Outside the entrance to Mobius Laboratory.
A faint scent of disinfectant lingered in the air, mingled with the cool, sharp fragrance of high-end perfume.
The automatic doors slid open with a soft whoosh.
A teenage boy in a high school uniform — his bangs so long they covered half his eye — was lounging against the wall with the air of someone who had nothing better to do, idly tossing a coin.
The moment he spotted Su Yu, the listless glaze over his eyes lit up in an instant, like a spy who'd just made contact with his handler.
At his side, Griseo had a small tote bag slung over her shoulder, a sketchbook cradled in both arms, and a charming blue long-dress that made her look like a princess straight out of a fairy tale.
A pity that the person standing beside her was no knight.
He was a chuunibyou.
Kosma. The youngest resident of the Golden Courtyard apart from Griseo, currently in the midst of life's peak experience — the one known as chuunibyou.
One hand was shoved in his pocket; the other pressed over his perfectly uninjured eye, clearly imitating the pose of someone sealing away an Evil King's Eye.
It was only when Su Yu walked up to him that he reluctantly dropped the expression that said "I am contemplating the Finality of the cosmos."
"Bro Su Yu, you're here," the boy said, doing his best to pitch his voice low and cool.
Griseo stood quietly at Kosma's side.
When she saw Su Yu, she said nothing — only gave a small nod. A flicker of something only Su Yu could read passed through those pale violet eyes that seemed capable of reflecting a person's soul: pure, undisguised relief.
Apparently, being forced to listen to a chuunibyou teenager ramble all morning counted as a form of spiritual discipline, even for Teacher Painted World.
The handoff was simple enough.
But just as Su Yu was about to leave with the two girls in tow, Kosma suddenly sidled up to him.
"Hey… Bro Su Yu."
The boy glanced left, then right. Once he'd confirmed there was no terrifying pink-haired woman lurking nearby, he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "Have you heard? Things have been getting weird lately — in Arc City's underworld."
"The underworld?"
Su Yu raised an eyebrow, fighting back a smile, and obligingly arranged his face into a suitably grave expression.
"How so?"
Kosma drew a deep breath, eyes gleaming with that particular unholy light that could only be described as gossip mixed with hero worship.
"A mysterious ancient martial arts faction called the Tai Xu Sword Sect has suddenly emerged from seclusion!"
"According to my intelligence source on the dark web — which is actually the local community forum — the Tai Xu Sword Sect has a Little Grandmaster who has lived in total isolation for years… and she's just come down from the mountain to train in the mortal world!"
Behind Su Yu, Kiana went rigid.
She instinctively tugged the brim of her cap down lower, trying to bury her face in shadow.
Her toes were already curling so hard inside her shoes she could probably dig out a three-bedroom apartment.
Kosma was completely oblivious to the awkwardness of the very subject of his gossip standing right there, and kept right on swimming in his own world.
"Legend has it that though this Little Grandmaster is young, her cultivation has already reached heaven-piercing levels!"
"And her appearance is absolutely unmistakable—" He stretched out his hand and traced an exaggerated arc through the air. "The face of a child, the hair of a crane! An air of immortal grace! They say she's cultivated all the way to a state of returning to one's roots — even reversing the effects of age!"
"Walking, she is flanked by the aura of dragons and tigers! One sweeping glance from her eyes is enough to shatter the guts of any villain!"
"Pfft—"
Su Yu slapped a hand over his mouth, pretending it was a cough.
The face of a child with the hair of a crane. Reversing the effects of age. Right.
Sure, the white hair was real, and sure, she did look young — but applying those particular phrases to Kiana…
No matter how he heard it, it sounded exactly like a description of that ancient hag from Tianshan Mountain.
At this point, Kiana had given up on speech entirely.
She had her head bowed so far down she looked like she was trying to find a crack in the floor to disappear into.
Please stop. I'm begging you, please just stop.
