Chapter 20: Your Name [4K]
Luxianbei frowned as she looked at the girl who suddenly appeared before her, playing the “Your Name” game. Her heart raced quickly.
It wasn’t the kind of heartbeat from being suddenly kissed on the cheek by a crush while dozing off in class at noon; it felt more like the intense shock of being licked on the toe by a dog while sleeping at home at midnight, except she didn’t have a dog.
The commotion caused by the parasitic urban legend that recently erupted in Huacheng was still fresh in memory, and Huaxie Yu was still lying in the special ward of Huacheng Central Hospital.
Now, someone suddenly popped up claiming to be her student. Luxianbei found it hard not to suspect that it was that man who seemed to be the president of the Solar Eclipse Society who was up to something again.
Could it be that he sent another one?
It was even possible that this girl was the real deal! The transformation into a night-running girl was quite subtle; that man wasn’t one to let this slide.
Thinking back, the look she gave earlier, something like we are very familiar with each other, made sense. Luxianbei thought anxiously.
In that lingering psychological shadow, she was really averse to close contact with strangers.
So when she first noticed the girl’s abnormal behavior upon seeing her, she thought of secretly observing her. In the past, she would have likely found an excuse to start chatting with the girl right there.
After staring expressionlessly at the girl for a few seconds, she nodded, “I remember, of course I remember!”
Realizing that the girl before her might be the suspect thought to be the president of the Solar Eclipse Society, Luxianbei actually wanted to sneak away.
Stealing a glance with her peripheral vision, she noticed that the girl’s arms were tightly wrapped around her elbow, and she frowned slightly.
Was she holding on even tighter than before?
This girl had quite a grip, like a hydraulic clamp!
That was quite distressing, leaving her with an odd feeling, as if she were squatting in the bushes and accidentally stumbled upon five people, ending up trapped there.
“That’s right, you are my dearest student. How could I forget?”
Since there was no way to sneak away, she had to face it head-on and wait for the other person to let their guard down before finding a chance to escape.
Moreover, if she could converse a bit more, Luxianbei felt she would be able to determine whether the girl’s delicate exterior hid the dark soul of the Solar Eclipse Society’s president.
After all, on this bustling street of Jiujie at night, with the crowd so dense, she couldn’t dare to probe, at most she could just talk.
“Oh? Is that so?” Dorethea narrowed her eyes and her lips curled up slightly, “Then, as my most respected teacher, you should remember my name, right?”
Luxianbei frowned, her thoughts racing, and her gaze quickly scanning over the girl to try to find information that might hint at her name.
However, the girl didn’t seem to intend to give her any opportunity.
She had barely been silent for five seconds when the girl suddenly began counting down, “Three, two, time’s up! Please supply the correct answer!”
In fact, Dorethea had already seen through Luxianbei’s intention to bluff her way through and hadn’t expected that Luxianbei would be able to say her name, as she had never told her.
She just wanted to impress her beloved teacher so that her name would be remembered.
Luxianbei thought, What the hell, time’s up for answering!
Are you the teacher or am I?
If I were truly your teacher, based on this behavior of disregarding respect for your instructor, shouldn’t I punish you with fifty strokes of the teaching stick?!
Though Luxianbei was still seething with impotent anger, she realized at that moment that the girl must have seen through that she had no memory of who she was.
If she were truly the so-called “dearest student,” how could she not remember anyone’s surname after all this time?
If it came to worst, should she call her Miss Li?
The probability of guessing the most common surname should be a little higher.
After a moment of contemplation, Luxianbei ultimately dismissed the unreliable thought that she could treat it as pure garbage talk.
At times like this, if she bluntly blurted out the wrong name, the embarrassment would probably rival that moment when one’s girlfriend arrives at a life event and one inadvertently calls out an ex-girlfriend’s name.
Just the thought of it made Luxianbei feel like her toes were digging into the ground.
That was sheer torment!
