Chapter 327: Icelandic Girl's Confession (asking for monthly ticket)
Dotonbori, Osaka, Japan.
Gu Qinye and Yuriel walked side by side on the brightly lit street. A row of warm orange lanterns were hanging on the eaves of the shops on both sides.
Girls in kimonos were holding carp-shaped kites and passing by them laughing. Looking up, they saw the kites dancing and swaying in the night wind.
"The personnel assignments have been made." Uriel said suddenly.
Gu Qiye took his eyes off the swaying kite and turned to look at her. The Icelandic girl was looking down at a tablet computer, the fluorescent light from the screen making her ice-blue pupils sparkle.
"How is it distributed?" he asked.
She said, "Urushihara Ruri will mark each member first, and then she will wait at the edge of the nameless island. If she sees us in danger, she will take us back immediately."
"That's not hard to guess. After all, that's all she's good for."
"agree."
Uriel spoke calmly as she flipped through the information with her fingertips. "Then there's the task of clearing out the drones—Alexandra will deal with the drones on the east side of the island; Ninety-Nine will handle the drones on the west side; Oda Hideo will handle the drones on the south side; and Kalina will handle the drones on the north side. They'll eliminate all the drones and prevent them from affecting the battle in the center of the hive."
Gu Qiye thought for a moment and said, "So, this time our mission isn't just to exterminate the queen bee and the four great queen bees, but also to kill all the ordinary worker bees on the island?"
"Yes." Uriel nodded. "The order from above is to leave no one alive. There are approximately 20,000 light-eating bees on the island. After we have dealt with them, the four members mentioned above will rush to the hive to support us."
"I see. That's quite a lot of work." Gu Qiye said, "Please continue."
Uriel said expressionlessly, "Next is the division of the four great Bee Lords—'Puppet Father' will be responsible for defeating the Great Bee Lord 'Joe'; 'Garfield' and 'Sail Holly' will defeat the Second Bee Lord 'Gu Li'; and 'Ke Qingzheng' will deal with the Third Bee Lord 'Cameron'."
"What about the Four Bee Lords?"
"As for the fourth queen bee, 'Melvet,' we will deal with her between the two of us," Uriel continued. "After dealing with the four queen bees and the 20,000 worker bees on the island, the queen bee will be isolated and helpless. We may be able to take her back to Osaka and leave her to the researchers."
"I understand." Gu Qinye nodded.
He always felt that this plan was missing something. After thinking for a long time, he finally realized, "Where is Esther? Why is she not doing anything?"
"'Two Hundred Years Old' is responsible for staying in Osaka, Japan on standby in case of any emergency," Uriel replied.
"I suspect she just wants to be lazy." Gu Qinye said unhappily.
He looked up at the sky above the street, and his vision was filled with rows of neon signs.
Finally, he lowered his eyes and turned to look at the candied haws stall on the street.
"I also suspect she's trying to slack off." Yuriel also raised her head and said calmly, "But it's still necessary to take precautions in advance. We can't underestimate the wisdom of the bee tribe."
She paused. "If they really raid Osaka and cause massive casualties, we'll be severely punished. Maybe our vacation will be canceled, and you won't be able to accompany me back to Lijing to see those children."
"I understand."
Gu Qinye said this perfunctorily as he walked over and bought two strings of candied haws from the stall owner with Japanese yen coins.
"The mission will officially begin 28 hours later, at midnight on the 14th."
Uriel followed him and continued, "So, our free time will last until 12 noon on the 13th. After that, we must gather and prepare for battle."
"Come on, you sound really robotic."
Gu Qinye said this with a slight smile and handed her a string of candied haws he had bought.
Yuriel was silent. She knitted her snow-white brows, a rare moment, and stared motionlessly at the candied haws.
"Shouldn't you be used to it?" she asked after a while.
"Do you talk to the children in the orphanage like that?"
"What else?"
Yuriel said as she took the string of candied haws.
The two walked forward while eating candied haws, their faces shaded by the warm light of the lanterns.
After a moment, Gu Qiye suddenly smiled.
He breathed a sigh of relief, stopped by the canal, rested his arms on the railing, looked up, and gazed at the brightly lit sightseeing boats on the river.
Yuriel looked at him, feeling somewhat bewildered. But she also stopped and stood silently beside him without saying a word.
The two watched the soft, soothing voices coming from the cruise boats on the canal.
A girl on the river bank accidentally let go of the silk string, and as she screamed, the big red kite in the shape of a carp swayed and floated into the sky.
"Didn't you say a few days ago that after the mission is over, you would take me to meet the children in the orphanage?" Gu Qinye was silent for a moment and suddenly asked.
