Girl in the Box: Please tell me why I was reincarnated as a mimic monster!

After dinner, the three of them leaned against the railing on the top floor, looking down into the atrium to the ground floor, watching the customers come and go for a while. As the number of people gradually decreased, Li checked the time; it was finally past eleven o'clock, which was closing time. However, the mall still had three special customers tonight, so it wouldn't close immediately.

Without waiting to be told, the three of them headed downstairs on their own. By then, all the other customers were gone, and the shop assistants came out to greet them. Although she knew it was all a performance arranged by the young manager, Li couldn't help but feel a little excited.

These scenes, which obviously only appear in novels and TV dramas, actually exist. The thought of this made her a little excited. Now, the entire mall is serving the three of them.

"Don't worry, just do it as usual." Ning took Li's hand. "It's just shopping, right? It's the same whether you book the whole place or not, isn't it? Besides, we have enough money to buy the whole mall, don't we?"

"Why are you always so calm..." Li said, her head aching. "I really don't know what emotion to express right now, but I just feel pretty happy..."

"That's more like it." Ning smiled. "What's there to worry about? We should think about what to buy instead."

"Ah, Sister Li, Sister Ning, can I go shopping by myself?" Xiao suddenly asked halfway through the walk.

"Are you going to shop by yourself?" Li nodded. "No problem... Um, miss, could you please send someone else to watch my sister?"

"Okay, I'll arrange it as soon as possible."

"That's fine then." Li patted Xiao's head. "Make sure you wear the bracelet. If you need any help, you can ask them for assistance."

"Well, I see."

Xiao grinned, then jogged away, thinking she could finally leave safely. But then she heard a scream. To everyone's surprise, Xiao had jumped over the railing and down into the courtyard, startling all the witnesses. Li and Ning, dumbfounded, chased after her to the courtyard. After seeing Xiao skillfully use various objects extending from the courtyard to land safely, they sighed helplessly.

"Um...?" The waitress was at a loss for words.

"I'm sorry..." Li apologized first, "We didn't expect this to happen either..."

"I'll talk to her properly later and explain that she can't do that," Ning apologized to the waitress.

"Eh... okay then..."

The waitress probably didn't know how to react, but she couldn't afford to offend the important customer, so she could only obediently cooperate. Of course, she must still find it somewhat unbelievable that such a young girl could descend so quickly from the sixth-floor atrium to the second floor. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she probably would have found it incredible too.

But that's the reality. The girl descended to the second floor in an unbelievable speed. In short, let's make sure the people on the second floor aren't mistreated first. Knowing that Xiao was alright, her two older sisters quickly returned to normal. They were already used to this kind of thing. They would probably be surprised if Xiao were injured because of this.

Afterwards, the two strolled around this floor. Although it wouldn't be surprising if they had the financial means to buy the entire mall, they wouldn't waste it on random purchases. Li and Ning each had their own considerations. For example, when it came to clothes, they wouldn't bring back too many except for swimwear.

After all, clothing is something that both Li and Ning can reproduce. Although it's impossible to remember all the designs, it's not a problem to try and find a similar style. Besides, Earth clothing also exists there, but it's relatively rare, and usually only the Dragon Kings and the like wear it.

"Speaking of which... since we've bought swimsuits," Li suddenly thought, "the competition should include water events, right?"

"Water sports?"

Ning thought for a moment.

Water sports refer to sports performed by athletes on water, mainly including swimming, diving, rowing, canoeing, water polo, synchronized swimming, and diving. These can also be competitive events. Although such activities don't exist in this world, it wouldn't be bad for them, the Little Garden, to pioneer this; besides, it's not impossible.

“The arena is definitely big enough.” Li spread his arms wide to make an analogy. “Assuming the stands only occupy the surrounding area and are high enough, there would be enough space to fill it with water, right? I can use spacetime magic to create transparent spatial walls around it, so I can see what’s happening inside the water, right?”

"As for water sports... we need to think carefully about what kind of events to include..." Ning analyzed calmly. "Normal competitive events on Earth may not be applicable there. Considering that there are only five days from registration to the start of the competition, there isn't enough time for practice. This means there are far fewer events we can choose from."

"Oh, I see... then I didn't think it through..." Li sighed. "I was thinking it was a good idea..."