This young lady is just a Valkyrie who wants to eat pizza and play video games — not some age-reversing ancient monster!
"Bro Su Yu, do you think I'd ever get to meet this immortal in person?" Kosma's expression was that of a fanboy dreaming of meeting his idol.
"If I could get even a word or two of guidance from that senior, maybe my [Vishnu]power would finally start to awaken… maybe we could even spar a little—"
As he spoke, his gaze drifted — seemingly by chance — to the girl who had been standing with her head down the whole time.
White hair.
Looked young.
And though she currently seemed a little… shrunk into herself, there was an unmistakable undercurrent of someone powerful.
Kosma's pupils shook.
"Just like… just like…"
His trembling finger pointed at Kiana, his voice cracking on the words.
"Exactly the same as this person right here——!!!"
Kiana's head snapped up, eyes blazing with a message that could not have been clearer: Don't you dare.
"Huh? Wait a second…"
Kosma's brain was running at full speed, apparently stitching together a number of suspicious details into one coherent picture.
"White hair… hanging around Bro Su Yu… could it be…?!"
The boy's face broke into a look of sudden revelation, and he jabbed a finger at Kiana, practically shouting: "Could this be the person Sister Elysia mentioned — your girlfriend??"
The air froze for a tenth of a second.
Su Yu had been bracing for the kid to recognize Kiana — but absolutely no one could have predicted his brain would leap that direction instead.
"No! No! Absolutely not!"
"No! No! Absolutely not!"
Su Yu and Kiana, synchronized to a flawless one hundred percent, denied it in unison — three times in a row, like a pair of perfectly matched parrots.
The timing was impeccable. Even the speed of their head-shaking was uncannily identical.
The matching expression of "what on earth are you talking about" horror on both their faces was, frankly, a work of art.
Kosma slowly raised a question mark.
[Little friend, do you have many question marks right now .jpg]
That level of perfect synchronization… and you're telling me you're not together? Who's going to believe that!
Is this what adults are like? Is this what they call tsundere?
Still, for a chuunibyou teenager, a legendary martial arts master was ultimately a far greater draw than any hint of romance.
"Anyway, Bro Su Yu — if you ever run into anyone from the Tai Xu Sect, you have to get me an autograph! I've been feeling like my [Vishnu]power has been showing signs of awakening lately, so maybe I'd actually be able to spar with that Little Grandmaster—"
Just as it looked like the kid was about to relapse into full chuunibyou mode, Griseo, who had been standing quietly the whole time, suddenly tugged at the hem of Kosma's clothes.
"Kosma."
Griseo, who hadn't said a word this whole time, spoke up.
The little painter's voice was soft, but it cut through Kosma's incantation with surgical precision.
She blinked, the picture of innocence, and pointed to somewhere in the distance.
"Didn't Sister Daisy say… she was going to help you with your homework today? The time… looks like it's almost here."
"!!!"
Those words landed like a magic spell.
Kosma's composed cool-guy facade crumbled on the spot, replaced by the face of a man meeting his doom.
"Oh no! I totally forgot!"
"I'm dead, I'm dead! If I'm late she's going to lecture me for days!"
In an instant, the lone warrior of brooding solitude regressed into a high schooler scrambling to finish his homework.
"Uh — Bro Su Yu! I'm leaving Griseo in your hands! I'm out!"
And with that, he slathered oil on his feet and bolted like a gust of wind, fast enough to leave an afterimage.
Anyone who didn't know better would have thought a Honkai Beast was chasing him.
Watching Kosma's retreating figure disappear, Kiana finally let out a long breath.
The double threat of social death — being mistaken for an ancient monster and someone's girlfriend simultaneously — had finally been neutralized.
She patted her chest and asked, with genuine curiosity, "So… who's Daisy? That chuunibyou kid seemed really scared of her."
Su Yu watched the figure that had already vanished around the corner and gave a helpless, rueful laugh.
