Chapter 23: Sister, Your Exclusive Favor Is Suspicious!

Vientiane City Shopping Mall.

On a bench in the rest area, Lu Yiyi stared at the empty paper cup in her hand.

Three bowls of ice cream had been eaten clean, and her thoughts were becoming sharper.

She and Miss Xia had known each other for exactly two days, all things considered.

Two days.

‘Isn’t this level of intimacy progressing a bit too fast?’

Lu Yiyi crushed the paper cup and tossed it into the trash can beside her.

Yesterday was her first meeting with Miss Xia.

Zhang Jie had bullied her at work and forced her to go provide psychological counseling.

Before going in, she was so scared her legs went weak.

She secretly wiped her tears and even calculated her death benefits.

In the end, she not only walked out unharmed, but also achieved a record-breaking score of 63.

But how exactly had she done it?

No professional soothing measures, just a plain strawberry cake.

Even… she had fallen asleep in front of Miss Xia!

Put herself in Miss Xia’s shoes.

If she were Miss Xia, locked in a sunless underground, with paranormal forces raging every day, her body aching and mood terrible…

The psychologist sent over wasn’t professional, and even dozed off in front of her.

That would be absolutely adding fuel to the fire.

Even the most good-tempered person would get angry.

If it were her, she would have flipped the table and thrown the person out long ago.

But Miss Xia didn’t.

She didn’t get mad.

She even said the cake was delicious and let her sleep on her lap.

And today, for the sandwich she had tossed in the trash, she “educated” Wang Li.

Lu Yiyi frowned.

The more she thought, the more wrong it felt.

Miss Xia was too good to her.

So good that it made no sense.

And her own dependence on Miss Xia had appeared for no reason.

She couldn’t stop thinking about her, missing her when she wasn’t around.

That wasn’t like her.

Nor was it how a calamity-class spirit master should react.

As soon as that thought surfaced, Xia Qimeng’s stunningly beautiful face automatically popped into her mind.

Snow-white hair.

Eyes where black and color intertwined.

Meeting those eyes always made her sink in and willingly surrender.

And that floral scent.

Every time she smelled it, her mind slowed, her body softened, and she didn’t want to think about anything, only wanting to stay in that embrace.

‘No.’

Lu Yiyi clasped her hands, thumbs pressing hard against each other.

‘The floral scent.’

‘That floral scent definitely has a problem!’

As soon as she caught the fragrance on Miss Xia, her head spun, her limbs weakened, and she even got memory gaps.

Every time she dozed off, every time she dropped her guard, it was because Miss Xia got too close and she inhaled too much of that special floral scent!

How could it be such a coincidence?

Once could be chance.

Twice or three times made a pattern.

She had initially believed the colleagues’ rumors and had been frightened of Xia Qimeng.

Even without professional training, how could she fall asleep in front of a dangerous person who could kill at any moment?

Miss Xia was always initiating close contact, and she had simply assumed her fairy sister was a bit clingy and liked cuddling.

Her once-solid psychological defenses had completely collapsed in just two days, turning into overflowing sympathy and a dependence she couldn’t break away from.

This irrational emotional surge, this one-sided extreme indulgence, and her own bizarre memory gaps…

There had to be something fishy behind it.

‘Is it possible Miss Xia used some kind of mind-control power to affect my perception?’

‘But… she’s a space-type spirit master.’

‘Mind control, hypnosis, brainwashing, those are abilities only psychic-type spirit masters have.’

‘Is Miss Xia hiding a second ability?’

‘Or is that pleasant floral scent not some supernatural power at all, but a chemical agent?’

Lu Yiyi bit her lower lip, her heart growing more and more uneasy.

She was afraid of that eerie feeling of a peaceful surface crawling with illogical details underneath.

Failing the college entrance exam had left her with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Whenever she hit a logical loophole she couldn’t understand, she couldn’t sleep all night unless she figured it out.

She couldn’t ignore these illogical details.

Lu Yiyi took out her phone, opened the Paranormal Bureau’s internal work app, entered her employee ID, and accessed the database.

Search: Xia Qimeng.

The screen changed, and the three bright red words “Calamity-class” were particularly glaring.

Ability classification: Space-type.

Danger assessment: Extremely dangerous.

Note: The target’s paranormal power is highly unstable, often accompanied by indiscriminate space-fold phenomena. Except for authorized personnel, non-essential contact is strictly prohibited.

Lu Yiyi stared at the words “Space-type” for a full ten minutes.

She switched out of the app, opened her memos, and created a new document.

The first line she typed was two words: Floral Scent.

She began to record.

Contact point one: First meeting. Symptoms: Fear rapidly receded, mood inexplicably calmed.

Contact point two: Delivered cake, leg touched. Symptoms: Whole body weak, sluggish reactions, dizziness.

Contact point three: Held in arms for counseling. Symptoms: Blurred consciousness, fell asleep immediately.

Contact point four: This morning. Symptoms: Five-hour memory gap, and extremely strong dependence on the target.

After typing those lines, Lu Yiyi’s fingers hovered above the keyboard.

After a moment, she added a summary.

[The concentration of the floral scent is directly proportional to the degree of her lost rationality. The closer the distance, the stronger the scent, the dumber she gets.]

After writing that, Lu Yiyi put down her phone, pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, and took several deep breaths.

‘Let’s assume.’

‘Just assuming.’

‘Miss Xia truly has some unknown mental control method.’

‘Then why would she use it on a junior operator?’

‘What does she want?’

‘Is it because I’m dumb? Because I’m easy to bully? Or because I’m a two-dimensional otaku?’

Wang Li had been skinned alive, and Supervisor Zhao was so scared he mobilized a special team.

To keep her, Miss Xia had even flipped the table on the entire Paranormal Bureau and said harsh words.

“If one comes, I’ll kill one.”

At the time, that line sounded great, giving her a sense of security like being exclusively favored by a dominatrix older sister.

But now, on reflection, the exclusivity and possessiveness it revealed… sent chills down her spine.

‘What exactly do I have on me that makes a calamity-class spirit master go this far?’

Lu Yiyi went over her entire life from start to finish, but couldn’t figure it out.

She was just an ordinary girl, the most ordinary of ordinary.

No background, no talent, hadn’t even attended college.

‘It can’t be that I’m cute and happen to match her aesthetic, right?’

The days after failing the exam were the darkest time in her life, and she hated things that didn’t make sense.

Now she faced a logical dead knot even more absurd than the last exam question.

If she didn’t solve it, she’d never get a good night’s sleep again.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow, I have to talk to Miss Xia properly.’

‘I can’t keep leaning in stupidly for hugs like these past two days.’

‘I need to keep a safe distance of more than a meter.’

‘If Miss Xia approaches, I’ll find an excuse to dodge, avoiding physical contact as much as possible.’

‘As soon as I smell that special floral scent, I’ll hold my breath immediately.’

She wanted to see what Miss Xia’s attitude would be without the floral scent interfering and without physical contact.

Not only that, she would also probe indirectly to find out what had happened in that five-hour memory gap.

If Miss Xia really was a good person, a sincere fellow otaku, and her own paranoia was just acting up…

Then she would be willing to kneel on the spot, apologize deeply to her fairy sister, and serve her like a cow or a horse to repay that kindness.

But if…

Lu Yiyi shivered.

What if… Miss Xia wasn’t a good person?

Then what would be waiting for her?

📚 Also on NHV Novels

The Hero Doesn’t Want to Be a Hero

BLDevotedLoveFantasy

Read Now →
Not interested