“It’s exactly as I saw in the mirror, such dim lights—so this isn’t illusion magic, what I saw in the mirror really happened in her room…”
“She has a twin sister?”
“But that’s impossible, XÄ«’s never mentioned it at all… More likely, someone wants to impersonate her for some nefarious purpose!”
The train of thought ended here.
Lin Nuo went straight to the Chapel, stopping outside XÄ«’s room, where he waited for quite a while, but didn’t hear a single sound from inside.
“Chirp chirp…”
Fatty Bird flew over and landed on Lin Nuo’s shoulder, signaling that the window was closed and there was indeed no one inside.
Lin Nuo pushed the door open and entered.
The room was pitch black.
Only the fixed oil lamp’s wick burned, casting a faint and somber flame.
On XÄ«’s bed, the bedding was puffed up.
Lin Nuo walked over and touched the surface—it was still warm, the warmth lingering from when someone just left the bed.
A faint rustling sound guided the meditative Lin Nuo to look toward the tightly closed door in the room.
The place where XÄ« lived was the spot Lin Nuo had specially chosen for her, the best-lit area in the Chapel.
Perhaps XÄ« didn’t like living somewhere too open, so her bed and daily necessities were all out in the open area.
That’s why every time Lin Nuo visited, he always saw that the bedroom door was tightly closed.
Taking a step forward, Lin Nuo heard the sound of stepping on something.
Looking down, he could barely make out—
Scattered on the ground were fragments of a mirror, folded paper cranes, paper butterflies, spreading from beneath his feet all the way into the gap of XÄ«’s half-open bedroom door…
“…XÄ«?”
Still, no one answered.
Lin Nuo walked toward the half-open door and pushed it open.
Inside, it was even darker.
A faint smell of paint and a familiar fragrance hit him; it seemed XÄ« often stayed here, leaving the room imbued with her unique scent…
“Knock, knock, knock.”
He kept walking forward—
Until his shadow was completely swallowed by the doorway—
This room seemed utterly empty.
Lin Nuo groped his way to the middle of the room.
Only by getting very close could he see the many sheets of developing paper and the feather pens and paints for drawing.
He was about to take another step when something blocked his path.
Raising a hand to touch the item in front of him, Lin Nuo felt a cold, hard, smooth and dense surface, making his curiosity intensify.
“Why does XÄ« keep so many mirrors in her bedroom?”
“Chirp!”
Fatty Bird, who had been searching for something to light up the room, now flew inside in the darkness.
Hearing Lin Nuo’s voice, it landed accurately on his wrist and placed several matches it held in its beak into his palm.
“Snap!”
At the moment the match head flared to life—
Lin Nuo finally saw the setup before him: a not-at-all-small wooden desk, on which, aside from the developing papers, stood numerous mirrors.
Perhaps for easier viewing of the images appearing in the mirrors, these mirrors of various sizes were arranged in an artful jumble at the very front of the desk.
But that wasn’t the key.
What made Lin Nuo’s heart stop and the back of his neck stiffen was—
None of these mirrors were normal…
Each mirror displayed a scene from a place Lin Nuo knew all too well: his own room, the bathroom he’d used just last night, the terrace where he’d eaten lunch this afternoon, the study where he’d read before practicing magic…
Even the back of his door, the corner by the entrance…
And, most telling of all, the full view of his bath and bed, with no blind spot left unshown…
These mirrors, as if manipulated by someone, revealed that she was using some hidden magic, obsessively monitoring the blind spots and boundaries of his life.
“Chirp?”
Even the bird perch on his balcony appeared in one mirror, making Fatty Bird tilt its head in confusion, trying to scratch its head with a wing in a display of bird puzzlement.
That’s right!
All the mirrors were aimed at his room!
In an instant, Lin Nuo remembered: the mirror on his desk, the mirror in his bathroom—they’d all been placed there by XÄ«!
‘…Surveillance!’
His every move had been in these mirrors—no, under XÄ«’s surveillance!
‘An infiltrator?’
‘What does she want from me?!’
Lin Nuo’s match trembled in his hand, and at that moment, something even more unbelievable caught his peripheral vision.
Slowly, Lin Nuo turned his head.
By the match’s faint light, he could just make out that the dim, shadowy room’s four walls—including behind the door and on the ceiling—were covered entirely with developing paper, each sheet depicting a certain young, blond man in various poses.
