Whatever happens, don't let her find out I'm in here!!!
Theresa prayed frantically, running through what felt like every prayer she had learned in her several decades of life.
Su Yu sat behind the desk, holding the same faintly rigid posture he'd frozen into the moment someone latched onto his calves, not daring to move a muscle.
The heightened senses granted by the second-stage Genetic Lock snapped to maximum alert in that instant.
The door swung open.
"Su Yu! You're in there, right? I'm coming in!"
It was the same voice as always, bursting with energy, carrying that faint note of goofiness.
No question about it. That was Kiana's voice.
But.
Su Yu's spine went ramrod straight, and the hair on his arms rose one strand at a time.
Wrong.
The footsteps were wrong.
Kiana always walked like a gust of wind, loud and clattering, her soles slapping crisply against the floorboards.
But these footsteps coming in now...
Light.
Languid.
Like a cat that had just eaten its fill and was pacing elegantly out to inspect its territory.
And the aura seeping in along with those footsteps was absolutely not something that food-obsessed little Paramecium, whose entire vocabulary consisted of complaining about being hungry, could ever produce.
Su Yu swallowed hard.
It was Sirin.
That tsundere pufferfish who'd been bottled up in the consciousness space for who knew how long, who had just gorged herself full of "faith" after a single CG went viral across the entire internet, her tail practically pointed at the heavens.
She'd actually waited for Kiana to go down for her afternoon nap and quietly swapped accounts to log in!
Su Yu wanted to weep, but no tears would come.
Clinging to his left leg was a Theresa trembling in terror of total social annihilation, and standing in front of him was about to be a Sirin whose head was full of "Your Queen has come to hand out rewards" and who could trigger a nuclear detonation at any second.
What kind of hell-difficulty warzone was this?!
From the corner of his eye he saw a pair of feet in white ankle boots come to a stop in front of the desk.
Sirin didn't walk straight up to him.
She simply stood there, as though admiring her prey, as though savoring the pleasure of having everything under her control.
Thanks to that The Queen's Descent CG, the number of her "believers" in the real world had exploded.
All those Earthlings hammering out "Long live Her Majesty the Queen" in front of their screens had been converted into an endless stream of Cognition, making her existence more stable than it had ever been.
So she had decided to grant a "reward from the divine" to this vassal of hers - a man with a poisonous mouth and a black heart, admittedly, but one who always built her a magnificent stage when it mattered.
The corner of Sirin's mouth curled into a mischievous smile.
Instead of circling the desk to face Su Yu, she slipped nimbly along the wall and came around, without a whisper of sound, to a spot directly behind the boss's chair.
Su Yu felt the air shift behind him.
He started to speak. "Sir-"
He didn't get a single word out before his voice was sealed off in his throat.
A waterfall of long white hair, cool as silk, poured down over the top of the chair back without any warning, spilling across his shoulders in an instant.
Sirin leaned forward, hanging upside down over the high back of the chair.
Her hands closed precisely around Su Yu's cheeks, her fingers slightly cool against his skin, carrying a strength that brooked no resistance.
And in that moment, with both his legs pinned so tightly that he couldn't make any sort of evasive move, Sirin bent down and kissed him hard on the lips from above, her posture brimming with aggression.
Those brilliant golden eyes opened right in front of his, glittering with a smug, condescending triumph.
Su Yu's brain went blank with a shrill buzz.
This was going to get him killed!!!
And at that very moment, beneath the desk.
In the deepest, most hidden corner.
Theresa - young mistress of the Schicksal Foundation, third shareholder of miHoYo, an older single woman with precisely zero romantic history.
Her mental state could no longer be described as a mere "breakdown."
It was the apocalypse arriving, her entire worldview melting down, and the collapse of reality itself, all rolled into one.
Her field of vision was so restricted that she couldn't see the golden eyes hanging upside down, nor sense the dangerous aura belonging to a Herrscher.
