Love, Gun, Cupid

"It seems...that's how it is."

Jasmine looked at Lin Jiade again: "So, that's how it is. I'll assist you in the process and then bring the results to Miss Ice Cave. Everyone's happy, right?"

Lin Jiade let out a long sigh, but at the same time, a faint sense of loss welled up in his heart. Then, he felt guilty because of this loss and started scolding himself in his mind:

Lin Jiade, Lin Jiade, Old Mu was a friend you used to play football with. Now that she has a sex change, you have evil thoughts towards her. Are you even human?

FPX won, so here's an extra chapter.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Lin Jiade's Refusal

Jasmine acted immediately, grabbing Lin Jiade and heading to the bathroom. Wei Ying arrived a step later, licking her ice cream and saying, "Oh, you're all here?"

"We just finished discussing things," Jianlan said.

A cuckoo appeared behind the reed warbler and gave the sword orchid a look. The sword orchid understood and stood up to talk to the cuckoo on the balcony.

“My preparations are almost complete; I just need the holy land to open its doors to me,” Du Juan said.

Gladiolus replied, "To open the Holy Land, turning gold into stone is one breakthrough, and another breakthrough is Henrietta Eck, who sent an envoy to contact me."

“That’s a stupid woman,” Du Juan said. “The guardians of the Holy Land are a bunch of idiots who stick to the rules. Their power only works in certain situations, and when the external environment changes, they become quite incompetent.”

"If there is also an organization on the dark side of the Holy Land, yet it is suppressed by such a guardian of the Holy Land, it seems that the two sides are truly a hidden dragon and a phoenix."

Du Juan smiled and said, "They stay in the holy land. Although they look like modern people, they act like people from the past. And because the situation is always the same, they have no motivation to change anything."

And when ambitious figures like you and Ragnar Sigurdsson enter the scene, they'll be in for a rough time.

Gladiolus frowned in disgust: "Don't put me in the same category, that pedophile... proposed to me when I was 12, which forced my family to move me from Brilliant City and hide me away for a while."

Can you imagine that at the age of 12 I was forced to be taken care of by strangers and attend an unfamiliar school? The quality of education there was nowhere near as good as in Brilliant City. My classmates were the same; they were all talented but only capable of reaching intermediate professional titles, yet they fantasized about becoming superior to others.

There's a saying here: playing chess with a terrible player will only make you worse. That's how it is for me... Even though the Imperial official media praised my path to promotion as that of a genius girl, I still wasted two years in a low-level environment. Otherwise, I might have had a chance to break the record for the fastest promotion to the Special Grade title.

Moreover, those two years didn't leave many pleasant memories. The budding feelings between bored teenagers, the jealousy and rivalry, those silly kids had nothing, yet they started fantasizing about love—the love of extraordinary people must be based on material things, but unfortunately they didn't understand.

I didn't want to get involved, but I always ended up being dragged into it passively. The boys gave me unpleasant looks, while the girls secretly plotted against me out of jealousy.

“There’s a problem: you’re a gladiolus, not a coroboccia,” the cuckoo said.

“It doesn’t matter whether I’m Korobochka or Gladiolus in front of you.” The master sorcerer smiled. “At noon, I heard some very good things.”

"Oh?"

"Jasmine's true identity as the White Dragon was exposed, and she was shaken by her own belief. Lin Jiade told her that he loved her whether she was the White Dragon or the Red Dragon."

"So you think Lin Jiade will treat you the same way he treated Jasmine, and that he will accept the fact that Gladiolus has become another Korobochka?" Du Juan asked.

“I am different from Jasmine. After all, Korobochka was once Lin Jiade’s nightmare. Korobochka was vicious and caused a series of tragedies.

"I'm different from you. After all, Lin Jiade knows you're a liar and a conman, yet he still falls for you despite accepting that fact. After all, you led him down this path, and you're very good at manipulating people's hearts."

"so?"

"So I'm going to lie to Lin Jiade for the rest of my life. I don't want to repeat what Mu Mian went through. And what you and I are planning now is a huge betrayal for Lin Jiade. We both have to keep this a secret."

"and then?"

Gladiolus looked out the window, the winter sun reflecting a cold light in her eyes: "You regained power, and I completely controlled the extraordinary power of Fuxing City. After that, this city became our paradise, and Lin Jiade, the others, and I lived like in a fairy tale."

Du Juan whistled and asked, "Which school do you attend?"

"Liucheng State First High School".

Du Juan checked on her phone and found that during the two years she studied at Korobochka, seven people died at the school: six girls and one boy. The six girls died in unrecognizable ways and had suffered a great deal of torment before their deaths.

“A fairytale ending, hmm,” she said.

When the expert in top-level sorcery turned around, he had become the friendly Gladiolus. At this moment, everyone's focus was on the ice cave, or more precisely, on the series of rituals the ice cave was preparing to absorb energy.

