She lowered her eyelids, dazed yet radiant, like a bouquet blooming from yesterday.

Xia Pingzhou stared at her. Having been together for so long, he could tell whenever Ayase Origami was lost in thought.

At this moment, the girl in the kimono seemed to be pondering something. She silently slowed her steps, and Xia Pingzhou looked away, quietly waiting for her to speak.

After a brief silence, Ayase Origami suddenly spoke, "You asked me... how I felt about leaving the brigade."

Xia Pingzhou raised an eyebrow. He remembered then that Ayase Origami had said the White Crow Travel Brigade gave her freedom, so she would not leave.

So he naturally understood that once he killed Jack the Ripper, Ayase Origami would not leave with him. He did not expect that after so many days, she would bring up the matter again.

Perhaps there was still room for redemption? Could he persuade her to leave with him? He wondered.

"What’s the matter?" After a moment of silence, Xia Pingzhou asked.

"Takayama and the leader took me away, so I left the family," the girl in the kimono said. "At that time, I didn’t understand anything. I was just thinking that something different might happen."

Xia Pingzhou remained silent.

After a while, he suddenly reached into the pocket of his coat. The pocket was empty because he had handed his and Ayase Origami’s phones over to the staff. The staff had stored them in a locker.

But the staff’s tone was odd. It was his first time seeing someone put their phone away just to visit an aquarium. Wouldn’t a normal person keep it to take pictures inside?

Xia Pingzhou told the staff that it allowed for more focused sightseeing, but in reality, he just didn’t want that Hacker kid eavesdropping on their conversation.

"I understand now, so that’s how it is," Xia Pingzhou suddenly said after a while.

The girl in the kimono slightly slowed her pace, shifting her gaze from the beluga whale in the aquarium to look at him.

"What?" she asked.

"You’ve always been led by others, without your own thoughts," Xia Pingzhou said expressionlessly. "When your father told you not to smile in front of him, you didn’t. When Uncle Butler wanted you to leave the crime family with him, you left... So, if I ask you to leave with me, you would just go like a puppet manipulated by others, right?"

Ayase Origami was taken aback.

Xia Pingzhou was silent for a while, "What do you think for yourself? Not ’wherever you go, I go,’ but instead, where do you want to go, where do you want to stay."

The girl in the kimono hung her head.

She contemplated quietly for a while and then slowly lifted her eyes, her clear eyes looking at the side of Xia Pingzhou’s face.

"I said it."

"Said what?"

"I already said it."

"When?"

"Many times, I’ve said it." Her lips moved, barely uttering each word.

"But I don’t understand."

"I want to stay by your side," she softly said, "but I won’t leave the brigade."

"Why?"

"Because this is the place Takayama brought me to," the girl in the kimono said. "He died, so if I leave the brigade, how is that any different from forgetting him?"

Xia Pingzhou said lowly, "Uncle Butler is a good person. Indeed, compared to your yakuza father, he’s more like a father. But have you ever thought that maybe the reason he had you join the brigade was just because..."

"Because of what?"

"Because only the White Crow Travel Brigade could take you away from your family at that time. No one else could do that, so he had no other choice but to depend on the White Crow Travel Brigade."

Xia Pingzhou paused: "But staying in the brigade may not be right for you. Maybe Uncle Butler hoped, before he died, that you could find a chance to leave the brigade, no longer living this life of crime and violence, but he couldn’t say it."

"You said, we are villains, we were from the beginning," the girl in the kimono softly said, "What’s wrong with this kind of life?"

"Yes, we’ve indeed killed many people, innocent people. Beyond redemption. But it doesn’t have to be this way in the future." Xia Pingzhou asked, "Do you really like living like this now? We’re always at the risk of dying, like Lan Duoduo and Uncle Butler. The only reason we’re still alive is that we’ve been lucky enough, but in this world, there’s not that much luck, especially with the war against Lake Hunting just ahead."

"I don’t want you to die; if I lose you, I have nothing left."

"Then why not leave?"

"I don’t understand what kind of life I should lead," she said softly. "No one ever told me."

"Maybe open a bookstore in a remote northern city. You like to read, and you could sit behind the counter reading every day. In winter, you could watch the snow. There’s an aurora in the north, and by then, the night sky would be so bright, the bluish light stretching across the whole sky."

Xia Pingzhou spoke softly, consistently looking straight ahead without glancing at her sideways.

The girl in the kimono remained silent. She lowered her eyelids, her dark eyes reflecting the faint moonlight that shone down to the seabed.

"Would you come with me?" After a long while, she lifted her head and asked, "Read together, watch the snow, and so much more..." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Mm."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Xia Pingzhou said. "I’ll be with you." Upon saying this, he lowered his voice, once again testingly asking, "This is the last time I’m asking you if I leave the brigade... would you come with me?"

He knew in his heart that he didn’t have much time left. This might be the last chance because if they reached the moment of betrayal, he and Ayase Origami would become enemies.

But his words seemed to be swallowed by the stillness of the underwater tunnel, with no reply for a long time.

Xia Pingzhou remained silent.