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Join the ServerJiang Xiaoyu rummaged around the kitchen for a while and pulled two bowls out of the cupboard.
They were celadon-glazed white porcelain bowls, their rims traced with a ring of silver luminescent patterns and their bottoms completely covered in golden veins.
Under the kitchen’s silvery light, they gave off a soft luster.
He held them up to the light, inspected them, and nodded in satisfaction.
The amenities in this school’s dormitories were truly top-notch, fully equipped with all the necessary pots, pans, and utensils.
He divided the hot and sour noodles into two bowls; red chili oil floated on the surface of the broth, with the pickled bamboo shoots and crushed peanuts neatly arranged on top.
“Cousin, dinner’s ready—”
He walked out of the kitchen carrying the two bowls, the bottoms so scalding hot that he bared his teeth in pain.
He jogged all the way to the living room to set the bowls down on the coffee table, then grabbed his earlobes with both hands, repeatedly hissing and crying out, “Hot, hot, hot!” as he turned and ran back to the kitchen.
He turned on the faucet, shoved his hands under the cold water, and let out a comfortable sigh, shouting through the kitchen door, “Cousin, you eat first! It won’t taste good if it gets cold!”
Sitting on the sofa, Xiaoqi stared at the two steaming bowls of hot and sour noodles on the coffee table, her gaze complicated.
Through the half-open kitchen door, she took another look at the cupboard.
The first shelf held knives and chopsticks, while those two white porcelain bowls had been sitting on the second shelf, right next to some plates, soup spoons, and a few spice bottles.
Everything was arranged neatly, as if someone had lived here for a very long time.
‘This is Huangquan Vocational Institute, a place teeming with aberrations; how could a human possibly live here?’
However, that wasn’t the biggest problem at the moment; her biggest problem was that she had no safe zone in Room 1314.
The room she had just entered could, at best, be considered half a safe zone.
But she couldn’t exactly have Jiang Xiaoyu stay in there with her, could she?
Thinking of this left her feeling a bit stifled.
She had to find a way to test if she could get Jiang Xiaoyu to remove that sticky note.
Even though she knew perfectly well that the note was part of the rules, and removing it might trigger some negative consequences.
Her gaze fell upon the figure standing at the kitchen door, humming a tune as he iced his hands with cold water.
This person was someone she had sworn to protect.
“Cousin, why aren’t you eating?” Jiang Xiaoyu asked as he walked out of the kitchen, shaking the water droplets off his hands, only to see the two bowls of noodles on the coffee table completely untouched.
Xiaoqi was sitting on the sofa with a cold expression, not having so much as touched her chopsticks.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Not hungry? Weren’t you the one who said you wanted to eat just a moment ago?” Jiang Xiaoyu sat down opposite her, a look of sudden realization dawning on his face.
“Oh—were you just too polite to start eating first?”
He picked up his chopsticks, grabbed a couple strands of noodles, blew on them, and brought them right up to her mouth.
“Here, taste your cousin’s handiwork. Hot and sour noodles are only good when they’re eaten piping hot; once they get cold, they just clump together.”
Xiaoqi stared at the two strands of noodles hovering by her mouth, falling silent for two seconds.
She didn’t eat human food; she ate humans!
But Jiang Xiaoyu’s “I won’t put these chopsticks down until you eat” posture made her realize that if she didn’t open her mouth, this guy could very well hold his chopsticks there and stall for the entire night.
Expressionless, she leaned forward and took the noodles into her mouth.
Then, her body stiffened.
Her supernatural power had stirred.
It wasn’t the same kind of explosive growth as before; rather, the noodles had drawn upon her power, twisting it into a needle that was currently pricking at the barrier of the late S-rank—it was minuscule, but undeniably real.
She looked down at the seemingly ordinary noodles in the bowl, her pupils contracting slightly.
She picked up her own chopsticks, lifted a noodle, and placed it into her mouth.
She chewed carefully, swallowed slowly, and concentrated her mind to feel the effects.
Another prick.
Xiaoqi was confident that if she consumed enough of this food, she might actually be able to shatter the bottleneck of the late S-rank and become an SS-rank aberration.
Rolling up her sleeves, she picked up her bowl, preparing to feast.
BOOM.
The door on the right side of the living room was violently thrown open.
It hadn’t been gently opened from the inside—it had burst open forcefully, as if kicked off its hinges by something within.
A blinding light surged explosively from the doorframe.
It was a piercing gold, like the midday sun compressed into the shape of a door.
The air instantly became scorching and arid.