All Theresa could see was that cascade of white hair spilling down from above, and the hem of a white hoodie she knew far too well.
That was Kiana!
And right now she was pinning that man called Su Yu to his boss's chair and kissing him by force, with a wildness Theresa wouldn't have dared imagine even in a dream!!!
Theresa clapped both hands over her mouth, choking back every scream trying to burst out of her throat.
Her blue eyes went so wide the eyeballs looked ready to pop free.
Scandalous.
This was too scandalous for words!!!
In the silent office, every sound passing between the two of them was a fine little needle, worming through the gap under the desk and burying itself in Theresa's ears.
Her whole face flushed from the roots of her ears all the way down her neck, several shades brighter than a boiled crab.
The hands that had been clutching Su Yu's calves had long since gone stiff and numb.
The valve in her mind labeled "reason" melted down completely in that instant.
All manner of outrageous mental images spun through her head like a revolving lantern.
So that girl Kiana... that time she was watching those "high-definition videos of human reproduction" on her phone, she hadn't just been idly browsing at all. She'd actually put every last bit of it into practice?!
No! That wasn't it!
This had gone way past putting theory into practice!
That practiced stance, that domineering offensive posture!
Exactly how far had those two gotten behind my back?!!!!!
Theresa felt a surge of blood rush straight to the crown of her head, her ears ringing with nothing but static.
She half suspected the next second would bring something even more forbidden into view - clothes hitting the floor, for instance.
It dragged on like a century, and passed like a single breath.
The deep kiss finally ended.
Sirin pulled back slightly, though her hands still cradled Su Yu's face.
She was breathing lightly, the tip of her tongue running along the corner of her lips.
Those golden eyes were full of the satisfaction of a prank pulled off perfectly, mixed with a matter-of-fact air of "so that's all there is to it, and it's rather fun."
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced beneath the desk.
Nothing in this room could be hidden from the senses of the Herrscher of the Void.
From the very moment she pushed the door open, she had known with perfect clarity that a tiny woman was curled up into a ball beneath that mahogany desk.
Theresa Apocalypse.
But in Sirin's personal dictionary, that name did not come attached to any title like "elder" or "Auntie."
Even if the little shorty insisted on it constantly.
Not long ago, she had kindly sent Sirin a mysterious little website.
It was that very link which had opened the door to a whole new world for a Sirin who, at the time, had been diligently studying "advanced techniques for taming humans."
Certain events afterward had eventually made Sirin realize that the material in question had very little to do with "taming."
But there was no denying it: this woman called Theresa was her "founding instructor" in the field.
And by Sirin's crude, straightforward Herrscher logic, if you supply me with "study materials," that makes you my subordinate.
Su Yu was her vassal, so Theresa was her loyal "Servant Number Two."
Now, then.
She, the great and divine one, had arrived at just the right moment to inspect the results of her studies - and hand out a little bonus to her underlings while she was at it.
Sirin didn't let go of Su Yu's face. She merely tilted her neck a fraction.
Those brilliant golden eyes cut through the shadows beneath the desk and locked, unblinking, onto the woman huddled in the corner, red-faced, hands clamped over her mouth, on the verge of fainting.
The corner of her mouth curled into a smile of the purest malice.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a soul-piercing enchantment, exploding through the cramped space under the desk like a demon's whisper.
"Found~ you~"
Those five little words.
For the Theresa hiding under the desk, their destructive power was easily on par with tanking a Judgment of Shamash at point-blank range.
The instant she heard those four words, her three souls and seven spirits were frightened clean out of her body and up past the ninth heaven, leaving not a scrap behind.
"Aaah!!!"
Theresa couldn't hold it in any longer.
A short, cracked shriek burst out of her. She let go of Su Yu's calves and scrambled backward like a rabbit scared out of its wits, her back slamming hard into the modesty panel.
"K-Kiana, let me explain!!!"
She had no idea the person outside was actually Sirin. Her head was full of nothing but the mortifying terror of "Auntie infiltrates office, caught in the act spying on her niece's love life."
