You have to know, even Siegfried, when he was courting her, had fallen into a brief period of self-doubt under Otto's questioning.
He had pondered whether his feelings and love were from the heart, or from desire.
Only after repeated cycles of distance and intimacy did he understand how to follow his own path, to understand what he truly wanted.
Cecilia: "I have one last question for you. A long time ago, someone else asked me the same question."
"If your ending was destined to be a tragedy from the very beginning, like a story, when you know the end of the story is a tragedy, would you still choose to read it?"
Li Mo paused, then replied, "Does one only read the last page of a book?"
"Wouldn't that be a great disservice to the author's tremendous effort in the middle?"
"A good ending elevates the work, but that doesn't mean the process is worthless."
"For me and the person I love,"
"Our story just has to be deep enough, it doesn't have to be the most perfect."
"But... if the ending of the story isn't good enough, I think I would still tear it up, and then use my own pen to personally rewrite a satisfactory ending."
Cecilia: "A very willful answer."
"We will meet again in the future. Goodbye."
With that, Cecilia hurried away, and the pressure on Li Mo dissipated.
Li Mo let out a long breath. "Does this mean I've passed the future mother-in-law's test?"
"I've been so cooperative. From her reaction, there shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's just that I don't know how to explain Kiana to her..."
"Not just Kiana, but Theresa too. The entire St. Freya Academy is gone..."
Li Mo didn't know how Otto had explained it to Cecilia. In any case, he had done all he could.
This world had been destroyed once. If not for the Bizarre Kiana being suppressed by the black coffin, and him using a special method to briefly draw on the power within the Bizarre Kiana, he really might not have been able to deal with the spreading Bizarre.
"Li Mo, Li Mo, over here, over here!"
Kira Shigure stuck her head out the car window, waving at Li Mo.
Li Mo stood up, walked out of the park, and quickly got into the car.
Everything, will come to an end.
Li Mo really wanted to see what exactly was coming to an end.
In the car, Kira Shigure asked curiously, "Li Mo, you're sweating a lot. Are you hot?"
Li Mo shook his head. "I'm fine, don't worry about it."
"Oh," Kira Shigure replied obediently.
Soon, they arrived at the entrance of St. Freya Academy.
Unlike the last time Li Mo came, many surveillance cameras had been installed on the walls of St. Freya Academy, and there was a well-equipped soldier every few meters.
It had almost completely cut off all channels of entry.
Kira Shigure walked up and chatted with them for a few words. The soldiers opened the gate and let them in.
"What did you say to them?"
"I just explained my identity. Since this mission was nominally solved by me, I can come back to check on the situation anytime I want."
No problem. He had left right after dealing with the Bizarre.
The credit didn't matter.
Entering St. Freya Academy, Li Mo skillfully walked into an office. It was covered in cobwebs, the bookshelves piled with grime and dust.
A small wooden bed was placed facing the door. This had been where Li Mo slept.
The Valkyrie dorms were full, so Theresa had arranged for Kiana, Mei, Bronya, and her and Himeko-sensei to live in the teacher's dorms. This office was cleared out for Li Mo.
For this, Kiana had even had a fight with Theresa.
In the end, it was under his persuasion that the dispute was stopped, but after that, Kiana didn't stay in the teacher's dorms much. Instead, she often ran over here and wouldn't go back all night.
A small bed, very crowded for two people. Kiana would always crawl onto him in her sleep.
Her soft body, slender arms and legs, made Li Mo's heart ache. Besides the necessary study and training, he worked several jobs to buy Kiana food to supplement her body.
According to Kiana, Theresa often docked her allowance, and she would go to bed with her stomach rumbling with hunger at night.
Even so, Kiana never used the account he gave her. Unless he bought the food and put it in front of her, she would reluctantly eat it.
Because since it was bought, it couldn't be wasted.
He was poor at the time, yes, but he really didn't have any extra expenses. Kiana's worries and savings were unnecessary.
That silly girl...
Kira Shigure: "..."
"Li Mo?"
Kira Shigure couldn't help but ask.
After a long pause, Li Mo finally came back to his senses. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I saw you were dazed for a long time. Can I ask what you were thinking? And why are you so familiar with the layout of St. Freya Academy? I remember you should have only been to the school."
