Half a system-hour later, the Express crew gathered together in the courtyard hall.
"A Heliobus on the loose, chaos in Fyxestroll Garden, a demon awakening, magical girls… an exorcism battle — I can't believe all of that happened in a single night."
March 7th and Stelle recounted the whole saga with animated gestures and vivid dramatic flair.
Himeko traced a fingertip along the rim of her bone-china coffee cup, her expression drifting between bemused contemplation and a faint, helpless sort of wistfulness.
What else could you say — these were the Star Rail crew, alright.
If a detective's soul calls forth cases, then these two were the kind of people calamity personally chased down the street. The Stellaron disaster, the Lord Ravager's tribulation — barely a few days old — and here was yet another incident that, had it struck an ordinary planet, would have had the local civilization pulling all-nighters to engrave their own tombstones.
The baffling part was how perfectly relaxed they all seemed, as if nothing had happened — and back on the Express, their minds were clearly more occupied with cracking jokes than anything else. Himeko let out a quiet sigh in her heart.
"And what about Caelus and Bronya turning into children — how did that happen?"
She tucked a stray lock of crimson hair behind her ear with a slender finger, rose gracefully, and padded over to the coffee table. With a warm smile, she set the steaming, fragrant cups down in front of the younger ones.
The porcelain bases clinked softly against the wood-grain surface. The liquid inside rippled outward in slow rings — dark and dense as the void between stars, the kind that lured the soul into sinking right along with it.
"You'll have to tell us — who wrote the script for this little 'Family Loving Each Other' performance?~"
"I'm reporting them — it was Stelle and Caelus, those two! They wanted to play a prank and mess with everyone!"
The moment March 7th caught sight of that coffee cup, her eyes went wide as cartoon saucers — pupils vanishing entirely — and she jolted upright as if electrocuted. She jabbed an accusing finger at the gray-haired pair being attended to by Herta puppets, delivering her indictment with righteous authority.
"So Little March is one of the victims, is she?"
Himeko tilted her chin up slightly, amusement threaded through her tone three parts tease, two parts laughter.
When Little March had emerged from her room a little while ago, she'd been visibly forcing her shoulders straight — and yet her whole frame kept trembling. Her steps were slightly unsteady, the tips of her ears blazing scarlet, her chin defiantly raised in a performance of forced composure.
Caelus had gone in as a child. He'd come out restored to normal. Thinking back to the sounds that had drifted from March's room — well. A mature older sister like Himeko could piece together a fairly good picture.
"V-victim! I am absolutely a victim!"
The pointed remark landed like a dart, pinning March 7th to the sofa. Her cherry-blossom hair spilled forward, and her pretty face flushed a deep rosy red.
The memory of what had happened in the room — and Caelus's kiss — made her want to shove her face straight into a throw pillow.
"That's right, I am a victim!"
March 7th slapped the wooden table with a smack, pink hair bouncing, a lingering flush still clinging to her eartips — but her posture was the picture of righteous outrage as she pointed squarely at Stelle and Caelus:
"This young lady is the victim here! You owe me ten full meals — and you have to hand over those secretly stashed grow-big-shrink-small candies!"
As she spoke, Little March's dainty fingertip jabbed the tabletop one poke at a time, like an indignant little pink bird furiously pecking at grain.
"Ah Qi — do you want to become a tiny Little March~?"
Stelle's eyes lit up at that.
Earlier, her attention had been entirely monopolized by the toddler-fied Caelus-cub, so she'd never gotten around to properly setting up a little-loli situation for Ah Qi. By the time she remembered, the candy had already worn off.
"No. This young lady's mission is to uphold justice, preserve peace on the Express, and protect everyone's tranquility from being disrupted. If you two keep running around with those candies making trouble — at this rate, I'll drink my bubble tea one day and wake up as an infant!"
Knowing the pair as well as she did, Stelle and Caelus would absolutely find some way to slip one of those candies into her food or milk tea.
A mature, elegant grown-up March would be fine, but if she got turned into a tiny loli or a child…
Not that being small wasn't adorable — there would even be cute photos to take in little-kid clothes — but March 7th would much prefer to do that sort of thing on her own terms, in private. Otherwise those two would absolutely make her life chaotic.
