Hermoke’s head hurt from the two rounds of rough handling Lu Yi had just put him through.
After briefly stretching his body, he pulled out two gloves printed with money patterns from his hoodie pocket. His long fingers clasped together elegantly before quickly slipping the gloves on.
Looking around, the old villa’s interior truly seemed on the verge of collapse, decorated in a style left behind from centuries ago: pale green cabinets, light yellow checkered tablecloths, small wooden vintage chairs…
Hermoke walked to the small tea table by the window and examined the notebook openly placed on top.
This was already the era of interconnected optical brains, yet someone still used such a primitive method to write a diary.
Hermoke’s cursed curiosity told him that sitting down to “investigate” might lead to some discoveries.
So, five minutes later, Hermoke silently uttered two words:
“Poverty.”
Lu Yi was so poor it was pitiful!
Not only did she have no savings, she was also burdened with massive university tuition loans. Most of the salary she earned working at the Paranormal Association was directly deducted each month by the Weimang Star Loan Bank.
Most of her meals were solved at the Association, she commuted using the cheapest rail tram available, spent weekends with no outings whatsoever, and her only regular activity was randomly being forced into overtime work.
Her diary entries were also inconsistent. Hermoke noticed a pattern: whenever she worked overtime late into the night, the entry for that day and the following day would disappear entirely. Then, on the third day, she would angrily write several hundred words complaining about overtime while encouraging herself to endure a little longer because becoming a regular employee was the priority.
“……”
She endured too much. To put it nicely, Hermoke thought her life force was astonishingly tenacious.
For one brief moment, Hermoke even considered transferring some money from the long string of digits in his own bank account to Lu Yi.
…Provided she could help him catch that silver-haired female.
Hermoke returned the diary to its original position and casually investigated the rest of the house, but found nothing suspicious.
Aside from the diary, everything else was perfectly organized.
Lu Yi seemed to have mild obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Everything was arranged neatly and precisely, to the point that when Hermoke opened her wardrobe, all the clothes were arranged by color from dark to light—
Along with an entire row of matching underwear sets.
“……”
Hermoke slammed the wardrobe shut as though electrocuted.
The tips of his ears turned bright red, and his heart pounded wildly, so much so that he completely failed to notice the faint bloodstain Lu Yi had left inside the closet on the night of the incident…
“This field operation is truly a failure.”
Feeling awkward, Hermoke quickly left the bedroom. But the moment he stepped outside the room, his forehead twitched.
His instincts seemed to guide him toward a certain direction!
Hermoke immediately transformed back into his sand cat form and leapt onto the windowsill.
At the corner of the alley, there seemed to be a strange flash of blue…
Someone else was watching Lu Yi too?
Lin Family Estate.
Lu Yi spent the entire train ride standing before finally arriving at the giant snow fox statue of the Lin Family just before being late.
The snow fox clan was one of the most noble and wealthy families on Weimang Star. Their intermarriage rate with outsiders was practically zero, making them a true aristocratic monopoly.
Within such a family, every position in the estate required elite qualifications, let alone being a tutor.
But the Lin family’s youngest young master, Lin Che, was the anomaly of the estate. He had already driven away dozens of tutors, and none of them lasted longer than half a month. Only Lu Yi safely survived the “deadly thirty days” and successfully became Lin Che’s private tutor.
As for the reason?
Lu Yi simply had no pride to begin with.
She was too poor. So poor that even Lin Che’s sharpest insults could not stir any emotional reaction within her… To the point that after one month, Lin Che found it boring and instead began apologizing to her voluntarily, even trying to open up and chat with her sincerely.
But…
Lu Yi still remained lifeless and emotionless.
“Teacher Lu Yi is basically an emotionless tutoring machine!”
“Then why are you still keeping her?”
Standing inside the room was another tall and handsome young man. He resembled Lin Che by seventy or eighty percent and was clearly his older brother.
As for his name, Lu Yi did not know. She never asked such things.
“She talks really quietly. Listening to her is comfortable!”
“Does ‘talking quietly’ even count as a personality trait?”
Lin Che’s face reddened, and he opened the star network instead of replying.
“It’s time for class…”
Lu Yi pushed open the door, sat across from the desk, and handed over today’s study materials.
“Student Lin Che, shall we begin now?”
“Ah… AH!!”
Hearing the familiar scream, Lu Yi looked up.
On the floating screen in midair, Lin Che was watching the silver-haired female’s video… again!
He had paused the footage on the woman’s smooth pale thigh. A drop of blood hung downward, and on her skin, hidden in the darkness, was a small light brown mole.
“I’m the only one who noticed it… hahaha!”
“Brother Yu, look quickly! There’s a mole on her thigh!”
A cup of hot cocoa was placed onto the table. Printed on the cup was a beautiful little daisy.
Lu Yi looked up and softly thanked him before lowering her head to glance at her own thigh tightly covered by jeans. It seemed she would not even be able to wear shorts anymore in the future.
“Lin Che, you should focus on class. Don’t make things difficult for your teacher.”
The young man’s voice should have sounded extremely gentle, yet it caused Lu Yi’s hand holding the cup to tremble slightly.
That voice…
“I’m leaving now. Enjoy your tutoring session.”
Lu Yi’s pupils suddenly shrank—
That voice was the same voice as the “gentle boy” from her dream last night!
But she had never met this person before…
A chill rose from the soles of her feet, gradually spreading through all four limbs. Panicking, Lu Yi hurriedly drank a mouthful of hot cocoa, only for the thick sweetness to clog her throat.
The entire morning’s lesson passed in a blur. Lin Che kept replaying the silver-haired female’s video. Every time he watched it once, Lu Yi became nervous once again.
By the forty-ninth replay, even Lu Yi’s heart had become numb.
When she returned home that evening, the golden-furred kitten was still curled up on the sofa with its eyes narrowed as though sleeping.
Lu Yi placed down her canvas bag and carefully approached. Seeing the kitten’s fluffy stomach rise and fall steadily, she slowly relaxed.
She casually prepared some minced meat paste for the kitten before heading directly upstairs to bathe and sleep.
Hermoke looked in confusion at Lu Yi’s hurriedly departing figure.
Landing softly on all fours, he wobbled his way upstairs and followed Lu Yi to the bedroom doorway.
“Meow~”
“Ah!”
Lu Yi jumped in fright at the sudden appearance of the kitten.
Hermoke widened his eyes while observing her, behaving exactly like a spoiled little pet cat.
Reflected in his gray-blue eyes, a bead of sweat slid down the girl’s pale neck and disappeared into the collar of her loose T-shirt.
Her expression looked blank, and only after a moment did she silently crouch down and lift the kitten with both hands.
“Meow meow~”
Hermoke’s pupils instantly returned to normal.
The opportunity to observe her had arrived—tonight—
Click.
Hermoke was suddenly thrown into darkness.
“…Meow?”
He watched as Lu Yi shut the door and left, the tense expression on her face finally relaxing.
Only then did Hermoke realize that not only had his cute act failed, he had actually been locked inside a little dark room by Lu Yi.
“……”
This Lu Yi was truly strange!
Could she possibly be among the 0.1% of people in the entire interstellar universe who disliked kittens!?
Late into the night, Hermoke transformed back into human form and darkly twisted open the doorknob.
Inside the bedroom, Lu Yi’s breathing was steady and slow, while a sweet and faintly bloody perfume scent lingered at the tip of Hermoke’s nose.
Using the moonlight, Hermoke approached the side of Lu Yi’s bed—