On the Ark.

"What, you're asking me what's wrong?" Lin Ye immediately looked away, feeling his heart pounding wildly. "I'm still here, and you've already taken off your clothes?!"

“What else? Do you want to take a bath with me?” Skadi said. “But I don’t recommend it because the bathtub is too small, and the experience would be terrible if two people were in it.”

"...Is this a matter of a poor experience?!" Lin Ye gritted his teeth, even though he knew that saying it would easily cause Skadi to misunderstand... But, at this point, what did he care about misunderstandings? He directly shouted, "Don't you know there's a difference between men and women?! How could you possibly take off your clothes in front of me?!"

Skadi stopped unbuttoning her shirt.

A rather awkward silence fell between the two sides.

After what seemed like an eternity, Skadi finally spoke with a light laugh: "So this is what you care about."

Lin Ye's lips twitched slightly: "...Shouldn't we care about something like this?"

“It’s not something that matters to me much,” Skadi said softly. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been alone most of the time.”

Lin Ye sighed: "But you're not alone now, you still have me."

“Is that so? Maybe you’re right.” Skadi looked into Lin Ye’s eyes and said slowly, “In the past, I only felt at ease when I was alone, but when you’re by my side, I always feel more at ease than when I’m alone.”

Lin Ye's mouth opened slightly wider.

"Alright, if you care about this kind of thing... then close your eyes."

"……what?"

"I'm going to take a bath."

"I've already said that, are you still going to soak it?!"

“This is a rare moment of relaxation for me, so please don’t stop me, okay?” The rustling sound started again, and Lin Ye quickly looked away. At the same time, he heard Skadi say, “When you take a bath in a rare moment of relaxation, you’ll feel that all the difficulties you face are nothing. I suggest you give it a try.”

"This isn't about taking a bath at all!" Lin Ye was completely taken aback. Even after he had said all this to Skadi, she remained unmoved, leaving him somewhat incoherent. "Wait, don't we have training later? How about we take a bath after training?"

“Training? What does that have to do with anything?” Skadi said nonchalantly. “Anyway, you’re the one doing it, not me.”

Lin Ye was speechless.

He remained standing in an extremely stiff posture until Skadi entered the bathroom, turned on the water, and finally got into the water.

……

……

Author's BB: Some people have said that my recent daily life chapters don't seem like what I write anymore. Do they still seem like what I write now?

Chapter 371 I'm done, it's your turn.

So, what's the current situation?

Sitting on the bed, Lin Ye pondered life. Skadi was taking a bath in the bathroom, and he could hear the rushing water. This made him conflicted. He didn't know if he should find an excuse to leave the room temporarily, but he also felt that as a grown man, it would be too embarrassing to always back down in such matters. After all, even Skadi didn't seem to care…

But then again, isn't it precisely because Skadi doesn't care that he needs to care? Skadi isn't normal, but he is, he's perfectly normal, just completely inexperienced in this area. Damn it, if he'd had a few relationships in his past life, he wouldn't be so helpless now, right?

During his more than twenty years of being single in his previous life, the only women he frequently interacted with were his relatives and the female cats he kept... Ah, thinking about it this way, his previous life was truly a failure to a certain extent.

Ah, no, my thoughts are getting more and more confused. I should probably find an excuse to leave.

What excuse should we make?

...I've got it! I'll say I'm going to check on Nightingale and Ifrit in the next room. Will there be any friction between two Sarkaz with such different personalities living in the same room? I need to avoid this kind of thing. It would be troublesome if they caused a conflict. So I have to go and see. Hmm, that's it, the perfect excuse.

Lin Ye was starting to admire his own wit; only in situations like this did his mind work so quickly.

So he immediately got out of bed, thinking he would tell Skadi and then make a quick getaway, then stay in the next room for a while until Skadi finished her bath before returning.

However, before he could even speak, Skadi, who was taking a bath in the bathroom, interrupted him with a casual remark: "Lin Ye, are you still there?"

Lin Ye stopped in his tracks: "Yes, what's wrong?"

"Talk to me."

"...Huh?" Lin Ye was a little confused. "Chatting? Weren't you taking a bath?"

Skadi asked softly, "Is there a conflict? I didn't soak it with my mouth either..."

Okay, that seems to make sense.

Lin Ye was about to sneak out, but Skadi's words made it difficult for him to leave. He could only say, "I thought you preferred a quieter time when you took a bath."

“I don’t like quiet, I just don’t like noise,” Skadi said softly. “Talking to you doesn’t count as noisy.”

Lin Ye was speechless.

"You don't want to?" Skadi asked.

"No, why wouldn't you want to?" Lin Ye sat back down. "What do you want to talk about?"

"do not know."

"do not know?"

"There are many things I want to say, but I don't know which one to say."

"for example?"

"For example, the bathtubs here are really narrow and shallow, which is quite boring."

Lin Ye was speechless: "What do you expect from the hotel's bathtub? Besides, I just glanced at it, and it's not exactly small. This hotel is quite expensive."

“Isn’t that small?” Skadi said. “That’s because you haven’t experienced it.”

What have you experienced?

“I’ve experienced it… but the feeling of finally surfacing after a long period of darkness,” Skadi said softly. “The instant I opened my eyes, I saw the brilliant starry sky, and felt the waves caressing my face…”

"You were swimming in the sea, weren't you?"

“It’s not swimming, but… never mind, you wouldn’t understand anyway.” Skadi sighed. “But it doesn’t matter, I can take you to try it sometime.”

Lin Ye thought to himself that swimming in the sea was a no-go; what if he accidentally drowned? He could swim, but that was all he could do. Compared to Skadi, who had grown up in the deep sea, the difference was immense. Besides, the deep sea was teeming with strange and terrifying creatures—Messiah had already warned him about that. Of course, Lin Ye only thought these things in his mind; he would never say them aloud. His emotional intelligence wasn't that low.

