People bring their own maids to the training camp

Hayasaka won in just a few minutes, so it was Chizuru's turn to play.

Chihaya achieved victory in half the time it took Hayasaka, and even deliberately castled to trick her opponent.

"Thank you for your hard work, teacher. You can rest starting tomorrow," Chizuru said after the victory.

Hayasaka had seen this scene many times before. Whenever a teacher was defeated by the two of them at the same time, they could settle their payment and leave.

Hayasaka noticed that sometimes Chihaya would take a few extra days of classes because she hadn't fully grasped the material yet.

Every time they played against each other, Chihaya would first have her and her teacher come over, ostensibly to help him study her teacher's playing style. However, Hayasaka knew very well that Chihaya was actually testing whether she had mastered the game.

Hayasaka also needs to take all the courses that Chihaya takes. After Chihaya rests, Hayasaka still has her own courses to take.

Because they easily defeated the teacher, there's still a long time before they have to take a self-defense course.

"Have some tea, Ai," Chihaya suddenly said.

"Yes, Chihaya-sama."

Although it's a chess room, it's actually a Japanese-style room because the first chess lesson is shogi (Japanese chess). A complete set of tea utensils is placed on a tea table in the room—tea ceremony lessons are also held here.

Keep it simple, don't go into all that tea ceremony stuff.

"clear."

Chihaya doesn't like complicated rules and regulations; he just wants to drink tea. If possible, he prefers to pour hot tea into a thermos rather than sipping it from a small cup.

When no one else is present, Chihaya will instruct Hayasaka to use a drinking method that is somewhat rougher but more comfortable than the tea ceremony.

......

Finally, after taking a sip of the finest green tea, Chihaya let out a rare sigh of contentment.

"Chihaya-sama really likes drinking green tea."

"Well, but a lot of people think I must be drinking coffee when they see my hair."

“After all, you have Nordic ancestry, so it’s normal to have this kind of stereotype. I feel the same way.” Hayasaka Ai is of mixed Irish and Irish descent, and she is equally full of exotic charm.

“I think instant coffee tastes the best, it’s sweet.” Chihaya then launched into a tirade. Hayasaka had heard these words countless times and was used to his master making such uncharacteristic remarks.

This is perhaps one of the few times Chihaya has expressed her feelings so directly.

Because of his sister's death and his father's busy family life, Chihaya's relationship with his mother was not very close. Or rather, after his sister left, he could no longer find a comfortable way to get along with his mother. Therefore, the only person he could chat with and confide in was Hayasaka, who was his maid.

"Would you like instant coffee prepared for you next time?"

"Let's talk about it when it gets colder." Chihaya took a sip of her green tea and looked at the lush greenery in the courtyard.

Hayasaka didn't say anything more, but poured himself a cup of green tea.

"Today seems to be Qixi Festival," Chihaya said casually.

(Note: Tanabata in Japan is not the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, but July 7th of the Gregorian calendar, and in some regions it is August 7th. People celebrate Tanabata by decorating bamboo, hanging colored paper and ornaments on bamboo branches to symbolize the Magpie Bridge and the meeting of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. People write down their wishes or prayers and tie them to bamboo, hoping they will come true.)

"Then do I need to prepare a bamboo?"

“There’s no need. Even if you make a wish, it won’t come true anyway.” Chihaya took a sip of tea. “Even if you offered sacrifices to all eight million gods, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

Hayasaka didn't respond, because she knew that Chihaya's wish was mostly for her sister to come back, but that was obviously impossible.

"Does love have any wishes that it wants to fulfill?"

"Me?" Hayasaka paused for a moment, too busy to think about anything.

"You must also have things you yearn for or things you want, right?"

"Uh... um... I, I want to assemble a computer myself."

Chihaya shook her head upon hearing this: "This kind of thing is at best a small goal, it can't even be considered a wish."

"Yes......"

Let's start scheduling computer-related courses tomorrow.

"Yes!" Hayasaka's eyes lit up; this was much more efficient than self-study.

"Really, you're happy about something so small." Chihaya couldn't help but laugh as she looked at Hayasaka's excited expression.

"Because I'm really happy."

"Don't complain if you can't learn it when the time comes."

"No way!"

......

That evening, Hayasaka still managed to get some bamboo and prepared a note.

Chihaya's note read: "I hope Ai can be happy and joyful every day."

Hayasaka's note read: "I hope Chihaya-sama can be happy and joyful every day."

