12: Chapter 12 Unexpected Comfort (or Shock)

Mia brushed the soft hair behind her ear, resting her porcelain-white palm against her glowing, beautiful chin.

She recalled the past 30 days (due to accidentally experiencing a real-world instance, the instance recovery period had accumulated to 30 days; it's a good system that allows for split leave, hmm). The experiences after being teleported from the Paradise Lost plaza back to the real world were, to Mia, a completely tangled ball of yarn that she couldn't sort out.

She had experienced her first time using the restroom, her first shower, her first period, her first kiss from Tuaner, her first time dancing on a live streaming platform, and so on...

She felt that her mental defenses had been completely shattered by these events.

Because of the events at the Rose Manor, she had ultimately emerged temporarily victorious in the struggle for identity with the Original Owner, ensuring her survival, but she had also been targeted by the Crimson Queen.

Since the established reality was that she was now completely a girl, and it appeared irreversible for the time being, Mia began to resign herself to her body and identity.

The saving grace in all this misfortune was that the Tuaner who had asked her to go to the Rose Manor that day was not the real one, but an illusion created by her boyfriend, Li Qianzhou, using a flower demon from the Rose Manor. She had been a bit suspicious at the time but had no way to verify it. The real Tuaner had been knocked unconscious in her home before going out, and before she was rescued by Mia, her body had been wrapped in those rose vines carrying a scent of decay and flower buds.

This finally allowed Mia to get over that psychological hurdle: stealing someone's body and killing their best friend—the whole family together, neat and tidy. She was spared from having to endure further soul-searching.

Listening to Tuaner's vague words, it seemed that the problem with the manor was because Li Qianzhou had obtained a special rose seed from a friend in archaeology.

Li Qianzhou said it was priceless and contained the secret to eternal life.

For the past half month, in order to get back on her feet (and act out), Tuaner, as a top streamer on the platform, had fully let Mia experience what is known as one of the four great Asian arts—makeup.

She was treated like a doll by Tuaner, painted over and over again—maid makeup today, saintess makeup tomorrow, succubus makeup the day after—and was even praised for having a "natural succubus constitution"?

It made Mia so angry that she wanted to reveal her true form, let Tuaner see the horns on her head and the tail behind her, scare her, and then ask her if she was beautiful.

She had spent a whole week sleeping in, starting her day only at afternoon tea time, playing wildly until the early hours of the morning, and then sleeping together under the same quilt.

During this time, she had been taken advantage of quite a bit by this lecherous Tuaner, until last week, when Mia finally politely declined her requests to stay.

After returning to her own little nest, she signed up for a sanda class endorsed by a violent government agency and seriously improved her leg techniques.

Afterward, she spent a few days signing up for a very formal Capoeira training class, raising her Basic Leg Technique to Lv10. Based on her base attributes, which were several times higher than the peak of an ordinary person, Mia successfully unlocked the first combat skill she had learned in the real world:

[Capoeira Lv1]

[Skill Description: Capoeira, also known as Capoeira, is a unique dance developed by African immigrants in Brazil in the 16th century, situated between art and martial arts. Although it is similar to general dance in that it involves dancing to musical rhythms, usually in pairs, the dance movements incorporate a large number of martial arts moves such as side flips, roundhouse kicks, and handstands, and it is considered to have very strong combat applications.]

[The damage and judgment of this skill are influenced by the Adventurer's Strength, Agility, Basic Leg Technique, and Basic Waist Strength. The judgment is based on a comparison of both parties' Basic Waist Strength, and the damage calculation method is (Strength + Agility) * Basic Leg Technique Level / (Strength + Agility + Stamina) of the target receiving the attack.]

A practical combat skill that felt very shameful to execute while wearing the [profane pure white nuns outfit]. Yet, it was a lifesaver for Mia, who currently lacked offensive means.

In her spare time, she returned to her normal state these days: zoning out...

Although these days had indeed been very comfortable, the experiences made Mia feel that something was strange, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

It wasn't because Tuaner always used Mia's cross necklace to open beer;

It wasn't because she had tested her last time—

Tuaner: "You said last time that you were most afraid of spiders..."

Mia: "That was made up for you."

Tuaner: "But I didn't say which kind of spider.";

Nor was it because Tuaner suddenly turned off the beauty filter: "Family, watch closely!" and yanked open the collar of Mia's nuns outfit—the loose thread of the nuns outfit she had been mending herself danced in front of the screen, causing the live stream chat to explode, and the live stream room was banned. (The ban might not have been because of the loose thread)

Also, last time Mia habitually used a lighter to light a cigarette, and Tuaner snatched it away and asked: "When did you learn to smoke?"

Both of them froze at the same time—this was Luo Yu's memory inertia.

After a moment of silence, Tuaner suddenly lit the cigarette and stuffed it back into Mia's lips: "...Teach me?"

Furthermore, the shape of the tear mole on Mia's face seemed to have changed slightly; she remembered that time...

Tuaner's finger poked Mia's collarbone: "This mole of yours is definitely a system BUG! Who has a tear mole shaped like a heart?"

Mia helplessly held up a makeup mirror and was shocked to find that the tear mole in the mirror was glowing with a faint red light—that was the projection of the [Crimson Queen's curse] in the real world, and also the mark of her dependent.

There was also, just when she had returned to the real world from Paradise Lost:

After her nail broke, Tuaner used nail polish to paint over the armored crack-like wound: "She comforted me, saying that cyberpunk crack makeup is popular this year."

The moment the nail polish touched the wound, blood vessel-like gold threads spread out—the [profane pure white nuns outfit] was self-repairing. This was also discovered by her.

In addition, Tuaner (fiddling with the black rose hairpin): "This material... it seems to really be breathing?"

Mia (changing the subject): "It's a glow-in-the-dark one bought from a street stall." This was also discovered by her.

I'm tired, just destroy everything!

Mia felt that her secrets had been completely stripped bare by Tuaner in just a few short days; the secret that she was not the Original Owner had been discovered, the fact that she was a Paradise Lost player with strange abilities had been discovered, and the fact that she outwardly resisted but inwardly enjoyed fooling around with her had also been discovered.

Tuaner was still on the side, acting sneaky, poking her whenever she had nothing to do, hinting to Mia that she knew everything, and that she should hurry up and silence her! Hurry up!

Strangely, the Paradise Lost System did not erase her, and the Life Support System also became silent.

In just 15 days, the two of them basically hadn't gone in or out of hair design salons much, nor had they done any hair design or dyeing.

But the color of Tuaner's hair seemed to have undergone some strange changes.

It had changed from the original straight black hair to a feeling of black with a hint of brownish-red.

Tuaner was beautiful, a beauty that could topple nations, but recently, after sticking together with Mia, she seemed to have become even more beautiful. This woman was long past the age where girls undergo drastic changes as they grow up.

When she left Tuaner's house amidst Tuaner's reluctant tantrums, Mia noticed that a tear mole had also grown at the corner of Tuaner's eye, slightly lighter in color but identical to her own—heart-shaped.

Mia had a strange feeling that things might be developing in an unpredictable direction.

It seemed that Tuaner had already been contaminated by her and had become her dependent...

[System Notification: Detected that the host already has a dependent. Do you want to bring them into the instance world during the next instance?]

[No!] Mia made a firm choice. In her peripheral vision, Tuaner's gaze dimmed.