Chapter 119| Chapter 120| Chapter 121
Chapter 119: Drop
Qiu Yan did her best to keep a smile plastered on her face, but her voice was laced with frantic impatience as she repeatedly urged Lu Yunxi to leave her behind and run.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” Lu Yunxi replied, feeling a bit helpless.
She was vastly stronger than Qiu Yan, and these explosions couldn’t actually scratch her hidden stats. How could she possibly run away at a time like this? Then, a sudden realization struck her.
Her eyes lit up.
The raiding party’s target wasn’t them at all; it was the player on the boat next door. If she simply kicked that person away from their skiff, Qiu Yan would be out of danger.
With that plan in mind, she conjured a protective spiritual shield around Qiu Yan, cast another defensive ward over their leaking boat to keep it afloat, and prepared to make her move.
“Qiu Yan, stay right here. It’s safe inside the shield. I’ll go handle them first,” Lu Yunxi said. Without waiting for a response, she leaped off the deck, her toes lightly skimming across the giant floating lotus leaves in a blur of motion.
Sprinting clear of the thick, blinding smoke, Lu Yunxi—her goose-yellow gauze dress fluttering behind her—instantly locked onto the player who had brought the chaos to their doorstep.
She vaulted into the air, driving a powerful palm strike directly toward the troublemaker.
However, the eyes of the surrounding vanguard players lit up when they saw her intervene.
The exact moment Lu Yunxi kicked the fleeing player away, the ranged units onshore unleashed a massive, synchronized volley of explosive shells. Once ordnance of that scale was fired, the projectiles couldn’t be recalled.
Lu Yunxi’s pupils contracted slightly. She twisted her body mid-air, attempting a high-speed evasion manuever.
Unfortunately, the incoming shells were far too dense, blanketing the sky like a torrential downpour.
“Look out—!”
Accompanied by Qiu Yan’s heart-wrenching scream, Lu Yunxi’s foot accidentally misjudged the edge of a slick rock. Stepping on empty air, her body plunged straight over the precipice and down into the roaring waterfall.
Qiu Yan watched in absolute horror as Lu Yunxi vanished over the edge of the torrent.
“Yunxi—!!!”
“Oh, crap. She actually fell over the side,” one of the vanguard players remarked casually as they witnessed her drop.
“Why are you wasting your breath on her? It’s just her own bad luck for choosing this specific lake to visit today.”
“Move out! The actual campaign target is getting away! Focus on the objective!”
The raiding party continued their tactical chatter as if no one else were around. Watching them, Qiu Yan gritted her teeth so hard they bled, her fists clenching until her knuckles turned white.
Dammit! Yunxi isn’t even a player—she’s a native NPC! In the world of “Ancient Times,” when an NPC dies, they’re dead for good. There are no respawn mechanics for them…
A few days ago, when Yunxi had selflessly saved her, Qiu Yan had secretly vowed that she would do whatever it took to protect her.
And yet, she…
Realizing this cold-blooded mob didn’t give a single damn about an NPC’s life, a wave of pure, unadulterated hatred ignited in Qiu Yan’s eyes. Slowly, the strength that had been drained by the paralyzing poison began to violently force its way back into her limbs.
“You bastards… all of you deserve to die!” Qiu Yan snarled, lifting her head. Her eyes were completely bloodshot, radiating the terrifying aura of a vengeful demon freshly escaped from hell.
The preoccupied players failed to note the sudden mutation in her aura, entirely unaware of the catastrophic retribution heading their way.
Until—
“What the hell? Is this chick completely psycho? Why is she suddenly trying to wipe us out? Isn’t she worried about triggering a server-wide Red Name bounty?!”
“She’s asking for a wipe! I only took damage earlier because my guard was down! I… aghh!“
“Focus fire, kill her quick! We have a full raid party here; there’s no way we can lose a PvP trade to a single player!”
Qiu Yan fought like a woman possessed, her armor entirely drenched in blood. It poured from her own ruptured wounds and the fatal slashes she inflicted on her targets; she had lost track of whose blood it even was.
She only knew one thing: she was going to paint the lake red to avenge Yunxi.
