"You'll show me the way to your apartment," I said to Jiaxing Er as we went outside. It was still dark, and the sun was just beginning to rise, so I hoped to get to her room under the cover of darkness, change, wash, and return to Xu Zhao Ting and the others, introducing Jiaxing Er to them.
"Okay," she nodded uncertainly. Hearing her answer, I ran, using about half my speed.
But even so, Jiaxing Er clung to me even tighter and could barely point the way. Despite these difficulties, we quickly reached her apartment. It turned out she lived not far from Lin Yun Er's house, in a small rented room on the fourth floor of a five-story building. We entered through the window; it was no problem for me, and we immediately found ourselves in the bedroom, luckily. It was quite... messy. No, the clothes were neatly folded in the closet, and there weren't many of them. Books, food, and various drinks were scattered around. I got the impression that the person living here had been so engrossed in books that she hadn't left for a couple of weeks! I lowered Jiaxing Er to the floor, and she sat on the bed, swaying, clearly having had a hard time.
"Jiaxing Er, change into clean clothes, and give me the ones you're wearing," I said, taking off my mask and the blood-stained black shirt. It was best to destroy her clothes from that house, not leave them anywhere. "I'll take a bath for now."
"Okay," she nodded, staring at me, naked to the waist, with captivated eyes.
Jiaxing Er had a decent bathroom, so I was able to relax a bit after a sleepless night. Unfortunately, there was no time to sleep; I needed to finish everything today and leave Xi'an. I spent about half an hour in the bath. When I returned, I saw Jiaxing Er, already changed. Instead of torn and stained clothes, she had on a new and clean T-shirt and shorts. But she was still quite dirty.
"Go wash yourself too," I said, after thinking for a moment.
She nodded and went to the bathroom. I looked at the time; it was already six in the morning. I decided to call Xu Zhao Ting. Maybe they were still out, or maybe they were already asleep, but in any case, I needed to know where they were. There was no answer. Was he sleeping so soundly? Maybe he had too much to drink yesterday. Well, never mind, we'll visit Zhou Ming first, I know where she lives. While I waited for Jiaxing Er, I studied the books scattered around her room. To my surprise, it wasn't just fiction; there were also many books on magic theory and history. I hadn't even read some of them and hadn't seen them. I felt sorry to just leave them, so I put a couple in my spatial bracelet.
"Brother, can I take some books from here?" Jiaxing Er asked, coming out of the bathroom. Her innocent expression, as well as her overall appearance, which had significantly improved after she bathed, could not leave anyone indifferent. However, her appearance only pricked my chest, and I began to doubt why I had even taken her with me, why I hadn't killed her then, and why I had to endure this pain.
"I've already taken some, you can take a couple more. We can't let them think you just ran away," I said, pushing aside all the extraneous thoughts. The decision had been made, so there was no turning back. "Where are your things?"
"Here," she said, handing me a bundle of dirty clothes, which even included underwear. "But why do you need it?"
"I'll destroy it later," I answered her calmly and honestly. After these words, it seemed to me that she became slightly sad. "Am I embarrassing you?" I asked directly, as there were too many hints of it.
"No, I mean, as a teacher, probably. I don't know." She faltered. "Here are these books," she said, handing me a rather large stack of books.
"Okay, let's move on," I said, putting the books and clothes into the spatial bracelet. "Hold on," I said, offering her my back. After she finally climbed on, I jumped out the window, softening the fall with wind magic. "Now let's go, I need to visit a couple of friends," I said, but headed not directly to Zhou Ming, but first went to a 24-hour cafe, and Jiaxing Er and I ate.
After that, we wandered around the city a bit, and when it was eight o'clock, we headed to Zhou Ming. However, we didn't manage to reach her; the police stopped us and detained us to clarify the circumstances of what happened yesterday on the north wall. I had already told Jiaxing Er that this could happen and explained what she needed to say.
However, I was surprised that they were looking for me because of a tip from Xu Zhao Ting, and I also realized why he hadn't answered my call, as he himself had likely just returned from interrogation. At the police station, we were interrogated, but they didn't find anything useful, as I assured them that I hadn't been anywhere near the north wall and had headed east, to the slums, where I met Jiaxing Er, my sister. After that, I bought her normal clothes, and we talked until morning. And now we are heading to meet my friends. The police tried to catch me on various events that happened in the city yesterday, which I should have seen if I had really gone to the slums, but they failed. Cameras were not yet widespread, and Big Brother couldn't tell them the truth.
We were interrogated separately at first, then together. Judging by what I saw when we were interrogated together, Jiaxing Er is a good liar and pretender, which I definitely liked. They kept us for about six hours, but finding nothing substantial, they let us go. When we left, Xu Zhao Ting called and invited us to meet him at the arena, so our next destination was there.
"Hello, Jiaxing Yun, where have you been all this time? The police are looking for you, is everything okay?" he said worriedly when we met. He was standing alone at the entrance to the arena.
"Yes, just walking around," I replied, scratching my head. "Yes, I know, they've already interrogated me, but alas, I don't know anything. I didn't go to the north wall, but was in the slums."
"Ah, I see. That's good, I was a little worried about you," he said, smiling. "I wanted to ask you yesterday, what have you been doing these four months? Are the Guardians really so dangerous that you had to hide in the forests?"
