My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 364: A Date, Monologue, Fireworks (Two-part series, please vote!)
At 7:30 PM on August 18th, this was the time with the fewest visitors at the Lijing Ocean Park during the day.

Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami walked side by side through a dark underwater tunnel, with deep blue lights shining down on their expressionless faces.

The surroundings were completely silent, and there were hardly any people in the tunnel, making it feel like being in the real deep sea. At this hour, everyone would be looking for food; who would be wandering around an aquarium?

Tomorrow, they will fly to Haifan City, and after that, they will begin a period of intense preparation for battle.

The relationship between Lake Hunting and the Great Lord of the Year Beast is gradually becoming heated, and a war could break out at any time. Both Sea Sail Mountain and Sea Sail City will be in turmoil, and there will be no leisure for leisurely travel.

So, before setting off, Origami Ayase suggested visiting the aquarium in Reikyo, saying that she had been to the amusement park before, but she had never been to an aquarium before.

Xia Pingzhou was looking down at his phone at the time. He wanted to refuse, but without looking up, he said, "Forget it."

After all, it's summer vacation, and almost all the places to visit in Lijing are packed with people and so crowded that it's hard to even catch your breath.

But then he saw that Ayase Origami had changed into a sea-blue kimono, silently turning her dark eyes to look at him without moving, and he understood what she meant.

Xia Pingzhou had no choice but to use his phone to find the nearest aquarium and have the hacker book two tickets.

So the two set off in the late afternoon and first went to the cinema to watch Shunji Iwai's "Swallowtail Butterfly," a re-release that had been more than twenty years ago.

Xia Pingzhou was getting sleepy while watching and rested his head on Ayase Origami's shoulder.

The girl in the kimono stared motionlessly at the screen. This was her first time going to the movies. It was pitch black all around, with only the movie screen illuminating her dark eyes.

She stared intently for a long time.

When the song "Sunday Park" plays in the movie, the brightly colored scenes show boys and girls abandoned by the world running through a junkyard.

Xia Pingzhou woke up, and this time Ayase Origami fell asleep. In the end, the two of them simply leaned their heads together. The little boy next to them looked at them speechlessly, his eyes seeming to say, "Are you here to take a dump?"

After the movie ended, both of them were fast asleep. The girl in the kimono opened her eyes, turned her head slightly, and looked down at Xia Pingzhou, who was sleeping on her shoulder.

Just then, a paper swallowtail butterfly flew out of her sleeve, fluttering gently on his cheek and brushing against his ear.

A moment later, Xia Pingzhou's eyelids twitched slightly, and he finally woke up, raising his head to meet the gaze of the girl in the kimono.

The two were standing close to each other, staring at each other in silence for a long while, until Xia Pingzhou yawned and looked away.

"Is the movie over?" Xia Pingzhou asked at the time.

"Little cat, you're not serious," the girl in the kimono said.

Xia Pingzhou rubbed his forehead. He wanted to say, "Aren't you sleeping too?" but in the end, he sighed and didn't bother to argue with her. He said he had already seen the movie. The male lead died at the end, and it was a sad story. He figured it was better not to watch it.

Origami Ayase was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Let's see something the kitten hasn't seen before."

"why?"

She didn't explain, but simply took Xia Pingzhou's hand and walked out of the screening room on her own.

They wandered aimlessly through the dimly lit screening tunnel. Instead of buying new movie tickets, they simply found a theater that was showing a movie and sat down in an inconspicuous corner.

Xia Pingzhou was too lazy to buy more tickets. Anyway, their movie tickets for the previous show were booked for them by their electronic pet, so there was no way that the electronic pet would actually pay for them.

This time they watched "Robot Dreams," a movie about a lonely owner who buys a robot from a shopping mall. They live together for a long time, but are eventually forced to separate and go their separate ways.

In the middle of the movie, the little robot falls on the beach and closes its eyes. It has lost its arms and legs, and no one can find it.

Seeing the little robot having many dreams, imagining its master coming to find it, Xia Pingzhou's eyes suddenly reddened slightly, but his face remained expressionless.

He had actually watched this movie many times, when he was bored and alone in the prison cell.

At this moment, Origami Ayase paused slightly.

She slowly turned her head, her empty yet beautiful eyes fixed on Xia Pingzhou's profile.

This was the first time she had ever seen a boy cry in front of her. She stood there involuntarily, staring at him silently for a long, long time, unable to look away from his face.

"Did you come to see the movie, or to see me?" Xia Pingzhou asked expressionlessly.

