It was already noon when she returned home.
"Yuzu, I've learned a few new recipes online. Want to give them a try?" Tang Xin asked, peeking her head out from the kitchen.
"Sure," Xu Xiaoyou nodded.
After taking off her heavy military coat and hanging it on the rack, Xu Xiaoyou brewed herself a cup of hot tea.
The warm, sweet tea moistened her mouth, dispelling the chill from her body. Feeling much warmer, she sat on the sofa and browsed the curtain, searching for matters related to Belvedere Station from that morning.
To her surprise, the blockade on the station was lifted shortly after they left Belvedere Square. The entire blockade had lasted only two hours, all told.
Looking at the photos on the news of the so-called participating tuners with enthusiastic citizens, Xu Xiaoyou blew gently into her cup. The brown tea leaves drifted slowly, and the girl's thoughts drifted along with the light green ripples of the tea.
She tapped the curtain a few times with her fingertips, and more information popped up. After filtering out news from official media, she turned to check some smaller self-media outlets. After several consecutive refreshes, she saw a video that piqued her interest. It had been posted just a minute ago by a blogger named 'Falling Leaves of Autumn'.
This blogger hadn't followed the broadcast's instructions to evacuate the station during the blockade. After evading the station staff's repeated searches, he had recorded everything he saw with his camera.
The footage was shaking violently, revealing the blogger's internal tension. He seemed to be hiding in a corner of one of the platforms. Discussion could be heard vaguely from above—it was muffled, with four distinct voices, though only a relatively heroic-sounding female voice was clear.
Xu Xiaoyou turned the video volume to maximum and listened carefully, faintly catching a few keywords.
'Corrupt Hive City', 'world-class', 'grade 5 standard-bearer'.
Her heart skipped a beat. She quickly dragged the video's progress bar forward. Flashes of blades flickered constantly on the screen, accompanied by the occasional roar of explosions. After seeing a white figure flash by, Xu Xiaoyou's pupils constricted violently.
Just as she wanted to zoom in to see the white figure clearly, the screen changed.
A luxury advertisement popped up instead.
The video had been deleted; it had lasted less than a minute from posting to removal.
Xu Xiaoyou made a swift judgment and searched for 'Falling Leaves of Autumn'. A notification box popped up on the Note platform.
[This blogger has violated the Note Community Environment Convention by posting inappropriate content. The platform has banned this account.]
Xu Xiaoyou slowly leaned back. A purple-black character card with a spider lily pattern appeared in her hand. Looking at Angelina's character card, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to calm herself.
There was no mistake. That white figure was Anya. Even if the footage was blurry and only showed an outline, she could never misidentify her; that lance was far too eye-catching.
She seemed to be heavily injured, with people chasing her and launching constant attacks.
Why did Anya come to the Star of Art, and how did she get here?
Were those people fixers from the Association? And why were they surrounding and attacking Anya?
From the speed at which the video was deleted, it wasn't hard to see that the Eye Association was monitoring this event heavily, desperately trying to hide something.
A world-class urban legend...
A terrifying thought surfaced in Xu Xiaoyou's mind.
Anya had been classified by the Association as a world-class urban legend. It seemed her guess was correct; the Heart of Desire had not been completely killed by Bai Youyou. It had grown stronger after reviving. During that centuries-long bloody supper time, everything in the Corrupt Hive City had met with destruction and withering.
And Anya was likely the sole survivor of that disaster.
She had defeated and devoured the Heart of Desire, eventually losing control under that heart's twisted will.
If Anya really was rated as a world-class urban legend by the Association, the fixers besieging her couldn't possibly be below grade 4. They would all be top-tier combatants within the Association.
Whether it was good news or bad, the character card in her hand was glowing faintly, emitting waves of residual warmth, as if the girl were calling out to her helplessly and fearfully, craving her comfort just like before.
Although she couldn't check Anya's character panel or physiological state, the fact that the character card hadn't dissipated proved that Anya had escaped the encirclement and shaken off those fixers.
She must be extremely weak right now, likely having found a safe place to fall into a slumber.
What should she do? Set out to find Anya now, and find the girl before the Association's high-grade fixers did?
But the Star of Art was so vast. Trying to find the sleeping girl would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Moreover, would she even be safe staying by her side?
The answer to that question was clearly no. Xu Xiaoyou pressed her temples, her thoughts gradually becoming calm and meticulous.
Staying by her side would actually make her more dangerous. Her enemies were grade 4 or even grade 5 fixers. Against such foes, the help she could provide was very limited.
Furthermore, it might draw fire upon herself, dragging her into a dangerous whirlpool. Plus, Anya was currently in an out-of-control state and extremely unstable; she couldn't guarantee she would be able to control her.
Rather than keeping a time bomb by her side, she preferred to wait and see, observing the rumors in the coming days and making plans when the time was right.
A look of realization crossed Xu Xiaoyou's eyes.
At the very least, she needed to have some understanding of the enemies Anya was facing before finding a way to enter the fray.
[S-rank employee Xu Xiaoyou, due to your outstanding performance, we sincerely invite you to participate in an internal S-rank employee mutual aid exchange meeting. The meeting will be at 3:00 PM today. If interested, please reply YY. —— Strategic Talent Resource Department.]
A text message popped up on the curtain. The extent to which Universal Heavy Industries haunted her left Xu Xiaoyou speechless. She had clearly blacklisted them so many times, yet they kept changing IP addresses and always managed to find her with pinpoint accuracy, continuously outputting harassment messages.
Xu Xiaoyou scoffed. Just as she was about to blacklist them again, a thought occurred to her. After a moment of silence, she silently moved the message to her inbox.
For the next hour or so, Xu Xiaoyou continued to search for news about Anya on the curtain, trying to determine her current location through clues, but found nothing.
A girl's soft call interrupted her cluttered thoughts.
"Yuzu, food's ready."
Tang Xin's hand waved in front of her eyes. "Did something happen? You look a bit pale."
"It's nothing. Nothing happened," Xu Xiaoyou suppressed her thoughts.
The two sat around the dining table. Outside, the snow tapped gently against the windowpane, and the steaming aroma of food rose up.
Stewed pork ribs with corn, stir-fried eggs with tomatoes, sweet and sour pork, and stir-fried lettuce—all home-cooked dishes. Looking at this table of familiar food, Xu Xiaoyou felt as if a lifetime had passed.
Tang Xin's cooking wasn't bad, but Xu Xiaoyou was somewhat distracted, her mind constantly filled with matters related to Anya.
The girl placed a few pieces of sweet and sour pork into her bowl, her eyes bright. "Yuzu, try it."
Xu Xiaoyou nodded, picked it up, and ate it with rice, chewing slowly.
Tang Xin looked at her with anticipation. "How is it, how is it?"
"Hmm, about a seven," Xu Xiaoyou said casually.
"I see..." Tang Xin looked visibly disappointed.
"I'm kidding. It tastes great," Xu Xiaoyou said with a light laugh, seeing the girl's reaction. "Seven is the full score."
Rate on N.U.
