One day at noon, as Ryn and Kiana were about to enter a restaurant to eat, Kiana felt her tattered backpack, worn out from constant travel, and then said to Ryn in surprise, "The card seems to be gone. Do you have it?"
Ryn pulled back the hand that was about to open the door and felt his own pockets. In disbelief, he opened Kiana's backpack and searched it carefully, but there was nothing inside but a bunch of canned food and clothes. Only then did he discover a hole in the back of Kiana's bag.
"Oh no, did it fall out through this hole?"
"What do we do... should we go back and look for it?"
"Let's retrace our steps and look."
That night, Ryn and Kiana both wore expressions as if Siegfried had died. They hadn't found the black card along the way, and the prolonged, focused search had left them exhausted.
"I guess we won't find it. Ryn, what do we do..." Kiana felt very wronged. She knew she had messed up. Without the card, there was no money, and without money, they couldn't eat or find a place to stay.
"There's no other way. We'll just have to take it one step at a time. We can't do anything without money. Let's go to the police station and see, maybe someone found it. If not, we'll have to sleep under a bridge. Luckily, I looked at a map a few days ago. We're already in Shenzhou, so we don't have to worry about getting shot by a passerby while sleeping on the street at night."
Ryn rubbed Kiana's small, round face, trying to lighten her mood with a joke. But he didn't know what to do either. A month of luxurious living had made them forget that they were supposed to be looking for Siegfried. They had been too busy enjoying themselves, and now, suddenly becoming beggars, they were at a loss.
Bad news: the police officer said no one had turned in a black card. Good news: the police officer said he could arrange for them to spend the night at the police station.
He had wanted to call and notify our parents, but when he learned that we were relying on each other to find our father, he fell silent for a long time.
The next day, we said goodbye to the police officer. He offered to drive us, which we refused, but then he gave us a few hundred yuan out of his own pocket. I didn't refuse that; after all, you can't survive without money.
Because they only had a few hundred yuan between them, Kiana was very sensible, eating only one bowl of rice per meal and never complaining about being hungry. But Ryn still bought her extra food; after all, Kiana would definitely not be full with just a little food per meal.
At night, Ryn and Kiana chose a small cave, not too big and not too small, and slept huddled together under a blanket.
Late at night, after confirming that Ryn and Kiana were fast asleep, a white furball tiptoed into the cave, placed a black card next to Kiana, and then left.
"We finally found a chance to give them the card. It's a good thing the Old Matriarch had us follow them, otherwise this card would have been truly lost."
"The young miss and him are so sensible and strong... If it were me, I probably would have been crying my eyes out, not knowing what to do."
Not far from the cave, two white-haired figures chatted away.
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In the morning, Ryn was woken up by a pleasantly surprised Kiana. As soon as Ryn opened his eyes, he saw Kiana's smiling face. Although he didn't know what had happened, seeing Kiana's smile always made Ryn feel healed.
Kiana giggled as she waved the black card and placed it in Ryn's hand.
"Ryn, Ryn, look, look, the black card is back!"
"How did it come back? Did you find it? Or was it in the backpack and we just didn't see it?"
"I don't know! I just woke up and it was right beside me. It must be the great God of Homu who heard my wish and let it return to me. I've decided, from now on, I believe in the God of Homu!"
Kiana clasped her hands together and knelt to the side in a prayer posture she had learned from TV. She used to scoff at the God of Homu, but now she was its most faithful believer.
Ryn lightly tapped Kiana's little head, which made a crisp, pleasant sound. Hmm, a good head.
"You're overthinking it. How could there be something like a God of Homu? Someone must have found or stolen the black card and has now returned it to us."
"Eh! Is that so?! I really thought the God of Homu had performed a miracle."
"Are you a paramecium, stupid Kiana?"
"You're the stupid one. So what do we do now? Catch the person who left the card, demand to know why they stole our card, and then this young lady will give them a few good punches." Kiana waved her little fist. In the past month, she hadn't fought many Honkai Beasts, but she had knocked out several wrongdoers for the public good.
Ryn held the black card and thought about what to do next. "I don't know, but the other party probably doesn't have any ill intentions, otherwise they wouldn't have returned our card."
Suddenly, Ryn seemed to remember something.
"Do you think it could be your old man, Siegfried? That he's been following us all along, and he's the one who gave us the card?"
Hearing Ryn say that, Kiana began to search the surroundings, but she couldn't find any trace of Siegfried.
Kiana thought about it and it made sense. Although she didn't know why, Siegfried was definitely hiding from her. But he never told her not to look for him, so what she was doing now was right. After all, Siegfried wasn't stopping her and was even helping her.
With this thought, Kiana looked at Ryn and gave a mischievous little smile.
"My stinky old dad must be watching us from somewhere we don't know. So how about we give him something to do?"
"Oh, what's that? Hey, hey, what the hell are you doing!" Ryn thought giving his unseen father-in-law something to do would be good, but halfway through his sentence, he regretted it, because...
Kiana grabbed the black card and threw it directly into the forest outside.
Then she cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and shouted at the top of her lungs: "Stinky old dad, whether your precious daughter gets a full meal today is all up to you!"
"You! You... you really are a paramecium! I give up..." Ryn helplessly put a hand to his forehead. It happened too fast, so fast that he couldn't stop Kiana from throwing it.
"Ehe."
"Ehe my ass! We're not even sure it was Siegfried. If the black card doesn't come back, won't we have to sleep on the streets from now on?"
"Ah... is that so... then what..."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it..." Ryn threw up his hands. A month of being together had made him understand that Kiana was a paramecium, acting first and thinking later. But so what? He had chosen this girl, so he had to spoil her.
In the end, it was another day of sleeping rough and going hungry.
But fortunately, on the second day, the black card returned to their hands.
Then Kiana, convinced it was Siegfried, threw the card away again. This time was different from before. This time, she threw it into the river.
Not far away, watching all this, the two Kaslana men, covered in mud and leaves, rolled their eyes.
"Nice."