My name is Levi, and I work in anime.

To be honest, Li Wei was quite happy, or rather a little proud, to have such an outstanding peer like Liangyi who liked to play with him.

However, the Yin and Yang are acting a little strange today, feeling unusually clingy.

Even when other children greeted him casually, he would stare at them with a very wary look until they felt uncomfortable all over and ran away.

And so, Li Wei spent his day attending classes with Liang Yi, playing games with Liang Yi, spending a peaceful break with Liang Yi, and then having lunch with Liang Yi, just like always.

No other children participated throughout the entire process. Anyone else who tried to join in was frightened away by Ryougi's intimidating gaze.

"Liangyi is acting a bit strange today. Could it be that her chuunibyou (middle school syndrome) has gotten worse?" Li Wei thought to himself as he ate the simple but delicious and nutritionally balanced lunch prepared by the kindergarten.

It must be said that although the kindergarten's principal, Sakata Gintoki, always seems to be a carefree and irresponsible person, only interested in beautiful women and sweets, and usually appears listless, and was even beaten up for not having any money when he went shopping in Yoshiwara, he is quite competent in managing the kindergarten. With the help of the teachers, he can even be considered excellent.

Unlike other schools that favor a light, Japanese-style diet, Principal Sakata clearly prefers a high-protein diet. The typical street food like dumplings with noodles, noodles in bread, or rice porridge is considered here to be off-track.

The food consisted of simple large pieces of meat, paired with a suitable amount of vegetables and rice. The presence of the two spirits sitting next to Li Wei, who were constantly staring at him, made the food taste even better and made the boy feel even more uncomfortable.

To reiterate, if it were any other time, Li Wei would definitely be very touched and happy that Ryougi enjoyed playing with him so much. But not now.

Meanwhile, the children around them were also whispering and pointing at each other.

"What is Liangyi doing? Did Liwei cheat on you again?"

"How terrifying, Ryougi is asserting her dominance again."

"Is this the legendary punishment game?"

"Poor Li Wei, someone please save him!"

The pitying yet curious looks from his classmates made Li Wei feel even more pressured.

If possible, he would prefer that children view his pure friendship with Ryougi with a more normal perspective. However, it seems that achieving this is still very difficult.

"So, Ryougi, has something happened recently?" the boy asked, feeling uncomfortable under the strange gaze.

"Huh?" Liangyi didn't react for a moment.

“I mean, you’re acting a little strange today,” Li Wei said. “When you smile today, the curve of your lips is 0.2 millimeters less than usual. And when you mention knitting, the curve of the corners of your eyes is 0.25 millimeters more.”

"So what exactly happened? Did you and Zhi have a falling out?"

"..."

Shi hesitated for a moment, opened her mouth as if to say something but then stopped herself, but in the end she took the initiative to speak, though she was a little unhappy.

Without waiting for Li Wei to urge him, and without asking pointless questions like "Can you keep my secret?" or "Can we be friends for life?"

They were like old friends, their bond as strong as blood, their friendship as deep as blood, like the legendary friendship of Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya, destined to grow old together.

"I feel like my parents don't like me."

At this point, Ryougi clearly became somewhat unhappy: "Or rather, they seem to prefer weaving to me."

Then, Shi's mood became somewhat low, and his words became somewhat disjointed. However, Li Wei still understood what he meant in the shortest amount of time.

The parents of the two beings are very strict when facing each other. They have to undergo rigorous martial arts training at home every day. It is normal to train hard in the coldest and hottest winters and summers. Bleeding and getting injured are also commonplace.

For Shi, going to school, something other children dread, might actually be the most relaxing and enjoyable time of his day.

However, when facing Zhi, Liangyi's parents were not so strict and seemed much more tolerant.

Parents who frequently have twins know that the biggest taboo when there are two children in the family is imbalance.

This "imbalance" may not be a real imbalance. It could simply be that the child doesn't get the same clothes, snacks, or toys as their parents, which can make the child feel that "my parents don't like me."

The last time the quintuplets at the kindergarten had their birthdays, the principal, Sakata Gintoki, specially ordered five cakes that were exactly the same size, tasted, and shaped. He thought it was a perfect arrangement, but coincidentally, the cake shop owner seemed to be quite familiar with the principal, so she simply gave him a buy-five-get-one-free gift, including an extra crown.

