Chapter 131 A Wonderful Day

What heavy rain…

Sirian pulled open the balcony door. The balcony had accumulated a layer of standing water, filled with rotting leaves.

“It’s a good thing you came back early last night. If you had been even a few minutes later, you would have been drenched.”

Bruce came over, expressing similar continuous sighs of amazement.

The torrential rain, like an enraged giant beast, finally exhausted its strength and retreated into the clouds, dragging its soaking wet tail.

Heer City had no moment of respite; various automated factories continued to operate, chimneys habitually belched out soot, and the streets and alleys were filled with murky rainwater, forming small puddles on the uneven pavement that reflected the distorted outlines of the buildings above, as well as the perpetual gray haze in the sky.

Sirian sighed and began cleaning up the messy balcony.

After clearing the standing water, gathering the fallen leaves, and bagging the trash, he jumped down from the balcony and tossed the bag into the trash can.

Throwing things from a height?

Sirian might be a psychopathic killer, but he was absolutely not a low-quality tenant.

“Oh? Good morning, Sirian.”

“Don’t you like taking the stairs that much?”

“Transcendent physical fitness really is something.”

The voices of neighbors sounded around him. They had long grown used to Sirian’s quick method of descending the building.

“Oh, good morning, everyone.”

Sirian stood at the bottom of the building and smiled at his neighbors.

As soon as dawn broke, everyone, like Sirian, began cleaning up the mess left by the heavy rain.

“Catch this for me, Sirian!”

A neighbor, also too lazy to take the stairs like Sirian, simply threw the bagged trash down towards him.

“Got it!”

Sirian caught the trash bag falling from the sky and tossed it into the trash can with a flick of his wrist.

Soon, other neighbors followed suit, and it didn’t take long for them to clean up their balconies.

Some thanked Sirian, some invited him over for dinner, and one even asked Sirian to command his super-smart dog to fetch a basket of fruit from her house as a thank you.

Sirian responded to each offer, but politely declined them all.

His warm and cheerful smile, seen by several elderly women, made them regret that they didn’t have a daughter to introduce to Sirian so they could become family.

All that being said.

Sirian was very popular among the apartment residents.

Becoming a Torchbearer and an employee of the City Guard Bureau at such a young age—aside from the slightly dangerous nature of his job—his qualifications absolutely dominated the marriage market in Heer City.

Not to mention that after interacting with him for a while, the neighbors also discovered that Sirian had an excellent character.

He never acted superior due to his status as a Transcendent, and he was never stingy about offering help whenever someone needed it.

Through this effort, Sirian’s neighborhood relationships became extremely harmonious. They not only visited each other during festivals but he also occasionally received gifts like desserts and fruits from his neighbors.

Sirian returned home. His smile faded, and he let out a long, weary sigh.

“You really played the part of a model citizen, didn’t you?”

Bruce teased, “If they knew what you’ve been up to, they’d probably be scared enough to move out today.”

“Why would they?”

Sirian retorted, “Maybe they’d think I’m a very reliable neighbor. As long as I’m here, even if the high walls collapse, the apartment won’t be invaded by Chaos.”

“And…”

Sirian added, “I wasn’t pretending. I am a genuine, warm-hearted, model citizen.”

“Huh?”

Bruce wouldn’t believe his nonsense.

“It’s so humid. I feel sticky all over…”

Complaining, Sirian slipped into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and the sound of rushing water filled the air.

“One day… oh, one day…”

Bruce hummed a strange tune, curled up on the sofa, and used Source Energy to control a pair of mechanical prosthetic hands to flip through the pages of a book.

As a canine, his restricted forelegs caused Bruce considerable trouble in daily life, so he simply built this pair of prosthetic hands himself.

They were indeed very convenient to use.

A few minutes later, Sirian rinsed the stickiness off his body and walked out wrapped in a towel.

As he walked, he looked back at the bathroom suspiciously, ran his hands up and down his body, and tasted the water residue remaining on his fingertips.

Bruce asked without lifting his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“I feel like the water quality today might be problematic…”

“Does it taste strange?”

“Not exactly, it’s just… an instinctive strangeness. Do you know what I mean?”

“I guess so.”

Sirian crouched by the water valve, thinking aloud, “Which river supplies our water, do you think? It couldn’t be the Flower River, could it?”

“You suspect you’re drinking corpse water? Then you deserve it, kid.”

After a couple of mocking remarks, Bruce became serious. “Didn’t the City Hall say the water was purified? Besides, if there were a problem, wouldn’t we have the Spirit Artisans’ Water Gate System?”

The Water Gate System doesn’t just control the city’s waterways; practically anything related to rivers in Heer City is entirely under its jurisdiction.

“The Water Gate System?”

Sirian repeated the phrase.

