Chapter 48: The Talk Splits in Two, This Side of Xin Tiao Is About to Suffer (x)

Wow! This time it's indeed a proper-looking monster, Chenmo Xiansheng.

Because the other party had mostly remained silent back then, Xin Tiao Qian came to call them Chenmo Xiansheng.

Naturally, it was unilateral.

The party concerned naturally wasn't aware of this, but now that they've gone their separate ways with that woman, how to address her doesn't matter, and there's little chance of meeting again.

After all, aside from attending class, she never leaves the house, either surfing the net or sculpting models; over time her room ended up looking like several rows of big and small bags of trash.

Compared to everyday trash, there's far more model scrap, which is also why she does modeling in virtual immersive chat rooms.

Occasionally experiencing a quick‑build simple monster model is also a kind of enjoyment.

But to make the model come alive... Xin Tiao Qian slightly raised her head, watching the Hai Pa Lei Wang that surged upward, passed into the clouds for cover then struck again, staring at it for a few seconds, and then lost interest.

Better forget it.

She muttered to herself, the corners of her mouth turning up as if recalling something pleasant, then bent down and picked up the monthly ticket clip on the nearby table.

Just placing it before her eyes and examining it could bring to mind a friend she hadn't seen in ages.

Perhaps she could turn around and look for them, but in the end she didn't.

Even according to the knowledge written in the book, the chance of being able to return is quite high.

She once thought she had merely dreamed, once felt bewildered by this world's strangeness, yet in this world she vaguely recalled many past events that were originally hard to remember; compared to those pasts, merely transmigrating to this world didn't seem so shocking.

Moreover, she quite liked this world.

Because in this world, monster culture unexpectedly has a sizable audience, and there really are monsters. Life is also very convenient; even changing her hair back to the style and color she remembered as her own is utterly natural and effortless.

The only drawback is probably that there are still many people online who disagree with her, and moreover some fellow transmigrators oddly fixate on her simply because she is a character from the works they've seen.

... Just thinking about those people makes her mood hard to lift, especially since she was once hounded by a stalker who even tried to kidnap her; if she hadn't been actively adapting to this world, diligently handling paperwork per transmigrant training and law, enjoying certain transmigrant privileges and also learning some special skills, she might truly have met misfortune.

The response speed of Heaven Gate City's police is commendable, and her skills and mental strength, which differ from the criminals' 'perception of Xin Tiao Qian,' bought her crucial time.

This also reinforced her already reclusive lifestyle, let alone meeting online friends offline, which is inherently risky.

The most recent time she mustered courage was when accepting a netizen's commission; the commission didn't require meeting face‑to‑face, but she was to act as a monster consultant for one of the client's companions, just needing to come up with ideas for their monster research; as payment, the client offered monetary compensation and promised to let her see a real monster.

That gave her the motivation to go out—provided she made preparations to report emergencies at any time.

As it turned out, things went smoothly, and the emergency‑reporting preparations weren't needed.

However, after actual contact they found each other disagreeable, and she also refused their collaboration that fell outside the commission's scope; after several suggestions, up to now she seems to have contributed little, but the woman's goal was indeed achieved.

Each time she recalled this, Xin Tiao Qian couldn't help wondering whether that woman was truly stupid, since she felt her own suggestions were really obvious, leaving her feeling a bit guilty when collecting payment.

The Pte Star People aren't stupid either, are they?

Although both are classified as transmigrants from tokusatsu works, and even the Pte Star People were mere sci‑fi aliens in the magazines of Xin Tiao Qian's original world, her actual contact gave her no thrill of 'paper‑cut people stepping into reality'; she only felt this auntie was foolish, rustic, and conceited.

The sense of era is also strong; hearing her say she's lived over two thousand years in this world, Xin Tiao Qian's thought is: 'So living longer doesn't make you smarter....'

She doesn't appear in the history taught at school either; perhaps she was beaten by the Terra leader back then.

She didn't shy from malicious speculation: that woman's habit of looking down her nose at everyone would surely have earned her plenty of slaps back then, mouth opening and closing every day of the year.

This malicious speculation actually hit on a few grains of truth.

Once, as a newly arrived transmigrant, the Pte Star People were eager to invade Earth, but... nowadays everyone knows that before Earth ventured into space it was practically a talent‑crazed pressure cooker, with maddening involution and internal drain, locals and transmigrants completely mingled together.