20. Kushida and Anonymous Emails

"Kushida, a student from XX Middle School, it's a pleasure to see you at Yucheng."

One day, Kikyo Kushida received an email from an unfamiliar address.

XX Middle School is the junior high school she attended. In other words, the person who sent her this email must know about her experiences during junior high school.

This annoyed Kushida.

She was already overwhelmed when she found out that there were classmates from junior high school among her classmates after enrolling in school. But before she could even deal with Horikita Suzune, a new storm had already broken out—and it was a situation where the enemy was in the dark while she was in the light.

Could it be that that damned Horikita woman leaked my information? Kushida pondered this possibility. However, Horikita Suzune was always aloof and not the type to gossip, so this possibility was actually quite small.

Moreover, Horikita Suzune is arrogant and has a very poor reputation among the girls in Class D. Even if she were to say it, no one would necessarily believe her.

But if it wasn't Horikita, then who could it be? Kushida couldn't figure it out, and could only silently observe the people he came into contact with, analyzing their expressions and actions repeatedly afterward.

......

Kushida received the second email at 2 a.m. In order to reply to messages instantly, she would not mute her phone even when she was sleeping.

Kushida opened his eyes the moment his phone rang.

Good evening, dear Kushida-kun. Sweet dreams.

It was still the same anonymous email address, and the content was still nonsensical.

Kushida really wanted to slap the other side across the internet, but unfortunately, current technology doesn't allow for that.

So Kushida could only grumble and put down his phone to try to fall asleep again.

About half an hour later, the phone rang again.

"I forgot to ask Kushida-san, how does it feel to be the center of attention? Isn't it very enjoyable?"

After watching Kushida, I almost wanted to throw my phone. Pleasant? Replying to puberty boys' LINE messages every day, giving unattractive girls fashion advice, and encouraging love-struck girls—is any of that pleasurable?!

Who are you? What is your purpose?

Now that the other party already knew her situation, she no longer needed to pretend, so Kushida simply sent an email with questions.

Then there is a long waiting process.

As a result, Kushida waited until dawn but still didn't receive a reply from the other party.

She only had an hour to nap before rushing to the classroom, arriving just in time, which is extremely rare, and almost being late.

......

After school in the afternoon, Kushida finally received the reply she had been longing for.

The email indicated that the other party wanted to meet her at a vending machine at 8 PM.

As a result, Kushida didn't see anyone until 9:30, but instead found couples hugging and kissing each other.

"You fool me?"

How can you be so sure that I wasn't among those people who passed by?

However, the other party's reply was quite ambiguous, giving Kushida plenty of room to fill in the blanks.

"..." Kushida was devastated, especially since she could only rage helplessly—the other party was just using this email address to play tricks on her, and didn't contact her at all in real life, leaving her completely powerless.

Don't let me find out who did it!

----split line----

Unable to find any clues, Kushida had no choice but to return the way he came and search for them on Horikita Suzune.

Although Horikita Suzune doesn't seem like the type to gossip, as the saying goes, you can know a person's face but not their heart, so who knows what Horikita Suzune might be doing behind the scenes.

So when Kushida heard that Horikita Suzune had participated in a knowledge quiz with a registration fee of 10000 points, he immediately signed up as well, intending to take this opportunity to try and get some information out of Horikita Suzune.

Before she could take any action, the mysterious person sent another email.

The content of this email is simple, so I need to give Kushida a little hint, otherwise it would be too boring to watch her wander around like a headless fly.

The condition for the exchange was that Kushida had to eat the mountain vegetable set meal for the next two days.

Having been stood up before, Kushida refused outright, stating that she would not agree to any conditions from untrustworthy people, and emphasized that if the other party sent such harassing emails again, she would report it to the school for investigation.

Since the other party had not yet openly revealed what she had done in junior high school, Kushida held onto a certain glimmer of hope—perhaps the other party only knew about her junior high school days, but did not know what she had done.

Or perhaps they only know some unsubstantiated rumors and are trying to blackmail her, which is why they haven't taken any real action and have only been harassing her with random emails.

As expected, after Kushida firmly refused, she did not receive any new emails for the next few days.

This made Kushida even more convinced of his deduction, making it even more important to get information out of Horikita Suzune.

She needs to determine if Horikita Suzune inadvertently revealed the name of the two-person junior high school to someone.

Kikyo Kushida regained her confidence.

21. Finals

On the day of the final, Chihaya arrived at the venue as promised.

Good morning, Princess.

"Greetings, Sakayanagi-san."