"No, I think this is great, isn't it fun?" Ning smiled and said, "I think your idea is pretty good too. There are definitely suitable projects. Let's discuss it with everyone when we get back. If all else fails, we can just do some simple projects. By the way, have you thought about the prizes or anything like that?"

"A prize..." Li paused, then said, "Oh no... I don't think I've prepared a prize yet..."

During this period, most of her attention was focused on preparing for the celebration. The selection and construction of the venue, the formulation of rules, and the selection of staff filled her mind, causing a blockage. It took a lot of time to deal with this chaotic mess, but she didn't expect that she would forget about the prizes.

"My head hurts..." Li said dejectedly, "I can't believe this kind of thing actually happened... Why didn't you warn me sooner..."

“You didn’t tell me either…” Ning had a little bit of expectation, but she didn’t expect that Li was completely unprepared. “Prizes are easy to handle, right? For example, the prizes for the Olympics here are medals, right? Gold, silver, bronze… and there are also gold-inlaid jade ones.”

"Hmm... these are traditional prizes, that's true..." Li said with a wry smile, "but would people in another world accept them? Gold, silver, and bronze are very common things there, right? Gold inlaid with jade is another story... there probably isn't such a thing as jade in that world, is there?"

"Jade... I've never seen this in that world before..."

Ning didn't recall ever seeing jade or anything like that there. Logically, there should be some jade-related items in that other world, but they had indeed seen something that looked like jade in that world. As for crystal, they were already tired of seeing crystal. To be honest, they had finally managed to repair the core of the world and really didn't want to see any more crystal.

"How about it?" Li asked tentatively, "give it a try?"

"Hmm..." Ning thought for a moment, "I think it's a good idea. It would be nice as one of the prizes. And I think there might be a reason why there's no jade in that world. Um, miss, may I ask if there are any jewelry shops here?"

"Yes, of course." The waitress gestured for her to follow her. "Please come with me."

"Then I'll trouble you to take the two of us there."

"What would you two like to buy?"

“All the jade,” Ning said without hesitation. “Please buy all the jade for sale in this mall for us.”

"Uh..." The waitress hesitated for a moment, "Would you like to check out the styles?"

“Yes,” Ning nodded, “I hope to get some of the jade now.”

“Alright,” the waiter nodded, “please follow me.”

Led by the waiter, the two went down to the first floor, where all the jewelry shops were busily preparing to pack jade. The jade sold in this mall had all been hand-carved before being put on the market, which increased the price. However, the two didn't care about that; they had long since lost any concept of money, so they just wanted to spend it.

Moreover, no one can say for sure what the difference is between carved jade and natural jade in that world, so they plan to work on both simultaneously, and then find an opportunity to get some raw jade stones and compare them. Ning used her skill to scan the jade in the cabinet, then casually picked out a few to take away, as if she were just casually buying a few small stones.

Ning held the jade stones in her hands and played with them. Li glanced at them curiously, and when Ning closed her hands, a little bit of magical light shone through the gap.

"What are you doing?" Li asked.

"Just testing its properties." Ning casually tossed the jade in her hand. Each time she put it in her hand, she would use some skills to test the properties of these jades. "Magic can flow smoothly inside these jades. That's all we've figured out so far. Do you have any thoughts?"

"Hmm...I'm not sure," Li said, looking at the jade in Ning's hand. "Take a look at it first. Do we need to buy anything else?"

"Let's go find Xiao first... I'm a little curious about what she wants to buy..."

"I agree……"

After seeing what Xiao wanted to buy, Li was a little worried that she would buy something strange again. As it turned out, their worries were wrong. Xiao went to the sports equipment section and seemed very interested in the items. Apparently, she was going to buy them to use as training equipment for their guard team.

Since that's a perfectly normal thought, Li didn't say anything more, and basically bought all the sports equipment there.

Isn't this too luxurious?

That was Li's initial thought, but once something deep within a woman's soul awakened, she stopped caring about those things. She bought all sorts of things she needed at once, never expecting to spend so much money. Only after this extravagant spending spree did she come to her senses.

It was impractical for the three girls to carry all these things back, so the mall arranged a vehicle to take their purchases to the hotel. In order to have a place to put these things, in addition to the valuables, Li also booked an extra single room for storage. However, after everyone left, she used time-space magic to put everything away.

Chapter 22 The Demon King's Another Life

"You really bought quite a lot of things..."

