"Who is she?"
Jinx's voice sharpened as she demanded it.
Uh...
Caleb's eyes darted around, suddenly feeling like he had stumbled straight into some ridiculous teen drama.
Jinx got here first?
Yeah... that really did make this awkward.
"Kai'Sa, from Shurima. We're heading to the Council in a bit."
Caleb pushed Jinx's little head aside and started walking.
"Yuumi, you're coming too."
This trip to Shurima had brought back a lot of information. Without these two backing him up,
even if Caleb was the Governor of Zaun, the Council would not necessarily believe everything he said.
Caleb knew that perfectly well. Besides, the whole reason he was going there this time was to put forward a bold proposal.
So, little psycho, move aside for now.
The Governor had work to do.
Jinx glared at Kai'Sa as she passed by, then turned her head with a huff.
She was nothing special, anyway. Not that pretty.
No matter what, she was just a "guest" sitting on the sofa, while Jinx was the "owner" with her own designated seat.
For some reason, a strange feeling stirred in Jinx's chest.
Over the past few days, all those monsters that were supposed to start appearing in the corners of her vision had gone quiet the moment she saw Caleb.
"Next time... next time I definitely..."
Jinx slammed her pistol down onto the table, her chest rising and falling sharply as she forced herself to take deep breaths and calm down.
She did not even know why her voice was getting softer and softer, why she sounded less and less confident...
She knew that in Silco's heart, she was perfect.
But what about Caleb?
Caleb had personally thrown Silco into prison. Before that, Caleb had even dragged her sister here by force.
And yet Jinx did not feel hostility or disgust toward Caleb. If anything, after he left, she had willingly started cooperating with Piltover.
When powerful people died, someone always had to take the blame. And of course, a lunatic who had already become infamous across Zaun for years was the perfect choice.
As long as Jinx stayed hidden in the back alleys, no one would bother her with the Council's silent approval.
Still, she had thrown other people's admiration and praise behind her.
Jinx herself had never really cared about those things, but after meeting Caleb, she had quieted down.
The little psycho was still noisy and unruly in front of others, but when she was alone, she seemed like a pale, fragile flower.
At the root of it all was probably the very first time they met.
Faced with a Jinx trapped in her own collapsing mind, unable to pull herself free,
Caleb had almost instinctively pulled her into an embrace and comforted her in silence.
From beginning to end, Silco had wanted to erase Vi from her mind. Jinx knew that.
Powder had always been Jinx, and Jinx was also Powder.
Maybe it was that hug from Caleb that had pulled Jinx up out of endless suffering.
Now, she was willing to become the "Jinx" everyone saw.
Thinking that, Jinx quietly climbed up to the ceiling and started tinkering with her little inventions.
Caleb had gone to a meeting, so he was definitely going to be back late tonight.
How was she supposed to greet him when he came back?
...
"Weren't we supposed to be going to a meeting?" Kai'Sa looked at Caleb in confusion as he stood in the marketplace.
Piltover at dusk, compared to Shurima, did not have a sun quite as round, but it had much more warmth and life to it.
Children chased one another around with cotton candy in hand, while elegant ladies carefully picked out dresses that fit them just right.
"At the start of meetings, it's always just people wasting time and being polite," Caleb said with a smile. "We'll just go straight to the important part."
"Want to look around together?"
Caleb casually picked up a stick of cotton candy from a stall and handed it to Kai'Sa.
"This is..." Kai'Sa hesitated.
She remembered that the Void also had cloudlike creatures drifting around, sucking the life out of unlucky animals.
Had the people here really figured out how to hunt Void clouds?
"It's cotton candy." Caleb could not help pressing a hand to his forehead. "Look at you, acting like you've never seen civilization before."
After all, this was the throat of the world. Piltover could be called the most prosperous place in the world.
"Mmm..." Kai'Sa took a bite, and both her eyes lit up like stars. "It's good!"
"This kid really didn't grow up eating anything decent."
Caleb shook his head helplessly and pointed toward the clothing shop next door.
"Go in and buy yourself some clothes. Wear them to the Council in a bit."
"Yuumi, same for you. I think there's stuff like cat trees around here. Go buy something you like."
After giving his instructions in advance, Caleb turned around at his leisure and faced the tall woman walking toward him.
She really was tall... almost as tall as Caleb himself.
And Caleb was a pretty standard six feet tall. He was not exactly broad, more lean than anything.
Still, he was a lot longer-limbed than a kid like Ekko.
"Please give me one minute, Governor!"
"I'll only take one minute, Governor, please, just let me explain my project..."
Looking at the woman in front of him, Caleb inexplicably felt like he was getting a full Shark Tank pitch.
Even though he really wanted to wave his hand and say, "I'm in," he still had to be responsible with the people of Zaun's money.
After all, his goal was not to burn through a fortune.
"You can finish all that in one minute?" Caleb looked at the thick stack of materials in the girl's hands.
"I'll go as fast as I can!" Both her hands were trembling violently, like leaves in a storm.
"Hey, relax, relax..."
Caleb reached into his system inventory and pulled out a component from his multifunction longbow.
"Think it over tonight, then come explain it in my office tomorrow afternoon, okay?"
"If it's really urgent, I can listen right now too." Caleb managed to look serious again for a moment, which instantly vanished the second he reached out and grabbed a skewer of grilled meat.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" She kept bowing over and over again.
"I won't let you down!"
In the fading sunlight, the tall girl's figure could just barely be seen as she ran off into the distance.
"Yeah... that looked exactly like me getting cold-called in class and forced to stand up and answer a question."
Caleb tore into the grilled skewer in his mouth while waiting for Kai'Sa to come out.
In Piltover, there was already a shared understanding, if the Governor of Zaun showed up to eat, he was not paying.
Afterward, you could go collect from the Firelights. Or from the Ferros family, the Kiramman family, or even the Medarda family.
All of them would curse Caleb while grumbling under their breath, then obediently pull out their wallets and pay anyway.
People always said shopping with women was a pain, but Kai'Sa was still a girl at heart.
...which somehow made her even slower.
The sun was almost completely down, and Kai'Sa was still torn between warm colors and cool ones.
At this rate, Caleb figured he was going to die from overeating.
"Let's go!"
Caleb grabbed Kai'Sa by the wrist and ran toward the Council in the city center.
He had originally planned to make a late entrance and surprise everyone.
If he delayed any longer, he would show up to nothing but an empty hall and an audience of ghosts.
"But..." Even with Caleb holding her wrist, Kai'Sa still looked reluctant.
Just moments ago, she had unlocked one of the greatest joys in a girl's life.
And she had absolutely no intention of stepping away from it yet.
"This one looks best."
The lie rolled right off Caleb's tongue without the slightest pause, and he did not even bother turning back to look.
...
"Where's Caleb?"
The seven councilors sat in a circle, all of them silent.
"Apparently he's out shopping with a girl," Lucide said with a smile, then added, "and a cat too."
"So he went to Bandle City and solved both the future governor's wife problem and the pet problem in one trip?"
Salo sounded genuinely amazed. Was that place really that magical?
The doors were kicked open without a trace of mercy, and Caleb swaggered in with a grilled skewer hanging from his mouth.
"I thought I heard somebody saying I'm handsome."
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