Lanqi Did Not Find This Funny

Soon enough, Lanqi handed Boss Cat back to Hyperion, letting her cradle the feline. Chatting as they walked, the two exited the campus grounds. They only had to cross two more streets to the east to reach Boss Cat Restaurant. The midday summer sun poured over Ikerite's classical architecture, giving the stone masonry and intricate sculptures an even more vivid presence. Lanqi and Hyperion strolled along the broad sidewalk, bathed in the warmth of the bright road ahead, while behind them, the solemn grand clock tower of Ikerite Academy looked all the more imposing beneath the daylight. "Lanqi, wait a second. Are the three of us really going to eat together?" Hyperion felt that perhaps they ought to give one another some space. For instance, Lanqi could stay on the ground floor while she accompanied Tata upstairs for lunch. Or she and Lanqi could stay downstairs and let Antanas join Tata for lunch in the apartment above. As it happened, she and Lanqi were heading into a Shadow World tomorrow. Whether it took a few days or a month or two, Tata and Lanqi wouldn't see each other for a while. Once Lanqi returned from the Shadow World, the two of them should be able to get along naturally again. "I think the more deliberately we avoid each other at a time like this, the guiltier we look," Lanqi answered. "Regardless of what Tata chooses, I should maintain a positive, proactive stance—as long as she is willing to see me, I will wait for her." He continued in all seriousness, "Besides, I've never been some sort of comic relief character. What happened this morning was an excessively bizarre accident; it won't happen again. From here on out, I won't overturn a single time until my graceful retirement." "Mhm, fair enough." Hyperion nodded, secretly stealing a glance at Lanqi. Judging by his expression, he truly didn't seem to think what had happened that morning was all that mortifying. His psychological resilience was unimaginably strong. Boss Cat kept its thoughts to itself, simply gazing up at Lanqi. *You may look quite suave and composed right now, but the way you recited those romantic lines this morning was honestly hilarious.* "Are you really fine right now? Won't seeing Tata make you instinctively recall what you said this morning? For example, that line: 'Tata, you really are so cute...'?" Hyperion asked, testing the waters. "I'm actually quite alright," Lanqi replied after a tenth of a second's pause, cutting off Hyperion before she could recite any more of it. "Hyperion, you really don't need to worry about me." "Then... later, could you not make me sit between you and Tata? How about you two sit next to each other?" Hyperion asked again. "...No problem," Lanqi nodded. "Why did you hesitate?" Hyperion leaned in closer, studying Lanqi's face. Her eyes seemed to say: *Don't try to be brave; if you need help, just tell me honestly.* "..." Lanqi looked as though he had fallen asleep, offering no words for quite some time. "Alright, alright, I won't put you on the spot," Hyperion said, waving her hands in defeat at the sight of his blank stare. "Hyperion, you're the best," Lanqi immediately thanked her with a smile. "Don't say things like that..." Hyperion lowered her head toward the street, turning away from his earnest gaze. They quickly covered the distance of under a kilometer to the east, coming into view of the lively Boss Cat Restaurant just as the lunch rush approached. Wisps of steam billowed rhythmically from the chimney. Whenever a patron stepped inside, the wind chimes above the entrance rang with a melodious chime alongside the door's movement. At that very moment, the academy's clock tower in the distance tolled twelve times for noon. The carefree pair fell back into easy chatter and laughter. "Barring any surprises, the moment we push open the door, we'll see Tata coming downstairs," Lanqi told Hyperion beside him as they drew near the entrance, his tone brimming with optimistic anticipation. "Hm?" Hyperion had no idea why Lanqi sounded so certain. "Tata usually comes downstairs punctually at noon for lunch. Any later and she gets hungry." Hearing the bells, Lanqi simply knew it was time for Tata to come down to eat. It was a conditioned reflex. Seeing that Hyperion still looked skeptical, Lanqi displayed the professional confidence of someone who understood Talia better than anyone else alive. "Once, a biologist named Pavlov conducted an experiment. At the start, his dog had a natural reaction whenever food appeared: it drooled. Taking advantage of this, he paired a neutral conditioned stimulus—like the sound of a bell—with the presentation of food. After repeating the pairing many times, the dog began associating the ringing bell with food. Whenever he rang the bell, the dog would salivate." Lanqi explained the science to Hyperion. "Uh-huh... right." Hyperion listened in utter bewilderment, though she couldn't shake the feeling that a glowing red warning sign had just flashed above Lanqi's head. Then, the two pushed open the door. Sure enough, a figure was just descending the stairs from the second floor. Lanqi's voice cut off instantly. His expression grew notably solemn, and for a fleeting second, his heart seemed to skip a beat. "..." The moment Talia caught sight of them, her footsteps came to a dead halt. First came sheer disbelief. She felt as though out of every twenty-four hours in a day, Lanqi spent twenty-five dwelling on terrible things. That expression and reaction from earlier had practically become his daily routine! Then, for reasons she couldn't fathom, that sentence from this morning echoed