Looking at the long shopping list and taking stock of what she had bought, Li was still a little confused, not quite realizing what she had done. Especially after seeing the six-figure sum on the list, Li was even more bewildered. One hundred thousand RMB...? Is that a lot? Li's understanding of money had become chaotic.

It's a good thing that the credit card could pay so much. If it weren't for that credit card, I probably would have had to use gold coins. If I had used so many gold coins all at once, things would have become much more complicated.

After their shopping spree, the three of them returned to their hotel and stayed there, extending their stay for another night.

"So many gems..." Xiao said, looking at the jade stones spread on the bed in a daze.

“To be precise, it should be jade rather than gemstone,” Ning patted Xiao’s head. “This thing is interesting, but it will take some time to figure out its magical properties. At least we won’t be able to determine it until we go back. I quite like these little stones though.”

Ning picked up a disc-shaped piece of white nephrite and peered through its somewhat transparent interior at Li. To Ning, Li was the most precious piece of nephrite—a thought she had formed after her first encounter with these stones called jade.

The properties and principles of these jades are very similar, and Ning gradually began to feel that buying these jades would be a good choice.

“Don’t call it a small stone.” Li snatched the jade from her hand with some anger. “This is part of the culture of this country. Although these things may not feel real to you, they are a culture that this country can be proud of.”

"Jade culture..." Ning wasn't angry. "China has a history of five thousand years, and it still maintains an ancient cultural atmosphere even in modern times. It's really beyond imagination... However, there's not much difference in modern places. But I haven't actually been to other countries, so it's not appropriate for me to make any comments here."

"Hmm...that's pretty much it..." Li nodded, deciding to let her off the hook for now.

"Haa..." Ning stretched, "I just took a nap this afternoon, but I feel a little tired now..."

“I feel the same way,” Xiaoye yawned, “It’s so tiring…”

"Ugh... I'm so tired... Haaaaah~~"

If the two hadn't spoken, Li wouldn't have felt anything, but when they said those words while yawning, he felt as if he had been infected and yawned as well. Then sleepiness washed over him, and his vision became somewhat blurred.

"Didn't you yawn too?" Ning smiled.

"No, no!" Li said in a panic, "Yawning is contagious!"

“There’s no scientific basis for this,” Ning retorted. “As far as I know, this experiment was just a random sampling experiment, but that doesn’t prove its scientific validity. Yawning is a random behavior.”

"Ha... Oh well, I'm pretty tired anyway."

The silver light shimmered in his hand as he gathered all the jade stones on the bed into his bag. Then, without a care, he pounced on the bed, rolling up the blankets like a caterpillar. For some reason, it had been quite hot during the day, but the temperature suddenly dropped at night. Sometimes the weather in this world is just that unpredictable and capricious.

However, Rin had long since gotten used to it. It was quite different from the other world, where the climate was much calmer. Apart from the Demon Realm, there were basically no sudden changes in climate. Rin had been in that world for a year, but she had never experienced the changes of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Perhaps it was because the planetary structure of the other world was different from that of Earth that this situation occurred.

In short, it's getting cold outside now, and I don't plan to go out at this time. The weather forecast on my phone says it will rain tonight, and it would be good if they could get back before then. If they're outside, they'll probably get soaked even with just an umbrella, which would be quite uncomfortable. I was originally thinking of taking these two out to see Chengdu after midnight, but it would be troublesome if it started raining.

"Let's call it a day..." Li said coquettishly. "I heard it's going to rain. If we go out at this time, we can only take an umbrella, and we can't play much with it. Let's just forget about it for now... I want to sleep..."

"Hey, why are you asleep already?"

"Then what else can we do if we don't sleep?"

"Anyway, get up first. Have you forgotten that we still need to choose prize candidates?"

"Eh~~~~"

Tonight will most likely be a sleepless night.

------

"call……"

At this moment, it was raining heavily in Dali, Yunnan. It was past midnight, and due to the geographical factors, the night in Dali was quite cold. People who originally planned to run late-night snack stalls and barbecue stands had already closed up shop because of the cold. If they got sick, they would have to pay for medical treatment instead. They weren't the kind of people who would haggle over such small amounts of money; after all, their health was more important.

Only a few stalls remained open for business because there were still customers. Some people who had just finished working overtime and were about to go home were also walking quickly with umbrellas, wanting to get home as soon as possible. But among these hurried people, there was one person who was a little different. That person seemed to blend into the darkness completely. If they didn't come under the light, no one would even notice them.

