After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark - Chapter 31

Chapter 31

When Jin Chaoyan woke up again, she found herself sleeping in a red brick house. The hospital bed let out a faint, dated “creak” as she moved to sit up.

Kina, who had changed into an exotic local outfit, heard the noise and quickened her pace with delight. “Madam, you’re finally awake!”

“This dialogue sounds so familiar…”

The person sitting on the bed glanced at the faint needle mark on the vein of her hand resting on the white quilt, then saw the old yellow tourniquet and medical tape on the nearby rustic wooden table. After a moment, she looked up blankly. “Am I sick again?”

Her own tone was filled with disbelief.

Seeing how her mistress went through these cycles of illness unknowingly—sleeping through the pain and recovery—Kina felt that as long as she regained her health in the end, it was a good thing. She replied with a smile, “Yes, but your fever broke this morning, Madam. You’ve been lying in bed for two days, and your nutrition was maintained entirely through IV fluids. You must be very hungry now. Shall I go get you a bowl of soup?”

“Okay, thank you.”

After Jin Chaoyan agreed, she looked around. Seeing the bold and bright architectural style that matched the blue sky and white clouds outside, she felt it was cut from the same cloth as the seaside hotel they had stayed at in Sicily. Although not as exquisite, it had a unique charm that brightened her mood.

Soon, she smelled the aroma of cream of mushroom soup. Turning her head, she indeed saw Kina bringing the soup along with a piece of toasted, fluffy bread. Her stomach cooperated by letting out a “gu” sound of anticipation.

After Kina set down the tray, Jin Chaoyan impatiently picked up the soup spoon. The housekeeper, who had walked behind her to help tie up her hair, gently reminded her, “Be careful, it’s hot.”

“Mm. By the way, how did we end up here?” the woman asked curiously while diligently blowing on her soup.

“After Mr. Hibari carried you on his back and found this village—”

Just as the housekeeper said those words, Jin Chaoyan let out a sound of being scalded by the soup. She dropped the spoon back into the bowl, waved her hand to fan her mouth, and licked the corner of her lips that had just been burned. “What? He carried me on his back? What are you talking about?”

Kina: “?”

Meeting Jin Chaoyan’s overly shocked gaze, Kina paused for a moment. Her dark brown eyes were gentle as she asked softly, “What things does Madam remember?”

Jin Chaoyan was stunned by this strange “amnesia-style questioning.” She answered tentatively, “Weren’t we attacked on the private plane back from Italy? Then I jumped with him?”

“Yes.” Kina prompted encouragingly, “And then?”

“And then… then I fainted because of my fear of heights… right?” Thinking back to jumping from a cabin door thousands of meters in the air, Jin Chaoyan felt her palms sweat in retrospect.

“…”

Kina was silent for an instant.

She remembered the local town doctor saying that Jin Chaoyan’s fever symptoms were mostly caused by psychological factors; exhaustion was only an external factor. Added to that was the energy blast she and Kusakabe had seen mid-air—a blast that had shocked the other man and definitely didn’t match Mr. Hibari’s usual style.

After a moment, Kina smiled. “Yes, you fainted because of your fear of heights. So Mr. Hibari carried you on his back and led us to find this village. Because you were overly frightened and caught a bit of a cold, you had a high fever for two days, so we stayed here temporarily.”

“Ah.”

Jin Chaoyan stopped her efforts to cool the soup. Her eyes were full of disbelief as she slowly shook her head. “I just feel like the man you’re describing, who would carry me on his back, isn’t the same person as the Kyoya Hibari I know.”

Just as the words left her mouth—

Bang! Bang! Bang! Explosions rang out from outside the window.

Jin Chaoyan took two sips of soup and looked toward the window. She vaguely saw flashes of colored light, so she stood up with the bowl and took two steps toward the window. “What is that sound? Does the local area have a tradition like a fireworks festival? Setting off fireworks in the middle of the day?”

Kina thought of the Mafia enemies who had been coming to the door one after another since they entered the village. She hesitated, wanting to warn her, but before she could, Jin Chaoyan finished her soup in a few gulps, set the bowl on the windowsill, and went to the window with her eyes lit up by the sky.

“Wow, today’s weather is really…”

Her words stopped the moment she saw the actual scenery outside.

