Morning light slanted through the glass, laying a bright, tilted band across the dark wooden floor.
Su Yu slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a face, impossibly close.
A face so beautiful it barely seemed real.
Ash-gold hair spilled loose across the white pillow, a few strands clinging playfully to a smooth forehead.
It was Rita.
She lay on her side facing him, chin propped on one arm.
Her eyes were still heavy with the languor of just having woken, brimming with an unguarded, undisguised tenderness.
The morning light fell right across her, gilding her bare pale skin with a faint edge of gold.
Su Yu's breath caught for half a second.
"You're awake, Master Su Yu?"
Rita's voice drifted through the quiet room, carrying that particular drowsy lilt of someone freshly roused from sleep.
The corner of her mouth curved into a lovely arc.
"Last night..." She drew the words out deliberately. "You really did wear me out, you know."
Su Yu studied her face.
He ran quickly back through everything that had happened the night before.
The bone-deep cold, the molten heat, the trembling bodies, and finally that long stretch in the dark where they'd clung to each other, drawing warmth from one another.
He let out a sigh.
"You figured I'd just woken up, my head still fuzzy and easy to fool, so you thought you'd tease me with a line like that?"
A soft laugh drifted from the pillow.
"My, my. I hadn't expected you to see through even that."
Rita's lashes fluttered, the amusement in her eyes deepening. "But," she added, changing tack, "your hand really did grip me all night long."
She looked at him.
"Not that I personally mind, but it did sting a little."
Su Yu froze for a moment.
Only then did he register, belatedly, that his right hand seemed to be sunk into something soft and springy and entirely invisible to him. Without thinking, his fingers curled, shifting slightly.
"Mm..."
Across from him, Rita let out an immediate, sweet little hum through her nose.
Su Yu jerked his hand back as if he'd been shocked by high-voltage current.
He flipped himself upright and sat with his back to her, fist pressed to his lips, coughing hard twice to cover his embarrassment.
Behind him, the mattress dipped faintly.
Rita had sat up too.
The thin down comforter that had covered her slid down her smooth shoulders, pooling around her waist.
Rita glanced down at her own chest.
"Master Su Yu's handprint is left quite clearly here."
Her voice floated over from behind him, laced with obvious mischief.
"Would you like to turn around and admire your own handiwork?"
Su Yu did not turn around.
He walked over to the nearby coat rack, grabbed one of Rita's usual silk robes without looking, and, still facing away, hurled it toward the bed.
The thin silk fabric sailed through the air and landed precisely on Rita's head.
"That's enough — get dressed," Su Yu said, quickly smoothing out the wrinkles in his own clothes. "We're testing the new Stigmata's power shortly."
A rustle of fabric came from the bed.
"Ohh."
Rita's head emerged from beneath the robe. She draped it over her shoulders and cinched the sash.
"Having a master so utterly oblivious to romance really is a headache for a maid."
She stepped barefoot off the bed onto the soft carpet.
Rita closed her eyes.
She let herself feel the power flowing through her body.
The old hidden injuries and blockages left behind by the forcibly implanted artificial Stigmata had vanished without a trace.
She felt an odd lightness, as if she'd shed some old shell and been reborn.
"Remarkable, truly," Rita said, looking at Su Yu's back. "My body feels unbelievably clear right now. This is nothing the crude, mass-produced artificial Stigmata Schicksal used to make could ever achieve."
Su Yu walked to the metal door of the dormitory, his hand resting on the handle.
"Assemble at Simulation Training Ground No. 3 in thirty minutes. I'll be waiting there."
He was just about to press the handle down.
"Please wait a moment."
Rita called out, stopping him.
Su Yu paused.
He glanced back at her. "Something wrong?"
Rita walked over to the vanity and picked up a comb, unhurriedly running it through her short ash-gold hair.
"This is right around the time Lady Cecilia does her morning exercises each day."
She watched him in the mirror.
"If you walk out like this right now, odds are you'll run straight into her in the hallway."
Su Yu's hand froze on the door handle.
Just then—
From the corridor beyond the wall came the sound of unhurried footsteps.
It was the kind of tread only an agent with years of the most intensive training could produce — landing feather-light yet perfectly steady.
The footsteps drew closer, passed the door, then slowly faded into the distance.
Not until the sound had vanished entirely at the end of the hallway did Su Yu pull his ear away from the door.
He turned back around.
