"Griseo, my dear Griseo, let me see your Stand!" The moment Elysia saw Griseo, she rushed forward, hugged her, and then rubbed her cheeks against Griseo's cute little face.
"Sister Elysia, what's a Stand?" Griseo looked at Elysia, confused.
Chen Li, watching from the side, nodded in silent approval.
At least Griseo's first words weren't: You damn hag, you're so annoying!
Griseo might be invincible, but she probably wasn't completely invincible yet.
"Didn't your father say a phantom of a mature woman who looks a bit like you appeared behind you? Where is she? Where?"
"She disappeared," Griseo said.
"The phantom was indeed fading slowly," Hen, who had followed them, added.
"So what now?" Elysia turned to look at Chen Li.
"How should I know? I'm not a Stand user. Ah, found it! Hen, come take a look, does the girl look like this?" After scrolling through his phone for a while, Chen Li showed a picture of Adult Griseo to Hen.
It wasn't that Chen Li didn't have pictures of Adult Griseo, it was that he didn't have many pictures of Griseo that were appropriate to show to Hen, her father.
You get it?
"Yes, that's her," Hen nodded repeatedly.
"Then there's no mistake. Griseo, can you still summon that phantom now?" Chen Li asked, patting Griseo's head.
"I don't know."
"Then just give it a try."
"How do I try?"
"Griseo, do you like to draw?"
"Yes."
"Do you plan to keep drawing in the future?"
"I do," Griseo nodded.
"If you want to make a living by drawing, then you'll need to accept art commissions from others to draw what they want. This is called taking a commission."
"Oh."
"And if you can't deliver the artwork on time, the client might pay you less or pay you late. Without money, you can't buy the snacks you want, the clothes you want, the art supplies you want, the colors you want, and so on."
"Don't talk to little Griseo about such adult problems," Elysia reminded him.
"Anyway, Little Griseo, you need to imagine that your deadline is right now, but you can't finish the drawing, and you desperately need someone to help you!" Chen Li said.
"Help me? Will someone help me?"
"Of course, they will. So now, follow your heart and shout out what you want to say!" Chen Li encouraged her.
"Help... help me, Starry Impression!"
A giant paintbrush fell from the sky, and another beautiful, agile young woman appeared, wielding a drawing board as a weapon to smash toward Chen Li.
However, all the attacks were blocked by Chen Li's [Friends Circle].
"Whoa, she really came out!" Elysia looked in astonishment at the Adult Griseo that Chen Li had described.
What a beautiful young woman.
"As I thought... so this is how [Myriad Phenomena Severance] solves problems? It's really amazing," Chen Li mused aloud, watching as Adult Griseo ceased her attack after her initial paintbrush-and-drawing-board assault.
Myriad Phenomena Severance, just how many surprises are you hiding from me?
And after being summoned by Little Griseo, Adult Griseo was no longer in a phantom state but had materialized as a solid entity. This was confirmed when Elysia went up and vigorously pinched her cheeks.
"Sister Elysia, it's been a long time." Adult Griseo didn't seem to mind Elysia's harassment at all, instead greeting her familiarly. After dealing with Elysia, Adult Griseo turned to look at Hen.
"Father, I'm back."
Looking at the familiar faces before her, a smile blossomed on Adult Griseo's face.
...
"So what you mean is, our civilization didn't succeed in resisting the Honkai in the end, and to prevent this tragedy, you traveled to the future, severed that predestined tragedy, and then came back to the present. But because Little Griseo survived for 50,000 years, the world required a logical explanation, so Adult Griseo became Little Griseo's Stand?" Hen gradually and painstakingly came to understand everything.
Although Hen had a feeling Chen Li was intentionally omitting certain details, the fact that his daughter was 50,000 years older than him was clearly a greater shock to his system.
There's no one in our family tree going back a thousand generations who is over 50,000 years old!
"Grandma Griseo, long time no see," Chen Li greeted her cheerfully.
"...I think you're asking for a beating, Li-bao. And as for leaving without a word for 50,000 years, I'll need to settle that score with you, too," Griseo said, walking up to Chen Li with a gentle expression before pinching his cheek.
For reasons unknown to Chen Li, after Elysia's repeated "corrections," Griseo had started calling him "Li-bao."
"Was that leaving without a word? That was a temporary separation for the sake of world peace," Chen Li retorted.
Chen Li had initially thought Adult Griseo wouldn't recognize him, but on second thought, he really did know Griseo in the Previous Era. The one who shouldn't recognize him at all was Hua.
Though that wasn't certain either, because Fu Hua was the one person from the Previous Era—besides the projection of Kevin—who had actually met Chen Li in the Current Era. Albeit, attacking him at frame zero after they met wasn't very friendly, and Chen Li was wearing a mascot suit...
