People are in Mygo, and I can write their personalities.

"You guessed wrong, Xiaoyue."

Chihaya Aine lowered her head, bringing her close to Nanami Natsuki's ear. Her warm breath brushed against the other's sensitive earlobe, her tone becoming fierce, yet carrying a captivating allure that made one's heart race.

"I might not have gotten angry before, but... thanks to you, I've learned to get angry now."

"Since you admit that you were the one who caused this trouble, since you said you want me to learn 'not to wrong myself'..."

"Now, I will begin to exercise my rights. Are you ready, my good disciple—I am going to punish you!"

Chapter 139 The Rampage of the Little Lamp

The following morning, the sunlight was somewhat dazzling as it shone on the slope leading to Haneoka Girls' Academy, casting long shadows of the cherry blossom trees on both sides.

Chihaya Aine hummed an unknown tune, her steps light as if the girl who had tried to jump off the rooftop yesterday was not her at all. That so-called "shame of failing to study abroad"? That feeling of being ostracized? It had all been washed away by the absurdity of last night and the "fallacies" that Nanami Natsuki had instilled in her.

She is now a "reconstructed" Chihaya Aine.

"Ah! It's Erina!"

"Eh? Aine-chan~"

Good morning, Erina! Your hair clip is so cute, is it a new style?

Aiyin moved closer, her smile radiant and without a trace of gloom. Her natural social charisma seemed to have been fully revived, even more dazzling than before—or rather, more carefree and more aggressive.

"Huh? Ai-Aine?" Erina was clearly taken aback by this sudden enthusiasm, almost dropping her schoolbag. "Good morning... You seem to be in a good mood today?"

"Of course! Because the weather is so nice today!" Aine smiled and took Erina's arm, her movements as natural as if they had just had afternoon tea together yesterday. "By the way, I heard that the new dessert shop has released a limited edition. Want to go after school?"

"Ah... okay, okay."

Sitting not far away, Takamatsu watched this scene silently. The pen in his hand stopped on the notebook, leaving a heavy ink dot. The ink spread, like a black teardrop.

Ai-chan.......

Just the day before yesterday, he was saying he wanted to quit the band. Just the day before yesterday, he looked so sad in the rehearsal room, and was criticized mercilessly by Ms. Lin... He even stayed in the classroom yesterday and refused to leave, keeping his head down and closing himself off.

Why can I act like nothing's wrong and laugh so happily with others today?

Was that smile genuine, or just another kind of pretense?

Deng wanted to go over and ask her, "Are you okay?" or "Are you really not coming to the band anymore?" But looking at Ai Yin, who was surrounded by the crowd and radiating dazzling light, as if she had become the focus of the class again, Deng felt like an inconspicuous pebble on the roadside or moss growing in a dark corner, and didn't have the courage to roll into that light.

Between her and Aine, there seemed to be an invisible wall called "normal people".

This ebb and flow of emotions continued until school ended.

As the sun set, it bathed the campus in a warm orange hue, and the school's dismissal music played over the loudspeaker.

Gao Songdeng slowly packed her schoolbag, her movements even more sluggish than usual, but her peripheral vision remained fixed on the pink figure, hoping that the other person would glance in her direction, even just once.

"I'll be going now! Bye-bye~"

However, expectations were dashed.

Aiyin, carrying her schoolbag, walked out of the classroom chatting and laughing with several classmates, without even glancing at the light in the corner, let alone the clock hanging above the blackboard that originally belonged to their rehearsal time.

The lamp lowered its head, its eyes dimmed, like an abandoned little animal.

Was I abandoned?

Just like Xiangzi abandoned everyone back then... Ai Yin-chan also feels that being with them isn't happy, right? After all, that band was full of arguments, repression, and scheming. How could it compare to the joy of eating desserts with normal classmates?

With this heavy, suffocating feeling, Takamatsu Akari arrived at RiNG alone.

Pushing open the door to the rehearsal room, the air inside was so stuffy it was suffocating, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out.