She waved her hands wildly, babbling incoherently in an attempt to salvage what pitiful dignity she had left.
"I'm not! I didn't! I just happened to be passing by... no, I mean, I only wanted to inspect the load-bearing structure under the desk! It's absolutely not what you think, I didn't see anything!!!"
Outside, Sirin looked down at this "Servant Number Two" flustered to the point of tripping over her own tongue - and rather than showing any annoyance at having her fun interrupted, she let out a scornful little snort.
She gazed down at Theresa under the desk, her eyes full of the pity a superior being reserves for an idiot.
"And here I wondered who it was, cowering down there shaking like a quail."
Sirin folded her arms, mockery flickering through her golden eyes.
From where she stood, this was simply too funny.
This human possessed all that advanced theoretical knowledge about "human reproduction." Any random link she sent was the kind of explicit material that flung open the gates of a new world.
And yet?
When it came to real life, she turned out to be a pathetic little animal who didn't even dare make a sound under a desk, and looked ready to cry the moment she was discovered.
All that armchair theory, learned entirely in vain.
"Haaah."
Sirin let out a sigh.
Nothing to be done about it.
It's not my fault that I, as a god, have always been so merciful toward my loyal servants.
Since you instructed me in theory, today your Queen will personally demonstrate what real practice looks like.
Sirin took half a step forward, braced one hand on the desktop, bent down, and looked at the still-frantically-explaining Theresa.
"Get out here. Now."
Her voice was ice cold, weighted with the oppressive presence of a Herrscher.
Theresa shuddered from head to toe under that aura.
On hands and knees, she crawled out of the shadows that had stripped her of every last shred of face.
As she squeezed out from the narrow space under the desk, the hem of her pink dress caught and bunched up in a large fold.
Her pure white over-the-knee stockings had picked up a dusting of grit from the floor, and the lace trim at the top had crumpled out of shape from all that scrambling, exposing the pale skin of her thigh.
That strip of skin was flushed an unnatural pink from sheer tension and shame.
She looked utterly disheveled, and radiated a helpless, cornered awkwardness.
She was only halfway out, not even steady on her feet yet, when she reached anxiously for "Kiana's" hand to keep pleading.
"Kiana, you really have it all wrong, I was actually-"
Sirin gave her no chance to finish the nonsense.
She put out one hand and seized Theresa's outstretched wrist the way one grabs a chick by the scruff.
And then.
One hard yank!
Theresa yelped as her balance vanished.
Dragged by that overwhelming force, her whole body pitched forward beyond any hope of control.
Sirin followed through with a shove.
The target was clear, the force judged to perfection.
"Eeek-!"
Accompanied by a scream that nearly cracked her voice, Theresa's body traced an arc through the air.
And then.
Landed squarely, solidly, without the slightest cushioning, in the boss's chair.
Or to be precise.
In the lap of the man who had been sitting in that chair the whole time, unable to do a single thing because events were moving far too fast. Su Yu.
Thump.
Physical contact of the most spine-chilling variety.
Theresa was seated on him completely, no ambiguity whatsoever.
Her back was pressed flat against Su Yu's chest, the distance between them compressed in an instant into negative numbers.
Through that thin layer of fabric, Theresa could feel Su Yu's racing heartbeat with perfect clarity.
That mature masculine body heat was a bonfire, piercing straight through the cloth and igniting every particle of air around her.
The scent hanging around her nose was faint coffee mixed with some crisp men's body wash.
That was Su Yu's scent.
All these years.
More than forty of them.
She, Theresa Apocalypse, had never once had physical contact with any male this intimate, this vividly real - contact that could only be described as crossing a line she had never dared approach.
A rush of heat.
This time Theresa's face went so red it looked ready to drip blood.
This aging spinster, in that single instant.
Her mind went totally, thunderously blank.
Her whole body felt as though every bone had been pulled out of it, so weak and soft that she couldn't lift so much as a finger.