Dozens of players dissolved into bursts of white light, forcefully sent back to the regional rebirth points. But at the end of the day, Qiu Yan was fighting entirely alone, and her physical stamina bar was strictly finite. Gradually, her movements slowed, and her defensive posture cracked.
Hot tears spilled from her eyes just as her health bar bottomed out, and her vision dissolved into the familiar white light of a respawn loop.
She had failed to keep her promise.
For the first time in her life, she had lost someone she cared about.
Dammit! She truly… could not accept this reality.
Lu Yunxi sat cross-legged on a patch of lush green grass, a thoroughly subtle expression on her face.
She honestly hadn’t anticipated that despite achieving master-tier combat metrics, she could still execute a clumsy misstep and tumble down a cliff. In fairness, if her foot hadn’t cleared the solid edge entirely, her high agility stat would have saved her.
Then again, executing a clumsy misstep while walking had absolutely nothing to do with a character’s level.
She stretched her limbs, testing her joints, before lifting her gaze to peer up at the colossal waterfall. The cliff face was so staggeringly tall that the crest was entirely swallowed by the mist, prompting a bizarre expression to cross her features.
Under normal circumstances, given her current high-tier Qinggong proficiency, she could have easily utilized the protruding rock formations along the cliffside to scale her way back to the basin. However, the system had coded a strict, one-way invisible boundary zone here. While she had fallen through the space without encountering the slightest resistance, every single attempt to climb back up was met by a solid, transparent wall.
She had actually launched five separate high-altitude leaps just now, but she still couldn’t determine the exact trigger for the spatial block.
Lu Yunxi resolved to give it one final try. If the leap failed again, she would pivot and hunt for an alternative exit route.
She quickly harvested a variety of rare, anomalous flora growing along the base of the pool, stuffing the plants into her robes to see if they acted as a mechanical key. Maybe I’m missing a specific environmental item to bypass the ward?
Unfortunately, the final attempt concluded in another flat failure.
Surveying the foreign valley helplessly, she decided to follow the natural flow of the riverbank. Where there was water, there were bound to be native settlements.
However—
Half an hour later, Lu Yunxi stared at the exact same roaring waterfall before her, sinking into deep, irritated thought.
This was her third consecutive attempt to hike outward in a straight line, yet the spatial loop had systematically guided her right back to her starting point.
Giving up on physical navigation, Lu Yunxi dropped onto the grass, crossing her legs as she threw open her advanced system interface, desperately hunting for any hidden clues within the data logs.
And while she remained thoroughly trapped within this bizarre, instanced anomaly…
Back in the real world, Qiu Yan emerged from her high-end virtual reality capsule. Slumping onto the floor of her private quarters, she hugged her knees tightly, feeling a wave of profound weakness wash over her.
To anyone else, mourning a character in a video game would look utterly ridiculous. But she had genuinely, sincerely viewed Lu Yunxi as a true friend.
Ever since she had been drafted into the high-society ranks as the perfect daughter of the Qiu empire, almost every single relationship around her had been entirely transactional and hollow. Whenever she attended a social function or spoke to her peers, her brain was forced to continuously analyze the underlying motives, tones, and hidden agendas of the person across from her. In stark contrast, within the virtual world of Ancient Times, she had experienced nothing but pure, unconditional gentleness from Lu Yunxi.
When Lu Yunxi had saved her life at the inn weeks ago, she hadn’t done it for gold, status, or affinity points… She had simply witnessed a person in distress and stepped in to help.
Back then, Qiu Yan had been covertly poisoned and desperately required a rare, universal antidote pill to clear the debuff. For a native lifestyle NPC like Yunxi, procuring a pharmaceutical miracle of that caliber must have been an immense, grueling ordeal.
Yet, the girl had handed it over without a single shred of hesitation—even though, at that specific moment, they were nothing more than strangers who had crossed paths twice.
Tears cascaded down her cheeks.
No! She couldn’t allow herself to sink into a useless depressive spiral! What if Yunxi was still clinging to life? What if she was currently trapped at the bottom of that valley, severely injured and desperately waiting for a rescue party?
Wiping her face, a look of fierce determination hardened her eyes. She climbed back into her capsule and logged right back into the game.
