For the following scene please note the following:
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<> the old man commented while smoking his pipe and looking over the cityscape.
The caravan from Roaring Tide had arrived to the city a little before noon, right after the Goldshire one and the one from Bronze Bell.
As the old man sat in the lead wagon and continued to smoke, his younger companion went to go make arrangements for their beasts...as well as check on one other thing.
"Hello, welcome to the Jade Sun Stables, how can I help you?," the attendant asked with a polite smile.
<> the attendant smoothly switched, <>
<> the young man replied with a pleasant tone, <>
That last part intrigued the young man, and was what he was hoping to hear. People in the service industry knew gossip better than practically anyone in existence. It wasn’t always accurate, but if one chan sift through the chaff, they can find nuggets of valuable information.
<> the young man asked in an intrigued, inviting tone.
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=Wait...did you remember to mute our conversations from the telepath?=
<...oh whoops, forgot to turn that on.>
[Is it because you don’t have one?]
[Damn. Frosttusk we gonna need some ice over here for all that burn damage.]
[Stitches, I do tongue lashings, not burns.]
=Well at least we know she’s close to fully developing her co-Pathos, put that down!=
[Wait, we can do that?!]
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"Pfft! Oh how I missed hearing the bickering in your head, the kaijin are always so lively" Bellona commented, "But think I heard a new voice."
As those words left her mouth, Zhen Liu choked on one of the tea time snacks, while Alicia almost spat up her tea.
"Wait, what? Kaijin? You know about them too?," Alicia asked, shocked about how nonchalantly Bellona just dropped that bit of information like it was nothing. The "kaijin" were technically a pretty hefty secret for anybody to keep, because the ability to make an army of cultivators that were loyal to a fault in the blink of an eye was well...desirable to literally everyone. If only she knew how flagrant Zhen Liu has been stretching that little limit.
"Indeed I do, I’m also able to hear them thanks to a gift of mine. Ah, please be sure to keep that secret as well."
"Of course," Alicia agreed both verbally and mentally.
"And I believe just like you," Bellona continued her train of thought, "we share similar circumstances on how we discovered them," Bellona said in a breezy tone, "got involved in a dangerous situation only for this one to come and save the day?"
"Yes, twice actually!"
"Well, the first time I met them and Zhen Liu was when I almost got killed by bandits..."
In this moment, one of the truest formations of friendship began: the mutual understanding of surviving life endangering bullshit...and being rescued by the same schmuck.
’Huh...did not expect this to happen,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he saw the conversation unfold.
He had initially assume there was going to be some petty arguing, mildly catty behavior, the kind of thing that would play out in historical romantic drama, harem based animes or a comic about a girl being reborn as a concubine in an emperor’s harem or the wife of a warlord or... something.
Then again, he wasn’t exactly in the world of one of those aforementioned works of media...he hoped.
’I guess real life is less dramatic than I-.’
"So after which event did you end up kissing him?"
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"I’m sorry, what?," Alicia asked with a bit of blush on her face.
As a young lady of upper class standing, she was throughly courted in the ideas of romance and proper etiquette in the pursuit of such things...but was also massively inexperienced due to a combination of a sheltered life and not really showing interest in anybody until rather recently.
Going to an all-girls school and reading saucy copper novels did not help.
"Oh come on girl, you mean to tell me that after being rescued by a dashing young man that you didn’t feel the need to lock lips with him immediately?," Bellona mildly teased with a smile.
Bellona was about as inexperienced when it came to love like Alicia was, she had the advantage of being able to read minds.
Living vicariously through others was a very real phenomenon.
"I mean...I kissed him in thanks after he saved my life,"Bellona mildly goaded/encouraged. She could detect the latent feelings inside of Alicia, she wanted to see that in action.
"You...you did?," Alicia asked a little shocked.
"Indeed I did. His lips tasted quite sweet."
"Hey, I’m right here," Zhen Liu mildly complained. This turned out to be a bad idea, because it drew the attention of both women towards him.
"Xiao Liu," Alicia suddenly said with a bit of firmness, "please prepare yourself in the next five seconds."
Before Zhen Liu could comprehend what was happening, Alicia had suddenly grabbed and kissed him on the lips.
It wasn’t a bad feeling, just caught him off guard.
’This is going to be a trend isn’t it?’