The next day.
Half past eight in the morning.
"Mm-hmm!"
Li Yue stretched, looking a little drowsy, wandered groggily down off the bed, and rubbed lightly at the corners of her eyes with her fingers.
Finding everything pitch black before her, she reached by reflex for the switch on the wall, then abruptly remembered she was the Sword Maiden Darknight now, and drew her hand back with a sense of release.
She had spent a whole night in this body.
To be precise, only half a night with her mind fairly clear; in the second half she had crawled back onto the bed at some point without realising, and drifted off with her mind a blur.
Luckily, in Sword Maiden form the sword-force cleaned and renewed body and clothing on its own, or having nothing to change into would have been a real problem.
Wait. Wasn't today the day of the date?
Abruptly.
Her mind came back.
"Damn! What time is it?!!"
Li Yue's heart jumped, and she reached out and felt for the digital alarm clock on the bedside table.
Her fingers brushed lightly over the screen, feeling out the faint differences in warmth across it.
By the body's built-in instincts and its sharpened senses, even without opening her eyes to see, which she could not do without using her Sword Art, she could read the numbers on it in her own peculiar way.
"Only a little past eight thirty? That's all right, then. Xiao Bai should still be waiting for me."
A certain white puffball who had frightened herself the moment she got up let out a breath.
Having confirmed there was still time, she took stock of the things she needed to carry and packed them without hurry.
Then, using two black hair ties she found in the room as hair cords, she tied her loose silver-white hair into a long thin ponytail on each side of her head.
With those basic preparations done.
Only then did Li Yue leave her room and begin the day of her "date" with Bai Wuxie.
Perhaps because she had temporarily lost her sight, and the timing of the door happened to coincide with Fang Zheng's, throwing off her remaining sharpened senses.
Li Yue, her mind elsewhere, walked right past a Fang Zheng who stood frozen on the spot in shock.
A few seconds later.
"Wait, what? Is anyone going to tell me Ke Jie's been keeping a girl stashed in his room?" Fang Zheng muttered to himself, gazing after Li Yue's receding back.
No wonder that when he had got up in the night to use the bathroom he had half heard, coming through from next door, a girl's panting of the kind that sets the imagination running and plucks at a person's nerves.
As for the possibility that the little white puffball in front of him and Ke Jie were the same person? The moment the idea surfaced he slapped himself, and swiftly laid out in his head several pieces of evidence against it.
One: Li Yue was one metre fifty at the very most, while Ke Jie was a little over one seventy.
Two: Li Yue wore a half-transparent black gauze blindfold woven with gold patterning and could not see. Ke Jie had extraordinary eyesight and a pair of blood-coloured demon eyes.
Three: Li Yue's air was cool and refined, her youthful face exquisite, and the combination had a strange beauty of things mismatched inside and out. Put that together with the black-and-gold star-gauze gown and the black lace thigh-band, and she had a princess's mysterious nobility and allure. As for Ke Jie...... he could only be called an eerie, good-looking Blood Demon of a boy.
"Honestly, though, they really are a bit alike in their air. Could that be Ke Jie's kid sister?" Fang Zheng, his face full of doubt, walked up to Ke Jie's door and knocked lightly.
"Ke Jie, you in? I know you haven't gone out yet. I brought you breakfast."
No response from inside.
"Hey? Ke Jie, I'm not going to say anything about you spending the night with your sister when you've got Longquan too, two-timing them. Please just open the door." Fang Zheng tried it tentatively.
Still no sound from behind the door.
"Ke Jie can't have been screwed senseless by his kid sister all night, can he? If something's happened to him, I......"
At the thought, Fang Zheng's face went grave, and he took out his phone and quietly got in touch with the deputy captain, Cheng Fang, intending to break the door down and mount a rescue at any moment.
What he did not know was that this was a misunderstanding.
Every step of it was wrong, but the conclusion was not entirely wrong. In a certain sense Li Yue really was Ke Jie's own "little sister", and to a certain degree it really was Li Yue who had screwed Ke Jie senseless.
This marvellous misunderstanding was still going on, and growing......