Under the glare of this light, the river of stars flowing through the living room was dyed a golden-red, and the starlight on the ceiling trembled violently, as if in fear.
The rays of light shone directly onto the backs of Jiang Xiaoyu and Xiaoqi, casting their figures onto the opposite wall and stretching them into two massive, twisted black silhouettes.
Xiaoqi didn’t even have time to turn around before black flames erupted violently from her body.
She blurred into motion, positioning herself behind Jiang Xiaoyu just as a shield of black light clashed against the golden radiance.
Her eyes shone with startling brilliance amidst the flames, a flicker of sheer horror flashing deep within her pupils.
This light carried an overbearing, searing power; simply standing within it caused her supernatural power to plummet drastically.
In but a single moment, she had already fallen from the late S-rank down to the mid S-rank, and it was still dropping.
“Run!” she barked coldly.
“Into the kitchen! Hurry!”
Jiang Xiaoyu was biting down on his chopsticks, a strand of noodle still dangling from his lips as he mumbled, “Here we go again?”
He looked at his cousin’s posture as she faced down this supposedly formidable enemy and sighed.
She was acting pretty convincingly this time, trembling all over as if it were real.
“Alright, alright, I’ll go to the kitchen.” He picked up his bowl of noodles from the coffee table and headed for the kitchen without looking back, grumbling as he walked.
“Another rule-based ghost story game! When will this obsession of hers ever end?”
The light in the living room shifted.
A golden spear shot out from the door of light.
The shaft of the spear was coiled with scorching patterns born of the exact same source as the intense light, and its tip traced a golden tail of flame through the air as it thrust straight toward the kitchen.
Xiaoqi did not retreat; instead, she charged forward straight toward the spear.
Her black lightsaber drew an arc through the air. The moment the blade collided with the spear’s shaft, there was no crisp sound of clashing metal, only a dull hiss—resembling a red-hot branding iron being plunged into ice water.
Sizzle—
Black flames and golden fire exploded simultaneously. The spear was forced off-course by her strike, scraping past the kitchen doorframe and sinking into the wall before vanishing entirely. A scorched black mark was left behind on the wall.
Xiaoqi landed, positioning herself before the kitchen door. Her hand was trembling faintly.
It was not from fear, but from the drain on her supernatural power. With that strike, she had used eighty percent of her strength just to barely deflect the spear. And after that blow, her cultivation was eroded by another chunk due to the light—her mid S-rank standing was teetering precariously, on the verge of collapsing.
The river of stars in the living room had completely transformed in color; the brilliant celestial bodies were tainted with flowing molten gold, the air seemingly ignited, bringing a scorching sensation with every single breath.
The golden light was burrowing into her body, devouring her supernatural power.
Without hesitation, she flickered into motion, bolted into the room of stars on the left, and pulled the door shut behind her.
The golden light was sealed outside.
Inside the room, the sky full of stars continued to drift slowly, shooting stars tracing silver arcs above her head. The starlight that had been nearly suppressed to extinction by the golden glare in the living room remained bright and serene here. As if sensing her arrival, specks of starlight broke away from their orbits, floating toward her and sinking into her body one after another.
Warmth washed over her, like being submerged in lukewarm water.
Xiaoqi slid down against the door panel to the floor, closed her eyes, and began to regulate her breath.
The power of the light erosion still lingered within her; those golden specks of light clung to her meridians, drilling deeper bit by bit. However, the starlight was also flooding in—instead of attacking the light erosion, it formed a protective film over her surface, pushing the golden light outward.
The two forces waged a silent tug-of-war within her body.
She settled into a cross-legged position, focusing her spirit to drive out the light erosion.
She was safe for now.
In the kitchen, Jiang Xiaoyu drank the leftover sour and spicy soup right from the pot, wiped his mouth, and let out a satisfied burp.
It seemed quiet outside.
He set the pot down and called toward the doorway: “Cousin, are you done acting yet? The noodles are going to clump together.”
There was no response.
He called out twice more, but still, no one answered.
Everything outside the kitchen was quiet and still; the blinding golden light from earlier had dispersed without him noticing.
Jiang Xiaoyu scratched his head and muttered: “Fine, I’ll eat by myself.”
Meanwhile, in the space separated by a single wall, Xiaoqi sat cross-legged beneath the canopy of stars, her eyes squeezed shut, drenched from head to toe in cold sweat. The golden light rampaged through her meridians as the starlight slowly forced it out, bit by bit.
She could not hear Jiang Xiaoyu’s voice.
This door blocked out the light, and it blocked out all sound.
At this moment, her only thought was:
‘Before I finish purging this light erosion, he better not get hurt.’
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