"Heh-heh-heh," Jiaxing Er chuckled softly, covering her mouth with her hand. She stood a little apart from me. I even understood her; knowing the whole situation, the Guardians posed no threat to me. "Brother, who is this?" she asked, pointing at Xu Zhao Ting.
"Brother!?" he almost shouted, staring at her with wide eyes. "Jiaxing Yun, do you have another sister?"
"Yes, this is my biological sister, Jiaxing Er," I replied with a smile, introducing her. She bowed slightly in greeting. "And this is Xu Zhao Ting, my friend and teammate in the hunter team."
"Nice to meet you, I am Xu Zhao Ting, a mid-level lightning mage," he said, also bowing slightly.
"And my name is Jiaxing Er," she just smiled in return.
"I met her in the slums. At first, she just seemed familiar, but then I remembered her by this green strand. I told you I don't remember well what happened before I came to Mo Fan's house, right? It turns out I have such a dear sister," Jiaxing Er blushed deeply at my words and lowered her head. "Where is everyone else?"
"They are in a cafe not far from here, waiting for He Yu and Xiao Hou to finish their entrance exams. They were released from interrogation yesterday before everyone else so they could prepare," he replied, leading us forward.
As a result, we arrived at an open-air summer cafe where Mo Fan, Mu Bai, Wang Pan, and Zhou Ming were sitting at a table. When we approached, everyone stared at me first, but Zhao Ting quickly explained everything to them, and then they turned their gaze to Jiaxing Er, who was standing behind me the whole time. Everyone had a different reaction to her, but they all clearly showed bewilderment, and Zhou Ming seemed even upset.
"My name is Mo Fan. Miss, what is your name, and what are you doing next to my brother?" Mo Fan, who was sitting closest to us, stood up and spoke first.
"Nice to meet you, my name is Jiaxing Er, I am his sister," she said with a smile. Then I also smiled, as one had to see the faces of everyone present. They seemed to have fallen out of reality, especially Mo Fan; it seemed his head was starting to boil from such a statement. Zhou Ming seemed slightly pleased, but soon she too sat in complete shock. Wang Pan and Mu Bai's jaws dropped from such a statement. Only Xu Zhao Ting, who had already been informed about this, stood and chuckled.
"Jiaxing Yun, is... is this your sister?" Mu Bai was the first to recover.
"Yes, biological," I replied and recounted the entire invented story. After hearing it, they were shocked.
"I see, so she is my sister too?" Mo Fan said thoughtfully after hearing it.
"Well, in a sense," I said, scratching the back of my head. If one reasoned logically, it was so. I am his brother, and she is my sister, so she is his too. Although it sounds quite strange.
"Jiaxing Yun, what happened between you and Lin Yun Er?" Zhou Ming asked, deciding to change the subject.
"Nothing, we broke up completely. Let's not talk about it," I said, suddenly becoming sad and very serious, and my chest ached again. I'm starting to get tired of this feeling. "Tell me instead what happened during the four months I was gone?" I asked, turning to Xu Zhao Ting and Mo Fan.
"Well, to start with, when you left, I managed to convince Mo Fan to become a hunter. We took Jiaxing Xia with us and registered in the league, but we needed to choose a captain, so I became it," Xu Zhao Ting began to explain, looking at me. He quickly lowered his eyes and added, "I wanted you to be it, but alas, to become a captain, you need to be present on site."
"It's okay, I couldn't help you with hunting then anyway," I said, waving my hand. There were no particular problems with this; it was even better if someone else was in charge of the team, it would help me remain unnoticed. "So, what successes have you achieved?"
"We took a mission to help the military in the city of Bo, and we were there for all four months," Xu Zhao Ting said with an awkward smile. "I understood why you didn't want to do this; there really isn't much money and not much experience. But we stayed anyway, as Jiaxing Xia got a job at the hospital there and is gaining a lot of experience. We volunteered for the most dangerous patrols and offered to clear out whenever there was an opportunity."
"I see, you've settled in nicely," I chuckled. "Experience, at least some experience."
"Yes, there was one incident at the very beginning," Xu Zhao Ting said, his voice slightly subdued.
"Did you decide to tell him about that guy?" Mo Fan asked. Zhao Ting nodded. "Yes, he was really creepy, Asura, I think his name was?" he asked. This didn't surprise me, but I still showed bewilderment on my face. At the same time, Jiaxing Er's face showed a slight shock and great interest in the story.
"And what did this Asura do?" she asked with interest.
"He killed a lot of servant-level monsters, essentially clearing out the entire district single-handedly. Initially, we didn't know it was him and were sent to determine the cause of death of so many monsters," Xu Zhao Ting began his story, recounting everything exactly, except for the Gong family tournament, which he omitted. "Jiaxing Yun, he's somewhat similar to you; he even fights the same way," Zhao Ting noted at the end.
"Anything is possible; there are quite a lot of lightning and wind mages in China," I said, shrugging. "And fighting with daggers is also common. I would be happy to be him, but unfortunately, I'm not that strong."
"I see, I thought so," Zhao Ting nodded. "Still, that Asura seemed like a pretty terrifying type to me. I had the feeling that killing was as easy for him as breathing; killing a person meant nothing to him," he said thoughtfully. Jiaxing Er giggled slightly at his words, but seeing my sideways glance at her, she pretended nothing had happened.
"Hey guys, we're back!" a clear voice rang out from the side.