The shopping bags from the supermarket landed on the rug with a rustling sound.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Kiana began taking things out one by one, muttering to herself as she sorted them.
"Instant noodles, good. Essential supplies… Frozen dumplings, we can eat those tonight… This chocolate was my pick, so don't touch it…"
Leaning against the kitchen doorway, Su Yu watched her with the corners of his lips slightly raised.
This girl, who used to be as wary as a startled stray cat, was now treating an ordinary pile of supermarket loot with something close to reverence.
Her movements were brisk, yet solemn, as if she were inventorying some priceless treasure.
"I'm going to the bathroom," he said casually, turning toward the restroom.
"Mm."
Kiana did not even look up, too busy examining the calorie count on a bag of chips.
Su Yu closed the bathroom door and stood before the sink, staring at his own face in the mirror, where satisfaction was written all over it.
At last, the time had come to verify the miracle.
He deliberately lingered there, waiting for that familiar, annoying red warning box to pop up in front of his eyes.
One minute passed.
Nothing.
No glaring red text. No shrill countdown. No damned "distance warning."
In his heart, he silently gave the shameless system a thumbs-up, then immediately took the praise back. After all, one moment of decency was nowhere near enough to erase all the awful things it had done.
From the living room came the sound of Kiana rummaging through the groceries, followed by a suspicious silence.
Then—
"Su Yu!!!"
Kiana's voice rang out, carrying the kind of dangerous undertone that made the hair on the back of one's neck stand up. It was like thunder rolling across the horizon before a storm.
Su Yu pulled open the bathroom door and looked out.
There she stood beside the shopping bags, holding up a bottle of bright green liquid.
Bitter melon juice.
Damn it.
He had meant to hide it, but he had forgotten it in the bag.
"What is this?" Kiana asked, her voice low, her mismatched eyes glittering with danger. "You bought this?"
"Uh, well…"
"This anti-human abomination!" She lifted the bottle even higher, as if presenting damning evidence in a criminal case. "Do you know how disgusting this stuff is? Aunt Himeko drinks it every day, but how can anyone possibly like this? Why did you buy it? Were you trying to poison me?"
"You're overthinking it. It's not for you to drink—"
"Then why did you leave it in a bag where I'd find it? You knew I hate this stuff!"
Her logic was so bizarre that it was impossible to argue with.
Su Yu opened his mouth, saw the way her eyes had narrowed, and instantly realized that reason would get him nowhere.
So he made the most instinctive choice a man could make at a time like this—
He ran.
"Stop right there!"
Behind him came the slap of slippers against the floorboards.
Su Yu darted around the coffee table and bolted toward the bedroom, but the tiny apartment, barely fifty square meters, offered nowhere to really maneuver. He had just rounded the bed when he had to veer off again, nearly tripping over a cushion on the floor.
"Get back here!"
Kiana shouted after him, but her anger was already tinged with something else—something suspiciously like laughter she was trying to suppress.
Su Yu ran half a circle around the little dining table, glanced back, and saw that the corners of her mouth had already started to curl upward.
"Go ahead, run forever if you want!"
"I can't run forever, but I can run until you can't anymore—"
He never got to finish the sentence. His heel caught on the edge of the sofa.
For one dizzy instant, all he could see was the cheap ceiling lamp above.
Then came a heavy thump as his back crashed into the cushions, followed immediately by a warm weight dropping onto him.
Kiana knelt over him, both hands pressing down on his shoulders. Her white hair fell in loose strands beside her cheeks, casting fragmented shadows over her face.
Both of them were breathing hard.
The tip of her nose was no more than ten centimeters from his. In those mismatched eyes, he could see his own somewhat pathetic reflection.
"Caught you."
She announced it proudly, her voice trembling faintly with exertion.
Her chest rose and fell sharply, making the oversized T-shirt she had stolen from his wardrobe shift with every breath.
Lying there on the sofa, Su Yu could feel the strength in the hands pinning him down. Staring at her flushed face from such close range…
In any other context, in any other mood…
Forget it. Best not think too deeply.