And looked at Rita, standing in the middle of the room.
Morning light poured through the window, striking the wine-red silk nightgown and giving it a rich sheen.
The silky fabric clung to every curve of her body.
Su Yu's expression grew complicated.
"Rita, you—"
"No need to thank me."
Rita set down the comb.
She turned around.
And offered Su Yu a flawless maid's curtsy.
The motion of her slight bow let the robe's collar fall open a little, revealing a heart-stopping expanse of pale skin.
"Sparing you trouble and solving problems for you — that's simply a maid's proper duty."
She lifted her head, a smile lingering at the corners of her eyes and brows.
"And if you should ever need... companionship through the night, or a special morning wake-up service, please — don't ever hesitate to ask."
Su Yu coughed hard again.
He pulled the door open and fled the room full of hormonal traps.
The air in the hallway was cool and crisp.
Morning sunlight spilled in through the ventilation window at the far end, cutting bright patches across the floor.
Su Yu drew in two lungfuls of cold air, trying to chase the chaotic images from his mind.
A familiar blue light-screen popped up across his vision.
[Ding—]
[Bond Quest: Tonight Is Still Young. Complete.]
[Detected: the redeemed Aphrodite Stigmata has, after enduring a substantial dose of your [Nourishment] last night, undergone growth beyond expectations.]
[The Stigmata has now unlocked a Tier-One special ability — [Unhealing Wound].]
Su Yu's steps slowed. He read the detailed explanation on the light-screen.
[Unhealing Wound:]
[Automatically activates whenever Rita Rossweisse inflicts damage on a target using the Genome Reaper.]
[The Stigmata's power lingers in the enemy's wound like a parasitic spore — an invisible, highly corrosive membrane that clamps down tight over the injury's surface.]
[This effect suppresses every form of the target's self-healing mechanisms.]
[Whether it's a Honkai Beast's grotesque regenerative ability, or a high-tier Honkai Beast's Honkai-energy-driven tissue repair — under Unhealing Wound's suppression, all of it fails.]
[Carapace she cleaves open cannot mend itself.]
[Tendons she severs cannot reconnect.]
[Those wounds will simply stay open, bleeding continuously, steadily draining the target's vitality.]
[Note: as the Stigmata's rank rises, the duration of this suppression effect will extend accordingly.]
[P.S.: Truly ruthless, aren't you! To think you left such a deep [Mark] on your poor maid — she'll probably never forget you for the rest of her life.]
"You'd better mean the Stigmata."
Su Yu rolled his eyes.
In his mind, he quickly ran an assessment of the ability's combat value.
The answer: extremely strong.
Especially against those Emperor-class or even Judgment-class Honkai Beasts with cockroach-like tenacity or hyper-fast regeneration.
This ability was practically a killer trump card — the instant Rita managed to cut open one of those massive things, it would be saddled with a bleeding debuff that could never be removed.
Su Yu pulled his gaze back.
Getting that Stigmata set installed last night had been an absolutely brutal ordeal.
But looking at this reward, he decided the suffering had been worth it.
He walked to the window at the end of the hallway.
Facing the rising sun outside, he raised both arms and stretched his slightly stiff body hard, his joints popping with a few crisp cracks.
"What a coincidence, Su Yu."
A bright voice suddenly rang out behind him.
"You just woke up too?"
A hand landed heavily on Su Yu's shoulder.
Su Yu turned and saw that signature cowlick, bobbing in the air.
Kiana, wearing an oversized hoodie and holding a freshly opened carton of milk, was grinning at him.
"Morning," Su Yu greeted her.
Kiana had just been about to put the straw to her lips.
"Hm?"
Her motion stopped.
Her two white eyebrows knit together instantly.
She pulled the milk carton away and leaned in close to Su Yu, her nose hovering less than ten centimeters from his collar, sniffing hard twice like a little dog.
"That's not right—"
Kiana lifted her head, that sky-blue left eye of hers fixing suspiciously on Su Yu's face.
"There's something on you." She leaned in and sniffed again. "Why does it smell so... familiar?"
She stepped back half a pace, looking him up and down.
"Since when do you wear perfume?"
Su Yu looked at the white-haired girl nearly pressing her face against him, at a loss.
"Miss Kiana." He nudged her back a step. "If someone saw you first thing in the morning, sniffing all over a grown man like a puppy, they'd think you were some kind of pervert."