Kira Shigure voiced her doubts.
Li Mo had indeed been dazed for too long, standing in front of this bed for a full ten minutes.
In those ten minutes, not only had he not blinked once, but his face had also shown a gentle expression Kira Shigure had never seen before.
His eyes seemed to be on the verge of tears, rippling with a faint, glimmering light, doting beyond words.
He must be thinking of someone very important from another world.
In the words of China, this was called "seeing something and thinking of someone," even though in the end, it was always a case of "the thing is still there, but the person is not."
For a moment, Kira Shigure felt her heart stop beating, her limbs becoming cold and stiff, and an impulse to reach out and touch Li Mo arose in her heart.
Li Mo's smile faded. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath, naturally folding the messy, even dirty, quilt.
The fact that Kira Shigure could ask this question proved she didn't know about his past with the Bizarre Kiana.
The Bizarre Kiana had once descended upon her body. Logically, Kira Shigure should be able to glimpse some of her memories.
Is it because she's unwilling to share?
Does the Bizarre Kiana's instinctual rule include this? Forcibly suppressing the mutual peeking of human and ghost memories? Li Mo had never encountered this before.
The reason was unknown.
"The world I'm in also has a St. Freya Academy, and the geographical location is almost the same. I'm just nostalgic for the St. Freya Academy of another world, don't think too much about it."
Li Mo didn't tell Kira Shigure the truth. Being a ghost's substitute, it was best for this fact to rot in his stomach for a lifetime.
"Let's go. To the second place." Li Mo no longer hesitated, walking out of his former room.
Compared to reminiscing, there were more important things to do now.
"Huh? We went to all the trouble of coming to St. Freya Academy just to come to this one place?" Kira Shigure's face was full of question marks.
If it were anyone else, Kira Shigure would think they were making a fuss over nothing, with nothing better to do.
But this person was Li Mo. He must have a reason for doing things, which made Kira Shigure have to think more.
But no matter how she thought, she couldn't figure it out.
Oh well, I give up. Thinking isn't her strong suit.
"Actually, I wanted to go to another place, the infirmary at the school, but that place is too dangerous. Even if the ghosts have been locked, it doesn't rule out some residual rules. It wouldn't be worth it to trigger a rule out of nostalgia."
"Besides, I don't have the means to deal with it now."
"Let's go to the next place. But before that, I need to take you to a special place, also my passage to travel between worlds."
Although he really wanted to go to the infirmary, reason still made Li Mo make a clear choice.
The top priority was to tell Kira Shigure the important intelligence.
"Oh." Kira Shigure nodded and continued to follow behind Li Mo.
Late autumn, the sky was gloomy, gusts of cold wind like knives ravaged the decaying forest leaves. A carpet of fallen leaves covered the entire forest. The corpses of branches and leaves were crushed under Li Mo and Kira Shigure's feet, turning into a pile of withered dead ash.
Before long, Li Mo brought Kira Shigure to the entrance of a cave.
"Give me your phone," Li Mo said.
Kira Shigure unlocked her phone and handed it to Li Mo without hesitation.
Li Mo turned on the phone's flashlight function and aimed it at the deep, dark cave. Even though the daylight shone through the gaps in the branches, it could only barely illuminate the entrance of the cave.
"Huh? What's going on, Li Mo? The light is being swallowed."
Kira Shigure pointed at the flashlight beam that seemed to have been eaten, her expression puzzled.
This completely defied the laws of physics.
"Through this cave, you can go to any place you want to reach," Li Mo said seriously.
"Anywhere? That's amazing. Is the price very heavy?" Kira Shigure asked subconsciously.
Li Mo: "That depends on when you enter. The best time is seven in the morning. For every hour earlier, you have to pay a greater price. A six-hour difference, the price is no different from a life. If you enter at seven sharp, the price is small, maybe just a few strands of hair, a few drops of blood. Anyway, the cave will take a part of your body."
Kira Shigure: "Isn't that very useful? A few drops of blood and a few strands of hair isn't a heavy price, right? But, how do you make sure you go to the place you want to reach?"
Li Mo: "Anything with coordinate properties can work, including memory. For example, if you just keep recalling your complete memory of me while passing through the cave, you can go to where I am."
