The next moment, a sharp humming sound vibrated through the air.
Faint, razor-sharp patterns of sword Qi swirled tightly around Claire’s fist.
Boom!
The entire security door shattered violently from the center outward.
The twisted metal frame caved inward with a screech, and the internal mechanisms of the security lock clattered loudly onto the floor.
Claire withdrew her hand as the residual sword Qi swirling around her knuckles slowly dissipated.
She looked inside.
The living room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the faint, patterned amber glow of the streetlamps filtering through the window.
Without turning on the lights, she stepped over the wreckage, using the darkness to scan every single corner with a predator’s precision.
Behind the sofa.
Beside the curtains.
Under the dining table.
There was no one here.
The bedroom door stood ajar.
Claire pushed it open, but the space was entirely vacant.
The blankets on the bed were neatly folded, and several dungeon-romance web novels were stacked in an orderly pile on the desk.
Her gaze swept across the room before she turned and flung the wardrobe doors open.
It contained only male clothing.
An old watch and a pair of glasses rested on the bedside table, and his exercise equipment sat quietly in the corner.
Claire finally withdrew her scanning gaze, satisfied that she hadn’t caught him in the act of hiding anyone.
The frantic swaying of the silver cowlick on her head gradually began to slow down.
Leaving the bedroom, she systematically inspected the kitchen and the bathroom.
She even crouched down to inspect the lining of the trash can, checking closely for any discarded, small transparent wrappers.
After a thorough sweep, she found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
She returned to the center of the living room.
The rigid cowlick on her head dropped softly, curving into a completely relaxed, peaceful arc.
He was definitely not home.
And there wasn’t a single trace of another woman ever setting foot in this space.
Claire’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and a barely perceptible, fleeting smile brushed the corners of her lips.
But a second later, her eyes landed back on the mangled wreckage of the entrance, and her expression locked back into a serious mask.
She pulled her smartphone from her bag.
With a swift swipe across the screen, she skillfully pulled up a contact labeled Principal Vance and typed a quick message.
“The door is broken again and needs to be replaced.
Same apartment as before.
Do it as quickly as possible.” She hit send and securely tucked the phone away.
With that administrative task handled, Claire looked around the room once more.
For now, until he returned, this was entirely her territory.
She initiated a second, much more meticulous search.
Opening the refrigerator, she noted the bottled water, eggs, and several packages of instant noodles arranged in flawless geometric rows.
She picked up a water bottle, verified its production date, nodded, and set it back exactly where she found it.
She pulled open the desk drawer, finding basic stationery, charging cables, and some loose change.
She rummaged through it a few times, confirming there were no hidden secrets.
Inspecting the bookshelves, she found they were predominantly packed with academic textbooks and professional manuals, with a few dungeon-instance novels squeezed between them.
She pulled one out, flipped through a couple of pages, and carefully slid it back into its exact coordinates.
Having completed her absolute audit, Claire stood in the center of the room, a look of profound satisfaction finally bleeding into her icy blue eyes.
She nodded to herself, and the little ahoge on her head bobbed in perfect synchronicity, as if validating her rigorous detective work.
Then, her eyes locked onto the mattress in the bedroom.
She walked inside and stood right by the edge of the bed, her gaze fixed entirely on the pillow.
Leon’s pillow.
Suddenly, she pounced onto the mattress like a small puppy, burying her face deep into the fabric.
Her long, silver-white hair cascaded across the dark blue sheets like a silken waterfall, creating a striking visual contrast.
“Mmm…” A very faint, muffled hum escaped from beneath the pillow.
Claire hugged the pillow tightly to her chest and began rolling across the bed.
She rolled to the left, burying her face into the fabric to take a deep, long breath of his scent.
She rolled to the right, clutching it like an iron vice, before rolling back to rub her cheek against the pillowcase.
A brilliant pink blush crept across her cheeks.
Her icy blue eyes narrowed slightly, her long eyelashes casting delicate, trembling shadows in the ambient night light.
That usually detached, expressionless face now displayed a look of pure, unadulterated rapture.