In the days following the Reverse Falcon attack, Sirian hadn’t wasted time; instead, he had secretly investigated the rivers of Heer City.

Sirian still remembered that rumor.

But checking the rivers step by step was simply too troublesome, so Sirian decided to focus on the Water Gate System.

Initially, Sirian had a headache for quite a while. The City Guard Bureau and the Water Gate System were two independent departments. If he tried to swagger in and check the waterway data, the Spirit Artisans would surely kick him out.

Just then, Dailin’s years of accumulated contacts in Heer City paid off. After a night of heavy drinking, the two of them managed to extract the necessary intelligence from a drunken Spirit Artisan.

Everything was normal.

That was the conclusion.

Sirian was still uneasy, so he proceeded to get several other Spirit Artisans drunk one by one. Only after confirming that their conclusions were similar did he feel somewhat relieved.

Also, Dailin’s tolerance for alcohol was genuinely impressive.

“But hey, Sirian…”

Bruce’s words pulled Sirian’s attention back to reality.

“This really is a beautiful morning.”

For the first time in his dog life, Bruce had experienced such torrential rain and caught a glimpse of this kind of sky.

The sky was a pure cornflower blue, with a few wisps of thin clouds shredded into fibers by the wind.

Above the translucent dome, a dark gray arc stretched across the sky—the Star Ring was so low it felt almost reachable. Its inner edge shimmered with a faint metallic luster, while the outer side blurred into a hazy grayish-brown due to the diffuse reflection of rock fragments.

The Star Ring was not brilliant; it looked more like a rift in the sky cleaved open by some great power. Its sparse structure allowed the light behind it to penetrate, forming tiny specks of light on the inner side of the ring, like shattered stars.

The man and the dog gazed up like this, chatting idly.

“Bruce, how do you think this Star Ring came to be?”

“According to astronomy, when a satellite breaks apart due to tidal forces, impact events, or internal structural collapse, its fragments orbit the planet, gradually forming a ring structure.”

“So, our satellite collapsed on its own due to some reason?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Haven’t you ever looked at the Twin Moons at night?”

Bruce continued to chatter, “You can tell just by looking that the Cold Moon has a piece missing. Maybe the current Star Ring was formed from the fragments of the collapsed Cold Moon.”

In Sirian’s memories of his previous life, there was only a single, bright moon in the night sky. In the current world, however, the Twin Moons hung high at the edge of the night.

One was crimson, the other pale and icy.

The civilized world had no specific names for them, so based on common habit, the former was simply called the Red Moon, and the latter, the Cold Moon.

Besides their colors, the most notable difference between the Twin Moons was that the Cold Moon was shattered on one side, suspending countless rock fragments that drifted freely in the vacuum.

“So… why did the Cold Moon shatter?”

The moment Sirian voiced the question, he inexplicably shivered.

Such an obvious anomaly, constantly hanging high in the sky—why had he never thought about it in this way before?

Before Sirian could continue his thoughts, a rapid knocking sounded at the door.

“Who is it?”

Sirian impatiently pushed the door open, and a splash of vibrant color entered his sight.

“Good morning, Sirian!”

It was still that vibrant voice and vibrant smile, and still that bright red-and-white dress.

Meifuni stood behind the door, grinning. Seeing Sirian frozen, she poked her head forward, ready to slip inside.

“Why are you here?”

Sirian asked confusedly, “Didn’t we agree on tomorrow?”

Thanks to his outstanding performance during their time together—being hardworking, attentive, and meticulous—Meifuni reluctantly decided not to occupy Sirian’s entire weekend, leaving him one day to rest.

“Oh, I was just passing by.”

Meifuni reached out to the side, gave a hard tug, and dragged Elton out.

“He’s the one who came to see you.”

Seeing Elton, Sirian became even more puzzled.

Elton wasn’t good at small talk, so he got straight to the point.

“Sirian, there’s a gathering tonight. Would you like to come?”

“A Reverse Falcon gathering?”

“It’s loosely related to the Reverse Falcon, I suppose…”

Elton thought for a moment and explained, “A pair of my listeners encountered the Reverse Falcon recently. They want to share the experience with everyone… I thought you might be interested.”

“Hmm…”

Sirian pretended to hesitate, then replied.

“Sure! When does it start?”

“This afternoon,” Elton said apologetically. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner. Actually, I only found out last night myself.”

Elton, sounding somewhat lacking in confidence, explained further, “Mainly because the hosts of this gathering are those two listeners. I asked them, and they were happy to have more people join. Besides us, I also invited Dailin and his group. Meifuni is here for the same reason…”

“Alright, alright.”

Sirian interrupted Elton, grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to stand tall with his chest out.

“Saying it once is enough. Explaining endlessly like this only makes people think they can walk all over you.”

“Oh… O-okay!”

Elton straightened up and smiled.