A Half-Month Vacation

Half a month later, inside a suite at the Chant Hotel in Kaimeng. Swish. As the automatic floor-to-ceiling curtains slid open, the dazzling sunlight struck Yaxiu's face like a slap. He let out a pained groan, clutched his blanket tight, and rolled over. An instant later, the blanket was snatched away. Reflexively guarding his vitals to protect his modesty, he cried, "No—!" "You're fully dressed." Felix stood with her hands on her hips, speaking crossly. "Besides, it's already afternoon! Aren't you awake yet? You clearly slept by yourself last night, so how on earth did you stay up until morning?" Yaxiu rubbed his eyes and sat up, covering a wide yawn with his hand. With messy hair and sleepy eyes, he muttered, "Because sleeping alone is the only time I can play video games all night..." "You can't play games at other times?" Yaxiu sighed, speaking with utter sincerity. "Felix, even someone like me would feel guilty if my selfish desires ruined the sleep of all four of them." The corner of Felix's mouth twitched as she suppressed the urge to smother him with the blanket. "You've stayed here for half a month, and you all slept together for ten of those days. How can you say that with a straight face? Do you even possess the psychological capacity for shame? Seriously, can't you just have a pure, simple romance once in a while? Does it always have to be an all-hands assembly?" "Actually, it's not always an all-hands assembly. They divide the quota amongst themselves internally—even I don't have the right to interfere—" "But if you said you wanted a two-player run with Sword Princess or cut a private deal with Sister Vichy, would they really object?" Felix narrowed her eyes. "Aha, the trash can is about to spew a dissertation." "Hmm—" Yaxiu crossed his arms, pondering for a moment. "Let me think about how best to explain this..." "Got it! Take me for example. I may not look it, but I'm actually quite messy in my daily life—" "What do you mean, 'you may not look it'? Every single piece of clothing you're wearing right now, down to your underwear, was folded by me yesterday and placed right at the top of your closet. Do you think I have any misconceptions about you?" Yaxiu shrank back slightly, asking cautiously, "Felix, you're awfully irritable today." Realizing her sharp tone, Felix hugged the blanket and sat on the edge of the bed. "Go on," she said faintly. "The thing is, even though my stuff is usually tossed around in a mess, whenever I need to find something, I instinctively know where it is. On the contrary, if my conscience pricks me and I actually tidy up the room, I'm far more likely to lose track of things," Yaxiu explained. "It's Occam's razor: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. If the program is already running, don't touch the code." Felix nodded along. "Mm-hmm, and so?" "So for our daily sleeping dungeon, we should just check the box for all party members and raid it together." "What does your logic have to do with what you're actually doing?" "Since we finally managed to fumble our way into a behavioral model that everyone can begrudgingly accept, we shouldn't change it," Yaxiu said. "If I did what you suggested and invited only Sword Princess or someone else for the night, the fallout would be completely unpredictable. It's like tossing a lit match—it could light a beacon to happiness, or it could detonate our rickety building packed with fuel and explosives." "So you know you're living in a hazard building," Felix sighed softly. "Still, don't you think—" "If you're talking about shame, I feel it every single second," Yaxiu said with a smile. "But don't make me sound like some pervert who only plays multiplayer games... We just spend our nights either alone or gathered together, but we have plenty of one-on-one time during the day. Just over the past few days, I visited an exhibition with Sword Princess, hung out at a tea café with Witch, holed up in the library with Silver Lantern, and watched shows with Vichy... Come to think of it, I actually pulled off four solo dates, and came back with all my limbs intact! That's massive progress I couldn't have dreamed of before!" "A two-person date that normal couples take for granted is treated like an extreme challenge only by you..." Felix curled her lip dismissively, then couldn't help asking out of curiosity, "Did you really spend an entire day watching shows with Sister Vichy? Was it some bizarre, bloody horror film? Or a documentary about evil