A-Lian the Big White Mouse

“Don’t move!” A-Lian barked sharply at Kallianna to the side.

The charcoal pencil in her hand moved up and down with her arm at great speed, as if racing against time.

“I’m saying, Sister Lian, what are you doing, making me stand here without moving…”

Kallianna maintained a proper standing posture at one end of the wall.

Beside her was a wooden plant stand with a lush wolf-tail fern growing on it, its fronds spreading out like a large flower in full bloom.

“I’m drawing you!” A-Lian said loudly.

“Why draw me…?”

Kallianna asked with a bit of fear, because A-Lian’s current state was somewhat abnormal.

She was actually drawing while wearing a sinister grin.

“I’m going to draw everyone I know.

As for the reason, you don’t need to know~”

A-Lian looked at Kallianna with a terrifying expression, like a hungry wolf staring at a little white rabbit.

“Y-you’re not telling me you’re doing this to sell ‘me,’ are you…”

Kallianna said in a panic.

“Correct!

I’m going to sell ‘you’ to that idiot Alex!”

A-Lian complained resentfully toward Kallianna.

“Are you a steamed bun or what!”

Kallianna looked at A-Lian’s cheeks puffed up with anger, just like a big steamed bun.

As for A-Lian being like this, Kallianna didn’t really know why.

It seemed she had already gotten used to wearing skirts, and recently she didn’t seem as rigid as before.

If you really asked why, Kallianna herself couldn’t say.

What made it obvious was that whenever A-Lian talked about Alex and herself lately, she would puff up her cheeks.

“None of your business!”

A-Lian lowered her head and continued drawing Kallianna.

“What exactly did Alex do to offend you?

Why do you get angry the moment you see him?”

Kallianna asked in confusion.

It seemed that whenever Lian saw Alex, she would avoid his gaze.

Either she would quickly dodge away, or she would say nothing, keep her head down, and wear a gloomy expression, as if she had encountered an enemy.

“Angry is angry.

It has nothing to do with you.”

In fact, A-Lian herself didn’t really understand it either.

Logically speaking, Alex shouldn’t have been able to recognize her.

But he always seemed to be probing her identity during conversations, which made her very uncomfortable.

Being around him felt like being monitored.

“If you say any more bad things about Alex, I’ll flatten your chest later!”

Kallianna sneered at A-Lian, sending goosebumps all over her body.

“Ah, okay, okay, I won’t say anything, I won’t say anything.”

A-Lian begged in panic.

That steamed-bun-like face immediately returned to normal.

Who was Kallianna, you ask?

Back then, when A-Lian secretly mocked Alex, she was immediately caught by Kallianna, thrown onto the carpet, and tickled.

Logically speaking, since A-Lian was called Sister Lian, she should be older than Kallianna.

But in terms of physique, Kallianna was more than a bit taller than A-Lian.

She casually pushed A-Lian down onto the carpet, as easily as an adult lifting a child.

She began tickling A-Lian.

Normally, people are afraid of being tickled, and if they’re weaker, they’ll beg for mercy when it becomes unbearable.

But unfortunately, A-Lian wasn’t afraid of tickling at all.

No matter how Kallianna tickled her, A-Lian showed no reaction whatsoever.

And A-Lian wasn’t someone who would easily admit defeat.

She thought to herself, I’m a hero!

How could I possibly be defeated by a mere weak woman?!

So our hero fought back with all her might, as if facing death without fear, bravely resisting Kallianna.

However, she overlooked one problem.

She was no longer a hero…

Seeing how fiercely A-Lian resisted, Kallianna began to panic as well.

Originally, she had just wanted to punish A-Lian a little by tickling her.

But with things turning out like this, she had no choice but to think of another way.

Unluckily enough, she came up with a “brilliant” idea.

It was still tickling, but the location changed…

She grabbed A-Lian’s not-too-big, not-too-small chest and began kneading it.

When A-Lian’s chest was grabbed, her small face flushed red like a ripe cherry.

Not only did her resistance not lessen, it became even more intense, and the conflict escalated to an uncontrollable level.

A-Lian even swung her little fists toward Kallianna’s face.

Although Kallianna didn’t feel any pain, she sensed that things were getting very bad.

After that, Kallianna became even more afraid to let go, and A-Lian resisted even more fiercely.

But that resistance had no effect at all…

In the end, it concluded with A-Lian clutching her head, squatting in the corner by the wall, and sobbing.

From that day on, A-Lian didn’t say a single word to Kallianna…

Until later, when Kallianna brought out a limited-edition pineapple bun made by Crescent Pavilion.

Speaking of that reconciliation, it was actually quite interesting.

At first, when Kallianna brought the pineapple bun to the library to apologize, A-Lian didn’t say a word, treating her as if she were air.

Kallianna tried many methods, coaxing and tricking, but none worked.

After too many attempts, A-Lian snapped and directly used “disturbing the rest of the books in the library” as an excuse to kick her out.

