Chapter 769: A Bit Ambiguous

She finally lifted her head, her light‑purple pupils staring straight at Heimu under the warm yellow light, inside them roiling a carefully cupped joy, "It's warm. I thought touching meant losing. Turns out it can just be touching."

Heimu looked at those sparkling light‑purple eyes, and a module in his brain responsible for processing social signals began to scream alarms.

She said it was a head‑pat.

She said a head‑pat was warm.

She said a head‑pat was different from others.

While she spoke, her face flushed, her ears reddened, and her eyes held light.

Heimu scrambled those key bits together in the sloppiest mental handwriting, reaching a conclusion that almost shattered the expression beneath her hat brim: she had misunderstood.

XiaDie thought she was asking about a head‑pat.

She assumed that the repeatedly gentle stroking from head to tail was born of some tender concern, an intent to comfort her.

It was a voluntary, warm physical contact.

She had no clue it was merely a deep data scan.

Heimu felt the temperature on his cheek climb by a fraction of a degree.

She lifted her hand to press the hat brim, shielding her slightly reddened ear base, and cleared her throat.

Reason String told her she should correct it now.

But as the words reached her lips she realized any phrasing would become, "Actually I wasn't patting you just now, I was only checking whether Laigu Shi left a Backdoor on you."

After running the sentence through her mind, it sounded exactly like an extremely awkward tsundere forcing a tough front.

She looked at XiaDie's eyes, which were finally no longer distant but filled with a cautious hope, and swallowed her explanation.

Forget it.

The atmosphere was already like this.

Forcing another clarification would be like kicking the hard‑won normal conversational vibe to pieces.

She still had the basic skill of reading the room.

She pressed the hat brim down half a notch, and her right hand unconsciously rose to touch the back of her neck.

After doing that, she realized it was exactly the same as XiaDie's earlier move, and quickly lowered her hand.

"Sorry. About earlier, I should have gotten your consent first. It was a check. When you were controlled, some data was abnormal; I need to confirm there's no residue."

Heimu brushed the hat brim again, his fingers sliding around its edge, and lifted the Witch Hat off his head, holding it in his hand.

Gray‑white long hair spilled out of the hat; she casually brushed the strands tangled by the hat and tucked a lock that fell before her eyes behind her ear.

The gesture let her temporarily avoid XiaDie's gaze.

XiaDie tilted her head slightly after listening, the butterfly earrings swaying gently among the hair.

The flush on her face remained; watching Heimu's flustered handling of the hat and hair, her lips curled into a tiny arc.

"Madam, regarding your earlier expression, each time you press the hat brim down, it seems you're trying to hide something."

Heimu's finger paused on the brim.

"You pressed it three times just now."

XiaDie's gaze fell on the Witch Hat, then returned to Heimu's face; those light‑purple eyes remained gentle, but deep within the pupils flickered a glint that could be called "meticulous observation."

"Does a check require such prolonged touching? From head to the back of the neck, every inch was felt. You were thorough during the scan, and your hand stayed on the back of the neck without lifting. After the scan you lingered a moment. That wasn't the checking time."

Heimu's ear base reddened visibly in an instant.

She fastened the hat back on her head, the brim pressed lower than before, covering most of her face.

Her fingers rubbed the brim edge twice unconsciously, the black glove tips pressing shallow creases into the brim.

She opened her mouth, intending to say something to turn the tide, but found her social module completely crashed.

Earlier, while dueling Laigu Shi's afterimage in the violet‑white void, she didn't even blink.

Now she didn't even know how to answer that line.

Fighting Bai E is physical output; conversing with XiaDie is a mental attack, a battle on a completely different plane.

"The check is indeed finished."

She heard her voice emerge from beneath the brim, striving to keep the last trace of decorum, "I just wanted to double‑check. Your constitution is unique, so spending extra time is normal."

"Then how do you feel about it?"

The voice was light, the tail rising less than a quarter degree.

"Not bad."

The air stood still.

The cocoon‑shaped chandelier in the living room continued to emit warm yellow light, while the cool white glimmer from the flower fields outside streamed through the window frame onto the floor, the two beams carving a stark dividing line on the stone tiles.

The shadow of an Antiling flower quivered gently along the boundary.

Heimu's mouth still held the shape from saying "Not bad," as if betrayed by his own tongue and nailed in place.

She pressed the brim to the lowest point of her life.

XiaDie also lowered her head, her pointed ears reddened to the point of bleeding.

Those light‑purple pupils swirled with a mix of shock, shame, and a hint of amusement, which she forced shut with her eyelashes.

She folded her hands again on her knees, fingertips repeatedly tracing the outline of a butterfly on the glove's butterfly emblem.

A stack of papers on the low table, not yet put away, was turned a page by the draft, producing a faint rustle.

Heimu was the first to break the silence.

She cleared her throat, pulling the topic back from a dangerous cliff edge with forced force.

"Your sister, Bo Lu Qiya. Is she still—" she paused, swallowing the "tied up" description, "—still in that room?"

XiaDie blinked slightly, her eyelashes fluttering twice, then sprang up as if reminded of something important.

The chair was nudged half an inch backward by her movement, the chair leg emitting a brief scrape against the stone floor.

"Bo Lu Xiya."

When she uttered the name, her tone changed, shifting from the shy, gentle one just now to one that was apologetic yet urgent.

The heels of her purple high‑heels clicked on the stone floor several times, and the flower buds on her hem swayed lightly with the motion of standing up.

She walked to the tightly shut white door, her slender pale fingers resting on the knob, paused a moment, then pushed it open.

Heimu followed behind her through the corridor, arrived at the white door, and glanced inside.

The white room was small, with a single bed in the center.

Lying on the bed was a girl, whose outline was almost identical to XiaDie's, her shoulder‑length purple‑white hair softly spread across the pillow, elf‑like pointed ears peeking out from the strands, the tips of the ears faintly tinged pink.

A few strands clung to her forehead and cheeks, making the already pallid face appear even more bloodless.

Her eyes were tightly shut, her eyelashes casting two very faint shadows on her eyelids.