Origami Ayase was silent for a moment before turning her gaze away. "Look at the cat."

"Then you can watch it at home."

“It’s different outside.”

After that, the two left the movie theater. Along the way, many people stared at them, and some even took out their phones to take pictures. Everyone would think that the girl was cosplaying, otherwise who would wear a kimono to walk around in broad daylight?

However, both Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami were already quite outstanding in appearance, enough to attract attention, especially the latter, who was clear, indifferent, and pure white.

However, her eyes were slightly vacant, and from a distance, she looked like a flawless doll. In the summer sunlight, her fair face had a touch of warm peach color.

Xia Pingzhou accompanied her to stroll through the snack street in Lijing. The street was packed with people during the summer vacation. The sun was blazing down, and the cicadas in the trees were chirping incessantly.

On the way, he asked her if the movie was good. Ayase Origami just shook her head slightly, wrote on a piece of paper, and said that her breathing was too loud and made it impossible for her to concentrate on the movie.

"So, you fell asleep too?" Xia Pingzhou handed her a string of candied hawthorns while eating the box of donuts himself.

"Yes, so she fell asleep." Origami Ayase took the candied hawthorn and said calmly, "It's all the cat's fault."

After strolling through the food street, they still had some time before the opening of the night session at the Lijing Ocean Park, which they had booked. So they squeezed into the newly renovated Lijing Starlight Amusement Park, bought tickets from the staff, and rode the Ferris wheel again.

It is worth mentioning that this Ferris wheel was destroyed half a month ago due to a battle between the Outcast Ghost Bell and an unknown member of the Rainbow Wings. Almost the entire Ferris wheel collapsed and was buried deep in the ground.

However, the Outcasts Association lost a large sum of money and sent an Outcast skilled in building repair to participate in the repair work of the amusement park rides.

So, just over ten days after being destroyed by the evil Ghost Bell, the Ferris wheel was rebuilt with astonishing efficiency. Some reporters even suspected that the enthusiastic outsider who participated in the restoration was a "silver-swallowing" (a euphemism for someone who steals silver).

So when Tun Yin was on a mission, a reporter seized the opportunity to ask him about it, but Tun Yin denied it outright, saying coldly, "Why would I have time to care about such trivial matters?"

Afterwards, when a child asked Tun Yin for an autograph and asked if he had fixed the amusement park, Tun Yin readily admitted it, patted her head, and said, "Protecting children's happiness and dreams is also my job."

After the Ferris wheel was completed, the amusement park manager seized on the gimmick and named it "Tomb of Ghost Bell". He claimed on Weibo that this was the place where the big shot of Rainbow Wing fought Ghost Bell, and that the legendary criminal Ghost Bell fell here!

The next day, this message went viral across the entire internet.

In no time, the Ferris wheel seemed to have become a must-see attraction for local tourists, with a constant stream of visitors. The amusement park's performance skyrocketed, and the park manager's ingenious marketing strategy completely revitalized this amusement park that was on the verge of closing down.

At this moment, darkness had fallen, and in the fading twilight, one of the Ferris wheel's carriages was swaying and rising into the sky, gleaming in the afterglow of the setting sun.

"You really like Ferris wheels that much?" Xia Pingzhou put his phone in his pocket, glanced at the kimono-clad girl sitting opposite him, and then followed her gaze to the window.

As the sun slowly dipped below the horizon, it withdrew its light from the city, plunging it into darkness. Then, lights began to twinkle, reflecting a starry sky in the eyes of the young men and women.

Origami Ayase then turned around, lowered her eyes, and thought for a moment. "I don't really like it."

"Then why do we have to sit here again?" Xia Pingzhou tilted his head.

"Because I like riding the Ferris wheel with my kitten," Origami Ayase said softly.

Xia Pingzhou was taken aback. "Okay, I can ride the Ferris wheel with you every day from now on. But we get tired of seeing the same Ferris wheel scenery too often. We can go to other cities to explore, like we did in London last time."

Origami Ayase nodded quietly.

After getting off the Ferris wheel, they had an early dinner at the mall and then rushed to the aquarium during dinner time. The evening session at Lijing Aquarium had just begun, and they were among the first guests.

The two spent the entire day wandering around aimlessly, hoping to arrive at the aquarium at the perfect time.

If you don't come at night, it's hard to experience the atmosphere that an aquarium should have.

What was initially a novel experience was completely overshadowed by the cacophony of voices and the stench of sweat from the crowded streets – this was summer vacation. For those who enjoy a lively atmosphere, it would undoubtedly be a good thing, but for Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami, it was clearly not.

