Chapter 631: Three Stages of Trust
=So…to sum up what you five did…you two decided to ditch your assigned assassin in a café.=
[Manned by a very sexy barista/chef who knows his way around a frittata no less,] Hurricroak proudly proclaimed. [Who I am also certain is either single or a widower.]
[Why didn’t we just leave in her an alleyway again?,] Nepherage asked.
[Because as a woman of grand intuition, I know a girl who needs some love in their life.]
[Right..]
=Moving on, you two left the ones you were dealing at the Zhen Clan estate? How did you do that without tripping that gate elder?=
[We coordinated with the zakos the director left behind,] Spring Brawler answered, [and had that one super zako cause a distraction.]
=What kind of distraction?=
[Remember how after everyone went to bed last night, they all got suddenly woken up by a nightmare? That was her, screaming.]
[Very…loud…]
=That’s…worrying…or helpful…okay, Razorstella, what about did you do with-=
[Castor and Pollux.]
=Pardon?=
[The zakos I worked with to ditch those other three guys at the Fallen Clan’s hiding spot? I had them assigned to me and named them Castor and Pollux. Say “hi” guys.]
[( *・∀・)ノ゛]
[( *・∀・)ノ゛]
[Aren’t they cute?]
[Wait, we could name them?!,] Hurricroak exclaimed in shock.
=Yes, anyways…so now all of that is out of the way, we must now address something more important.=
[Which is…]
=Winning this competition and/or dealing with the assholes who are probably going to attack the Zhen Clan during it.=
[You really think that’s going to happen?]
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|I really need to figure out a cleaner way to show this…|
You can’t change the text’s color, remember?
|Yeah…|
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“Zhen Feng, you sure it’s a good idea to eat this much bacon before the tournament?,” Zhen Guo asked his cousin whilst he was eating half his weight in bacon…which was a lot.
“Sure I’m sure, Zhen Guo! Lots of protein, lots of fat, lots of energy! Besides, I need the fat to block out the cold. It’s a good stopgap until I can fully master my ice aether arts.”
“Fair enough…”
In the Cozy Maple Hotel, hours before the second half of the Zhen Clan competition would begin, the branch clan scions had woken up early in order to eat a hearty breakfast, make some last minute battle prep and check on that girl they rescued a few days back.
Not necessarily in that order.
As such, around a sturdy dining table that was situated in the hotel’s kitchen, next to the room that aforementioned girl was still comatose in, the branch scions were doing their own things, but they were doing those things together.
“Zhen Hai…what the heck is that?”
“It’s called a shamisen. I saw it in a merchant’s stall and felt compelled to get it.”
“Do you know any musical aether arts?”
“I can learn.”
“In a couple hours?”
“Probably.”
“She still hasn’t waken up yet, Zhen Xing?,” Zhen Tai asked as Zhen Xing kept staring at the closed door of the resting room next door.
“Yeah…”
“Well there’s nothing we can do about it for now, you know that right?”
“I know, but still…,” Zhen Xing sighed. “Would feel like a right proper bastard if I didn’t at least make sure she woke up okay.”
“Alright…”
“Xiao Liu, are you okay?,” Zhen Yue asked Zhen Liu with concern in her voice.
Granted, she had every right to be worried due to how glazed over Zhen Liu’s eyes looked in the moment.
A bit after the interrogation process of those assassins, spies, whatever had come to an end, Zhen Liu had stayed up to handle some bookkeeping on his end, which mostly consisted of him looking over the zakos, the kaijin’s abilities and cataloguing what kind of [Desire Cores] he had on hand.
Technically that shouldn’t have taken all evening, but he had combined that activity with staying up to make sure the kaijin came back to the hotel okay.
As a result of these choices though, Zhen looked a bit like a college student during final weeks and he had about six hours left to study for a one thousand question test. In other words, man was running on half of his braincells at maximum. The fact that his breakfast consisted of a cup of black coffee and a piece of toast didn’t help mask this fact either.
