Chapter 56: The Taste of a Knife

Chapter 56: The Taste of a Knife

Caroline hadn’t been in the best mood lately.

Ever since the attack on Chen Kong, her relationship with Tendou had somehow become… distant.

It wasn’t just that Tendou hadn’t come to see her much in the past couple of days—she had also noticed something strange between him and Chen Xing.

It seemed there was some kind of secret between those two that she wasn’t supposed to know.

She had already caught Tendou and Chen Xing meeting behind her back more than once.

Although Caroline didn’t think they meant her any harm, nor that there was anything going on between them, that feeling of being left out—of being quietly excluded—still made her deeply uncomfortable.

But because of a certain mix of pride and emotion she couldn’t quite describe, even though Caroline knew Tendou and Chen Xing were hiding something from her, she stubbornly refused to ask.

She wanted to wait until Tendou told her himself.

Yet, to her disappointment, two full days had passed since the attack on Chen Kong—and Tendou still hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to explain.

That only made Caroline’s imagination run wild.

She began to suspect that Tendou was angry at her for not telling him about Instructor Tachibana’s plan earlier—that he was giving her the cold shoulder out of spite, and Chen Xing was taking the chance to slip in between them.

But in Caroline’s mind, she was completely innocent.

She had wanted to tell Tendou in advance, but Instructor Tachibana had specifically told her not to say a word.

It really wasn’t her fault at all.

She’d tried several times to find Tendou in private and explain things to him, but for some reason, Tendou always ran off with a clumsy excuse before she could even start speaking.

Even when she wanted to clear things up, she never got the chance—leaving her feeling utterly frustrated.

. . .

Sunday, on the second-floor balcony of the villa.

Caroline stared at the gate below, watching Tendou and Chen Xing once again leave her behind with the excuse of “going to visit Chen Kong.”

Her chest felt tight and suffocated.

So… what exactly are Tendou and Chen Xing hiding from me?

. . .

Deep Blue Metropolis, BluEther Group’s Private Hospital.

“Big sis… Tendou… can you two please stop using me as an excuse to hold your secret strategy meetings? Caroline’s definitely getting suspicious by now.”

Lying on the hospital bed, Chen Kong looked helplessly at Tendou and Chen Xing, who were both focused on finalizing the details of their “operation plan” on a tablet.

He didn’t know exactly how Caroline—left alone in the villa—must be feeling right now, but he was pretty sure she had already noticed something.

Otherwise, there was no reason why only Tendou and Chen Xing had come to visit him for the past two days.

Hearing that, Tendou frowned in clear dissatisfaction.

“Comrade Kong, I really don’t like how you put that.”

“What do you mean we’re using you as an excuse to hold a strategy meeting? We’re obviously here to see you, okay?”

“As for having our meeting here, that’s just a convenient side benefit. Don’t mix things up.”

“Besides, you’re part of the meeting too, aren’t you? You’ve still got two more days before you’re discharged—where else are we supposed to hold it if not here?”

Faced with Tendou’s blatant attempt to twist words and logic, the usually serious Chen Xing actually nodded and said in agreement,

“Kong, Tendou’s right.”

“…”

Watching the two of them gang up on him, Chen Kong wisely chose silence.

He really had no choice, he wasn’t in any position to argue right now.

Even if he were in his prime, he wouldn’t dare go against either of them, let alone both at once.

But when he thought of Caroline, left alone in the villa like some forgotten kid waiting for company, Chen Kong couldn’t help saying,

“Big sis, Tendou… I really don’t think you need to make this so secretive. It’s just Caroline’s birthday, right? You could just tell her directly.”

“Otherwise, keeping her in the dark like this for days… honestly, it’s kind of pitiful.”

Hearing that, Tendou put down his tactical tablet and said with an unusually serious expression,

“Kong-kun, that’s where you’re wrong.”

“Nobody knows Caroline’s personality better than I do.”

“With the way she is—always chasing efficiency, always putting results above all else—if she finds out we’re planning to spend time and effort celebrating her birthday in the middle of a mission, she won’t just disapprove. She’ll probably insist that we don’t waste time and focus entirely on the operation instead.”

“So no—we really can’t tell her.”

“Besides, it’s rare enough for all of us to go out together like this, and even rarer that this mission happens to fall on Caroline’s birthday. We’ve got to make sure this becomes a memory she’ll never forget for the rest of her life.”

“After all, memories… are the best and most precious gift in this world.”

Looking at the utterly serious Tendou, Chen Kong couldn’t explain why, but a strange feeling welled up in his chest.

It wasn’t that Tendou was acting differently—on the surface, he looked exactly the same as always.

But Chen Kong’s instincts told him something was off.