"Grow-big-shrink-small candy?"
Dan Heng's brow shifted slightly.
"That candy sounds genuinely fascinating… or maybe what I really mean is: the Universal Synthesizer is completely unhinged."
Haxxor Bunny was draped sideways across the sofa armrest, dangling smooth, porcelain-pale legs as a sci-fi blue screen about the size of a laptop unfolded in the air before her. Her gray eyes flickered with mingled excitement and frustration.
"I can't find a single logical chain for it anywhere in the base-layer code of physical reality."
Excitement because it was fascinating. Frustration because she couldn't locate the slightest trace of how it made things grow or shrink.
Basking in the subtly hot-and-eager looks from Stelle and Caelus — and the sympathetic gazes from March 7th, Welt, and Dan Heng — Haxxor Bunny picked up Himeko's coffee.
A footnote worth adding: once it was confirmed that Haxxor Bunny would be joining the Astral Express, Caelus had immediately added her to the "Family Loving Each Other" group chat and introduced her to navigator Sister Himeko. Himeko had, of course, expressed an enthusiastic welcome for the adventurous, trailblazing Bronya — promising to hold a proper initiation ceremony once they were back on the Express.
Puzzled by why Stelle and Caelus were looking at her like that, Haxxor Bunny tilted her head quizzically, her rabbit ears swaying.
Stelle and Caelus swiftly averted their eyes. Haxxor Bunny blinked, glanced down at the exquisite, luxurious coffee, and muttered quietly:
"Weird."
Miss Haxxor Bunny tipped her head back and drained most of the cup in a single go.
"GAAAK—!"
Haxxor Bunny crashed bodily into the sofa, her throat convulsing into knots, the sensation on her tongue like her taste buds had been shot clean through by something operating far beyond their operational limits — the tip of her tongue vibrated uncontrollably.
Her face detonated into the vivid red of a boiled shrimp. She hung her tongue out and gasped for air, short boots kicking wildly in the air, the motion sending sofa cushions sliding to the floor.
This was COFFEE?!
Someone's trying to poison Your Majesty!
She'd been had!
"Sister Bronya~ are you alright?"
Just as Haxxor Bunny was on the verge of blacking out, Seele hurried over to steady her, asking in concern as she settled Haxxor Bunny's head gently onto her lap.
This was…?
A soft, warm sensation spread from the back of her head, making the barely-conscious Haxxor Bunny's eyelids flutter wide for just a moment.
Seele's lap pillow?!
Through the blurring edges of her fading vision, she spotted Caelus covertly passing something over — a cup of coffee — accompanied by a big thumbs-up.
Haxxor Bunny felt as though she understood something.
Bottoms up. Thanks, Sensei.
Steeling herself inwardly, Haxxor Bunny used Aether Editing to silently transfer Caelus's coffee into her own cup — wait, if she could transfer liquids, why not just redirect it somewhere else entirely?
The thought never finished forming. Miss Haxxor Bunny's consciousness went offline.
Seele gently stroked Haxxor Bunny's forehead, a pleased curve tugging at the corners of her lips.
Sister Haxxor Bunny is such a good person~! She dealt with the poison for me and even said thank you.
I love Sister Haxxor Bunny the most~!
"The Universal Synthesizer?"
Welt gave a quiet two-second moment of silence for Haxxor Bunny, then brought the conversation back to the key detail.
"It's a treasure we made ourselves using the Universal Synthesizer! It's a bit complicated to explain."
Stelle scratched her head, casting a glance of mingled horror and dread toward Himeko's coffee.
Ugh, that rascal Caelus-cub already took care of the coffee quietly — so what do I do now?
Stelle's eyes swiveled, and just like that, a solution arrived:
"I'll just show everyone — it's faster than explaining. Caelus-cub, hand it over."
Stelle nudged Caelus with her elbow, her soft little hand curling into a beckoning wave.
Knowing exactly what the Stellaron spirit had in mind — and satisfied that his own coffee had already been neutralized — Caelus cheerfully produced the Universal Synthesizer.