It's just a very ordinary plastic crown, the kind that even elementary school students would find childish.

But when the cake was opened and the extra gift was seen, the headmaster's eyes looked like he had been sentenced to death—even though he usually had dead fish eyes.

Zeus's expression when he saw the golden apple inscribed "For the most beautiful goddess" must have been exactly the same as that of Principal Sakata.

In the end, it was an unassuming little child who suggested giving the crown to the quintuplets' mother that averted the crisis that had nearly destroyed the kindergarten.

"How could such a thing happen?"

Li Wei said to Liang Yi very seriously, "Mr. Merlin once told me that the greatest love in the world, the love between human beings, is the love for oneself, one's parents, and one's children. How could anyone not love their own child?"

"really?"

"of course it's true."

"Ah... um." Hearing the boy say that, Ryougi felt slightly comforted. Of course, it was only a slight comfort.

Subsequently, Liangyi's focus shifted to other areas.

"Who is this Mr. Merlin you're talking about?"

"He is a suspicious person who claims to breathe with his cheeks, is good at online fraud to swindle money from innocent teenagers, and is unmatched in telling the story of the king. He is a modern IT fairy big brother who manages online idols, and a fangirl magician who loves to eat but has no money and drinks alcohol and specializes in beating up the elderly."

"Why would anyone introduce themselves like that? You haven't been scammed, have you?"

"In every sense, Mr. Merlin does exude an aura of a conman, the kind that you could easily fall for if you weren't careful," the boy replied thoughtfully. "But I think he was probably telling the truth."

"Is that so?" Ryougi asked suspiciously, "Then where did you meet him?"

"We met in a dream."

Chapter 4 Don't look at this kind of stuff, I'm not going to turn into a girl and marry you.

As the saying goes, "What you think about during the day, you dream about at night." In other words, what you dream about at night is mostly what you've thought about during the day.

Children's dreams are generally simple, full of innocence and childlike fun, like they are made up of sugar, spices, and something wonderful, or at most, they dream of content from cartoons or comics.

Adults are much more complicated, with all sorts of strange and unusual things. Some even claim that their mothers dreamed of dragons, the sun and moon, stars, golden-armored gods, and so on. They don't know what happened in the dream, but then they had him. I don't know if this can be considered the earliest form of human-to-human control.

Li Wei's dreams, from the time he could remember, were different from those of other children.

Around the age of three, the boy began to develop a basic understanding of the world and logical thinking. He learned for the first time that people are divided into men and women based on gender, and that children are born from their parents, not brought by storks.

It was from that time on that strange people would occasionally appear in Li Wei's dreams.

The first visitor was a self-proclaimed Master, a towering Confucian scholar who was as awe-inspiring as a mountain.

"What a magical place. Am I awake or asleep right now? I'll have to go and discuss it with Teacher Li Er another time."

Thus, under the tutelage of the Master, Li Wei, still a child, successfully established the values ​​of a virtuous gentleman and was accepted as a disciple, without even being asked for ten strips of tuition.

Unfortunately, the Master only stayed for a short time before suddenly disappearing. From then on, Li Wei never saw him again in his dreams.

He only learned a little bit from the books that recorded the Master's words; the rest he had to figure out on his own.

The second visitor was a doctor whose name had been washed away by the long river of time, leaving only his medical skills.

"My name? I don't remember it anymore, and I even doubt whether I ever really existed."

That's what they say, but this doctor surnamed Bian is extremely skilled; he can discover the cause of an illness before it even manifests with just a glance.

However, precisely because the illness was treated too early, the patient often did not know that he had been sick, which led to his fame being far less than that of his two brothers.

The saying "A skilled warrior achieves no great feats" probably refers to this.

For some time afterward, Dr. Bian taught Li Wei the profound and extensive "Huangdi Neijing" and instructed him on the principles of benevolence in medicine.

"Given the current situation, this book is the most suitable for you."

Although there was nothing wrong, Dr. Bian's words sounded strange: "But even if you have the best medical skills, you must be careful, because if someone is killed, they will die."

"If you get chopped into five pieces with a machete, or your head gets carried onto a good boat, there's no saving you either. After all, humans have their limits."

After that, Dr. Bian disappeared and never appeared again.

The third guest was Mr. Merlin.

