The Vixen's Gambit: Tonight We Hunt

No matter how much she inwardly grumbled, a decision was a decision. Lihua had to steel herself and face the mess her future self had created in the past.

"Miss Elysia—"

"Just call me Elysia. 'Miss Elysia' is too formal~"

Elysia's smile was as bright as a flower. She casually sheathed Mei's blade, then firmly grasped Lihua's hand, grinning and gesturing towards the building she'd emerged from: "Since the explanation is complicated, why don't we go inside, sit down, and talk it over slowly? Don't worry, with me here, Mei definitely won't bully you~"

Raiden Mei, watching from the side, was stunned. She knew Elysia was always very tolerant and enthusiastic towards good-looking girls — but wasn't she being a bit too enthusiastic today?

Was it really because of the resemblance to that Lee...?

Unlike Raiden Mei, Lihua, though fully aware of the reasons behind everything, was sweating bullets inwardly!

She wasn't afraid of death; if her clone died, she could just summon another one—but if she fell into the hands of a lesbian and suffered ultimate humiliation, that would be disastrous.

The building Elysia was enthusiastically pulling her towards looked no different from a cave in the Amazon rainforest in Lihua's eyes!

Unfortunately, Lihua had no grounds to refuse Elysia, and she couldn't resist her strength either… So, she had no choice but to be dragged into the building.

She could only hope Elysia didn't have any strange fetishes for substitutes…

Although the exterior of the building looked like a wonder cobbled together from the Stone Age, the interior was quite modernly decorated, even having a pinkish, girlish feel.

Under Raiden Mei's dubious gaze, she watched as Elysia brought her and Lihua into a conference room that had never been open to her before, and enthusiastically poured them tea.

"Try it! This is something Hua got from—I mean, was gifted by the Schicksal Archbishop… It tastes really good~"

The corner of Raiden Mei's eye twitched—Elysia definitely wanted to say "swiped," right? That seemingly rigid class monitor would actually do something like that…?

"Tha-Thanks…?"

Lihua accepted the tea but didn't drink it immediately. It was better to explain the situation clearly to Raiden Mei and Elysia first — definitely not because she was worried about the tea being spiked!

So, she pulled out her phone from her pocket, skillfully launched Honkai Impact 3rd, and placed it in front of the two: "I'd like you two to see this."

The phone itself wasn't anything special to Elysia and Raiden Mei, but when they saw the person on the screen, Raiden Mei's pupils suddenly shrank.

"Kiana?!"

She grabbed the phone, examining it in disbelief: "What is this?!"

"As you can see, it's a mobile game—uh, Miss Raiden, as a modern person, you should understand this concept better than me, right?"

Under Raiden Mei's serious and Elysia's curious gazes, Lihua briefly explained the Honkai game and the fact that they were no longer in their original world. However, this was clearly not something easy to accept.

…

"You're saying that everything we've experienced is fake, that it's all just a story planned out from the beginning by someone else?!"

Unable to bear the absurdity of it all, Raiden Mei angrily slammed the phone on the table, her agitation evident: "All the suffering and torment we've endured… everything was just created for someone's amusement?! What a joke! I don't accept it!"

"Miss Raiden, I understand your agitation, but—"

"No, no, you can't touch there!"

The tense atmosphere was abruptly broken by a playful, shy voice.

Lihua and Raiden Mei silently turned their gaze to the culprit—Elysia, who was holding the phone with an awkward expression.

"Wow, you can touch the characters…" Elysia tried to pretend nothing had happened, but their dubious stares made her silently put down the phone. "I-I was just curious…"

Lihua didn't believe Elysia's words one bit. That voice line was triggered by a specific touch—the moment this lesbian got her hands on the phone, she went straight for that spot?!

Elysia also felt wronged. She had just randomly clicked on a spot that interested her; who knew this would happen…? She wondered how the other characters would react. If she poked Mei now, would her reaction be the same as the one in the game?

Seemingly sensing Elysia's thoughts, Raiden Mei's gaze became even more dangerous.

Although she wasn't afraid of a little brawl, it was Elysia who was in the wrong, so she decided to change the subject.

"Actually, there's no need to think of it that way. There are countless worlds in the Imaginary Tree and the Sea of Quanta. When they collide and rub against each other, they leave their marks on each other's worlds. And these marks become reflections of the original world through their existence." Elysia smiled faintly, like a scientist with a pure heart.

"…That sounds like something MEI would say." After a moment of silence, Raiden Mei sighed helplessly.

"She did say that." Elysia smiled proudly, without a shred of shame for plagiarizing someone else's intellectual property.

After locking all the hotheads in their respective little dark rooms, the only one left to communicate with her and perceive the outside world was MEI. "Simply put, even if our story is a game like little Lihua said, maybe it's just information from our world reflected in this world in the form of a game."

"Alright, let little Lihua continue explaining the rest, since she seems to have arrived earlier than us~"

Seeing the situation stabilize, Elysia smiled and sat back without interrupting.

But in her heart, the communication didn't stop.

'What do you think, MEI? She really looks like her… doesn't she?'

'Indeed. However, it seems that her intelligence level differs significantly from Lee's... If she is the Lihua that Hua mentioned, then perhaps Kevin's genes cause significant deterioration in the intelligence of his offspring.'

'And what about what she said?'

'For now, it seems she hasn't lied, but the specific situation of this world still requires further investigation.'

'So… could she be Lee?'

'…I don't know.'