"Fine, fine. You caught me." He raised both hands in surrender. "I can explain the bitter melon juice—"
"I'm not listening!"
"—but I do have something to tell you."
Kiana's brows drew together. "Don't think you can change the subject."
"I'm not." Su Yu's expression grew a little more serious. "Didn't you notice something was… different just now?"
She froze.
The pressure of her hands on his shoulders eased slightly, and her gaze became uncertain.
"When you went to the bathroom…" she said slowly, "that countdown box didn't appear."
"Right."
"I thought maybe my thirty minutes of free time hadn't run out yet… but that wasn't it. I used it all earlier…"
"Right."
Kiana straightened up, still straddling his waist, but by now she had completely forgotten how awkward their position was.
A light began to kindle in her mismatched eyes, something disbelieving and fragile.
"You mean…?"
"You tell me," Su Yu said on purpose.
"Say it clearly!" She grabbed his collar and hauled him up a little. "What do you mean? What exactly do you mean?"
"The system gave me a reward when you got your ID today."
He looked straight into her eyes and spoke slowly, word by word.
"From now on, inside this apartment—this address that's printed on your ID—you don't have to stay within one meter of me anymore."
The living room fell silent.
Kiana sat astride him, fists still bunched in his shirt, like someone whose entire world had just been paused.
"…Say that again."
Her voice was dry.
"Inside this apartment, you can move around freely."
"No matter whether I'm here or not. No matter what room I'm in. As long as you're inside 302, you won't disappear."
Su Yu gently pried one of her hands off his collar.
"Got it?"
Kiana's throat bobbed.
Slowly, she released her other hand, slid off him, and dropped to her knees on the rug beside the sofa.
Then she lifted her face and stared at him again. Something was gathering in her eyes now—something like storm clouds compressed to the limit.
"I can…"
Her voice trembled.
"I can stay in the living room by myself?"
"Yes."
"I can go into the kitchen to get things by myself?"
"Yes."
"I can… get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom without waking you?"
"Yes."
"I can take a shower by myself without… without you standing outside the door guarding me?"
"Yes. And I won't have to recite The Memorial on the Expeditions anymore either. Chancellor Zhuge Liang can finally rest."
The last dam broke.
Kiana shot to her feet, thrust both arms into the air, and let out a scream loud enough to shatter windows.
It was not fear.
Not grief.
It was pure, explosive, overwhelming joy.
"I'M FREEEEEEEEE!!!"
She started spinning in circles around the living room, bare feet pounding over the rug and floorboards, even kicking over the bottle of bitter melon juice forgotten on the ground.
She did not care.
"I don't have to sleep plastered against the wall anymore! I don't have to panic about turning into a ghost when I go to the bathroom! I don't have to—don't have to—"
Her voice broke mid-sentence.
She stopped at the window with her back to him, shoulders trembling.
Cool night air spilled into the room.
"I have a home…"
Her voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible.
"I really have a home…"
Su Yu sat up slowly on the sofa, watching her back, suddenly unsure what to say.
In the corner of the living room, the little odd-eyed kitten named Worm poked its head out of its cat bed, tilted its head at this human who had gone from inexplicable cheering to inexplicable silence, yawned, and curled back up to sleep.
Kiana turned around.
There were tears on her face, but the smile on her lips was stretched wide.
It was an expression full of contradiction.
As if she were laughing and crying at the same time, as if unbearable happiness had finally burst through years of things too heavy to carry.
"Thank you."
She sniffed, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. Her voice still carried the rough edges of tears, but she was smiling now like a child given candy for the first time.
"I know I've probably said this a thousand times already, but… thank you, Su Yu."
Then she took two quick steps forward and threw herself at him.
This hug had no finesse to it.
It was clumsy. Tight. Painfully tight.
She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder, her arms locking around him as if she meant to keep something forever.
Su Yu's hand hovered awkwardly in the air for a moment before settling lightly against her back.
"All right, all right," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "You've soaked my shirt already."
"I'm not crying!"
