After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Perhaps because of that sudden intimate address, Hibari Kyoya forgot to fuss about the button that had been torn off. He went straight to the car, got in through the door that Kusakabe had opened, and his conscientious right-hand man quickly came to the other side to open the door for Jin Chaoyan.

She quietly thanked him and was about to step forward when the heel of her high heel, which had almost caused her to fall earlier, was caught by a depression in the ground. She pulled hard several times but couldn’t get the heel out. She felt like she was nailed to the spot.

“Madam?”

Noticing the strange look on her face, Kusakabe called out to her again, puzzled.

“…I just remembered something I need to tell Chiyana. Could you wait for a moment?” Jin Chaoyan took her phone out of her handbag. As she slowly typed a message to Chiyana, she was still trying to pull her heel free.

Unfortunately, even after she finished discussing the medical bills and subsidies for the injured bodyguard with her butler, her left foot was still not free. Because her dress was too short, she couldn’t squat down, and she was silently collapsing inside.

She had been standing there for so long that Kusakabe noticed something was wrong. Just as he said, “Forgive me,” and moved to help, Jin Chaoyan quickly shook her head. She decisively gave up on the shoe, gently rested the tip of her foot on the scattered gravel, adjusted her dress, and slid into the car.

“Never mind. I don’t want this shoe anymore.”

She was too embarrassed to let Hibari’s capable subordinate retrieve her shoe for her. Besides, the heel was probably too scuffed to be saved after her earlier actions. It was better to just abandon it.

The man, who had already gotten in the car and was losing his patience, smelled a faint fragrance next to him. He had been pretending to doze with his eyes closed but now opened them suddenly. His gaze fell on the part of her legs not covered by her skirt, from her thigh to the back of her knee and her soft calf, finally settling on a pathetic, bloody scrape on her heel.

The stark contrast of red and white was particularly eye-catching.

A moment later, he reached into the tissue box beside him, pulled out a few sheets, and handed them over.

Jin Chaoyan had just pulled the car door shut. She turned her head and saw his action,愣了一下. She thought he was a germaphobe, but then she saw the tiny threads coming from the cuff of his sleeve where a button was missing, and the wrinkles that broke up its otherwise clean lines—

She accepted the tissues, bent down, and placed them on the floor mat. She then stepped on them with her left foot and looked back at him, silently asking: Is this okay?

Hibari Kyoya let out a light laugh from his nose and ignored her.

Just as Kusakabe got into the driver’s seat, an object was tossed from the back. He caught it with a quick hand and saw that it was a Sun-attribute Box with a strange pattern. The style wasn’t even recorded in their internal intelligence network, and he was astonished.

“This is…?”

Hibari Kyoya remembered the alpaca that had been released from the Box during the fight earlier, standing in the back and spewing healing flames at the injured. He answered unhurriedly: “An Animal Box.”

“All 343 Box models completed by the Secret Society in the last four and a half years have been recorded. And yet a new Animal Box has appeared…” Kusakabe Tetsuya found it hard to believe. “Besides, Vongola already—”

He was about to say something crucial when he remembered. He looked in the rearview mirror at Jin Chaoyan, who was carefully checking her nails for any damage, and then met Hibari’s gaze. He paused before continuing: “Verde already received a warning. Are they still researching and secretly selling new Boxes?”

“It’s not Verde.”

The deeply magnetic voice was like a lyrical piano melody, making one listen unconsciously. “It’s König. Find a way to locate him, Tetsu.”

“Yes.”

“Also, find out the connection between this group of herbivores and Italy.” After Hibari Kyoya finished this sentence, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, silently indicating that his patience had run out and the discussion about the night was over. Kusakabe could only swallow the guess he was about to make—”Is it related to the Millefiore Family again?”

The car drove smoothly through traffic. The atmosphere inside was quiet, and Jin Chaoyan could only hear her own breathing.

She had initially planned to listen carefully to their conversation to figure out if she was in the main plot of the anime and, if so, which part.

But midway through, she tried to recall the original story. It was laughable. After over 200 episodes, she couldn’t remember the specific plot at all. Listening was useless.

The silence made time feel longer. The view outside the privacy-filmed window seemed unchanging under the endless line of streetlights. At first, Jin Chaoyan could stare at Hibari Kyoya’s hands, admiring his long, slender knuckles, which looked like they were intricately carved from mutton-fat jade by a master artisan.

Later, she could only pull out her phone and start scrolling through Instagram.

Half an hour later.

Jin Chaoyan began to wonder if it really took this long to get from Ginza to Chiyoda district. She remembered that Chiyana hadn’t taken this long to drive to the yacht club, auction house, and Imperial Theatre that morning.

But she glanced at Hibari Kyoya beside her and eventually swallowed her doubts, deciding to forget her worries by shopping. Compared to the wildly askew technology tree of weapons development, the online payment systems in this island nation were extremely backward. It was fine to operate accounts from a computer in the apartment, but on a phone, Jin Chaoyan had to study for a long time just to get into the online banking system to make a payment.

However, this did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm for shopping after suddenly becoming rich.

Another twenty minutes passed. She began ordering a new limited-edition eyeshadow palette for the summer collection, filling out the address, and checking out—

“Buzz.”

A phone vibrated in the car.

