3 AM.
Tohru was lying on the carpet, sleeping contentedly.
Hayashi told her to sleep on the bed, or go back to sleep.
But Tohru felt the carpet was most comfortable right now, wanting to nap for a bit first.
So Hayashi went to put on headphones and play games.
Through the gradual improvement of his physical fitness and mental willpower.
Hayashi discovered that the sleep time he needed was also gradually decreasing.
Previously he needed 8 hours of sleep.
When he first opened the shop, less than 7 hours.
After obtaining the Devil Fruit and continuously devouring, he only needed about 6 hours of sleep per day.
Later through his own training.
And Makima's constant "feeding."
He now only needed less than 5 hours of sleep per day.
Of course he could sleep more.
Because sleeping was comfortable.
But if he woke up at noon, he could go to sleep again at 7 AM and be fully revitalized.
This made Hayashi feel very amazing.
"If this continues, will I be able to go days, weeks, months, or even with energy replenishment, never sleep forever?"
Sleep only needs to replenish energy.
The upper limit and recovery speed of energy refer to willpower and body.
"I estimate I can soon sleep once every two days."
Hayashi went on Steam and played games for a while.
Played Sekiro for a while.
With his current neural reaction speed and consciousness, clearing the game was incredibly easy.
He could see the boss's every move clearly.
After clearing it.
Hayashi looked at the interface, feeling nothing.
"The boss isn't even as strong as me. If I went up there, the boss would be cut into 8000 pieces."
He played until 4 AM.
Then Hayashi went to sleep.
He woke up before 9 AM.
Opening his eyes.
Tohru had already left and returned to her own room to sleep.
Hayashi picked up his phone to check.
If there were no messages, he'd continue sleeping since there was nothing to do anyway.
When he opened his phone, there was one message.
(8:39) Takatsuki Sen: "I've finished the initial draft of my new work. All that's left is review and polishing. Can you come help evaluate it?"
Sent in the morning, only about 20 minutes ago.
Hayashi lay on his bed and started replying.
"Sure, but sending messages at this hour - you haven't slept, have you?"
The message was sent, and two minutes later came a reply.
Takatsuki Sen: "I thought you were asleep. I just took a bath and was about to go to sleep."
Hayashi: "Really pulling an all-nighter writing, huh? You're too intense. A normal person writing like this definitely couldn't handle it."
Takatsuki Sen: "So sometimes, I'm quite grateful for my body."
Hayashi: "When are you free? You could come to the shop this afternoon."
Takatsuki Sen: "Hmm..."
Hayashi: "Hmm?"
Takatsuki Sen: "Can you come now? Come to my house instead. Otherwise, thinking about this will keep me from sleeping. You have instant teleportation methods, right? Rize mentioned it before."
She mentioned it?!
That must have been after that night.
She tells Takatsuki Sen everything? Your relationship has gotten that close?!
Hayashi: "She really tells you everything..."
Takatsuki Sen: "Of course. Our relationship now is extraordinary."
Hayashi: "Alright, let me wash up and I'll come over."
Takatsuki Sen: "If possible, could you make breakfast at my house too? Anything is fine."
Hayashi: "Sure, send me the location."
Takatsuki Sen: "(Location address)."
After ending the chat.
Hayashi got up, washed up, and changed clothes.
Then he went downstairs to prepare the ingredients needed for fried rice, and after thinking about it, added a jug of milk tea.
Then he took out his phone.
He searched for what Takatsuki Sen's house looked like.
A search on his phone.
Showed a villa...
Although this villa was somewhat remote, in the suburbs, it also had land and wasn't crammed together with other villas - it was completely detached.
"Exaggerated..."
This villa must cost several hundred million yen.
And being able to buy it and live there openly meant all the money was clean.
This also reflected just how bestselling the writer Takatsuki Sen's name really was.
She could use the money from this identity to buy this villa.
That is, in broad daylight.
After confirming the location.
"Teleportation magic."
Hayashi snapped his fingers and instantly teleported to the living room of Takatsuki Sen's villa.
Arriving in the living room.
