NOVPUBAs the last dance ended, so too did the ball.
Lanci and Talia stepped out of the Pariet Maternal Church and back onto the festival streets.
The night was deep, but the festive atmosphere in Floral City Pariet hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
On both sides of the street, colorful lanterns still hung, adorning the night as if it were a dream.
Just then, a loud bang tore through the sky.
"..."
Lanci and Talia instinctively looked up, only to see the dark canopy of night suddenly burst into a dazzling firework.
Immediately after, came the second, then the third, and in the blink of an eye, the sky was lit up with a kaleidoscope of fireworks, like a blooming garden.
"Maybe in the future, when you’re not around, I’ll think of you whenever I see fireworks,"
Talia murmured, her face illuminated by the light of the fireworks.
"Why do you say that?"
Lanci felt that such words were uncharacteristic of Talia; they seemed more like something a sentimental girl like Hugh from Hyperion would sigh.
"Maybe it’s because you’re up there making cards."
Talia looked at him and answered.
"???"
Lanci suspected Talia was mentioning doing a task while out here.
They paused to watch the display for a while before moving on.
The fireworks continued to bloom, periodically casting their figures in a whirl of colorful haloes before fading to mere glowing embers that fell into the night.
And so, Lanci and Talia slowly walked along the festival road, enjoying the sights along the way.
Despite it being ten o’clock at night, there were still many people on the streets.
Groups of people either stopped to admire the fireworks filling the sky or gathered around stalls to taste delicious food.
Laughter, gasps of wonder, and the booms of bursting fireworks all mixed into a merry hubbub.
Unknowingly, they had arrived in front of the landscape garden of the Platinum Sen Palace Mental Hotel.
Looking up, the towering silhouette of the hotel was faintly visible in the night, with warm yellow lights shining through the windows.
"We’ll practice for an hour or two before resting."
Stepping into the hotel lobby, Lanci said to her.
During these days in Pariet, they had been trying card making in Lanci’s room.
The formula they were using was such that it wasn’t too serious if it exploded during the first couple of steps, so the usual practice was quite reassuring. Only after the first two steps were successful would they add the most crucial ingredient, "Calila’s Shadow Weave Record."
"Looks like I’ll have to melt Lan Fu again."
Talia pondered for a moment.
The ability to communicate with thoughts was an indispensable part of their collaboration in card making; without it, their coordination would only be worse, or to say, her taking over for the Great Love Poet would bring them unimaginable convenience.
"Melt away."
Lanci felt that the period without the Great Love Poet was quite peaceful to some extent.
It just made him a bit tired.
"Then I won’t hold back, and I’ll use up some more of your mana for a while."
Talia nodded.
In fact, she quite missed the state of being a superlife form like the Mad Love Demon King, every day existing between creature and spirit, able to fall asleep in a second and waking up feeling refreshed.
Most importantly, she really wanted to try again the pleasure of eating with Lanci’s body – his taste buds really were different...
"..."
Seeing Talia swallow, Lanci felt an inexplicable palpitation but couldn’t guess what she was thinking at that moment.
Before long, Lanci and Talia returned to their room on the sixth floor of the hotel.
The moment the door was pushed open, the warm lights in the entrance hallway lit up, illuminating the space.
"Welcome home, meow."
There sat Cat Boss on the floor, as if he’d been waiting for them for a long time.
"So Cat Boss was at home, we were wondering where you’d gone."
"Meow meow."
Lanci sighed with relief, hung his coat on the nearby rack, picked up the black loaf (an idiomatic name for a black cat), and headed to the Cardmaking Workshop set up as a study at the back of the room.
For this trip, knowing he would often practice Card Making, Lanci had asked Countess Rosalinda to arrange for the highest-specification explosion-proof Barrier and card making equipment for them at the hotel.
Creak, the door to the study opened, and unlike its usual clutter, the workshop had been tidied with all sorts of schematics pinned neatly all around, and materials piled on the workbench had been reorganized.
Focused on her study at the workbench was the Great Love Poet herself.
It seemed she had returned early today.
After returning, she started her magic studies and over the past few days, sorted through all the materials for Lanci and Talia.
Whenever she was focused on researching Magic Cards, even Talia’s call couldn’t snap her out of her concentration.
However, what surprised Lanci and Talia upon their return was that the Great Love Poet’s attire had changed.
Her usually loose hair was now tied up, with the remaining strands falling softly around her cheeks and the nape of her neck, and she was dressed in a crisp white shirt and a fitted black business skirt, exuding a sharp and efficient aura from head to toe.
"This attire..."
Talia murmured to herself as she looked at the figure of the Great Love Poet.
If it weren’t for the eyes, the Great Love Poet could easily be mistaken for the real Talia at first glance.
However, Talia wasn’t surprised because the Great Love Poet was wearing her clothes—she had told Lan Fu that she hadn’t brought any clothes for this trip, so Lan Fu could wear hers—what truly surprised her was how Lan Fu could even mimic her demeanor.
It was almost as if the Great Love Poet had been asked to dress this way every time she was in the Card Making room, and over time, she got used to it.
"Ah, it’s Lanci and Tata."
