Mystical Journey

This was Garen’s first time staying with a neurotic patient who was suffering from personality splits. Hence, he was always constantly worried about what kind of unexpected things the patient would actually do.

“Got it,” He then stood up and went to the basin to wash his hands. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of Kong Xinxue placing down the bowls and chopsticks.

Two of them then started eating silently.

As time passed by, the dishes on the table slowly reduced, and soon enough, the plates were empty. Even the soup was half gone.

“Is it delicious?” Kong Xinxue did not eat much as most of the time she was just staring at Garen eat. She seemed to find Garen’s eating gestures something new and interesting.

“They’re okay,” Garen answered honestly. Even though the dishes did look tasty, the taste was surprisingly displeasing. It was fairly confusing as to where the delicious scent was coming from. For Garen to say that it was decent was already too good of a compliment.

“Your eating posture,” Kong Xinxue leaned closer as she had her stare locked on Garen’s lips.

“What is it?” Garen was slightly startled by her sudden closeness and backed off a little bit.

“It’s nice,” Kong Xinxue continued. “It’s like a rigid etiquette. Really, it’s unbelievable. The piece of meat under your lip actually isn’t stained by any grease. Such a precise yet elegant eating etiquette… This is probably the first time I’ve seen something like this.”

“Oh, really?” Garen put on a bored face as though he did not want to respond. An ordinary person might not be able to understand his true meaning, but Kong Xinxue could see through it. Not only did she make it hard for people to predict her next moves due to her split personalities, she also had an extremely subtle observation, which Garen already figured out long ago.

“Don’t you want to talk about it?” Kong Xinxue retracted her head. “Seems like people this age have a really wild imagination… I heard students this age can easily suffer from a special illness.”

“A special illness?”

“Basically thinking that you’re different from the others and that the world revolves around you. You think protecting and maintaining peace in the universe is all on you, just something like that,” Kong Xinxue said calmly as she poured herself a cup of tea and slowly sipped on it.

Garen noticed that the cup of tea she was drinking was not the one on the table, it was another cup of something that she prepared herself.

“Do you want to drink?” She lifted her cup and asked.

“What’s that? I smell something weird,” Garen answered with his brows furrowed.

“It’s soy sauce.”

“…”

A weirdo indeed.

Garen continued staring at Kong Xinxue who was seated right across him. With just a glance, she really was a cool and elegant beautiful lady, who knew she would be drinking soy sauce as if she was sipping coffee?

“I’m going to shower now.”

Kong Xinxue stood up.

“Do you want to join?”

“…” Garen looked at her as she stared back with her head crooked. He was utterly speechless.

“What a boring man,” She pulled her long hair as she slowly walked to the bathroom. “Sexually incompetent.”

“…”

“As expected… As one of the primary characters, despite being an ordinary person, it was still not that simple at all.” Garen said helplessly as he started cleaning up the cutleries.

No matter what his response was, he would still be the final targeted victim. He was already immune to this move that Kong Xinxue always used.

“Hey, sexual incompetence.”

“… Don’t you think it’s slightly inappropriate for you to call your only younger brother that?”

Garen got up helplessly.

“Help me get my underwear. They’re in the second drawer below my wardrobe in my room. I shall allow you to have a whiff at it, but you better not let me catch you,” Kong Xinxue was standing naked behind the bathroom’s glass door.

“I’m not even a pervert,” Garen was completely dumbfounded and quickly went to her room to retrieve a set of underwear. He soon noticed that all of Kong Xinxue’s underwear were white, every single one of it.

However, as he opened the drawer, a stack of letters fell out. They were all pink color with a small heart print on its top corner, with the words printed behind: To Kong Xinxue.

“Love letters?” Garen simply pulled out one of the letters. The seal was opened and he pulled out a piece of paper which was empty. There was nothing on the paper.

“Nothing?” Garen then swiftly flipped through all the other love letters. They were all the same, empty.

With a precise agility, he stuffed the love letters back before carrying the conservative underwear to the front of the bathroom.

“Just place it on top of the washing machine outside.”

“Alright.”

Garen placed the underwear down and turned around to leave.

“Oh yeah, sister,” He suddenly stopped.

“Speak.”

“I’ve known you for so long, but how come I’ve never seen anyone try to pursue you? Is it because everyone found out your weird personality and decided to keep their distance?” Garen asked straightforwardly.

“…” There were no responses from the bathroom.

After a long pause, he could hear the sound of water from the showerhead.

Garen knew that since she did not want to talk about this topic, there was no point asking anymore as he would not get any answers from her. He just had to be patient with her. She was one of those people who would definitely keep their mouth shut for a period of time once they had decided on not opening up about a certain something as she believed that talking about something before the period of time would not reveal her true thoughts about it.