Both of them are naturally aloof and dislike communicating with others. When they walk together with expressionless faces and chat in monotone tones, those around them might secretly think, "Has the AI ​​crisis arrived ahead of schedule?"

For a moment, the dark tunnel resembled a deep sea, with ghostly schools of fish swimming through the tank, scattering faint fluorescent light that illuminated the faces of the two.

"There's a jellyfish-themed exhibit area, a giant whale shark tank, and a dolphin theater. Which one would you like to go to first?" Xia Pingzhou looked down at the map handed out by the staff.

"Wherever you go, I'll go," Origami Ayase said casually as she walked slowly forward.

“If it’s really a case of me going wherever you go, then we should be at home sleeping right now, not at the aquarium,” Xia Pingzhou muttered, staring at the map. “So, you really can’t trust a woman’s word at all?”

The girl in the kimono was silent for a moment, then said softly, "The kitten is breathing on itself."

Xia Pingzhou stopped looking at the aquarium map, raised his head, and turned to look at the right side of the tunnel.

At that moment, the skylight at the top of the underwater tunnel suddenly opened, and moonlight poured down, piercing through the water and forming a shimmering patch of light. The figure of the girl in the sea-blue kimono overlapped with that beam of light from the seabed.

Her eyes were lowered, dazed yet bright, like a bouquet of flowers blooming yesterday.

Xia Pingzhou stared at her. Having spent so much time together, he could tell when Ayase Origami was lost in thought.

At this moment, the girl in the kimono in front of him seemed to be thinking about something. She quietly slowed down her pace, and Xia Pingzhou looked away, waiting quietly for her to speak.

After a moment of silence, Origami Ayase suddenly spoke up, "You asked me... what I would think if I left the Phantom Troupe."

Xia Pingzhou raised an eyebrow. He remembered that Ayase Origami had said that the White Raven Brigade had given her freedom, so she would not leave.

So he naturally understood that when he killed the Ripper, Origami Ayase probably wouldn't leave with him. Unexpectedly, many days later, she brought it up again.

Perhaps there's still a chance to salvage the situation? Could I persuade her to leave with me? He thought.

"What's wrong?" Xia Pingzhou asked after a moment of silence.

“Takikage and the leader took me away, so I left the clan,” the girl in the kimono said. “At that time, I didn’t understand anything. I just thought that something different would happen.”

Xia Pingzhou remained silent.

After a moment, he suddenly reached into his coat pocket. The pocket was empty; he had handed over both his and Origami Ayase's phones to a staff member who had stored them in a locker.

But the staff member's tone was strange. It was the first time he had ever seen someone save their phone while visiting an aquarium. Shouldn't a normal person keep their phone to take pictures inside the aquarium?

Xia Pingzhou told the staff that this would allow them to concentrate on sightseeing, but in reality, he just didn't want that hacker kid to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I understand now, so that's how it is." After a while, Xia Pingzhou suddenly said.

The girl in the kimono slowed her pace slightly, shifting her gaze from the beluga whale in the tank and turning to look at him. "What?" she asked.

“You’ve always been led by others, without any of your own ideas,” Xia Pingzhou said expressionlessly. “Your father told you not to smile in front of him, so you stopped; the butler told you to leave the underworld family with him, so you left… So, if I ask you to come with me, you’ll leave too, just like a puppet being manipulated, right?”

Origami Ayase paused for a moment.

Xia Pingzhou was silent for a while. "It's not about 'wherever you go, I'll go,' but about where you want to go and where you want to stay."

The girl in the kimono lowered her head.

She pondered quietly for a while, then slowly raised her eyes, her clear eyes looking at Xia Pingzhou's profile.

"I said that."

"say what?"

"I've already said that."

"When?"

“I’ve said it many times.” Her lips moved, almost uttering each word slowly and deliberately.

"But I don't understand."

“I want to stay by your side,” she said softly, “but I won’t leave the group.”

"why?"

“Because this is the place Takikage brought me,” the girl in the kimono said. “He’s dead, so what’s the difference between me leaving the Phantom Troupe and forgetting him?”

Xia Pingzhou said in a low voice, "The butler is a good man. He is indeed more like a father than your gangster father. But have you ever thought that the reason he let you join the troupe might just be because..."

"Because of what?"

"Because at that time only the White Raven Brigade could take you away from your family, and no one else could do it, so he had no choice but to rely on the White Raven Brigade."

