The next day. Lei was walking to college as she had bumped into her best friends, which also made her shocked as they would normally walk with their boyfriends.
"Why are you guys without your boyfriends?" Lei asked.
"We wanted to walk with you and catch up on life," they all said at once.
"Ah. Is it because your boys are persuading Yu Min about something?" Lei asked as she had a feeling that was the reason and that was also their reasoning for walking with her.
All of them looked at each other and then looked back at her and nodded.
"Really? If they're trying to persuade Yu Min to do something dangerous, he won't do it," Lei stated.
"Oh, they know. It's nothing dangerous," Shen said.
Lei was skeptical about it, but decided to play along. "Ok."
A while later and after talking about life, they got to the college. Once they got to the entrance of the college, the girls saw the boys and smiled. The three boys gave the girls a thumbs up. Lei was confused.
"You three go to your boyfriends. I can't deal with the love of couples," Lei said as she turned to head to the library.
The three girls chuckled and headed to their boyfriends.
"Did Lei question you guys on why you weren't us?" The boys asked.
"She did, but we told her what we had planned," they replied.
"Though she did ask us if the real reason was if you guys were persuading Yu Min about something, we nodded, but to throw her off," Wenran said.
"She's probably on to us then," He Zhihao said.
After a few minutes, class was about to start. Lei was still in the library as she was trying to see if there's anything that would help her. She was having trouble finding something. Lei had started to lose hope and gave up. She went to go and sit down at a desk nearby so she could rest and take a break. "Why is this so hard?!? I know it should be, but I feel like I'm going in circles with all the hints, clues, and evidence I've gotten." Lei felt like she was at a roadblock in the mission.
Lei was so caught up in her thoughts that she had totally forgotten about class.
With Shen, Tao, and Wenran, they were worried about Lei.
"Why isn't Lei here? I would've thought that she had come here when the boys came over to us," Tao questioned.
"I don't know, but she's ever been late at all, besides that one day," Shen said.
"Maybe she wanted to go and look for something," Wenran stated. She had a feeling that is what Lei is doing right now.
"You are suggesting that she's at the school's library looking for something?" Shen asked.
"Yeah, or maybe she went somewhere else to look for information," Wenran stated.
"She wouldn't miss school for that, or well, not unless she knew of a place where she could get information." Tao replied.
Shen thought about it for a bit and then realized. "She would do it, since it's been destroying her…"
Wenran nodded. "But after this lesson, we could go and check the library just in case she's there."
The other two nodded.
After thirty minutes, the lesson was over. The three girls went to go and check the library to see if Lei was there.
Once they got to the library, they walked in and looked for Lei. Wenran saw Lei.
Lei was into her thoughts and she was also writing down what she knows about the person so far.
Wenran told the other two that she had found her and that it seemed that Lei was in her thoughts as she was writing them down on paper.
The three of them went over to her and tried so hard not to scare her.
"Lei?" Tao whispered. She whispered so that way it wouldn't startle her super much.
Lei heard Tao and stopped. She looked up from the paper at them.
"Are you feeling ok?" Shen asked.
Lei nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just want to get this mission over with so that way I can go back."
"Go back? As in to your world?" they asked.
"Yes, but don't worry, I won't forget about you guys. Plus, I'm thinking about doing backstories about you guys so that way you guys can live longer and be well known."
"But will our Lei remember any of this?" Shen asked.
"I don't know, but then again, I might not remember that I was in my book…"
They frowned.
"But I hope I do or well it's being written as we talk, so that way I can publish this sooner."
"As do we," Tao said.
"Anyway, what are you three doing here?" Lei said as she took the opportunity to change the topic.
"We were worried that you skipped school to go and look for other information. Though, we had to wait until the end of the lesson," Wenran said.
"I headed here when your boyfriends were walking over to us this morning. I must've lost time when I was searching and got lost in my thoughts trying to figure out what we already know about the villain," Lei stated.
