MORIC - Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Who's Making a Crazy Confession

This meal completely exceeded Chi Yueshan's budget. Even with the considerable sum she had received from Xi Yang, it was still difficult for her to save any money.

And yet, her mood wasn't all that bad.

Perhaps it was because she had expected it, or perhaps it was because of that kiss.

Or maybe it was Xi Zhoumeng's invitation.

She was so excited the whole way, even a little overly hyper, that she just kept asking Xi Zhoumeng questions.

"I heard before that your mother is a general in the Expeditionary Force. What do you usually talk about when you contact each other?"

"Do you talk about the interstellar pirates you've encountered?"

"Or are there still some stray Zerg around?"

"What does her mecha look like?"

"Oh, right, isn't your eldest brother an Alpha? I heard him say before that he went to Guyun Academy. So, Big Brother Xi Li must have his own mecha, right?"

"And also..."

Chi Yueshan wasn't really the type to push her luck, partly because her social circle was pitifully narrow.

Xuan Ping was not "strong" by any means. Although she was reliable in her studies and even loved researching obscure data streams, most of the time, Chi Yueshan felt like she had to be the one to protect her.

This was likely a result of Chi Yueshan's wandering childhood; she never felt that she needed to be protected.

Even when facing Wen Xinghuo, she still had the thought that "even someone this strong has moments of vulnerability."

But Xi Zhoumeng was like a gauze curtain fluttering in a window at night, carrying a subtle temptation and an unknown mystery that made it impossible for Chi Yueshan to control her desire to get closer.

She was completely unaware that she had sidled up next to Xi Zhoumeng again.

Xi Zhoumeng didn't point it out, but she was getting a bit of a headache.

It was like having several hundred ducks quacking at once.

She took a deep breath, and while maneuvering the speeding hovercar, she reached out and pressed her thumb to the center of Chi Yueshan's brow. "You stay away from me."

Chi Yueshan let out an "oh" and quietly expressed her dissatisfaction. "You still haven't answered me."

Night had long since fallen, and the glamour of the Upper World was like a carpet of gilded gold and crushed silver, but Chi Yueshan couldn't be bothered to admire it.

Her gaze on Xi Zhoumeng was moist, like dewdrops on scattered gems.

Waiting for a ray of morning light to evaporate the dew.

"We don't contact each other much, and it's not always possible to get through."

Xi Zhoumeng answered nonchalantly, not meeting Chi Yueshan's gaze.

She suddenly felt a flicker of dissatisfaction. Why were this person's eyes so dazzling? Her own life was tainted from birth, and she hated such untainted, dustless purity the most.

"Well, that's a given, isn't it?"

Chi Yueshan hummed. "But a general like Marshal Shen is so charismatic, and her military rank is so high. Your mother..."

Xi Zhoumeng: "They're not in the same army."

Chi Yueshan nodded like a pecking chicken. After being pushed away, she leaned in again. "Have you ever seen your mother pilot a mecha?"

"Is her spiritual power S-rank?"

"Was she also at..."

Xi Zhoumeng: "Next time, why don't you ask her yourself?"

Her tone was clearly impatient. Chi Yueshan thought she had upset her and wilted, murmuring, "Oh."

"How could I be worthy of meeting such an incredible Alpha general?"

Xi Zhoumeng thought to herself: You'll meet the great hero of the galaxy in the future, so what does my Alpha mother count for?

But then she remembered that even by the time the author wrote the ending, Chi Yueshan was already dead. There would be no "meeting."

She should have had infinite possibilities.

Xi Zhoumeng's heart suddenly softened. "What's this about being worthy or not? It just so happens she's on rotation this year. She should be back for the New Year festival."

Xi Li was arranging all of this. Although he was the eldest son, he was more like a butler. Even when hosting his own Alpha mother, he acted as if he were meeting a diplomat, and had already started preparing the venue recently.

Chi Yueshan didn't look up. Her head was bowed, and she had shrunk back at some point.

She was staring blankly at her watch. Xi Zhoumeng knew it was her watch and asked, "Where did you buy that watch? It's so worn out."

After saying it, a thought struck her: Don't tell me this girl made it herself?

Chi Yueshan: "I made it myself."

She pursed her lips and took the watch off.

Xi Zhoumeng hadn't paid much attention before, but now she realized that from the very first time she saw Chi Yueshan, the girl had been wearing this watch.

Light-brains were important, but she'd never seen anyone wear one even while bathing.

It was like that in the academy's bathhouse, and even when they slept together, at the peak of their sweat-drenched entanglement, Chi Yueshan still wore this battered old watch.

"If you have the skill, why don't you make a new one?"

Xi Zhoumeng lifted her hand, and the scorpion-tail ring on her little finger glinted with a cold, mechanical light. Even if the material wasn't top-grade, the texture was still first-class and very high-end.