Him, feeding Fatty Bird on the terrace, kicking off the covers while sleeping, bathing and drying off, sipping tea in the study, his usual clothes, his toiletries, even his side profile while ill and sleeping, the silhouette of him sneaking out of the Chapel when too lazy to attend prayers, and a frontal portrait from a few days ago when he was meditating.
From the time he was ten, all the way until now!
Every single sheet of developing paper bore traces of dried saliva, and the adhesive was partly melted, who knew what kind of “baptism” these pictures had gone through…
One by one, these drawings completely shattered Lin Nuo’s earlier suspicions.
The good news: This wasn’t surveillance by an infiltrator…
The bad news: This was blatant, crazed voyeurism!
An utterly unbelievable notion flashed through Lin Nuo’s mind.
“Gulp—”
The sound of swallowing was painfully loud in the small room.
Lin Nuo also spotted the freshest drawing.
It was the one he’d seen XÄ« working on just a few days ago, with the subject making a tongue-out, V-sign pose—the person drawn was unmistakably him.
Below that drawing were some messy handwritten notes from a girl—
[1. Intense exercise with Noble Young Master and making Noble Young Master breathe rapidly may cause him to be briefly oxygen deprived]
[2. Strong emotional reactions will relax Noble Young Master’s muscles]
[3. Physiologically, a series of things like muscle contractions and flushing, increased heart rate, deeper breathing, all lead to blood flow toward the brain and eyes]
[4. If I move too fast, Noble Young Master’s eyeballs might suddenly shift at a certain moment]
[So when Noble Young Master reaches his limit, he’ll roll his eyes up]
[The V-sign and the naughty tongue out, of course, are my commands for our sweet time together—Noble Young Master will definitely… Immersed in my embrace, he must be at his most enchanting]
“….”
“…..”
This was clearly some secret expectation hidden deep in XÄ«’s heart!
One line after another, written methodically beneath the drawing, seemed to be telling Lin Nuo that the girl’s theory was feasible, and she was quietly waiting to test it out with him…
“She always said each of her drawings had a special meaning, is this what she meant?!”
At some unknown moment, Lin Nuo snapped back to his senses—he was already sprinting wildly down the corridor toward the lower floor of the Chapel.
“Thud thud thud”
“Thud thud thud!”
His rapid footsteps were muted by some kind of magic, ensuring no sound reached the outside world.
Lin Nuo’s original suspicion grew even deeper.
“I’ve always guarded against that yandere girl, that’s true…”
“But damn, I forgot, when dealing with Parkes, I always saw that he feared my father, so I’d put on airs to scare him.”
“If the fated yandere girl who’d meet me was exceptionally clever, it’d be easy for her to deduce from my rules that I kept all women at a distance…”
“So she deliberately pretended to dislike me, and by earning my trust, she perfectly hid right by my side!”
That first suspicion was confirmed!
This was the reality he’d never considered: The Priestess XÄ«, who served at his side every day, was the very yandere girl he’d spent eight years guarding against—only to have her end up right by his side!
“Ah la~ Noble Young Master… you finally discovered me, hmm?”
“But it’s a little late. I did say, if you peek at things in my Sanctuary, you’ll have to take responsibility…”
The gentle woman’s voice so close to his ear made every muscle in Lin Nuo’s body tense.
Somehow, the Chapel’s main door had locked itself tight.
The seemingly harmless paper cranes and butterflies now floated eerily toward him through the air.
In that instant, alarm bells blared in his mind!
‘After hiding by my side for eight years and knowing everything about me, XÄ« deliberately used the mirrors to lure me here. That means I have no chance of escaping.’
Lin Nuo immediately tossed Fatty Bird from his arms: “Fly, Fatty Bird!”
“Fly up and see where she is!”
“…”
“Never mind, you don’t need to look…”
“Chirp?”
“I know where she is.”
Lin Nuo, now motionless, only felt a waft of sweet scent approach from behind.
A girl’s hand gripped his shoulder, and then a warm body pressed tightly against his back, greedily burying her nose into the hollow of his neck and taking a deep breath.
“Sniff sniff—”
Those soft, white fingers pinched his face, and XÄ«, both fervent and restrained, wrapped her arms around his neck.
Her stunning face was filled with a satisfaction that seemed as though she was finally seeing him as she truly wished.
“Noble Young Master, at last, finally…”
“You’ve been caught by me~”