The air around her seemed to have been vacuumed away, and her heart pounded hard enough to leap out of her throat.
The office fell into a brief silence.
The great Herrscher of the Void, Sirin, stood before the desk with her arms crossed, looking down on the man and woman tangled together.
She studied "Servant Number Two," whose face was red enough to steam and whose body was as stiff as a plank.
Then she studied her vassal in the chair, hands hovering uselessly in midair, frozen solid out of fear of touching something he shouldn't.
Sirin was satisfied.
Extremely satisfied.
It seemed the knowledge she had gleaned from those "little websites" really was profound and effective.
A "punishment" like this, which could instantly strip humans of all capacity to resist and leave them flushed and breathless, was a method truly befitting her divine station.
She decided her subordinate deserved a proper promotion.
Using the most formidable technique she had just learned.
"Ahem."
Sirin cleared her throat and tilted her chin up slightly, that stunning face written all over with sovereign arrogance.
Mischief glittered in her golden eyes - pure chaos of a caliber that would make even the Masked Fool feel inadequate.
Facing the two humans frozen like statues before her, she delivered an earth-shattering proclamation with all the poise of an unchallengeable god:
"That useless little sneaking-and-hiding act of yours just now was an absolute embarrassment to me."
Sirin stared down at the top of Theresa's head.
"Today I am going to give you some serious remedial tutoring, so that you learn what real practice looks like."
She raised one hand, long pale finger pointing straight at Su Yu in the chair, then swinging to point at Theresa in his lap.
And finally.
The command that could detonate a nuke across the universe drifted lightly out of her mouth.
"Su Yu. Theresa."
"I order you."
"Right now, in front of me... kiss!"
Dead silence.
The air in the office was sucked into an absolute vacuum by those few short words.
Theresa, in his arms.
Her brain crashed all over again, thoroughly and completely.
Those blue eyes, which had been brimming with fury, were now filled with sheer horror and disbelief.
???!!!
Has my niece lost her mind?!
Not only is she not angry about me spying, she wants to watch with her own eyes while I... while I kiss this beast she was just kissing herself?!
What is this supposed to be?
What on earth has happened to the world?!
Su Yu, in the chair.
His hands were still hovering stiffly in the air.
The second he heard that order, he felt like the enhanced nerves his second-stage Genetic Lock had granted him nearly blew out on the spot.
???!!!
Sirin, you absolute lunatic!
What bizarre NTR storyline have you been reading, or what forbidden category did you click on that little website?!
Do you think I've lived too long? Do you want to see how far the splatter flies when the Oath of Judah flattens me into a meat pancake?!
One man and one woman, locked in the most intimate posture imaginable, and yet as motionless as two statues petrified for a thousand years.
While the Herrscher of the Void standing before them wagged her invisible tail in smug delight, waiting for her masterpiece to begin.
But.
Theresa's attention was no longer on that mortifying heat at all.
Her gaze had settled on the white-haired girl standing in front of the desk.
The girl who had just issued that utterly absurd command, who now stood with her arms crossed and her chin slightly lifted.
Those golden eyes were full of unchallengeable arrogance and mockery.
Theresa's body went rigid.
Wrong.
This was all terribly wrong.
This was not Kiana at all.
How could Kiana possibly possess a coldness this suffocating?
How could she possibly possess this haughtiness that regarded all creation as ants? And how, above all, could she possibly possess that upside-down kiss, so practiced it made your skin crawl, so utterly full of aggression?
That languid, blood-scented dominance - not even Grandfather in a rage had ever radiated anything like it.
Theresa's breathing quickened.
A moment ago she had been frightened out of her wits, her whole mind consumed by the mortifying terror of an elder caught spying on her niece's romance.
But now, as that shame receded a little, the world-shaking intellect of a Kaslana finally began to retake command of her brain.
She looked at "Kiana's" eyes, both of them turned pure gold.
