Chapter 51: Well-behaved

Bunny had almost forgotten that she still had a guidance session scheduled for tonight.

When she arrived at the guidance room, Rain was already seated on the sofa waiting for her.

She had been at the base for some time now, yet among all the sentinels, she had spoken the least with Rain—almost not at all.

Oh, and there was also the taciturn Tyr.

Her only real impression of this particular sentinel was that his heterochromatic eyes were extremely beautiful, like those of an exotic cat.

"Good evening, Miss Bunny."

The quiet beauty was polite and rather shy—a striking contrast to the sharp, ice-mountain bone structure of his face.

Before coming to the guide’s room, Rain had already asked his good friend Arden for a full briefing.

Not only had he obediently changed into the pink slippers, he had also put on every piece of restraint equipment himself.

He had even chosen a golden bow collar that matched the color of his hair and sat waiting with his fingers neatly interlaced.

"Hello."

Bunny looked him up and down. He wasn’t wearing a training uniform. Instead, he had chosen a clean, youthful hoodie layered under a flight jacket, paired with light-colored jeans that looked fashionable and well-fitted.

A silver chain with a star pendant hung around his neck, giving him an overall air of handsome vitality.

Pure golden hair like Rain’s was rare; he must have mixed in a bit of other ancestry.

Seeing her hesitate with the binding straps in her hands—because the instruments showed that Rain’s instability level was already very high, exceeding 90 percent, and for safety he needed to be secured to the restraint chair—he thoughtfully offered:

"Do you need me to take off my clothes?"

Bunny quickly shook her head. "No need. You just need to sit in the restraint chair."

The restraint chair would release high-voltage electricity to protect the guide if a sentinel lost control. Most sentinels disliked sitting in it.

"It’s fine. You can tie me up however you like."

He had actually assumed that the guide was holding the straps because she wanted to play some kind of bondage game with him. Although he personally had no such preference, if she enjoyed it, accompanying her for a round wouldn’t be out of the question.

The sentence sounded a little strange.

Once Rain was seated in the restraint chair, Bunny tightly fastened the binding straps around his wrists, ankles, and neck, making certain he could not break free before she finally relaxed.

She also fitted him with a muzzle—those killer whale teeth were extremely sharp.

After completing every preparation, she instructed Rain to open his spiritual sea. Entry did not go smoothly; she even got lost for a while.

What met her eyes was a dim, muted grayness.

Rain’s spiritual sea, like his vision, contained only three tones: black, white, and gray.

Yet the world he had constructed was exquisite.

The sky was a swirling ocean of stars. An entire field of gray lavender swayed gently in the soft wind of the open plain. At the far end of the lavender field stood a Gothic cathedral.

Bunny climbed the black stone steps one by one until she reached the top of the cathedral’s bell tower and looked out. Candlelight flickered and danced across the cool gray stone walls.

On the other side of the fields stretched a white sea, its surface sparkling with the fragmented reflections of the starry river.

If color had existed here, she could not imagine how beautiful it would have been.

So... was the world Rain normally saw this gray and desolate? She had only been here a short while and already felt stifled.

Every sentinel’s spiritual sea was different—some dangerous, some beautiful, some simple, some intricate.

The spiritual landscape was a refraction of their subconscious, most often appearing in the form of dream fragments. So far, Bunny had only ever entered Liam’s spiritual landscape.

That place held the most hidden secrets deep inside a sentinel’s heart.

She worked as gently as possible to extract the pollutants, careful not to push Rain into losing control. Her eyes remained tightly closed. Outside, Rain watched her without moving.

The guide pheromones on Bunny’s body were fragrant and sweet—rare delicacies to someone who had relied on suppressants for so long.

Yet more than her pure guide pheromones, he preferred the natural scent of her skin. That faint, blended fragrance that rose from flesh and glands and belonged uniquely to a woman.

The more he breathed it in, the more addicted he became. His entire being sank into a strange sense of peace and contentment.

He could not quite name the feeling. It was something primitive, instinctive—an attachment and closeness that came from the deepest part of him.

And... the way the guide furrowed her brows was rather cute. Probably because his spiritual sea was too full of garbage and the cleaning work had made her impatient; even her small lips had begun to pout slightly.

Rain watched her with increasing seriousness, going so far as to count the individual lashes on her eyes.

His gaze gradually grew more intense, sliding slowly from her brows to her eyes, then her nose, and finally settling on her lips.

Those soft, plump lips looked moist and inviting—soft and perfect for kissing.

He really wanted... just one taste.

Rationality in his mind was steadily being overtaken by desire. Rain quietly lowered his head and leaned closer to her mouth.

Closer... and closer...

Just as he was about to close the final distance, Bunny suddenly withdrew from his spiritual sea.

Rain tensed at once, yet his lips still brushed lightly against her cheek.

She opened her eyes, sensing the faint contact on her face. "Eh? What was that?"

Rain said nothing.

She quickly undid all of his restraints. If every sentinel could be as cooperative as him during guidance, her life would be so much easier.

Well-behaved men deserved rewards. She picked up a wind-up toy she had found in a corner of the warehouse.

The toy had been broken. After tinkering with it for a while, she discovered it was a very old model. She had Sunny make a new spring mechanism, and it was repaired.

"This is for you."

Rain accepted the nutcracker, looking puzzled. "Why are you giving me this?"

"Because you cooperated so well. I like obedient sentinels."

She wound the key on the back of the toy and set it on the table. The little nutcracker began to turn in circles while playing a miniature piano melody.

"This is the ’Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ variations. Doesn’t it sound nice?"

Rain did not know what a piano piece was, nor what "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" meant, but human resonance with music was innate.

He offered her a smile—so dazzling that Bunny’s eyes nearly went soft.

"It sounds nice."

In truth, the reason she had given Rain the nutcracker was not only because he was obedient. There was also a faint pity for the fact that he could not see the colors of the world.

A completely grayscale spiritual sea felt far too oppressive to her.

Rain turned the toy over and discovered a string of blurred letters carved into the base with a small knife:

D.T 28N97E

It must have been carved by the previous owner, but what did it mean? He accepted the nutcracker and expressed his thanks.

"Bunny... from now on, may I call you just Bunny the way Xander does?"

Bunny, who was packing up her things, looked up. "Sure."

A small spark of delight flickered in Rain’s heart. The moment he closed the door of the guidance room behind him, the gentle smile vanished from his face.

Ah... so the guide had called him obedient. A good little dog, huh?

Rain was the type of sentinel who appeared quiet and reserved on the surface but was actually quite calculating underneath. He happily slipped the small gift from the guide into his pocket.

He had already found a shortcut.

And that shortcut was to pretend to be well-behaved.