“Elia?”
Lu Mo instinctively wanted to call out that name.
However, after seeing the tall young woman’s appearance more clearly, she bit her tongue.
Although the girl before her was tall and had a slight resemblance to Elia around the eyes, she was not Elia.
Her Elia only existed within the first Simulated Reincarnation.
According to the historical records of the real world, the female Emperor known as Elia had vanished from the world after passing her throne to her successor.
Historians speculated that the Empress might have chosen seclusion to break through to the next realm. They believed she ultimately failed, her secret chamber becoming her tomb, causing her to fade into the long river of history.
Otherwise, it would be impossible for such a dazzling young Empress to remain unheard of for so long.
However, the truth of that year was that as soon as Elia found a new successor with pure blood, she immediately dumped the throne onto the girl.
She herself had spent centuries scouring the world for any trace of Lu Mo.
Anyone who stood in her way became her enemy.
Over hundreds of years, she had clashed with many powerful figures, including quite a few old monsters. Even those monsters who had lived for thousands of years were unable to suppress her.
Today, while the common people had almost forgotten her, those top-tier powerhouses and ancient beings dared not forget.
Thus, Elia had disguised her appearance this time, entering Cangyu Academy under a different name and identity. Otherwise, even the Domain Lord might be startled into rushing to the academy.
Doing so would have completely contradicted her original intention for coming here.
This time, she only wanted to accompany Lu Mo quietly and grow alongside her — just as Lu Mo had once taken her hand and led her out of the darkness of her life.
As Elia spoke, Lu Mo naturally turned her head to look at her.
‘Sister Lu Mo is looking here!’
Seeing Lu Mo’s slightly confused gaze, Elia was both startled and overjoyed.
“Classmate, there are actually two problems with your sword technique just now.”
Elia suppressed the nervousness and excitement in her heart as she spoke again. She still remembered the contents of a certain novel Lu Mo had written that she once peeked at —
The young Empress failed her breakthrough, her soul scattering, only for her to wake up and find herself back when she was 16. At that time, the girl was just an ordinary high school student. Later, the girl passed by a park and saw one of the heroines practicing some ancient martial art. The girl casually pointed out the flaws in the heroine’s technique, and the heroine’s bodyguard immediately mocked her.
In the next second, the heroine would reveal an expression of utter astonishment and beg the girl for guidance. The bodyguard’s face would be metaphorically slapped until it was swollen, and he would kneel before the girl, shouting that he was blind for not recognizing her greatness and begging for forgiveness.
The girl would say nothing, only offering a crooked smile.
Elia had thought it was quite interesting at the time and wondered why Sister Lu Mo had stopped writing it. But now that she had actually become a young Empress herself, looking back at those words…
Well, she was getting distracted.
She mimicked the protagonist of the novel by saying those words simply to get Lu Mo’s attention. If she could get Lu Mo to invite her directly into her home…
Lu Mo was visibly stunned by the tall girl’s words.
‘Those words sound so familiar.’
For a moment, she wondered if she had accidentally wandered into the world of some old-school power fantasy novel. The girl standing outside the fence was the protagonist, and she was likely one of the members of the harem. Or perhaps she was the type of character who disappears from the plot after being schooled by the protagonist, the first one to be forgotten by the readers.
To Lu Mo, what the tall girl said was no different from a stranger standing in front of two kids and saying, “Welcome to my house to play; if you get tired, you can just sleep over.”
It sounded weird, so it was better to keep her distance.
“Eh?” Elia blinked.
“Yes, I know,” Lu Mo nodded, smiling at Elia. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Okay, I’ll come over to help — wait, no.”
‘Something’s wrong. Under normal circumstances, shouldn’t Sister Lu Mo want to know where she went wrong and invite me inside? This isn’t like what was written in the novel at all.’
“Um, the spectator sees more clearly than the player. Perhaps I could…” Elia grew a bit anxious and spoke up again.
However, before she could finish, Lu Mo provided the answer herself: “Two problems. One is the center of gravity when the sword descends, and the other is a pause that appears during the swing.”
“?!” Elia was stunned again.
Lu Mo smiled at the dazed Elia and turned back around, no longer paying her any mind.
‘What’s going on! Why is this completely different from the novel? I finally built up the courage to talk to Sister Lu Mo, and it ends like this? It was bad enough not meeting her yesterday, but today I’m being shut out. Elia, you’re useless… You’re so useless!’
Elia was almost on the verge of crying from frustration.
“Um… excuse me…” Elia spoke again.
‘That thing is no longer for sale.’
Lu Mo originally wanted to find a suitable reason to make Elia leave, but when she turned back to see her, she froze. She saw Elia’s lips trembling slightly, and her eyes were actually shimmering as they gradually clouded with a layer of mist.
The girl, who possessed the cold temperament of an Empress, looked incredibly aggrieved at that moment.
“I… I can help you…” she said to Lu Mo once more.
She sounded humble and somewhat heartbroken, as if she would burst into tears on the spot if she were rejected again. For some reason, Lu Mo suddenly couldn’t bear it.
“…I understand.” She sighed softly and smiled at the trembling Elia. “Then I’ll have to ask for my classmate’s guidance.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
In the next second, Elia immediately turned her tears into a smile. She pushed open the courtyard gate and jogged toward Lu Mo, her footsteps becoming involuntarily light. She smiled at Lu Mo under the morning sun.
In that moment, the girl looked exactly like the figure of the girl from the first Simulated Reincarnation!
Lu Mo stared blankly at Elia standing before her, but before long, she returned to normal. She raised the wooden sword in her hand again, preparing to practice.
“Then, I’ll begin.”
“Mm.”
“Please just stand to the — eh?”
Lu Mo had originally thought that the “help” the girl mentioned involved standing to the side to watch her practice. When there was an issue with her swordplay, she would point it out and correct it.
But Elia did not stay obediently to the side. Instead, she walked up to her, stood behind her, and got… very close.
The tall girl slowly lowered her head. At that moment, Lu Mo could even feel the other girl’s slightly hot breath against her. Immediately afterward, Elia’s hand lightly pressed against the back of her hand, overlapping her fingers.
At this moment, they held the wooden sword together.
“Your hands are so small, so white and delicate.”
“?”
‘This dialogue… seems a bit wrong.’
For some reason, Lu Mo felt like she had let a very dangerous existence inside.
***
Meanwhile.
“Lady Lu Mo should be living around here, right?”
Cecilia walked through the residential area, looking left and right. For some reason, she felt like all the buildings in this area looked the same and were a bit hard to distinguish.
“But it doesn’t matter. I get to see Lady Lu Mo again today. I wonder if Lady Lu Mo will accidentally hurt herself today? It’s okay, though. With Cecilia here, I’ll definitely protect Lady Lu Mo~”
At the thought of seeing her beloved Lady Lu Mo again soon, Cecilia couldn’t help but let out a soft hum.