"I have a pen~"
Stelle fished a small trinket out of her spatial ring.
"I have an apple~!"
She plucked an apple from the fruit bowl.
"I have a coffee."
Finally, she picked up Himeko's coffee cup and placed all three items into the Universal Synthesizer, closing her lightly cupped hand around it.
"Uhh~ Apple-Pen! …Coffee-Apple-Pen!"
"What — you — "
Caelus stared, completely dumbfounded.
He was starting to suspect this person spent every night digging up ancestral graves with a shovel through their connected subconscious and shared DNA.
She kept casually serving up artifacts of cultural archaeology that belonged in the dustbin of history, centuries old.
And stranger still — what the Synthesizer actually spat out.
"Oh~ Ballpoint pen, apple, coffee — and the result is… another pen?"
Welt pushed his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, peering with considerable interest at the object riding out on the conveyor — a pen in muted, very faintly reddish tones.
He'd never encountered a Synthesizer model like this before. Something that could produce candies with magical effects… it was likely connected to those mysterious Crystals that Stelle and Caelus possessed.
"In terms of appearance, it's closer to a fountain pen."
Dan Heng lowered his gaze to study the object, examining it with quiet focus. He turned it over in his thoughts, voice even and unhurried as a stone dropping into still water:
"But looking more closely, the design doesn't quite match a fountain pen either."
"…Not a snack?"
Stelle and Caelus exchanged a look of subtle mutual confusion and blinked.
According to the rules: if two or more edible items were placed in the Synthesizer, the output would be food. Otherwise, it produced a toy.
Case in point — under certain conditions, even Stelle's black stockings could be classified as edible by the machine. Himeko's coffee had, apparently, just been sentenced to death by the Synthesizer's verdict.
"Is there anything special about this pen?"
Himeko lightly brushed her fingertip along the pen barrel and asked in a soft voice.
"Try it and you'll see."
Caelus took the pen, pulled out a sheet of paper, and casually sketched a chibi portrait of Stelle.
"As expected of His Lordship — even the chibi is adorable!"
Stelle planted both fists on her hips and tilted her little head back, tone absolutely insufferable:
"This kind of natural, built-in cuteness — honestly, it's almost a burden~!"
"Yes, yes, you're the most adorable one here."
March 7th deadpanned:
"So — does the pen do anything special or not?"
"The ink in this pen smells like coffee?"
Caelus leaned in and gave the paper a sniff, then held it up in front of Stelle:
"Cute little Star-baby, want to try?"
"Sure, I'll try it."
It was just pen ink — surely better than Himeko's coffee!
Stelle stuck out her soft pink tongue and gave it a lick. Her beautiful eyes went wide: "Actually tastes good! There's a faint fruity sweetness to it."
"…So does that make it food, or a toy?"
Caelus was stumped.
An edible toy? A playable food?
"Let me try something else."
Stelle grabbed the pen and trotted over to the table, squeezing the pen's ink directly into a coffee cup — full commitment to the bit of drinking raw ink.
Caelus: "..."
As expected of His Lordship.
Just as Caelus was about to drift over and join the experiment, his phone suddenly rang. He opened it — and it was his adorable little rich-girl contact.
Caelus chatted with the little rich girl almost every day, telling her about all the interesting things happening on the Luofu. When his main account was busy, he'd have his female form swap over and keep the conversation going. Their contact had never once been broken — truly, the best of friends.
[Chief Little Hater: Ciallo~ （∠ω）⌒★]
[Chief Little Hater: What are you up to?]
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: Poking holes in soda crackers.]
[Chief Little Hater: Wait, are the holes in soda crackers actually punched in by hand??]
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: Yep~ It's hard work.]
[Chief Little Hater: pat pat, encouragement.jpg]
[Chief Little Hater: Hey Caelus, have you heard of 'Beautiful Fox Fairy Chat' on the Xianzhou?]
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: Nope, but the name has my interest — send me the link and I'll give it a review~!]
[Chief Little Hater: lol crying face.jpg, I'm not recommending it to you, okay.]
[Chief Little Hater: Here's what happened…]
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