"Zihan, are you lonely?"
The girl, who saw a faint reflection of herself in the young man beside her, lifted her head and spoke softly.
"Lonely?"
The young man, who hadn't expected Raiden Mei to broach such a topic with him, looked momentarily stunned.
Weren't they just discussing the Herrscher of Erosion? How had the conversation shifted to such a philosophically dense subject as loneliness?
Li Zihan looked at Mei, and Mei looked back at Li Zihan, their gazes meeting.
In those amethyst-like eyes, the emotion that surfaced was... pity?
Li Zihan suddenly felt a little lost.
What did she mean, looking at him like that?
It seems he really is very lonely, Mei thought.
Has he reached a point where he's no longer even aware of his own loneliness?
If it's all stemming from an inner loneliness, then Zihan's constant stirring up of trouble and taking on so much work… that makes sense.
That's his way of warding off solitude.
Raiden Mei sighed inwardly.
With these thoughts, her image of Li Zihan began to change.
This fellow… perhaps he wasn't as inscrutable as she'd imagined.
After all, causing mischief as a way to pass the time because of loneliness… no matter how you looked at it, that sounded like something an unruly child would do.
Wait.
An unruly child.
Like a flash of inspiration, Miss Mei suddenly had a thought.
Her gaze swiftly swept over the young man's face, which lacked sharp angles, then moved down to his neck.
His chin was smooth, his features soft—not those of a grown man. Though he possessed an Adam's apple, it wasn't very prominent, clearly indicating he hadn't fully matured.
People often instinctively associated those who possessed vast amounts of information with greater age; after all, amassing significant knowledge typically required time.
Although modern technology had somewhat altered this perception, a great deal of information still necessitated continuous, time-consuming accumulation.
Influenced by this conventional way of thinking, Miss Mei hadn't really questioned Li Zihan's age before.
However, having noticed these details, and reconsidering the age issue, Li Zihan's self-proclaimed age now felt a little off.
After all, this person was suspected of having the ability to read information directly from his surroundings; knowledge that was difficult for ordinary people to obtain, he could acquire with ease.
Therefore, his actual age was definitely much lower than the impression he gave.
"Zihan, be honest. How old are you really?"
Miss Mei, who had previously heard Li Zihan claim to be thirty-three and nineteen, suddenly found her gaze sharpening.
She suspected both numbers were false.
"Thirty-three."
Li Zihan stated the sum of his ages across two lives without batting an eye.
He had been nineteen when he died in his previous life, and was fourteen in this one, a total that coincidentally matched the age at which a certain notorious character made his debut.
As for notions like an overly young physique affecting one's psyche, or reliving childhood causing a regression in mental age… well, it was best to pretend such things didn't exist.
"Please, tell me the truth."
Miss Mei continued to scrutinize the young man's appearance, becoming increasingly certain of her deduction.
Unless he, like Kiana's maternal aunt, suffered from a condition that stunted his growth, this fellow couldn't be older than sixteen.
Miss Mei, herself sixteen and a half and soon to be seventeen, found her expression changing slightly as she looked at him.
"Even if you ask, I can't really give you a definitive answer," the young man, whose age was indeed complicated to calculate, sighed, then asked, "Have you ever heard of rebirth?"
Miss Mei, not particularly familiar with the concept often found in web novels, paused for a moment, then voiced the Taoist understanding of rebirth.
"To emerge from a desperate situation, reborn through great suffering and sublimation, starting anew with a more perfect form?"
"Not the Taoist kind of rebirth."
The young man, who had been unceremoniously transported to the Moon World by a natural gas explosion at the age of nineteen, pursed his lips.
"Just understand it as me having lived two lives."
???
Miss Mei looked slightly bewildered.
Lived two lives? What on earth did that mean?
"Perhaps when I was being reincarnated, Meng Po, trying to cut costs, added a bit too much water to my soup. I have memories of my past life."
"And then, in this life, I've lived for another fourteen years."
Li Zihan, who was never quite sure how to calculate his own age, sighed.
"In short, my age can basically be considered a Schrödinger's cat, constantly oscillating between 14, 19, and 33."
This situation was certainly unique.
Miss Mei couldn't help but acknowledge inwardly that Li Zihan's circumstances were indeed very strange.
However, it was precisely this peculiarity that likely made him feel out of step with his "peers," thus leading to his loneliness.
The girl, who had been pulled from the abyss of loneliness by Kiana just a few months prior, looked at the young man. He, lacking such intervention, seemed to be treading a different path, and a pang of sadness touched her heart.
The loneliness he bore… it was far greater than what she had experienced.
So much so that he had adapted to it.
How much time did it take to become accustomed to loneliness?
She didn't know the answer, because just as she was on the verge of succumbing to it, someone had pulled her out.
Kiana, if you encountered this situation, what would you do?
The girl, who had been helped out of her own dark place by the one named Kiana, pressed a hand to her heart, asking herself.
"Of course, I'd lend a hand!"
In a fleeting daze, a familiar, vibrant voice seemed to echo in her ear, an auditory hallucination.
That's indeed an answer in your style.
A smile touched the lips of the girl who had found her answer.
"By the way, Zihan, can you tell me… your story?"
With almost no hesitation, the girl who had once received a helping hand now moved closer to the young man, her words a complete departure from their previous conversation.
"My story?"
The young man, feeling that Miss Mei was acting very strangely today, frowned slightly.
The Raiden Mei in his impression was a blend of Yamato Nadeshiko and Rice Cooker; she wasn't one to pry with endless questions.
Yet today, she had first asked if he was lonely, then abruptly questioned his age, and now, out of nowhere, was asking for his story…
Honestly, Li Zihan half-suspected the Rice Cooker beside him had been swapped out, replaced by a Paramecium.
"Why are you asking these things?"
The young man, who didn't particularly mind sharing his story, looked at Miss Mei's delicate side profile. He couldn't discern anything unusual, so he simply asked.
"I just… want to understand you a little better, that's all."
The girl who had once been saved by Kiana smiled faintly, then met the young man's eyes with her own moist, purple gaze.
"Are you unwilling?"
"It's not that."
The young man, who truly didn't mind recounting his tale, thought back to his life in the Spirit Tomb and sighed inwardly.
Hopefully, my story won't scare anyone too much.