Seeing that Lin Ye hadn't spoken for a long time, Skadi asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Lin Ye snapped out of his thoughts and said, "It's nothing. I was just thinking about what you told me before, about my ancestors and your ancestors."

"Ok?"

"How should I put it?" Lin Ye scratched his head. "It still feels a bit unbelievable, after all, my ancestors used to swim in the sea or something... But why did they later come ashore?"

"They probably want to conquer the land."

Lin Ye smiled and said, "It's a pity you failed, isn't it?"

“No, it should be considered a success,” Skadi said. “All the races on Terra today trace their origins back to the original humans. From this perspective, your ancestors did not fail; they succeeded. They simply changed their identity and became more suited to this continent.”

That's evolution, right? So, pre-humans must be an evolutionary failure, a species destined for extinction, right? After all, there are hardly any pre-humans left in the world. If things continue like this, pre-humans will eventually disappear completely from Terra. They won't even have any mates left to reproduce with.

Wait a minute, there doesn't seem to be a "can't find" explanation, right? Come to think of it, there doesn't seem to be any reproductive isolation between original humans and other human races. It's just that their offspring definitely won't be original humans. For example, if he were to mate with Nightingale or Skadi, then their offspring would be... wait, wait, wait, what the hell is he thinking about now?!

Lin Ye quickly patted his head, trying to shake off those strange thoughts.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Lin Ye stopped what he was doing, ran to open the door, and found that it was Ifrit who was knocking.

"Ifrit?" Lin Ye looked at Ifrit with some confusion. "Is there something you need so late?"

“Of course I am,” Ifrit said. “I’m so hungry.”

"I'm so hungry?"

“Yes!” Ifrit glared at Lin Ye. “We haven’t had dinner yet, have you forgotten?”

Lin Ye had genuinely forgotten, since he'd gone straight shopping upon arriving. When Ifrit suggested it, he was feeling a bit hungry, so he figured they should go get some late-night snacks. Just as he was about to say that, he heard the door open behind him. He instinctively turned around and saw Skadi wrapped in a towel, soaking wet, walking out of the bathroom.

Skadi saw Lin Ye and said softly, "I'm ready, is it your turn? We don't have much time tonight, so we need to hurry."

……

……

Author's note: I forgot to mention yesterday that I updated three chapters, and I still owe twenty-one chapters. Tonight, I might update three chapters, or I might update two.

Chapter 372 Quack Doctor, you've found another woman again?!

"Miss Yukiko Oniguchi, is that right?" The innkeeper looked up from his ledger at the woman standing before him. "You were the one who called to book the room a week ago, weren't you?"

The woman known as "Guigu Xuehui" nodded: "Yes."

"Yes, if it's you, then it's definitely the right one," the innkeeper said. "There's only one room left, but it's a double room. Is that alright?"

Guigu Xuehui shook her head: "No."

"If not, you can check in now." The hotel owner smiled and handed the key to the girl. "Have a happy Halloween."

Guigu Xuehui took the key, played with it in her hand for a moment, then tapped it, picked up her heavy luggage, and turned to leave.

As she reached the top of the stairs, the hotel owner spoke up again: "If I'm not mistaken, you're probably from the East, right?"

Guigu Xuehui paused for a moment, but didn't turn around. She simply asked, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, it's just that the horn on your forehead reminds me a little," the innkeeper said with a smile. "I also traveled to the Eastern Kingdom for a while, and I really miss the scenery there... Ah, I'm getting off-topic. It's already this late, you should go back to your room and rest. If you'd like some late-night snacks, our inn has some local specialties, and we're open very late. If you'd like, you can come and try them. Finally, I wish you a happy Halloween again."

Guigu Xuehui remained silent. She pouted, probably wanting to say "Happy Halloween," but ultimately didn't, and went upstairs with her luggage. When the hotel owner asked her again if she needed help with her luggage, she didn't reply and quickly left.

Watching the departing figure, the innkeeper scratched his head and muttered, "The demons of the East are still as difficult to deal with as ever."

……

Guigu Xuehui used the key to open the door, entered the room, locked the door from the inside, and checked it again before putting down her luggage.

Her luggage was ridiculously large, drawing stares from passersby as she walked down the street, but there was nothing she could do about it; she had just too much to carry. Unzipping her backpack, she took out the items one by one: first, the signature equipment of the "Ghost Hunter"—a demon mask with blue fangs and a white wig, a jet-black scythe, and a series of small decorations.

If she wears all these things, everyone will bow to her on Halloween, even though that's not what she wants.

After placing the decorations on the other bed, she took out another mask from her backpack. This was the "White Fox Demon" mask she had just bought on the street. This mask was noticeably different from her previous ones; it wasn't scary, but Onigu Yukie still bought it and wouldn't let the other man who wanted it have it. Even though she was generally a reasonable person, she wouldn't budge on this mask.

She didn't know why, but when she looked at the mask, it felt like something was welling up inside her, and her long-buried memories seemed to be stirring. And these were precisely the things she had been searching for.

She closed her eyes, gently stroking the mask as if sensing something, but a sudden knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She opened her eyes, looked towards the door, and frowned slightly.

She didn't want to open the door because she didn't know anyone in the town, so she wanted to wait for the person knocking to give up. But she waited a full minute, and the knocking not only didn't stop, it got even louder.

Guigu Xuehui sighed softly, then slowly got up, removed her mask, and covered the things on the bed with her backpack. She took out the scythe separately, slung it over her shoulder, and then quietly walked towards the door.

The knocking grew louder, and the person knocking seemed quite impatient. This made Guigu Xuehui wonder if someone who had followed her would dare to come looking for her so openly.