Although the way to replenish energy is like butter, the ritual itself is still very serious. First, the ice cave is tattooed, then a tattoo-like spell is created on the tip of the tongue, and then incantations are chanted for her "brain gold".

Because she had no energy, the spell was cast by Kapok on her behalf—Kapok always liked to learn other people's magic, and the spell to turn Brain Gold into energy might be able to serve as a contraceptive in an emergency.

Being a woman is already a nightmare for Mu Mian; if she becomes pregnant as a woman, it will be a nightmare within a nightmare.

As for Lin Jiade, the consequences of the Lionheart spell turned him into a rapid-fire cannon, and Jasmine's astonished expression just now dealt a devastating blow to his self-esteem. Men are always particularly vulnerable to these kinds of problems.

At this moment, Du Juan sat down beside him, her hand on his thigh. This slight stimulation woke him up, forcing him to sit up and look at Du Juan.

"Lin Jiade, you seem very confused right now?" Du Juan asked.

"Yes, because I don't know what I should do. It seems like everything is related to me, but things can be resolved smoothly without me."

In the end, my most indispensable role turned out to be recharging someone's energy.

Dujuan opened her arms: "Do you need me to give you some guidance?"

Lin Jiade leaned forward, slowly moving towards Du Juan. The familiar scent and smiling face brought a familiar sense of peace. He knew that no matter how many troubles he had, they were all trivial matters to the celestial observer, as long as he was in her arms…

He fell into Dujuan's arms—only her hands. He placed his hands on Dujuan's shoulders and said, "I'll gently push her away." Dujuan's smile was a little stiff, but it was quickly replaced by feigned affection.

"You rejected me again, Lin Jiade. Are you still so resentful about me lying to you?"

"Miss Dujuan is willing to help me, does that mean she wants me to continue being her dog?"

"If you can find happiness, what's wrong with being a dog?"

"Like the ground peach that was turned into a dog by the kapok? No, I don't think she was happy because she knew nothing. On the contrary, I feel sorry for her now."

“Then you should pity yourself,” Du Juan said. “Do you remember what I said? You are surrounded by a bunch of liars, living in complete ignorance.”

Whether or not there will be an extra episode depends on whether Manchester City wins tonight. Also, in the Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool in the early hours of the 29th, please vote on whether Chelsea will win, Liverpool will win, or the match will end in a draw.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Exhaustive Search

Du Juan had said so many things to Lin Jiade that he couldn't remember which specific sentence it was, but he paid close attention to the word "liar" in Du Juan's words.

Kapok has already lied to him and has been out of town recently, so we can rule her out; Jasmine's lie probably refers to her not being about the Red Dragon, but Jasmine herself is also a victim, so we can rule her out as well.

What the ice cave might be trying to deceive him about: that she is indeed lacking energy, and that she is using this as an excuse to try to trick him into having a relationship that goes beyond friendship. However, Jasmine has already exposed her, and since the attempt failed, he doesn't hold it against her.

Among his close friends, only Hehuan, Jianlan, Teacher Yang, and Weiying remain. Teacher Yang is the first to be ruled out; she is just an ordinary person who was dragged into this, and Dujuan would not take her seriously at all, so it must not be Teacher Yang.

Wei Ying was subsequently ruled out. Mu Mian believed that the two celestial sisters shared a brain. Coincidentally, Lin Jiade had a similar idea: Wei Ying was like a little sister who had just entered puberty, playful, restless, willful... and adorably silly. If Wei Ying wanted to deceive someone, even if Lin Jiade remained unmoved, she would still give herself away.

So, only gladiolus and mimosa remain.

To put his mind at ease, Lin Jiade planned to solve the case immediately and question the two suspects one by one. Even if Du Juan had just lied to him and given him a false alarm, it would be good to clear her of suspicion.

When the storm is brewing, internal unity is crucial. If he cannot trust his teammates, his own sword will become dull. His sword is wielded for the team's victory; personal wins and losses are irrelevant. This is his way of the sword.

He immediately opened the door, and Hehuan was about to push the door open and come in. The two stopped at the same time, and a surge of red immediately rushed into Lin Jiade's vision. He took a step back and then saw that it was Hehuan's red sweater.

Hehuan is dressed in red and black today. Her black pencil skirt makes her red sweater stand out even more, but the most striking feature is her ample bosom.

Lin Jiade felt it coming again. The side effects of the Lionheart spell wouldn't end until midnight. Right now, he politely looked at Hehuan and, amidst his rising heartbeat, forced a smile, saying, "Senior?"

“You’ve been busy all this time and haven’t eaten yet. Also, Jasmine told me you’re a little zinc deficient, so have some boiled eggs later. As for now… ah, open your mouth.”

Hehuan, carrying a tray, used a toothpick to pierce a slice of peeled apple and brought it to Lin Jiade's mouth. Lin Jiade reached out to take it, but Hehuan dodged his hand and offered it to his mouth again.

