Chapter 199: Emotional Negotiation

Lin Xiaolu's words made a lot of sense, or rather, her words were the only correct argument.

In fact, it was indeed as he said; even during the peak of the cold war between father and daughter last year, the two had at least shared a New Year's Eve dinner together, although throughout the entire process Lin Xiaolu made almost no sound other than "mm" and "oh," with only Lin Yun doing all the talking.

If last year's Lin Yun had heard Lin Xiaolu's words, saying he would be moved might be an exaggeration, but he would definitely have been greatly comforted; in fact, even hearing them now, he felt equally delighted.

But the problem was that these words sounded completely unlike something Lin Xiaolu would say, and in the current situation, they were even somewhat puzzling.

"Everyone in your squad is together, even people from the Bai'an City branch have come, all the Magical Girls are together, yet you are the only one who won't go over during the New Year?"

He looked at Lin Xiaolu as if he were meeting his daughter for the first time: "Is there really such a necessity?"

"Senior Cuique is already an adult, and Xia Liang and Bai Jingxuan don't need to go home; they are different from me, they don't need to consider where to go, they just need to be with the other squad members."

Lin Xiaolu lowered her gaze slightly: "But I still have my own family; although the relationship with teammates is also very important... shouldn't one still spend festivals with family?"

"Even if the location of the festival is the Strange Phenomena Bureau's office? I can't bring the New Year's Eve dinner inside, you can only eat in the cafeteria with me."

Lin Yun tried to keep his expression gentle and spoke slowly and deliberately: "Moreover, the nature of the Strange Phenomena Bureau's work is very special; in fact, everyone must try to avoid entering the bureau with family members, so even if I could take you, you could only follow other employees on a tour, or stay in the office with me."

"Is there a problem?" Lin Xiaolu asked, confused.

Lin Yun shrugged: "It would be very boring."

Lin Xiaolu was momentarily speechless; as if making a firm decision, she finally spoke again after a long pause: "It doesn't matter, I'm not afraid of being bored."

"But your teammates are gathering at the same time to happily celebrate the New Year."

Lin Yun pointed directly at Lin Xiaolu's sore spot without concealment: "Everyone else is playing, only you are staying on duty with me; Father doesn't mind, but you had better think about it again."

"This, um... ah... hmm..."

Squinting her eyes, Lin Xiaolu pressed her lips together, obviously undergoing an intense internal struggle; after a while, she nodded heavily and said: "I've decided, I'm going!"

Such a firm choice only made Lin Yun more confused.

And before he could ask further, the Lin Xiaolu in front of him made a statement that was even more surprising:

— "Also, not long after the New Year holiday ends, our school will have final exams! I plan to focus on studying during this period, so I will move back home to live before the exams!"

Was he dreaming?

Suppressing the urge to smile, Lin Yun fell into thought.

Lin Xiaolu's words could indeed move him; at first glance, one could say he was deeply gratified, but despite his happiness, he could clearly feel that his daughter was not telling the whole truth.

At least, not entirely the truth.

The reason was simple: first, because Lin Xiaolu always liked to avert her gaze when lying, and second, because this explanation did not match his daughter's consistent style of behavior.

Having lived with Lin Xiaolu in the identity of Senior Cuique for over half a year, the current Lin Yun had gained a deeper understanding of his daughter's personality. Whether one called it awkward or insincere, for the most part, Lin Xiaolu found it very difficult to express herself directly.

Even now, when the father-daughter conflict had thawed and their relationship could gradually be mended, she would probably still find it hard to express such thoughts.

After all, although the father and daughter appeared to be sitting at the same table sharing a meal with little distance between them, in reality, there were still layers of barriers.

There were two reasons for this: first, the lingering effects of the cold war had not yet disappeared; although Lin Xiaolu had now learned a considerable part of the truth and no longer harbored so much resentment toward her father, this did not mean the two would be as intimate as ordinary parent and child.

In fact, even without the factor of Anya's passing, the father-daughter relationship in the Lin family had never been very good.

The past Lin Yun was indeed not a good father; he had almost abandoned emotional attention to his child in the name of work, and he always demanded his daughter do this and that in a very cold and hard manner; from the child's perspective, this had almost gathered most of the elements of a "hated father."

If one were to use a score to describe the relationship between father and daughter, with a perfect score of 100, then during the cold war period it was probably 0 points, and even when Anya was still alive, it was only at the level of 40 or 50 points, not even reaching the passing line.

This led to the awkward state between the two now; although both clearly knew the other was the only relative they had in this world, they still didn't know how to resolve the awkwardness or truly open their hearts to each other.

