"Uncle, you didn't… by any chance…" Anna, who had taken a shower and changed into a set of pajamas, sat at the small round table, looking strangely at the helmeted man in front of her. "Stalk me, did you?"
"No."
"Right, we only met by chance today… But why do you know where I live?"
"Accidental."
Lin clearly knew how to interact with Anna. Due to her novel brain waves, she would automatically rationalize and make sense of some ambiguous words, so Lin didn't need to explain seriously.
"By the way, why is it so warm in here… Whoa!" Anna turned her head and saw the air conditioner blowing hot air. She immediately scrambled to find the remote control. "Uncle, why did you turn on the air conditioner! I can't afford such expensive electricity bills!"
After finding the remote, she pressed the off button with a sigh of relief.
"Beep."
"Beep."
However, the air conditioner turned back on before half a second passed.
Anna, confused, pressed it again, but just like before, it turned off and then turned on again.
Lin watched her frantically press the off button without a word, while the helmet-simulated remote control signal kept turning the air conditioner back on.
"Ugh…" She sighed tearfully in defeat, walked back, and sat down. "Fine, let's just call it a one-day luxury for having a guest."
"..."
"Thank you, Uncle. I wasn't feeling well today, and if no one accompanied me home this late, something might have happened on the way." Anna rested her face on the table, her soft cheek pressing against the smooth surface, and mumbled, "I don't want to be the protagonist of the accident I saw today."
"I just had something I needed to ask you."
"I know."
Her matter-of-fact tone left Lin somewhat speechless.
"Hmph, go on, as a thank you for escorting me home, I, Detective Anna, shall help the confused Uncle resolve his worries!" Anna jumped up, let out two proud snorts, completely energetic despite being sick.
Lin brought Anna home. The fact that her house was empty already indicated the lie about her parents, but she and Lin tacitly avoided mentioning it.
To act as naturally as possible was probably what she was thinking right now.
Lin's first question was unnecessary: "Why do you call me Uncle?"
"Huh? Why wouldn't I?" she asked back, confused.
"You are eighteen, I am twenty."
If a two-year age gap warranted being called "Uncle," then Griseo shouldn't call Mobius "Aunty"; calling her "Grandma" might still be an understatement in terms of seniority.
"I don't believe you." Anna was full of distrust. "Unless you show me what you look like under the helmet."
"..."
Lin naturally wouldn't show her. Aside from his own habit, Elysia had once asked him not to let anyone else see his face, so Lin would never remove his covering in front of others.
"Since you won't show me, I'll definitely think there's an Uncle face under that helmet. In short, as long as you don't show me your face, I'll call you Helmet Uncle."
It was just a title. Lin didn't pay it much mind and changed the subject. "Did you encounter anything strange in the city today?"
"Strange things? What do you mean?"
"...I mean literally."
"Oh... Does hail count?"
"..."
Well, perhaps most things didn't qualify as "strange" to Anna. After all, she had the thick skin to accept Lin's appearance, for which he had never offered an explanation. She would probably think a zombie was someone who ran out of a costume party, even if she saw a Honkai zombie.
The atmosphere instantly dropped to zero. Lin was considering what else he could ask, but Anna spoke first:
"Uncle, did something bad happen to you?"
"...Why do you say that?"
"Girls are very accurate at reading a person's troubles. Don't you have any other girls around you?"
"..."
On closer thought, besides Mobius, the women around him were indeed very adept at reading his mind, especially Elysia, who could precisely capture his thoughts.
"You look even more lifeless than you did this morning. Uh... that's a bit impolite, but Uncle, you look like you just climbed out of a grave." Anna used a fitting metaphor to bring up an inappropriate topic. "No way, not even a super~ beautiful girl like me could cheer you up."
Did he really look that bad?
After much deliberation, Lin finally asked the question he intended to ask from the beginning: "Anna, if you were about to die, what would you do?"
"Huh? What do you mean? Are you terminally ill, Uncle?"
"No, I'm asking for a friend."
"Oh..." Anna didn't quite grasp the gravity of the question. "I don't know when you ask me suddenly like that. Can you set a boundary?"
Lin answered without hesitation: "How would you maximize your value?"
"Hmm... So you know you're about to die and want to make the most of your life's final stage." Anna nodded in understanding. She furrowed her brow and pondered deeply, without an immediate good answer.
The air conditioner blew warm air, making the entire room incredibly cozy, shielding them from the endless cold wind outside.
Lin waited patiently for the pouting girl to think. She was seriously contemplating the question, with no trace of joking.
"I really don't know." In the end, the girl still gave a very ordinary conclusion, smiling wryly. "Even if I start thinking now, I don't know how to maximize my life's value. Donate blood while alive, donate organs after death? But it feels like something's missing. Do good deeds all the time? Ugh, it's so frustrating."
"...You don't need to think too much. Just pretend I didn't ask."
"But..."
The girl looked up, her bright eyes still sparkling under the light: "But if it were me, I would definitely live out every day as usual."
"Why?" Even knowing you were about to die?
"Hehe, because I don't have grand ambitions, you know? Or rather, most people don't have overly grand ideals, so they just need to live their own lives well."
"Perhaps many people would panic, regret, despair, or give up on themselves once they knew their time was coming, but they would probably quickly cheer up. After all, what difference does knowing make? Death won't be lenient because you regret it. Facing the rest of your life calmly is the key."
The chestnut-haired girl gently brushed the strands of hair behind her ear and smiled lightly at Lin: "Even if tomorrow is the end of the world, school will still hold classes as normal, the traffic lights will still change on the second, and the farmer uncles will still worry about this year's harvest."
"Because that's what ordinary humans are like. They don't have grand ideals, yet they still live resiliently."