Without Aine's banter, without that awkward yet still palpable atmosphere, the rehearsal room now feels like the calm before a storm—terribly oppressive.

".......You're here."

Sitting on the sofa, Nagasaki Motoyo glanced up at the lamp and forced an awkward smile. The smile was extremely perfunctory, lasting only a second before her lips quickly fell back, her eyes fixed gloomily on the now-cold teacup in her hand, as if she wanted to see a hole in the bottom of it.

Meanwhile, on the drum stand, the mysterious "Lin Drummer"—that is, Metis with the body of a puppet—was irritably spinning his drumsticks, occasionally making a "tsk" sound.

She was wearing a mask, but her glassy eyes were full of impatience.

"That pink-haired idiot is really not coming?" Metis muttered to himself. "Then am I going to have to keep acting alongside this scheming, scheming woman? So tiring... I really want to go back to Natsuki-nee's house to recharge..."

As for how to charge it?

Do not ask!

Of all the people present, only Kaoru Nai, who was like a cat, seemed completely oblivious to the atmosphere, or rather, she understood the mood from the very beginning.

What no one knew was that what Lena was most interested in, and what kept her there, was actually Metis himself.

"Ugh..."

Holding her guitar, Le Nai moved with the lightness of a ghost, appearing out of nowhere behind Lin Guzi. Her heterochromatic eyes sparkled with curiosity, and she even reached out to poke at what was hidden under Lin Guzi's seemingly high-end, uniquely textured "mask."

"Wow!!"

Lin Gu Zi—Metis was so startled by the sudden touch that he jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and the drumstick in his hand almost flew out and hit Su Shi on the head.

"You, you, you...you stray cat! Can you please stop suddenly appearing behind people like that?! You scare me to death, you know?!"

Metis patted her chest, still shaken. Although the expensive silicone body didn't have a heart and wouldn't actually stop, she felt like her soul was about to leave her body.

This catwoman's intuition is too sharp! And that all-seeing look in her eyes always gives Metis a sense of dread, a fear that her inhuman nature might be exposed at any moment. What if she's discovered to be a doll? Will she be captured and dissected?!

“An interesting girl.” Le Nai tilted her head, seemingly oblivious to being scolded. Instead, she stared at Lin Gu Zi as if she had discovered a new toy, a bite of matcha bread in her mouth. “Your skin is cool.”

"Mind your own business!" Metis quickly pulled up his collar.

"enough!"

A sharp shout abruptly interrupted the farce.

Nagasaki Motoyo slammed her teacup down on the table with a sharp clang, splashing tea across the surface. She abruptly stood up, her gaze sharp as a knife, filled with pent-up anger, as she glared at Hayashi Koko, who had just calmed down.

"Miss Lin, do you still have the mood to fool around with Le Nai here?" Su Shi's voice was icy cold.

"Huh?" Metis frowned, the micro-expressions of this body were extremely realistic. "Big... Nagasaki Motoyo, what do you mean by that? How am I being ridiculous? I'm being harassed, okay!"

"If you hadn't spoken so harshly yesterday, would Aine have left?"

Su Shi approached step by step, the sound of her small leather shoes on the floor like a countdown. At this moment, she desperately needed an outlet, a scapegoat to take responsibility for the current falling apart.

This drummer, whose origins are unclear, who is technically skilled but has an eccentric temperament, and who is also a "replacement" found by Lixi, is obviously the best candidate.

"You knew perfectly well that Aiyin was a beginner, so why did you use such humiliating language to attack her? What kind of condescending attitude is that? Now look what's happened, the guitarist is gone, how is the band supposed to continue? Are you satisfied now?"

Su Shi's accusations were sharp and direct, as if he wanted to shift all the blame onto Lin Guzi.

"Am I being unreasonable?"

Metis was so angry he laughed.

Who is she? She is the "Second Villain" personally appointed by Sister Natsuki (self-proclaimed), and she is here specifically to teach this group of awkward weirdos a lesson! She has received Sister Natsuki's true teachings, and coupled with the fact that she has been acting frustratingly these past few days, she has been provoked by this scheming woman, and her temper has flared up.

