In the Starry Country, Sword Flower University.
"Meeting in session!"
Adele pushed open the door with a snap, brandishing a folder high above her head like a hunter returning with a trophy. "Sisters, come pick out some men!"
Ingrid, who had been hanging upside down from her bed doing sit-ups, twisted around and dropped cleanly to the floor. Lois, who was reading The Hidden Messages in Water, closed her book, turned to Adele, and asked prudently, "How accurate is it this time?"
"This is top-secret internal data from Truth University's Strategy Team—absolutely the most accurate deduction available right now. Other people couldn't buy it even if they wanted to. Not that I could afford it either; I used Ingrid's name to get in touch with Aisha from the Strategy Team to score this file." Adele flipped open the folder and took out resumes, each bearing a personal photograph. "Hurry up and filter through them so we can find the real answer!"
"What?" Ingrid was startled. "You used my name? How?"
Ingrid and Truth University's genius prophecy sorcerer, Aisha, were childhood playmates. However, Ingrid had never made this connection public and rarely contacted Aisha in daily life; only her roommates knew they were friends.
"Oh, it was a terribly complicated negotiation. That Big Sister Aisha of yours didn't give me any special favors just because of you. To prove we truly needed this material, I had to concoct an intricate story to persuade her—like how I like you, you like her, she likes him, that sort of thing." Adele shrugged. "Right now, Aisha is convinced our dorm has at least eight romantic arrows crisscrossing between us."
"Honestly, I think the dorm romance story I spun for her was worthy of trading for this file on its own. No need to shower me with praise; for Adele the Great Diplomat, this is nothing more than a trifling matter not even worth mentioning."
"Right, I get the picture," Lois said. "But if I remember correctly, Aisha is a prophecy sorcerer notoriously incapable of keeping secrets, which is plain enough from the fact that she gave you the file in the first place. In other words, through the joint efforts of you and Aisha, is the entirety of Truth University about to 'learn' that Ingrid and I harbor forbidden romantic feelings for our roommates?"
"For us!" Adele said with righteous solidarity. "For the greater good, I even dragged myself into it!"
"Except you have a fiancé," Lois pointed out. "Ingrid and I are still single. And after this little operation of yours, the demographic composition of Ingrid's and my admirers is probably about to undergo a slight change—primarily in gender."
Adele froze, blinking.
Promptly, she looked down at the folder. "Oh, forget about such minor details! Hurry and pick out some men."
The three scrutinized file after file, rejecting them one by one:
"Too old, impossible."
"Too young, impossible."
"Too handsome, unlikely."
"Not handsome enough, even less possible..."
Ten-odd minutes later, a student from the neighboring dorm walked past their door. Seeing sheets of paper scattered everywhere and three female university students sprawled across their chairs staring up at the ceiling, she couldn't help asking out of curiosity, "What are you guys doing?"
Adele pulled a resume off her face and said deadpan, "Hunting for men."
The student glanced at the resumes on the floor with photos of men attached and gasped in shock, "They do home delivery for that now? How much is it?"
Before she could add, "Order one for me too," Lois walked over, shut the door, and turned back to the two of them. "Do either of you see any promising candidates?"
"Nope." "No," her roommates chorused in unison.
"Yet if this data genuinely came from the Strategy Team, the correct answer must be in there. Since none of us thinks the right answer is among them, there are only two possibilities—"
Lois held up two fingers. "Either we're mistaken."
"Or Sonia's boyfriend is a figment of her imagination and doesn't exist at all."
Indeed, the file Adele had wheedled out of the Truth University Strategy Team was titled List of Candidates for Sonia Servi's Boyfriend.
The question of who Sonia's boyfriend truly was drew almost as much fervent attention as how she had managed to advance so rapidly.
Some sorcerers believed these two questions were actually one and the same—that discovering the Paw-Stretching Swordmaster's boyfriend would unlock the mystery behind her meteoric rise. Most members of the Paw-Stretching Club (regardless of gender), however, simply wished to take his place.
Fortunately, because Sonia had no desire to climb the aristocratic ladder, she lacked the eligibility to break into the artistic and entertainment circles, which meant she couldn't pursue the idol route and could only walk the path of a professional screen maiden and song maiden. Consequently, news of her having a boyfriend had little effect on her career.
If Daidalos were rumored to have a boyfriend... no, even a whiff of a scandal would be enough to send shockwaves through half the male population of the Stars.
Yet compared to the secret behind Sonia's hidden advancements, a boyfriend should have been far easier to track down. After all, the number of eligible men in Jialesi was finite; one could find him through brute-force enumeration alone, let alone with the help of Truth University's prophecy sorcerers.
Yet since even Lois and the others believed "that man" wasn't on the list, it was clear the Strategy Team had spent all this time chasing phantoms. Although Sonia never spoke a word of him in everyday life, in many instances, merely observing the subtle nuances in her gestures was enough to deduce what the phantom in her mind looked like.
First, the person was indeed male, and his height was only slightly greater than Sonia's—she wouldn't need to stand on tiptoe to kiss him—and he was very likely a sword sorcerer... These were details that Lois alone had managed to piece together; prophecy sorcerers like Aisha would only have uncovered even more distinctive traits.
To be frank, no matter how rigorous the filtering criteria were, candidates meeting the requirements definitely existed in Jialesi. Yet there was one condition that struck even Lois as unbelievable—Sonia was afraid of losing him.
Perhaps some might think: isn't that just how both people in love are, plagued by gain and loss, their hearts fluttering?
For ordinary people, that was indeed the case, but Sonia was a Sanctuary Sorcerer!
Even if she couldn't simply abduct a good man from the streets, she was a Sanctuary Sorcerer; she ought to possess absolute confidence that he could never leave her, and it wouldn't even be surprising if she developed an urge to control him. Yet Sonia was strangely insecure and anxious, like an innocent girl plucking flower petals, guessing how much he loved her.
This could by no means be a flaw in Sonia's personality. Absolute violence brought absolute confidence; the security that came with the Sanctuary realm was more than enough to banish any childhood trauma.
In fact, whether by Lois's half-baked grasp of mind arts or the assessments of professional mind sorcerers, Sonia was viewed as someone with an extraordinarily intense desire for control in romantic relationships. Given the chance, she would inevitably seize the initiative, never permitting the other party to dominate the relationship.
For instance, Sonia was willing to forgo high-ranking aristocratic titles and career advancement simply to retain her status as an unattached Sword Baron. While her desire to protect her own secrets certainly played a role, through prophecy vents and psychological profiling, the Strategy Team could effortlessly deduce that her "unattached status" was vital to her romantic relationship.
She was sacrificing not for herself, but for her lover.
Chapter 752