Chapter 907: with translation of chapter title

Sakura's gaze swept from Bachongying's white shrine maiden robe to Kalian's purple kite‑lace gloves, from the gloves to the half‑covering eye Mask, from the Mask to the pair of azure eyes that held a smile.

Then a scene suddenly flashed in her mind: Ke Lai Yin's face, half covered by Corrosion patterns, and the question he flung in front of everyone that made Kesi Mo's mask pattern flash wildly.

"Excuse me, Black Curtain Lady, are you the same?"

Heimu answered at the time, "Yes."

Sakura still remembers standing at the side, her earlobes slightly hot, silently thinking to herself, "So that's it, Black Curtain Lady likes girls."

In Past World Paradise... they are everywhere.

Of course, to be honest, before today the notion of "liking girls" had always been someone else's business to her.

In Sakura's life there have been blades, there have been Tasks, there have been a sister, there have been endless long nights and cold rain, but never the option of "liking".

She had never thought about what kind of person she might like, because she had never been granted the luxury of "thinking about who she likes".

But now, on the phone screen before her, a woman who looks exactly like her—a gentle‑smiling Bachongying in a shrine maiden outfit—stands together with a dashing girl of white hair and blue eyes; the girl's finger hooks the glove, and her mouth bears that bubbly, sweet smile unique to someone in love.

So Bachongying likes girls.

The designer of this scene was probably Ailixiya; when she designed this level and wrote the backstory for the character sharing Sakura's face, she chose to make her like girls.

Sakura slowly handed the phone back, her movement steady as usual, her fingers not trembling at all.

Her expression remained in that gentle, elegant "Hiying sister" mode, the curve of her mouth neither too big nor too small, and even when returning the phone to Ling she gave a slight nod, indicating she had seen it.

But the storm in her mind showed no sign of stopping; after all, they were two girls.

The white‑haired girl in the phantom‑thief outfit was Bachongying's lover.

Two girls together made a rather nice picture: the finger‑hooking gesture under the cherry tree, the shrine maiden robe paired with lace gloves, the harmony of light, shadow, and composition.

Her aesthetic judgment told her it truly was a pair that caught the eye.

Then she suddenly realized that a string she had been tightly wound for a long time had loosened a bit the moment she saw the photo.

It wasn't because the photo itself was especially beautiful, but because the other was a girl.

A beautiful girl with white hair and blue eyes, whose smile was both heroic and gentle, stood there like a white iris bathed in sunlight.

If the other were a man, Sakura would probably continue to feel that subtle vigilance and discomfort; a woman with her face and a man being affectionate—just imagining it makes the back of her head tingle.

But the other is a girl.

And she is a clean‑looking, dashing, very pleasant girl.

Sakura silently dissected her recent mental activity in her mind and reached a conclusion:

Probably because the other was a beautiful girl, her alertness level automatically dropped by several percentage points.

This conclusion made no logical sense, completely at odds with the rationality and composure expected of her as an elite poison‑cocoon assassin, yet her intuition worked that way.

That said, she searched her mind carefully for the names Bachongying and Kalian, and after a long search found no results.

In the Past World Paradise data, only she herself matches that face among the Pursuing Fire Thirteen Yingjie.

The appearance data for the Bachongying character was directly copied from her, but the name "Bachongying" itself she had never heard before.

As for the white‑haired girl, she was even more clueless.

According to the logic of this train trial, everything in the scene should be generated from the Past World Paradise data pool; characters, backgrounds, props—all should have corresponding data sources.

But Kalen Karslanna, that name, that face, that purple kite‑themed phantom‑thief outfit, she could find no matching entry in her memory.

The Past World Paradise database has no record of this person.

She carefully recalled all the Yingjie and related personnel she had encountered—Sakura, Kesi Mo, Ge Lei Xiu, Su, Hua, Ailixiya, Mei Bi Wu Si, Pa Duo, Qianjie, Kevin…

Wait!

Kevin?

"Hiying sister? Hiy—ing— sis—ter—"

Ling's hand waved in front of her several times, like a little bird flapping its wings, "Are you still looking? I've already taken the phone back, okay? You staring at the air with a blank stare is so funny."

Sakura blinked and came back to herself.

The phone indeed had returned to Ling's hand, her right hand still suspended in mid‑air, maintaining the posture from just now.

She naturally withdrew her hand, lifted the teacup, lowered her head to sip a mouthful of tea that was completely cold, and used the rim to cover her slightly pursed lips.

"I saw it."

Her voice steady, "Indeed very beautiful."

"Right? Right?"

After Ling earned the achievement "Approved Kalian sister's looks by the pretty sister", she seemed injected with a burst of adrenaline, and resumed an endless explanatory mode.

She turned the phone screen toward Sakura, swiped to the next photo, and spoke at a rate of three hundred words per minute: "This is a candid shot I took of Kalian sister sweeping leaves at the shrine; look how cool she looks with the broom! This one shows her cooking in the kitchen—actually, don't look at her cooking; she looks serious, but the food is inedible—Kalian sister's cooking is a disaster. Last time she made a pot of curry, my sister and I only managed a single bite, and then she quietly tied her apron and made another pot. And this one! This was taken when Kalian sister was practicing swordsmanship on our rooftop; her sword technique is amazing! She says she started training since childhood, the Kasurana Family's hereditary spear‑fighting art. I don't really know what spear‑fighting is, but it sounds impressive!"

While flipping through the photos, Ling introduced Kalian's various deeds as if reciting a family history, from her full name "Kalen Karslanna" to her family's background, from her part‑time phantom‑thief identity to the scene of her first meeting with Bachongying.

Sakura listened quietly, occasionally nodding, occasionally replying with "Is that so" or "I see", her tone steady, expression gentle, looking like an ordinary passenger earnestly listening to a travel companion's chat.

But her mind had already drifted elsewhere: girls~

Falling in love with a girl.

A woman with her face falling in love with a girl.

She lifted the teacup and found the tea already finished; at the bottom of the cup lay a single jasmine flower, bleached white by the brew, lying alone.

Sakura set the cup back on the table, turned her head to look out the window.

Outside, the city skyline continued to recede slowly, the sunlight gilding the Ferris wheel's outline with a golden edge.

The glass reflected her own image: pink, medium‑short choppy hair, gray‑purple eyes, white stand‑collar uniform, expression blank yet her earlobes faintly warm.

Looking at herself in the glass, she suddenly felt that the amount of information she had taken in today was indeed a lot.

First she discovered another version of herself in this trial scene, then that this self had a sister, then that this self had a lover, then that the lover was a girl, and finally that the girl's photo somehow struck her as quite pretty.

She hasn't yet managed to figure out what the clearance condition for this train trial actually is.

But she can be certain that whoever designed this level has precisely grasped all of her ignorance, including her not knowing what kind of person she might end up with.