With things said to that extent, Kallianna had no choice but to leave.

But she was clever and left the pineapple bun on the desk she had polished until it shone.

She hid in the shadows and secretly observed A-Lian.

At first, A-Lian sat calmly at the desk, reading some obscure and niche material related to optics.

She seemed completely unconcerned about the bag of pineapple buns.

However, Kallianna, watching from the shadows, noticed that A-Lian’s twin wine-red, cat-like pupils would unconsciously tremble, as if sneaking glances at the pineapple buns.

At a glance, she knew there was hope.

She continued observing A-Lian.

From her eyes, Kallianna could guess the intense struggle in her heart—should she eat it or not?

Anyway, Kallianna wasn’t there.

If she didn’t eat it and it got cold, that would be a waste!

But they were clearly supposed to have broken off relations.

Wouldn’t it be wrong to eat her food?

Kallianna could even roughly guess what A-Lian was thinking.

How could she be so sure?

Because that book on optics—A-Lian had been looking at it for nearly ten minutes without turning a single page.

After another ten minutes or so, A-Lian suddenly stood up.

This sudden movement startled Kallianna.

A-Lian stared straight at the pineapple bun, as if she had already made up her mind.

“Gulp.”

She swallowed.

She looked around, confirming that there was no one in the library.

She turned and walked toward the window, scanning her surroundings.

In the garden, aside from a few idle servants, she didn’t spot that little girl with wine-red hair.

She then walked toward the main door.

When Kallianna saw her approaching the crack of the door, she immediately hid.

A-Lian opened the door and looked around once more.

After confirming that there really was no one, she closed the door.

She then hurried straight to the desk, picked up the bag of pineapple buns without hesitation, crawled under the desk, and started gnawing away.

Seeing A-Lian go under the desk, Kallianna quietly opened a crack in the door and peeked inside.

Sure enough, the pineapple buns were gone, and so was Sister Lian.

She carefully pushed the door open and tiptoed into the library, secretly searching for A-Lian.

“Crunch, crunch~”

The cheerful chewing sounds were very obvious.

She cautiously picked up a large broom from the corner and quietly approached under the desk.

“Ha!

I caught you!

A big white mouse!

So it was you stealing my pineapple buns!”

Kallianna pretended to say angrily to Lian.

In an instant, A-Lian’s facial expression changed rapidly.

From startled white, to choking purple, and after a moment, to ashamed red.

“I’m not… I’m not!”

A-Lian explained with a red face, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation nearly suffocating her.

Though the explanation looked extremely weak.

This was the first sentence A-Lian had spoken in three days.

And it actually began with this.

Trembling, A-Lian used both hands to offer the last pineapple bun, with just one bite left, to Kallianna.

“You only give it back after eating it like this?!”

Kallianna said, pretending to be angry.

“Th-then I’ll just give you money!”

A-Lian began rummaging through her pockets and took out a silver coin.

“Only one?

When I pre-ordered, I even cut in line to get it!

It cost me two silver coins!”

A single silver coin could be used for many things.

A-Lian’s salary was only one gold coin per month.

And it was already late in the month, so A-Lian only had one coin left for savings or emergencies.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been more than enough.

But now, she had no money left…

A-Lian’s face was so red it was about to drip blood.

She wanted to run, wanted to find a hole to crawl into, just like the big white mouse Kallianna mentioned.

Indeed, describing the silver-haired A-Lian as a big white mouse wasn’t inaccurate at all.

But at that moment, A-Lian had hidden herself under the desk, and the front was blocked by Kallianna’s broom.

She had nowhere to go.

Seeing her expression on the verge of tears, Kallianna felt very satisfied.

“Originally, you could only eat this after forgiving me.

Since you ate my pineapple bun, then forgive me, okay?”

Kallianna extended an olive branch to A-Lian.

No matter how much A-Lian didn’t want to deal with Kallianna, she had no other choice.

She could only nod her little head twice.

Seeing A-Lian nod, Kallianna immediately lowered the broom.

As soon as the broom was lowered, A-Lian crawled out from under the desk and ran into her bedroom, really just like a big white mouse with white fur, to sulk on her own.

A-Lian was a person of her word.

The next day, she returned to normal.

But she absolutely refused to admit that she had stolen food.

Although her blushing face exposed her when she tried to argue, whenever someone mentioned her blushing, she would immediately stack her hands on the desk and bury her face in her arms to hide it.

However, her face was simply too red, red all the way to her ears.

Doing this only made her look even more like a white-furred mouse trying to squeeze into a crack…

“What are you thinking about!

Finish the drawing already!”

A-Lian shouted loudly.

Kallianna, who had been daydreaming, snapped back to her senses.

“Nothing, I was thinking about a white-furred mouse,”

Kallianna slipped up.

What she had meant to say was “small things.”

But somehow, it came out wrong.

“You’re still thinking about that!”

A-Lian said angrily.

“Ah, no!”

Kallianna hurriedly explained.