Kafka was not a soft-hearted goddess who would casually take in homeless children.
That's why Silver Wolf didn't believe her reasons for keeping Zāwù were so simple. The girl's thoughts moved like lightning, flashing through the palace of her memory to extract the files related to Kafka. Kafka had once told a lie: that the inhabitants of her home planet all worshipped Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, and swore to protect Their beauty with their swords. But one day, They suddenly disappeared, and no one knew where They went.
This wasn't to say that Zāwù might be connected to Idrila.
It was simply that Silver Wolf wanted to exclaim.
Zāwù—he was just too good-looking!
So good-looking that even Kafka, who was obsessed with pretty faces, was smitten!
As for Silver Wolf's own opinion of Zāwù...
Hmph, what opinion could she have?
At most, she thought it was great that when she played two-player games in the future, she wouldn't have to control both characters by herself~
Expecting Blade and Kafka to play games with her?
She'd have better luck building an intelligent robot!
"I'm gonna go check on Zāwù. Hope Blade hasn't broken him."
Silver Wolf tossed that line out and left the room. She blew a bubble with her bubblegum to feign a casual attitude, hiding the faint concern she felt for Zāwù in her heart.
Kafka smiled faintly, her pink pupils deep and mysterious.
"Bladie is actually much gentler than you think."
"Tch..."
If Silver Wolf hadn't seen what that guy was like when he went crazy, she might have actually believed it.
Silver Wolf returned to the main hall. The two were no longer in front of the fireplace. She casually waved her hand, bringing up a virtual control screen, and her fingers, clad in fingerless black gloves, tapped rapidly. Soon, a portal with a cyber-pixel style appeared before her. Silver Wolf stepped through it and, in the next second, appeared in the cold, snowy landscape outside.
She couldn't help but hiss at the cold.
Blade's tall figure stood ahead, facing the wind and snow with a dashing air, his clothes fluttering while he remained as still as a mountain.
Zāwù, by contrast, looked much more pitiful, shivering in the cold wind dressed only in a set of unisex pajamas. But even so, the white-haired boy refused to let go of the sword in his hands—the Xianzhou artifact "Shard Sword," which emanated a murderous aura and had already torn bloody gashes across all ten of his fingertips. The sword itself was flawless, its dark body gleaming with a bloody light.
Kafka had said his body was a hundred times more sensitive than a normal person's. That meant this environment, which even she found cold, was probably like a frozen hell to him.
"This is bad... could this kid be the same type as Blade?"
He was a natural when it came to self-torture.
Silver Wolf furrowed her delicate brows and muttered as she walked towards Zāwù, leaving a trail of small footprints in the snow. She didn't dare to imagine the consequences if Zāwù were to step onto the Path of Destruction.
Perhaps... he could go even further than Blade?
To a point of no return?
Also, she had noticed early on that Zāwù was wearing her pajamas. Kafka probably grabbed them because of their unisex style and suitable fit. Silver Wolf didn't really mind. At most, she was a little taken aback when she realized they were the ones she had just worn yesterday and hadn't had time to wash.
"Blade, Zāwù is not your toy!"
It was rare for Silver Wolf to speak to the man with such a hint of anger.
Blade didn't turn or speak, still gazing with admiration at the boy beside him, who held the sword in a standard posture. Zāwù spared a sliver of his strength to defend Blade, directing the rest to resist the biting wind and the sword's corrupting aura. He was actually very good at finding clever solutions, able to find the optimal path in any situation. But at certain moments, he was as stubborn as a fool.
"No, Big Sis Silver Wolf..."
"I asked Big Bro Blade to teach me swordsmanship..."
That was after Blade had asked him—"You want to learn the sword from me, kid?"
Zāwù had asked in return, "If I can learn it, will Kafka... Big Sis Kafka not make me leave?"
Blade had replied, "She doesn't abandon those who are useful."
Zāwù: "...I will become a useful child."
Blade had turned and walked out into the wind and snow beyond the supply base. Zāwù had shrunk his neck. The fireplace behind him radiated constant warmth, clinging to his still-frail body like tentacles, trying to hold him back. He broke free from those threads of heat, one by one, and chased after Blade's tall figure.
...
That Zāwù could even hold the sword had far exceeded Blade's expectations. So his interest grew, and he ordered Zāwù to stand in the snow with the sword to see just how long he could last.
Silver Wolf's arrival might have been able to stop Blade's madness, but she couldn't change Zāwù's own determination. He stubbornly refused the girl's concern, not forgetting to thank her politely. It was a gentleness that seemed carved into his very bones, even if he couldn't remember what had shaped this part of his personality. Was it life science data and parameters, genetic modification experiments and surgeries? Or was it just the simple hope that if he was a polite child, his mother would like him?
He stood in the snow holding the sword. Gradually, he no longer felt the cold, no longer shivered, and no longer even blinked. His entire being seemed to enter a state of "no-self," his mind as empty and clear as the sword.
But in reality...
—He had simply frozen solid.
Even his consciousness had sunk into that white void.
He could no longer think.
The last wisp of memory in his mind was the rare sound of Silver Wolf's panicked voice and Blade's confusion.
"?"
"How'd he just... die?"
"What do you mean 'how'!? Not everyone is immortal like you!"
Silver Wolf's Aether Editing could modify some parameters of reality, but it couldn't directly rewrite Zāwù's vital signs. Otherwise, the expert in life sciences would be her, not Ruan Mei!
Together, she and Blade carried Zāwù's frozen body back into the warmth of the cottage. After being given anti-freeze medication and constantly baked by the heat... Zāwù's frozen body and mind slowly revived.
He tried to flutter his eyelashes, to open his eyes, but all he saw was darkness. Silver Wolf, wanting to prevent him from getting snow blindness, had adjusted her goggles and put them on him.
He could hear Big Sis Silver Wolf's indignant voice by his ear.
"Kafka, aren't you going to do something about him!"
"Alright, alright, Bladie didn't do it on purpose."
"But this kid is really foolish. Why be so serious?"
Blade had been silently accepting Silver Wolf's accusations without a single word of rebuttal. But at this moment, he looked up, his one red eye, unobscured by his bangs, fixed on Kafka's smiling face.
"Perhaps he was afraid of being thrown away by you."
Hearing this, Kafka's hand, which had been reaching out to touch the boy's forehead, paused in mid-air. But in the end, it still landed on Zāwù's snow-white hair.
She stroked it gently, her smile never fading.
"Well, that's still foolish."
-------
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