Lu Yunxi spent several days systematically mapping out every corner of the haunted, looped valley. By meticulously logging the behavioral shifts of the spatial boundaries across different server times, she finally unraveled the loop, stumbling upon a small, isolated wooden cabin hidden within the brush.
An elderly man with a mane of snow-white hair sat quietly on the front porch.
Staring at the glaringly prominent, basic Level 10 indicator floating above the old man’s head, Lu Yunxi’s expression turned highly subtle.
When she had first spotted a human silhouette, her eyes had lit up, assuming she simply needed to challenge the guardian of the instance to a boss fight to unlock the exit gates.
But looking at the metrics objectively… if the old man was strictly level ten, he wouldn’t be suicidal enough to trap high-level players within his domain just to catch a beating.
The elder looked equally astonished to see a visitor breach his perimeter. Beaming with hospitality, he warmly ushered her inside the cabin and set about brewing a fresh pot of tea.
“Have a seat, young lady,” the old man urged, his eyes turning soft with a wave of deep nostalgia. “I haven’t seen a fresh face in this valley for decades.”
Lu Yunxi paused, accepting the porcelain cup. Her eyes widened slightly as she tasted the vintage; the brew produced by this seemingly ordinary old man was of pristine, orange-grade quality.
This was the absolute first time she had ever encountered a native NPC who had pushed the art of tea ceremony to such a staggering height.
“Grandfather, your tea-making proficiency is absolutely incredible,” she couldn’t help but marvel, giving him a genuine thumbs-up. Could this old timer actually be a legendary, hidden grandmaster?
The old man offered a soft smile, though a layer of profound bitterness lingered in his eyes.
Lu Yunxi was quite surprised by the reaction, harboring a wave of deep respect. Is this elder really that critical of his own work? Is he truly unsatisfied with master-tier tea production? In the outside world, any lifestyle crafter would be utterly ecstatic to break into the advanced tiers, let alone touch the master brackets. Then again, perhaps it was precisely this relentless, unyielding perfectionism that had allowed him to break through the master thresholds in the first place?
Deciding to cut straight to the core issue, Lu Yunxi asked, “Grandfather, do you happen to know the mechanic to escape this valley?”
At the question, the old man simply shook his head, letting out a heavy, defeated sigh.
As it turned out, the elder had suffered the exact same fate as Lu Yunxi, having tumbled down the waterfall decades prior. Falling from the crest was coded to deal zero lethal damage, but it carried an absolute spatial lock. To successfully break the boundary and trigger the exit portal, a captive was required to independently advance a lifestyle or combat sub-profession to the legendary Grandmaster tier.
A Grandmaster-tier entity possessed the system authority to manifest an exit portal, though they could only escort one additional passenger out with them.
The old man had been stranded within the instanced loop for decades. But because his tea ceremony proficiency remained stubbornly capped at the master tier without ever triggering the grandmaster breakthrough, he had been permanently locked inside.
Hearing the explanation, Lu Yunxi’s heart gave a violent thud.
Wait, that doesn’t align with the logic!
“But my own culinary sub-profession reached the master tier long before I crossed the threshold…” she countered, her brow furrowing. “Why hasn’t the exit portal manifested for me?” Could the server parameters for the instance have shifted over the decades without the isolated old man realizing it?
The old man shot her a look of deep, crushing sympathy, shaking his white head. “It is entirely useless to harbor a master-tier skill before you fall through the waterfall, child. The system logic dictates that you can only unlock the exit portal if you successfully grind a completely separate, lower-tier sub-profession up to the master bracket while trapped inside the valley.”
Chapter 120: Another Person Fell Down
Upon hearing the old man’s words, Lu Yunxi’s expression instantly soured.
The special pills she had previously used to force her skill breakthroughs were completely gone, and this valley lacked the rare medicinal ingredients required to brew any fresh batches. If she had to rely entirely on standard grinding to push a secondary lifestyle profession all the way to the master bracket… the sheer mechanical difficulty would be staggering.
Clinging to a final shred of hope, she pressed further. “What if I ignore the lifestyle professions entirely and grind my combat level up to the Grandmaster tier instead? Will the system accept that?”
