Gray high-rise buildings adorned with cheap neon signs, crisscrossed aerial walkways, subway tracks, and floating cars weaving between them—together, they formed the liveliest scenery of the Blue Court area.
Although quite a few mutants lived here, ordinary people were still the majority, so the night scene wasn’t too different from the city center.
“Lucia, what good thing happened to you?”
Clara couldn’t hold back from asking. Since they entered just now, Lucia had been acting unusually cheerful. While she was usually energetic, this was clearly a sign of being in a particularly good mood.
Could seeing her brother’s messy room really make her this happy?
“Hehe, I’m not telling~”
She was even being coy about it.
Clara was curious but didn’t press further. In situations like this, asking too much could lead to mistakes. Better to just keep quiet and think about where to take this girl for the promised meal.
Lucia, however, pointed at a signboard in the sky.
“Bro, Affordable Seafood Restaurant?”
Lucia suggested it, but Clara instinctively rejected it.
“No, seafood is too expensive, and there’s definitely squid.”
Realizing she shouldn’t have jumped in so quickly, Clara tried to cover it up with a quiet excuse.
“Huh? Senior Clara doesn’t eat squid either?”
“Well, I think I mentioned this before? I… I inherited a tiny bit of squid factor, so my tastes are similar to your brother’s.”
Mumbling her reply, she quickened her pace, trying to create distance and end the topic.
But Lucia quickly caught up and slung an arm over her shoulder, asking:
“How did your parents meet, Senior? I’ve never heard about a mutant and a human falling in love!”
Of course, Clara refused to answer.
“…I don’t want to talk about it.”
It was a lie to begin with, and the more she talked, the easier it would be to slip up. She wasn’t about to dig her own grave.
“Hmph~”
Even though she was rejected, Lucia’s mood remained excellent.
She then suggested:
“How about we eat over there instead?”
Lucia pointed to a Soup Dumpling restaurant.
It was a chain store that also existed in the city center.
The food at these places wasn’t particularly amazing, but in the Blue Court area—a culinary wasteland where even roadside ramen stalls could taste like rust—a chain store meant the food would at least be reliably normal, with a decent baseline.
Most importantly…
The relatively light, broth-based noodles at the soup dumpling place were more friendly to Clara’s tongue.
“Fine.”
The three of them entered the restaurant and sat around the unpretentious plastic tables and chairs. Their seats were by the floor-to-ceiling window, allowing them to observe the pedestrians and street scenes while eating, which was a nice little diversion.
However, the interior decor of the soup dumpling place wasn’t exactly refined.
Even though it was a chain store from the city center, it used the kind of white plastic tables and chairs commonly found in food stalls, fitting right in with the local restaurant vibe. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, I suppose.
“You order. No salt or spice for me.”
“Same for my brother, right?”
“What would Senior Clara like to eat?”
“Squill” nodded, and only then did Clara realize he hadn’t spoken for a while.
No, it wasn’t that the imposter wasn’t talking…
It was that Lucia wasn’t talking to him, so he had no chance to speak. This made her curious: why had the sister who always clung to her brother suddenly started ignoring him?
Clara had a faint, uneasy feeling.
Lucia placed the order and then looked up at “Squill.”
“Bro, how did you and Senior Clara meet? You’d already met before, right? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Hearing Lucia ask this, Clara felt a wave of relief.
So she wasn’t completely ignoring her brother. That uneasy feeling must have just been her imagination…
“Heroes and mutants aren’t supposed to associate openly. There’s no law against it, but it’s an unwritten rule. You know that, right? So, we can only be secret comrades. Our relationship shouldn’t be known by anyone.”
Listening to “Squill’s” explanation, Lucia clapped her hands and laughed.
“Oh! It sounds like secret lovers!”
Yep, she was definitely acting strange.
While waiting for the food, Clara caught sight of a familiar, hurried figure walking past the soup dumpling restaurant.
A woman in a uniform with a satchel over one shoulder, her rather long side-swept bangs tucked behind her ear—the image of a tired female office worker…
It was Miss Nangong.
She knew Miss Nangong’s apartment was near the subway station, but running into her here was too much of a coincidence!
Hadn’t she specifically left the apartment to avoid this very scenario?!
Even worse…
Miss Nangong had noticed her. After walking past, she quickly turned back, tapped on the glass through the window, and gestured for Clara—who had ducked under the table—to stand up.
“Ugh…”
One piece of bad luck after another these past two days… Lady Fate was really playing rough. Misfortune just kept piling on, one thing after another. It was awful.
“Is that someone you know, Senior Clara?” Lucia asked.
Since the soup dumpling restaurant’s windows were fairly soundproof, Clara couldn’t hear what Nangong Xiwang was saying on the other side. Miss Nangong then walked directly into the restaurant and headed straight for their table.
She called out to Clara, who was sitting on a white plastic stool:
“Hey, Clara! Your days of standing me up are over. Give me the new drafts!”
Nangong Xiwang’s face was stern, not as kind as Clara remembered.
Was she angry because Clara had stood her up to come eat?
The plastic table was meant for four, so even if she didn’t order, there was an empty seat for her to sit down.
“The d-drafts are still being prepared… I just got back from the resort…”
Clara stammered her reply, but Lucia cut in and asked:
“Senior Clara, is this… the kind-hearted Editor?”
“Yes, she’s helped me a lot.”
Clara glanced sheepishly at Nangong Xiwang.
However, saying this created a contradiction.
“So, you did have an appointment to meet tonight, right? Then why were you at my apartment? Was that your meeting spot? Were you staying in your brother’s room?”
Nangong Xiwang also raised an eyebrow, looking at Lucia as she asked:
“Was the room Clara was staying in before your brother’s?”
“Huh?”
Seeing that Lucia also didn’t know, Nangong Xiwang turned her expressionless gaze back to Clara.
“Could you explain, Miss Clara?”
A lie constantly covered by new lies would inevitably reach a point where it couldn’t be hidden.
Clara understood this principle all too well now, but she couldn’t stop here. She had to do something more…
“Back then, I was short on money and hadn’t found my current job yet. I couldn’t afford rent. Mr. Squill happened to be away on a business trip to Earth during that period, so I temporarily stayed at his place.”
“It was during that time… that I picked up Miss Nangong, who had collapsed on the street, and brought her home…”
To be honest, Clara’s lie was full of holes, but “Squill” still played along, feigning surprise.
“That happened while I was away?”
Lucia, however, clapped her hands, a bright smile spreading across her face.
“Helping each other like this… you’re not just simple drawing comrades anymore, are you? Your friendship has surpassed that of mere comrades, even breaking down the barrier between heroes and mutants…”
She then asked:
“Senior Clara, do you have… those kinds of feelings for my brother?”
Those kinds? What kinds?
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