***
At the same time.
Elsewhere.
As arranged in advance.
Li Yue, drawing every eye as she walked through the crowd, ignored without expression the looks and gasps people give a cute little animal, and walked calmly all the way from the Bureau to the restaurant where she and Bai Wuxie had eaten at noon the day before.
Up the stairs to the second floor, a few steps along, and she knocked lightly on the door of Bai Wuxie's private room.
"Tok, tok-tok."
The crisp, gentle knocking stopped.
"What's the password?"
A girl's voice asked from behind the door.
"Xiao Bai doesn't like cabbage."
The one outside answered flatly.
At once.
"Creak."
The door swung slowly open from inside.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Bai Wuxie. Please look after me, Ke~ Jie's~ little sister—"
The first thing to hit her was a fierce hug from the Bai Wuxie behind the door, her smile brilliant as a flower opening to the morning sun.
"Mmph!"
Held tight, Li Yue went blank.
Her two small hands flapped a few times, unsure for a moment whether to rest them on the girl's back or leave them hanging in the air.
In this moment.
She realised with utter clarity that she was meeting Bai Wuxie now under a brand-new identity.
Not the son of the Blade King, not the Blade Wielder Blood Demon, still less the other's close friend — the boy Ke Jie.
Only an ordinary little white puffball who had come to keep a date and would spend a holiday shopping with her. An ordinary girl not three days old.
"Mm. Nice to meet you, Big Sis Xiao Bai. My name is Li Yue. Li, as in dawn. Yue, as in moon."
The shift of mindset complete, Li Yue said it softly.
The words had barely landed.
Bai Wuxie let go, her eyes shining.
"Come! Come in, and we'll talk properly."
She reached out her right hand and drew Li Yue in gently by the left wrist.
"Okay."
Li Yue went in with the pull and closed the door.
It was like the two of them at noon yesterday, and subtly different. Each sat in her own seat, facing the other.
"A-Li, can I be your big sister for the whole day today? Please. I've always, always wanted a little sister as cute as you."
Bai Wuxie, brimming with enthusiasm, begged it in a tone very nearly wheedling.
At that.
"......"
Li Yue fell silent.
She still had no idea what she looked like now, let alone how devastating an effect she had on Bai Wuxie.
Naturally she could not understand what Bai Wuxie was thinking.
But under the terms they had agreed, and out of a little tolerance for the girl's whim, the corner of her mouth lifted, and her pink lips parted:
"Big Sis?"
Instantly.
At the sound of that soft, sticky-sweet call, cool as a summer drink.
"Ah!"
Bai Wuxie propped her face in both hands, wore an auntie grin so blissful it was melting, and her whole body squirmed.
A pity Li Yue could not see the girl's cute and ridiculous display, and could only guess at it from the sounds.
After squirming for a full half minute.
Bai Wuxie forced down her bubbling excitement.
She straightened her face and looked Li Yue over closely and seriously as she now was.
"Little sis, your eyes... what's wrong with them?"
Only now did she realise Li Yue might not be able to see.
"The price of my Sword Art. I don't use my sight unless I must."
Li Yue stated it flatly.
"Isn't that terribly inconvenient? You'll have to stick close to me when we go shopping later." Bai Wuxie's voice was worried; she reached out her right hand and clasped her palm to Li Yue's left hand.
"Hold my hand, just like this."
At the touch of soft warmth in her palm.
"N-no, it isn't."
Li Yue pulled her left hand free in a hurry, forcing herself to sound calm.
This was the first time she had formally held hands with Bai Wuxie.
"Little sis mustn't push herself! Listen to your big sister, okay~" Bai Wuxie puffed her cheeks and scolded, and took out her phone to snap several shots of the Li Yue in front of her while she was at it.
"Don't believe me? Look. With a face like yours, if you got separated from me it'd be a real problem."
Bai Wuxie handed the phone over to Li Yue for the moment, signalling her to open her eyes and try.
At that.
"Fine."
Unable to out-fuss Bai Wuxie, Li Yue chose to give in.
Under Xiao Bai's expectant gaze, she slowly opened her eyes......