She combined that with the classified secrets she had wrung out of Grandfather over the phone - the "cloning experiment," the "implanted Herrscher Core."
She combined it with every irrational thing she had witnessed inside this office.
A bolt of lightning split the fog in Theresa's mind.
Soul seizure!
A genuine soul seizure had taken place in the real world!
The one standing before her was not her sweet niece Kiana at all.
That pure, kind soul had long since been suppressed into the deepest depths.
What occupied this body was the monster that had been forcibly stuffed inside it, a thing that should never have existed in this world - the Herrscher of the Void!
Everything made sense now.
Theresa's thoughts were yanked back to that deeply traumatizing evening half a month ago.
That "Kiana" who had studied "high-definition videos of human reproduction" without blinking, with the attitude of an academic conducting research.
Her eyes had looked exactly like this back then. Both of them golden.
Not the usual one blue, one gold.
At the time, Theresa had assumed they were colored contacts.
But now it was obvious.
It was because that "Kiana" had never been Kiana at all!
Case closed.
That had never been her dear niece's first stirrings of romance, secretly studying up on relations between men and women!
That had been a "newborn Herrscher" who had only just awakened in the real world, who understood nothing whatsoever of human ethics or morality, and who could only learn human behavior patterns through the crudest, most primitive channels the internet had to offer!
Theresa whipped her head around and fixed her glare on the Su Yu pinned beneath her.
If a stare could take physical form as the chains of Judah, Su Yu would already have been quartered on the spot.
This devil.
This mad scientist masquerading as a game producer.
Not only had he conspired with Grandfather to help create this tragedy of two souls in one body - he had gone on to exploit the ignorance of this newborn Herrscher!
Instead of guiding her, instead of teaching her compassion, he had led her astray with all that filthy, disgraceful garbage.
He had taken a dangerous monster capable of destroying the world and painstakingly raised it into a plaything whose head was full of nothing but bizarre ideas!
Otherwise, why would this proud Herrscher issue a command as ludicrous as "kiss right now in front of me"?!
That had to be some appalling scene she'd picked up from who knew where!
A chill shot from the soles of Theresa's feet straight to the crown of her head.
She was certain she had seen the truth.
It must be said, the wiring in a Kaslana's brain is somewhat absurd.
Every single step of her reasoning was wrong, with not one detail actually matching reality.
And yet, against all odds, the conclusion was correct - Kiana really did have two souls in one body, and Sirin really was a "Herrscher"!
"What are you still sitting there for?"
Sirin's impatient voice shattered the deathly quiet of the room.
She looked at the two lumps of wood in the chair and clicked her tongue in displeasure.
"Did you not hear my command? Or do you need me to lend you a hand?"
She lifted her right hand, and the phantom outline of a Subspace Lance flickered in and out of existence at her fingertip, purple arcs of Honkai energy crackling through the air with a dangerous snap.
She couldn't wield her Authority in this world, but borrowing a little of Su Yu's power to frighten people was well within her means.
Cold sweat soaked through the back of Su Yu's shirt.
He knew better than anyone what kind of strange websites Sirin had been watching. He also knew better than anyone that this tsundere pufferfish genuinely regarded Theresa as a "servant" she could push around however she liked.
He swallowed.
This wasn't just being caught in a warzone between two women anymore. This was fighting for survival wedged between a nuclear warhead and an antimatter bomb!
He lowered his head and shot Theresa desperate looks.
Run.
Or find literally any excuse.
Say you've got a stomachache, say you need the bathroom, or just fake fainting for all I care!
Just get this crazy girl's attention off us first!
Su Yu's eyes were blinking hard enough to look like a nervous tic.
But through the utterly warped logic filter Theresa was now running, those tiny expressions of his got translated with perfect precision into an entirely different language.
He was panicking.
He was afraid.
He was giving her a final warning!
Theresa looked at the fine beads of sweat on Su Yu's forehead, then glanced again at that dangerous glow at Sirin's fingertip.
