Chapter 293 — A Strange Encounter

A name he had never heard before. The surname, though, he had—but there were plenty of people named Grant, so it was of no reference value.

"What's your name, mister?" After she finished speaking, the little girl blinked and fixed her eyes on Gao Yang, a look of pure curiosity on her face.

"…Selcy. No surname." Gao Yang thought for a moment, then casually made up a name to tell her. This psychic network had no mature mechanisms at all, and forging a name was simplicity itself. No matter how capable the real person behind this little girl might be, she could never uncover the true identity of an illegal intruder who had slipped in through the cracks.

"Oh, what a strange name," said the girl who called herself Patty with a nod. She seemed about to say something more to Gao Yang, but just then someone across the way called her name. The girl immediately hopped down from the bench in delight and waved vigorously toward the direction of the voice. "I hear you, Sister Selina!"

Gao Yang looked toward the voice and saw a young woman standing by the flowerbed opposite, dressed in a pale violet gown with a purple veil over her face. The woman's gaze was sweeping over him.

Gao Yang nodded at the woman with a calm expression, while Patty gave him an exaggerated bow. "Mister Selcy! I have to go now!"

"Mm. Nice to meet you. See you next time."

Gao Yang said his goodbyes to the girl with passable courtesy, and then watched as the girl who called herself Patty went skipping and hopping all the way to the veiled woman's side. She tugged excitedly at the woman's hand and chattered away, apparently recounting her day's adventures and, while she was at it, introducing the newly met "Mister Selcy." Gao Yang saw the veiled woman bend down to straighten Patty's somewhat disheveled skirt, then turn her gaze back toward him.

The woman nodded silently at Gao Yang with a slight bow of courtesy, then took the little girl's hand and left.

Gao Yang watched the whole scene with a face devoid of expression, until the two had left the garden, until their figures vanished behind a wall.

A strange feeling lingered in his heart and would not leave. Gao Yang shook his head, got to his feet, and decided to leave this place.

He severed his connection to the psychic network and let his spirit-sense spin and plunge swiftly through the void, returning utterly to the real world.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Amber sitting across from him, eyes glaring wide, her expression as stern as though she were guarding a purse of money.

Gao Yang blinked, and Amber, who had been staring at him wide-eyed, snapped back to awareness a beat later—then nearly jumped out of her skin. "Whoa!"

"Whoa yourself—you scared me," Gao Yang said, working his slightly stiff neck. "What are you even doing?"

"Watching you," Amber said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Didn't you tell me to keep an eye on you from the side?"

The corner of Gao Yang's mouth twitched. "Er... I didn't mean watching me like that."

"By the way, you really did look like you were asleep just now," Amber said. Confirming that Gao Yang had fully woken, she immediately leaned in, curiosity written all over her face, and began circling him like she was studying some rare species. "Were you actually sleeping? What did you dream about?"

Gao Yang gave her a helpless look. "I saw a little girl, all right?"

Amber's circling came to an abrupt halt. The next second, she sprang two meters back, her face a mask of horror. "You—you—you... you don't even spare little girls?!"

Before Gao Yang could get a word out, she fired off another remark. "So that book about you romancing over eighty princesses—that was actually nonfiction?!"

"Stay right where you are!"

ps:

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