That history is a shadow that neither this world's early‑arriving extraterrestrials nor other similarly ambitious immortal alien species care to discuss.

But unaware of all this, Xin Tiao Qian now wonders only whether that woman, at the outset not merging with the man and the Hai Pa Lei Wang but instead having the man place her somewhere in the city, was still thinking of fleeing.

She truly couldn't grasp the other party's logic of action.

She had thought their plan was to snatch the crucial Beta System from their scheme and flee, then grab a Star Gate escort ship and be done with it—clearly they had the chance but didn't seize it; could they be intending to lock horns with Heaven Gate City?

Surely they aren't intending to use those Heaven Gate City folks as test subjects for their power, are they?

"Chenmo Xiansheng ultimately couldn't withstand the dark side's consumption, turning into a pure beast toyed with by that nasty auntie......" Just thinking of this possibility made her sigh involuntarily; Xin Tiao Qian actually still harbored hope, hoping that the little snake who didn't heed her words, rushed into disaster, yet luckily survived, could make good on what she'd said.

Let monsters take the hero's place, monsters can also be heroes... You'd better be serious about it, Xiao She.

I've said all that; let me see how far you can go.

Thinking thus, she heard a knock at the door behind her and, annoyed, turned her head: 'Come in, the door isn't locked.'

Having thought and said all that, in the end she still had to receive this group of expected guests first.

"Hello, Miss Xin Tiao Qian, we are Executors of the Two Worlds Safety Bureau."

"Some questions will take up your time."

The visitors who pushed the door in indeed had the Two Worlds Safety Bureau's emblem woven on their uniform chests, but their numbers were fewer than expected.

Only three people.

Is it that today's manpower is truly stretched thin, or that she simply isn't valued enough... Clearly it's a girl who didn't want to see these people, yet upon seeing them she felt a flicker of being slighted.

"Will it take long?"

"Not long, after all you probably don't know much either."

"?"

Xin Tiao Qian blinked, both because of the first half and because of the second half.

She realized this situation didn't match what she'd imagined—are these Executors really that capable in their investigations?

"Really not long?"

"Really not long."

That Executor even wore a pleasant expression, like a property manager initially greeting you to check water and electricity—does it mean they completely assume she's harmless?

Xin Tiao Qian grew ever more perplexed; her confusion was so great she hardly felt angry, and instinctively pondering the cause she realized she actually didn't understand the Two Worlds Safety Bureau.

But it's not that she couldn't think of any possibilities.

There is one possibility, and it's the only one among her random guesses that has any logical support:

Could Xiao She have 'sold' me out?

No, he'd have to have sold everyone, leaving himself a lifeline?

Only with that net friend did she actually consider herself familiar, merely feeling a bit apprehensive about that last tiny possibility.

After all, she truly cherished that friend; if one were to rank friends with whom she could chat about monsters, the netizen who commissioned her would have to place below Little Snake, for Little Snake is the only one who can keep up with all her topics, even the discussion about heroes.

Yet, the more she understood Little Snake, the more she couldn't help suspecting he might have a lot of acting chops—this thought actually arose precisely from her understanding of Little Snake's personality, and both David and Morrison would be willing to give it a thumbs-up.

So she had thought about it but dared not meet them in person; at most, after reminding them of the location, she would pick a sufficiently secluded corner, hold up a telescope to observe, and guess which one might be Little Snake.

Probably that one? Beside the stairwell entrance she had mentioned, in front of the Mothra cabinet, a black-haired youth taking a photo with a terminal, wrapped in a scarf.

Or perhaps the slightly plump silver-haired man later? Or the woman nearby with an excessively good figure?

Probably not? The utterly immersed voice sounds unreliable; while it's not impossible that the other party is of the same sex, the life he describes feels genuinely male.

The girl, unable to stop her mind from wandering, even forgot that she was actually being checked for water usage.

Fortunately, the other party's gentle reminder was more like a small police officer than an Executor: 'Miss Xintiao Xi?'

"......, sorry sorry, I spaced out a bit, uh, go ahead and ask, sit..." Xintiao Xi said, turning her head to look at the pile of trash she had stacked in the corner, fell silent for a moment, then hastily pulled over a chair and placed it directly opposite herself.

"Sit here and ask, I'll answer."

Saying that, she glanced again at the ongoing battle in the distance.

She quickly averted her gaze, putting on a well-behaved, properly seated posture, though her smile was a bit stiff.

"I'll try not to get distracted."