That glow confirmed the "Herrscher" identity beyond any doubt! How could an ordinary person conjure light like that out of thin air?!
She understood.
Su Yu was telling her: Do it, quickly! This monster whose mind he had twisted was extremely unstable right now, and if anyone dared defy her order, she would absolutely go berserk on the spot!
And once she went berserk.
The first to suffer would be the real little Kiana's soul, trapped in the deepest recesses of that body!
That fragile soul would be shredded in an instant by that violent Herrscher consciousness, erased from this world entirely!
Theresa felt her heart bleeding.
She had no idea what mechanism a "Herrscher" actually operated on in this peaceful world without Honkai energy, but her protective instinct as an elder overrode every unknown terror.
She could endure the shame of being caught in the act.
She could endure the humiliation of sitting in this pervert's lap.
But she absolutely, absolutely could not tolerate even a one-in-ten-thousand chance of her poor niece's soul being scattered to nothing.
She must not provoke this monster.
Absolutely not.
Theresa's breathing gradually steadied.
Those big blue eyes, so full of panic and helplessness and anger a moment ago, were swept clean of every complicated emotion in a single instant.
What replaced them was a tragic resolve almost too painful to look at.
The kind of moth-to-the-flame determination that says: if I do not enter hell, who will?
For Kiana...
For that idiot niece who had been abandoned as a child and had never known love...
Even if it meant being defiled by this fiend.
Even if it meant making a complete spectacle of herself in front of this cold-blooded monster.
What did a little purity matter!
Theresa's eyes reddened fast.
Two uncontrollable films of moisture gathered at once, pooling into crystalline tears that spun at the rims of her eyes, hanging there without falling.
She didn't wipe them away.
She knew she must look ridiculous right now, like a lamb pinned to the chopping block awaiting slaughter.
But she didn't flinch.
Theresa suddenly thrust out both small hands.
She seized the collar of Su Yu's shirt.
With such force that the crisply pressed designer fabric was dragged into deep creases.
The sudden motion pulled Su Yu forward slightly.
He stared, wide-eyed, at the Theresa now inches from his face.
That delicate little face was red enough to bleed, and the tear clinging to the corner of her eye glittered with a pitiful light under the fluorescent lamps.
And in those blue eyes burned the killing intent of someone marching knowingly to her death.
Wait. Wait a second.
Auntie, what are you doing?
Calm down!
Su Yu's lips moved. The word "no" never made it out.
Theresa had already squeezed her eyes shut.
And then, carrying a heart full of humiliation, resolve, and the most extreme loathing for this fiend called Su Yu.
Without a moment's hesitation.
Without the slightest pause.
She drove straight forward, like a little bird flinging itself without regret into a mousetrap.
And smashed her lips into Su Yu's!
Impact.
None of the gentle brushing you see in films, none of that intertwining of lips and teeth novels describe.
"Hsss-"
All Su Yu felt was a piercing, needling pain in his lip.
A faint but unmistakable taste of rust spread through his mouth.
Theresa had not one scrap of real-world experience.
Her lips were pressed together so tightly they had gone slightly white.
Her eyes were shut, her breath held, her body shaking violently from sheer overexertion.
Her teeth had split Su Yu's lower lip - and split the corner of her own mouth at the same time.
The faint tang of blood spread out, and the warm tear that finally slid from the corner of Theresa's eye landed on the back of Su Yu's hand.
Su Yu's brain stopped functioning entirely.
He was finished.
This time he was truly finished.
In front of the desk.
The hand Sirin had been pointing at Su Yu froze in midair.
She had prepared a suitably lofty expression, ready to enjoy the sight of her prey groveling for mercy.
But after witnessing that grisly spectacle, visible cracks appeared across the aloof, majestic mask she was maintaining.
She looked at Theresa - eyes screwed shut, face streaked with tears, gnawing grimly at Su Yu's lips.
Then at Su Yu, frozen in place, blood already seeping from his lip, wearing the expression of a man with nothing left to live for.
