Chapter 31: So… I Never Really Understood You at All?

Su Qingyan stared intently into Bai Yue’s eyes.

There was no sympathy, no pity in those eyes—and certainly none of that condescending arrogance that cultivators usually showed toward mortals.

Only unshakable conviction.

“I…” Su Qingyan opened her mouth, her voice dry.

“I can’t even sense spiritual energy.

What could I possibly do?”

“There’s plenty you can do.”

Bai Yue casually pulled a blank talisman paper from her storage pouch.

Gathering a faint wisp of spiritual energy at her fingertip, she began to sketch rapidly on the surface.

“Spiritual energy is just a form of energy.

And any form of energy can be collected, compressed, conducted, and released.”

Bai Yue drew slowly.

She didn’t attempt to replicate those obscure, intricate formation patterns from traditional cultivation.

Instead, she drew a few interlocking gears, along with a drive shaft connected to what looked like a cylinder.

To be honest, she didn’t know exactly how to depict those black-tech inventions from the original game that Su Qingyan had created.

She could only roughly sketch a mechanical schematic from memory.

“If you use a spirit-gathering array to extract ambient spiritual energy, convert it into high-temperature steam, drive the cylinder, and then use gears to transmit that power.”

Bai Yue tapped the table with her knuckle.

“No need for a cultivator to infuse spiritual energy manually—even a mortal could press a switch and let the device generate continuous power.

What do you think?

If you mounted this on a repeating crossbow, how effective would it be?”

But she remembered the mechanics of this thing very clearly.

Bai Yue pushed the talisman paper in front of Su Qingyan.

Su Qingyan looked down.

The moment her eyes touched that sketch, her previously bewildered pupils contracted sharply.

She shot to her feet, planted her hands on the table, and stared fixedly at those roughly drawn gears.

In that instant, the shackles that had bound her for over a decade seemed to be torn apart by invisible hands.

That’s right!

As long as she could manipulate spiritual energy as a lifeless object, burn it as fuel—

So what if she had no spiritual roots?

So what if she couldn’t draw qi into her body?

A flame, unlike anything she had ever known, blazed in her eyes.

“This isn’t right.”

Su Qingyan suddenly spoke, her voice still trembling slightly, but her tone carrying a stubborn certainty.

“The gear ratio on this set you drew—it’s too low.

If the cylinder’s thrust is too strong, the first drive shaft will snap instantly.”

“Uh…” Bai Yue was momentarily stumped.

“And this conversion chamber.”

Su Qingyan paid no attention to Bai Yue’s embarrassment, snatching the spirit brush from her hand.

The brush tip moved across the talisman paper with near-frenzied urgency.

“A spirit-gathering array absorbs unaligned spiritual energy.

To convert it into high-temperature steam, you need to add a fire-attribute conversion array in the middle.

Otherwise, the spiritual energy will directly impact the cylinder—it’ll just explode!”

Bai Yue silently took a half-step back, watching Su Qingyan, who had already plunged into a frenzy of calculations.

A satisfied smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

This was indeed the formidable woman who, in the game, could compete with all the cheaters on pure technical prowess alone.

This wasn’t just a mortal girl—this was a tireless, limitless proprietary R&D machine.

With Su Qingyan on her side, equipment upgrades would never be a concern again.

On the other side of the room, Xiao Yueluo stood silently in the shadows.

Her gaze fell on the two figures hunched close together at the table.

Su Qingyan’s face was flushed with excitement—a vitality and energy Xiao Yueluo had never seen in all the years she had known her.

No matter how she had comforted or encouraged her, Qingyan had always been like a withered blade of grass, wrapped in inferiority and helplessness.

But now, she had come alive.

She should be happy that Qingyan had found her footing.

This was what she had always wanted—to see Qingyan find her own path.

That was a wonderful thing.

So many good things, all overlapping, two joys coming together…

But why?

Why did her chest feel stuffed with cotton, so tight she could barely breathe?

Xiao Yueluo unconsciously gripped the sword hilt at her waist, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

She watched them sitting in the light, heads together, discussing words she couldn’t understand.

She opened her mouth, trying to interject, but found she had no entry point.

An invisible barrier seemed to have formed between them, shutting her out completely.

Loss.

It grew like wild grass in the depths of her heart.

In this new path, there was only Su Qingyan and Bai Yue.

No place for her, Xiao Yueluo.

“So…

I never really understood you at all?”

Xiao Yueluo murmured to herself.

An indescribable sense of loss washed over her like a tide.

There was a time when Su Qingyan, facing hardship, would always turn to her first.

They had supported each other, comforted each other.

But now…

She even felt a strange illusion—that the treasure she had guarded so carefully for so long had just been taken away effortlessly by someone else, in that very moment.

Jealousy?

Xiao Yueluo bit her lower lip, tasting a hint of blood.

She didn’t want to admit it, but that sour, aching pain in her chest was too real to ignore.

[Ding!]

A crisp electronic chime exploded without warning in Bai Yue’s mind.

She was just about to continue laying out more grand visions for Su Qingyan when she froze mid-motion.

[Detected significant progress in the NTR quest!]

[System Judgment: The host, through a strategic retreat and by displaying overwhelming strength and selfless generosity, has delivered a dimensionality-reduction strike against the Heaven’s Chosen Maiden’s love interest, causing her to submit completely in both spirit and body.

This represents the highest realm of “NTR” behavior—conquering the heart is the ultimate strategy!]

[Host has successfully seized something important from the major character ‘Xiao Yueluo’s’ heart!]

[Xiao Yueluo is experiencing intense feelings of loss, deprivation, and mild jealousy!]

[Quest Phase Two complete.

Rewards granted: Forced cultivation advancement of one rank.

Heaven-Tier Lower-Grade cultivation art fragment [The Book of Forgetting All Emotions] · Middle Chapter deposited into system inventory!]

[Please continue your efforts, host, and strive to become the notorious Pure Love Assassin of all realms!]

[Reward: Points +200!]

Bai Yue: “…”

A small, hidden twitch flickered at the corner of her mouth.

What does “seized something important from her heart” even mean?

System, could you please use less weird phrasing?

I was just guiding an undiscovered scientific genius here—how did it end up sounding like I did something shady right in front of the aggrieved party?

And the aggrieved party even dropped loot?!

She took a deep breath, slowly shifting her gaze from the system panel.

She turned her head to look at Xiao Yueluo, standing in the shadows by the door.

The room was dim.

Xiao Yueluo’s head hung low, her bangs veiling her eyes, making it impossible to read her expression.

But that taut, tense aura—and that hand gripping the sword hilt so tightly—told Bai Yue everything she needed to know.

“Little Yueluo.”

Bai Yue cleared her throat and called out tentatively.

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