"So what!"
Kiana planted her hands on her hips, chest puffed out.
She said it without a shred of hesitation.
"You're my—"
She seemed to catch how that might sound and flushed.
"I mean! You're my personal producer! I'm the unshakeable female lead in your game, whether you like it or not!"
"If something happened to you, no one would make my games for me, or cook for me anymore — that would be a real hassle for me!"
Su Yu looked at her — all bared claws and bristling on the outside, secretly just protecting her turf underneath.
He nodded. "Yes, yes, Miss Kiana is absolutely right."
"No, that's not it!" Kiana wasn't buying his deflection at all. "Don't change the subject! You haven't answered me yet! Why is there such a strong smell of a woman's perfume on you?"
She stared into Su Yu's eyes like an interrogator.
"Out with it! Did you sneak around behind my back last night and do something shameful?"
Su Yu was just about to answer.
From around the corner of the hallway came the sound of unhurried footsteps.
"Master Su Yu. Lady Kiana."
Rita's voice rang out behind the two of them.
"Good morning."
Su Yu turned his head.
Rita had already changed into her black-and-white maid uniform.
The white apron didn't have a single crease. The black lace trim sat perfectly along the line of her legs, and her hair was combed into flawless order.
Barely five minutes had passed since Su Yu left her room, and she'd already turned herself into a picture-perfect maid.
The speed of that change was genuinely impressive.
"Oh, morning, Rita!" Kiana turned and greeted her easily.
Then her nose twitched again, twice.
Her gaze swung back and forth between Rita and Su Yu, a flicker of confusion crossing her eyes.
"Lady Kiana."
Rita gave Kiana no time to think it through. She smiled at the girl holding the meat bun.
"I just came from the dining hall. I heard today's breakfast is a masterpiece from a Michelin three-star chef Lady Eden went to great expense to fly in specially from France."
She paused.
"If you're not quick about it, those French pastries and specialty roast meats will probably be gone before you know it."
Kiana's eyes went wide instantly.
A predatory gleam of pure food-guarding instinct flared up in that mismatched blue eye.
"WHAT?!" Kiana's voice jumped a full octave.
For a Kaslana, whatever mysterious perfume, whatever awkward love triangle — all of it could be tossed clean out of mind the moment Michelin-grade roast meat was on the line!
"Then I have to get over there right now!"
Kiana grabbed Su Yu's arm and hauled him hard toward the dining hall.
"Su Yu! Hurry! Let's go! If we're late there won't even be any broth left!"
Just as Su Yu nearly stumbled from the force of her pull—
A hand in a white silk glove settled on his other arm.
Kiana turned, looking at Rita a little blankly.
Rita's hand rested lightly on Su Yu's sleeve.
She looked at Kiana, her smile flawless, without a single crack in it.
"Lady Kiana." Rita's voice was gentle. "Master Su Yu... doesn't appear to have washed up yet."
Her gaze settled calmly on the girl.
"As the Supreme Commander and pillar of the entire Starfire Furnace, it would hardly be proper for him to show up in front of several hundred recruits and instructors looking so disheveled."
Rita offered her solution with a smile.
"Why don't we go on ahead, Lady Kiana, and save Master Su Yu a good seat in the dining hall?"
Kiana glanced at Su Yu's still-wrinkled jacket, then at his somewhat mussed hair.
"Oh..." Kiana scratched her head and clapped him on the back. "Fair enough! You're basically top brass now — you'd better mind your image!"
She let go of his arm.
"Go wash up! Change into something clean!" Kiana waved at Su Yu. "Rita and I will head on ahead. Don't worry — I'll make sure your share of the French roast is saved, guaranteed!"
"Then I'll leave it to you, Miss Kiana."
Rita released Su Yu's arm.
She folded her hands in front of her and offered him a silent maid's curtsy.
Then she turned and walked side by side with Kiana toward the stairwell at the end of the hallway.
Su Yu stood by the window, watching the two figures grow smaller in the distance.
Sunlight streamed through the windowpane, filling the hallway with a bright, translucent glow.
Walking beside Rita, Kiana took a bite of the half-eaten meat bun still in her hand.
She wrinkled her nose, puzzled.
Along the way, she kept catching the scent of some high-end body wash drifting off Rita.
And that scent... was exactly identical to the one she'd smelled on Su Yu's collar just now.
Was it just her imagination?
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