“Mechanically speaking, yes… but to be entirely frank with you, child, forcing a combat breakthrough is exponentially more punishing than leveling up a trade. In all my decades stranded here, I have never once witnessed a cultivator successfully touch the Grandmaster tier,” the old man explained, his tone hesitant as if desperately trying to dissuade her from a hopeless endeavor. Ultimately, he simply offered a heavy sigh and a hollow word of encouragement: “But who knows? Perhaps you can forge a miracle.”
Lu Yunxi studiously ignored the blatant skepticism written across his features, offering a polite smile and a firm nod.
A few days later.
A short distance away from the elder’s original cabin, a simple but structurally sturdy new wooden house stood completed.
From that moment forward, outside of rotating through her lower-tier lifestyle dailies, Lu Yunxi spent every waking hour locked inside the valley’s underground cavern—the single localized coordinate she had discovered that successfully spawned hostile entities. The instanced dungeon contained a fixed rotation of eighty-seven monsters, scaled sequentially from level one up to level eighty-seven.
She strongly suspected the server mechanics dynamically adjusted the dungeon parameters based on the highest level of the intruder. Since her own character sheet marked her at level eighty-seven, the zone spawned eighty-seven targets. If a level fifty player stumbled into the zone, would the instance scale down to fifty monsters?
And while Lu Yunxi was entirely consumed by her brutal grinding routine in the depths, an entirely different crisis was unfolding far above the waterfall.
Standing on the banks of the gourd-shaped lake, Qiu Yan felt a heavy chill settle deep within her chest as she watched her carrier pigeon return to her shoulder, circling helplessly.
The encrypted message she had penned to Yunxi couldn’t clear the server queues. Within the game’s logic, a failed delivery meant only two things: either the recipient’s character data had been permanently wiped, or they were currently locked inside a restricted, high-tier instanced dungeon.
She adamantly refused to believe Yunxi was gone. Back when they were caught in the crossfire of the regional gank, Yunxi’s health bar hadn’t even dropped a fraction as low as her own!
Meticulously backtracking through her memory logs, Qiu Yan desperately tried to parse any hidden clues from the visual data of the raid.
She spent days scanning every coordinate along the lake parameters before abandoning the high ground, running down the treacherous mountain passes to scour the base of the canyon. Yet, after an entire week of continuous, agonizing exploration, she failed to uncover a single trace of Lu Yunxi.
Time slipped past in a blur, and a full week vanished from the server clock.
Qiu Yan remained entirely stuck at zero progress.
She hovered along the edge of the roaring waterfall for a long, conflicted moment as twilight began to bleed across the sky. Finally making up her mind, she retreated to the local trade hub to completely replenish her reserves, packing her high-capacity inventory bag to its absolute limit before marching right back to the gourd-shaped lake and diving straight into the deep currents.
Swimming directly into the churning mouth of the bottleneck, she took a deep, centering breath, steeled her nerves, and plummeted straight over the precipice.
Yunxi had selflessly risked her own life to draw the aggro away during the ambush specifically to safeguard her perimeter. How could she possibly turtle inside a safe zone and give up on her savior now?
The exact fraction of a second her avatar cleared the crest of the waterfall, Qiu Yan closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer through the system: Please… don’t let me hit a fatal terrain glitch and trigger a standard respawn loop.
Lu Yunxi had just concluded another grueling clear of the underground instance. Wiping the heavy sweat from her brow as she walked back toward her compound, her master-level perception caught an anomalous silhouette slumped on the riverbank directly beneath the waterfall.
Did someone else actually tumble down the precipice?
She blinked in genuine surprise. According to the isolated old timer, the valley’s spatial anomaly hadn’t trapped a fresh captive in decades.
She couldn’t help but wonder whether the new arrival was a player or a native NPC. If it was a player, the situation would turn incredibly ironic. Currently, looking at the server-wide leaderboards, outside of herself, only her dense apprentice had successfully breached the combat master thresholds, and not a single active player had managed to break the level caps for lifestyle professions.
If it was a player, they were going to be trapped down here for an eternity.
Driven by pure curiosity, she accelerated her pace toward the coordinates.