"In any case, now that I'm back, I will definitely change the tragedy of the Previous Era!" Adult Griseo declared, her emotions stirring as she tightly gripped the paintbrush in her hand.
"Oh, you're too late. I've already taken on the project of saving the world," Chen Li said, pointing to himself.
"Are you that confident, Li-bao? The me of today has mastered power that surpasses ordinary people!"
"Are you kidding? I'm super brave, okay?"
"Alright, you two, stop chatting. Shouldn't we be discussing more important issues now?" Elysia reminded them.
"Such as?"
"Such as the Kevin that Chen Li just mentioned," Elysia said.
"That's right, Uncle Kevin. If Uncle Kevin can also come to the Previous Era, we need to find him quickly. Uncle Kevin is incredibly strong," Adult Griseo suddenly said with a solemn expression.
As a MANTIS, Adult Griseo had indeed grown much stronger over 50,000 years, but Kevin was even more terrifying. Both in theory and in reality, the Kevin from 50,000 years later could truly treat the Herrschers of the Previous Era like trash mobs. The Herrscher of Binding might be a slight exception, but not by much.
If someone said they could throw the Judgment of Shamash 100 kilometers and kill a Herrscher, Chen Li wouldn't believe it. But if the one throwing it was a Kevin who had awakened multiple forms, then it was a real possibility.
The ultimate mechanics and the ultimate stats! That was their Savior Kevin.
"No need to panic about that. According to our observations, a Stand user can only awaken their Stand when subjected to immense stimulation," Chen Li said.
"...What did you do to Little Griseo?" Adult Griseo froze for a moment, then turned to Chen Li.
Immense stimulation? A child? Adult Griseo found it very difficult to connect those two things.
"Nothing much. I just gave Little Griseo a brief education on concepts like commission deadlines, and then told her: 'Your deadline is right now, but you haven't drawn a single thing.'"
"Don't talk to a child about such terrifying topics," Adult Griseo sighed.
"So Kevin probably won't awaken his Stand so easily... though it's also possible he could get overly excited from successfully confessing to MEI and summon the future Kevin."
"But before that, the most important thing is to find out if doing certain things to Little Griseo will cause them to be updated on you in real-time, and whether you, Adult Griseo, are your real body from the future or just a projection of power," Chen Li said.
"It won't update in real-time, and this is my real body. I understood the basic information the moment I was summoned by Little Griseo. When she summoned me, my body was in a state of quantum superposition. I could choose to come to the present completely, or I could choose to return to the future after the summoning ends and live my own life," Adult Griseo explained.
"When in doubt, blame quantum mechanics, right?" Chen Li didn't know much about quantum mechanics, but he knew that anything that couldn't be explained could be attributed to it. And this truly made it a case of [The Stands have their own lives].
"So, Adult Griseo, what were you doing in the future before you were summoned here?" Elysia asked.
"I think I was sleeping. I'm not entirely sure what the exact time was before I was summoned," Adult Griseo said, scratching her head in a daze.
"I get it. Damn you, Sa and Vita."
"Li-bao, what are you talking about?"
"Nothing, don't mind me. I was just thinking about when to pull off a big move. Anyway, Adult Griseo, you should just stay here. It's not like you have anything to do if you go back to the future," Chen Li said with a wave of his hand.
"Okay," Adult Griseo readily accepted the proposal. Because she really had nothing to do back in the future.
"So when are we going to make contact with Kevin, Su, and Hua?"
"There's no rush. Coincidentally, all three of them are attending the same school right now. So... I have a bold idea!"
"What idea?"
"It's time for high school students to save the world," Chen Li said, stroking his chin. Although he didn't understand why it always had to be high school students saving the world, the current situation was indeed a coincidence.
"What do you mean?"
"Because the Third Herrscher, the Herrscher of Thunder, will be born at the school those three attend," Chen Li said, feeling a sense of pity for her.
He wasn't pitying Kevin, Su, and Hua. He was pitying the Herrscher of Thunder.
Who knew how much despair the Herrscher of Thunder would feel, appearing only to be confronted by three summoned MANTISes who could kick Herrschers around like a ball?
Would you like to face the [Taixu Sword God] that can kill a six-core Herrscher? Or this [Cycle of Causality]? Or perhaps the [Judgment of Shamash] that can give the Earth a middle part?
But... an evil Herrscher, on the verge of destroying the world, is defeated by three high school students who suddenly awaken superpowers. Isn't that a great hero-saves-the-world drama?
Then, they could have the media run a massive positive propaganda campaign...
They could completely shift the future public opinion from [MANTISes are not our kind and must have ulterior motives] to [The MANTISes are the heroes we've all been waiting for; we will always support the MANTISes].
Since he had already decided to make a mess of the Previous Era, he might as well make it even messier.
---o---