Bang!

A beast glowing with red light and a white hedgehog surrounded by purple light and swirling clouds collided fiercely in mid-air. The purple and red lights mixed together, exceptionally dazzling in the sky.

Jin Chaoyan looked down and saw black-suited men lying scattered across the red brick ground in front of the building. A few were still left scattered around, holding weapons that emitted various colors of light.

But the most eye-catching was the figure they surrounded.

The man’s soft, medium-length black hair was tossed by the wind coming from the end of the road, along with the flickering purple Cloud flames on the tonfa he held in both hands. The hem of his suit rustled, but his standing figure was like a pine tree on a cliff—unforgettable.

Sensing the gaze from behind, Kyoya Hibari turned his head. As the wind died down, his grey-blue phoenix eyes were slightly obscured by the bangs falling back over his forehead, causing the sharp killing intent within them to seem to fade as if by illusion.

“Hm? You’re awake.”

“…Hi.” Jin Chaoyan didn’t expect him to be so sharp. She subconsciously raised her hand to greet him. Her mind was blank, and she didn’t know what to say, so she offered a dry pleasantry. “The weather today is quite—”

An enemy near the building noticed her presence. He suddenly appeared in mid-air stepping on Storm flames and swung his weapon at her, firing a ball of flames. “If I can’t kill Kyoya Hibari, killing this woman who is closely related to him is fine too! Millefiore will definitely accept this as our tribute!”

Huh?

Who did you say is closely related to whom?

Jin Chaoyan looked at the flames and listened to his grand speech, momentarily unresponsive due to excessive shock.

Bang!

Smoke exploded at close range.

The energy sent fragments of bricks and tiles falling from the window. Kina belatedly pulled Jin Chaoyan back. “Madam, watch out!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Jin Chaoyan wasn’t frightened at all. She raised her hand to wave away the dust in front of her and, as expected, met the snowy white little hedgehog that appeared outside the window. At its “Ao~” greeting, she walked closer with a smile. “Morning, baby. You saved me again. I didn’t have time to ask your name last time. What do you like to eat?”

The Cloud Hedgehog blinked. Because it couldn’t talk, it couldn’t express itself, so it just turned to look at its master—

The man who had been over ten meters away moved to the foreground in an instant. Stepping on several layers of high-density clouds with spikes produced by the hedgehog’s propagation, he leapt into the air. Before the attacker could react, his tonfa swung down fiercely!

The sound of bone-cracking rang out. Kyoya Hibari landed back on the ground along with his opponent, except he was standing and the other was lying down.

Swinging his tonfa, he stood before the building and looked up at the remaining enemies, the flames on his weapons burning even brighter. “You group of weak rodents who like to flock together—no matter what tactics you use, it’s all the same to me. Just come at me all at once. Before my mood gets too bad, I’ll leave you with intact corpses.”

Thirty seconds later.

The last enemy fell. Kyoya Hibari heard the sound of the ring on his hand shattering. He glanced down, retracted his weapons into their Box, and the hedgehog in mid-air—which had already pierced through the predator and propagated to a terrifying size—along with the one that had flown in front of Jin Chaoyan, both returned to his Box.

He raised a hand to yawn. As Kusakabe came out from the first floor to clean up the mess and collect the enemies’ rings, Hibari looked calmly at the woman still by the second-floor window. “What were you going to say just now?”

“Hm?”

Watching his sharp, cold image instantly revert to that of a soft-looking beauty after the battle, Jin Chaoyan was momentarily attracted by this extreme contrast. She gave a blank “Oh,” and only after a while remembered the sentence that had been interrupted several times. “Oh, I was saying the weather is really nice today.”

Kyoya Hibari looked up at the clear blue sky, then swept his gaze over the corpses of those corresponding “herbivores.” He offered a rare agreement. “Indeed.”

Jin Chaoyan: “…”

No, I think we are not talking about the same thing.

But voicing her inner thoughts was clearly unwise, so she smoothly changed the subject. “May I ask if you know the identity of these attackers?”

The one questioned didn’t speak. Instead, Kusakabe, who had finished collecting the Cloud rings on the ground, stood up. While presenting the rings with both hands, he turned to answer on Hibari’s behalf. “Madam need not worry. It was just a small-scale dark force. Currently, all members of that family have been annihilated by Kyo-san.”