However, the exact moment she stood over the unconscious figure and processed the facial details, her expression shattered.
It was Qiu Yan!
Her avatar’s health bar was completely full, and her gear bore zero structural damage. She hadn’t been thrown over the edge during the initial crossfire, yet she had somehow managed to drop into the instance days after the event had cleared…
Lu Yunxi clamped a hand over her forehead, completely speechless. She hadn’t anticipated that the stubborn girl would actually execute a deliberate leap down a lethal waterfall just to hunt for her!
Scooping up the limp, uncoordinated woman into her arms, she carefully carried her back into her spartan wooden cabin.
“Is this the fresh arrival from the crest?” the old man asked in surprise, stopping by as he concluded his morning stroll. “Good heavens, a young lady? Marvelous! You’ll finally have a proper companion to clear the isolation!”
Lu Yunxi offered a faint smile. “She’s a close friend of mine. I suspect she intentionally triggered the drop to verify my safety.” She wasn’t being overly sentimental; Qiu Yan was strictly that brand of fiercely principled individual. She operated on a rigid code of absolute loyalty—repaying kindness with absolute devotion and answering hostility with devastating retribution.
Back when they had first crossed paths in the Women’s Kingdom, they had shared a casual conversation before parting ways. But traveling through the sector days later, Lu Yunxi had accidentally discovered that Qiu Yan had been afflicted by a high-tier poison debuff. The moment Lu Yunxi administered a universal antidote pill to clear the status, the vibrant girl had attached herself to her side like a piece of sticky taffy, relentlessly lecturing her about the absolute necessity of safeguarding her “fragile” perimeter.
The old man sighed softly, understanding the bond. Reaching into his personal basket, he pulled out a bundle of rare medicinal herbs and handed them over to assist.
After voicing her gratitude for his neighborly kindness, Lu Yunxi retreated back inside her quarters.
Closing her eyes to block out the awkwardness, she methodically worked her way through changing Qiu Yan’s damp outer layers, arranged a fresh set of premium linens over the mattress, and quietly stepped out of the bedchamber.
She had already completed a thorough diagnostic scan. Just as the elder had verified, the specific spatial coding of the waterfall ensured that any entity surviving the drop suffered zero physical trauma or health degradation; the system simply forced the avatar into a deep, restorative slumber for a few days to calibrate to the instance.
Two days later.
Trapped in a deep, heavy darkness, Qiu Yan’s eyelids finally fluttered, and she slowly forced her eyes open.
She blinked rapidly, her blurry, disoriented vision gradually adjusting to the ambient light.
She was currently lying atop a simple, unadorned wooden bed. The raw planks seemed to have been casually fitted into a crude frame without being thoroughly sanded down; the unpolished knots in the wood pressed slightly against her back through the mattress, causing a prickling sensation.
Propping herself up on her elbows, she sat up and critically evaluated her surroundings.
Aside from the primitive bed, the tiny room contained absolutely nothing but two wooden chairs and a matching table. The furniture, however, was beautifully polished and entirely smooth to the touch.
She sat anchored to the edge of the frame for a few quiet moments, waiting to see if a resident would enter. Realizing she was completely alone, she pushed her thoughts toward the missing Lu Yunxi, swung her legs out, and marched out of the cabin.
Stepping through the threshold, she found a crystal-clear stream meandering past the rear of the compound. A short distance away stood a separate wooden cabin that appeared significantly older, yet boasted a far more refined, aesthetic architectural style.
Qiu Yan paused, preparing to march up to the neighboring porch and knock to gather information. But as she spun around, her gaze locked onto a highly familiar silhouette crouched by the running water.
“…Yunxi?!” She bounded forward, her voice exploding with a mixture of sheer shock and unadulterated joy.
“Qiu Yan? You’re finally awake!” Lu Yunxi turned her head, a warm, relieved smile instantly breaking across her face. Washing her hands in the stream, she stepped up and gently pressed the back of her hand against the girl’s forehead to run a manual check. “Are you experiencing any lingering systemic distress?”
