Turn the clock back three minutes.
The moment after Zhou Tianhao left.
Without that elder of an older generation present, the few who remained naturally loosened up a good deal and were more at ease.
"Ke Jie, what on earth is your Blade Spirit? Strong to that degree, it ought to be famous in history." Fang Zheng asked, admiration all over his face.
"Guess."
Without expression, Ke Jie kept him in suspense.
The implication being that he did not want to answer.
"Can't guess. I'm no good at the book subjects." Fang Zheng shook his head over and over.
Plainly, Fang Zheng had not grasped what he actually meant.
Just then.
Cheng Fang, at one side, put in a word of warning:
"Asking someone about their Blade Spirit outright isn't a polite thing to do, not even between friends. Unless the person volunteers it. Understood, Fang Zheng?"
That said.
Cheng Fang and Ke Jie exchanged a glance, indicating that he had understood Ke Jie's meaning.
After the sparring the two of them had an understanding and an appreciation of each other, and their relationship had leapt clean past the warmth between Ke Jie and Fang Zheng.
"The deputy captain is right. It's the same among Sword Maidens." Wu Yuan laughed behind her hand and added it.
"I would not mind, were the newcomer to ask me." Annie clutched the old tome tighter and offered it with a cold face.
The words were barely out.
Everyone around turned to look, all at once.
"What are you talking about? My Annie."
Wu Yuan's amber eyes went wide with shock.
"Is our team's little angel about to get carried off?"
Fang Zheng's face went black; he could not believe it.
"Annie, what do you... mean by that?"
Cheng Fang's expression slipped, in a rare moment, and he frowned deeply.
"......"
Ke Jie said nothing, only let a curve rise at the corner of his mouth.
He could guess why Annie had said it.
It seemed he and this Miss Annie of the Execution Corps would have a good deal in common in future.
Faced with all these various reactions, Annie was silent an instant before she spoke slowly:
"A jest of mine, nothing more. To return to the point, today is the day a newcomer joins the team. Should we not celebrate a little, and do the honours as hosts?"
The words had barely landed.
"You're right, that is a real question."
"Don't frighten us like that next time, Annie."
"That's a relief... Ke Jie, what do you think?"
The few who had been at each other's throats a moment ago were all pardoned at a stroke, and set to thinking seriously about the matter Annie had raised.
Before they could speak in turn, however, they were interrupted by an unexpected visitor.
"Creak."
The main hall's rear door opened.
"Excuse me, everyone! May I ask, have you seen Mr. Ke Jie?"
A polite greeting rang out on the spot.
Looking somewhat ill at ease, Bai Wuxie held up her Judicator badge for them to see as she approached.
"Longquan? What brings you here?" Wu Yuan's mouth fell open in surprise, and she greeted her by reflex.
She served as a liaison member between the Pilgrim Court and the Judgment Hall.
She and Bai Wuxie had worked together once before, and the two of them counted as close friends who knew each other reasonably well.
The two had an agreement never to use each other's given names in front of outsiders.
"My friend, what brings you?" Annie wore, for the first time in a long while, a look of fondness, and asked it gently.
Both of them young ladies of Sword Maiden houses who carried the name of prodigy, and both lonely, they had been playmates in childhood.
Not only the two Sword Maidens: the Blade Wielders too were taken aback by Bai Wuxie's arrival.
"Is that the celebrity of Dongdu's Sword Maiden circles, the Presiding Justice's disciple, Miss Longquan?" Fang Zheng was so startled he stood rooted to the spot.
"Miss Longquan, is there something you need with our new team member, Blood Demon?" Cheng Fang showed no surprise at all, and asked back in the tone of business.
At which.
"New team member... Blood Demon? So Mr. Ke Jie really is here. Thank goodness I didn't come to the wrong place." Bai Wuxie let out a long breath of relief, and in the next instant put on a courteous smile and answered:
"Mm! I've come to thank Mr. Blood Demon. He saved my life last night, so to repay him I'd like to treat him to lunch in a personal capacity. I'm very sorry to have to borrow your team member for a while."
She greeted everyone in front of her politely.
Abruptly.
"If the invitation comes from you, Xiao Bai, then of course I won't refuse."
Ke Jie, whom Bai Wuxie had not been able to see at first because the others blocked her view, came forward and met her eyes.
