From the moment she kidnapped Erii, she became a roadblock.

Meanwhile, Tachibana Masamune was dealing with some family affairs.

He hadn't seen Yuan Zhisheng for the past two days and missed him terribly; his right eyelid kept twitching.

When asked what Yuan Zhisheng had been busy with lately, his secretary replied that he was tracking a group of criminals.

Tachibana Masamune couldn't help but sigh, "Genjiro is truly his son; he has a strong sense of justice."

Then I looked at Erii and Genji's roles and found them to be quite reasonable, so I stopped asking about them.

However, those locations were all false information provided by Norma.

……

Uesugi Kotsushi's fingers unconsciously picked at the rim of the bowl, his gaze fixed on Erii.

The kid who had just annoyed him was still holding his daughter's hand, but he didn't have time to glare at him anymore.

All that remained in his mind was the sticky note Guan Luo had pushed over earlier, and the words written on it.

This little girl with red hair is his daughter!

"Is she my daughter?"

Uesugi Kotsushi's voice was a little ethereal, as if he were asking someone else, or perhaps asking himself.

Then he watched Erii put the last takoyaki into Guanluo's bowl, and suddenly grinned.

I didn't laugh out loud, but the corners of my mouth just curled up on their own, I couldn't suppress it.

He shouted in his heart:

"Oh dear, I have a daughter."

He subconsciously rubbed his hands together and found that his palms were covered in flour and oil stains, so he quickly wiped them on his apron.

After he finished rubbing against her, he noticed Erii was looking at him with a clean, slightly curious gaze.

He suddenly didn't know where to put his hands.

An old man stood in front of his ramen stall, bewildered by the gaze of a little girl.

Then he turned his gaze to Guan Luo.

The young man was still holding his daughter's hand.

The nameless irritation he had just felt found a new outlet: this was his daughter. And who was this young man holding his daughter's hand?

Uesugi stared at Guan Luo for a few seconds, his brows furrowing with a protective, clinging vigilance.

Then Uesugi Kotsuko glanced at Genjiro standing next to him. This young man hadn't said much since earlier, and his face had the features of Uesugi Kotsuko when he was young.

Uesugi looked back at Guan Luo again. He felt a faint sense of closeness towards this young man, though less than that of the silent young man, but it was definitely there.

A thought flashed through Uesugi Kotsu's mind.

"If she is my daughter."

He pointed at Guan Luo, then at Yuan Zhisheng, his gaze shifting between the two young men.

"And you two are...my sons?"

When he said this, Uesugi Kotsugu himself thought it was absurd, but apart from this explanation, he couldn't understand why he felt close to two strangers.

Guan Luo's lips twitched.

He looked down and quickly wrote on a sticky note.

After writing it, he tore it off and pointed it towards Genjiro.

Then he placed the sticky note in front of Uesugi Koshi.

Uesugi looked down and saw a sticky note that read:

"He is your son, Yuan Zhisheng. I am your daughter's friend, Guan Luo."

There is a very obvious trace of erasure between the character "女" (woman) and "朋友" (friend), as if another character was originally written and then crossed out and rewritten.

Uesugi Koshi raised his head in a daze and looked at Genjiro.

Yuan Zhisheng sat there, his lips pressed into a line, his expression shifting between silence, shock, and bewilderment.

Uesugi opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He wanted to say something, but couldn't make a sound. He looked up at Yuan Zhisheng.

Then Uesugi Koshi turned his head and stared at the two hands that were still clasped together, and snorted through his nose.

"Friends? Heh."

"Is it okay for friends to hold hands like this?"

Erii turned to look at him.

Her eyes were clear and bright, showing no embarrassment, only confusion.

She didn't understand why the older man was suddenly unhappy, nor did she understand what was so objectionable about holding hands.

So she took out a small notebook from her pocket and started writing.

After she finished writing, she turned the notebook around so that it faced Uesugi Kotsugi.

"Friends should definitely hold hands!"

Uesugi stared at the line of text, then looked up at Erii.

There was no guilty look on her face.

It's like stating a common sense fact.

Uesugi opened his mouth, only to find that he had no way to refute it.

He turned to look at Guan Luo, his eyes conveying the message: What kind of bewitching potion did you give her, kid?

Guan Luo was eating noodles with his head down, even though the bowl was empty.

Although she was somewhat dissatisfied with Guan Luo's actions, feeling that he had deceived Erii.

But Uesugi Kotsugi had a silly grin on his face. He picked up the bowl to take another sip of soup, only to find it was empty when he got to his lips.

daughter.

Just thinking about this word makes my lips curl up a little.

Then his laughter slowly faded.

He put the bowl on the table and turned to Guan Luo.

This kid just said he wanted to ask for his help to save Erii.

At the time, he didn't take it seriously. A kid from the Snake-Headed Eight Clans whom he didn't know was asking him for a favor, so of course he wouldn't do it.

But now it's different.

Is his daughter in danger?

Guan Luo was taking sticky notes out of his pocket.

A stack of sticky notes, written in advance by Guan Luo.

The first one pushed over had neat handwriting and described Erii's physical condition: her bloodline was unstable and her body was slowly collapsing.

The bloodline is unstable.

Erii herself was engrossed in studying the pattern on the bottom of the bowl, completely oblivious to the note about her body, as if she didn't care at all.

The second sticky note was pushed over.

When Herzog appeared on the paper, Genji's heart skipped a beat, even though he had expected it.

Experiments, plans, codenames, Black Swan Harbor...

Erii was cultivated as a vessel from the very beginning, and so on.

He even casually mentioned something about Genjiro and Genjiro.

This matter was explained in more detail than when I persuaded Genjiro.

Yuan Zhisheng stared at the sticky note, his face unusually cold and hard.

The third sticky note.

It was Angers' promise that she would be under the highest level of protection from the academy, her identity kept secret, and only the headmaster himself knew her true situation.

Both the Secret Service and the Board of Trustees only saw a student's file with a very high pedigree rating.

Three sticky notes were placed side by side in front of Uesugi Kotsugi.

Uesugi looked at Guan Luo. The old man who had been blowing his beard and glaring at Guan Luo because his daughter was being led was gone. In his place was an old man with a somber look in his eyes.

His back slowly straightened under his apron, his shoulder lines became stronger, he leaned back, his spine stretched out vertebra by vertebra, and suddenly he was a different person.

"Kid."

He spoke, his voice calm.

"In short, someone is trying to harm my daughter."

Uesugi raised his head, his fiery golden eyes burning as if a lion were hidden within them.

The emperor has awakened; the emperor of the underworld has returned.

As the former Shadow King, Uesugi Yue knew more about the White King's secrets than Guan Luo did.

The feasibility of projects like Takamagahara, the burial ground of gods, and Herzog's plan.