The muffled protest came from his shoulder, full of nasal indignation, immediately followed by another unmistakable sniffle.
"Oh? Then what's this?"
"This is… this is because I'm happy!"
Su Yu couldn't help laughing. The hand on her back patted twice.
"Fine. Happy tears."
But then he abruptly changed the subject and pointed at the abandoned bitter melon juice on the table.
"Still, we can't waste this. It cost me five yuan."
"Su Yu——!!!"
The tender mood shattered instantly.
Kiana exploded again, grabbing a throw pillow and hurling it at him.
"You mood-killing idiot! Go die!!!"
The living room once again filled with laughter and chaos.
Startled, Worm sprang onto the shoe cabinet and stared at the two of them with wide, mismatched eyes.
Its expression clearly asked one question:
Why?
It was late by the time the apartment finally quieted down.
Su Yu lay stretched out on the long-forgotten one-and-a-half-meter bed, and every bone in his body seemed to sigh in comfort.
He had almost forgotten what it felt like to sleep alone.
He spread himself out into a giant star shape, deliberately stretching his feet toward each corner of the mattress.
Freedom.
This was what freedom tasted like.
The curtains in the bedroom had not been fully drawn. A thread of moonlight slipped through the gap.
From next door came the faint sound of Himeko's television. The woman was almost certainly drinking again while watching some ridiculous late-night variety show.
Farther away came the city's usual nighttime white noise—cars, air conditioners, a dog barking somewhere in the distance.
On normal nights he would have found it all irritating.
But tonight, it sounded strangely reassuring.
He turned over and adjusted his pillow.
Then he caught the scent.
A faint fragrance, mixed from shampoo and the warmth of a girl.
Even though Kiana had changed the sheets that afternoon, the trace of her smell lingered stubbornly deep in the pillow, like an invisible mark.
Su Yu froze for a second, then smiled helplessly.
There was no way all traces would disappear after she had slept there so many nights.
Still, the scent stirred no improper thoughts in him.
It only brought back every memory from the past days.
From the rainy night when he first picked up a terrified white-haired stray from the corridor.
To the convenience store panic attack, the livestream disaster, the rooftop near-tragedy, the police station sparring match, and finally that silly girl in the afternoon who had nearly burst into tears while clutching her new ID card.
She had taken a huge step forward.
A truly enormous one.
She was no longer a ghost. No longer a wanted fugitive. No longer a wandering soul with nowhere to stay.
She had a name. A place to live. A home she could return to openly and without shame.
And inside that home, she no longer had to cling to him like a terrified kitten every moment of the day.
The thought made the corners of his mouth rise again.
He closed his eyes, satisfaction softening his body as sleep began to pull at him.
Meanwhile, out in the living room, Kiana was not asleep yet.
The sofa cushions were softer than the bed, but because of that, they lacked the same sense of support.
Lying on her side, she held Worm in her arms, absentmindedly stroking its soft fur.
Moonlight leaked through the curtain gap and painted her short white hair in silver.
Then—
"You really have become more and more pathetic."
That voice sounded again.
Cold as always. Arrogant. Mocking from a lofty height.
"Clinging shamelessly to that man. You needed to stick close even to sleep, and now that you finally have some distance, you're hugging a cat as a substitute."
"How pitiful, Kiana Kaslana. Or should I call you K-423?"
The Herrscher of the Void.
That other consciousness living inside her body—the one that had once seized full control and used her hands to bring endless destruction and death.
She was Kiana's deepest fear.
The shadow she had suppressed with all her might and yet could never truly escape.
In the past, every time that voice sounded, Kiana would sink into bottomless self-loathing.
She would remember all the people who had died because of her.
She would remember Himeko's final sacrifice.
She would remember that she was nothing more than a cloned vessel, a container for a monster.
But tonight, she did not drown.
"Are you done?"
Kiana's voice was astonishingly calm.
"…What?"
The Herrscher clearly had not expected that response.
Under normal circumstances, Kiana should have begun doubting herself by now. She should have been sinking into anguish, thrashing like a drowning person desperate to grab hold of anything at all.
