"Yo, you're here." Xu Xiaoyou greeted Tang Xin.
"Why did you call me to a place like this?" Tang Xin asked with a frown.
Seeing the girl looking a bit sullen, Xu Xiaoyou stood up with a smile, walked behind Tang Xin, and squeezed her shoulders.
She led her over to the sofa.
"Don't worry~ it's official business. Sit, sit."
The environment inside the private box was dim. Brilliant lights shone onto a glass stage, with purple and light blue beams of light crisscrossing back and forth, casting mottled spots of light onto the crystal walls of the room.
"You remember what happened a week ago, right?" Xu Xiaoyou said while cracking melon seeds.
Tang Xin's expression softened slightly as she said, "The time you were invited to the tuner's office for tea?"
"Mm-hm. That investigator is still keeping an eye on me. It's quite a hassle."
"What can I do to help?" Tang Xin asked.
Xu Xiaoyou said mysteriously, "For now, just stay here and chat with me for half an hour."
An educational cartoon was playing on the screen. It seemed childish when they were kids, but now that they were grown up, it felt just right.
Seeing Xu Xiaoyou watching so intently, Tang Xin let out a light laugh and didn't say anything more.
She had probably misunderstood Xiaoyou; how could she be that kind of person?
Twenty minutes later.
The lights flashed, and the explosive music vibrated through the air.
Under the dark red lights, the crisp sound of ice clinking against glass rang out as drinks were exchanged.
"Have another drink, just one more drink, baby~"
At some point, the private box had become filled with flower cores. The blonde girl sat on the sofa, surrounded by several pistils who had huddled close.
With a dreamy and blurred gaze, she watched a row of stamens dressed in bunny-girl outfits perform a tap dance on the glass stage. A pink atmosphere spread through the dim room.
"I can't drink anymore, I really can't." Xu Xiaoyou waved her hand, her face tinged with a few streaks of light red, a faint smile playing on her lips.
"Just one more, the last one. This glass is called—Dreamy Night~"
"Hey... that's enough from you," Tang Xin said, her eyebrows nearly standing on end as she lowered her voice.
"Why are you being so bossy? Our baby can do whatever she wants," one of the pistils said unhappily, raising her voice.
"Exactly, so bossy." Another pistil reached out to put an arm around Xu Xiaoyou's shoulder, sitting beside her and leaning her entire body against the girl with an ambiguous look in her eyes.
Xu Xiaoyou kept her head down, her consciousness beginning to blur under the stimulation of the alcohol. She didn't speak. Pink mist drifted to the tip of her nose, making her frown slightly and shake her head.
"Come on, baby, create some art. Take this~" one of the pistils said in a charming tone, handing a paintbrush to Xu Xiaoyou.
"Create? Where do I draw? There's no canvas."
"Oh, stop it. One look and I can tell you're a regular here, yet you're still asking us where to draw."
That pistil bit her lip and turned around. In her gold silk backless dress, her smooth, flawless skin was presented before Xu Xiaoyou.
Being pushed and nudged between the pistils, Xu Xiaoyou's mind was momentarily dazed, and she didn't know what to do.
"Get out," Tang Xin raised her voice. "Everyone, get out!"
It seemed they hadn't expected the blue-haired girl, who had been silent in the corner, to suddenly explode like this. The flower cores in the private box widened their eyes and looked at Tang Xin in disbelief.
"Didn't you hear me? Out, now!"
Noticing that everyone's gaze had fallen on her, Xu Xiaoyou looked up dazed. Seeing the anger on Tang Xin's face as she stared at her, she covered her face and waved her hand.
"Go on, get out."
"What a buzzkill."
"Exactly, and the beautiful night was just getting started."
The stamens and pistils lined up and walked out of the private box one by one.
After everyone had left, Tang Xin grabbed Xu Xiaoyou's hand, intending to lead her out. At that moment, Xu Xiaoyou suddenly leaned her whole weight against her. Just as she was feeling flustered and lost, the girl's voice came through:
"I'll be counting on you in a moment. Protect me."
Tang Xin was slightly stunned. She turned her head and found that Xu Xiaoyou's face, which had been flushed with wine, had changed expressions at some point.
It was blurred yet serious.
"Otherwise, I might die."
Before Tang Xin could figure out the meaning behind those words, Xu Xiaoyou lowered her head. Worried the girl might collapse, Tang Xin gently tilted her shoulder to let the girl's head rest against her.
Just then, someone knocked on the door of the private room.
When the door opened, a girl with black hair and white clothes came into view. It was Bai Nian'an.
As soon as she entered the room, she covered her nose and mouth. The pungent smell of alcohol in the air made her feel uncomfortable. She looked around at the empty wine bottles and food scraps scattered everywhere. A glass prism cup rolled to her feet, the residual liquid inside reflecting multicolored light.
Bai Nian'an frowned deeply. "You two?"
"I'm sorry," Tang Xin said softly. "That you had to see this."
Bai Nian'an looked at Xu Xiaoyou with a complex expression, shook her head, and said nothing as she handed a CT scan to Tang Xin.
"This is?" Tang Xin took the CT and looked at it.
"The brain CT scan I took her to get at the Life Daybreak medical center before..."
Before Bai Nian'an could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by the blonde girl. Both people in the private box stared blankly at the delirious Xu Xiaoyou, who was crying and muttering to herself: "I only have a few days left to live. Am I going to die?"
"Before I die, I don't want to have too many regrets."
Bai Nian'an's lip twitched slightly. She thought it made sense; any ordinary person who learned they had been attacked by an urban eldritch creature and that there might be a lesion in their cranium with only a few days left to live would probably have this kind of mindset, letting themselves rot away in a life of luxury.
"Don't worry, she's fine. At least the plague doctor said there's nothing abnormal for now."
"But if she keeps up this lifestyle, it's hard to say."
"Go back early. Lately... try not to walk around alone at night."
Watching Bai Nian'an leave, those last words echoed in Tang Xin's ears. She looked at Xu Xiaoyou again and found that the girl was also looking at her. Where was there even a hint of sadness left on her face?
"I'm very sober now. I know what I'm doing."
"Good people don't live long, but scourges last for a millennium. Don't worry, I'll keep living a good life."
With that, Xu Xiaoyou put on a black woolen trench coat and walked out of the private box.
"You're still not sober..."
Tang Xin hesitated to speak. Recalling the words the other girl had entrusted to her, she silently suppressed her thoughts and followed the girl out of the flower shop.
Xu Xiaoyou walked unsteadily in the biting wind, looking as if she would tumble right into a snowdrift if someone gave her even a gentle push.
The streets were brightly lit on both sides, with the radiance of various lights and luxury stores intertwining. Under the silhouettes of the tall buildings, people in a hurry looked like tiny ants. In the shadows, danger seemed to lurk, and dark currents were surging.
At some point, the scenery of the bustling street began to recede, replaced instead by desolation and overgrown weeds.
On the outskirts of the city, the branches and leaves of the trees intertwined to form heavy shadows, like reaching ghost hands. The wind whistled through the woods, letting out sharp howls like mournful wails.
Xu Xiaoyou's figure passed in front of the waist-high weeds, stirring up a gust of wind that flattened the thick growth to the ground.
An abandoned factory building stood in the outskirts. The mottled corrugated shed cast a large shadow, looking like a rusty iron beast devoid of any aesthetic sense, completely out of place with the city hidden among the distant mountains.
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