Chapter 328

After expressing his thanks to Galah, he went off to attend to his own affairs.

"Thanks to you helping out just now! Otherwise I might really have…" The girl paused, "…been taken away."

The girl called herself Liuying, a local of Pinokangni—an artist of the Oriole Tail school, currently working as a temporary actor. Since there was no performance today, she had come out specially to stroll, but she never expected to be mistaken for a stowaway.

Liuying volunteered to be Xing's guide, taking her around to experience things. As they spoke, Xing noticed Liuying lowering her eyelashes, scanning the surroundings, especially paying attention to the noisy crowd, as if something were hiding there. But soon she composed herself, turning her gaze back to Xing.

Xing considered that she also lacked a local guide, so she followed Liuying's suggestion and toured Pinokangni with her the whole way.

——

Huiye Daxiaojie wants me to confess my love.

Inside the Sigongjia family's residence, the girls stared wide-eyed in the bedroom at the sight of Liuying and Xing shuttling through Pinokangni.

"This is definitely a date!" Huiye sat on the bed, death-gripping the pillow in her arms, "By activating Xing's protective instinct through a rescue act, then creating an opportunity to be alone with Xing through repaying a favor… calling it a guide, but really it's a date—this woman… what a clever scheme."

Unfathomable!

Zaoban Ai silently sipped a mouthful of tea from her cup: "If the young lady could learn Liuying's method, she'd have already taken down the president a hundred times."

"Zaoban, Zaoban!" Huiye's face flushed instantly, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, "How could the president be mentioned in the same breath as Xing? Xing is a girl! Love tactics for girls…" Her voice gradually weakened, her fingers unconsciously kneading the lace on her clothes, "…against someone like the president, it's useless…"

Zaoban Ai set down her teacup, the porcelain and silver tray clinking with a clear sound: "Huiye Daxiaojie, if you want to take down the other party, you only need to remember one thing—the craftiest hunters often appear in the guise of their prey."

"Perhaps you could also consider creating an appropriate opportunity to be alone with the Silver Society president?" Zaoban Ai picked up her phone, began searching for recent school arrangements, "Oh, right, Huiye Daxiaojie, the school is organizing a choral competition soon; student council members must participate. You might as well use this chance to meet the president alone in the music room for some guidance."

"Sunset, an empty classroom, a lone man and woman, guidance…" Zaoban Ai was very pleased with this plan, she gave the girl a thumbs-up, "By then you'll even get to enjoy the president's singing voice all to yourself."

"This… this kind of little trick…" Huiye buried her face in the velvet pillow, her muffled voice sounding out, "The president will surely see through it at a glance."

"So what? Can he refuse it? Look at Xing in the heavens—did she reject Liuying's little trick? Although she might not have noticed it at first… but it doesn't matter; at least Liuying succeeded in gaining the opportunity to be alone with Xing."

Zaoban Ai smiled faintly: "Believe me, Miss… when the time comes, you just need to conquer cities and seize territory."

——

As they strolled, Liuying led Xing to the entrance of a restaurant.

"This is the place. Have you heard this saying— in dreams, hunger is the most precious spice." Liuying brought Xing to a restaurant, "Here you'll find most of Pinokangni's delicacies; pick whatever you like, I'll treat!" The girl puffed out her chest proudly.

"My spending level is a bit high…" Xing turned her head to glance at her.

Upon seeing that, the girl's confidence waned: "S-surely it'll be fine? I still have some savings…"

After saying that, she handed over the little pocket money she had left to Xing—a full twenty thousand.

Xing realized that ordering one of each item in the shop came to exactly twenty thousand—what a coincidence! So without hesitation she bought them all.

Liuying's voice began to tremble: "Ah, this… this…"

But things had come to this, Liuying could only force a smile: "Already ordered? You… you have good taste! Haha… well, well, I'll pay the bill…"

——

MYGO。

"That Xing…! Re-really too much!"

Lixi instinctively clenched the rag in her hand, staring fixedly at Liuying's strained smile on the heavens. Her brows were knit, her lower lip bitten leaving a shallow tooth mark.

Seeing Liuying, who was also working part-time, the money she had painstakingly saved was spent by Xing in just a few seconds, and sympathy made her chest tighten with a sudden pang.

"Does Xing not know how hard it is to earn money from part-time work?! At times like this she should be saving!"

Aiyin noticed Lixi's cup-wiping motion becoming hurried and heavy, and quickly whispered: "Rikki, don't break the cup, be careful not to cut your hand…"

But Lixi seemed not to have heard; instead, she grew angrier and angrier.

"I actually think we don't need to worry about it—Miss Liuying… her attitude toward Xing seems rather unusual." Seshì elegantly lifted her tea cup and took a sip.

"What do you mean by not worrying? Is it because you didn't spend your money so you don't need to worry?" Lixi glared at Seshì.

"Huh…" Seshì lowered her lashes, her thick eyelashes casting a shadow on her face that just perfectly hid the fleeting displeasure in her eyes. The corners of her mouth still held a smile, but her fingertips gripping the cup rim had turned white.

"Lixi, such a hasty judgment isn't quite appropriate." Seshì gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "Miss Liuying recognized at a glance that Xing is a pioneer; as a local of Pinokangni and an ordinary artist of the Oriole Tail school… that insight seems almost too good, doesn't it?"

And what would that prove?

Seshì set down her teacup; the base struck the tray, producing a slightly heavier crisp sound than usual: "What I want to say is, their meeting might not be coincidental but rather an inevitability long plotted. Miss Liuying may have some ulterior motive toward Xing."

"Huh? Motive? You're really thinking the worst of her, aren't you?"

Lixi couldn't understand—Miss Liuying was clearly just a harmless ordinary girl, yet in Seshì's words she sounded like a seasoned schemer.

"Rikki, a motive isn't necessarily a bad one, right?"

Aiyin laughed as she stepped in to smooth things over, seemingly easing the tense atmosphere between the two: "Maybe… um… Liuying just likes Xing? Think about it—a flower-like girl from the Oriole Tail school, unwilling to be bound by Pinokangni's prosperity, dreaming of the outer starry sea, she decided to join the Stellar Express thanks to this carefully plotted chance encounter, to explore alongside Xing and fall in love! Wouldn't that be a nice development?"