But if Raiden Mei's magnetic field domain continued... it would eventually disrupt the planet's atmospheric patterns and distort the local magnetic poles.
If this kept going, Honkai energy would pile up. As the severity of its influence deepened and her Authority sublimated, the entire city would be reduced to nothingness, buried under an apocalyptic weather phenomenon.
It would be known as... the Third Honkai Eruption.
Li Wu looked up, staring into the sky.
His black umbrella obscured most of his face. The only things visible were his reignited golden eyes, gleaming with a scorching, glacial light.
"I will make amends for the mistakes of my past."
The sports field was dead silent and grim. The rain, carried by the freezing wind, relentlessly battered his thin clothing.
Whether saving Raiden Mei back then had been right or wrong, it was impossible to tell now.
But if saving her from her destined death was a mistake, then all he had to do now was correct it.
"I will absolutely not let that happen."
His words were heavy, yet the moment they left his lips, they dissipated into the formless, freezing rain. No one heard them.
As Li Wu lifted his foot to step over a puddle, the clear, mirror-like surface of the water reflected a mesmerizing image.
---||---
Returning to the classroom, Li Wu waited quietly.
The school dismissal bell rang leisurely, echoing as if someone were humming it right by his ear.
The corridor outside was bustling with noise, but the moment students walked into the classroom, they immediately shut their mouths. They hastily packed their bags, turned around, and left. Once they stepped back out into the hallway, they reverted to normal, chatting freely with their friends.
Meanwhile, Li Wu leaned against the window, noticing a burning gaze directed at him from a kilometer away.
At the school gates, the familiar extended black luxury sedan was parked by the curb. Several uniformly dressed maids were escorting Raiden Mei into the vehicle.
Ryoma Raiden stood by the road, peering through binoculars directly at Li Wu's classroom window. Upon realizing he had been spotted, Ryoma lowered the binoculars and climbed into the sedan.
Ten minutes passed.
Only two students on cleaning duty remained in the classroom, sweeping the floors in absolute silence.
The corridor had quieted down. The rain hadn't stopped. The afterglow of the sunset failed to pierce through the thick, suffocating layer of black clouds, completely barring the cozy, warm twilight from reaching the earth.
The lush green leaves outside rustled wildly in the wind, a "swish-swash" symphony syncing with the digital clock ticking above the podium.
Twenty minutes passed.
The students on cleaning duty left.
Li Wu remained leaning against the window, staring out into the curtain of rain as he waited.
At the twenty-seventh minute—
Urgent footsteps echoed from the corridor. Li Wu's superhuman hearing caught the sound of rapid, slightly heavy breathing just outside the door.
"I'm late."
Kiana walked into the classroom. Her expression was completely indifferent, and she forcibly leveled her breathing.
However, the few beads of crystal-clear sweat sliding down her forehead betrayed the fact that she had been sprinting.
"Let's go then."
Li Wu didn't ask questions.
"Here." She offered him an umbrella.
"No need. I brought my own."
"Alright."
Their conversation was like two AI bots talking to each other. Utterly devoid of emotion or chemistry.
They both opened their umbrellas. Kiana stepped out into the rain first, with Li Wu following closely behind.
They didn't walk shoulder-to-shoulder. There was a gap of at least two full people between them.
The romantic tropes from anime and novels where two people share a single umbrella were completely unrealistic. Especially when both individuals possessed an incredibly strong sense of personal boundaries, the probability of something like that happening was about as low as finding true love.
Thinking this, Li Wu tactfully maintained his distance.
Their exchange from that afternoon felt like nothing more than a fleeting hallucination.
Along the way, Kiana didn't say a single word, nor did she look back even once.
During the walk, there were numerous moments where Li Wu could have easily found an excuse to turn around and leave. Yet, he silently followed her for a very long time, walking from the bustling, noisy commercial district all the way to a desolate, aging alleyway near the outskirts of the city.
A bookstore with a battered, dilapidated signboard appeared before them. The neon lights flickered dimly, as if suffering from a power shortage and a complete lack of maintenance. The entire establishment looked thoroughly decrepit.
The front doors weren't automatic sliding doors, but standard tempered glass.
Li Wu watched as Kiana pulled an extremely old-fashioned key from her backpack. She jiggled it in the lock repeatedly. It took quite a while before she finally managed to unlock it and push the glass door open.
As they stepped inside, the floorboards let out an agonizing creak. Anyone with sensitive nerves would undoubtedly get goosebumps.
"Come in. It's a bit messy. I'll go turn on the lights."