in her mind again, causing her to instantly avert her eyes. She hesitated several times in the span of a second, seemingly weighing whether to face them or turn right back around. In the end, Talia continued downward, acting as though she didn't care in the slightest. Eventually, she met up with the two. None of them spoke. As if sharing an unspoken understanding, they all sat at the counter seats beside the window, sparing them from having to look directly across at one another. After taking their seats, silence lingered. The air among the three grew extraordinarily quiet. It felt just like that afternoon walk after the three of them had gotten tangled into a pretzel back at the Wilfort estate—utterly subdued. "I'm heading into the kitchen to work, meow! What do you want to eat? I'll make it for you." Boss Cat leaped from Hyperion's arms onto the counter, addressing the three. It was the owner of this restaurant to begin with, and now it was happily stepping up as the personal server and chef for its three friends. "Anything is fine for me." "I'm easy too." Lanqi and Hyperion answered in succession. "The same as them," Talia finally chimed in. "Then I'll improvise, meow!" Sensing that the atmosphere was decidedly off, Boss Cat hopped down from the stool and darted nimbly toward the kitchen. Silence settled over the window seats once again. "..." Hyperion glanced left and right between Lanqi and Tata. Both were the people dearest to her, and sitting between them, she had no clue what to say under the circumstances. "Tata," Lanqi spoke up. He felt he ought to take the initiative to break the ice; putting age aside, Tata was still a girl after all. "I'm sorry," Talia interrupted, cutting him off before he could continue. She then looked at him squarely. "..." Lanqi stared at Talia in astonishment, almost wondering if the real Talia had been swapped out. Tata, apologizing of her own accord? Hyperion looked at Talia as well. She could tell Talia had a lot she wanted to say, but being unaccustomed to expressing herself, she didn't know how to put it into words and could only distill it into the simplest language. "And... thank you for bringing back Antanas and the others." Talia spoke slowly, like a child just learning to speak as she expressed her gratitude to Lanqi. "It's alright, Tata. Let's make up," Lanqi replied with a warm smile. Sometimes, taking a step back from both sides was all it took to resolve an issue. Even if completely clearing away the awkwardness might take some time, at least both of them had chosen to handle it constructively. Watching from a corner, Boss Cat nodded in deep, gratified satisfaction. Who would have thought that this pair it had shipped from the very beginning was finally showing signs of change on both sides? Suddenly, Antanas, who was walking past the corridor between the dining room and kitchen, noticed the cat on the floor. "Oh? Boss Cat, what are you doing here?" Antanas asked, looking at the little black furball beside her feet. Following Boss Cat's gaze, she instantly understood. "My, I didn't expect them to make up so quickly. I thought it would stay awkward for days," Antanas marveled. "Indeed, meow." Boss Cat mentally affirmed that Antanas truly had an eye for these things. "Oh, right." Antanas bent down, scooped Boss Cat into her arms, and carried it toward a wall on the ground floor. "Boss Cat, take a look at this painting I bought. What do you think? Pranay insisted it lacked propriety, but I really believe he's wrong this time. This is unmistakably a work of art." Antanas pointed proudly at an abstract painting hanging on the wall. The artwork depicted three human figures intertwined together, leaving ample room for the imagination to run wild. "Let me have a look." Boss Cat squinted. It had been in too much of a rush coming and going this morning, and after half a year away, so many little details in the restaurant had changed that it hadn't even noticed this new painting. Granted, it was abstract art... Yet why did it look so strangely familiar? "Hey, the lines of the figure at the very bottom look quite a bit like Lanqi," Boss Cat remarked with a chuckle, raising a paw toward the painting before glancing back at Antanas. "Now that you mention it, they really do!" Antanas leaned closer, admiring it once more, and found the observation strikingly accurate. "Doesn't the one in the middle look like Hyperion, meow?" "It really does give off that feeling! Then going by that logic, the one straddling right on top... doesn't that look an awful lot like Tata?" "Meow-hahahaha, it totally does!" Laughter from Boss Cat and Antanas rang out continuously, echoing across the entire dining area. "By the way, where did this painting come from? I could swear I've seen it somewhere before," Boss Cat asked. "Supposedly, the original was a sand painting divined by the United Council of Kingdoms using the Astrological Chessboard. It might have captured a scene taking place somewhere in the world," Antanas explained, resting a fingertip against her chin with only half-grasped knowledge of the matter. Boss Cat: "..." *Wait...* *No, no, no...* Cold sweat suddenly broke out profusely across its forehead. It turned its neck with mechanical stiffness, only to find that the three figures by the window were all staring fixedly at the painting. All three of them had their mouths hanging wide open, their pupils quivering in shock. "Meow, meow, meow—!" Terrified to the point of nearly barking like a dog, Boss Cat vaulted out of Antanas's arms and shot into the back kitchen like a streak of lightning, not daring to show its face again.