Sirin slowly lowered her hand.
She raised her right hand and tapped her chin lightly with the knuckle of her index finger.
Her golden eyes were written all over with profound confusion.
Something was off.
The instructional videos she'd seen on that "little website" had not gone anything like this.
Didn't all the female leads in those videos make those sticky, clinging sounds, and open their mouths cooperatively, with that dazed look on their faces?
So why...
Was she crying?
And why had she bitten hard enough to draw blood?
And that suicidal, do-or-die posture - it didn't look like kissing at all. It looked more like a final desperate struggle against some unnameable monster from the Abyss.
Sirin's brows knotted into a lovely little furrow.
The Queen persona she carried around suddenly looked rather unsteady, undermined by this thwarted thirst for knowledge.
"Strange..."
she muttered under her breath.
When she and that idiot vassal did this sort of thing, both of them clearly enjoyed it.
What exactly were these lower life forms called humans playing at? Was biting each other's mouths bloody really how they expressed submission?
This was far too difficult to understand.
Sirin stood there watching the ongoing kiss, which resembled nothing so much as torture, and sank into deep self-doubt.
Meanwhile, sitting in the boss's chair, caught between the sting in his lip and the warmth of Theresa's tears, Su Yu's soul had drifted peacefully out through the skylight and begun its ultimate surrender to this absurd world.
As for Theresa, pressed tightly against him.
Eyes shut, she endured the blood in her mouth and the towering humiliation in her chest.
And silently, weeping tears of blood, she swore an oath.
Kiana, you have to hold on.
Even if it costs your auntie her purity.
Even if she has to swallow far greater indignities.
Auntie will absolutely, absolutely get you out of these two devils' hands, safe and sound!
No matter the price!
"Ah! I understand now!"
Realization struck Sirin all at once. Those "principles" that Servant Number Three, the little rabbit Bronie, had once taught her surfaced in her mind.
["For this sort of thing, going through the motions isn't enough. You need a virus called love as the driving force. Only then can two programs achieve perfect compatibility."]
"No wonder you two are making faces like that. It's because there's no love between you!"
Sirin was quite certain she had uncovered the truth of the whole matter.
After all, that tenderness with Su Yu back in the consciousness space had only produced that chain reaction after the two of them confirmed the "love" between them.
Whereas this Su Yu and this Theresa.
With no "love" between them to serve as lubricant, forcing them together could only end in split lips.
"Human emotions really are a troublesome thing. Still, at least we have plenty of time - ah."
Sirin had been planning to display divine magnanimity and let these two fools stay in this office and cultivate their feelings properly.
But at that moment her brow creased slightly. She sensed that the irritating Host in the depths of her consciousness had finished her nap and was on the verge of waking.
"That's enough for today. I'll be back." Sirin lifted her chin slightly. "I hope that when I next descend, the two of you can show me something worth watching, instead of embarrassing yourselves like this again."
At that point, Sirin seemed to remember something important.
She fixed her gaze on Su Yu, her eyes radiating undisguised possessiveness and murder.
"One more thing, Su Yu. You had better prick up your ears for this."
"Servant Number Two is mine, whatever else she is, so consider her a reward. But - if you dare do this sort of thing with that idiot Paramecium behind my back..."
Sirin ground her cute little fangs together and snarled her threat. "Then you're dead! I'll blow you and this entire office into ashes!"
In Her Majesty's logic, Theresa was a minion she had personally subjugated, and bestowing her upon her beloved vassal counted as keeping the good stuff in the family.
But that idiot Host was her mortal enemy, the one fighting her for control of this body every single day!
She would hand Su Yu over to anyone before she handed him to that Paramecium!
Having delivered that murderous warning, Sirin gave Su Yu no chance to explain himself.
She simply turned, walked over to the broad leather sofa, flopped down on it with complete nonchalance, closed her eyes, and cleanly relinquished control of the body.
