Chapter 893

"Morning!"

Ruri Natsume responded with full vitality, waving her hand.

Reisa Kaga's thoughts, however, drifted back to last night uncontrollably.

The appearance of the two beautiful sisters, Sana Akita and Aoi Fujiwara, clearly holding special interest in Natsume-brother, flashed repeatedly in her mind.

Thinking for a whole night, the more she thought, the more restless and uneasy she became.

At this moment, hearing Chikage Natsume still using her surname to address her, that sense of alienation made fine, dense sourness rise in her heart.

She longed to be closer to him, even if it was just a change in address.

And so...

Reisa Kaga took a deep breath, her fingers twisting the skirt hem unconsciously, her head hanging lower, and asked with a voice that was almost inaudible but full of courage:

"Natsume-brother..."

"I... can I call you by your name directly?"

She raised her head, glanced at him quickly, and lowered it again quickly, her cheeks blushing.

"I just feel... always calling by surname... is too distant... it doesn't feel very good."

Chikage Natsume was slightly stunned when he heard this.

"Why say that suddenly?"

Ruri Natsume also blinked her big eyes and looked at her friend who suddenly made a request.

Reisa Kaga's face became redder, her voice trembling slightly due to nervousness.

"Because... because I think people with good relationships all call each other by name directly..."

"Other classmates... are all like this."

She paused, and summoned even greater courage.

"So I also want to call your name... conversely, you... you can also call my name."

Chikage Natsume looked at her shy and serious appearance, and thought for a moment.

Reisa Kaga often came to the house to accompany Ruri, and the few of them got along happily, and the relationship had long been close.

Continuing to use surname address did indeed seem a bit distant.

He nodded.

"Of course you can, Reisa."

Hearing her name called naturally from his mouth, Reisa Kaga was filled with a burst of small excitement in her heart.

"Mm... Chikai-brother."

She responded softly, her eyes curving, spreading a shallow, satisfied smile.

Ruri Natsume on the side tilted her head, her gaze turning between her friend and her brother.

There was some confusion in her heart, but looking closely, Reisa-chan was still that familiar, shy appearance.

Whether at school or outside, she had always been like this.

Moreover, she had vaguely felt before that the address between her brother and Reisa-chan was a bit polite.

Now being able to call each other by name, perhaps... it was a natural manifestation of the relationship going further.

Soon.

The train to Sacred Heart Academy pulled into the station, and the doors slid open.

"Then we're leaving, brother!"

"Chikai-brother, goodbye."

Ruri and Reisa stepped onto the train, waving to Chikage Natsume through the train window.

Chikage Natsume watched the train pull away with a smile.

Not long after, the train he was waiting for also pulled into the station slowly.

The carriage door opened.

In the seat by the window, Lingyin Xuecun was focusing on the literary book in her hand.

Hearing the movement, she habitually raised her eyes and happened to see Chikage Natsume walking into the carriage.

She hesitated slightly, raised her hand, and waved it with a very small amplitude.

Chikage Natsume walked over and stood beside her.

"Morning, Xuecun-san."

"Morning... Natsume-kun."

Chikage Natsume remembered something, took out the first volume of the shoujo manga "Kimi ni Todoke" from his school bag, and handed it to her.

"Here, the one you said you wanted to see yesterday."

Lingyin Xuecun's clear eyes blinked, she reached out to take it, and her fingertips touched his lightly inadvertently.

"Thank you."

She carefully put the manga into her school bag, and then also took out "The Devotion of Suspect X" from her bag and handed it to Chikage Natsume.

"This... I finished reading it, here you go."

"It's a very excellent work."

Chikage Natsume looked down at the book he wrote, a complex light that seemed to carry a smile flashed in his eyes, and he shook his head.

"No need to return it to me, I've already read it."

Lingyin Xuecun was stunned, a hint of surprise appearing on her cold face.

"You've already read it?"

"I heard that this novel is very hard to buy now. If I didn't happen to know the bookstore clerk, I'm afraid I wouldn't have been able to grab it."

"My clerk friend said that many people are queuing up for reservations at the bookstore. How did you buy it?"

Chikage Natsume smiled, his tone natural.

"Because the author of this novel is me."

Lingyin Xuecun was stunned again.

However, the scene of Chikage Natsume's grades, which could be called the bottom of the grade, and the narrow apartment he currently lived in, flashed through her mind.

Such a logically rigorous, refined, and shocking work, how could it be written by him?

If he really had such talent, why wait until now? And why live so poorly?

She concluded that he was joking, and couldn't help but narrow her eyes slightly, a look of annoyance appearing on her cold face.

"Don't mess around."

Chikage Natsume shrugged helplessly.

"Believe it or not."

"However, compared to this, I actually want to ask you, what do you think of the plot of this novel?"

"Especially the ending, the scene where the heroine confesses at the police station, what do you think?"

Lingyin Xuecun saw that he had really read the novel and wanted to discuss it in depth, so she temporarily put aside the question of who the author was, put the book back in her bag, and planned to recommend it to Nanase Xiyuanji another day.

She sat upright, pondered slightly, and the cold voice flowed out with clear analysis.

"The structure is very delicate."

"The ending is indeed unexpected."

"As long as Yasuko doesn't confess voluntarily, it's actually very hard for the police to find conclusive evidence to convict Ishigami."

"Ishigami calculated almost everything, except for the complex emotional variables in the depths of the human heart."

Her gaze was cast toward the passing scenery outside the window, as if sorting out her thoughts.

"Yasuko's feelings for Ishigami are complex. Initially, she might have only regarded him as a 'tool to get rid of trouble,' and even suspected he was 'the second Togashi'."

"But after learning the truth, she realized that Ishigami's love was a kind of almost pure, self-destructive sacrifice."

"That heavy sense of guilt eventually transformed into a determination to share the blame. Therefore, the sentence 'a woman like me doesn't deserve your sacrifice' when she confessed marked that she finally understood the essence of Ishigami's love and chose to respond with 'mutual destruction'."

She turned her head back, looked at Chikage Natsume, and summarized.

"It is precisely because of this late understanding and response... that Ishigami's perfect plan completely collapsed."

"It can be said that as long as either Ishigami or Yasuko was selfish or indifferent enough, this tragedy would not have been established from the beginning."

Her tone gradually calmed down, carrying the aftermath of reading.

"After reading this book... I felt more deeply that human emotions are fluid and complex."

"The impression of the first meeting will form a stereotypical cognition, but with getting along, the cognition will be constantly corrected."

"It's just that this kind of correction often requires the trigger of an extreme event, and the parties involved can realize it clearly."