However, the annoyance could actually be a good thing; it at least proved that she was not the real president of the Solar Eclipse Society?
For a brief moment, Luxianbei even began to suspect that the girl might actually be her student.
Otherwise, with this inherited style of messing with people’s minds, it would be difficult to resolve without doing a paternity test.
As she pondered, Luxianbei looked at the girl and a hint of mockery appeared in her gaze.
At the same time that she guessed the girl’s true intentions, she thought of a way to deal with this girl’s challenge.
The highest level of deflecting a question isn’t to shut up or answer randomly; it’s to create a new question and throw it back to the other person!
Just like when your wife asks you, “Why did your salary get cut by two thousand? Are you hiding private money?” You reply, “What are we having for dinner? Should we go out for a fancy meal?”
“I definitely remember your name, but since you say I am your most respected teacher, you should remember my name too, right? Before I answer your question, I’d like to hear your answer first!”
“Hehehe!” Dorethea smiled slyly, “Of course I remember, teacher Wang!”
Although Luxianbei had never told her name, Wang Buliu had made quite a fuss during the Dream Come True journey, so finding out the name of this benefactor would be about as easy as eating and sleeping.
Teacher Wang? Not Teacher Lu or Teacher Gu, nor Disaster Teacher? Luxianbei caught the key information and quickly began to think.
Given her amazing memory where she could memorize the entire “Taihe Gentleman Sword Illustration” just by looking at it, narrowing the scope to those she had interacted with under the pseudonym Wang Buliu was not impossible!
This alias had only been used in limited places: the Urban Legends Chat Group, Dream Come True journey, Peach Source, and Dachunyang Palace.
If she could comb through everyone she had interacted with in those places, she should be able to discover the girl’s name.
Without doing any information trading, the urban legends and spiritual ability users in the Urban Legends Chat group could almost be viewed as a bunch of silly friends, and wanting to be the teacher of those silly friends could only be the lewd art teacher, but with online perverts around, who would dare take on that responsibility?
During her time in Peach Source and Dachunyang Palace, the people she interacted with while using her alias were either acquaintances or had been roasted by alchemical dirty bombs; there was no one who could become a student.
So it could only be during the Dream Come True journey?
In that journey, the only interactions she had at the Lan guesthouse were with Heibai, Xiuyao, and an unnamed girl who often helped her change medicine!
As for the people at Danchasheng Pharmacy, they had all been taken away by the alchemical dirty bombs.
In the Dream Come True Entertainment City, Liu Banxian definitely didn’t fit, Ahua was quite annoying, and Meow Meow was really slick.
Could it be a gambler who lost it all at the poker table, fell into despair, and then went sober after treating her as a life coach?
Luxianbei racked her brain, and countless memories flashed through her mind, zooming in on the misty street shrouded in haze, where she could almost hear a few faint words that had become somewhat muddled.
“The orange girl is clearly much better than you. Even your half-dead old man would still be…”
Got it! Is it that milk cow loli?!
Luxianbei snapped back to reality and looked at the smiling girl beside her. Upon close inspection, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the girl’s eyebrows indeed resembled the milk cow loli from her memory.
But she still couldn’t be a hundred percent certain and needed to confirm further.
“Alright!” Seeing that Luxianbei had yet to speak, Dorethea smiled and said, “I actually already knew you probably wouldn’t remember my name because I…”
“What foolishness are you saying?”
Luxianbei interrupted Dorethea expressionlessly, naturally extending her hand to pat Dorethea’s head, and beneath that hood, felt a hard protrusion, reminiscent of horns.
Horns? It really is her!
Then,
The next step will be the finishing blow!
“Silly child, how could I possibly forget you?” Luxianbei said in an incredibly gentle and affectionate tone, “I didn’t expect my little orange to have grown so big! How have you been during this time?”
As soon as those words left her mouth, Dorethea felt as if she had been struck by lightning, her body quivered suddenly and froze in place, her eyes gradually reddening.