"Daisy… she's Kosma's senior at school, and she's a… very persistent girl."
He shook his head, a note of world-weary understanding in his voice.
"She calls it tutoring, but everyone can tell — that girl has feelings for Kosma."
"And that oblivious idiot has nothing in his head except becoming a hero and saving the world and blah blah blah. He has absolutely no idea."
"Think about it — what normal girl would, without any other reason, keep dragging a guy into study sessions? It's not charity."
Kiana nodded along with a semi-understanding look.
"Oh… I see."
She glanced at Su Yu without quite meaning to.
Well then… what normal boy would, without any other reason, cook for a stray girl every day, buy her clothes, and then spend hundreds of thousands renovating a dojo for her?
The thought had barely surfaced before Kiana squashed it back down, face going red.
No no no! That's completely different! That's — that's for making a game! It's a professional arrangement!
What neither of them noticed was this:
Griseo glanced back once in the direction Kosma had gone — then glanced forward at Su Yu and Kiana walking ahead of her.
The little girl took out her paintbrush and traced an invisible stroke through the air.
The color… it's all pink, isn't it.
Though… some colors are very obvious.
And some colors… are still playing hide-and-seek.
"Alright, enough about that idiot."
Su Yu turned around and looked at Griseo, who had been standing obediently in place the whole time.
He crouched down, meeting the little girl's eye level, and offered her a gentle smile.
"Griseo, did you get 'the thing'?"
Griseo nodded.
She reached into her small tote bag — covered all over in colorful doodles — and rummaged around for a moment.
Then she produced a set of car keys: an extravagant design, dangling a green snake-shaped keychain.
"…Got it. Aunt Mobius says that if it accidentally gets scratched, she'll sell Brother Su Yu to her as a test subject."
"Ahem… she's joking."
Su Yu took the keys, and felt their weight settle heavily into his palm.
Mobius was almost certainly not joking — but for the sake of today's plans, he'd take the gamble.
"Alright, let's go. I'm taking you both for a ride."
Su Yu led the two of them to the underground parking garage with the ease of someone who'd done it before and pressed the unlock button on the key.
"Beep beep—"
Two crisp chirps echoed through the cavernous underground garage.
Then, in the corner, a spotlight blinked on.
A convertible sports car — aggressively styled, its entire body draped in an eerie and mesmerizing fluorescent green — sat crouched there in silence.
Sleek curves. Scissor doors. An absurdly dramatic rear spoiler.
Every single detail was unapologetically announcing its price tag and its owner's taste.
Kiana's eyes went completely round.
Even without knowing the first thing about cars, she could tell at a glance that this was in an entirely different universe from that little electric scooter from before.
This thing was insanely cool.
"Su — Su Yu?!"
Kiana pointed at the sports car, her finger actually trembling.
"You — you still say you're not a secret millionaire!"
"Even selling you couldn't buy something like this!"
"Did you rob a bank?! Or are you actually the head of Anti-Entropy?!"
Su Yu looked at Kiana's "I've been deceived this whole time" expression, and laughed despite himself, shaking his head.
"I really am not."
He dangled the snake keychain in front of her.
"This is Dr. Mobius's car — she owns this lab."
"She's, well… a very wealthy scientist. But she basically lives in her lab, so the car just sits here collecting dust."
"I was thinking of taking Griseo to the amusement park, and I couldn't exactly ride the little electric scooter there, could I? So she lent it to me."
Kiana eyed Su Yu with deep suspicion, then eyed the car — green in a way that was almost unsettling.
Suddenly, something seemed to click for her, and her expression grew even stranger.
The look she was giving him could only be described as three parts shock, three parts disdain, and four parts… something too complicated to name.
"Borrowed it? From a rich lady?"
Kiana took a deep breath, pointed at Su Yu, and enunciated each word with great deliberation:
"Su Yu...… you're living off a sugar mommy!"
"Pfff—"
Su Yu nearly choked on thin air.