"When you go back, just keep recalling the bits and pieces of your own world to go back."
Kira Shigure: "It sounds very useful. Since the price is not big if you time it right, is the process difficult? Hurry up and serve the answer!"
Li Mo: "You've gotten a lot smarter, you even know what I'm going to say."
Kira Shigure: "Heehee, even if I haven't eaten pork, I've seen a pig run, right?"
Li Mo: "I take back the first half of my previous sentence."
Kira Shigure: "Complimenting me occasionally won't kill you..."
Li Mo: "Back to the point. As you can see, the cave will swallow any light midway, even the light of Bizarre items can't light it up. There is no reference point during the passage."
"The entrance looks ordinary, but the ground you step on midway will turn into a pile of skeletons. Occasionally, a few hands will try to trip you. Remember, walk slowly, don't get tripped."
"The walls and ceiling are all ghosts. They are all trapped in the cave. As long as you don't get close, they can't do anything to you."
"But conversely, if you lose your way in the dark and accidentally touch the ghosts on the wall..."
Kira Shigure: "Certain death, not a single chance of survival."
Li Mo: "Yes, and falling is the same ending, so you absolutely can't go astray."
Kira Shigure: "It's a bit difficult... I haven't trained much, but I can go to Schicksal to borrow auxiliary equipment. Electronic devices can be used inside, right?"
Li Mo: "Yes."
Kira Shigure: "That's great. When do I set off?"
"The haunted manor incident shouldn't be delayed any longer, right?"
Li Mo: "..."
"Keep waiting, you'll know."
Li Mo rarely gave a specific time. He was waiting, waiting for the choice in his mind.
After a long pause, no choice appeared in his mind, so Li Mo added, "After I'm gone, it's up to you."
"Alright, let's change vehicles first, to the next place."
Next stop: rented house.
The place where the rented house was located was relatively simple, not very well-developed, like an old residential area from decades ago.
The surrounding environment was also full of a sense of the times, as if stuck in the last century.
There was no park, at most a piece of empty land.
A few stone tables, a dozen stone chairs, very cold to sit on in winter.
But there were still many elderly people gathered around the stone tables, playing poker and mahjong.
Children, on the other hand, played in groups on the empty land, able to smile happily even without toys.
The two stopped downstairs. Li Mo's pupils contracted uncontrollably, then quickly calmed down.
After all, she was gone. Even if everything was the same as before, so what?
What was important was not the house, but the person.
"Ugh—!"
Kira Shigure suddenly bent over, holding her forehead, her expression a little pained.
"What's wrong?"
"My head hurts a little, but it's much better now."
Li Mo took the initiative to help her up. After holding her hand, the headache eased a lot and soon disappeared without a trace.
"Does it hurt a lot?"
"It's fine, it doesn't hurt. It's just a little tight, like... something is about to come out," Kira Shigure said frankly.
She would never lie in front of Li Mo.
"If it's nothing, let's go. Take a look and then go to the last place. You shouldn't come near this place anymore in the future."
Li Mo glanced thoughtfully, opened his mouth, and quickly pulled Kira Shigure upstairs.
He couldn't stay here with Kira Shigure for too long.
The Bizarre Kiana was suppressing Kira Shigure from peeking into her memories, but this was clearly a human rule.
Ghosts don't understand possession.
But people have selfish desires. No one wants their best friend, their favorite lover, to have someone else in their heart.
The residual humanity in the Bizarre Kiana was carefully maintaining the balance of the rules.
Once the balance was broken, whether the human consciousness was more dominant, or the ghost's consciousness was more aggressive, the answer was obvious.
All that would be left was the crazed, twisted Bizarre Kiana.
"Ugh... A-Mo... it hurts, my head hurts..."
Kira Shigure's consciousness began to blur.
Her whole body was pressed against Li Mo, almost unable to stand, her legs weak.
One hand was on the wall, the other gripping Li Mo's shoulder, sweat dripping from her forehead.
Beads of blood-red sweat?
Li Mo glanced at the closed door, his brows furrowed, very unwilling.
"I'll take you away."
Li Mo quickly picked up the limp Kira Shigure and ran downstairs.