He didn't use an umbrella, just walked in the rain, unmoved by the wind and rain. The phone in his right hand was lit up, as if he was trying to dial someone's number. He had switched to speakerphone, but all he could hear was the beeping standby tone. He didn't know how many times he had dialed this number today and failed to get through.

He hoped that the person on the other end of the phone was either too busy or had changed their phone number, but if they had changed their number, it was unlikely he would be able to call back.

"Damn old man..."

Xuanze instinctively gripped his phone tighter.

"Come on, answer it..."

He only had one thing he wanted to do after returning to Earth: once he had settled this matter, he could leave Earth without any worries. However, the person he was looking for remained elusive. He had been trying to contact that person for a whole day, but had not received any news, which made him very anxious.

He hung up the call with a headache, then continued walking as if nothing had happened. Those who saw him treated him like a weirdo, subtly avoiding him and walking around him. Xuanze ignored them; besides, it was pointless to bother. Rather than waste time on such trivial matters, he might as well continue…

"Brother Xuan?"

A familiar voice came from ahead, causing Xuanze to instinctively stop and look up. Logically, there should only be one person who would call him that.

"It's really you."

The person emerged from the darkness into the light of the streetlamp, revealing his form. Standing there was a lightly dressed, short-haired girl, around fourteen or fifteen years old, who was scrutinizing Xuanze with a strange look.

"Eek... I thought you'd disappeared somewhere in half a year." The girl said disdainfully, "Did you go somewhere to work? You look so miserable, did someone scam you? Or have you lost your mind? You don't even know how to use an umbrella? And you still remember to come back?"

If it were anyone else, Xuanze would have punched them long ago, but he didn't. Instead, he stared at the other person silently.

"What?" The girl's eyebrows shot up. "What's with that expression? Why are you being so fierce? If I hadn't heard from others that a strange guy in a black coat suddenly appeared around here, I wouldn't have come here... Speaking of which, half a year has passed, you should be an adult by now, right? Why are you always wearing that black coat and acting all childish? You're way past that age, aren't you? Do you think you have magic to stop this rain right now? Here, take it. I don't care if you keep getting soaked and die in the street."

Xuanze caught what the girl threw to him; without even looking, he knew it was an umbrella.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?" Xuanze asked coldly.

"Isn't it all because of you, you idiot?" The girl rolled her eyes at him. "I heard from others that you've been wandering around here all day. Why don't you go back to the orphanage?"

"What would I do back there?" Xuanze sneered.

"Hey? What's with that attitude?" The girl was furious. "I came all the way to this godforsaken place in the middle of the night because I was worried about you! Enough talk, come back with me. And that's not how you use an umbrella, idiot. Open it, then hold it up, understand?"

After saying a few unpleasant words, the girl walked away without looking back. Xuanze looked at the umbrella in his hand, sighed, and then followed behind the girl without using the umbrella. He simply snapped his fingers, and a tiny bit of blue light flicked from his fingertip, disappearing without a trace.

tick tock...

"Ah... the rain has stopped." The girl said in annoyance, "I should have known better than to come out and bring you an umbrella, what a waste of time."

She closed her umbrella and shook off the rain. Xuanze ignored her and walked straight past her. The girl noticed that Xuanze had overtaken her, and a sense of defiance arose from somewhere. She chased after him through the puddles, splashing water all over him. However, it didn't make much difference to him, who had been getting soaked in the rain all night.

"Hey? Are you really Brother Xuan?" the girl asked. "You seem so different. What have you been doing for the past six months?"

"If I said I traveled through time, would you believe me?" Xuanze told the truth.

“I don’t believe it,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “It’s better to have dreams like that during the day. You can have anything in your dreams. It’s amazing that you can say such nonsensical things without batting an eye. Honestly, where have you been? Your mother is very worried about you.”

"I already told you that," Xuanze said, not intending to change his mind. "How's the orphanage doing now?"

"What else can happen?" the girl said calmly. "Is there any difference from six months ago?"

"No man would like someone with such a terrible attitude," Xuanze said with a hint of malice.

"That's because you spoiled me," the girl said dismissively. "Do you know what my friends call me at school? Big Sister. This thuggish attitude of mine comes from you. How are you going to take responsibility for that?"