Fine.

Impressive.

Jin Chaoyan clapped seriously. “Amazing.”

She didn’t ask about the “Millefiore” or “tribute” the man had mentioned. She looked down at the corpses of the enemies and pointed curiously. “Except for the Cloud ones, you don’t want any of the others?”

“What I mean is… lately, these rings and gems can hardly be found at auctions. Their price markup is quite severe. If you can’t use them, you could make a bit of a profit by selling them.”

That said, Jin Chaoyan felt Kyoya Hibari probably wouldn’t care for such pocket change. Thus, she was already secretly rubbing her hands together, preparing to go downstairs with Kina to scavenge for leftovers.

But to her surprise, after hearing this suggestion, the man actually glanced around again and suddenly issued an instruction. “Tetsu.”

Tetsuya Kusakabe looked at him in shock. After confirming that he had truly listened to Jin Chaoyan’s suggestion, he replied “Yes” and confiscated all the other scattered rings as well.

Hibird flew out from the nearby woods at that moment, chirping “Hibari” as it approached, but it didn’t land on him. Instead, it flapped its wings and went to the second-floor window.

“Chaoyan~ Chaoyan~”

“My baby, good morning. Did you go find food yourself?” Jin Chaoyan’s heart was instantly healed by the soft and cute Hibird after missing the chance to scavenge and feeling she’d lost an opportunity to strike it rich. She raised her hand to catch the little bird and leaned in to nuzzle its soft feathers with her cheek.

“Eat~ eat~” Hibird nuzzled her affectionately, hopped down from her hand to the bread on the tray Kina had brought, and said to her, “Chaoyan~ eat~”

At this time, the sound of a helicopter’s rotors approached from a distance, making a huge roar above the small village. Gusts of wind blew in. Jin Chaoyan picked up the bread, squinted her eyes to look out, and heard Kusakabe say downstairs:

“Great, the nearest base of the Foundation has sent support. Madam has also woken up safely. Kyo-san, shall we depart for Japan today?”

Kyoya Hibari looked up at the woman who was secretly breaking off a tiny piece of bread to feed Hibird. To his surprise, the person who should have been frightened by a scene of mass carnage was actually adapting well to his battle scene after waking up. It was a stark contrast to how she had been frozen in place by a single glance from him when they first met.

—She is a little squirrel that grows inadvertently.

He turned around and walked toward the landing spot of the helicopter. The corner of his mouth curved slightly, but he replied calmly, “Mm.”

Taking the helicopter away from the village to a city airport and switching to a private plane, Jin Chaoyan didn’t dare sleep this time. However, unlike her apprehensive reaction of constantly looking out the window, the journey remained exceptionally calm until the plane landed at Tokyo airport.

They didn’t even encounter a bit of light turbulence.

It wasn’t until she heard Kusakabe’s announcement that they had arrived smoothly and could leave the cabin that she dared to believe her bad luck had finally run out. She impatiently unbuckled her seatbelt, gently cupped the sleepy Hibird from her lap into her palm, and stood up, wanting to return to her familiar territory.

Who knew that just as she took a step to the side, because she had sat for over ten hours without changing position, her legs had no strength due to poor circulation. She fell toward the other end of the aisle.

Thump.

The person kneeling on the floor forgot to even protect her own face at the most critical moment; she only cared about the Hibird still in her palm, so she held it up high.

Hibari, who had woken up from his nap and was also preparing to stand up, turned his head slightly. Looking at the scene in the aisle, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “Wow.”

The person with long light-colored hair was wearing the colorful dress from the village, but now she was kneeling toward him for no apparent reason, her expression changing like a palette.

Kyoya Hibari looked at her performing such a grand gesture and asked with interest, “Speak, what do you want this time?”

Jin Chaoyan, who was in so much pain from hitting her knees on the carpet that she couldn’t speak: “…”

Hibird, who was being held high, woke up. It tilted its head to look at its mistress in her unusually low position, then at its master in front of it. A few bits of confusion flashed in its black-bean eyes, so it tried hopping twice in Jin Chaoyan’s palm and pecked Hibari on the cheek.

“Hibari~ Chaoyan~”

After doing this, it turned happily toward its mistress, as if asking her for praise.