With that, Kiana closed her umbrella, set it aside, and walked straight into the pitch-black store.
By the faint moonlight, Li Wu realized that "turning on the lights" didn't involve pressing a switch. Instead, she had to pull a long string connected directly to the light fixture.
The dim, yellowed chandelier flickered on, casting a warm, orange glow across the room.
Li Wu stepped further inside. The wooden floorboards creaked with his every step.
"Is this your store?"
"No. I work here part-time when I'm free to earn some money for textbooks."
I see... But I highly doubt anyone comes here to read.
The owner of this store has absolutely zero business sense. From the exterior to the interior, nothing about this place gives off the desire to walk in.
Li Wu glanced back at the signboard, making an objective evaluation of this old-fashioned community bookstore named "Nene Books."
It wasn't like modern bookstores in shopping malls, boasting bright lights and a cozy, trendy atmosphere. On the contrary, from the front desk to the reading area, every corner reeked of an oppressive, dusty sense of age.
However, there were genuine leather sofas inside. They had been polished until they gleamed, entirely devoid of dust. This surprised Li Wu quite a bit.
Logically, a bookstore like this wouldn't attract any customers anyway, yet the owner had considerately provided leather sofas. Many modern bookstores deliberately removed seating to prevent people from sitting around reading for free without buying anything.
"You like making bets, don't you? Want to bet with me this time?"
Kiana suddenly spoke, turning around to look at him, her gaze completely unreadable.
"How did you know I like making bets?"
"That doesn't matter. Do you want to? If you don't want to, forget it. I won't force you."
"I've never lost a bet."
"That's because you never bet against me."
Kiana's overwhelmingly confident tone instantly made Li Wu suspicious.
She seemed entirely certain she would win.
"What are we betting on?"
"It's seven o'clock right now. Business hours end at ten. Three hours. You guess how many people will walk into this store to read during this time. If the actual number is lower than your guess, you win. If it's higher, I win. You set the number."
"Of course, even if it's just a small bet, I hope you take it seriously. Don't throw out some astronomical number. A bet where one side is guaranteed to win or lose has no reason to exist, does it?"
Kiana walked behind the front desk and opened a cardboard box filled with "new" books.
They were called new, but they were no different from the rest of the stock—second-hand books collected from various places.
Her job was to categorize them, put them on the shelves, and tidy up the tables and shelves that customers had rummaged through.
"No more than thirty people," Li Wu stated.
It was a rough estimate, but he had intentionally aimed high. After all, there were plenty of excellent, clean, well-lit, and free modern bookstores nearby. With better options available, the vast majority of people wouldn't come here.
"Deal."
Kiana agreed instantly. Then, she abruptly shifted gears, dropping a proverb with ambiguous meaning: "'Even a fool's thousand attempts will yield a single success, and even a wise man's thousand plans will suffer a single failure.' No one can keep winning forever, Li Wu. No one."
With that, she lowered her head and resumed categorizing the books. She even put on a mask and pulled her hat low, covering her entire face tightly.
Li Wu understood the proverb, but he didn't understand why Kiana had said it to him.
Has Ana been keeping in touch with her? But when the semester started, their relationship didn't seem close at all.
Unable to figure it out, Li Wu gave up thinking about it. He walked over to a bookshelf and randomly picked out a few books to read.
The pages were wrinkled and yellowed, heavily scarred by the relentless flow of time.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps approached from outside. A young couple rushed in.
"Babe, are you okay? It's all my fault for forgetting the umbrella... Excuse me, boss! Do you mind if we come in to shelter from the rain? If not, I can buy a book! Just let us stay for a bit, I've already called a cab and it'll be here soon."
The young man spoke politely, addressing Kiana, who was sorting books at the front desk.
"It's fine. And I'm not the boss. The owner is a very kind person. You don't need to buy a book. Also, there are clean towels over there. Feel free to use them if you don't mind."
"Oh! Great, thank you so much!"
The boy thanked her profusely. Holding his girlfriend's hand, he followed Kiana's directions and walked deeper into the bookstore.
As they walked past Li Wu, they exchanged a brief glance but didn't speak.
Looks like I'm going to lose.
An ominous premonition rose in Li Wu's heart.
Sure enough, over the next few hours, people continuously trickled into the store to escape the rain. They waited for their cabs or for family members to pick them up before leaving.
It wasn't even ten o'clock yet, and the number of people who had walked through the door had vastly exceeded thirty.
What caught his attention most was an elderly man who had walked in holding an umbrella shortly after they opened. He didn't say a single word. He just walked up to a bookshelf, selected a book, and began to read.
