Chapter 941: Dialogue

Perspective shift.

Heimu pushed open a door, the data stream on the door sliding across her fingertips, scattering into a few strands of pale blue light that vanished into the air, and then she stepped into the lounge.

This is an unexpected obstacle on the required path, it will have to be dealt with.

Pa Duo followed closely inside, her tail sweeping the doorframe, her head still looking back.

The corridor wall she had just passed was embedded with a row of glowing spiral patterns; she stared at them several times, always feeling something hidden within the spirals, and nearly tripped over the threshold.

"Be careful."

Heimu didn't turn her head, extending her right hand backward.

"Meow!"

Pa Duo hopped to one side first, her tail whipping half a circle; after landing she realized there was no threshold, just a raised floor tile, so she crouched and poked the tile with a finger, "What a sneaky design, madam. Did Past World Paradise ever have such raised tiles before?"

"Probably not before."

Heimu walked to the table in the center of the lounge, pulled out a chair and sat down.

The chair leg scraped the floor, emitting a short squeak that rang especially clear in the quiet lounge.

She rested her elbow on the tabletop, crossed her fingertips under her chin, her dark‑purple eyes narrowing slightly in the lounge's warm yellow light, watching Pa Duo circle the tile twice like a cat that found a new toy before finally giving up, then hopping over to the chair opposite her and sitting cross‑legged.

Pa Duo sat casually, her tail looping over, the two cat paws intermittently stroking the hair at the tail tip.

Her eyes glittered in the warm yellow light, curiosity outweighing nervousness, yet the nervousness hadn't fully faded—a state like a cat allowed into its owner's bedroom for the first time, eager to sniff around but fearing to knock something over and be shooed out.

"Madam," Pa Duo transferred the tail tip to the other hand, tilting her head slightly, "You hadn't finished earlier—what's going on with AiLi sister?"

Heimu gave her a glance.

"The situation is not very clear,"

Heimu uncrossed her fingers, tapping the tabletop twice with her fingertips, "There are a few points we can confirm so far. The underlying data of Past World Paradise was tampered with from outside, the permissions are higher than mine, and the method is utterly unreasonable."

Pa Duo's ears twitched.

"That's the one you mentioned before, the joyous Star God Aha?"

Heimu nodded, with unabashed helplessness.

"It is Him. The Memory repository is locked, Yingjie's state was randomly disturbed. Every incident bears His hand."

She paused, the tapping finger on the tabletop halted, the fingertip pressed against the wood grain unmoving, "If He weren't wreaking havoc throughout Letu, I would be handling Xianzhou matters now, and Xi Lian wouldn't have been taken by Mei Bi Wu Si."

Pa Duo's mouth formed a tiny O, her cat ears flicked to the sides, as if struggling to digest the weight of the concept "the Star God personally intervening to cause trouble."

Then she gave a reaction that surprised Heimu a bit—her eyes lit up sharply.

Mixed with fear, but curiosity prevailed.

"That Aha, really that powerful? Able to restrain you?"

"Star God,"

Heimu's mouth drooped slightly as she said those two words, as if tasting something unpleasant, "is the embodiment of the cosmic Rule. The source of destiny. At my current power level I can still chat merrily in front of the envoy, but confronting the Star God himself, even if it's just a few restriction permissions casually thrown in, can only be slowly unraveled."

Pa Duo shifted her cross‑legged posture, leaning forward, her tail swaying slowly behind her.

"Rule... destiny... Star God..."

She muttered the words repeatedly, then lifted her chin from her palm, "Madam, the things you mentioned are all from the world outside, right? I've been here so long and never imagined there was such a vast universe beyond."

"Do you want to know what the outside world is like?"

Heimu looked at her and asked.

The tone of the sentence lay between a statement and a question, more like an invitation.

Pa Duo's ears perked up with a swish.

"May I?"

"Of course. The outside world, to be precise, is a universe. The tracks of the Starry Sky Train connect countless planets, each planet hosting its own civilization, history, and stories. There is the icy Beloberg, there is the Xianzhou Alliance that traverses the Star Chariot— and many more."

"Xianzhou?"

Pa Duo caught the term, her cat ears turning half a circle, "Sounds like a big ship?"

Heimu nodded, tapping the tabletop again with her fingertip.

"Luofu Xianzhou houses hundreds of billions of people; the whole vessel is a city flying in the universe. The Xianzhou people have their own calendar, culture, cuisine. There is also the Star Chariot, a type of aircraft, similar to a flying motorbike, capable of shuttling between skyscrapers."

Pa Duo's mouth formed another O, this time rounder than before.

She was clearly trying to picture "hundreds of billions living on a flying ship" in her mind, but lacking material, she got stuck halfway and could only fill the remaining blank with imagined swaths of color.

She looked down at the chair she was sitting on, then glanced up at the lounge ceiling, and suddenly sprang a question unrelated to the previous topic: "Are there cats outside?"

Heimu's mouth corner twitched.

"Yes."

"That's good!"

Pa Duo nodded heavily, as if the answer resolved a long‑standing dilemma.

Then her ears twitched again, this time turning forward, excitement of a newly‑sprouted idea in her voice, "Madam—may I go out and take a look?"

Heimu stared at her, saying nothing.

Her dark‑purple eyes quietly gazed at her for a moment in the warm yellow light, then Heimu said, "You may. I was already planning to take you out."

Pa Duo's tail snapped up half its length behind her, the tip curling into a small hook.

But before she could translate her excitement into a larger movement, Heimu added, "And there's someone outside who should get along with you well."

"Who?"

Pa Duo's ears stood up high.

"One of Weng Fa Luo Si's Golden Descendants, Sai Fei Er."

Heimu leaned back in the chair, crossing her hands in front of her, "Cat ears, cat tail, personality similar to yours—playful, curious, but braver. Her speed is the fastest in all of Weng Fa Luo Si; if she runs at full speed, she can sprint from one end of Xianzhou to the other in just a few seconds."

Pa Duo's pupils dilated slightly.

Subconsciously they looked down at their little cat leg; they also ran quite fast, occasionally could beat other Yingjie in Past World Paradise in foot races, but "crossing a planet in a few seconds" was clearly beyond their Cognition range.

"A few seconds?"

They repeated it, voice rising, "Are you sure it really is a cat and not some other species? Has lightning become a spirit?"

"Its most often said phrase is 'Curiosity doesn't kill the cat.'"

Heimu's mouth corner still held that curve, "And it thinks it has nine lives."

"Then it's also a cat!"

Pa Duo slapped her thigh, Tail wagging happily behind her, "I heard in Past World Paradise that Weng Fa Luo Si has a cat that runs very fast, but I've never seen it. You know, Past World Paradise and Weng Fa Luo Si are neighbors, but there's a data wall between them; I've only heard the name, never seen a picture. Does it really have a Tail like mine?"

"Yes. A bit slimmer than yours, silver‑gray, with the tip of the Tail having a tuft of especially light‑colored fur."

Pa Duo lowered her head to look at the fluffy brown Tail she was holding, lifted it up to examine it in the light, then solemnly announced, "Then I have to go meet it. I want to compare whose Tail is more beautiful."