"Zhezhi... Zhezhi..."
In the haze of half-sleep, a gentle voice kept calling her name.
"...Wake up... it's morn..."
'Hm? What did she say?'
"IT'S MORNING!!!"
Caught completely off guard, Zhezhi shot upright from the bed and immediately smashed her head into the table beside it. The lively room instantly descended into chaos.
While rubbing the tears from the corners of her eyes, Zhezhi looked up and saw a girl she had never met before.
"Hello, you can call me the Galactic Baseballer."
The little gray-haired girl planted her hands on her hips proudly, finally venting her grievances.
"You all went out to have fun without inviting me. If you're gonna play dirty, then nobody gets to play! No one's sleeping in today!"
Not even letting people sleep in. Truly vicious.
The Rover rubbed her sleepy eyes and sat up from the bed, stretching lazily like a drowsy cat. Morning light streamed through the window, casting an incomparably graceful silhouette across the floor.
After a quick wash-up, the group settled on today's plan, find Xiaosheng.
"Oh right, where's Zane?"
Stelle suspiciously sized everyone up, then leaned closer and sniffed around them with a wrinkled nose.
"There's no smell of callery pear flowers..."
Not knowing what callery pear flowers referred to, Zhezhi tilted her head slightly and instinctively took out her terminal to search for it, only for the Rover to slam a hand down on it with a dark expression.
"It's fine if you don't know."
That was what the Rover told her.
Last night, she and the Doctor had also learned about Zhezhi's past, and because of that, they found themselves growing more fond of this strong girl whose eyes were still as clear and innocent as a college student's.
"Zane's over there.", The Doctor suddenly spoke, drawing everyone's attention.
Following the direction she pointed, they saw a somewhat slender figure sprawled across the prayer stall's table. The faint morning glow draped him in a layer of golden light.
"Zane is dead! Protect the crime scene, nobody go near him!"
Stelle pulled out a beret from who-knows-where and jammed it onto her head, then produced a pipe and stuck it in her mouth.
From this moment onward, her name was Sherlock Holmes Stelle.
"He's just asleep..."
While Stelle was still talking, the Doctor had already walked past her and arrived beside Zane. She lowered her head to look at the papers pinned beneath him.
'So this was what had kept him up all night.'
"Moon-Chasing Festival Proposal, Hide-and-Seek, Iron Chef Competition... Ah, the rest is covered by him. I can't see it."
"Thank goodness. Those are all normal things."
The Rover patted her chest in relief.
Honestly, when she first heard "Moon-Chasing Festival proposal" come out of the Doctor's mouth, her brain nearly shut down.
Letting Zane organize the Moon-Chasing Festival?
If they really wanted to destroy the festival, it would honestly be faster to just let Zhezhi plow through Taoyuan Village herself.
What? You're asking why Zhezhi?
Because she's a failed art student.
Nearby, Zhezhi vaguely felt like she had just been insulted somehow, but after thinking it over and getting nowhere, she gave up trying to figure it out.
In the end, to avoid wasting time, the group decided that Zhezhi would stay here with Zane, while the Rover, the Doctor, and Stelle would return to Jinzhou City to look for Xiaosheng.
"I object! I just ran all the way here from Jinzhou City!"
The Rover and the Doctor exchanged a glance.
One on each side, they hauled... well, the Doctor wasn't tall enough, so in practice it was mostly the Rover dragging Stelle toward Jinzhou City.
A lone man and woman, the wife leaving home, the husband sleeping soundly behind...
No matter how you looked at it, this setup seemed like the kind where something was bound to happen.
After sending the three of them off, Zhezhi sat beside Zane in boredom. After hesitating for a moment, she quietly took out some drawing paper...
"Who awakens first from the great dream? All my life, I alone have known. Having slept well through spring in my thatched cottage, outside the window the sun drifts slowly by."
After reciting a poem with exaggerated seriousness, Zane opened his eyes.
"Hm? Zhezhi, why are you panicking? Where are the Rover and the others?"
Hearing his question, Zhezhi unconsciously tightened her grip on the rolled-up painting hidden behind her back. Cold sweat dampened the paper in her palms.
Still, after all these years, she had improved somewhat. Immediately, she chose her words carefully and avoided the important parts.
"Sh-She... the Rover and the others went to Jinzhou to look for Xiaosheng."
"Hah!"
Zane suddenly slapped his thigh.
