Four Split Personalities

The girl on the screen pouted crossly, "I’ve already had some."

"Then how about getting some brown sugar and dates or something like that? I’ve heard that stuff is good for blood production..."

"Motan... classmate?"

Yu Chen’s cheeks, flushed red, instantly turned dark, and then slowly she lifted her head and looked over with a particularly gentle yet lackluster gaze, enunciating every word, "Did you... just... say... something?"

For some reason, Motan suddenly felt as though he was already half-buried in the ground and immediately began waving his hands in a fluster, "Ah, that is, I meant it’s rare to see you not wearing the priest’s robe, it feels kind of fresh, um, kind of fresh."

Yu Chen paused, then burst out laughing, "Haha, really, I was wondering why something felt off before, turns out it’s because you aren’t wearing your priest’s robe today, Motan, hehe, I’m so slow, huh?"

"No, no, no, I think I’m the slower one by a bit."

Scratching his hair, Motan chuckled dumbly a couple of times, then suddenly noticed the edge of an anime poster on the screen and asked, a bit irritated, "Uh, by the way, where are you right now? It doesn’t look much like a hotel."

"Mmm, this isn’t a hotel." Yu Chen took a slurp from her glass filled with warm water, her face slightly reddish as she let out a sigh of relief, grinning, "Because my mom is going back to S city in a few days, she worried it wouldn’t be safe for me to stay alone in a downtown hotel, so she rented a room for me here. Well, I think she’s overthinking it, but it’s nice to have free rein to decorate, look~"

She picked up the tablet, switched to the main camera, and took a slow tour around the room. During this process, Motan saw a plethora of anime posters, model figurines, gaming accessories, and even caught a glimpse of a life-size Frost Mourn and an imposing woodcutting knife on the wall.

Beyond that, there were a lot of books, including seventy percent manga, twenty percent guides, and ten percent medical books. Yu Chen wasn’t moving the tablet too fast, and with Motan’s memory being somewhat trained, he managed to pay rather close attention.

[How should I put it, although it’s different from what I imagined, I think it’s really great.]

Despite the fact that there weren’t many girly elements and the otaku content was a bit high, Motan was still a bit excited... and also a bit nervous, since, after all, this was the first time in so many years he had ’visited’ a girl’s room purely and, moreover, the other party was Yu Chen. He couldn’t help but feel his heartbeat accelerate.

"It’s really cool~"

After a brief ’tour’, Motan sincerely marveled, "It’s the style I like!"

Yu Chen, now seated back in her chair, scratched her cheek somewhat sheepishly, "Hehe, compared to Yi Dong’s parents, I have a long way to go, they’re so cool."

"That I won’t deny."

Laughing, Motan spread his hands, "In his words, the uncle and auntie are way past saving."

"Having such similar interests, I really envy them~"

Yu Chen couldn’t help sighing, her eyes shimmering beautifully.

However, Motan felt vaguely disheartened because he didn’t think he shared any common interests with Yu Chen on the other side of the screen. Indeed, he had a deep dive into otaku culture and had a fair share of figure collections, but it was just a very common level. As for other things...

Because the differences between the various facets of his personality were so extreme, Motan really didn’t know what his specific interests were.

Even though everyone has many sides, he had too many ’faces’...

What’s most important is, even the feelings of liking someone seem to be just ’one side’ of him. Because it’s the same person, Motan had always been very clear that his ’like’ for someone was only in the ’moment’, not to mention that under the persona of ’Tan Mo’, who almost completely reined in a certain Blood Seeker miss, even as ’Mor’, he was acutely aware that he had no feelings for that person... Bluntly, for the girl named Yu Chen and gamer ID Morning Forgotten Language on the screen.

[Only now...]

Motan stared blankly at the girl on the other side of the screen, holding her cheeks and looking back at him, a slight bitter smile creeping across his face.

[Only the current Motan can truly feel that emotion named admiration...]

"Motan~"

[Only the current Motan can clearly recognize ’I really like this girl’...]

"Mo... tan~"

[Only the current Motan would feel nervous, short-circuited, and restless over such a thing...]

"Black Vatican Priest!"

[Right, only as Black Vatican Priest...]

"Eh? Ah, sorry, I... the signal here is not so good..."]

Motan abruptly lifted his head, snapping out of his daze, and realized it had been nearly two minutes since he had been lost in thought. He promptly concocted an outrageously unconvincing lie.

Video stuttering due to signal or internet speed issues is practically a joke in 2049.

[And it’s a damn cold joke...]

Motan covered his face in extreme embarrassment, regretting his clumsy lie.

However, Yu Chen seemed completely unsuspecting, merely pausing for less than half a second before smiling again, winking at Motan with the bear plushie in her arms: "Well, since you’ve already seen my room, shouldn’t you let me see yours?"

Her genuinely unfeigned smile was exactly the same as the countless times she had understood when he had to go offline due to ’papers’ and ’part-time jobs’.

"It’s too dazzling..."

"Huh?"

"No, it’s nothing."

Motan waved his hand dismissively, then began to rub his hands uneasily and said, "Well, there’s no problem showing you around here, but could you wait for like ten or twenty minutes? I just remembered I haven’t fed the cat for today."

Of course, that was a lie. The first thing he had done when he went offline voluntarily, as an orderly and good person, was to feed the cat, and he also noticed that the little black cat named Summer Rain Lotus seemed to have gained quite a lot of weight recently, for some unknown reason.

"The homes of single men are mostly a mess, you’ve already told me that~"

Yu Chen playfully blinked, resting her chin in her hand and laughing: "Or is it that those terrible books you’ve previously denied are scattered everywhere, and you can’t avoid them even if you tried?"

Although she’s mostly soft and adorable, Motan had come to know over these past two months that Yu Chen occasionally shows a bit of a wicked streak, which is a good sign for him now but sometimes leaves him at a loss for what to do...

Like right now!

"No way!"

Motan suddenly stood up, activated the built-in network card, and unplugged the power cord and the dedicated network cable. He grabbed his computer and started pacing in the living room. Because he wasn’t sure if Yu Chen would feel dizzy with a first-person 3D view like he did, he moved slowly and also tried to hold the computer steady to keep the screen from shaking too much.

Given the considerable weight of the computer, this was quite an effortful task.

Just then, Motan’s computer screen shook slightly, but he, now hugging the computer, didn’t notice...

"Wow!"

Yu Chen’s voice of astonishment came from within: "It’s actually quite clean, much better than I imagined~"

Motan forced a laugh, looking at his living room that definitely couldn’t be considered tidy, and said helplessly: "So what exactly did you imagine before?"

"A dog’s kennel?"

"Hey, hey, hey..."

"Just kidding! But you were so anxious back then, I really thought it would be a huge mess. See, there’s still space to step on."

"You have low standards..."

"Not bad at all, not bad, hmm, Motan you really do like to drink coffee. You should moderate outside of games as well~"

"I only drink a little bit every day."

"Then why is the box of instant coffee produced a week ago already empty?"

"..."

"Drink less, okay?"

"Yes, yes, yes..."

"Take it to heart!"

"Yes, Her Highness the Saintess, Black Vatican Priest obeys!"

"Good boy!"

Chapter 480: The End