Black eyes and cerulean eyes looked deeply into one another.
Communication by look alone, with no need of words.
Each had formed a guess and an understanding of what the other was thinking, and knew that each carried in their heart words, even secrets, that were awkward to make public and could be shared only with the other.
The two of them held that look for a solid ten seconds.
The remaining few, who had not the heart to disturb the pair, quickly reached a consensus by glance alone — the relationship between the Blade Wielder Blood Demon and the Sword Maiden Longquan was by no means ordinary, and they had better not get much in the way of whatever lay between these two.
"That will do, Miss Longquan. But you may borrow him until six in the evening at the latest and then must let him come back to the Bureau. Our team still has a welcome ceremony waiting for him." Cheng Fang answered on behalf of the members of Team B other than Ke Jie, his expression complicated.
What he said amounted, in the main, to telling Ke Jie and Bai Wuxie to go and enjoy themselves without a care.
"Thank you, everyone! We'll be off, then!" Bai Wuxie clapped her hands together once, deeply grateful.
"My thanks. Take care, seniors." Ke Jie too smiled mildly and expressed his gratitude.
Simple, sweet Bai Wuxie might have no idea at all.
But how could he fail to see that everyone on Team B was deliberately helping the two of them along, and only did not want to say it out loud?
After all, a misunderstanding like this... it was not bad to let it stand, was it?
***
Nearly half an hour later.
Around eleven o'clock, close to noon.
Ke Jie and Bai Wuxie were seated on the second floor of a small, pretty Western restaurant, in one of the private rooms set aside for "people in a relationship" like them, with a window looking out on the street.
Calling it a private room undersold it; it was more a small chamber with fairly good soundproofing, purpose-built to create a world for two.
The room was hardly more than twenty square metres. On the outer side was a floor-to-ceiling window with one-way glass; on the inner side a brown wooden door. In the middle stood a square white quartz table, with a long leather sofa bench seating two on either side. The walls carried a modern-style texture, and the brown-lacquered wood gave off a faint quiet fragrance.
A fine white crystal chandelier on the ceiling spilled a soft light, answering the service bell beside the door, and gave the room a settled, quiet feeling.
As for how the tableware, menu and order code were laid out and placed, it was no different from any ordinary Western restaurant.
"Xiao Bai, you saw all of it, didn't you? What happened last night." Ke Jie propped both hands on the table and looked at Bai Wuxie seated opposite with a serious face, testing her.
"Mm. That is exactly why I came. There's no need for you to worry about whether I told my master, Mr. Ke Jie. You're the benefactor who saved my life, and more than that you're my friend, and to me that counts for more than even my own master." Bai Wuxie stated it with a solemn face, in very nearly the attitude of an oath.
Faced with this rare bond and feeling that had formed between herself and Ke Jie, she showed a degree of regard far beyond what an ordinary person would imagine.
"Xiao Bai......"
Ke Jie was struck speechless on the instant.
Whatever the technique, whatever the lie, before this girl it all rang hollow and useless.
In this moment he shed the disguise called son of the Blade King, written as avenger.
On his face showed the tenderness and the life a lonely boy of twenty named Ke Jie ought to have.
Then, abruptly.
As though she had remembered something she had left out.
Bai Wuxie, who a moment before had worn an expression as serious as a soldier's at war, changed countenance and came back to her brimming self:
"Oh, that's right! This is the important part of today, my thank-you gift for you, Mr. Ke Jie!"
That said.
Dressed just as she had been when they first met the night before, she pulled out of the little bag she carried everywhere a palm-sized white gift box with gold thread, exquisitely wrapped.
"Bam!"
A small hand slapped the table, and pushed it across in front of Ke Jie.
"A thank-you gift? Wasn't this supposed to be a meal, Xiao Bai?"
"Oh, come on! That was what I said to everyone else. What's inside this box is my extra, extra, extra special thank-you gift for saving my life, sir, and for helping me indirectly come through a brush with death and grasp Sword Intent!"
"You've reached the Drawn Realm of the Sheath Tier? Congratulations. In that case, I suppose I'll force myself to accept."
After bickering with Bai Wuxie for a little while, Ke Jie opened the gift box in front of him full of anticipation......