"I've got a better way to find Xiaosheng."
———
Inside a dimly lit room, a man stared at the terminal in his hand while posting his scholarly insights on a forum, "Another shitty day today..."
Before long, someone replied, "You're living inside a shitty day... what are you, a maggot?"
"Hah?!"
The man instantly sprang out of his chair. His white lab coat swept across the table, knocking a poor cup onto the floor where it shattered.
But he had no time to care about that.
When fighting online, the lightest outcome was getting cursed down to children not yet born, while the worst involved eighteen generations of your ancestors hanging off a cliff edge. Hesitating for even a second was disrespectful to your parents.
"And just how are you talking to people? If you can't speak properly, go have your mom teach you!"
"What's with you? Why'd you explode so fast? Does your family know your temper's this awful?"
"That's just how I am. If you've got guts, come find me!"
Seeing the other side stop replying, the man smirked smugly.
Online flame wars like this happened dozens, no, thousands of times a day. They were just a tiny bit of seasoning in his otherwise boring life.
Leaning back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, he leisurely brewed himself a cup of coffee and brought it to his lips.
Bitterness and sweetness flooded into his mouth together, stimulating his taste buds.
"Ah~ being invincible really is lonel..."
Before he could finish speaking, a thunderous crash exploded from the doorway.
The next second, sunlight streamed through the gaping hole where the door used to be, flooding into the room.
"Here is Johnny!"
"Holy shit! I've been doxxed!?"
The man instantly leaped from his chair and instinctively bolted toward the window.
But someone moved faster than him.
A figure kicked open what remained of the door and blocked his path.
Using the faint light, the researcher named Shifan finally got a clear look at the newcomer.
"Um... excuse me for coming in."
While greeting him, Zhezhi carefully stepped over the shattered wooden debris covering the floor and walked over to Zane's side.
"Someone like you? I can settle this in two or three moves!"
"Hm? Isn't the saying 'three strokes and five divisions'?" Zhezhi scratched her head in confusion the moment she heard Zane speaking nonsense.
"That's because I don't care about martial virtue."
Both Zhezhi and Shifan fell silent.
Thanks to his relationship as the younger brother of Jinzhou's Magistrate, Zane had little trouble finding the forum administrators. And because the forum used real-name registration, he quickly identified Xiaosheng's identity.
Naturally, all this commotion attracted the other researchers.
Within minutes, the place was completely surrounded.
"What are you trying to do to Shifan?"
Another researcher who had rushed over barged into the room and stood between Zane and Shifan.
"Jiuri, why are you..."
Jiuri turned around, glanced at Shifan once, then looked directly at Zane.
"I know what he's like. Even though he says reckless things sometimes, he's not actually a bad person. Posting those negative comments online was just his way of venting the pressure inside."
"Jiuri... you already knew?"
Jiuri didn't answer him.
He only stared firmly at Zane.
At that moment, Zane noticed the bandages wrapped around Jiuri's left hand.
Instantly, he remembered the abnormal wish Xiao Pa had filtered out earlier. One line in it mentioned hurting a companion who once supported him.
If Shifan was Xiaosheng, then the companion who had been hurt... Was Jiuri?
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Zane immediately raised his fist toward Shifan without another word.
Faced with the aggressive Zane, Shifan instinctively stood up and shielded Jiuri behind him.
At the exact same moment, Jiuri had the same thought and tried to protect Shifan instead.
The collision of their intentions caused the two young men to slam straight into each other.
Looking at the pair tangled together on the floor, Zane nodded in satisfaction.
Very good.
The companions had reconciled, and they might even break through that final barrier between them.
Wish completed. Time to clock out.
At the same time, the Rover and the others, having pieced together the full story, also arrived.
It turned out that due to Shifan's stubbornness, a Tacet Discord experiment had gone out of control and injured Jiuri.
Out of guilt, Shifan gave up his dream of becoming a Tacet Discord trainer and began posting negative comments online instead.
"His real wish was to continue Tacet Discord research together with his companion."
The Rover analyzed the situation while walking forward, only to run straight into Zane swaggering out proudly.
Only then did she realize that Shifan's wish had somehow been resolved in an entirely different way.
Faced with such a perfectly happy ending... maybe... both the Rover and the Doctor gave up trying to think any harder about it.
Only Stelle still kept pondering aloud.
"So... should we wish for success in their research, or wish for lovers to finally get together?"