“I’m perfectly fine. I’m so sorry for causing you such immense anxiety,” Qiu Yan mumbled, looking down as a wave of deep embarrassment washed over her at the sight of the concern in her friend’s eyes.
Verifying that her vitals were entirely stable and free of latent debuffs, the weight lifted from Lu Yunxi’s shoulders—and an intense surge of absolute aggravation immediately rushed in to take its place.
She let out a cold, sharp chuckle. “Oh, so you actually realize I was worried? Do you have even a baseline understanding of how reckless it is to hurl yourself off a massive waterfall? If your luck metric hadn’t been exceptionally high, I would be methodically scraping your remains off the valley rocks right now!”
Naturally, the threat was a complete fabrication. She was simply terrified that this stubborn girl would maintain this suicidal, kamikaze mindset in future zones. While this specific waterfall was coded with a safety net, it was a pure anomaly. What if they encountered a legitimate, lethal abyss in the next territory?
Qiu Yan looked thoroughly guilty as she endured the sharp lecture, but looking at the furious pout on the girl’s face, her heart overflowed with pure relief. Stepping forward, she threw her arms wide and locked Lu Yunxi into a fierce, crushing embrace.
“Yunxi, I am so incredibly sorry… I swore an ironclad vow that I would protect you from harm, yet I completely failed to hold the line…”
Lu Yunxi stood entirely frozen, thoroughly startled by the sudden, intense physical contact. Listening to the trembling, choked voice ringing right next to her ear, her irritation vanished completely. Reaching up, she gently began to pat Qiu Yan’s back to soothe her tremors.
She felt a wave of profound helplessness. It was obvious the poor girl had been thoroughly tortured by an immense weight of artificial guilt over the past week. In a world where most players treated verbal agreements with absolute flippancy, Qiu Yan possessed an almost fanatical, hyper-developed sense of personal responsibility.
As Qiu Yan was locked in her emotional breakthrough by the water’s edge…
“My word… Miss Lu, has your companion finally returned to consciousness?” The old alchemist, returning from his morning walk, spotted the two figures standing by the stream and ambled over to offer a neighborly greeting. “Marvelous! Now that you have an extra set of hands to manage the compound, you can finally pause that horrific routine and breathe a bit.”
To be completely honest, despite being stranded within the spatial loop for decades, the elder had never once witnessed a cultivator operate with the terrifying, unhinged intensity of Miss Lu. She was relentlessly grinding her statistics with absolute disregard for her own safety, working without a single second of downtime day or night, only collapsing to sleep for a strict two-hour window when her stamina bar completely hit rock bottom.
In comparison, his own daily routine was incredibly relaxed; he dedicated a maximum of three hours to his master-tier tea ceremony, spending the remainder of his schedule exercising his joints or lounging along the scenic riverbanks.
Hearing the elder’s commentary, Qiu Yan’s brows knit together in a sharp, protective frown.
“Good morning, elder… Has my companion been overexerting herself during my absence?”
“Overexerting herself?” The old man slapped his thigh, nodding aggressively to emphasize his point. “That is a massive understatement! In all the years I’ve spent watching captives tumble into this valley, not a single soul has ever displayed that brand of self-sacrificial madness. Every other resident ate their meals on a structured schedule and slept a full night’s rest.”
Qiu Yan’s expression turned incredibly grim. She shifted a sharp, deeply worried gaze onto Lu Yunxi, her head aching from pure anxiety.
“Yunxi, is what he’s saying accurate? Burning through your stamina reserves like this causes immense, permanent degradation to your character variables… You must take better care of your physical vessel.”
Hearing Qiu Yan’s stern, disapproving lecture, Lu Yunxi’s eyelid gave a violent twitch.
Talk about a spectacular role reversal.
A single minute ago, she had been the one fiercely scolding Qiu Yan to prioritize her life variables and abandon reckless stunts, and now the script had completely flipped, and she was the one getting cornered about her lifestyle.
The core issue was entirely mechanical: if she didn’t aggressively force a breakthrough via this grueling, round-the-clock grind, heaven only knew how many real-world months they would remain locked inside this instanced prison!
If she stopped pushing, wouldn’t they be effectively serving a life sentence inside a virtual cage?!
