Chapter 197: Your Backpack
Relying on the analysis in his mind, Ren calculated what had happened before he entered the Kyogoku residence.
The next moment, Ren suddenly opened his eyes.
The flow of time in the room immediately returned to normal.
Then, with a thought, Ren instantly doubled the speed at which time passed within the room.
Within the Domain of Time, Ren could freely trace back the time he had experienced.
Very quickly.
The twofold speed increased to three times, five times, ten times, and finally thirty-two times!
Because the speed was too fast, the images had already become blurry.
Most of the images in between were the results of Ren's own calculations. Since they weren't particularly precise, Ren adopted a method of searching through vague impressions.
Two seconds later.
The timeline quickly reached the moment Shinobu entered the Kyogoku House.
Shinazugawa was beside her.
Standing opposite them was the same madam Ren had encountered previously.
"Mr. Shinazugawa, are you here to visit a brothel?"
In the reconstructed scene, Shinobu looked at Shinazugawa in surprise and suddenly asked the question.
Shinazugawa also wore a confused expression.
"Did I?"
The scene inside the room began to reconstruct itself in Ren's mind piece by piece.
Ren couldn't help sighing.
Shinazugawa really had gone there...
Originally, Ren had only thought that Shinazugawa looked fierce and had absolutely nothing to do with places like the Kyogoku House, so he'd casually used his name.
Who could have expected him to fall straight into the trap?
Next time, Ren should make it up to Shinazugawa properly.
Ren decided that the next time he saw Shinazugawa, he would make sure to emphasize the proper method of using the Mark—and the fact that he wouldn't live past the age of twenty-five!
What a good person he was!
The scene shifted.
In Ren's memories, Shinobu and Shinazugawa began speaking again.
Everything was perfectly reconstructed, including their expressions.
Shinobu in particular was reproduced with incredible clarity.
After all, Ren had previously used the Transparent World to scan her, so he could now reconstruct her expressions more accurately than anyone else.
After watching everything, Ren's deduction was almost complete.
I see...
Ren quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, his black stockings hadn't been exposed yet.
In the reconstructed scene, Ren saw Hinatsuru lead Shinazugawa and Shinobu upstairs.
After they went upstairs, Ren began deducing what had happened at the scene.
However, by this point, his mental energy was already nearly exhausted.
After all, this was an almost heaven-defying method, so some side effects were only natural.
After watching for barely half a minute, Ren began feeling dizzy and light-headed.
Shinazugawa's voice was blocked out by Ren.
His mental energy was being consumed too quickly. If he had to reconstruct every single sentence word for word, Ren wouldn't be able to continue his deductions.
Therefore, Ren replaced every word spoken by Shinazugawa with a [BEEP—] sound!
As for the conversation between Hinatsuru and Shinobu, that was the focus of Ren's attention.
A bead of sweat appeared on Ren's forehead.
Only after watching the entire sequence did he finally relax somewhat.
Thank heavens!
His secret hadn't been exposed yet!
Then Ren suddenly opened his eyes.
By coincidence, his gaze met Shinobu's.
"You wanted to fool me."
Ren smiled meaningfully.
Then, two strange streams of green blood suddenly began flowing from his nose.
He smiled because he knew that Shinobu had realized he understood his own limits and hadn't done anything out of line.
The nosebleed was a sign that his brain had been overloaded, causing minor blood vessels to rupture.
Shinobu was completely dumbfounded.
"Ren, what are you talking about? Your face looks a little pale."
There was a trace of concern in Shinobu's voice.
She had no idea what had happened to Ren.
He wasn't planning to guess?
Then why had he closed his eyes, gotten a nosebleed, and turned pale?
Although Shinobu didn't understand what was happening, she could tell that Ren seemed to have been injured.
"I'm fine."
Ren wiped the blood from his nose and spoke based on what he had just seen.
"I understand now!"
"What did you figure out?"
Shinobu stared at Ren anxiously, her heart almost jumping out of her throat.
Could it be...?
When Ren had closed his eyes just now, had he really been thinking about those things?
A bold thought suddenly emerged in Shinobu's mind.
Was Ren trying to deduce what Shinazugawa and I had done in the Entertainment District?
That was ridiculous, wasn't it?
Could a human really do something like that?
Yet Shinobu once again remembered Ren's extraordinary abilities.
Even so, she still couldn't believe it.
Just as she was about to question Ren, she saw him suddenly—
Thud!
He collapsed.
His head dropped straight down.
And by pure coincidence, it landed directly on her foot.
"Ren!"
Shinobu's anxious voice echoed through the room.
...
When Ren woke up again, it was already dark.
The two of them were still in Shinobu's room.
Only this time, Ren was lying on the bed.
Shinobu was taking care of him.
This was where having a doctor came in handy.
There were only two doctors at the Butterfly Mansion: Shinobu and Ren.
As long as they didn't both collapse at the same time, one could always save the other's life.
Inside the room, Ren held his head.
"What happened to me? Why am I lying down?"
Shinobu angrily replied,
"You're still asking? What were you thinking? You got a nosebleed and then passed out!"
"Is that what happened?"
Ren scratched his head.
Before he had fainted, he tried hard to recall his memories.
Then he realized that he seemed to have been talking the entire time, and while he was speaking, he had suddenly collapsed.
The air suddenly became still.
Shinobu stared motionlessly at Ren, a strange meaning seeming to lurk within her gaze.
Ren felt a little guilty.
"Why do you keep looking at me?"
Shinobu then said seriously,
"You know, my sister once told me that the more embarrassed a person is, the more likely they are to use 'haha' to cover up that embarrassment."
"You just said 'haha' four times."
"Really?"
For once, Ren showed a brief flash of panic.
"You must have miscounted. Haha!"
Shinobu remained silent, staring thoughtfully at Ren.
A bad feeling suddenly arose in Ren's heart.
Until—
Shinobu suddenly pulled out a black backpack.
Ren: "!!!"
Why did Ren react like that?
Because the black backpack looked strangely familiar!
He seemed to have one just like it in his own room.
Oh, no.
Ren panicked.
He hadn't even lost his composure while fighting Upper Rank demons.
Yet now, he—a dignified Dragon Hashira—was panicking!
Shinobu looked at him suspiciously.
"You must be hiding some kind of secret."
"Ren, tell me. What's actually inside?"