It didn't match Xi Zhoumeng's previous style, yet it fit her in a strange way.

It was as if one had glimpsed the cold desolation within her heart.

"I made it a few years ago."

Chi Yueshan stroked the watch's peeling face. "It's ugly, but as long as it works, it's fine."

I'm so useless, I almost want to ask Xi Zhoumeng to help me find out.

But that wouldn't be right.

Forget it.

Xi Zhoumeng belatedly realized she might have hit a sore spot. In the past, she wouldn't have felt a shred of remorse.

But Chi Yueshan was different.

For a rare moment, she opened her mouth but said nothing for a long time. After a while, she collected her thoughts and offered a composed compliment: "Even a thirteen-year-old artisan from Mechanical City couldn't make something like this."

Chi Yueshan let out a laugh. "You know how to comfort people?"

Xi Zhoumeng looked at the scenery outside. The night wind lifted her long hair, and its faint fragrance, along with her voice that seemed to scatter in the wind, drifted onto Chi Yueshan's face—

"Don't flatter yourself."

---

At the end of the year, Xi Li was working himself to the bone. The galaxy's civil service system was far from perfect; no matter the era, there were always old-timers bossing around the younger generation.

Even as the eldest son of the top-tier noble Xi family, Xi Li sometimes had to act subserviently when facing his senior noble colleagues at work.

His lazy "salted fish" style was a completely different flavor from Xi Chun's.

He was lazy, but a slick and charming kind of lazy. He thrived at social events, listened to all the family gossip, and live-streamed it in the family group chat.

Usually, the only one who responded was Xi Chun, who did so out of pity.

Xi Yang was too busy with her business to have time for idle chat, and Xi Zhoumeng, who was only half-heartedly attending school, had muted the group chat notifications entirely.

She completely missed the message her brother had tagged her in and sent to her individually—

【There's a ball at home tonight】

He meant for Xi Zhoumeng to use the back entrance.

But the great Miss Xi received far too many messages. Her own brother didn't even merit a pinned chat and had been relegated to some forgotten corner. It wasn't until the hovercar landed on the manor's lawn that Xi Zhoumeng realized there were an unusual number of vehicles today.

Chi Yueshan let out a "wow." "Your family is so extravagant. One luxury car per person is one thing, but why are there so many limited-edition models? Are they limited to everyone but the poor?"

The sourness in her tone was unmistakable.

Just as Xi Zhoumeng opened the car door, a maid came over, looking at her in surprise. "Miss Zhoumeng, why have you come back tonight?"

Xi Zhoumeng glanced at the main building, whose exterior had even changed color. "Am I not allowed back?"

She didn't even have to guess. "Is Xi Li throwing a rager?"

The maid was a brown-haired female Beta. Her black and white maid outfit was a far cry from the usual formal style, not to mention the male servants in the distance with their buttocks exposed.

Chi Yueshan's jaw was about to hit the floor.

She stared at Xi Zhoumeng in shock, her eyes filled with condemnation, as if Xi Zhoumeng had organized some kind of debaucherous feast behind her back.

Xi Zhoumeng: "Why are you looking at me? To the lewd, all things are lewd."

Chi Yueshan: ...

"The Young Master has invited many people to the ball. The theme this time is 'Special Attire'..."

The maid's deference toward Xi Zhoumeng always made Chi Yueshan feel as if Xi Zhoumeng had done something heinous in the past.

"If you'd like to attend, I can prepare a costume for you..."

Xi Zhoumeng shook her head. "No need. She and I won't be taking the main path."

The Xi estate was absurdly large. They even had moving walkways to get around inside. Chi Yueshan leaned on the railing, looking at the exaggerated colored lights of the main building, and asked, "Your brother... really loves to party, huh."

Xi Zhoumeng was looking at her group chat. She replied casually, "If you want to party, I can join you."

Just then, the moving walkway passed by a window, and Chi Yueshan looked up to see two women leaning against the window, passionately pressing their chests together.

How explosive.

Chi Yueshan let out an "uh." "I'm still young."

While @-ing Xi Li and sending insulting emojis, Xi Zhoumeng said, "You're not that young. Get over it."

Chi Yueshan: "What nonsense are you talking about? I mean I can't handle this level of intensity. It's so... you know."

She hastily averted her gaze. The deafening music couldn't even drown out the smacking sounds of an Alpha and Omega kissing on a second-floor balcony they were passing.

Seriously? Can kissing really be that loud?

They must be faking it!!

Xi Zhoumeng laughed. "With your constitution, you're naturally 'that way'."

She was really hitting a sore spot. "Why are you like this! You think I want this?"

