With all that settled, Xia Zhi turned to head toward the bathhouse.
Seeing him leaving, Xia Lin quickly followed. "Daddy…"
Xia Zhi turned back with a helpless laugh. "Why are you following me? I'm going to take a bath."
Xia Lin looked up at him. "I… I want to bathe too!"
There was just no dealing with her.
"Fine. You go ahead and bathe first."
"Together!"
Xia Zhi watched her through his god's eye; there was something pitiful in her eyes. This kid clearly felt very insecure.
Maybe because she had lost all her original powers after putting on the [Golden Circlet].
Xia Zhi thought for a moment and said, "Alright, we'll go together. The bath is big anyway."
"Okay!"
As the two of them walked away, the other girls exchanged strange looks.
They didn't have any dirty thoughts about it—after all, it was just a bath, not as intimate as a full-body massage.
Still, they felt a bit weird… after all, they had never even bathed together with Mr. Xia!
--
The bathhouse inside the Serenitea Pot had been remodeled based on the design from the Summer Shop's bathhouse.
The water was heated with warming stones, and white steam swirled all around.
Xia Zhi wrapped in a towel, soaked himself in the water with his back against the edge, feeling thoroughly relaxed.
Not far away, Xia Lin imitated him, leaving just her head above the water, letting out a satisfied sigh.
"How is it?"
"It feels amazing!"
"If you like bathing, you can do it here every day."
"Mm!"
Xia Lin was all smiles.
Through his god's eye, Xia Zhi watched the girl, recalling her behavior earlier during introductions, and asked, "You seemed a bit afraid of Xia Ci and Xia Zhen?"
"Big Sister Xia Ci and Big Sister Xia Zhen…"
Xia Lin bit her lip.
"Mm… I am kind of scared of them…"
"Why are you scared of them?"
"Because they're scary."
"They're scary?"
"Yeah! Behind Big Sister Xia Ci is a huge, huge tree. And behind Big Sister Xia Zhen, there's this super bright lightning…"
"Wait… a tree and lightning?"
Xia Zhi's expression turned surprised.
Because Xia Ci was the Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, whose true form was the World Tree—a massive tree.
And Xia Zhen's true form was lightning itself.
"You saw that?"
"Mm."
Xia Zhi fell into thought.
If she really saw what she said she did, that meant Xia Lin might possess an ability to see through the true essence of things.
Maybe it had something to do with her understanding of this world being fundamentally different.
Xia Zhi looked up and asked, "Xia Lin, then what do you see behind me?"
"Behind you, Daddy?"
Xia Lin's eyes suddenly sharpened with focus, gazing intently behind him as if something really was there.
Then she began describing it word by word.
"There's a shadow."
"A shadow?" Xia Zhi frowned.
"Yes, it looks a lot like you, but I couldn't see his face clearly."
"And?"
"There's a pair of really dazzling wings on its back."
"Wings?"
Xia Zhi felt an odd sense of déjà vu.
"And it's wearing gloves."
"Gloves…"
Xia Zhi seemed to catch on.
"And there's a hat on its head."
"A hat…"
Xia Zhi was pretty sure by now.
"And there's a little badge on its chest."
"A badge…"
Xia Zhi silently opened his system panel and switched to his character screen.
There it was—a figure that looked a bit like him.
Equipped with exactly those same special items:
[Radiant Wings]
[Shadow Hand]
[Hat of Secrecy]
[Temporary Certificate]
Xia Zhi projected the image into the steam with his divine power and asked, "Does it look like this?"
Xia Lin's eyes lit up. "Yes! That's exactly it!"
"I see."
Xia Zhi closed the system panel.
So Xia Lin really did have an ability to pierce illusions.
No, wait…
He had already put the [Golden Circlet] on her, suppressing all of her original powers. By rights, she should just be a perfectly ordinary human now.
She shouldn't have any supernatural abilities left…
Where did this come from?
Searching through his solidified memory, Xia Zhi mentally reviewed everything that had happened tonight.
Finally, he found a clue in his memory: the [Transformation Pill] that had evolved to platinum-tier.
He remembered that shimmering pill, aside from its [Shapeshifting] effect, had also gained a new [Blessing] trait—
A trait that granted the user a random extraordinary talent.
"Xia Lin, did you have this power before?"
"Before?"
"Like, five hundred years ago."
"No, I didn't!"
"So you only got it now, after becoming human?"
"Mm! That's when it showed up!"
"I see." Xia Zhi nodded.
He locked on to Xia Lin through his god's eye.
A system prompt rang in his mind:
[Do you wish to use Skill Steal on the target?]
"Yes."
[Skill Steal successful. You have learned the skill [Eye of Truth] from the target.]
"[Eye of Truth]: Can see through hidden realities."
Xia Zhi read the extremely brief skill description and fell silent.
Although it was a rare ocular skill, its color was gray.
Because his own eyes had already been invaded by divinity, he couldn't use any ocular skills for now.
Still, the fact that this skill could ignore even the suppression of a platinum-tier item like the [Golden Circlet] meant it had to be something special.
"Xia Lin."
"Daddy?"
"Earlier, did you see anything behind Cloud Retainer?"
"I saw a bird!"
Xia Zhi couldn't help but laugh.
"That's not a bird—that's a crane."
----
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