Chapter 168: I Want a Plain Donut
It was an escaped Heliobus, a wisp of a thing, formless and desperate. Starved of the human emotions it craved for far too long, its very essence flickered like a candle flame caught in a gale. Yet, due to the immortal nature of its kind, it refused to be extinguished.
Just then, a figure ambled by on the roadside.
With a flicker of desperate energy, the Heliobus took a gamble. It impatiently morphed into the shape of a perfectly glazed donut and, with a soft plop, looped itself around the neck of the passing girl.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Stelle yelped, startled.
The Heliobus's strategy was simple: transform into the food its target most desired, then dangle itself just out of reach, tormenting them until they produced a veritable feast of appetite-driven emotions.
But after her initial shock, Stelle just… stood there. Nothing seemed to be happening.
"Hey! What's with you, you blockhead? Aren't you going to eat me?" The donut sprouted a pair of cartoonish eyes and poked her cheek with a newly grown, doughy little hand.
"Not really feeling it right now," Stelle replied with a yawn.
"I'm not a huge fan of plain donuts."
"Oh." The donut-Heliobus paused, its little eyes blinking. "Then what flavor do you like?"
Stelle gave the question her full, serious consideration. "The one with sprinkles."
The Heliobus snapped its tiny fingers. Instantly, a layer of colorful sprinkles materialized across its glazed surface, emitting an alluringly sweet fragrance. "Can you eat me now?"
"Still don't really want to."
"Why?!" the Heliobus shrieked, growing anxious. A little face scrunched up in the donut's center. "You said you wanted sprinkles! I gave you sprinkles! Look at them, aren't they beautiful? Smell this fragrance, isn't it irresistible?!"
"Hmm, it does smell pretty good," Stelle conceded with a nod, before her gaze drifted nonchalantly elsewhere. "But I don't feel like a sprinkle donut anymore."
"Fine, fine! Just tell me what you want to eat!"
Stelle hummed in thought. "Uh… chocolate, no, nuts! Muffins, mochi rolls, banana pie, pizza, uh…"
The donut warped, shifting from one confection to the next in a dizzying, doughy blur. Finally, it couldn't take it anymore. "Hurry up and pick one definitive thing!" it screamed.
"Ugh…! You're so loud. Fine, fine, let me think." Stelle looked put-out. "Okay, I want a… burger! With pickles, and ketchup, and salad dressing… wait, wait!"
The Heliobus, still looped around her neck, had already transformed into a burger at the long list of ingredients, even simulating the pickles and ketchup. The energy radiating from its form was clearly unstable, like a kettle about to boil over.
"I know now!" Stelle declared. "I want a plain donut!"
The burger-shaped Heliobus froze. Upon hearing the words "plain donut," its entire being twitched violently. The simulated lettuce leaf wilted instantly, the slice of cheese melted into a puddle, and even the meat patty in the middle lost its savory sheen.
"What… did you say?" a sharp, cracking voice emanated from within the burger.
"I said, I want a plain donut."
The burger stopped moving entirely.
The next second, it went poof, exploding into a cluster of colorful lights before re-condensing into the simplest, most primitive donut shape, settling back onto Stelle's neck.
"You're messing with me! You're just messing with me!" the Heliobus wailed. "You don't want to eat anything at all! You just want to watch me change over and over! You—you devil!"
Stelle considered this. "I didn't. I just decided I wanted a plain donut," she said, a little baffled by the sudden accusation. She reached up and poked the donut on her neck, tilting her head in confusion.
"I—" The Heliobus was so choked by her matter-of-fact attitude that it couldn't catch its breath. The green flame that served as its core flickered wildly, as if it were about to short-circuit.
In just a few short minutes, it had cycled from a donut to a burger, then through various pies, pizzas, and cakes. It had thought that as long as it satisfied this gray-haired girl's request, it could finally absorb her potent emotional energy and replenish itself.
And the result?