Sugar mommy! Of all things!
Well… in a strictly technical sense, back when he used to run experiments for Mobius and she'd pay him "nutritional fees," it did sort of resemble that arrangement.
But having it said out loud this bluntly — did a man have no dignity left?!
And yet, looking at Kiana's expression — the triumphant "I've finally seen through you" face — Su Yu found he had no desire to explain himself at all.
The corner of his mouth gave one slight twitch. Then, slowly, his face settled into a look of profound, enigmatic — even faintly tragic — composure.
He sighed, and tilted his face upward at a forty-five-degree angle toward the garage ceiling.
"Yes, Kiana."
Su Yu's voice dropped low, rich and resonant, as though bearing the full weight of the world on his shoulders.
"It's all for you, you know."
"To buy you good food, to renovate your dojo, to give you a good life…"
He turned to look at her, his eyes warm with exaggerated devotion.
"I had no choice but to… sacrifice my looks and become a kept man. What do you say? Are you moved?"
"You — you —"
Kiana clearly hadn't expected him to be this shameless — to actually just own it.
Her face went crimson in an instant. She jumped like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Are you an idiot?!"
"Nobody asked you to sacrifice your looks! Nobody asked you to be a kept man!"
"This young lady — I'll earn money and support you myself! Return the car! Return it right now!"
Watching Kiana stomp around in a flustered panic — while genuinely worrying that he'd gone down a bad path — Su Yu finally couldn't hold it together and burst out laughing.
"Alright, alright, I was just messing with you."
He pulled the car door open and made a sweeping welcoming gesture.
"Get in, my dear high-maintenance princess. This is just a favor between friends, nothing more."
Kiana shot him a glare that could melt steel, muttering things like "stupid Su Yu" and "total liar" under her breath — but she climbed obediently into the passenger seat all the same.
Griseo, practiced and unhurried, clambered into the back seat.
The engine rumbled to life, and the green sports car rolled smoothly out of its parking space.
The mood inside the car, after all that playful banter, had lightened considerably.
Griseo, who had been sitting quietly in the back the whole time, suddenly leaned forward over the back of the driver's seat.
Those pale violet eyes of hers rested softly on the two people in the front row — still bickering away.
Her gaze settled on Kiana's profile: still carrying the faintest trace of ruffled embarrassment, but no longer shadowed by the clouds that had been there before.
"…Sister."
Griseo spoke suddenly.
"Hm? What is it, Griseo?"
Kiana turned her head, looking at the little painter with a mildly puzzled expression.
Griseo extended her small hand and traced an invisible line through the air — as though sketching out the shape of Kiana right now.
The corners of her lips curved into the faintest, warmest smile.
"…Your color."
"It's much brighter than last time."
No longer that blue wrapped in grey shadow, fragile and on the verge of breaking.
But rather… like the sky after rain has passed. Clear and luminous.
With just a little bit of warm gold — the kind that belongs to the sun.
Kiana froze.
She looked into Griseo's eyes — those eyes that seemed to see straight through to a person's heart — and instinctively touched her own cheek.
My color… got brighter?
Is it because of… that idiot beside me?
She turned her head to look at Su Yu, focused entirely on driving.
The sports car pulled out of the underground garage, and sunlight poured all at once into every corner of the cabin.
Su Yu's hands were steady on the wheel, his eyes fixed forward — completely unaware that Kiana was watching him.
Kiana looked at that earnest, focused face, and felt a faint warmth creep into her cheeks.
Well — that Mobius "sugar mommy's" car isn't even all that great anyway. The air conditioning alone is terrible.
Once this young lady — once I've made some money, I'm definitely buying my own car.
Though… being underage means I can't drive it myself — which means that idiot Su Yu would have to be the one to benefit.
Kiana made a quiet, firm resolution.
When that day comes, she would make absolutely sure to buy a car with excellent air conditioning.
____
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