Xia Pingzhou paused for a moment: "But staying in the troupe may not be the right thing for you. Perhaps before he died, the butler would have preferred that you find a chance to leave the troupe and stop living such a life of burning, killing and looting. It's just that he couldn't bring himself to say it."

"You said we're evil, we've always been," the girl in the kimono said softly. "What's wrong with this kind of life...?"

“Yes, we did kill a lot of people, innocent people. There’s no redemption. But it doesn’t have to be like this forever.” Xia Pingzhou asked, “Do you really like this kind of life now? We could die at any time, just like Lan Duoduo and Uncle Butler. There’s only one reason we’re still alive, and that’s because we’re lucky. But there’s not that much luck in this world, let alone going to war with Lake Hunting.”

"I don't want you to die. Without you, I have nothing left."

"Then why don't you leave?"

“I don’t understand what kind of life I should live?” she whispered. “Nobody has ever told me.”

"Perhaps it's opening a bookstore in a remote northern city, where you love reading and can sit behind the counter and read every day. In winter, you can see snow, and in the north, there's the aurora borealis, when the night sky is very bright, with a bluish light stretching across the entire sky."

Xia Pingzhou spoke softly, never glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

The girl in the kimono remained silent, her eyes lowered, her dark pupils reflecting the moonlight shining into the sea.

"Will you come with me?" After a long pause, she looked up and asked, "To read books together, to watch the snow, and so much more..."

"Ah."

"Really?"

“Yes, it’s true,” Xia Pingzhou said. “I will go with you.” He lowered his voice and asked again, tentatively, “This is the last time I’ll ask you. If I leave the troupe… will you come with me?”

He knew in his heart that he was running out of time, and this was likely his last chance. Otherwise, at the moment of betrayal, he would have drawn his sword against Ayase Origami.

But his words seemed to be swallowed up by the silence of the underwater tunnel, and there was no response for a long time.

Xia Pingzhou remained silent.

Origami Ayase remained silent.

Just then, a school of fluorescent fish swam overhead, like a flowing starry sky. The skylight of the underwater tunnel closed once again, and the sliver of moonlight disappeared from their sight. At this moment, it was pitch black all around.

The girl in the kimono suddenly raised her head and stared at him motionless in the darkness, like a plain white kite.

Xia Pingzhou's face remained expressionless. He did not meet her gaze but instead took the initiative to move.

After pausing for a moment, Origami Ayase followed and walked forward.

The aquarium was quiet.

Xia Pingzhou walked ahead, with the girl in the kimono following silently behind. She looked down at her sandals and slowly shuffled forward step by step. The two of them, one in front of the other, moved through the dark tunnel. At this moment, the swimming fish drowned out their figures.

A moment later, Xia Pingzhou passed through the underwater tunnel and arrived at the jellyfish-themed exhibit area of ​​the aquarium.

In the deep blue tank, jellyfish swam in the dappled light and shadow, like a ballet on water, their tentacles swaying gently and reflecting a mesmerizing light.

The lights in the nightclub flickered on and off, and the jellyfish tank also lit up and dimmed, changing color with the lights.

Xia Pingzhou only paused for a short while before moving away from the exhibition area before Ayase Origami could catch up. After walking quietly for a while, Ayase Origami quietly followed, and the distance between the two grew further and further.

Finally, he arrived at the dolphin theater next door.

This is a semi-circular stage illuminated by moonlight. The first round of performances for the night began shortly afterward. To the trainers' whistles, dolphins leaped into the water, splashing water like graceful sprites under the moonlight.

Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami stood in front of the fence, some distance apart.

They watched in silence for a very long time. Origami Ayase rested her hands on the railing, completely absorbed in the sight, her dark eyes reflecting the leaping dolphins.

After the performance, Origami Ayase walked over slowly by herself, took out a banknote from the sleeve of her kimono, and handed it to the dolphin trainer, wanting to pay to take a photo with the dolphins.

After paying, when she turned around to look for Xia Pingzhou in the audience seats of the Dolphin Theater, he was already gone, and she couldn't even see his back.

Seeing that he had a customer, the trainer beamed with joy, patted the dolphin's head, and greeted her enthusiastically, "Miss, would you like to take a photo by yourself?"

Origami Ayase slowly turned her head and quietly nodded to him.

Amidst the rushing water, the dolphin leaped out of the water, splashing bright sprays. With a "click," the photo was captured, but the girl in the kimono didn't look at the camera. She turned her head to the side, as if searching for someone.

The dolphin trainer came over and handed her the photo.

