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Late at night, rain was pouring down hard. An old man with a big belly was making his way home, holding an umbrella. As he walked, he suddenly noticed something lying on the road covered with a white cloth.
"Who's the jerk that dumped trash in the middle of the street?" Dr. Agasa muttered with a frown, walking closer to check it out.
But once he got near, he realized it wasn't trash at all. It was a little girl in an oversized white lab coat, lying face down on the ground, unconscious. The shock nearly made him drop his umbrella. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another figure a bit farther away—a boy dressed in black, so hard to spot in the dark.
"Wh-what the heck is going on here?"
Why are there two kids lying on the road in the middle of a downpour???
Inside a building that looked a lot like a research lab...
"Oh, you're awake?" Dr. Agasa rushed over as soon as he saw the boy open his eyes.
Hua Buming slowly blinked, hearing a stranger's voice. A white-bearded old man was leaning in toward him.
Wait... I was in a battle with the Shadow Emperor—how did this old guy sneak up on me without me noticing? Who is he?
A sense of danger surged through him. Instinctively, he sprang up from the bed, ready to throw a knife and kill the old man. The motion was smooth—just like always—but…
No knife came out.
Crap, where's my knife?!
Hold on a sec—what's wrong with my body?
Why are my hands so tiny?!
What the hell is going on? Rebirth? Reincarnation? Possession? What kind of messed up situation is this?! Hua Buming froze in place, still holding his throwing stance.
Dr. Agasa was so scared by the boy's sudden move that he fell right on his butt. His face went pale as he stared at the kid still posing like he was about to attack. That instant just now... it felt like he brushed past Death itself. Terrifying...
While both of them were frozen in shock, a soft voice came from the bed behind Hua Buming. The girl with chestnut-colored curly hair had woken up.
"Where... are we?"
The sound of her voice snapped both of them back to reality. Dr. Agasa coughed awkwardly and started explaining, "I saw you two passed out in front of the new family's house, so I brought you back here."
"We?" Hua Buming and the curly-haired girl both repeated in surprise, only now realizing the other was there.
Who's this mixed-race girl? And why the hell were we in the same bed?
"Who are you?" they asked at the same time, staring at each other—Hua Buming in Chinese, and the girl in Japanese.
Dr. Agasa looked surprised when he heard Chinese. He wanted to ask if the boy was from China, but realized he didn't speak the language and had no idea how to ask. The girl, however, sat up and looked at Hua Buming, asking in Chinese:
"You're from China?"
That's when it hit Hua Buming—the old guy and the girl had been speaking Japanese this whole time. His childlike face scrunched up in confusion as he switched to Japanese and asked, "Is this Japan?"
Dr. Agasa gave a nervous chuckle. "Ah, so you can speak Japanese. Do either of you remember your home phone numbers?"
"I don't have a home." They both answered at the same time—then glanced at each other in surprise.
"Uh..." Dr. Agasa gave them a weird look, then said, "Well... I guess I should probably call the police—"
Before he could finish, both Hua Buming and the girl's expressions changed, and they shouted in unison:
"No!"
"Uh..."
The three of them stared at each other in silence.
Dr. Agasa squinted at them suspiciously. "You two... didn't rehearse that or anything, right?"
"....."