“Yeah…why?”
“You’ve been staring at that cup of coffee for the past five minutes.”
“Ah…just a bit sleep deprived is all.”
“Nervous about today’s matches?”
“…yes.”
This was a partial lie on Zhen Liu’s part, because he was actually nervous about the Zhen Clan competition, it just wasn’t the main reason why he was tired.
“Hmm…that’s fair.”
Luckily, his cousins bought it.
“This tournament that we have been forced to participate in is a bit…hazardous, I will admit,” Zhen Yue began to say in order to build towards a point, “but don’t act like you’re the only who can win this thing single handedly. You have us after all.”
“I…huh?”
Whatever Zhen Liu was expecting, he wasn’t expecting to be told that.
“Xiao Liu, I know you’ve been playing up the part as the ‘obvious bad guy’ so that the proverbial heat is taken off the rest of us. You’re not exactly the most subtle of actors,” Zhen Yue explained while the aforementioned “rest” were busy doing their own things and messing about, “but we’re aether warriors too. You don’t have to fight off the whole world by your lonesome.”
“Yeah…I guess. You’re right.”
A part of Zhen Liu wanted to correct his cousin, informing her that he wasn’t technically fighting alone, but the mood was good and he didn’t want to spoil it.
“Damn right, I’m right! We’re family and family sticks together, and not kill someone for eloping out of love…probably.”
“Hah!”
‘Hmm. Maybe I should get around telling them about the library and the kaijin…,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he drank his coffee after laughing at his cousin’s bad joke.
This decision had been haunting Zhen Liu’s mind for quite sometime, but it had also been one he’s been postponing for just as long if not longer.
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When Zhen Liu first returned home to Stone Claw, he was hellbent on making sure nobody in his family would learn about his abilities and the sources it came from, after all, he couldn’t really trust them.
His memories didn’t paint them in the fondest light, and he was technically a stranger to them.
“I can’t trust them”
However, as time went on and he became more ingratiated with his family, his perception of them began to change.
They were loud, they were boisterous, they were mean, they were mischievous and they were kind.
They were…family.
And so his reasons for wanting to keep his secrets from them changed again.
“I can’t tell them everything because I want to protect them. They’re family and if some crazy higher power figured out what I was capable of, they would definitely use them as leverage against me…or worst…”
Eventually though, that fear melted away as he learned that he could strengthen his family if necessary with the aid of the kaijin and the library itself.
Unfortunately, this came with a brand new reason to keep them in the dark, and it wasn’t much better in comparison to the previous reasons.
“I…am not the Zhen Liu they knew growing up. But…I would be lying to myself if I didn’t say I have grown fond of them and started thinking them as my ‘real’ family as well. Maybe it’s because of this body’s memories, maybe it’s just the fact that I live with them, or maybe they’re one of the few ‘human’ connections I have in this world. Either way…the idea of upending that dynamic by revealing what I can really do is…frightening.”
…
“I don’t want to lose my family again…”
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‘Then again…I did share this information with about five different women who I am not related to in the slightest…but then again, they had the luck to be in the same area as me when I did my kaijin thing…or just stumbled upon it because reasons,’ Zhen Liu mused to himself as he contemplated the idea of telling his cousins about…everything.
Well, mostly everything.
He wasn’t going to tell them about the part where he’s technically from another world, since not even he was entirely sure about his status in that regard.
There was a more pressing matter to attend to anyways.
“Well then, I think we’ve spent long enough eating and prepping,” Zhen Yue declared after finishing her own cup of coffee.
Once it was downed, Zhen Yue stood up and used her aether to grab the attention of her cousins.
“Lets go and kick everyone’s assess at this competition and show those main clan bastards how we do it in the frontier!”
“HELL YEAH!”
“LETS GO!”
And it was with this jovial atmosphere that the scions went forth to fight in their final four matches.
Whether or not this enthusiasm would meet their expectations was to be determined.
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‘Heads up guys, I may need to summon you guys for real this time.’
[Finally!]
