Farewell and Promise
The wind in the demon world carried the fragrance of osmanthus. Xiaodou lay on Bai Yan's shoulder, looking at the gradually blurred Yun Shenju, with the tip of his tail curled around the other's sleeves - those were the corners that Bai Yan had burnt with fox fire, with the aroma of caramel.
"Really can't you stay a few more days?" Bai Yan's voice was as light as a feather. "The fox tribe's osmanthus forest is about to bloom. Didn't you say you wanted to nibble on the osmanthus tree roots?"
Xiaodou's throat tightened, but he still patted his face with his paw. "Idiot, if I stay here, how can I collect the marriage points to revive the tribe? Besides..." He shook the two runes that lit up in the center of his paw. "Look, I've saved two. Maybe I can come back to see you soon."
Bai Yan was silent for a moment, then suddenly squeezed a drop of blood from his fingertips, which condensed into an ice crystal osmanthus flower. "Take this with you, no matter which world you travel to, as long as you crush it, I will find you."
Just as Xiaodou was about to answer, a mechanical voice suddenly rang out: "Warning! The space-time rift is unstable! The host must immediately proceed to the next world - the modern campus chapter!"
Bai Yan suddenly hugged Xiao Dou, but he felt the body in his arms gradually become transparent. Xiao Dou saw the panic in his eyes, suddenly stood on tiptoe, and touched his burning earlobe with the tip of her nose: "Bai Yan, do you know what 'seeing a deer in the deep forest' means?"
"Yes..." Bai Yan's words were swallowed by the fissure storm. Xiaodou only saw his lips moving, as if to say "I'll wait for you." When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on his desk in the modern campus, with a piece of beautifully packaged osmanthus cake in front of him. The words "Lin Shen Bakery" were printed on the wrapping paper.
"Ding! Demon Realm mission completed!" The mechanical voice returned to its cheerful tone. "Friendship towards marriage value +300, cumulative 500/9900! Unlock new form - Fortune Rat! Ability: Spend madly on those who approach. Summoning gold coins requires body hair (crossed out) and consumes spiritual energy!"
Xiaodou looked down and discovered he had transformed into a fortune-bringing rat—ears bulging like sticky rice cakes, a tail so fluffy it could sweep up dust, and a glittering copper coin bell adorning its paw. He tried shaking it, and suddenly a pile of coins fell out of the desk, startling the girl in the front row so much she jumped away, screaming, "Oh my god, this rat can lay down gold coins!"
"What rat?"
A familiar voice called from the doorway. Xiaodou froze, watching the bespectacled boy enter the classroom. The name on his uniform read "Lin Shen," and there was a crescent-shaped scar on his collarbone. He was the man from the demon world's remnant soul fragment. He held a lesson plan with a cartoon mouse printed on the cover, identical to Xiaodou's current form.
"Teacher! Mice can lay gold coins!" The girl pointed at Xiaodou.
Lin Shen looked up, and the moment his eyes met Xiaodou's, the lesson plan fell to the ground with a thud. Xiaodou saw her own reflection in his pupils, and that reflection gradually overlapped with Bai Yan's—the same amber eyes, the same reddening of the tips of her ears at the sight of him.
"Students, please go out first," Lin Shen bent down to pick up the lesson plan, his voice trembling, "I'll take care of... this rat."
Soon, there were only two people left in the classroom. Lin Shen closed the door and turned around to see Xiaodou chewing on his dropped pen, completely devouring the gold powder on the tip.
"Stop chewing it," Lin Shen sighed helplessly, but when he stretched out his hand, his sleeve slipped down to reveal the red rope around his wrist - half a piece of ice crystal osmanthus was strung on the red rope, which was the token that Bai Yan gave to Xiaodou.
Xiaodou looked up suddenly, and the pen fell out of his mouth: "H-how did you get this?"
Lin Shen was stunned, his fingertips gently stroking the ice crystals. "I've worn it since I was a child, and always felt like... I was waiting for someone." He suddenly smiled, and a gentleness that matched Bai Yan's flashed in his eyes. "But now it seems that my wait has come."
Just as Xiaodou was about to ask, the coins in the desk suddenly transformed into chocolate coins. A mechanical voice chimed in, "Friendly reminder: When the Lucky Rat's power is activated, anyone who comes near will experience uncontrolled spending—for example, your teacher is planning to buy you an entire cake shop."
Lin Shen's ears instantly turned red. "I, I just thought that the way you chewed on the pen just now... was a bit like the hamster I raised when I was a kid."
"Hamster?" Xiaodou tilted his head, sweeping out more coins with his tail. "Is that hamster called 'Xiaobai' that always likes to chew on your homework?"
Lin Shen looked up suddenly: "How did you know?!"
Xiaodou suddenly sneezed, and the icy osmanthus in his paw glowed faintly, bringing to mind a scene from Yunshenju in the demon world—Bai Yan stood under an osmanthus tree, holding a piece of uneaten osmanthus cake in his hand, and whispered to the moon, "No matter what you become, I will find you."
A mechanical voice began to count down: "Modern Campus Chapter Countdown - 5, 4, 3..."
Xiaodou grabbed Lin Shen's sleeve and asked anxiously, "Is Bai Yan you? Why do you look the same? And that mark—"
"Shh." Lin Shen suddenly reached out and covered his mouth with his hand. His warm palm carried the scent of cedar hand cream. "When you accumulate enough marriage points, I will tell you all the answers."
He loosened his hand, took out a piece of osmanthus cake from his pocket, and broke it in half: "But now... accompany me to finish this cake, after all -"
"What after all?"
"After all," Lin Shen's ears flushed red as his eyes drifted toward the cherry blossoms outside the window, "you are the most gift-gnawing rat I've ever seen."
As the cherry blossoms fell, Xiaodou suddenly caught sight of a photo peeking out of the inside pocket of Lin Shen's school uniform. It was a yellowed, old photo of a boy holding a hamster. His wrist was wrapped in a bloody bandage, and faint deer-shaped patterns were visible beneath the bandage. In the hamster's paw, half a piece of Xuanbing cream was clutched.
The moment the mechanical chime returned to zero, the sweet-scented osmanthus cake in Xiaodou's mouth suddenly transformed into game coins. Lin Shen looked at the game coins scattered on the ground and helplessly held his forehead. "So, your ability this time is... to make people go crazy buying game equipment?"
Xiaodou wagged his tail, and the copper coin bell rang crisply. "To be more precise—I'm making people spend money like crazy on me. By the way, teacher, do you have a girlfriend? I've been saving up my blind date KPI lately..."
Lin Shen's ears turned red again, but at this moment, a familiar voice came from outside the window: "Xiaodou! You are here——"
Before he finished speaking, a man in a white coat rushed into the classroom, his hair still stained with lab reagents—he was the demon world's Bai Yan! He was holding a bag of osmanthus cakes, and the moment he saw Lin Shen, his pupils shrank suddenly. "You... why do you smell like me?"
Lin Shen raised his eyebrows and stuffed the other half of the osmanthus cake into Xiaodou's mouth: "Because we are all——"
"—your guardian."
They both spoke in unison. Xiaodou, looking at the two nearly identical faces before him, suddenly felt the sweetness of the osmanthus cake in his mouth particularly sweet, so sweet that his eyes warmed, so sweet that he could see the overlapping starlight behind them—that was the bond between Concept Mouse and Guardian that transcended time and space, a tenderness that had never changed from the demon world to the modern era.
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