Donovan panted heavily as the stabbing tightness in his chest slowly receded. He took the phone Victor handed him; on the screen was a photo of Tyler with a girl.
In the photo, Tyler was grinning so wide his eyes were nearly closed, his arm draped casually over the girl's shoulder.
The girl was indeed breathtakingly beautiful, with wavy hair that shimmered with a deep blue luster like seaweed, skin as white as the finest pearl, and a pair of expressive eyes that held an ethereal, otherworldly charm.
Crucially, she looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, radiating youthful vitality.
"Deep-sea Siren."
Victor explained at the right moment, his tone relaxed.
"This race has a long lifespan. Being over a hundred and eighty years old is equivalent to eighteen or nineteen for a human—the prime of youth. Plus, she's deep-sea nobility; her family has mines—"
"Literally, mineral veins. She doesn't want anything from us; she's simply taken a liking to Tyler."
He paused, patted Donovan on the shoulder, and concluded with a hint of playfulness:
"Uncle, you should be secretly celebrating. That silly boy Tyler has struck gold; he's gotten a real bargain!"
"I... I see..."
Donovan scrutinized the photo repeatedly. His tense nerves finally relaxed completely, and he let out a long sigh, a wry smile even appearing on his face.
"That's good then, that's good..."
The weight in his heart had finally been lifted.
As long as the boy was willing and safe, and the other party wasn't some... er, hundred-year-old crone. If she was a bit older, so be it; they looked like a good match anyway.
That brat, keeping it quiet—he certainly has good taste! He's eating well!
This sudden sense of relief felt as if the final shackle had been removed from his heart.
Since there was no need to worry about Tyler, he could focus entirely on the matter that had been weighing on his mind and keeping him awake at night, without any lingering concerns.
His gaze became sharp and determined once more. Donovan handed the phone back to Victor and said in a low voice:
"Victor, thank you for telling me this. I'm relieved to know Tyler is okay."
He stood up and straightened his slightly wrinkled suit jacket. Although he hadn't been a detective for a long time, the aura of efficiency and decisiveness belonging to an old detective returned to him.
"Principal Larissa, please reconsider what I just mentioned. I have some... 'private matters' to attend to. I'll be going now."
He didn't explicitly state what the 'private matters' were, but Victor could sense the weight of the issue.
Principal Larissa also stood up and gave an elegant nod. "Donovan, I will get some materials to you."
Donovan gave Larissa a grateful look, nodded to Victor again, and without another word, turned and strode out of the cafe, his silhouette quickly disappearing around the corner.
His pace carried a sense of absolute, unwavering determination.
Victor watched Detective Donovan's back disappear through the door. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, his curiosity immediately began to itch like a cat's paw scratching him.
He turned to Principal Larissa, who hadn't left yet, leaning in closer and asking in a low, conspiratorial voice, "So, Cousin-Aunt, what were you two talking about? So mysterious that even Donovan was that anxious?"
Principal Larissa's hand, about to pick up her coffee cup, paused slightly. She set the cup down and turned her head.
Those eyes, usually filled with wisdom and a gentle smile, were now slightly narrowed, revealing a hint of the unquestionable authority unique to an educator.
She looked Victor up and down, her tone flat yet carrying a heavy weight: "Victor, isn't your curiosity a bit too much? Don't pry into adult business."
She stood up elegantly and picked up her handbag from the side. As if in passing, she dropped a bombshell: "By the way, how is your summer homework coming along? The teachers will be checking strictly when you report for the new term. If it's not finished..."
She intentionally trailed off, leaving a threatening void. Then, ignoring Victor's instantly petrified expression, she walked straight through the cafe's glass door.
With the crisp chime of the brass bell, her figure blended elegantly into the sunlight outside.
"Sum... summer homework?"
Victor froze in place, his mouth slightly agape, like a fish thrown onto the shore.
He blinked blankly, as if he had heard some strange vocabulary from a distant, alien world.
He turned his head slowly, excruciatingly slowly, his gaze dull as he looked at his two girlfriends. His voice was filled with unbelievable confusion and a hint of despair bordering on collapse: "What... is that thing?"
He recognized each word individually, but when strung together into a sentence, the meaning became so blurred and terrifying.
In his long, colorful memories of summer vacation, there were battles for talismans, Deep-sea Krakens, demon deals, the Hotel Transylvania... all sorts of bizarre scenes flashed by, but there was absolutely no room for something called'summer homework'!
He looked toward Enid and Wednesday as if for help, hoping to get a definitive 'it's just a bad joke' answer from them.
"Practice reports, of course, and several essays."
Enid's clear voice shattered Victor's last shred of hope that 'homework was just a legend.'
Like a drowning man grasping at a straw, Victor grabbed Enid's wrist, his eyes shining with the expectant light of comrades in misfortune: "You guys... you guys must be like me, haven't touched a single word, right?"
"I wrote mine~"
Enid blinked her large azure eyes, her tone relaxed and a bit smug.
"Wednesday finished everything in the first week at the inn. I finished mine by pulling an all-nighter before I left for San Francisco to find you."
She added with a smile, as if it were just a trivial matter.
"It's over... I'm ruined..."
Victor instantly felt as if his bones had been removed, slumping into the booth with a wail.
He clutched his head, fingers buried in his messy black hair, as if seeing a tragic future where he was hounded by teachers and forced to stand in the hallway after school started.
A few seconds later, he snapped his head up, his face shifting into a pitiful expression like a large dog soaked by rain. He shook his two girlfriends' arms, wheedling in a drawn-out voice:
"dears—help me—save me—"
Just then, with a 'plop,' several black, viscous tentacles poked out from Victor's shoulder, quickly coalescing into Venom's iconic giant head and a bloody maw that stretched to its ears.
Using mimicked fingers, it made a universally understood gesture—thumb and forefinger rubbing together quickly—while its long scarlet tongue licked its fangs. The meaning was self-evident—
Help? That'll cost extra chocolate.
Victor crossly slapped away Venom's 'gesture' and glared at it: "In your dreams! Your chocolate reserves for this month are already double my quota! If you keep eating, you'll turn into a chocolate-flavored slime!"
He redirected his focus toward his two girlfriends, his peach blossom eyes instantly switching modes to become watery and misty, his eyelashes fluttering like little brushes, his voice soft enough to drip honey:
"And I know my dears are the best! You definitely won't just watch as I get buried by homework, right~? Right, right~?"
He looked first at Enid, then at Wednesday, his gaze switching back and forth between the two like a large dog afraid of being abandoned.
At this moment, Victor had long since tossed that tiny bit of curiosity to the back of his mind.
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