Chen Yuanyuan was wearing an apricot-colored shirt jacket with matching pants and skirt tonight, giving her a clean and refreshing look.
The night wind blew, and she gently brushed the hair from her forehead.
“In a few months, the college entrance exam will start.” She turned to look at Bai Fan. “Which school do you want to go to, Bai Fan?”
Bai Fan stuffed the test papers he had just reviewed back into his folder.
“Huh?” He smiled a little sheepishly. “I want to go to Tianqi Academy.”
“Tianqi Academy?” Chen Yuanyuan covered her mouth in surprise.
Bai Fan knew very well that this goal seemed somewhat unrealistic to many people.
Tianqi Academy was the top-ranked university in the Northern Federation, with an astonishing number of applicants every year. In a remote city like Lincheng, years could pass without a single student getting in.
Bai Fan scratched his head.
“So you also think I’m being a bit unrealistic, Chen Yuanyuan?”
“No.” Chen Yuanyuan gently shook her head. “I know you’re not the type to make wild claims.”
She smiled. “Since you have such a goal, there should be a chance to achieve it.”
Bai Fan could sense that her words were somewhat encouraging, but at a time like this, no one would pour cold water on him either.
He thought for a moment. “What about you, Chen Yuanyuan? Which school do you want to go to?”
Chen Yuanyuan was silent for a moment, her eyes a little dazed.
“I can’t think that far ahead. I’ll go wherever I can get into. Then I’ll learn a skill and find a stable job.”
She smiled lightly. “It’ll be better than now, at least.”
After saying that, she looked back at Bai Fan.
“You’re different from me, Bai Fan. I’ve wasted the first ten years of my life. Saying I’ve woken up now… it’s just locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
“It’s never too late to mend the fold after the sheep is lost.” Bai Fan said seriously.
He knew that Chen Yuanyuan hadn’t had an easy time these past few years. Because he had used her name to enter the Gold Sand Club, it had led to subsequent blockades and investigations, and she had lost the job she had worked so hard to find.
And before that, her mother had been scammed, not only losing all their savings but also taking on loans.
Her father’s workers’ compensation from an early injury had been nearly exhausted by long-term treatment, and her younger brother was in boarding school, which often required money.
During that period, the worried expression on her face had almost never left. Later, she managed to find a new job at a restaurant run by relatives.
After learning all this, Bai Fan felt that he somehow owed her, and had been thinking of ways to make it up.
But it seemed that she had slowly come out of those shadows.
“It’s never too late!” Chen Yuanyuan suddenly laughed. “Keep it up, Bai Fan. I wish you success from the start.”
Bai Fan gave a wry smile.
“Isn’t it a bit too early to say that?”
“No, it’s not.” Chen Yuanyuan shook her head seriously. “When you get into Tianqi Academy later, I’ll say it again.”
Bai Fan nodded.
“Then I’ll accept your blessing for now, Chen Yuanyuan.”
The two continued walking along the street, their shadows stretched long by the streetlights.
But gradually, a strange feeling arose in Bai Fan’s heart.
Chen Yuanyuan tonight… seemed a bit off.
From earlier on, the smile on her face had remained fixed, never fading.
Even when talking about unpleasant past events, it was the same. The smile seemed glued to her face, making people feel oddly uncomfortable.
Pedestrians gradually thinned out. A little further ahead was the bus stop where they usually parted.
However, tonight, a strange woman was standing at the stop. She was slightly plump, wearing an exaggerated smiling mask on her face, looking eerily odd.
Seeing Chen Yuanyuan, she immediately came forward warmly.
“Yuanyuan, your smile looks good today.”
Chen Yuanyuan’s smile didn’t change.
“Mm.”
“Smiling more relaxes your mood. Yuanyuan, you haven’t come to Mass for two days.”
The woman’s tone was intimate. “Tomorrow is the weekend. Come along.”
Chen Yuanyuan nodded with a smile.
“I’ll be there on time. Give my regards to the Venerable.”
Bai Fan stood to the side, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.
Mass? Venerable? What’s that?
As he was about to think further, a smiling mask suddenly leaned in front of him.
“Oh my, this is the first time I’ve seen such a handsome young man.”
Bai Fan’s eyebrow twitched.
The woman had already turned to Chen Yuanyuan.
“Yuanyuan, is this your new boyfriend?”
“No!” Chen Yuanyuan quickly shook her head. “You’ve misunderstood, Auntie. He’s just my classmate. We just happen to be going the same way.”
“Oh dear.” The woman waved her hand. “I understand these things. He walks you home every day. Even if it’s not now, it will be later.”
Bai Fan felt a bit embarrassed.
The woman, however, looked at him with a smile.
“Young man, you look good when you smile. Smile more, smile more.”
The strange feeling in Bai Fan’s heart grew stronger.
From the beginning, this woman seemed unable to stay away from one word: smile.