"I asked if you're finished," Kiana repeated. "If you are, then I have a question for you."
"…What are you playing at?"
"Do you like bitter melon juice?"
Silence.
A full three seconds of silence.
Then, suspiciously, "What kind of question is that?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." Kiana sat up on the sofa, set Worm aside, and let a sly gleam rise in those mismatched eyes under the moonlight. "You're another consciousness inside my body, right? If we share the same body, then a lot of our senses should be shared too."
The Herrscher of the Void suddenly grew wary. "What are you trying to do?"
"Test my theory."
Kiana rose from the sofa barefoot and padded silently toward the kitchen.
Her movements were so quiet they could barely be heard.
That was the instinctive caution that always appeared before a prank.
"Hey. Stop right there—"
She ignored the voice.
The refrigerator door swung open. Cold air brushed across her face, making her tremble faintly.
The little interior light illuminated one corner of the kitchen, throwing the food they had bought that afternoon into sharp relief.
Her eyes swept across the shelves and quickly found what she was looking for—
that vivid green bottle of bitter melon juice.
"I'm warning you—"
The Herrscher's voice was becoming urgent now. The arrogance in it was already starting to crack.
Kiana twisted the cap open.
"Don't you dare—"
She raised the bottle to her lips.
Then, without hesitation, she drank.
The icy liquid rushed into her mouth, and the bitterness exploded at once.
This was not ordinary bitter.
It was the kind of bitterness that tunneled from her tongue straight into her brain, the kind that made her entire face want to crumple.
Her brows nearly knotted together, but she forced herself to swallow.
Then she took a second gulp.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH—!!!"
A shriek burst from the depths of her mind.
It sounded nothing like a dignified Herrscher's voice.
It was pure, catastrophic suffering—the kind of scream a cat might make after getting its tail stepped on, or a child after swallowing a spoonful of wasabi.
"Stop! No, I mean, stop drinking that!!!"
The Herrscher's voice had completely lost all composure, devolving into near-hysterical pleading.
"It's so bitter! So bitter!! You lunatic!! It's awful!!"
Kiana lowered the bottle and wiped the green residue from the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.
Her tongue was numb. Her taste buds were being annihilated.
But a deeply satisfied smile curved across her lips.
"What's wrong? Can't the mighty Herrscher of the Void handle a little bitter melon juice?"
"You—you're using mutual destruction! It's disgusting for you too!!"
"I'm used to it."
Kiana shrugged. Even though her expression still twisted involuntarily from the bitterness, the amusement in her eyes was real.
"Besides, seeing you like this makes it worth it."
"You—"
"So you're not all that scary after all."
She put the bottle back in the fridge and quietly shut the door.
The cold light vanished, and darkness filled the kitchen once more.
"Good night, you little brat who can't even handle bitter melon juice."
From somewhere deep in her consciousness came a furious outburst, but it had lost most of its force now, like a child raging from the corner after suffering a humiliating defeat.
Kiana could almost feel that consciousness huddling in on itself, like a sulking animal licking its wounds.
So that was how it was.
The thing that had terrified her for so long… was only this.
Something that feared bitterness. Something that screamed in ugly agony. Something that, after being fought back against, could do nothing but howl with wounded pride.
Not some inaccessible god.
In this world, she was nothing more than a foul-tempered chuuni.
Kiana padded quietly back to the living room and lay down on the sofa again.
Worm came over at once, rubbing its fluffy head against the back of her hand.
She pulled the little cat close.
Moonlight still spilled through the curtains.
From the bedroom came the occasional sound of Su Yu turning over in his sleep.
In this apartment smaller than fifty square meters lived a kind-hearted idiot, a chubby little cat, and a girl who had finally begun to learn how to fight back.
"Good night, Su Yu."
She whispered it to the ceiling.
Then she closed her eyes and drifted into a calm, dreamless sleep.
That night, she slept deeply.
Straight through until morning.
....
Month-End Sale: Get 20% Off This Weekend
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it