sorcerers' crimes?" Yaxiu shook his head. "No, we just rewatched '100% Sorcerer' and checked out the latest romance drama, 'The Dangers in Her Heart.' Vichy insisted on speeding it up, though—normal speed is an unbearable waste of time to her. It took all my persuasion to get her down to four-times speed, so we binged both series in a single day." "You didn't go anywhere?" "Nowhere. We just stayed in a private theater all day." "Huh..." Felix rested her chin on her hand. "That's a bit unexpected..." "For me too. I told her I'd do whatever she wanted and go wherever she liked, but Vichy said she didn't want me prying into her hobbies and turned it back on me. Since I happened to want to rewatch '100% Sorcerer,' we went to the private theater." Yaxiu tilted his head. "Honestly, lazing around and watching shows with her all day... was pretty nice." Seeing the faint look of happiness on Yaxiu's face made Felix inexplicably restless. She grabbed a nearby pillow, hurled it at him, and grumbled, "You sure have plenty of crooked theories to justify your nightly revelry..." "Narrow-minded. Your vision is too small," Yaxiu said solemnly. "You see it as nightly revelry, but in truth, it's a vital activity to bond and preserve our team's cohesion. Don't forget, our enemy is the strongest sorcerer standing atop civilization. Even though we're on vacation, the crushing pressure of the Divine Lord of Stars hangs over us like an inescapable dark cloud. "I don't know if this makes sense to you, but it's like a student who hasn't done their summer homework. Just thinking about the end of break fills them with dread, but if they agree with their friends that none of them will do it, they instantly relax and even find the courage to face whatever comes on the first day of school. "Our nocturnal party activities serve to relieve stress and bolster morale. Normally, a team builds camaraderie through life-and-death adventures, grinding down their friction and forging trust in battle. But we have no opponents left in the mortal realm, so sharing a bed has become our best way to maintain team coordination." Yaxiu spoke with growing fluency, as if it were truly gospel truth. "Nothing conveys another's feelings better than the warmth of skin-to-skin contact. Only by constantly reaffirming our teammates' convictions can we dispel the confusion in our hearts! So don't think I'm simply indulging myself. In truth, I carry a tremendous sense of mission, striving at every org—at every party to warm my teammates' bodies and soothe their anxieties!" "Were you about to say 'orgy'?" Felix snapped crossly. "Go wash up already. It's almost time to leave." Felix spent a minute picking out clothes from the wardrobe. By then, Yaxiu had finished washing up and emerged, looking to Felix like a drowned rat. She rolled up her sleeves, sat the freshly dressed Yaxiu down in front of the vanity, and began styling his hair. "Do you still like Blood Moon games?" "I like games from Gospel and Stars too. Especially Gospel's script murder games—having the Gospel God personally host them makes them really fun." "But you're a demigod, and you might become a sorcery supreme very soon. Are you still interested in entertainment of that level?" "You're a Sanctuary sorcerer, and you liked painting as a kid. Does that mean you don't like painting now?" Yaxiu smiled. "Being a sorcery supreme doesn't mean I've experienced every wonderful thing in the world... I still love romance dramas! Maybe after living for decades or centuries, I'll turn into a dull old bastard too, but for now at least, I still look at the world with wonder." Felix's hands paused for a fraction of a second before she asked casually, "How did you know I liked painting when I was little?" "In the selfies you sent, easels, sketchbooks, and paints showed up several times... I don't know much about art, but I think you paint quite well. At least, your painting of me was pretty good—captured about eighty percent of my charm!" Felix choked with exasperation, seized the foundation cushion, and patted it vigorously onto Yaxiu's face. "Are you out of your mind? I took those photos for you to look at me, not to examine the background details! All you need to do is admire my photos with lustful eyes—stop overthinking everything!" "Sometimes, 'lix, you're genuinely terrifying." Yaxiu's lips twitched. "Later, I asked the Gospel God and learned you've been great at painting since childhood... But painting isn't some shameful secret. Why do you hide it?"