If anyone from the school were to barge in at this exact moment and witness Claire—the number one high school beauty, the Mythical-tier Sword Saint renowned for her absolute, unapproachable frost—rolling around like a manic child while sniffing a boy’s pillow, it would cause an existential crisis of epic proportions.
But she was completely alone.
The room held nothing but her and Leon’s residual aura.
After rolling back and forth half a dozen times, Claire finally stopped, lying on her side while keeping the pillow locked in her arms.
She closed her eyes, her breathing gradually stabilizing as she drifted toward a peaceful sleep, wrapped entirely in his familiar, comforting presence.
About ten minutes later, her eyes snapped open.
As if remembering a matter of critical strategic importance, she sat up abruptly, walked over to the desk, and powered on Leon’s desktop computer.
She typed in the password with total familiarity.
The desktop loaded.
Claire moved the mouse, opened the directory, and skillfully navigated through a nested sequence of folders until she located one named Study Materials.
She double-clicked it.
The directory expanded, revealing a dense, neatly organized list of video files.
Claire scrolled the mouse wheel, clicking directly into one of the sub-folders.
Sure enough, there were more than a dozen new video files added to the drive, all downloaded within the past week.
Claire blinked, meticulously scanning the titles of the adult media files.
Then, she pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and opened her notes app.
Creating a new line at the bottom of her running log, her fingertip tapped the screen as she typed: Maid outfits, Animal ears, White thigh-highs.
After staring at the words animal ears for two seconds, she carefully appended a fox-ear emoji to the text.
Having successfully reverse-engineered his current visual preferences, she shut down the computer, lay back down on Leon’s bed, opened a mobile shopping app, and immediately began adding high-end maid uniforms, white stockings, and faux animal ears to her digital cart.
Time slid past.
Finally, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor outside.
Leon walked up to his apartment and froze.
“…” Where the hell was his door?
Holding his house key in a limp grip, Leon stared at the gaping hole where his front entrance used to be, his eye twitching violently.
Inside the apartment, the two teenagers stared at each other, the atmosphere turning profoundly bizarre.
Leon looked at Claire, who was currently kneeling quietly in the center of his mattress, and then glanced back at the mangled, twisted pile of metal scraps that used to be his front door.
“So, let me get this straight,” Leon said, his voice entirely deadpan.
“You allegedly saw a suspicious figure lurking near my apartment, assumed they were a thief, initiated an unprovoked combat sequence, and in the ensuing crossfire, you accidentally blew my entire security door off its hinges?” Claire remained completely expressionless, the cowlick on her head bobbing slightly.
“You told me the exact same story last time this happened,” Leon added.
Claire nodded slowly, her face the absolute picture of innocence.
Leon’s lips twitched.
Looking at that flawless, serene face that silently screamed I am telling the absolute truth, he ultimately let out a long, defeated sigh.
He completely gave up trying to argue logic with her.
He turned around, pulled a spare futon set from the hallway closet, and began spreading it across the living room floor.
“Get some sleep.
We both have our mandatory trial instances tomorrow morning.” At the mention of the trial instance, Claire seemed to remember her actual purpose for visiting.
She reached out, slicing her finger through the air to manifest the glowing interface of her personal spatial storage.
Reaching into the rift, she fumbled around for a moment before withdrawing a massive, silver-colored egg.
The eggshell shimmered with a brilliant, iridescent luminescence, its surface traced with natural, gold-threaded patterns that cast a warm, comforting glow across the dimly lit bedroom.
Claire held the heavy egg carefully in both hands, extending it forward to Leon.
“What is this?” Leon took it from her.
The shell was radiating a distinct warmth, and he could feel a faint, rhythmic pulse mimicking a heartbeat deep within the core.
Item: Silver-Winged Hawk Egg (Status: Unhatched) Quality: Legendary Medium Grade Heh!
Leon sucked in a sharp breath of pure shock.
A Legendary Medium Grade combat pet had a baseline market value starting in the hundreds of millions of credits.
They were exceptionally rare assets, almost exclusively traded via high-tier bartering for Legendary-grade weapons and endgame armor sets.