It was as if Tendou knew his time was running short, as if he was desperately trying to do all the things he wouldn’t get another chance to do.

It might sound self-important, but for someone like Chen Kong—who had been shunned and excluded since childhood—he’d grown especially sensitive to subtle shifts in people’s emotions.

And this unease he felt about Tendou… wasn’t new.

He had started sensing it, faintly but unmistakably, ever since Tendou left the base.

Still, he had never told anyone.

Partly because he was afraid he might be imagining things, and partly because he just couldn’t understand what exactly Tendou was in such a hurry for.

. . .

Then, as Tendou and Chen Kong’s conversation ended, the Stellaris: Embers suddenly cut to an unfamiliar flashback—a memory from just before Tendou left the base.

In the footage, Tendou could be seen seeking out Jing Liuli alone, in the middle of the night, for some unknown reason.

“Liuli,” he asked quietly, “do you think… dreams can become reality?”

At that question, the drowsy Liuli immediately woke up, and after a moment of thought, gave what she considered a reasonable answer.

“Tendou, I don’t know why you’re asking this all of a sudden, but if you’re the one dreaming… then I think maybe your dreams really can come true.”

“Because your Star-Eclipse Eye is a power that can glimpse the future, there are certain times when it might reveal fragments of what’s to come… through dreams.”

“But that’s just my own shallow understanding of dreams, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right.”

“So, Tendou… did you dream of something?”

Seeing Liuli’s gentle, concerned expression, the Tendou in the scene paused in thought.

Then, all of a sudden, his serious demeanor melted away—replaced by his usual carefree grin.

“Ah, it’s nothing! I just dreamed that I was standing on top of the world, and the view from up there was so beautiful it almost made me do a Luffy laugh!”

“After that, I couldn’t fall back asleep, and I figured I had to brag to someone about it. What do you think, Liuli? Bet you didn’t see that coming, huh? Hahaha!”

Before Liuli could even respond, Tendou was already heading for the door, muttering to himself as he went:

“Man, why am I suddenly so hungry this late at night? Liuli, I’m heading to the cafeteria to grab a bite.”

“Gotta say, desserts are one of humanity’s greatest inventions. What would I do if I couldn’t have them anymore, huh?”

Watching Tendou’s retreating figure disappear into the corridor, Liuli frowned slightly.

She wasn’t the kind of person who liked to overthink things.

Her personality was calm, unhurried—almost monk-like.

But tonight… she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about Tendou was off.

The way he had asked those questions—it didn’t sound like the usual Tendou, coming to tease her out of boredom.

It felt like he had really dreamed of something.

But what kind of dream could it have been—one serious enough to make Tendou come to her in the middle of the night, unable to sleep?

No matter how she tried, Liuli couldn’t make sense of it.

Meanwhile, the Tendou who had claimed he was heading to the cafeteria had instead gone somewhere completely different.

He now sat alone on the quiet beach outside the base.

The salty sea breeze tousled his silver-white hair, and the waves washed over his ankles again and again before receding into the dark.

No one knew how long he sat there, silent and motionless.

At last, as though reaching a conclusion, Tendou spoke softly to himself.

“Dreams can become reality, huh? Well… that’s pretty damn awful, if it’s true. But—”

He braced his hands against his knees and rose to his feet.

Then, lifting his gaze toward the vast, starlit sky, his blue eyes glimmered with a brilliance unlike anything seen before.

“If the dream is terrible… then all I have to do is make reality a little less terrible, right?”

With that, Tendou turned away from the ocean and disappeared into the dark forest beyond the dunes.

And thus, his memory fragment came to an end.

. . .

The episode then cut back abruptly—from the cheerful scene of Tendou and the others planning Caroline’s birthday to this eerie, symbol-laden flashback.

For a moment, everyone watching the Stellaris: Embers on Crustyroll fell silent.

Then, the comment section exploded.

Because from the way the production team had edited these scenes together, the audience could smell it—

That sharp, malicious, gut-wrenching scent that every anime fan dreads…

The smell of a knife.

The kind of narrative blade that cuts right through the heart.

<+>

Note:

Knife:

When it’s talking about a “knife”, they’re not talking about a real weapon.

In anime, web novels, or dramas, a “knife” is what fans call a sad or heartbreaking moment that feels like it stabbed you in the heart.

So for example:

When a favorite character dies → that’s a knife.

When two people finally understand each other, but it’s too late → that’s a knife.

When the story suddenly gets sad after a happy scene → that’s definitely a knife.

And when people say they “smell a knife coming”, it means they can sense the story is about to hurt their feelings—like foreshadowing that something bad or emotional is about to happen.

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