Aidan returned before dinner with a very obvious mark on his face because that dragoness had been so anxious that she had given his face a big slurp.
"She... chased you the whole way?"
Aidan nodded vigorously.
"And you just let her kiss you?"
He shook his head frantically.
"Then where did this mark come from?"
Aidan fell silent.
His massive dragon claws gestured in the air, trying to recreate the scene at the time. But the image was too tragic, and even he didn't want to recall it. That dragon really was as passionate as fire, and that big mouth had landed a kiss right on his face.
"So you just let yourself be taken advantage of like that?" March 7th stood with her hands on her hips, her tone full of disappointment. "With a body that big, you just let someone kiss you whenever they wanted?"
Aidan gave a pitiful whimper.
It was mainly because he had no experience dealing with female hooligans.
"Besides, she didn't mean any harm, so I couldn't bring myself to strike back."
"Sigh... really, are dragons these days so lacking in reserve?"
March 7th grumbled.
Aidan nodded heavily, a long wail escaping his throat. Dan Heng watched Aidan's miserable state, his lip twitching slightly.
"She chased you all that way just to get one kiss, and then you ran back?"
"What else? Was I supposed to kiss her back?"
"Of course not!" March 7th blurted out. After shouting, she felt her reaction might have been a bit much and quickly added, "I mean... well... you don't even like her, so how could you just kiss her!"
"Alright, alright, let's not talk about that for now." Himeko walked over holding a coffee cup, looking through the glass at the giant dragon outside the window. "Aidan, can you eat anything right now? Pom-Pom has dinner ready, but in this state..."
"I was so desperate I figured it out."
During the chase, he had been so desperate that he suddenly learned how to become smaller.
Although he couldn't get too small, he had shrunk from a size that could wrap around the Astral Express many times to a size that could barely manage three loops.
"Is that mark on your face a brand?"
"I don't know how to remove it yet."
Aidan looked utterly despondent.
...
Aidan stood up from the floor.
He had finally returned to his normal human appearance, and the mark on his face was gone.
He was exhausted.
He returned to his room and lay back on his bed with satisfaction.
Ah...
A soft bed.
Comfortable.
He lay perfectly straight on the bed and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, March 7th pushed open her door and felt that something wasn't quite right with the Astral Express today—if there was anything strange, it was that... the train seemed to have many more symmetrical decorations.
Right, for every bonsai on the left, there was definitely one on the right, and they were facing opposite directions.
March 7th slowly turned around.
There were three flowers in the vase on the left, and three flowers in the vase on the right, even the petals were mirrored. Next to the wall clock was another identical one; one showed standard time, while the other showed... wait, why are there two?
What exactly was going on? Did a thief break in last night? But what kind of thief would be bored enough to come onto the Astral Express just to rearrange things?
It must be Aidan.
Did this guy switch to some OCD Path today? Does everything have to be symmetrical?
"Aidan! Where are you!"
This was definitely Aidan's doing!
She threw open the door to Aidan's room.
The room was empty. But the sight inside made March 7th gasp. The bed was so flat there wasn't a single wrinkle, and the pillow was placed exactly in the center of the headboard. The pens, notebooks, and water cup on the desk were all lined up in a straight row, and even the water level in the cup was perfectly level with the water in the vase next to it.
Late-stage OCD!
Welt pushed open the door. He usually used one hand to lean on his cane, but today he was holding an identical Star of Eden in each hand, walking as if he were skiing.
"Pfft."
March 7th couldn't hold it in when she saw Welt's appearance.
Welt stood in the corridor, looked down at the two identical Stars of Eden in his hands, and let out a long sigh.
"Is this Aidan's doing too?"
"Yes."
Following the trail down the corridor, they soon found the culprit in the Party Car.
"Hey, Aidan, your days of having OCD on the Astral Express are over. Hurry up and change Mr. Yang back."
"If you want it, then you'll have to take it. But you already knew that."
"I had a feeling you'd say that."
March 7th followed up instinctively.
"So why did you turn Mr. Yang into a skier today!"
"What skier?"
"The fact that Mr. Yang is holding two canes."
"I just duplicated a cane for him. I didn't force Mr. Yang to walk with two canes."
"?"
The air suddenly went silent.
"So Mr. Yang just wanted to walk with two canes himself?"
March 7th looked back with dead fish eyes.
"Ahem, well..."
Welt cleared his throat awkwardly, attempting to hide the extra Star of Eden in his left hand behind his back with a mature and steady posture.
"It's not that... I saw an extra one on the table and thought it shouldn't go to waste, and..." Old Yang's eyes drifted, "Walking while leaning on both is indeed quite stable. It has a... well, a symmetrical beauty to it."
"It is not scarcity that is the concern, but inequality. Having a cane in the left hand while the right is empty is, in itself, a form of discrimination against the right hand. For the balance of the universe and the coordination of the body, two canes are a necessity."
Aidan said.
"What's the deal today? The Path of Equilibrium?"
"Yes, today I am the Arbiter of [Equilibrium]."
His gaze fell on March 7th's camera.
"Two cameras... is this, is this right?"
March 7th looked at the second camera Aidan had produced with a snap of his fingers and fell into deep thought.
"Only photos taken this way are balanced. One for the left, one for the right; it won't make one side of the universe feel neglected."
March 7th held the two identical cameras, looking from left to right, lost in deep thought.
"So... I have two cameras now?"
"Yes, two," Aidan nodded. "One to shoot the left, one to shoot the right. Finally, by stitching the photos together, you'll get a perfectly symmetrical picture."
"Who on earth takes photos by shooting the left and right sides separately!"
"Don't you think this is very balanced? The image seen by the left eye is recorded by the left camera, and the image seen by the right eye is recorded by the right camera. Finally, they merge in the mind into a complete visual experience."
"I feel like this is quite pointless."
[The current Aidan is not the true Equilibrium... he is still at the beginning of Equilibrium... he hasn't truly stepped onto the Path of Equilibrium...]