Sunlight.

Having forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, both Lin Songmei and Yan Mingqing were woken up at the crack of dawn by the light that flooded into their room.

The two, contrary to the two bedrooms in the apartment, had ended up just sleeping in the same bed. After watching the sunset, the two had cozied up, video calling their master before watching a TV show together.

Dozing off in bed while watching the show, the two woke up the next morning a little surprised, but happy, to see each other.

“Did you sleep well?” Songmei yawned, using her hand to cover her mouth as she sat at the edge of the bed, “Also, did you turn off the TV last night? I... I feel like I fell asleep first...”

Energetic, Mingqing, who had already finished changing out of her sleep wear, was pulling her hair into a half-up ponytail, “I did sleep well! I slept so well for no reason, I have no clue how. Also, yeah, you fell asleep in the middle of episode 15, so I turned it off there. We can pick up in the same place that we left off next time.”

“Ahh, okay, thank you,” Songmei murmured, leaning over and falling back onto the blankets. “I don’t want to get upppp... but I should...”

Her hair tied, Mingqing looked over at Songmei’s disheveled, still half-asleep appearance, deciding to help out the blob that seemed to be falling back asleep.

“Up, up,” Mingqing coaxed, pulling Songmei up before handing the cup of water on the nightstand to her and grabbing a hair brush. “How does your hair get so messy after every night you go to bed?”

“I don’t knowwww...” Songmei lamented as she sipped the water with as much gusto as a wet sheet of paper, “What do we do today? We trained all day yesterday, so... do we do that again? I really... don’t want to...”

Also unenthused about the prospect of training all day, Mingqing paused her brushing for a moment to let Songmei get some clothes she had put out the night before. “We could register with the Assignment Hall and begin some assignments if we wanted. Want to do that instead?”

Nod.

Nod, nod.

Changing while Mingqing continued to brush her hair, Songmei, who no longer really felt any shame about changing in front of Mingqing after having done it several times, gazed out the window, seeing the streams of people weaving through the crowd to begin their day. “What do we need to do for that? I think just uhm... register, right?”

“Yep,” Mingqing nodded, having finished brushing Songmei’s hair, patting her shoulder and head a few times to let her know that she was done, “I can do that right now if you want while you change. That sound good?”

“I... hmm...” Songmei murmured, pausing for a moment while in the middle of pulling on a shirt. She didn’t mind if Mingqing did it, but was still hesitant. Wouldn't it be good to be there while it was done just in case she needed to in the future?

“By the way, there’s a portion where you need to actually call and do the confirmation by talking to someone. I can do it here with you watching if you want.” Mingqing explained, seeing Songmei pause and fall into thought.

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Talking to someone?

That she didn’t know?

This early??

“Ah... you do it, yeah, mhm, I trust you completely,” Songmei nodded with fervor, continuing to put on the shirt as if nothing happened.

Smiling, her eyes bending into amused crescents, Mingqing nodded, curtsying with an exaggerated flourish, “Your attendant will get on it then~”

Laughing as she heard Songmei’s angry shouting about how she wasn’t an attendant, Mingqing left the room, closing the door behind her without a sound and pulling up the application form. “Hm, hmmm... just basic information...”

“My master... Old... lad... y... wait, wait, Elder Liu Xueli... there we go.”

“My name is... Yan Mingqing...”

“Age... 16... Only a few more months until 17.”

“Birthday, April 8th.”

Typing her information into the terminal, Mingqing filled out her personal details before going back into the room. “Songmei~ I need you to fill out some stuff. Also, stop pausing your dressing every time I start talking, you can keep moving! Don’t just stand there with a shirt half over your head.”

Catching the terminal that was tossed over by Mingqing, Songmei sat down on the edge of the bed once more, beginning to fill out the additional member page that Mingqing had opened.

“Master... senior... citize... ahhh... Elder Liu Xueli. There we go... how could I make such a mistake? They’re so far apart.”

“Name, Lin Songmei.”

“Age, 16, birthday, November 27th...”

Continuing on, Songmei continued to fill in her information, like main technique, and main weapon of choice, just stuff that’d help with categorization.

Why was it so long though?

Songmei felt like filling in something like her main weapon of choice was fine, and which sect she was in was also important. But like... was it really necessary to even have questions asking what someone’s username was in the bricklaying game?

Like, it was totally optional, and Songmei just left it blank. She also saw that they had included it so people could... “connect more easily with others.”

But was it reallyyyyyy that necessary?

Maybe the bricklaying game was super fun? Ground-breaking, even?

That was a bad pun...

Handing the terminal back to Mingqing, Songmei went to the bathroom, washing her face and brushing her teeth while Mingqing called the Assignment Hall to confirm things.

Having a friend who was willing to talk to people was nice.

Even if they scared a lot of people...

But hey! Mingqing was good at talking to people she’d probably never see again...

Mingqing could fake it for like... five minutes...

Walking out of the bathroom feeling more awake and freshened up, Songmei returned to the bedroom, sitting down in a chair as Mingqing wrapped up her call.

“Alright, I’m done,” Mingqing laughed, letting out a long sigh of relief as she shrunk her terminal back to a bracelet on her wrist, “Want to go get breakfast? I’ll tell you about what they said on the way down.”

Pushing herself up out of the chair she had just sat down in, Songmei nodded while following Mingqing out the door of the bedroom.

That chair was so comfortable...

Her bottom felt so empty... and so lonely now...

She had sat down for barely two minutes!!

This was daylight burglary, she lost her soulmate just now!

In the elevator once more though, Mingqing leaned back against the glass. “So... they approved everything, there weren’t any problems with it. They also gave us both access to the Assignment Hall’s online mission board.”

“From it we can just choose a mission, the board can also be filtered to be region specific so no need to worry about that,” Mingqing explained as the elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open without a sound.

“They also gave us our first, just trial mission.” Mingqing continued, causing Songmei to perk up a little more. “Just a “go out and vanquish some local beasts” mission. There are some specific targets, beasts that have been noted to be invasive and harmful to the environment.”