He had no choice but to open his mouth, bite the apple, chew it a couple of times, and swallow it whole. Hehuan smiled at him and said softly, "Come and eat, Lin Jiade."

Lin Jiade stared at Hehuan's ponytail and mid-calf socks hanging down her back, feeling that Hehuan was trying to express something. During the meal, when he casually glanced at her, he found that Hehuan was acting the same as usual.

He did want to find an opportunity to talk to Hehuan, but Hehuan almost always sat with Mumian. When their eyes met, her expression was impassive, which made him increasingly anxious.

He couldn't just call her out alone, so he decided to try a more subtle approach, first going to someone he considered safe, namely Teacher Yang, to subtly probe her.

"Teacher Yang, is today a convenient day? I'm coming in," he said.

A woman's flustered voice came through: "Ah, wait a moment, don't rush, let me get ready."

Lin Jiade was about to come in, but out of respect for Teacher Yang, he waited silently outside the door. After a few minutes, Teacher Yang finally opened the door for him, but she blocked the way with her hand, otherwise Lin Jiade could have entered smoothly.

Lin Jiade had no choice but to cooperate with her. It took him about ten seconds to walk through the short passage. Teacher Yang breathed a sigh of relief, looked up at Lin Jiade, and had an expectant expression on her face.

Lin Jiade noticed that Ms. Yang's face was still wet with water droplets, indicating that she had only hastily washed up. He turned his head to look behind Ms. Yang and saw that her blanket was uneven, with a corner of her clothes peeking out.

He could almost picture her reaction to the knock: first, she'd pile the clothes she hadn't put away on the bed, then cover herself with the blanket, and then quickly wash up and clean her face.

He sniffed the air and smelled perfume. Judging from the intensity of the scent, it had only been sprayed recently. The final, irrefutable evidence was that Teacher Yang's toothbrush cup was still lying on the sink.

Lin Jiade respects Ms. Yang's efforts to maintain a good image in front of her students, but her flaws are numerous and have already exposed the fact that she is a lazy person in real life.

"Stop looking, stop looking... Don't laugh, Lin Jiade, you're not allowed to look!"

Lin Jiade's suppressed laughter made Teacher Yang even more embarrassed. She jumped up and tried to cover Lin Jiade's face, but Lin Jiade dodged. As a result, Teacher Yang landed awkwardly and fell forward.

He quickly reached out and put his arm around her waist, helping her straighten up. Ms. Yang's hastily combed hair became messy again, and a tear welled up in her eye. She turned to face the wall and said, "Laugh if you want to. Anyway, I'm just a useless person. I suppose you've already heard the girls in the department say bad things about me."

If Lin Jiade were to follow Teacher Yang's lead at this point, he would gain another enemy who would hate him for a long time. So he replied, "I actually envy you. The reason you don't do housework is probably because your parents spoil you and it's convenient for them to take care of you."

The year I went to university, my parents had to work in another city for a long time. Although I practiced a bit during the summer vacation, I was still very embarrassed when I started living independently.

I was so embarrassed back then that the little girl next door worried about my survival... That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist. Nobody's born knowing how to handle everything in life. Just take it slow.

But instead of spending a year learning all this, wouldn't it be easier to just find a husband who can take care of all the housework? Yang Xuemeng thought.

The other party did not answer, and Lin Jiade could not find a topic for a while. Teacher Xiao Yang was considered a marginal figure in his circle, a protected person whose memory was destined to be erased.

She's like a game that crashes midway through, and players already know this, so even if they open the game, they'll be distracted and won't fully commit. She might even leave it gathering dust in their game library without ever being played again.

After a moment of silence, Teacher Yang turned around, poured Lin Jiade a glass of water, and said self-deprecatingly, "Sorry, there's nothing to offer you here. I'm the one who's freeloading here."

"No, no, no, please don't say that. Just the tutoring you gave Jasmine, at market price, would cover your expenses."

Lin Jiade pointed to the empty bed: "If you want to thank someone, thank Senior Hehuan. She shared her ward with you... So, I wanted to ask, does Teacher Yang know what's been going on with Senior Hehuan lately? I feel like she's acting strange."

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Process of Elimination (Bonus Chapter)

Ms. Yang's smile froze on her face. At first, she felt like a clown for being happy for Lin Jiade's arrival, and then she was annoyed by Lin Jiade's tactless remarks about another woman in front of a lady.

Even a blockhead should improve under the influence of three girlfriends. Lin Jiade's complete lack of emotional intelligence at this moment can only mean that he doesn't care about himself, hence his nonchalant attitude.

"Her?" Teacher Yang said with a sour tone, "I don't know, but she seems quite happy, she comes to your house every day."

"That's because she's temporarily helping with the housework."

"Oh, really?" Teacher Yang sneered. "I think she wants to eat you up."

"..."

"Didn't you notice? Her clothes were loose at first, she dressed casually, and her eyes were vacant, right?"

“She was going through a family crisis at the time and was in a bad mood.”