According to Mr. Merlin, he himself is one of the world's most renowned magicians—not the kind who conjures rabbits and doves out of hats—and often teaches Li Wei some useful "Merlin magic tricks" in his spare time.

The book includes, but is not limited to, very useful orthodox magic such as stealth, ambush, backstab, and stun, as well as life hacks such as lock picking, poison, bag stealing, and online shopping for computer parts, which greatly benefited the young man.

During the teaching process, he paid special attention to the balance between work and rest. During his rest time, he would also help Li Wei interpret the books and sayings left by Confucius, helping him to go further and further on the path of becoming a virtuous person.

Mr. Merlin hasn't been around much lately, and seems to be busy taking care of his children.

I'm really worried about him.

—————Explaining Merlin's identity to Ryougi—————

"In other words, you dreamt of the ancient times, of Confucian scholars who were as awe-inspiring as mountains, respected doctors who were renowned for their medical skills, and a lovestruck magician who seemed to have wandered in from who-knows-where, right?"

Liangyi looked like he was "gradually understanding everything," but it was unclear whether he truly understood it.

"That's pretty much what it means."

Li Wei originally wanted to explain that the era in which Master Fu and Doctor Bian lived was roughly two thousand years ago, which couldn't be described as the slightly chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur) term "ancient times." However, considering that the ancient times in Japan are equivalent to the Three Kingdoms period in China, this terminology isn't a big problem.

Subconsciously, both of them overlooked a magician whose style was different from the others, and didn't feel that there was anything wrong with it.

"I see. Professor Fujibayashi mentioned before that when you're lonely, you often fantasize about mutated girls who escaped from research institutes, or online friends who are just plain emotionless girls with bob haircuts. I thought it was just a rumor."

Ryougi's eyes suddenly became very firm, as if she had made up her mind: "I will spend more time with you from now on, until you are fully recovered."

Li Wei: "..."

Although I was touched by Liangyi's words, I still want to explain that I don't have any delusional symptoms.

For example, Lucy was someone he found with Hiratsuka-nee, and she's still living happily at Hiratsuka-nee's house. Things have calmed down considerably; she doesn't even kill people anymore. Or perhaps Enma-nee really exists; she was chatting online with someone just yesterday.

But after thinking about it, I decided against it.

Whether they know me or condemn me, only history will tell. As long as Yin and Yang are happy, that's all that matters.

Moreover, the boy could see from his best friend's eyes that he genuinely cared about him. Such pure kindness could already be considered virtuous.

"Speaking of which, Shi, why do you think my friends are all figments of my imagination?" Li Wei asked curiously.

"Is not it?"

"How could that be? I'm perfectly healthy; the doctor said I'm perfectly normal."

"That's what novels and comics say these days."

As she said this, Ryougi naturally pulled out a currently popular comic book—"About My Handsome Childhood Friend Is Actually a Girl with Chuunibyou and Accompanied Me to Another World to Become the New World's Kami."

“Two Elements.” Li Wei sincerely offered his opinion: “Read less of these toilet paper-like books in the future; the plots in them are all made up.”

"How could anyone not even realize the true gender of their childhood friend? Only people who don't have a childhood friend would read comics filled with unrealistic fantasies. Think about more practical things. I'm not going to turn into a girl and marry you."

Even if you point at the comic book and tell me "transform," it won't work.

"Is that so?" Ryougi's expression was inexplicably subtle.

"Of course it's true," Li Wei said confidently.

PS: There was an Easter egg during the FGO "Chatterbox Ancient Shinsengumi" event. After Chen Gong, the game's number one AoE Noble Phantasm user, appeared, he wanted to see just how ancient Japan was, and then the following story happened:

Chen Gong: "Is this the ancient Yamatai Kingdom? I'm really looking forward to it."

Chen Gong: "By the way, what time is it now? What happened?"

Chen Gong: "What do you mean by Queen Himiko sending an envoy to pay homage to Cao Cao's grandson?"

Chen Gong: "Then it's alright."

Chapter 5: Boys must protect themselves whether they go out or not.

Li Wei couldn't guarantee whether Liangyi had taken his last words to heart.

However, such a trivial matter is just a small fluctuation in his and Ryougi's daily life, the kind that won't even cause a ripple.

Li Wei's life continues to move forward.

……

Saturday, sunny.