Chapter 289

Hearing from the Black Tower that Ruan Mei still had some time before arriving at the space station, with nothing to do in the meantime, Xing wandered around the space station and discovered a staff member who was not doing their proper work.

"Witty? No, it's better to be deep in feeling. Elegant? Hmm, slang shouldn't be written into poetry." Luo Qi carefully pondered each word of the love poem, "Should I use 'black silk hair' or 'white skirt hem' here? Hiss, my scalp is tingling..."

"What are you doing?" Xing curiously moved closer.

"Ah? I'm writing poetry, you didn't see? Over there on the table there are already several drafts." Luo Qi drooped his eyebrows, feeling quite lost as he pointed to a stack of manuscript papers on the table, "Ah, this interruption of yours actually reminds me—I've written so many versions, why hasn't Laisili replied to my letter yet?"

A snicker came from behind. Old staff member Bernard slowly sipped his coffee: "Heh, that Laisili over there is the Star Scientist of the 【Black Tower Light Abyss Secret Scroll Department】, the only visiting scholar in the Present Amber Era to have been sent to the Abundant Star Domain—do you really think she has time to bother with you?"

"Of course she has time for me!" Luo Qi's face flushed red all at once: "Since Laisili left, we've been in intermittent contact via the Galactic Electromagnetic Wave Relay. Even though we're separated by tens of thousands of light-years, she wouldn't ignore me."

"She just hasn't replied on time; it must be that this situation is special!" Luo Qi lowered his head, his voice growing weaker like a deflating balloon: "I, I wrote a letter confessing to Laisili, unlike usual, I was just telling her how many kinds of stones and mud the Geology Department has..."

"I really don't understand why, after I confessed, Laisili stopped replying to me... We talked about so much, from what in the Secret Scroll Department 101's Star God Secret Rites requires Gu En's beard, to how the Star Surveying Needle should 【relate earth and stone】 to judge a planet's divine favor by soil quality..."

——

Blessings to a beautiful world.

Seeing Luo Qi's staff member's pure expression on his face, Dakness also couldn't help but be moved, a bashful look on her face.

"Eh? Love poems and such are really romantic." Dakness shyly covered her slightly warm cheeks, "But compared to words, I think personality and common topics are more important."

"If we're doing research in the same place, our personalities probably won't differ much?" Kazuma looked at the scattered poems on the table behind Luo Qi, "But it's surprising that the staff members of the Black Tower Space Station still follow this medieval way of confession."

Kazuma spread his hands, posing as a veteran of love affairs, "But when chatting with a girl you like, how can you only talk about what interests you? Of course you have to cater to her preferences~"

"Hmph..." Aqua let out a disdainful snort, "You otaku actually understand romance? I thought you were planning to—"

"Hey! Don't say things like that!!"

Kazuma's old face turned red, his voice involuntarily rising a few degrees: "Even before my reincarnation I had experience with 100 galgame games, so I still have some authority in this area, right?!"

"Oh~ does that kind of thing count too?" Seeing Kazuma's extremely embarrassed expression, Aqua finally couldn't help but laugh: "You've never even held a girl's hand, yet you dare to teach others about love experience, hahahaha!!!"

"Why not just forget it?" Kazuma stumbled over his words: "Virtual, virtual experience still counts as experience!"

——

Luo Qi said that in the communication before his confession, Laisili had described a magnificent starquake to him.

Facing the splendid sight of a dying star, her tone was very happy. In short, Luo Qi thought there was no sign she would reject his confession; not receiving the expected message must be due to a problem with the Galactic Electromagnetic Wave Relay.

But unfortunately, his mentor Bernard had no intention of letting him go, nor did he allow Xing to help him.

"All you think about is the relay, relay, you haven't done anything serious for over ten days. Useless!" Looking at his disciple's state, Bernard's beard almost twisted with anger.

"Old man, blocking is not as good as guiding~" Xing gave a "hehe" smile, she also wanted to do this good deed of playing matchmaker.

Luo Qi said the relay is in a large abandoned curios warehouse; if Xing can help him, once the task is done he'll invite her to be the bridesmaid!

Xing immediately went to the place Luo Qi specified, successfully found and repaired the relay. On it were some communication records between him and Laisili recently.

Although peeking at others' chat logs isn't great, but it's only human to be unable to resist. Xing's finger lightly slid across the screen, countless conversations flowed before her eyes like a river of stars, these words like tender buds trembling on spring branches, carrying the softness and sincerity of the writer.

But after Laisili described that starquake to Luo Qi, her reply frequency gradually slowed, and after Luo Qi's confession, their contact cut off completely, with no further exchange.

Xing felt someone had tampered with the relay, so she planned to go to the monitoring room to check; looking wouldn't hurt, and indeed she found a big fish—the one who had been meddling with the relay to interfere with the two of them—turned out to be Luo Qi's mentor Bernard!

——

Monogatari Series.

In the summer night's cicada chirps, Araragi Koyomi sat on the balcony, head tilted back gazing at the night sky's canopy. Seeing the scene of Xing confronting Bernard, but the latter seemed as if nothing was wrong.

"This is too much..." Koyomi frowned, "Even if you oppose your disciple's romance, there's no need to go this far, right?"

Sitting on the railing, Shinobu Oshino lightly swung her pale calves, her pupils shimmering with a clear glow in the moonlight.

"You live too short to see through~" Shinobu Oshino tilted her head slightly backward, the corner of her eye reflecting Koyomi's figure, "This Bernard, his behavior is very out of place."

"Out of place?"

The vampire girl's lips curled into a smile of seeing through worldly affairs. She extended her slender finger, touching Koyomi's brow: "Humans are the most interesting—I've seen too many people who say one thing and mean another over hundreds of years, this Bernard fits right in."

"His way of obstructing this romance is crude—earlier he mocked Luo Qi, obviously wanting Luo Qi to realize he's not worthy of the Star Scientist Laisili. Yet he so brutally cut off their communication, as if he already knew they were meant for each other, yet still wanted to meddle."

"If he just wanted Luo Qi to give up on love, a bit of mockery and suppression would suffice; there's no need for violent interference. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

Shinobu Oshino calmly shook her head: "Unless he had long since decided that the two could never be together from the start."