Hayashi first looked around.
The style was almost entirely European and modern, with luxurious decorations and renovations that were obviously expensive at first glance.
The entire house was almost completely carpeted.
It was very comfortable to walk on barefoot.
"Rich woman." Hayashi sighed.
"Hayashi-kun?"
As if hearing Hayashi's voice.
The figure of Takatsuki Sen wrapped in a bathrobe appeared at the second-floor stair landing.
"Yes." Hayashi nodded and asked: "Where's the kitchen?"
"The third room over there. I'll show you."
Takatsuki Sen came down. She had loose emerald-colored hair, revealing her smooth shoulders and collarbone as she led the way in front of Hayashi.
The bathrobe was very thin and wrapped tightly.
This made Hayashi discover for the first time that under Takatsuki Sen's previously plain clothes, she actually had such a good figure.
"Here it is."
Takatsuki Sen led Hayashi to the kitchen and pushed open the door.
What met his eyes was also a luxurious kitchen.
All the cookware was high-end brands.
The environment was very clean.
Everything was good, except you could tell at a glance that it had hardly been used.
Takatsuki Sen pointed at the kitchen and said:
"This top-tier kitchen finally welcomes its most distinguished user."
"You really are a rich woman."
After Hayashi's sigh.
While preparing the cookware, he asked Takatsuki Sen:
"Your real estate is so expensive. When Takatsuki Sen's identity is actively exposed later, what will happen to these houses? The loss wouldn't be worth it, right?"
"It's worth it." Takatsuki Sen didn't care at all, but still added: "But I'm not so foolish as to give this money to CCG."
"So before taking action, Aogiri Tree will handle this house."
"When the time comes, we'll just convert it directly to gold and put it in Aogiri Tree's headquarters warehouse. It's not that much money."
Okay, several hundred million yen, equivalent to tens of millions of yuan, isn't considered much money.
This was a real rich woman.
Of course.
This money definitely wasn't all earned by Takatsuki Sen using her writer identity.
The writer identity could only earn enough for this villa.
Her saying "it's nothing."
Referred to how for an organization like Aogiri Tree, making money was really exaggerated.
Compared to this villa's value, it really was nothing.
A drop in the bucket?
"Let me make the fried rice first."
After thinking for a while, Hayashi started making the fried rice.
He took out the pre-prepared rice.
Not sticky, freshly cooked, but the kind that was slightly dry with full grains.
Along with eggs, beef, ham sausage, salt, seasonings, etc.
After preparing everything.
Into the pan.
"Whoosh~!"
With an intense sound of high heat hitting the pan.
The rice and eggs mixed together perfectly.
Then fully fused with the seasonings.
This nearly perfect fried rice was complete!
During this time.
Takatsuki Sen sat nearby watching Hayashi intently.
Her hands clasped together, supporting her chin, staring without blinking.
Her gaze stuck to Hayashi's body.
She would also smile as he tossed the pan.
Until the fried rice was finished.
After Hayashi brought it to the table.
Only then did Takatsuki Sen remove her bathrobe, preparing to eat.
"?" This operation left Hayashi, who had just brought the food to the table, stunned.
When she removed her bathrobe.
The body revealed wasn't completely bare.
Instead, key areas were wrapped with bandages.
But most places were smooth as jade.
Takatsuki Sen was serving rice for both of them. Seeing Hayashi's daze, she looked down at herself and asked:
"Don't you like it?"
"It's not that... it's just you're..."
"At home, I've never liked wearing clothes."
"Hiss..."
Only then did Hayashi realize - so you have this attribute too?!
Recalling the memories in his mind.
Hayashi realized this was indeed the case.
As soon as Takatsuki Sen returned home, she would take off all her clothes, and occasionally even outside she would show her full-body bandage state.
"So that's how it is."
Hayashi sat down.
Takatsuki Sen pushed the bowl over and said: "Eat quickly, then look at my manuscript after eating."
"Mm." Hayashi sat down to eat while curiously asking: "Your house is so big, do you usually hire people to clean it, or do you clean it yourself..."