Since it wasn’t hers, Jin Chaoyan paid no attention to where the sound was coming from. She thought about trying some new skincare brands. European and American brands, local high-end lotions, creams—she’d take a set of everything that looked good!

“Buzz.” The phone vibrated again after she placed the order.

This time, she couldn’t help it. She looked up and scanned the car, finding the phone on the business tray. She saw Hibari’s eyebrow furrowed with a hint of impatience, and she thought for a moment before quietly saying, “Um, your phone is ringing. Did someone send you a message?”

From her very noticeable glance just now to her speaking, Hibari Kyoya finally realized that it was impossible for him to take a nap in this car.

He picked up the phone, looked at the transaction alert on the screen, then put it back. But the next time it vibrated, he said coldly:

“You’re too noisy.”

Jin Chaoyan, who was engrossed in picking out expensive face masks: “…Who? He’s not talking about me, is he?”

After adding everything to her cart, she looked up and glanced around the car, catching Kusakabe’s expression in the rearview mirror, which was one of wanting to speak but not daring to.

Jin Chaoyan: “?”

She thought both of them were acting strange.

The woman, who hadn’t understood Kusakabe’s warning look at all, lowered her head and proceeded to check out all the sleeping masks, silk masks, and mud masks that she had just put in her cart—

“Buzz.”

This time, she seemed to have realized something. She stared at the phone on the business tray and, as if to verify, began checking out all the items she had only put in the cart for reference.

“Buzz, buzz, buzz.”

Ah.

Jin Chaoyan felt like she finally knew who Hibari was calling “noisy.”

She was slow to catch on, but Kusakabe, who was driving, no longer dared to breathe. Hearing the successive vibrations from the back seat, he thought of Hibari Kyoya’s terrifying rage whenever his rest was disturbed. His hands on the steering wheel were sweating.

The gods seemed to have heard his humble prayer to salvage a precarious marriage. The destination appeared around a corner, and Kusakabe stomped on the gas and drove to the finish line. The moment Hibari Kyoya’s eyes opened again, he raised his voice slightly and spoke loudly:

“Mr. Kyoya, Madam, we have arrived.”

Jin Chaoyan had no idea she had just escaped a disaster.

She got out of the car and looked at the huge Japanese-style courtyard, hidden in the night, with two lanterns hanging at the entrance. She was still reeling from the shock of discovering the truth about her spending—why would Hibari Kyoya’s phone get an alert when she used his card?

Was her relationship with the original owner that close?!

Jin Chaoyan, with her poor person’s mindset, thought that someone who gets alerted to your card transactions must have a very intimate relationship with you. Then she looked at the Japanese-style courtyard in front of her, and then at Kusakabe’s car, whose engine had been turned off. After confirming she was staying here tonight, her scalp began to tingle.

It’s over.

My good days are over.

The eyeshadow palettes, lotions, and masks I just bought, the bags, clothes, and shoes that haven’t arrived yet, and the Ferrari that’s being repainted, and the luxury yacht that hasn’t even had its design finalized—I never thought I’d have to say goodbye to you so soon!

Jin Chaoyan couldn’t even imagine that she had taken the place of one half of a loving couple and had been nonchalantly playing the part in front of the other person for so long, thinking she was doing a good job…

Oh, my god.

If this courtyard were to suddenly be enveloped by a mysterious force and disappear, she could instantly use her toes to dig out an identical one!

Jin Chaoyan’s eyes were vacant with despair, and she was even a little choked up. She didn’t know what to do next because she couldn’t be sure if Hibari Kyoya had discovered the truth. If he hadn’t, should she struggle a bit more? If he had, what would he do to her?

If she told him that the original owner was already dead when she arrived, what would her fate be?

Would he demand an eye for an eye?

Just as Jin Chaoyan’s mind was replaying a hundred different ways she could be discovered and die, Kusakabe found a pair of women’s flat wooden sandals and placed them in front of her. “Madam, please.”

Please what? Please go on your way in peace?

The unsettled woman found the mansion in front of her increasingly sinister. She even started imagining Japanese horror ballads, like why the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard was so red…

She dazedly stepped into the flat sandals and walked toward the mansion like a lost soul. She stumbled over the doorstep but didn’t fall this time. Instead, a force grabbed her arm, almost pulling it straight—

“Tsk.”

Hibari Kyoya looked at the woman who had been so happy swiping cards in the car but was now so dejected after entering the house. Seeing her foolishness—like she had eyes for decoration only—he couldn’t help but wonder how he had come to the thought on the plane that “Jin Chaoyan had been replaced.”

The woman in front of him showed no trace of illusionary power, nor did she exhibit the slightest demeanor of a shrewd secret agent or an undercover operative. She dressed flamboyantly, had no knowledge of his temperament, and repeatedly made a fool of herself in front of him.

…A normal person wouldn’t trip twice in such a short amount of time.

Oh, except for Sawada Tsunayoshi.

Jin Chaoyan, who had managed to regain her balance, didn’t even care that her arm hurt. She looked up and met that face, which was as handsome as a statue but could switch to a sharp, murderous glare at any moment. She was stunned for a moment, and then, without even thinking, she pulled out the shirt button she had just snatched.

Then, in front of Hibari Kyoya, she put the button in his suit pocket at his waist, and even patted it lightly.

“I’m giving it back to you,” she said, with the serene expression of someone ready to face death.

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