He held the book very close to his face, reading incredibly slowly. It took him several minutes just to turn a single page. He completely lacked the habit of speed-reading.
Li Wu occasionally cast a glance toward Kiana to see what she was doing.
After finishing the shelving, Kiana had spent the rest of the time reading. Just like the old man, she read incredibly slowly under the gentle, warm backlight. She was deeply focused, completely oblivious to Li Wu's gaze.
A cool breeze wafted into Nene Books. Raindrops lightly tapped against the glass door, while the interior remained completely peaceful.
The lighting was warm, the atmosphere serene. Time seemed to stop flowing entirely within these walls. Even the most trivial, mundane movements carried a unique, special meaning here.
Outside, the rain gradually lightened until the sound of it vanished entirely.
The rain had stopped.
The alarm on the old man's phone suddenly went off. He turned it off, walked straight to the front desk, and spoke in a low, muffled voice.
"Thank you again today, Kiana. You're the only one willing to help this old bag of bones look after the shop. Sigh... I'm so sorry. Aside from these books, I really don't have anything else to offer you."
"It's okay. I love reading," Kiana replied warmly. "Just letting me sit here and read as much as I want is more than enough to make me happy. I like it here. It helps me calm down. So please, don't say things like that, Manager."
"Mhm... That boy on the sofa... is he a close classmate of yours?"
The old man turned around, directing his gaze toward Li Wu, who was spacing out on the sofa. The old man offered a kind, gentle smile. "He's a good kid. The way he looks at people is completely different from normal folks... He's very peaceful. Just like you."
Noticing their conversation, Li Wu snapped back to reality. He looked at the two of them, but having no idea what to say, he awkwardly raised his hand and gave a stiff wave to show he meant no harm.
For a fleeting instant, the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily, curving upward into a polite smile before he rapidly suppressed it.
"He... he is indeed different from normal folks," Kiana said. "We'll be heading off first then, Manager."
"Mhm, mhm. Go back and get some good rest. It's fine if you come in a bit late tomorrow. You don't have to be so punctual."
The old man left the bookstore first, disappearing into the alleyway next door. His home was right here.
Only Li Wu and Kiana remained inside Nene Books, standing near the entrance, looking at each other.
The rain outside had long since stopped. The entire city—no, the entire world—seemed to have been put on mute. Aside from their faint breathing, absolutely nothing else could be heard.
"I lost."
Li Wu broke the silence, proactively admitting his defeat.
It was his first, and only, loss.
"Actually, you would have won normally."
Kiana didn't press her advantage or mock him. Instead, she openly explained how she had "cheated."
"The owner of this bookstore is an old man. Back in the Showa era of the Far East, he and a few like-minded friends founded this bookstore together. He named it 'Nene' after his wife."
"But... time is cruel. His friends who used to laugh and chat here, and his wife... they've all passed away. He's the only one left, stubbornly clinging to this place, refusing to leave."
"He could have left. He could have moved to the city where his children live and enjoyed a much more comfortable retirement. But as you can see, everyone has their own choices to make. He chose to stay behind alone in a city that, to him, has grown utterly cold and desolate. It's almost as if... as long as this bookstore doesn't close down, his friends never really left. They're still right here keeping him company..."
Kiana walked over to the bookshelves and patiently began tidying up the books the customers had left scattered about, placing them back into their proper sections.
Even though there was barely any point to it.
"I've been the 'acting manager' here for a long time. You can just consider it a part-time job. It doesn't make any money, but in exchange, I get the opportunity to 'read'."
"Compared to e-books, I prefer holding a physical book and reading alone in a quiet place. By sheer coincidence, I met the manager, and we reached an unspoken understanding."
"I help him look after the store in his old age, and in return, he made me the acting manager. I have full jurisdiction over this bookstore and can handle the books here however I want. For any books we actually sell, we split the profits 50/50."
"But it really doesn't make much money. Whatever little I do make, I just use to buy new books for the store."
Hearing this, Li Wu finally understood everything.
He should have realized it from the very beginning, but only now was it fully confirmed.
Kiana is severely strapped for cash.
To become strong enough to protect those around her, Ana had accepted the boons of Schicksal and the Schariac family, never having to worry about money.
But Kiana was different.
The only reason she could maintain so much freedom while possessing the identity of a Herrscher was highly likely because she had utterly rejected any and all assistance from Schicksal and the Kaslana family, forcing herself to be entirely self-reliant since childhood.
That was why her entire net worth was only a few tens of thousands of Far East Yen. Converted, it wasn't even equivalent to a single month's salary for an ordinary worker.