Risking severe hair-loss metrics and staying up through endless server cycles just to smash through the progression barriers… did this stubborn girl think executing a spatial jailbreak was easy?!
Chapter 121: Teaching
Qiu Yan chatted with the old man for a long time, her lively banter keeping him laughing. She subtly asked about Lu Yunxi’s recent routine before finally bidding him goodbye.
Once they returned to their cabin, she cornered Lu Yunxi.
“Yunxi, is there really something so urgent that you have to leave this place? If not, please don’t be in such a rush to level up. Grandpa said the environment here is wonderful, there’s plenty of food, and there’s absolutely no danger.” Qiu Yan was genuinely terrified that if Lu Yunxi kept this up, she would drop dead from exhaustion. She wasn’t entirely sure if a player could die that way in a holographic game, but what if an NPC could?
At the time, Lu Yunxi didn’t take the warning to heart, offering only a few vague, perfunctory answers.
She thought that would be the end of it.
Until a few days later.
Finding Qiu Yan’s eyes glued to her yet again, Lu Yunxi couldn’t help but pinch the bridge of her nose.
Over the last few days, Qiu Yan had been watching her like a hawk guarding a prisoner. The moment she caught Lu Yunxi skipping a meal or missing her bedtime, the nagging would begin instantly.
Lu Yunxi was losing her mind.
Qiu Yan had never been a nagging person before. Why the sudden personality transplant?
Unable to take the endless lecturing anymore, Lu Yunxi finally cut her off. “Qiu Yan, relax. Before, I was only frantic because I was worried about you, so I rushed to grind my skills to find a way out. Now that you’re safe and right here beside me, I don’t have to worry anymore.”
True to her word, their schedule shifted over the next few days. They only went out to hunt monsters or practice skills during the day. In the evenings, the two of them would take a relaxing stroll with the old man and head to bed right on time.
Because of Qiu Yan’s arrival, Lu Yunxi decided to set up two proper, separate beds.
When she had first built her own bed, the process had taken less than ten minutes. Aside from the frame, which required some actual labor, she had just sloppily slapped together a few random wooden planks.
This time, she put in some real effort.
The two women also joined forces to construct a brand-new house—a lovely brick-and-tile home featuring two living rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom, all enclosed by a neat courtyard fence.
Qiu Yan took charge of the interior design, decorating the place with meticulous care. In the courtyard alone, she built a beautiful grapevine trellis with a set of wooden tables and chairs nestled beneath it. She even hung a swing from a sturdy branch nearby, creating the perfect spot for them to enjoy afternoon tea.
Inside the house, both of their bedrooms were carpeted with plush, off-white rugs that felt incredibly soft and luxurious underfoot. The bed frames were carved with elegant, intricate patterns, and every chair was outfitted with comfortable cushions.
Once Qiu Yan upgraded their living conditions to luxury standards, a lazy streak awoke in Lu Yunxi, and she began happily staying in bed.
Yes, she had done this on purpose.
She had deliberately kept her original bed tattered and uncomfortable so she wouldn’t become attached to it, forcing herself to leave it and grind. But now that they had established a healthy, normal routine, she naturally wanted to live in comfort.
Lu Yunxi had asked the old man if he wanted her to build him a new house as well, but he politely declined. Instead, she gave his old cabin a thorough, much-needed renovation.
Something was definitely wrong.
Drawing from her extensive experience watching detective dramas, Lu Yunxi could swear that Qiu Yan was hiding something.
They had been traveling together for a while now, and she had a solid grasp of the girl’s personality. While Qiu Yan could be a bit spoiled and theatrical at times, she was fundamentally cautious, sharp, and highly organized. She was never a careless person.
And yet…
“Yunxi, I forgot to bring a bath towel! Can you hand me one?”
Qiu Yan’s embarrassed voice drifted out from the bathroom, accompanied by the distinct splashing of water.
Lu Yunxi: “…”
Yesterday, she had completely forgotten about a pot on the stove halfway through cooking, and the day before that, she had marched out to chop wood but forgot the axe. What was she going to forget tomorrow?
Lu Yunxi crossed her arms, standing in the hallway with a serious, thoughtful expression for a long moment before finally retrieving a fresh towel from her room.
