!"
Kiana cut him off ruthlessly.
"Aren't you supposed to be amazing?! Don't you always have all these bizarre ideas?!"
Her chest heaved.
"Whatever! Next time something like that happens, you have to come up with a way to protect both yourself AND this world!"
This kind of utterly unreasonable, bandit-tier logic —
if anyone else had said it, Su Yu would have mocked them mercilessly.
But faced with Kiana's eyes, made stubborn beyond reason by the fear of losing him,
he swallowed every word of rebuttal.
He sighed helplessly, the corner of his mouth curving into a wry smile.
"You're asking the impossible here, Miss Kiana."
"So what."
Kiana gritted her teeth.
"So what if it's impossible! Just — are you going to agree or not!"
With the range hood off, the only sound left in the kitchen was the occasional drip from the pipes.
Su Yu looked at the girl in front of him, stubborn as an ox.
For a long while, nothing.
Then he nodded, solemn and deliberate.
"All right."
He looked at her.
"I'll rack my brains as hard as I can to figure out how to fulfill Miss Kiana's request."
He walked over, set his hand on top of her messy white hair, and ruffled it hard, twice.
"But you don't need to worry too much."
He drew his hand back, his tone regaining that reassuring, easy confidence.
"I'm not about to throw this life away on something meaningless."
Su Yu spread his hands.
"That would completely ruin my image as the 'old scoundrel' producer that tens of millions of players across the entire net love to curse at."
"Hmph."
Kiana batted his hand away. She was still annoyed, but the tension had clearly drained from her shoulders.
"If you actually go and get yourself killed showing off,"
she shook a fist at him fiercely.
"I'll drag you back up out of hell myself! And once I've brought you back to life, I'll beat you to death again with my own two hands!"
"Miss Kiana! Your humble servant admits his mistake, please spare me! No more of this inhuman corpse-flogging routine!"
"No way! Not a chance!"
"Come on, be reasonable — I already died once, shouldn't that at least buy me some immunity?"
"On my turf, I AM reason!"
The oppressive mood from before vanished completely, leaving only the two of them bickering and laughing.
Too bad Kiana Kaslana's single-threaded brain never picked up on one thing.
That "I won't throw this life away on something meaningless" carried an unspoken second half: "but if it's something meaningful, dying for it is perfectly fine."
Half an hour later.
The kitchen was cleaned up.
Su Yu sat on the living room couch and had just picked up his phone, meaning to check the backlog of messages from the past few days.
In the group chat titled 'miHoYo Board of Directors (Actually Just a Debt-Collection Group),'
the whole chat had already gone completely berserk over the line he'd dropped in half an hour earlier — [Won my comeback match] —
notifications firing off like a machine gun, non-stop.
Messages refreshed so fast they were a blur to the naked eye.
Some were congratulating him, some were roasting him, and some were spamming tasteless meme stickers.
Before Su Yu could finish scrolling, a WeChat call came in.
"Su Yu."
Theresa's voice came through the earpiece, hushed, as though conducting some secret rendezvous.
"Get to Arc City First People's Hospital and meet me right now!"
"It took me three whole days, but I finally convinced Cecilia that you and Grandpa are working together on psychotherapy treatment for Kiana. She says she really wants to meet you, her attending physician!"
The corner of Su Yu's mouth twitched. Cecilia who now?
"Oh, and why hasn't Bronie reported back yet?!"
Theresa's words sped up.
"How does that man Siegfried keep slipping away like this?! That awful scumbag — if I ever catch him, I'm going to smash his skull in with a door!"
Su Yu opened his mouth, but couldn't manage a single word in response.
Kiana leaned in from behind him, standing on tiptoe to peek at his phone screen, where Theresa's avatar was still spinning on the call interface.
"Ah."
Her expression looked like someone had just flipped a switch on a forgotten memory.
"I forgot to tell you about Cecilia."
"She got dragged into the other Spatial Rift earlier. Rita and I pulled her out and got her to the hospital. Once Auntie found out, she stormed straight over there — she's been camped in the ward ever since, refusing to let Cecilia be discharged no matter what…"
Su Yu pulled the phone a little way from his ear and stared at Kiana's face for a full three seconds.
"And you're only telling me this NOW?"
"I was just about to…"
Kiana scratched the back of her head, her ahoge bobbing along with it.
Su Yu took a deep breath.
No wonder the 'One-Man Elbow Drop on All of Anti-Entropy' quest hadn't finished yet — so there was still this stage waiting for him.
If he didn't sort out this mess into some kind of shape tonight, the damn System was absolutely not going to let him settle the quest.
"Ugh."
Su Yu muted the WeChat call and pulled up his contacts.
"No choice now, Kiana."
There was a tragic, march-to-the-gallows resolve in his voice.
"There's a lot I can't just tell Auntie outright. So I guess Siegfried's just going to have to suffer for it."
Kiana studied the look on Su Yu's face.
This world's Siegfried wasn't her real father, but he wore an identical face and spoke in almost the same cadence.
"Ugh."
She sighed.
"Sorry about this, world's-double stinky old man."
And silently, in her heart, she offered up a prayer —
"I hope he'll be okay."
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