Not long after, I finished eating my part of the meal, even if I felt like it was too short of a time, only to look up and see that I was the last one to finish.
For some reason, the others looked at me with concern, especially the chef, who looked to be on the verge of tears. That confused me for a few seconds, and that was just long enough for me to ask while tilting my head, "Is something wrong?"
A few seconds of silence greeted my words before Mrs. Xia broke the silence and asked me in return, "Are you alright? Was there something wrong with the food?"
Her words only heightened my confusion for a few seconds, after which it finally clicked. I had always eaten fairly fast while I was here, but now I was eating slower, which confused them and made them think something was wrong.
Knowing this, I responded, "There is nothing wrong. In fact, the food is very good. I have just been trying to eat slower recently instead of wolfing it down."
This seemed to be a good enough answer, as they did not look as worried anymore, though a trace of it still lingered behind. It was in the middle of this thought that Mr. Xia then asked, "Now that we have finished, I would like to ask what you think about this world so far?"
That caught me off guard as I had not expected him to ask something like this, which meant that my brain might have short-circuited for a few moments.
Once I came back to reality, it took a few minutes to compose my thoughts, as there was a lot I could say. Some of it they would not be able to entirely understand, and others I had to consider before mentioning.
Eventually, I sorted out my thoughts enough to start saying, "I am enjoying my time in this world so far, but there is a lot of things I wish I could potentially fix as well."
Mrs. Xia seemed interested in the last part of what I said and asked, "What would you wish to change?"
I smiled at that question and continued, "The first thing would be how I entered the world, as it caused quite a bit of destruction and almost cost my life as well if it was not for Elinaria looking after me.
The second would be how naive I was being in the beginning, even though it still managed to turn out well in the end. However, that was mainly thanks to Mom's intervention on that part.
The third would be paying more attention to when the system breaks and trying to fix it immediately instead of pushing it off until later because I did not want to deal with the problems it could cause.
The rest is just minor stuff that would tie into those three.
I would also like to apologize about that time during dinner when I said those things to Mo. It was not my place to say that, and I overstepped my bounds when I did so."
They were listening intently as I talked, seemingly not letting anything go past them.
It was when I mentioned the last part and apologized that Mr. Xia looked momentarily surprised. Then, he quickly gave a small smile before promptly wiping it off his face and returning to his neutral expression. He followed that up by waving his hand in a dismissive gesture and saying, "That is fine, and I have already forgotten about that, so it does not matter much."
Mrs. Xia then asked me, "Do you have any issues with Lou Xia?"
This question caught me off guard once more and confused me for a moment, but I still took the question seriously and thought it over.
Eventually, I gathered my thoughts once more and said, "I do have one problem."
That caused everyone in the room to freeze before I continued, "Lou Xia was way too nice to me, and I am way too much of an idiot. There is no way I could ever live up to that or even begin to repay her at all. Not even the help I gave her with her technique could ever work, either.
I was also too distracted around her and should have paid more attention instead of focusing on my books."
Mrs. Xia lost that frozen look and instead gave me a smile before asking, "Are you saying that you would want to be on your best behavior around her all the time?"
That made me freeze for a moment. I could vaguely remember that my father had a conversation with me about that at one point, but I could not fully remember what he had said. Regardless, that was indeed close to the truth, and I replied while lowering my head, "I would like to do that. Although, I don't think that is enough."
I did not hear anything in return to that after a few seconds, so I raised my head to look at them and saw both Mr. and Mrs. Xia looking at me with smiles on their faces. In fact, most of the servants also had smiles on their faces as well.
This left me slightly confused as I did not know what was going on when Mrs. Xia waved one of her hands at the chefs, and they quickly brought over another covered serving tray.
The chef then lifted the lid on the serving tray, revealing a flavored sherbert sitting in the middle.
I was shocked to see it. I thought I would need to develop some more advanced technology before I could make it myself, but here it was, in front of me.
Now, normally, I would not care that much about it, but it was one of my favorite desserts as a kid, and I was recently craving it once more. Now, this wonderful chef pulled a miracle out of his pocket once more.
I then looked at Mr. and Mrs. Xia once more, only to see them still smiling at me.
Taking that as permission, I grabbed one of the spoons on the table and started eating it like my life depended on it, forgetting about what I said earlier.
Once I was finished, I saw that both Mr. and Mrs. Xia were still smiling at me before Mrs. Xia perked up her head like she heard something and got up walking towards me. She then said, "It seems like your mother wants you to go back home now."
I was slightly surprised at that but quickly got up and went to make my way towards the door to the entrance room while saying, "Oh, Alright then. I guess we should be leaving then."
Mrs. Xia quickly blocked my path, however, and said, "Why don't you take off from the backyard? Our house is at the outside edge of the town, and you won't have to worry about not flying if you head towards the border of the town before turning towards your mountain."
Something about her words and actions did not feel right, and I wanted to say something, but if Mom was waiting for me, then it was best to get home as soon as possible. So I turned around and said, "Then I will do that."
As I approached the back of the room, one of the maids opened the door for me to go through with a smile, and I quickly placed down the motorcycle on the garden pathway.
Pulling my helmet out of my inventory, I put it on while looking back at the Xia couple. I then remembered something else and quickly pulled out a sheet of paper from my inventory before writing down what I needed to upgrade the shrine.
I then walked up to Mrs. Xia and handed her the paper, saying, "This is everything that I need to upgrade the shrine back here if you want that."
With that said, I walked back to my motorcycle and hopped on while starting the engine and flipping the switch for the hard space flight mode.
Revving the engine hard after that was finished, I launched forward while pulling my handlebars up and soaring into the sky.
I now had to quickly return to Mom to see if she had all the books that I wanted.
(Lou Xia POV)
I was fairly frustrated that Mom showed up after I met Vale and sent me on that wild goose chase. I mean, seriously, how many tailoring shops are there in this town?!
However, that was not the worst of it. Apparently, Mom had not given the person the measurements they needed at all, which made it take even longer.
Then there was the other issue of me not finding Vale at the new shrine, only for someone to inform me what felt like an hour later that they had seen her being taken away by my mother!
I would have run back to the house if Elder Kaya had not accompanied me all the way back to my house after I left the town square. This was only made worse by the feeling that I was being interrogated by her the entire time.
When I did make it into the house's gate, though, I made a bolt for the house only to hear the roar of the machine Vale was riding to start up from the backyard.
When I heard this, I wanted to run even faster, but when I looked up towards the sky behind the house, I could see Vale's back as she soared into the sky, which had just become washed in the glow of the sunset.
It would have been mesmerizing if I was not furious with my parents at the moment.
Running through the front doors and leaving them slamming into the walls behind me, I charged for the garden at the back of the house.
When I reached the doors leading there, I nearly ripped them off their hinges and stepped out.
It was then I heard my mother's voice off to the side of me say, "I'm sorry dear, but your future girlfriend just left after having dinner with us."
All that anger I felt when running here finally found the chance to boil over.