The mask smiled, she spoke with a smile, even the topic revolved around smiles. And… Chen Yuanyuan’s smile was becoming more and more stiff.
“No, Chen Yuanyuan and I really are just classmates.”
“Why be shy?” The woman laughed even more happily. “Girls’ thoughts are easy to understand. If she didn’t like you, why would she let you accompany her home from school every day?”
Bai Fan could only put on a polite but awkward smile, while secretly stepping back half a step.
But the woman acted as if she hadn’t noticed, and instead directly grabbed his arm.
“Young man. Tomorrow our church has a Mass activity. Yuanyuan will also attend. Would you like to come along?”
Bai Fan immediately became alert.
“What does your church do?”
“Why, we help everyone be happy, of course.” The woman said matter-of-factly. “Everyone be happy together, laugh together, and all the misfortunes of life will naturally be washed away. When you die later, you can go to heaven together.”
Bai Fan’s mouth twitched slightly.
This rhetoric… was almost no different from the cult organizations he had seen before.
The only difference was that other churches emphasized endurance, suffering, and redemption, while they emphasized — smiles.
“How do you make people happy?”
“Why, by smiling, of course!” The woman spread her arms, her tone almost fanatical. “Old people smile, children smile, young people smile, everyone smiles together. As long as you smile, your troubles will naturally disappear, and happiness will come to you.”
Bai Fan was silent.
This set of words sounded truly absurd.
But when he turned to look at Chen Yuanyuan, he found that she was still maintaining that standard smile, as if she had gotten used to it.
Bai Fan’s heart sank.
Something was wrong. There was definitely a problem here. No matter what, he couldn’t just leave Chen Yuanyuan like this.
“So?” The woman blinked with a smile. “Have you decided? And Yuanyuan will be there too.”
That look clearly implied something.
A strange feeling passed through Bai Fan’s heart, but he quickly suppressed it.
“Okay.” He also showed a smile. “Auntie, take me to see it tomorrow.”
The woman immediately beamed, while Chen Yuanyuan showed a slightly surprised expression.
Bai Fan nodded at her.
“See you tomorrow then.”
—
The next day, inside the office.
As soon as Bai Fan entered, he saw the girl with wine-red hair kneeling on one knee, fiddling with an exaggeratedly large matte silver pistol.
The barrel was thick, with four gas vents on the slide, and it was a whole size longer than a Desert Eagle.
“Sister Mingxi, what are you doing?”
“From our last fight, I found the Magnum Eagle’s firepower insufficient, so I asked family to swap it for a bigger one.” Ruan Mingxi didn’t look up, her fingers brushing over a silver bullet with red paint on the tip. “’BD-06 Titanfall,’ .50 Long Magnum enhanced round, chamber pressure 30% higher than 50AE.”
She pushed in the magazine and stood up, pressing her wrist down and leaning forward as if drawing a bow.
“But there’s one problem. After pulling the trigger, you have to wait a few tenths of a second for the internal recoil assembly to charge before it fires. It’s not instant. If you wait until you see the target to pull the trigger, it’s too late. You have to predict.”
She gave a self-deprecating smile.
“During practice shooting last week at the range, all three shots missed. The first was too high, the second too early. For the third, I closed my eyes and waited for it to fire. There was only one hole on the target, and it was grazing outside the ten-ring. The engineer behind the observation window laughed and slapped the table.”
After Ruan Mingxi finished inspecting her new gun, she tilted her head to look at the boy at the door.
“Xiao Fan, what brings you here all of a sudden? Is it something good?”
Bai Fan began to explain. “It’s like this…”
After hearing him, a look of interest appeared on her face.
“This church you mentioned, I’ve looked into it.” Ruan Mingxi propped her chin. “Its full name is just one word: ‘Smile.’ It can also be called the Smile Church.”
Bai Fan frowned.
“Sister Mingxi, is there something wrong with this church?”
“Something wrong?” Ruan Mingxi looked at him with a half-smile. “You mean how they use the herd mentality of gatherings to brainwash people, swindling believers—especially middle-aged people and women—out of their pensions and insurance money?”
“That’s already a serious crime, isn’t it?” Bai Fan felt his scalp tingle.
Just thinking about how the savings that those elderly people and aunties should have used for a peaceful retirement were being swindled away bit by bit by this unscrupulous church.
A surge of inexplicable anger rose in his heart. “Doesn’t the Federation do anything about these churches?”
“Calm down, calm down.” Ruan Mingxi waved her hand.
She didn’t know where she had gotten the black tea leaves, but she had brewed it long before Bai Fan arrived.
She first leisurely poured herself a cup, then pushed a cup to Bai Fan.
“I didn’t expect Little Sister Xiao Fan to have such a heroic spirit, always worrying about others.”
Bai Fan was silent for two seconds.