They had never had a close relationship before, not even a reference sample, so how could they restore it?

The second reason, Lin Yun could actually feel, was because he had "revealed his identity as a member of the Strange Phenomena Bureau."

For Lin Xiaolu, the father of the past, no matter how dissatisfying he was, was ultimately someone she had lived with day and night since birth, incredibly familiar, with no gaps in their lives together.

However, when Lin Yun stated that he was actually a person from the Strange Phenomena Bureau, this state was broken. This fact suddenly revealed would only make Lin Xiaolu feel strange and at a loss.

This point was evident enough from her occasionally blurting out "Aren't you the Director?" recently.

If it were a normal family, and the parent-child relationship was close enough, then this would actually not be a problem at all; a child would not change their view of their parents over such a small sense of strangeness. But unfortunately, the Lin family father and daughter could not be considered a model family to begin with, so the gap between them increased like this.

Under the combined effect of these two reasons, the current Lin Yun and Lin Xiaolu were still in a state of mutual probing, trying to gradually figure out a more comfortable mode of interaction through repeated time spent together.

This was also one of the motivations for Lin Yun to encourage, and even push, Lin Xiaolu to go to the Magical Girls' base for a training camp under his dual identity—so the saying goes, distance creates beauty; reducing the frequency of meetings between father and daughter might instead gradually fade the negative impressions in his daughter's mind.

And at present, the relationship between father and daughter was obviously not reconciled to a level higher than the Fang Ting City squad, enough to make his daughter give up gathering with the squad just to spend the festival with family.

In the current situation, even Lin Yun himself would not propose such a suggestion, because in his imagination, these would only add to his daughter's burden of choice without any substantive meaning.

Then, logically speaking, Lin Xiaolu had even less reason to propose such a plan.

If she were really just considering her father's feelings in the context of the New Year and wanted to use this opportunity to draw closer to each other, she would absolutely not use such a direct method.

In other words, anything Lin Xiaolu could say openly was certainly not what she cared about most.

The most likely possibility was that Lin Xiaolu herself had not considered the aspect of "this can draw the father and daughter closer"; she simply chose this method subconsciously for some other purpose.

What exactly was the reason?

Lin Yun remained silent, but the probing look in his thoughts made Lin Xiaolu feel uncomfortable all over; she subconsciously asked back: "What's wrong? Why are you staring at me like that..."

"Did you encounter any problems over at the squad?"

After a moment of consideration, Lin Yun decided to get straight to the point: "Did you quarrel with someone? Or do you feel pressure? So you want to separate and cool off for a while?"

The first person he thought of was Bai Ji from the Bai'an City squad, since Lin Xiaolu had been depressed before due to her conflict with Bai Ji, but on second thought, that was impossible. After all, Bai Ji lost to Lin Xiaolu in the subsequent match, and after crying a lot, they had temporarily reconciled, so it was unlikely to make Lin Xiaolu worry about it until now.

Then who could this person be? Xia Liang? Bai Jingxuan? Or Aoshino Enka? It couldn't be because he said something wrong as Senior Cuique, could it?

"... That's not it."

Facing Lin Yun's inquiry, Lin Xiaolu's agitation was visible to the naked eye, yet she only shook her head in denial, showing an attitude of refusing to communicate: "I just want to change my environment."

"If it is for the school exams, I remember Senior Cuique said she is responsible for tutoring you."

Lin Yun continued to soften his tone, reducing the pressure created by his questions: "The final exams of the last semester were the same, and the exams of this semester are the same; purely for the sake of the exams, it would actually be more convenient to stay at your squad's base, right?"

This statement was naturally based on facts; after all, he had already prepared the review content and practice problems for the final exams, just waiting to give Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang an intensive review after the New Year.

He also didn't think there was any problem pointing out this fact, since these were all objectively occurred events, and there was no judgment involved.

But what he didn't expect was that after his words fell, Lin Xiaolu's expression immediately changed, becoming obviously much more complex.

Was there anything in what I just said that felt conflicted? I only mentioned the final exam; do exams really disgust her that much?

Lin Yun was confused once again.

In fact, compared to the beginning of the semester, Lin Xiaolu's grades hadn't improved much, but neither had they declined significantly. Although it was indeed hard for a Magical Girl to focus on her studies, with Senior Cuique always helping her tutor, scoring around the lower-middle range was no problem.

Saying "lower-middle" sounds bad, but compared to Lin Xiaolu's previous academic performance, it was a world of difference. At the very least, the teachers at school were quite satisfied with this result, and sometimes even praised Lin Xiaolu a bit more.