Jin Chaoyan, who couldn’t get up from the floor at all and had inexplicably presented a high-difficulty kiss by holding up the pet: “…!”

She grabbed the armrest of Kyoya Hibari’s chair with her other hand. “I—”

Taking a deep breath, Jin Chaoyan closed her eyes and added in despair, “My legs are numb. Give me a hand.”

A little later, a very soft laugh rang out in the quiet cabin.

“Madam?”

Meeting Jin Chaoyan at the airport exit after coming out of the cockpit, Kina looked in surprise at the faint blue bruise on her knees. Her eyes widened slightly, then she said, “You… have just recovered, and you’ve already decided to try my previous suggestion?”

What suggestion?

While rubbing her knees and slapping her thighs—which still felt a bit tingly—Jin Chaoyan looked at her in confusion. Three seconds later, she recalled a ridiculous story about private plane “play.”

For a moment, she didn’t know if it was more embarrassing to tell Kina she fell because her legs were numb, or to simply let her default to this ridiculous “dirty-minded” speculation.

“I…”

She replied weakly, “Never mind. Back to Tokyo. I need to calm down.”

In the short term, she really didn’t want to see that detestable guy who laughed at her without restraint and whom she couldn’t beat in a fight.

Jin Chaoyan now seriously suspected that Kina wanted to ship them so badly that she had used a heavy filter when saying Hibari had carried her on his back while she was unconscious. Could it be that she was actually carried like a sack of potatoes?

“Eh?”

Kina was very surprised to hear her decision to return to Tokyo. “Aren’t you going back to Namimori with Mr. Hibari?”

When she saw Jin Chaoyan watching the other person fight from such a close distance this morning, Kina had been a bit surprised, but she felt as though the couple had gained a bit more harmonious understanding that was hard for ordinary people to grasp. As it turned out, just after returning to the country, the Madam didn’t have any thoughts of striking while the iron was hot to enhance their feelings.

“Why should I go back to Namimori with him?” Jin Chaoyan asked, puzzled.

The world doesn’t need to be destroyed anymore. Next, Namimori, as the place where the protagonist group grows, will definitely be the center of the storm between Vongola and Millefiore. Of course it’s better to stay away!

Kina was silent for two seconds.

She actually found a reason. “Have you forgotten? The leave you took from the driving school is about to expire.”

“…!”

Crap.

Jin Chaoyan, who had completely forgotten about this and planned to nest in Tokyo to sit out the great war and wait for the marriage agreement to expire, experienced a tectonic shift in her pupils.

Why on earth did she have such a lapse in judgment as to enroll in a Namimori driving school back then!

Up ahead, at the airport underground parking lot.

Tetsuya Kusakabe, who had arrived first, said Jin Chaoyan mentioned buying food and they might need to wait for a while. Simultaneously, he walked to the rear car door, preparing to open it.

The black-haired man with the yellow bird perched on his shoulder replied calmly, “Understood.”

Fearful he might lose patience, Kusakabe remembered the feedback his subordinates had just given and reported something again. “By the way, Kyo-san, the gems entrusted to the overseas bases for auction were all paid for two hours ago.”

“Mm. Put it on my supplementary card.”

The man bent down to enter the back seat, his voice still casual, showing no trace of losing patience.

“…Alright.” Kusakabe, who had been hungry for over ten hours while piloting the plane, suddenly felt a bit full. Then he thought of another thing and reported, “By the way, before getting off the helicopter, Madam secretly entrusted me with a task.”

The person in the back seat completely ignored the word “secretly.” “What?”

“She asked me to try my best to collect the shattered Cloud rings you’ve used in the past, including those broken on the battlefield in the future—even if there’s only a bit of dust left.” Kusakabe felt it was quite ridiculous even as he said it.

He couldn’t figure out at all what the Madam was doing.

But he felt even fuller.

“Oh?”

The smile on Kyoya Hibari’s lips inexplicably deepened, as if his interest had truly been piqued by this secret. After a few seconds, he said, “Then do as she says.”

Pausing, he added, “In the future, you don’t need to consult me regarding the instructions she gives.”

“Yes!”

Fully understanding what this command implied, Kusakabe stole a glance through the rearview mirror.

…He seemed to have seen an old tree blooming! No, let me look again!

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