"right."
"Do you have any pictures of those kids on your phone?"
"have."
"Can you show me?"
Uriel nodded wordlessly and pulled her phone from her coat pocket.
She lowered her eyes, opened the photo album, turned to a specific page, and handed him the phone.
Gu Qinye took the phone from her, lowered his head and looked at it silently. Children's faces appeared on the screen, and the bright light illuminated his pupils.
The Icelandic girl was silent for a moment and finally leaned over and looked down at the child's photo with him.
"The girl is 'Qiaoqiao', the boy is called 'Li Yue', and the other child is of Italian descent..." She introduced the names of the boys and girls in the photos one by one.
"Well, I've got their names all memorized. Tonight, if I have something free, I can put on a Blue Arc mask and record a video for them. I've participated in a lot of charity events before, and I often record videos like this. Although it's for marketing purposes... but after doing it so many times, I've got experience."
Gu Qiye kept on talking incoherently, his fingers no longer sliding across the screen, his eyes fixed on a group photo in the album.
In the photo, Yuriel stood among the children. They raised their hands and gently pulled at the hem of her skirt. She had no expression on her face and stood still like a robot.
Her eyes were unblinking in the sunlight, as blue as the sea.
Gu Qiye looked at the dazed look of the white-haired girl in the photo, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, and he chuckled softly.
Yuriel lowered her head and thought for a moment, then asked in confusion, "Why do you want to record a video? Aren't you going to meet them directly with me?"
"Because they like Lan Hu, not Gu Qiye." Gu Qiye turned his head to look at her, "Don't you like Lan Hu too?"
Uriel was stunned.
"What if they like Gu Qinye?" She was silent for a long time and asked softly.
"Why?" Gu Qinye asked, "They must have never seen me before..." He was interrupted before he could finish his words.
"Because they will also like the people I like." Uriel said softly.
Gu Qiye was slightly taken aback. It was rare for her to interrupt him so forcefully. After a moment, he came to his senses and turned to look at her belatedly.
At this moment, she was lowering her head, her snow-white hair covering her eyes, and the tips of her ears were slightly red.
The wind tonight was very noisy, and the wind blowing from the canal lifted their hair. Gu Qiye stared at her for a long time, his ears turning red. "What you just said, what do you mean..."
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered. “The robot…is going to break down.”
Uriel suddenly reached out and tugged at his sleeve.
Before Gu Qiye could say anything, she just pulled his sleeve and walked forward without looking back. The two of them crossed the broken corner of the fence, walked down the river bank step by step, and came to the river.
Gu Qinye was led away by her, staring blankly at her back.
The girl walked very quickly, her steps light yet hurried, as if she was hiding something.
She came to the canal, but walked straight towards the river. Just when Gu Qiye thought she was going to drag him to commit suicide, the river water in front of them suddenly froze into a layer of ice.
Yuriel pulled him, lowered her head, and walked slowly forward on the ice.
After a while, the ice beneath their feet stopped extending forward and the two men stopped in the center of the canal.
She stopped, and all around her were brightly lit sightseeing boats. The warm light and the night breeze hit her face and blew her hair.
"I'm not leaving... Why are you still not talking?" She whispered, letting go of Gu Qiye's sleeve.
The ice they had just walked on was covered with two lines of footprints, which seemed to extend to the end of the world. She slowly turned around and looked at Gu Qiye, who was at a loss.
"Uriel." After a long silence, Gu Qiye suddenly said.
"exist."
"Let's talk about this topic again after this operation is over." Gu Qiye said softly, "So, you have to survive." As he spoke, he reached out and touched her head, and her white hair flowed between his fingers like snow.
There was a long silence before Uriel spoke softly.
"I do not understand."
"What don't you understand?"
"Am I rejected?"
She slowly raised her head, and her ice-blue eyes were shining and rippling.
"That's why I said you are a robot." Gu Qiye curled his lips and said softly.
By then, people on nearby sightseeing boats had spotted them, shouting and picking up their phones.
"It seems we have to go. Otherwise, if we are photographed by passers-by, we will be punished when we go back." Gu Qinye said, turning his head to look around.
He looked directly into Uriel's eyes, smiled at her, took her hand, leaned down, and gently lifted her up. Then he turned into a dark streak of lightning, swiftly passing across the river.
A moment later, the arc of electricity still remained in the air, but the ice where the two men walked had broken and their footprints disappeared.
The bustling lights on both sides of the river illuminate the river surface.
At this moment, the broken ice dust was rising and falling in the floating light, swaying and drifting into the distance.
(End of this chapter)
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