"Of course I hire people." Takatsuki Sen said while eating: "I just need to find a housekeeping company every so often. Takatsuki Sen's identity is temporarily that of a great writer, you know."
"Such a pity, I guess it'll be gone in a few days."
"There's nothing to pity. It's just an identity. It will burn out its most brilliant embers."
"Have you been watching CCG's recent movements?"
"Mm, I get internal intelligence every day."
"Then before you completely expose Takatsuki Sen's identity, you'll definitely create some earth-shattering event that shocks all of Japan, right?"
"Yes. Specifically, it will be mass prison breaks, exposing CCG's internal darkness, and open confrontation."
"You're going as far as open confrontation..."
Open confrontation.
That would be an open declaration of war.
Once they showed themselves like that.
Aogiri Tree would become CCG's main target.
Just like in ancient chaotic times when someone first declared themselves emperor.
Whoever stuck their head out first got hit first.
At that time, Takatsuki Sen's pressure would increase exponentially.
But the benefit was.
As long as they could hold their ground.
Aogiri Tree's power would grow stronger and stronger, and their core cohesion would become increasingly strong.
This step.
Was the most important starting point of Takatsuki Sen's plan.
That is, establishing the sole authority in the ghoul world.
Just like that.
Hayashi and Takatsuki Sen finished the fried rice.
Leaving the bowls on the table, Takatsuki Sen said she would wash them and asked Hayashi to look at the manuscript first.
Coming to the big red sofa in the living room.
Hayashi lay down on it, and the softness made his whole body sink in.
He placed the milk tea on the table.
Hayashi took a sip.
Takatsuki Sen went upstairs to get the manuscript: "Here."
"Let me see."
Hayashi sat up and began reading carefully.
Takatsuki Sen sat beside him, her whole body pressed against him, almost... no, at zero distance.
Hayashi opened the first page.
It wasn't the beginning, but a freeze-frame sketch of a herbivorous animal boy and a carnivorous animal girl.
Each step had tiny changes.
You could see the progression until they were lying face-to-face, embracing each other.
Opening the second page.
He began reading the manuscript.
The story began at an orphanage school where all the students had poor backgrounds.
The deer male protagonist was very charming, with countless female animals around him who liked him, but he knew that romance wasn't the way to change his life, always rationally seeking opportunities in this chaotic world.
The wolf female protagonist was like a bad girl. After being bullied, she exploded that night and killed those who bullied her.
The story that followed was like the outline Hayashi had seen before.
Madness, distortion, awakening, cooperation, rebellion, mutual benefit...
The deer was the strategist, the wolf was the killing god.
Together creating a new world.
The entire content wasn't very long.
After Hayashi became absorbed in reading, he finished it all.
During this time, Takatsuki Sen pressed closer and closer.
Even at the end, she was leaning on his shoulder.
The first thing Hayashi felt after finishing was admiration: "Worthy of being Takatsuki Sen. This actual finished product is even more stunning than the story in the outline."
This work had another layer of meaning.
Although the deer male protagonist was herbivorous, good-looking, and charismatic, he was ruthless, rational, and far-sighted.
Although the wolf female protagonist was carnivorous, a killing god, and mad, she was actually forced into it, and her heart yearned for coexistence between carnivores and herbivores.
Such contrast.
But...
"It's excellent!" Hayashi let out a long breath.
Seeing Hayashi finish reading.
Takatsuki Sen whispered in his right ear: "How is it?"
"Very good." Hayashi flipped back to the first page, looking at the animated frames: "These simple illustrations are also excellent."
Seeing Hayashi so calm.
Takatsuki Sen hugged him tighter, and the softness at her chest pressed more firmly.
She opened her mouth and gently bit a bit of Hayashi's ear.
And asked again: "Don't tell me you can't see it from this book. I don't believe it. Answer me quickly."
How could Hayashi not know?
This was basically a customized love letter!
If he could still hold back from this, could he even call himself a man?
Hayashi turned around, swept Takatsuki Sen into his arms, and headed upstairs.
"Come on, upstairs!"
"No, quickly, right here!"
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