She wasn't truly angry. After Zhou Fengqin's death, this secret was known to no one, and Chi Yueshan's words sounded more like she was pouting.

Xi Zhoumeng: "I'm sorry."

She was being quite serious. Chi Yueshan huffed, "It's fine! I'm not that petty! Just don't tell anyone else."

Xi Zhoumeng: "Who would I tell?"

The walkway reached its end, and another towering, spire-topped castle lay ahead. As she walked forward, she said, "You need to find an Alpha who will cherish you. There's nothing to be ashamed of about this."

She said it so frankly, yet it felt like a knife stabbing into Chi Yueshan.

Chi Yueshan had thought Xi Zhoumeng's kiss was a stamp of approval on their ambiguous atmosphere, an unspoken "that kind of meaning."

She never expected her to suddenly say something like this.

The elation she had felt all evening was as if doused by cold water.

"I don't want an Alpha."

Chi Yueshan stood rooted to the spot, watching Xi Zhoumeng's back.

She suddenly realized that she had a very deep impression of Xi Zhoumeng's back.

At the academy, seeing Xi Zhoumeng was mostly like this. She would be surrounded by people, looking unreachable even from behind.

Now, even their moments alone, walking side-by-side, were fleeting. She wouldn't reach out her hand like she did when taking her to the fashion show, nor would she pull her to the restaurant.

When she's good, she's incredibly attentive, but when she lets go, she's so cold.

And it makes my heart race like an idiot.

Xi Zhoumeng hadn't noticed Chi Yueshan's emotional shift. She was just wondering why the system had been dead silent for the past few days.

If it stayed this way, she wouldn't have to worry about how to deal with the thing.

Her romantic history could be described as rich, but it could also be explained as barren.

Calculated from the age she was when she transmigrated, Xi Zhoumeng's previous life was like a tribute on a high altar, born at the peak. She enjoyed resources ordinary people couldn't, yet she couldn't obtain the kind of affection an ordinary person could.

Nor did it come with any blessings.

In a sense, she was an unprocessed sheet of white paper.

Still carrying the bitter taste of its raw pulp, and everything sprinkled on top was just resentment and self-proclaimed devotion.

After the high-rise collapsed, she started over, trying to experience the sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy flavors of the world.

But while a life can be restarted, no one was willing to start from zero with her.

Adults rarely have no expectations in a relationship; no matter how much they like someone, they need reciprocation.

Xi Zhoumeng's reciprocation was too cold, even carrying a naive contempt.

"Is this okay?"

"There, happy?"

"Isn't this love?"

"You want money, I have plenty. You want me to kiss you, I can do that. You want me to stay with you, I can do that too. So why do you still look at me with hurt eyes?"

Even her furrowed-brow expression of confusion was so beautiful, but beautiful like a sculpture.

Too cold, too cool, hard even when being destroyed.

Some had tried to soften her, but they all failed.

"Let's break up."

"You... you're very beautiful, and you were good to me. I was terrified at first, but Zhoumeng, do you know? Even when you hug me, there's no emotion."

Xi Zhoumeng shook her head. "I was seriously trying to be good to you. Is that not good enough?"

"No, being good to someone doesn't require being 'serious'."

Her ex's eyes were red, but there was no reluctance to leave Xi Zhoumeng. "It's unconscious. See, even when you hold me, you're 'trying'."

"But it's my fault too. I always wanted you to tell everyone that you love me, and you did say it."

"But even when you, whom I loved so much, said 'I love you' to me, it couldn't make me happy. That's when I knew I wasn't your 'one'."

Her ex was graceful, waving goodbye with a blessing for Xi Zhoumeng—

"I really want to see the day you completely fall for someone."

"That person will certainly have a hard time, but they'll also be very happy."

The colored lights of the sky-rail hovercars still flickered in the sky. Xi Zhoumeng turned around, the pleats on the chest of her dress doing nothing to make her look disheveled.

She still had the air of a goddess, austere and untouchable.

It was as if the fireworks of the mortal world couldn't invade her long-sealed shell.

Even though she had learned about joy and sorrow, and tried to feel the myriad states of life.

It was too late.

She was long past saving.

Even though just a moment ago, Xi Zhoumeng had thought about grabbing her, about just getting together.

But Chi Yueshan was ultimately hers, and she wanted her to have a smoother life than in the book.

How could I be the one to make her feel so secure in being loved?

Besides, Chi Yueshan had to like her on her own terms.

"What?"

Xi Zhoumeng turned to look at Chi Yueshan, a faint apology dotting her features, but even the apology seemed artificial.

"I didn't hear you clearly."

Chi Yueshan flew into a rage, throwing the ring she had just warmed in her hand straight at Xi Zhoumeng—

"I said I don't want an Alpha! You number one scumbag in the universe!"

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