The result was that it had been played with like a dress-up doll, only for its tormentor to circle right back to the beginning. This wasn't ordering food! This was toying with its feelings! This was trampling on its dignity as a food-transforming Heliobus!
Unable to withstand the massive mental blow, the Heliobus let out an devastating wail. It suddenly slipped off Stelle's neck, fell to the ground with a wet splat, and shrank into a fist-sized ball of green flame, shivering on the cold stone floor.
"Not playing anymore… I'm not playing anymore…" it whimpered. "You eat me, just eat me now, give me a quick end…"
"Eh? What's wrong with you?" Stelle squatted down and reached out a finger to poke the little flame.
"Don't touch me! You devil!"
"What's wrong? Why are you calling me a devil?" Stelle's voice sounded utterly innocent, even carrying a hint of grievance. "I don't want to eat you. I just wanted to eat a donut."
The green flame was poked aside, rolling across the floor as it let out an even more miserable shriek. "Don't touch me! Go away! You fickle woman!"
"What's with this Heliobus… why does it look so scared?" Huohuo, observing from a safe distance, looked from the whimpering spirit to Stelle.
"It's so useless," Stelle declared with disdain.
"Its collapse is perfectly logical," Rekka observed, stepping forward. "Performing high-frequency, large-scale morphological shifts in such a short period constitutes a massive expenditure of energy. Meanwhile, your behavior, Stelle, provided it with continuous negative incentive feedback. It operated under the assumption that fulfilling your requests would yield emotional energy, but the result was merely repeated, fruitless labor. Eventually, its energy reserves and mental threshold fell below the critical point, triggering a systemic collapse."
Stelle stared at him blankly. "In English, please."
"You broke its brain."
"How did I break it? It was the one who insisted on turning into a donut and hanging on my neck. I hadn't even done anything, and it was already a mess. If it can't even handle that much stress, it's just useless."
"Hmm," Rekka nodded sagely. "So it deserved it."
With most of the Heliobi now captured, the crisis on the Xianzhou was finally drawing to a close.
"Ancestor, I will miss you," Cirrus's voice echoed in their minds, a low, resonant hum.
"Bad news," Stelle suddenly announced, her expression changing drastically. "I just thought of something."
"What is it?" Rekka asked.
"I remembered that we never heard any dog barking."
"That is indeed the case," Rekka agreed.
"So," Stelle said, turning to where Cirrus's presence still lingered, "can you bark like a dog for me to hear?"
A deep silence answered her.
---
"We have stayed on the Xianzhou long enough," Himeko said, her voice bringing everyone back to the present. "It is time for us to head to the next star."
"Exactly, exactly! Where's our next stop?" Stelle asked, her previous antics forgotten.
"Looking forward to it!"
Pom-Pom patted the small table in the Express lounge to get everyone's attention. "The Asdana galaxy. I'm sure you've all heard of it. The Astral Express's destination for this trip is the Planet of Festivities, Penacony."
"I hope that in addition to your vacation," Himeko added, her expression turning more serious, "you can also spare some time to inquire about several Trailblazers who once disembarked there."
"Trailblazers who got off the train?" Stelle asked.
"Like most worlds the Astral Express stops at, Penacony was once a station on the Star Rail. Thousands of years ago, it was still the IPC's frontier prison, and it was the Trailblaze that connected it to the galaxy," Himeko explained. "At that time, the Astral Express also visited Penacony. And just as travel has its meetings and partings, the train's records show that several passengers chose to stay there, making Penacony their final stop. According to the crew roster, the three passengers who disembarked that year were named Tiernan, Ragwock, and Lazarina, who were the train's guard, mechanic, and surveyor, respectively."
"Understood," Stelle said with a firm nod. "We'll search Penacony carefully."
Himeko then turned her gaze to the silent member of their group. "Rekka, what do you think?"
Rekka leaned back in his seat, a lazy smile on his face. "Me? I'll sit and watch."
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