Watching the girl on the sofa go abruptly still, Su Yu and Theresa let out a long breath at the same moment.
Theresa sprang off Su Yu's lap like a prisoner granted amnesty.
The two of them scrambled to straighten their thoroughly disheveled clothing.
Su Yu yanked out a tissue and pressed it to his still-bleeding lower lip.
Theresa scrubbed frantically at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, her breathing a complete mess.
And one second after the two of them finished disguising a crime scene of apocalyptic proportions.
The white-haired girl on the sofa let out a muffled murmur.
Kiana slowly opened her eyes, and they had already changed back - one gold, one blue.
She sat up in a daze, rubbed at her tangled hair, and looked around.
"Huh? Wasn't I sleeping in the break room?"
Kiana scratched her head, a mass of question marks, then spotted Su Yu behind the desk and immediately puffed out her cheeks. "Su Yu! Did you carry me over here while I was asleep as some kind of prank?!"
At the sound of that familiar idiot cadence.
Theresa, standing off to one side, felt a sharp sting behind her eyes.
She was back!
Her poor niece had finally seized back control!
Kiana turned her head and only then noticed Theresa standing nearby.
When she got a clear look at her auntie's face, she leapt straight off the sofa in fright. "Ah! Auntie, why are you here too? And... y-your face, why is it as red as a tomato?! Do you have a fever?"
Theresa's body gave a violent shudder.
She looked at Kiana's face, written all over with concern and innocence, while endless sorrow, humiliation and a resolve that seemed to burn her very life away churned in her eyes.
For the sake of this innocence.
For the sake of hearing that word, "Auntie."
Every humiliation she had just endured, that absurd first kiss she had just surrendered - all of it was worth it!
"I... I'm fine."
Fighting back the urge to cry, Theresa took two steps forward.
She reached out with a small hand that still trembled faintly and stroked Kiana's cheek with infinite gentleness.
On that lovely, delicate face was a tragic, heroic smile that made Su Yu's blood run cold.
"You idiot niece..."
Theresa's voice caught slightly, yet it carried a will of iron.
"Don't you worry... as long as it's for your sake, your auntie isn't afraid of anything."
"To pull you out of this endless darkness... I'm willing to do absolutely anything."
Having delivered that baffling yet deeply heartfelt vow.
Theresa turned her head and shot Su Yu one final, withering glare.
That single look contained far too many emotions.
The furious shame of a stolen first kiss, the indictment of a "cold-blooded devil," and above all a final declaration of war: You just wait. I will expose your conspiracy and rescue the hostage!
Bang!
Theresa turned, marched off with tragic, unwavering steps, shoved the door open, and left that office full of "sin" without looking back.
Kiana stood rooted in place, touching the cheek that had just been stroked, her eyes enormous with confusion.
She turned toward Su Yu, who sat in the boss's chair pressing a tissue to his mouth.
"Su Yu..." Kiana blinked. "Did you... make Auntie angry just now? Why did she suddenly start saying all those weird things?"
Su Yu lowered the tissue with its thread of blood on it, tipped his head back, and stared at the pristine white ceiling of his office.
He let out a long, deep sigh.
There was a helplessness in that sound, the sound of a man abandoned by the entire world.
"Kiana..." Su Yu muttered to himself with dead eyes. "Do all you Kaslanas have imaginations like that?"
Having given a brief account of Theresa's bizarre leaps of imagination - which had, at this point, firmly established him in his auntie's eyes as a "disloyal, unfilial, insubordinate devil scientist" - Su Yu felt nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.
Naturally, he left out the parts that couldn't be said.
Kiana scratched at her ears and cheeks in agitation. "Su Yu."
"Hm?"
"Do you think Auntie has some kind of weird superpower? Every step of her reasoning was wrong, but the conclusion turned out completely right!"
There was genuine admiration and awe in Kiana's voice.
"Auntie is way too amazing!!"
No, no, your focus is completely off the mark!
Is every single Kaslana stamped out of the same idiot mold?!
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