A few minutes later, a slender, dirty hand, wet with water, darted out from the edge of the shadows like lightning, grabbed the bundle, and quickly retracted.
The sound of suppressed and rapid chewing and swallowing came from the shadows.
A very faint curve appeared at the corner of Seraphilia's lips.
After finishing her bread and drinking some water, her gaze fell on a pile of discarded books and documents by her feet.
Most were junk, but one or two were relatively intact.
She pulled one out and brushed off the dust.
Half of the hard cover had fallen off, revealing yellowed pages.
"West Blue Island Gazetteer: Fragmented Volume."
The handwriting was blurred, and the content was shallow and erroneous.
But she read it very seriously.
Her ice-blue eyes were downcast, her fingertips lightly brushing over the words with a strange sense of preciousness.
This was not an act.
In her previous life, books were her fortress against loneliness.
In this life, after experiencing the dehumanizing torture, the peace brought by "knowledge" and "words" was incredibly precious.
In the memories of this body, there was only violence and humiliation, lacking only this kind of quiet time spent reading "as a human."
In the corner, the chewing had long since stopped.
Seraphilia could feel a gaze falling on her, cautious and full of scrutiny.
Vigilant like a startled small animal, yet hiding a hint of curiosity.
She remained unruffled, continuing to read, even slightly adjusting her posture so the light better illuminated the pages.
She presented her profile, focused on reading, clearly to the other person.
A harmless image.
Time flowed amidst the sound of rain and silence.
Finally, a voice so weak it seemed it might dissipate at any moment drifted from the corner:
"...Do you like books too?"
A young girl's voice.
Dry, raspy, and strained, but with a clear tone.
Seraphilia's fingers stopped turning the page.
She slowly looked up, her ice-blue eyes peering into the shadows, a very faint smile of distant nostalgia appearing on her face.
"Yes."
She replied, her voice even softer, afraid of startling something.
"I like them."
She paused, her gaze falling back to the tattered volume in her hand, her fingertips stroking the blurred handwriting, a clear, almost declarative firmness entering her voice:
"Knowledge is not a crime."
"The books that carry knowledge, and the people who seek it regardless of the cost... should even less be treated like this."
She said this very slowly and clearly.
Every word was like a stone cast into a deep pool, accurately striking a certain destroyed island, a certain hunted "crime," and a certain obsession buried deep in the heart.
In the shadows, that faint breathing suddenly grew heavy.
A clearer, more focused gaze fell on Seraphilia's face.
Seraphilia did not look away.
She closed the book, placed it carefully, and looked toward the corner again.
This time, she saw her.
Half a face slowly emerged from the edge of the shadows.
Short black hair, wet and clinging to her forehead and cheeks.
A pair of pale blue eyes shone startlingly bright in the gloom, staring at her without blinking, filled with unbelievable shock and a hint of hope.
The small face was very dirty, stained with mud, and her lips were pale from the cold and tension.
But Seraphilia recognized her at a glance.
Those familiar features, the iconic hair and eye color, and in those eyes, a deep sorrow and vigilance unbefitting her age.
Nico Robin.
A ten-year-old, living, breathing Nico Robin, shivering yet trying to remain calm right before her eyes.
Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, a sour warmth and sharp pain intertwining as they rose to her throat.
The tears before the screen in her past life, the heartache while reading late at night, all the helpless fantasies of "if only I were by her side"... found a real vessel at this moment.
She used all her strength to suppress her surging emotions.
Now was not the time.
Any excessive display would be seen as a trap by this sensitive little animal.
She simply nodded gently to those pale blue eyes and then pointed out the window.
"The rain seems to have let up a bit."
She said, her tone returning to calm.
"But it doesn't look like it'll stop anytime soon. Do you... have a place to go?"
Robin quickly pulled her face back into the shadows and fell silent again.
Seraphilia did not press further.
She picked up the gazette again, pondered for a moment, took out a flat coin purse from her pack, and poured out three small-denomination Berries.
She used the clean cotton cloth that had wrapped the bread to carefully wrap the coins.
She stood up again, walked to the same spot, knelt, and set down the small cloth bundle.
"Take these."
Her voice was steady.
"Find a drier place, buy some food, or... buy a book."
Having said that, she didn't linger.
She turned, put on her half-wet cloak, tied it, and shouldered her pack.
She pushed open the creaking broken door and stepped out into the fine drizzle.
She didn't look back.
But after walking a hundred meters from the granary, she turned into a narrow alleyway, closed her eyes, and activated her ability again.
A thinner, even more undetectable mist spread out, quietly extending toward the granary.
Precise, one-way "marking" and "tracking."
A faint mark of cloud energy silently attached itself to the small, black-haired figure who had just emerged from the shadows.
The mark was harmless, merely allowing her to vaguely perceive the other's direction and state within a certain distance.
She "watched" as that small figure, clutching a few tattered books, peered warily around before choosing an opposite path and quickly, silently disappearing into the gaps between buildings.
Seraphilia leaned against the damp, cold wall, her ice-blue eyes gazing at the direction where the figure had disappeared for a long time.
Rain slid down her silver hair and into her collar, bringing a chill.
But in her chest, a faint yet steady flame burned.
Found her.
In the third month after transmigrating to this cruel world, after experiencing the pain of the brand, the lonely flight, and the aimless confusion...
She had finally found her "anchor."
Her Robin.
"Don't be afraid."
She whispered to the empty alleyway in a voice only she could hear.
"This time... I won't just be watching anymore."
She pulled the fragmented volume of "West Blue Island Gazetteer" from her breast—she had quietly taken it with her when she left.
The pages were damp and wrinkled, the content shallow and erroneous.
But she gripped it tightly, as if holding the beginning of a promise.
The drizzle continued to fall, and the West Blue sky was gloomy and low.
And beneath this gloom, after a brief encounter in the granary of fate, the trajectories of two broken stars had already undergone an irreversible shift.
A protection and redemption spanning life and death, cutting through time, had quietly begun on this damp afternoon.