Chapter 71: You Don’t Want Others to Know You’re the Goddess Angel Either, Right?

[Hell leaned against the back of his chair, a light melody flowing through his earphones. His fingers idly scrolled across the screen, swiping through short videos. A funny clip slid by, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly. He was in a pretty good mood.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting a warm golden glow over his pale face. Those eyes, usually heavy with fatigue, now held a rare hint of lazy contentment.

He was just watching a short video about a cat.

The little kitten on screen kept stretching its paw toward a dried fish on the table but couldn’t reach it, running around in circles in frustration—

Just then, a familiar set of footsteps came from the front door of the classroom.

Hell didn’t look up, only glanced from the corner of his eye.

A pink figure walked in from the doorway.

Luna was wearing her neat uniform, her pink high ponytail gently swaying behind her. Her face was adorned with the same smile as always as she greeted the classmates she passed.

“Morning!”

“Good morning, Luna!”

“Luna looks so pretty today too!”

The classmates responded warmly. Everything seemed just like usual.

But Hell noticed.

There was a trace of barely concealed fatigue in those light golden eyes.

The faint dark circles under them were mostly covered by a thin layer of makeup, but the marks were still visible.

Her smile was still bright, but it lacked the liveliness of before, carrying a sense of forced endurance.

After all, too much had happened these past few days.

Hell withdrew his gaze and continued scrolling through his phone, but the corner of his mouth lifted in an almost imperceptible arc.

Luna sat down at her seat, placed her bag on the desk, and mechanically began pulling out her textbooks.

She hadn’t slept well again last night.

As soon as she closed her eyes, the image of that white mask would surface in her mind—that slowly flowing red “V” symbol, those eyes that seemed to see through everything through the mask.

What was that guy doing now? What was he scheming? What kind of “mission” was he preparing for her?

Luna’s fingers tightened slightly, gripping the edge of her textbook.

She was his “slave” now.

Whatever he said, she had to do it.

He wanted her to destroy the factory, so she went. He wanted her to call him “Master,” so she did. He wanted her to…

Luna bit her lower lip.

He said he wouldn’t make her do anything that would harm the Goddess Angel Alliance.

But what if he deliberately avoided that area? What if the things he asked her to do seemed unrelated to the Goddess Angels but were actually paving the way for a larger conspiracy?

Then she… wouldn’t she have to agree to everything he said?

Luna’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper. Her heart felt like a tangled mess, impossible to sort out.

She even started thinking—if that guy showed his true colors, if his demands really crossed her bottom line, then she would just blow up with him.

She’d had enough of living anyway. She’d had enough of being controlled, manipulated, and treated like a pawn.

At least… at least she wouldn’t have to suffer this agony and torment anymore.

Luna took a deep breath, temporarily pushing aside those chaotic thoughts.

She lowered her head and began organizing the books on her desk, but her gaze unconsciously drifted to the left.

The seat by the window.

Hell was leaning back in his chair, earphones in, staring at his phone, a faint, almost imperceptible smile on his lips. The sunlight fell on his pale face, making him look less gloomy and more… harmless.

Luna stared at him for a few seconds.

What kind of person was this classmate of hers, really?

Rumors said he was a scumbag, that he played with girls’ feelings, that he did whatever he wanted because his family had money. But what she had seen with her own eyes was a lonely boy isolated by everyone, with no one to even talk to.

He would respond when she greeted him, even if it was just a faint “good morning.”

He would remind her when the teacher was coming during class, even if it was just a soft cough.

He would show that unfathomable expression when she worried about his safety.

Luna withdrew her gaze and lowered her head.

She remembered yesterday in the small grove, how this boy stood at the corner, saying to the air, “If I agree to be your sacrifice.” The despair, the helplessness, the determination to sacrifice himself to protect those around him.

She remembered his last words—”I just wanted to atone.”

Luna tapped her fingers lightly on the desk. Then she picked up her phone, unlocked it, and opened the class group. She found the avatar labeled “Hell”—a pitch-black void, no signature, no posts, nothing.

She hesitated for a second. Then she pressed “Add Friend.”

Hell was scrolling through his phone when a message suddenly popped up on the screen.

“Contact Request: Luna wants to add you as a friend.”

Hell’s finger stopped. He paused for a moment, then instinctively turned his head.

On the other side of the aisle, Luna was looking down, pretending to be reading her textbook, but her slightly reddened ears and stiff posture gave her away.

Hell looked at her, silent for a moment. He withdrew his gaze, looked down at the screen, and lightly tapped.

“Accepted.”

Luna sat in her seat, her phone screen still lit, showing the friend request approval notification.

She secretly glanced at Hell on the other side of the aisle and saw that he had accepted. She let out a small sigh of relief.

She thought for a moment, then raised her hand and pointed at her phone screen with a finger, then looked at Hell, signaling: Let’s talk on the phone.

Hell received the signal and nodded slightly, looking down at the screen.

On the screen, a familiar avatar appeared in his friend list—a little rabbit holding a magic wand, on a pink background, cute and a bit childish. He was all too familiar with this avatar.

It was the same account that had added him as the Adjudicator before.

Hell stared at the avatar for a moment. A wave of speechlessness washed over him.

This girl… how did she add him using her Surface World contact info back then?

Didn’t she know that using the same account to add his Adjudicator identity and his student identity would make his real identity obvious?

Or had she already known her true identity was exposed and just decided to not care anymore?

Hell sighed inwardly.

But then again, she didn’t know that “V” was him. In her eyes, “Hell” and “V” were two completely different people.

Using the same account to add two people was careless, sure, but it wouldn’t expose anything.

He pulled his thoughts back and looked at the status bar on the screen showing that she was typing.