In the photo, Origami Ayase stands alone, head bowed, her eyes empty.

After leaving the aquarium, Origami Ayase asked a staff member for a locker key.

After she opened the locker, she looked up and saw that Xia Pingzhou's phone was gone; all that remained in the locker was a cat-shaped phone charm.

The plastic kitten sat alone in the cabinet, its chain dangling into the shadows.

This was bought by Origami Ayase in a shop about two weeks ago when she was still in London. At that time, Xia Pingzhou had fainted, and she didn't know what to do. She spent a long time browsing in the shop and finally bought this keychain.

Origami Ayase stared blankly at the cat keychain in the cabinet for a long while. Then she picked up her phone, slowly typed, and sent him a message.

[KamiNeko: Where did you go?]

Just then, a "ding" sound came from the shadows of the cabinet. She turned her head and saw Xia Pingzhou's phone lying there quietly, the screen lit up with a message she had sent.

It was then that she realized his phone had been hidden in the shadows all along; she just hadn't noticed.

A sudden, unprecedented panic welled up in Ayase Origami's heart. She thought, if Xia Pingzhou just disappeared like this, how would she find him?
The girl in the kimono lowered her eyes, leaned against the locker and thought for a while. It was already completely dark. Tourists took their things from the lockers one after another, passed by the fence, and walked out of the aquarium shoulder to shoulder.

The staff member turned to look at her, puzzled. After a moment, Origami Ayase picked up another cell phone and the lonely plastic cat from the cabinet, put the chain in her sleeve, and slowly walked out of the aquarium.

Under the cover of night, the park was quiet except for the lakeside, where rows of lanterns hung, which were brightly lit. She walked towards the lake and sat down on a public wooden bench.

It was pitch black all around, with only the sounds of frogs croaking and cicadas chirping. The girl in the kimono picked up her phone, opened Line, and once again opened the contact named "Kitten," sending a message.

KamiNeko: I'll go with you.

Inside her sleeve, Xia Pingzhou's phone was dead. There wasn't even a faint echo in the darkness; it seemed as if no one in the world would respond to her anymore.

After a while, the girl in the kimono looked up and suddenly saw a figure standing on the pavilion in the middle of the lake. It was a demon with a completely red and blue body. It was dressed like a clown from an amusement park, wearing a pointed hat and holding a colorful box in its hands.

She paused for a moment, then suddenly remembered that she had helped Xia Pingzhou defeat such a demon back in Tokyo.

But she couldn't remember what the demon's name was.

Origami Ayase was no longer thinking about these things; she lowered her head and stared blankly at the cat keychain in her sleeve. The demon was still dancing alone on the pavilion rooftop when it suddenly roared and threw the box in its hand into the air.

Suddenly, countless flames burst forth from the box and rose straight into the sky.

"Bang, bang bang, bang bang bang—"

Amidst deafening roars, the girl in the kimono stared blankly at the fireworks bursting across the sky. The night sky reflected in her pupils transformed into a dazzling sea of ​​stars, with vibrant colors dancing in the air before merging into a shower of rain. Tourists on the distant street all looked up at the magnificent fireworks display.

The world in that second was as beautiful as a kaleidoscope. Ayase Origami's lips moved slightly as she whispered, "So beautiful..."

But she didn't understand why a demon would fawn over her like this. She watched the clown dance on the pavilion, finally dissipating into a blaze of light. After a while, Ayase Origami suddenly turned around and realized that a figure was sitting beside her.

Xia Pingzhou sat on a public wooden bench, looking down at the chess pieces in his hand that were about to disappear.

He said softly, “We found it in Japan. It’s called Fireworks Demon. After we got this piece, I’ve been wanting to show it to you… I have a friend who also likes fireworks, and I was wondering if you would like them too. Actually, I don’t know what’s so great about this world. I’m naive and stupid, and I know very little… But these things are all I have, and I want to share them with you.”

Amidst the deafening roar of fireworks, his whispers went unanswered; the girl in the kimono simply gazed at him silently. After a long while, she reached out and handed him a cat charm hidden in her sleeve.

"No one is allowed to leave," she said softly.

Xia Pingzhou accepted the pendant, and Ayase Origami gently took his hand.

The two sat on wooden chairs, silently raising their heads to look at the night sky reflected on the lake. One after another, breathtaking fireworks burst forth, turning the lake water into a rainbow of colors.

The faces of the boy and girl were shrouded in a hazy halo, and the ripples on the lake blurred their reflections, as if they were heading into the distance.

(End of this chapter)