Lin Jian Yin rushed back home. Upon returning, he didn’t do anything but sit in front of the Nintendo and wait for the beeping sounds and flashing light. His two eyes were fixed on the game console. Eventually, he lost patience and booted up the game first. He was anxious to catch the woman who had dared to run away from his presence.

When Sword Spirit opened his eyes again, he was lying on a chair in the salon from yesterday. It looked like Meng had also fallen asleep in the middle, so they hadn’t left the shop.

His sudden appearance was a clear shock to the people nearby. Eventually, the stylist grew bold enough to attempt to place him properly in a corner to avoid having him scare the other customers. Sword Spirit saw the stylist’s distressed look and couldn’t resist letting out a shout, which frightened the stylist so badly that he threw the sword away in a panic. The result of Sword Spirit’s mocking was for him to go flying miserably into the air. After spinning for several turns, he thudded heavily onto the ground, and n.o.body checked to see if he was alright.

“Hey! Place me a little more carefully!” Sword Spirit yelled while facedown, extremely unhappy.

Unfortunately, having seen the result of the stylist’s previous experience, no one wanted to touch him, so they let Sword Spirit shout and scream to the side. Eventually, tired of shouting, he could only start muttering about that woman abandoning him without a care, making a lone sword like him stay in such a place as he got bullied by people.

“Sword Spirit, why are you lying there?”

With a gasp of surprise, Meng hurriedly came over and picked Sword Spirit up. Sword Spirit put on an aggrieved expression when he looked at Meng, but was then stunned. No trace remained of the head of auntie-style hair Meng had worn before. In its place was a head of supple, jet-black, shiny, shoulder-length hair. Matched with Meng’s pair of single-lidded phoenix eyes, although she couldn’t be called a great beauty, she had a refreshingly charming appearance.

“Y-You…” Sword Spirit stared dumbfounded, unable to speak for a while.

Meng looked worried. “What is it? I’m really sorry. I logged on a bit late, causing you to be thrown here.”

Sword Spirit originally wanted to continue with that topic and curse at her, but seeing her guilty look, half of his heart softened unintentionally. But his mouth still continued on, “Right, right, you were so slow logging on. I can’t move by myself, so I could only be bullied by people. Where did you go? Did you secretly run off to see your boyfriend?” Sword Spirit couldn’t resist approaching the topic in a roundabout way, and then stretched his ears waiting for the reply.

Meng smiled embarra.s.sedly and replied vaguely, “I was only helping a friend with something.”

“Reeeeeeeeeeeally?” Sword Spirit stretched out the word. He hadn’t thought that Meng would dare try to trick him.

“Yeah.”

Meng replied naturally, but saw that Sword Spirit looked strangely discontent. She concluded that maybe he was just angry because she had been so late. As such, she hurriedly changed the subject. “Sword Spirit, what should we do now?”

“What do you mean ‘what should we do now?’” Sword Spirit had just been thinking about how she had climbed into someone else’s car and replied back irritably.

Seeing that Sword Spirit didn’t look happy, Meng asking hesitantly, “Didn’t you say you wanted to help me change? Is changing my hairstyle enough?”

Sword Spirit glanced sideways at her. Meng was still wearing a Pikachu shirt and blue and white flip flops. If this could be called pa.s.sable, then did that mean that just by putting on a dress a woman could be called gorgeous?

Seeing the refreshingly charming Meng reveal an innocent look, the other half of Sword Spirit’s heart softened, and he was unable to maintain his anger. This woman has to be my weakness! Sword Spirit muttered in his heart, but couldn’t bring himself to say any of it aloud. He could only ask, “Doesn’t the prince want to hold a ball? When is it exactly?”

When she heard Sword Spirit’s reminder, Meng finally remembered the original reason they had to come to the city. She hastily rummaged around her bag and pulled out a crumpled invitation from the very bottom. Meng frowned when she saw a countdown on the bizarre invitation. It said, “Time remaining until the ball: One month, fifteen days, twenty-eight hours, thirty-six minutes, and twenty seconds.”

“What! One and a half months?” Sword Spirit cried out. I only have one and a half months to turn the girl in front of me into a beauty fit to be paired with a prince?

“Quick, quick, quick!” Sword Spirit repeatedly urged.

“Quick what?” Meng was puzzled.

“Go buy clothing! Do you think the prince would like Pokémon?” Sword Spirit shouted.

Meng lowered her head to look at the Pokémon on her clothes, and grumbled a little unhappily that Pokémon were very cute. But she didn’t falter in her footsteps. No matter how much she liked Pokémon, she wouldn’t dare wear that to attend a ball. She briskly strode out of the salon.

Sword Spirit hastily said, “Go to that shop we pa.s.sed last time. The white dress they had there looked really nice.”

Hearing Sword Spirit’s instructions, Meng quickly changed directions and walked toward where Sword Spirit said to go. It wasn’t long until they arrived at the clothing store. Facing the white dress that was in the display window, Meng also felt that the design was very elegant. It was a simple, strapless gown with graceful lines of a mermaid dress.

“Would it really be suitable for me to wear it?” Meng was extremely timid. An elegant gown like this didn’t seem to be something she should wear.

Sword Spirit rolled his eyes and shouted, “Enough chitchat. Let’s go in!”

Meng apprehensively entered the store. As soon as she walked in, she saw a male store clerk yawning behind the counter. She couldn’t help freezing in place and staring from the doorway. She didn’t know whether to wait for the store clerk to greet them or to casually walk over and take a look. After some time had pa.s.sed, the store clerk finally noticed there was a girl in the doorway and immediately donned a smile. He politely walked over to Meng.

The store clerk first looked Meng up and down. When he saw the way Meng was dressed, he was stunned momentarily. However, he was likely professionally trained as he recovered in an instant and asked, beaming, “Is there anything I can help you with, miss?”

Meng replied in a tiny voice, “I want to look at dresses.”

A look of realization dawned on the store clerk’s face. He repeatedly nodded his head. “It’s for attending the palace ball, right? You sure are taking your time. Most young ladies already ordered their gowns several months prior. They’re all even specially tailored.”

“I-Is that so?” Meng was somewhat embarra.s.sed. Is he saying that I was too slow in looking for clothes? She already thought spending a month and a half to look for clothes was far too long.

Seeing that Meng had tensed up and appeared not to know what to say, Sword Spirit had by now lost patience. He loudly urged, “Hurry up! We want to look at the dress displayed in the outside window.”