She was just such a weird person, so perhaps it was not something out of the ordinary that nobody liked her.

With that thought, Garen left and entered his own room.

********************

In a blink of an eye, another month had passed.

Everything moved on as usual. School, practicing swordplay, eating, and squabbling with Kong Xinxue. Life was so plain to the point that Garen had forgotten what was he waiting for already.

Until one day.

“Father.”

Kong Xinxue sat across Kong Yuan, her blouse was as white as snow. She looked like the most elegant white plum blossoms, her face calm and indifferent.

“This is the cash reward I won in my competition.”

With both hands, she pushed a bank card on the table toward her father.

Kong Yuan awkwardly stared at his own daughter.

“Save it for yourself. You’re all grown up already, you should save up some money for yourself,” As a man, he still had his own dignity. He could not possibly take the money that his own daughter worked hard to earn.

Garen was drinking tea by the side as he leisurely stared at the both of them.

“Sister asked you to take it, so just take it. We’re family, after all, it doesn’t matter whose money belongs to who does it?” He persuaded.

“Yeah, this is just a little something I worked hard for as a token of appreciation for this family,” Kong Xinxue replied sensibly, “I’m genuinely happy that I’m able to contribute to this family.”

She could always use a strict tone to say something that was able to arouse one’s enthusiasm.

Kong Yuan still did not accept it.

“You know it too. Our financial situation at home is not that bad, we’re not short of your contribution.”

“This is not a contribution, I just want to be a part of the process of building this family. Also, don’t you think our house is a little too small? Although I understand that as a man, you should maintain your self-esteem and restraints. But, whenever I ‘accidentally’ pass by your room and see you with your right hand and that certain rigid movement pleasuring yourself, I, as your daughter, really feel sad from the depths of my heart.”

“…” Kong Yuan was absolutely stunned.

Garen froze as well…

Being pointed out by one’s own daughter that he self-pleasured, also being caught more than once, was the most terrifying thing in the world for a middle-aged father who was almost forty years of age!

The atmosphere in the living room froze.

Garen could see beads of sweat slowly trickling down Kong Yuan’s forehead and temples.

This father did somewhat understand this quality of his daughter, but he did not expect her to use such a sorrowful method of persuading him to accept this money. Even worse, it happened in front of his son.

Gulp…

A soft sound came from Kong Yuan’s throat.

Even Garen felt sad for this father. It was perhaps the most distressing thing of all the fathers in the world to have such a neuropathic daughter.

“So… ” Kong Xinxue pushed the bank card once again, “Please, just take it.”

Her casual expression proved that she was not even bothered.

The atmosphere was then slightly alleviated.

Kong Yuan had his head hung low and started drinking tea like Garen. He had to relax his triggered heart someway.

“Although this one thousand two hundred million…” Pu!

Kong Yuan spat out a mouthful of tea. Even Garen who was sitting by his side choked on his tea and started coughing.

Kong Xinxue did not finish her sentence as she used a magazine on the table to block herself with an incredible speed. The tea splashed onto the pages of the magazine, then she placed it back down as if nothing happened.

“One thousand… Two hundred… Million?!”

Kong Yuan’s expression and tone were implausible as he stared at his familiar yet unrecognizable daughter.

“Yes, my dear father. Your hearing did not go wrong, you don’t have to suspect anything,” Facing the alien stares coming from these two men, she still did not show any trace of abnormality.

“I participated in eleven regional level competitions and I emerged as champion in eight of those, the four competitions that I won silver in did actually affect my reputation. After that, I just received twenty-one concerto lists from all over the country. The pay is pretty decent too. Oh yeah, I won about one thousand one hundred million from the lottery last month and I just claimed back the cash reward a few days ago.”

“The last point is the actual point…” Garen could not resist complaining.

In other words, Garen did not care about the money much, but it was still a bit hard for Kong Yuan to accept such a huge sum of money which was almost equivalent to his income his entire life. His daughter even presented it right before his eyes and used such force in hopes that he would accept the money.

“We’ll go check out new houses tomorrow then.”

Kong Xinxue concluded.

This was the turning point of life that marked the start of a dramatic change.

Garen remembered the fragments which showed that the Kong family house had impressive conditions, but little did he know this was how it all happened…

And that was the end of this time’s family meeting.

It was until then, Garen finally picked up a little interest on this world, all because of this cheap sister, Kong Xinxue.

This sister who was constantly suffering from typical split personalities was always in and out of different mental states, she could always end up doing things he would never expect.

This peculiar unknown feeling made him feel that maybe this world was not that boring after all.

Therefore, he decided to follow up on Kong Xinxue. He had a new interest for such a neurotic sister and her daily life.