Chapter 15: Rain Stops, Samsara Ends, Part 6
Keling clearly wasn’t satisfied with that answer, protesting stubbornly.
“Mmph! No! Something must have happened! Brother, don’t try to trick me!”
“I’m not tricking you, you thought the same thing just now, didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s because I thought if I made that kind of noise on purpose, maybe Brother would be interested…”
I’m not a young, hot-blooded man anymore. How could I get excited just by hearing a sound?
I shook my head helplessly and said as I stepped out of the hot spring.
“We’ve soaked enough, haven’t we? It’s almost time for dinner. Can we eat now, madam?”
“Yes, I had everything prepared before you arrived, so you can have dinner anytime.”
“Alright, I’ll leave it to you then.”
“Okay, I’ll go prepare it right away.”
Seeing that both the madam and I had left the hot spring, the three lolis also followed.
After changing back into our yukatas, we met Keling and Lan at the hot spring entrance, their hair still wet.
They had indeed hurried out after hearing our conversation.
“Then, please guests proceed to the main hall and be seated. The food will be prepared and served shortly.”
“Okay, we’ll head over then.”
“I’m sitting next to Brother this time!”
“Hehehe, let me serve you, Juncheng, mouth-to-mouth service.”
“You two, behave yourselves… Where is everyone else? Since we’re eating, shouldn’t we wait until everyone is here?”
“Don’t mind them, really…”
“Let’s call them, Lan. I’ll ask you to do it, just say that dinner is ready.”
We arrived at the main hall the madam mentioned. A long table was already set with tableware, and Li Nai and Lily were already seated.
“Ah, Juncheng, Juncheng~ You’re finally here! Can we eat now!”
As expected of a foodie, the food is what you’re most looking forward to.
I walked over, intending to find a random seat, but before I could sit down, Lily pulled me to another side.
“Master, you should sit in the host’s seat.”
“Uh? That’s not necessary, is it?”
“No, it’s necessary.”
“Uh, alright.”
Seeing Lily’s serious and stern expression, I could only nod in agreement and sat in the seat at the very edge of the long table.
Then, when Lan and Keling tried to stick close to me, they were pulled away by Lily and Sheng.
“Wait! What are you doing! I want to sit next to Brother!”
“You can’t, that’s the Master’s seat.”
“What! Who made that rule!”
“I did.”
The voice was full of authority and pierced through the air. It was Lianbing, dressed in a magnificent ancient noblewoman’s attire.
Seeing Lianbing dressed like that, Lan’s face showed a comically playful expression. She tilted her head and said.
“Hoh, dressed quite impressively. Little Bingbing, are you getting married? Who’s the groom? Is he still alive?”
She deliberately spoke in such a provocative way, clearly looking for a fight with Lianbing.
However, Lianbing didn’t retort as usual today. Instead, she glanced at Lan and said calmly.
“You should change too. Shirley and the others are in the next room and will help you change.”
Lan didn’t act immediately but stared at Lianbing for a moment, exchanging a look that only they understood.
Finally, Lan compromised, breaking eye contact first. She scratched her head and put away her flippant attitude, saying.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll go change first and contact the others.”
I don’t know what kind of consensus they reached, but Lan, who usually seemed so unrestrained, was actually quite stubborn.
“Everyone has to change, including Juncheng.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Regardless of the reason, seeing Lianbing so serious, it was best to just follow her instructions.
After a while, everyone had arrived and changed into more formal attire.
It felt… sort of like an emperor with his concubines, but the solemnity also felt like a monarch celebrating a victory with his subjects.
I sat at the very front.
To my left sat Lan, Keling, Sheng, Li Nai, Xuan’er, and Lou Yi.
To my right sat Lianbing, Xinran, Lily, Xue Qing, Xiao An, and Jiuyuan.
I felt a bit unaccustomed to the atmosphere and asked with some puzzlement.
“What’s going on? Why is it so solemn and serious…”
“There’s just one thing I want to clarify on this occasion.”
“What is it? Are we ranking the harem members?”
Keling said with a dissatisfied expression.
She had wanted to sit next to me earlier, so she was unhappy about being relegated to a secondary seat.
“We’re not ranking anyone. These seats were assigned randomly by drawing lots, drawn by that idiot staff member over there. We didn’t manipulate anything.”
Lianbing explained.
“Who’s first or last doesn’t matter, and it’s not important.”
Xinran added.
“Besides, even if we did rank ourselves, Master wouldn’t care about such things, so there’s no need to rank them.”
Lily concluded.
“So, this isn’t a gathering for pointless arguments… Shirley, serve the wine.”
The dishes hadn’t arrived yet, but the first thing served were wine cups, or rather, small white porcelain bowls. Then, Miss Shirley and other maids, all dressed in Japanese-style maid outfits, entered with wine bottles to pour for us.
After everyone’s cups were filled, Lianbing tilted her head and asked with a smile.
“Juncheng, is there anything you want to say to us?”
Huh? Is there something I need to say?
An opening remark?
A pleasantry like “I hope you all have a good trip” should be enough, right?
Ah, but I’m really not good at this kind of thing. Can we just skip this part?
But under the expectant gazes of the girls, I couldn’t find an excuse to back out. I could only scratch my head, raise my wine cup, and start.
“Ah, well, I hope everyone can be happy this time and have a…”
“That’s not what we want to hear.”
“Juncheng, have you become something beyond our reach?”
This question completely stumped me.
How did they figure it out?
No, they must have figured it out…
I haven’t told them yet that I’ve become the world.
It’s not that I’m deliberately hiding it; I just don’t know how to bring it up.
…Perhaps I’m scared.
I’m afraid that, like with Xuan’er, if I tell them, they’ll all leave me one by one.
“Yi, did you tell them?”
“It wasn’t her, we noticed it ourselves. Before you went to the cemetery, Juncheng, you became very strange. You seemed to view life and death more lightly, and the distance between you and us grew further apart.”
Tsk, I thought I was keeping things as normal as possible, but they still saw through me…
Happy times always pass like the blink of an eye.
Whether it’s the dead of winter or the scorching heat of summer.
The distance between them and me will only grow.
The sparsely scattered snowflakes are merely beautiful.
So beautiful that they shatter and disappear the moment they touch the skin.
We only notice the preciousness of time after it becomes the past.
We only notice the warmth of skin after we are no longer human.
No matter what it is, we tend to notice it only after it’s gone, rather than when it’s still beside us.
I’m always losing things… I used to, I do now, and I always will…
Recalling the long-ago past.
That’s why I didn’t want to tell them, didn’t want them to suffer the same pain as me.
…
Fine.
They, as involved parties, have the right to know.
I looked up, put on a smile, and said in a deliberately calm tone.
“I am no longer human.”