“Sister Mingxi.”
“Hm?”
“I’m a boy now.”
“I know.” Ruan Mingxi nodded matter-of-factly. “But it won’t be for long.”
Bai Fan: “…”
Seeing his speechless expression, Ruan Mingxi explained with a grin. “You must have noticed it yourself, right? Your Spiritual Essence has almost fully recovered. Now it’s just waiting for a trigger. Maybe the next second, if something stimulates you, you’ll change back to ‘Tianyu Princess.’”
She gave Bai Fan a look up and down.
“The proof is that even though you’re still a boy, these days due to the Spiritual Essence, some parts of you already look no different from a girl’s.”
Bai Fan’s mouth twitched. Although the words were hard to hear, he couldn’t argue.
During these days, he could indeed feel his body changing subtly. His figure was becoming slender, his shoulders narrower. If he changed into women’s clothing now, probably few people would recognize that he was originally a boy.
“Alright, alright.” Bai Fan quickly interrupted her. “Sister Mingxi, let’s not discuss this now. I’m asking about the church. This problem is clearly serious, why doesn’t the Federation deal with it?”
Ruan Mingxi shook her head. “To be precise, it’s not that they won’t deal with it, but that they don’t have the strength to deal with it.”
“Such a large organization as the Federation can’t handle a small church in a border city?”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Ruan Mingxi took a sip of black tea. “First of all, the Federation is an extremely vast and complex organization, composed of countless people, departments, interests, and affairs. You can’t treat the Federation as an entity with a unified will, thinking that whatever it wants to do, it can definitely do.”
Listening to her calm and steady analysis, Bai Fan gradually calmed down as well. He picked up the black tea in front of him and took a gentle sip.
The next second, his movements suddenly froze.
Wait, why does this taste a bit strange? Besides the tea aroma, there was an eerie sweet and cloying sensation.
Bai Fan looked down at the cup. After a moment, his expression turned peculiar.
‘Oh my god… she actually added milk powder to black tea? Sister Mingxi’s taste really is as indescribable as ever.’
“Back to the main topic.” Ruan Mingxi acted as if she hadn’t noticed his expression. “It’s not that the Federation won’t handle it, but that the Lincheng Comprehensive Administration Bureau hasn’t handled it. Specific affairs fall under specific units. Don’t escalate everything directly to the Federation level.”
Bai Fan nodded thoughtfully.
“Second, the Administration Bureau also has priorities when handling affairs.” At this point, Ruan Mingxi’s lips curled slightly. “The Lincheng Comprehensive Bureau can’t even completely solve problems like gangs seizing grassroots power, Skeleton Beast organ trading, and various illegal smuggling channels.”
Bai Fan’s body stiffened slightly. As someone who had often smuggled Skeleton Beast organs for Shisan Kai, he guiltily shifted his gaze out the window.
Ruan Mingxi noticed but only gave a meaningful smile.
“So, do you think they have the energy to deal with a church that, at least on the surface, seems harmless, just tricking old people into donating a bit of money?”
Bai Fan pondered for a moment.
“Grassroots organizations have limited resources, and they have more urgent and dangerous issues to prioritize, right?”
“Correct.” Ruan Mingxi nodded in satisfaction. “You understand perfectly.”
The office was quiet for a few seconds. Bai Fan suddenly tightened his grip on the teacup.
“But…” He raised his head. “I still feel something is wrong. Since I have time now, I can’t just pretend nothing happened. I want to go see for myself.”
Ruan Mingxi raised an eyebrow.
“Because of that girl?”
“Mm.” Bai Fan nodded seriously. “I’m worried about her.”
Ruan Mingxi stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly showed a somewhat meaningful smile.
“Alright, I’ll go with you to check it out.”
Bai Fan was slightly taken aback.
“Is that okay?”
“I don’t have anything else to do anyway.” Ruan Mingxi stretched. “Maybe on this trip, we can even find clues left by the Bloodline Association’s Bishop.”
Bai Fan knew in his heart that she was accompanying him mainly because she was worried about him.
He relaxed a bit.
After all, Ruan Mingxi still held an official status. With her by his side, it would be much more convenient no matter what happened.
“Oh, right.” Bai Fan suddenly thought of something. “What about Captain Lin Xincheng?”
“Senior Brother?” Ruan Mingxi propped her chin. “He has his own things to take care of.”
At that, she added, “But don’t worry. If we really encounter danger, as long as we contact him, he’ll definitely come as fast as he can.”
Bai Fan nodded and didn’t press further.
Although Lin Xincheng occasionally disappeared suddenly without knowing what he was doing, he always showed up at critical moments and never let them down.
Subconsciously, he felt reassured by Lin Xincheng’s presence.
Bai Fan’s gaze passed through the window to the bus stop in the distance. That was the gathering point he had agreed upon with that short, plump auntie to go to the church.
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