"... Convenient as it is, that's not the issue I'm considering."

On the other side, Lin Xiaolu also responded to Lin Yun's doubt: "Anyway, I'm just moving back to live here for a while. Don't overthink it."

"Really not because you had a conflict with someone?" Lin Yun asked suspiciously.

"Really not!" Lin Xiaolu puffed out her cheeks.

"Then what is it? Since I'm free anyway, why not say it so I can help you analyze it?"

Placing the chopsticks in his hand on the rim of the bowl, Lin Yun looked at his daughter with composure: "You don't have to worry about whether what I say is right. Even if I'm wrong, it might still offer you some inspiration."

"I'm not free. After eating, I have to do my homework. I don't have time to chat idly or discuss trivial matters here."

"You really don't want to say it?"

"... I don't want to."

"Even if only I can listen to you?" Lin Yun continued, still unhurried.

Just as the father-daughter conflict back then couldn't be resolved by relying on Lin Yun's identity, and only Senior Cuique could indirectly understand his daughter's feelings to address the root cause, if Lin Xiaolu's current worry stemmed from the Magical Girl squad, perhaps only he, the one who knew the truth, could act as a "strategist."

Clearly, this hit the mark again, so Lin Xiaolu fell silent once more.

She held her rice bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, remaining motionless in a rather comical pose for a long time. After a while, she also put down her bowl and chopsticks, mimicking Lin Yun.

Clunk.

The porcelain bowl touched the wooden table, emitting a dull sound.

She picked up a tissue from the side of the dining table, carefully wiped her mouth, then wiped her hands, and threw the tissue into the bowl. She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.

With her head down, her lips first pressed tight, then opened and closed slightly. The fingers gripping her arm pulled at her sleeve, then gradually relaxed.

— "Can you promise not to tell Senior Cuique and the others?"

Finally, she raised her eyes, her gaze toward Lin Yun filled with suspicion yet mixed with a hint of hope.

"If you ask me to, I can certainly keep it a secret for you." Lin Yun nodded expressionlessly.

After all, the moment he knew, Senior Cuique already knew; there was no need to specially convey the message.

Thinking this, he maintained the expression of an uninvolved party, signaling for Lin Xiaolu to continue.

So Lin Xiaolu took a deep breath, composed her emotions, and slowly began to tell Lin Yun the reason for her sudden decision to move back home.

His first impression was that Lin Xiaolu's ability to express herself needed improvement.

She spoke very slowly, the order was somewhat chaotic, and the logic was particularly confused due to the large amount of personal emotions mixed in. Personal reflections and the sequence of events were intertwined, making her expressions unclear at many points.

However, as her narration grew longer and the content increased, Lin Yun gradually understood the beginning and end of the matter.

Then, his expression also became complex.

If at first he held an attitude of understanding the problem and helping to analyze the causes and solutions, then after listening to Lin Xiaolu's account, that feeling was almost gone.

It was replaced by a strong sense of awkwardness and bewilderment.

— "So, I feel that continuing like this is not right. If I continue to subconsciously rely on Senior Cuique, it is irresponsible behavior. Continuing to expect things on my own initiative will only create more pressure for her. Wouldn't that make me a clingy person people dislike? Rather than letting myself go that far, I might as well move back now, calm down properly, and think about what exactly I should do next..."

On the other side, Lin Xiaolu continued to rapidly state her thoughts like a cannonball. Her speaking speed had changed from the initial slowness to a speed like a violent storm, pouring out her emotions like a real downpour.

She just kept talking to herself for a long while until she felt her mouth and throat dry. Only then did Lin Xiaolu finally stop, looking at Lin Yun with a hint of hope: "Well? That's roughly the situation. What do you think I should do?"

Facing this question, Lin Yun really couldn't answer for a moment.

Let alone giving an answer, even getting him to quickly accept the information in Lin Xiaolu's words was somewhat forcing the issue.

After all, if he were to summarize what Lin Xiaolu had just said, the general meaning was as follows:

【I know you and Senior Cuique don't have a romantic relationship anymore, but I personally want this stepmother on a one-sided basis. If you two cannot establish any ethical connection, may I ask what method I should use to acknowledge this stepmother, and how can I confirm that I am not just imagining things?】

To be honest, he felt his daughter wasn't speaking human language.

But since things had come to this, what should he do?

Lin Yun's gaze shifted slightly upward, fixing on the incandescent light on the dining room ceiling.

Now, the one troubled by this problem had changed from one person to two.

(End of this chapter)