Ling Juer was the nickname given to her by her father, and close people often called her orange or little orange.
Huh? How does the teacher know my nickname?
I clearly didn’t…
Could it be! Could it be that she not only helped me once but has also been secretly keeping an eye on me?
Of course, it must be like that! Thinking back, when I first interacted with those big cheeses in the Dream Come True Entertainment City, I was able to have such smooth sailing largely because the teacher was subtly helping me, right?
She is so kind, Dorethea thought, feeling a wave of emotion rising to her nose.
Although she was smart enough to finish reading the collection of books at an educational institution subservient to the Solar Eclipse Society in just a few months, she still knew too little about the cruelty of society.
She didn’t know that high-end scumbags would use various means to remember the names of every girl they came into contact with.
Amid the vibrant nightlife of Jiujie, there were not only popular nightclubs but also various related stores accompanying them, like late-night snack stalls and cafes suitable for sitting quietly after getting drunk.
Moments later, in a quaint little café not far from CHARMCUB, at a table piled with napkins soaked with tears.
After listening to Dorethea’s intermittent recounting of her experiences after parting ways with her in the Dream Come True Entertainment City, Luxianbei widened her eyes slightly as she looked at Dorethea across the table, “Eleven years old?”
Her gaze slightly dropped, landing on Dorethea’s chest, which was pushed up by her oversized sweatshirt, and she frowned.
“This is eleven years old? Is this the racial talent of the milk cow people?”
However, upon realizing that cattle from farms usually could be sent to slaughterhouses in a little over a year, Luxianbei felt relieved again.
Besides, Dorethea was also half an urban legend, and after consuming the core of an urban legend, her body might undergo tremendous changes, making it unfeasible to compare her to typical humans of the same age.
Some urban legends could cause calamity-grade incidents just one year older.
And others lived for over five thousand years but insisted they were still eighteen!
Seeing Luxianbei questioning her age, Dorethea said weakly, “Is there a problem?”
“No, none.” Realizing that her focus was off, Luxianbei quickly changed the subject and asked, “You just said you joined the Solar Eclipse Society?”
Not knowing if it was due to the presence of three former annihilators at the Dream Come True journey that prevented the Solar Eclipse Society from easily meddling, Dorethea seemed aware of the name but was not particularly knowledgeable about what they did.
“Mm, mm.” Dorethea nodded, “Thanks to Mr. Phoenix, I was able to leave the Dream Come True Entertainment City so quickly and learn so much knowledge I hadn’t had the chance to access before.”
After a pause, she asked Luxianbei again, “Is it that teachers and the Solar Eclipse Society don’t get along well? If so, I can immediately withdraw!”
Not to mention that the relationship was not good. Luxianbei thought bitterly for a moment before shaking her head, “It’s not that we don’t get along; I’m just a bit surprised.”
“However, it’s actually quite great that you managed to join the Solar Eclipse Society. I’ve heard that organization possesses a wealth of spell formulas, is proficient in alchemy, and is dedicated to the integration of spirit energy technology and scientific means. You should be able to learn a lot there.”
“You have to stay there and study hard with them. By the way, what’s the name of the person you mentioned?”
“Mr. Adelaide Phoenix,” Dorethea replied.
“Exactly, that’s the name.” Luxianbei nodded, “He sounds like a good mentor; you should learn a lot from him.”
“By the way, I also have a friend who is a member of the Solar Eclipse Society named Lan Yi. I can introduce you two; you should get along well.”
She had been worried about how to find her way into the Solar Eclipse Society, but Dorethea’s appearance instantly brightened her prospects.
With Dorethea, why would she still need to find Miss Rabbit? The first one to infiltrate the Solar Eclipse Society labeled “Calamity” doesn’t have to be a calamity character itself, right?
Before revealing her true intentions, she just needed to build a good relationship and deepen her bond with this girl.
However, how should she ensure the girl’s safety? Luxianbei pondered with some frustration.