"Oh," they all three said at the same time.
"Don't worry. I'll go to class after I get done writing all the things and evidence we've gotten so far," Lei stated.
"But the exams are coming up and we're worried that you won't get a good grade on the exams," Wenran said.
"I'll be done with this before the exams. I'm hoping that if I write down the things and evidence that I'd at least will get a few people who match the pattern. Plus, she's told me that I've seen and met her before, so it kinda willows it down," Lei said as she faked a smile. Lei was hoping that would make them less worried about her and the exams.
"Lei, we'll help you with writing down information about the person so you can get down faster," Shen said.
"Yeah, we'll help," Tao and Wenran replied.
Lei looked at all of them and smiled. She nodded. "Thanks," she mumbled as she knew she didn't have to thank them for helping her.
The three smiled and sat down on the chairs at the table.
Lei gave them some paper and ink brushes, along with the ink stones and ink trays.
They took the supplies and started writing down what they knew and what they were told. Shen wrote down what her father had told her about suspicious activity in the forests. Tao wrote down things she saw and heard from her father. Wenran wrote things she found out, what her father talked about, and also from what she heard from the boys.
What seemed like all day, they were done with writing down what they knew. Though it had been only an hour or two that they were writing.
It was lunch time. The boys saw that the girls weren't where they usually are during lunch.
"Did they have a longer lesson today where it's taking up time for lunch?" Lao Mao asked.
"No, I don't think so," He Zhihao replied.
"Maybe they went somewhere else to eat," Kang chimed in.
"But wouldn't they have told us?" Lao Mao asked.
"Not unless they didn't want us to go there," Kang stated.
"Right, but they still could've said where they were going to go and told us not to go there," Lao Mao said. He was obviously worried about Wenran.
"They probably didn't want to interrupt our lesson," He Zhihao stated.
Yu Min was deep in thought to even hear what was going on around him. He was trying to figure out how he was going to go on with his plan without the villain figuring out what he's up to. He could trick the villain, but it would be too risky and would put Lei into more danger if he did trick the villain. Yu Min put his hand to his chin to try to figure it out more.
The other three were talking about the girls and where they might be. They then came to the conclusion that they were probably worried about Lei and went to cheer her up.
Yu Min zoned back in after the boys had just gotten done with talking and took a bite of his food. "What were you three talking about?" he asked.
The three jumped as they had forgotten that Yu Min was there.
"We were talking about the girls, but we came to the conclusion that they were probably worried about Lei and went to go and cheer her up," He Zhihao replied.
"Ok. You might want to start eating as mealtime is almost up," Yu Min said as he took a few more bites of his food before getting up and going to put his bowl away.
They all nodded and started to eat.
Yu Min headed to the library as he had a feeling that's where the girls would be. As soon as he got there, he could hear laughter. Yu Min got closer to see who it was.
Once he got closer and could see who was laughing, to which he saw Lei, Shen, Tao, and Wenran, he smiled and left to go to class. He was glad that Lei was laughing and smiling.
The girls were remembering when they were younger and would try to act like their parents.
"Remember when we got caught by our parents when we were acting like them?" Shen asked as she was laughing.
The other three nodded.
At that point in time, Lei's parents were home. They had just finished a battle.
"I'm shocked that they didn't yell at us for acting like them," Tao said.
"Same. It was probably disrespectful, but then again we are their kids," Shen stated.
"They probably thought it was funny to see us acting like them," Lei said.
"Those days were easy," Wenran said.
"You can say that again," Shen and Tao said.
"They were, but they were still kind of hard for me," Lei said as she mumbled the last bit.
"Lei, you got to live in the palace for a few years," they said.
"Yeah, but it was still hard, because I didn't get to hear anything from mom and dad," Lei said, "anyways, we should probably get some food, before it's all gone and your boyfriends aren't worried about you."
The three nodded. They got up and went to the dining hall to get some food.
They got to the dining hall, got food, sat down, and got to eating.