"Nagasaki Motoyo, stop pretending to be a good guy!" Metis retorted without backing down, his voice even louder than Motoyo's. "What were you doing when I was attacking there yesterday? You were just watching! You were probably even secretly laughing to yourself, weren't you?"

"Don't think I don't know. You've known Ai Yin for much longer than I have. You know what kind of person she is, and you know how much she cares about her image. If you really wanted to keep her, why didn't you say anything then? Why didn't you stop me?"

"Now that they're gone, you're putting on a show of grief and blaming me? Aren't you just looking for a scapegoat? Hypocritical! So hypocritical!"

"You...you're talking nonsense!"

Su Shi's face flushed red, a mixture of shame and anger at being exposed. Her finger trembled as she pointed at Lin Guzi, "I did that to put pressure on her! To help her improve!"

"What do you know! I was doing that for the quality of the band! And... and I'm the band leader, I have the right to point out problems! I have an obligation to ensure the quality of the performance!"

"Oh? Captain?"

Metis stood up from the drum stool. Although shorter than Su Shi, her aura of cold indifference was in no way inferior. She crossed her arms, her eyes filled with disdain.

"A captain who can't even retain his teammates and only knows how to shirk responsibility afterward? That's laughable! I think you never considered that pink-haired girl as a teammate; you just used her as a tool to exercise your desire for control!"

"Say that again?!" Su Shi's chest heaved violently.

“I’m calling you hypocritical! Selfish! And a hypocrite!” Every word Metis uttered was like a nail.

The argument between the two grew louder and louder, instantly filling the entire rehearsal room with tension. Caught in the middle, Takamatsu Akira trembled, clutching her notebook, wanting to mediate but unable to get a word in edgewise, and could only watch helplessly as the scene unfolded.

Seeing that Su Shi was trembling with anger, seemingly about to rush forward and tear off the drummer's mask to see what was hidden beneath that face—

"Squeak-"

The heavy, soundproof door to the rehearsal room was gently pushed open from the outside.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in the tense atmosphere.

A pink figure, exuding a relaxed and carefree air that seemed completely out of place in the tense atmosphere, swaggered in.

"Oh my, everyone's here? Is everyone rehearsing a new song? It's so lively!"

Chihaya Aine carried a guitar bag, her face bearing that signature, even slightly irritating, grin, as if the desperate girl who ran out crying yesterday and even considered jumping off a building was not her at all, as if she had just returned from the bathroom.

The argument stopped abruptly.

The air seemed to freeze.

Everyone seemed to be frozen in place, staring blankly at this unexpected guest.

Nagasaki Motoyo was stunned for two seconds, then the anger on her face quickly turned into an incredulous astonishment, followed by a kind of annoyance at being played.

She took a deep breath, quickly adjusted her expression, straightened her face, and asked in a cold, scrutinizing tone:

"Aine? What are you doing back? Didn't you say you were going to quit yesterday?"

However, when faced with Su Shi's questioning, Aine did not panic or try to please as she had before.

She simply shrugged, strode briskly to her seat, and as she slowly put down her guitar bag, said in an extremely nonchalant, even somewhat provocative tone:

"I didn't intend to do anything. I was just thinking, if I didn't come, your band would break up, right? After all, it would be difficult for you to manage without a guitarist, wouldn't it?"

"However..."

Ai Yin raised her head, her gaze sweeping over Su Shi, whose face was pale, and then glancing at "Lin Gu Zi," who was standing next to the drum stand, wearing a mask but with a clearly surprised look in his eyes. A playful smile appeared on her lips.

"If everyone really doesn't welcome me this much, then I'll just leave. Anyway... I don't necessarily have to stay here. There are plenty of people outside who want to form a band with me."

As she spoke, she even pretended to pick up her guitar bag again, her movements fluid and without hesitation.

That's her source of confidence.

Last night, on that big pink bed, after some indescribable "punishment," Xiaoyue told her the whole truth.