Still, Hell was a bit puzzled—why would this class center, this universally loved beautiful girl, take the initiative to add him, the isolated “scumbag”?

Was it because of yesterday? Sure enough, a message popped up.

“Hey Hell, did that weird person… come looking for you after that?”

Hell raised an eyebrow slightly at this message.

He of course knew who she meant by “that weird person,” so he typed a reply.

“You mean?”

Soon, a reply came.

“The guy wearing the mask in the small grove yesterday afternoon who threatened you.”

Hell looked at the message, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a barely noticeable arc.

This silly girl… still worried about him. So he replied.

“No.”

Two words, short and flat.

The other side clearly breathed a sigh of relief, replying much faster.

“That’s good… That person is bad. If you ever run into that guy again, tell me right away. I’ll help you.”

Hell stared at the message for a moment.

Tell her? How would he tell her?

Was this girl going to protect him, an “ordinary threatened classmate,” as a Goddess Angel?

Hell let out a soft chuckle.

Miss, have you forgotten something?

At that moment, he suddenly had the urge to tease this Goddess Angel a little.

“Sure.”

Hell typed another line.

“But Luna—”

He paused deliberately before continuing.

“How did you know about what happened yesterday?”

The other side was silent.

“Only the Goddess Angel Artemis saw that masked guy yesterday.”

Hell continued typing, his tone still flat.

“Luna, how did you know?”

In the classroom, the sunlight was still bright. The classmates were still chatting and laughing.

And Luna’s phone slipped from her hand, landing on the floor with a smack.

The girl’s expression froze in that instant. Those light golden eyes flew wide open, and a clear panic flickered deep in her pupils.

How could she have forgotten this!

Yesterday, she had met Hell as the Goddess Angel Artemis!

Not “Luna Florelia,” but “Artemis”!

How could she so naturally use “Luna’s” identity to express concern about “Hell” being threatened?

Wasn’t that just confessing herself?

Wasn’t that practically telling Hell, “I am Artemis”?

Luna’s fingers trembled slightly. She bent down to pick up her phone. The screen was still lit, with Hell’s last message still sitting there.

She stared at those words, her brain racing, trying to find a reasonable explanation.

But…

She couldn’t think of one.

Her finger hovered over the screen, not knowing what to type.

The classroom was still filled with laughter.

Only she was restless, her heart beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.

Hell sat in his seat, keeping an eye on the pink figure on the other side of the aisle.

He saw Luna frantically pick up her phone, the panic on her delicate face hard to hide, and that look of “I’m so screwed” of utter despair in those light golden eyes—

The corner of his mouth couldn’t help but lift slightly.

This girl… she was really cute.

Clumsy.

Clearly a Goddess Angel, clearly so popular in class and so sociable, yet when it came to a moment that required lying, she was as clumsy as a cat stepping on its own tail.

Hell withdrew his gaze, looked down at his phone, and tapped lightly.

Soon, Luna’s phone vibrated. She looked down and saw Hell’s message on the screen.

“Could it be that Luna is the Goddess Angel Artemis?”

Luna’s fingers trembled sharply. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, then started typing frantically.

“N-No! I, I know Artemis! She… she saw that I was Hell’s classmate, so she asked me to check on you! Yes, that’s it!”

At this moment, the pink-haired girl’s heart was pounding like it was going to burst out of her chest, her fingers still shaking.

Soon, another message from Hell arrived.

“I see… But Artemis also has long pink hair, and her figure is very similar to Luna’s.”

“Sure enough, Luna is Artemis, right? You can’t fool me. I saw her in person yesterday.”

Luna stared at those two lines, completely panicked. She almost instinctively typed a reply.

“No no no!”

Three “no”s in a row, forgetting even the punctuation.

Not only did she type, but she also abruptly turned her head to look at Hell on the other side of the aisle, shaking her head anxiously, so vigorously that her pink ponytail swung in an arc through the air.

On her delicate face was written the urgency of “really not.”

Hell watched her like this and sighed helplessly.

‘Can you be any more obvious?’ he thought.

‘If you had just kept quiet, it might have been fine, but talking and shaking your head like that is practically saying “I am Artemis.”‘

So he looked down and typed one last line on his phone.

“Explanation is just cover-up.”

“Luna, you don’t want others to know you’re the Goddess Angel, do you?”

Luna looked down at the line on the screen, frozen as if encased in ice. Those light golden eyes stared fixedly at that line, and deep in her pupils, the light slowly died out.

Her face was ashen.

She was done for.

Completely done for.

How could she have forgotten that yesterday she met Hell as a Goddess Angel?

How could she be so stupid as to use “Luna’s” identity to show concern for him?

How could she…

Luna’s fingers trembled slightly, and her phone nearly slipped from her hand again. She took a deep breath, wanting to explain something, to say something to salvage the situation—

But just then, her phone vibrated again. She looked down.

Hell’s new message sat quietly on the screen.

“If you don’t want anyone to know—”

“Come to the infirmary after school.”

Luna stared at those words, her fingers gripping the edge of her phone, her knuckles white from the pressure.

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.

The infirmary?

Why the infirmary?

What was this guy going to do?

Was he threatening her? Or…

This girl couldn’t help but start thinking of the plots in the novels she had read before, where a female protagonist was threatened by a villain and forced to do… things. Combined with this guy’s reputation…

The pink-haired girl bit her lower lip, lifted her head, and looked toward the other side of the aisle.

Hell had already withdrawn his gaze and was looking out the window. The sunlight cast a faint glow on his pale face.

He looked just like usual, as if those messages were just casually sent.

Luna looked down at the line on her screen and was silent for a long time. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“I understand.”

Three words, light as a sigh.