Sixth Chapter Ninety-Seven Night Meeting with Garcia

...

After dinner, after Jie Luo returned to her room to study, Luo Lan came to the door of 0827 as agreed.

After knocking on the door a few times, the door creaked open.

Garcia still had that cold expression, "Come in."

Walking into the house, Luo Lan found that her decoration was much better than his apartment. The floor was changed to solid wood flooring, there was a special shoe cabinet at the door, a crystal chandelier was installed on the ceiling, and even the white paint on the walls had been repainted. Judging by the smoothness, it was definitely not the original version of the paint pre-painted in the early days of the tube building.

"There are no extra slippers. Wear mine first," she pointed to a pair of fluffy bunny-eared slippers placed on the bottom shelf of the shoe cabinet. "I like to wear large sizes, so they shouldn't be too small for you."

Luo Lan tried to put his foot into the shoe. It wasn't small, but these were winter slippers, and he felt hot all over when he put them on. Moreover, the two tufts of fluffy bunny ears on the slippers... He really couldn't imagine what Garcia would look like wearing these slippers.

It didn't match her coldness that kept people away!

He walked to the sofa and sat down. "By the way, do you have any water to drink here? The dishes for dinner might have had a bit too much salt."

Garcia frowned and glanced at him. "Only ice water."

"Then ice water is fine."

Taking advantage of the opportunity when she turned to go to the kitchen, Luo Lan poked his head to look into the inner room—all the apartment types in the tube building were basically the same, but the two adjacent households were symmetrical left and right. 0827 was next door to next door, so the passage directly facing the door must lead to the storage room.

Sure enough, he saw a similarly sized compartment at the end of the passage, but Garcia had obviously renovated it and replaced it with a sliding louver door. The good news was that this kind of sliding door generally wouldn't be locked. The bad news was, would she have demolished the iron door during the renovation and rebuilt the outer wall?

When Garcia returned to the living room with water, Luo Lan had already pretended to be nonchalant and leaned on the sofa to watch the TV program.

"Thank you," he picked up the water glass. "Do you live here alone? At the parent-teacher conference this morning, they all said you were from the Sanye family..."

"I'm not," Garcia coldly interrupted, "Sanye has nothing to do with me, and can even be said to be my enemy."

"Enemy?" Luo Lan was stunned. "Then your cousin..."

"They just saw this point and wanted my cousin to persuade me to go back," her expression was a little depressed. "If I leave, the group will be able to demolish the building."

"So the shopping mall expansion plan next door is a project of the Sanye Group?"

"Who else would dare to publicly demolish these cultural relics?" Garcia asked suspiciously, "You obviously live in the tube building, why don't you even know this?"

This is bad... The other party is not Jie Luo, but a mature adult. If she also inherited the character of the Third Princess, it would be even harder to fool her.

"Ahem... I rarely care about the affairs of the streets and alleys. Plus, I lost my job some time ago, and I haven't been out for almost half a year," Luo Lan quickly changed the subject. "Do martial artists have other jobs besides participating in competitions?"

"That's right. Competitions are equivalent to competitions and training. Promoting martial arts to the audience and winning prize money are not the most important things. Fighting against external erosion is our top priority."

"What erosion?" he asked in surprise.

"You know about the Fallen, right? They are one of them, and also the most common type—it's not that people who have awakened natural power have lost control of their power, but that it comes from external erosion, turning them into another kind of creature." Garcia said in a deep voice, "Ordinary martial force has little effect on the Fallen, so we need to stand up and fight against them."

Luo Lan couldn't help swallowing. He felt an ominous premonition rising in his heart... Was the dream world being eroded?

"What exactly does 'external' refer to?"

"I can't tell you too much about this unless you join the Martial Artist Association and obtain a hunting license."

"Why?"

"Because not everyone who has awakened natural power will stand on the side of the martial artists." Garcia said word by word, "There are many people who even hope that external forces will enter our world. They are hostile to all mankind, so the hunting license not only allows them to fight against the Fallen, but also allows martial artists to kill those awakened people who try to disrupt social stability."

So that's why it's called a hunting license, Luo Lan suddenly felt a little creepy. In other words, if he was confirmed to have awakened natural power and was unwilling to join the association, wouldn't he be treated as a natural enemy?

As if seeing his worries, Garcia shook her head. "Indeed, there are some people who neither want to join the Martial Artist Association nor want to work for those villains. These people are called moderates. The association won't do anything to them, but the Fallen are different... Because most moderates like to act alone, they are often actively attacked by the enemy. So if you don't plan to join the association, you'd better never expose your power."

Looking at the "Third Princess" who had said so much, Luo Lan couldn't help but feel a little strange. She always seemed to have a cold expression, but in reality, she wasn't that difficult to communicate with. Recalling the scene when they first met, he even thought that the other party was an arrogant young lady who didn't like to look at people directly.

After he expressed his doubts euphemistically, he received a ruthless roll of her eyes, "My first reaction when I saw you was to touch the weapon behind your back. Should I give you a good look? Fortunately, you didn't take out the weapon, otherwise you would definitely have to go to the hospital to get a cast."

Just then, Garcia's phone rang. She glanced at the screen and couldn't help but frown. "I'll take a call."

After speaking, she picked up the phone and walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Obviously, she didn't want Luo Lan to hear the content of the conversation.

This was a rare opportunity!

Luo Lan immediately stood up, took off the bunny-eared slippers, and quickly walked barefoot to the end of the passage.

Through the gaps in the louvers, he had already seen the things stored in the compartment—Garcia had actually converted it into a cloakroom! In addition to various dresses, there were also many women's underwear hanging inside.

However, nothing could stop him from exploring the truth of the world.

Luo Lan did not hesitate to push open the louver door and walked in, welcoming the fragrance of clothes.

After passing through layers of clothing, an iron-blue door appeared in front of him! And he also noticed that there was obviously no lock on the door, but the handle was covered with a layer of dust, which formed a sharp contrast with the clean walls around it.

Could it be that Garcia had never entered this Memory Door?

But now was not the time to think about this. Luo Lan took a deep breath and gently pulled open a crack in the door.

The salty sea smell instantly rushed into his nostrils, and the sound of waves washing over the beach came from the distance. The azure blue sea was like a vast and boundless curtain, slowly unfolding before his eyes.