“Thanks,” Qiu Yan murmured, her voice sounding a bit raspy as a slender, pale arm reached through the cracked door.
Lu Yunxi couldn’t resist lightly smacking her arm before handing over the towel. “If you forget it again tomorrow, you can just walk out naked.”
Qiu Yan let out a soft laugh, teasing right back, “Sure. As long as you don’t mind, I can walk out right now.”
Lu Yunxi hadn’t expected her to be quite so shameless and was left temporarily speechless. However, catching the slight undertone of bitterness in the girl’s laugh, she sighed quietly to herself.
Qiu Yan had been locked in a daze for days. But since everything was functioning perfectly fine within the game, the root of her distraction had to be an external, real-world issue—something Lu Yunxi couldn’t help with from inside the server.
She shook her head. Since it involved the girl’s private life, she didn’t want to pry.
However, the very next day, a thoroughly intoxicated Qiu Yan ended up spilling the truth herself.
As it turned out, the elite Qiu family had essentially discarded her. None of the high-society bachelors were interested in her, and the clan elders, deciding her political marriage value was too low, were planning to formally expel her from the lineage. Qiu Yan was originally just an adopted prop, a secret the family had tightly guarded solely so they could market her to a high-status suitor.
Her adoptive parents had initially agreed to the arrangement, but after raising her for so many years, they had grown genuinely attached to her. They were vehemently refusing to let the clan cast her out.
Qiu Yan had been completely out of it because her adoptive parents were currently facing immense, suffocating pressure from the rest of the Qiu family.
She couldn’t bear to see her parents suffer because of her, but their standing within the core family was already painfully average, and now…
“What am I supposed to do?” Qiu Yan wept bitterly, looking entirely broken and helpless.
Listening to her drunken confession, Lu Yunxi found herself in a difficult position.
In all honesty, Qiu Yan was an incredibly exceptional individual. Whether it came to social etiquette, managing a household, intellect, real-world knowledge, physical appearance, fashion, combat skills, or raw intelligence, she was completely flawless.
She was the textbook definition of a well-rounded elite.
But the Qiu family already overflowed with genetically blessed, highly educated elites. Since Qiu Yan lacked the family’s actual bloodline, the elders saw no reason to value her. The probability of her adoptive parents securing a higher corporate or military rank just to protect her was practically zero.
Thoughtful, Lu Yunxi opened the world forum, hoping to brainstorm a solution.
She hadn’t browsed the community boards in ages, but she never expected to unearth a massive secret on the front page.
[A Shocking Secret Revealed!]: The knowledge and skills we learn inside this game can actually be replicated in the real world! I helped a local native NPC with a quest, and as a reward, he taught me a proprietary fish soup recipe. I tried recreating it in my kitchen back home, and it tasted absolutely legendary! I’ve officially opened a brick-and-mortar seafood bistro on my home planet specializing in this soup, and I am making an absolute fortune. Massive shoutout to the developers of “Ancient Times”…
[Unbelievable Encounter]: I didn’t realize the casual acquaintance I made in-game was actually a high-ranking corporate tycoon in real life. He just treated me to a lavish dinner at a literal five-star restaurant…
Intrigued, Lu Yunxi ran a deep search on real-world culinary metrics. She found multiple threads verifying that traditional dining establishments in the Interstellar world were astronomically expensive, with a single meal costing a small fortune. Professional chefs were a highly revered, incredibly rare class. In fact, if an Interstellar family managed to produce a certified chef, the entire lineage would boast about it for generations.
The concept sounded utterly bizarre to her.
But for Lu Yunxi, it was the perfect breakthrough.
Her own culinary sub-profession had already reached the master tier.
If she took Qiu Yan under her wing and systematically trained her in the culinary arts, the girl might be able to easily clear the advanced chef certification board in the real world. If she pulled that off, her adoptive parents would instantly secure immense prestige and societal honor through her achievement, completely eliminating any leverage the Qiu family held to harass them.
“Qiu Yan, I don’t know what’s been weighing so heavily on your mind lately, but if you’re interested in mastering a trade, I can teach you.” Lu Yunxi smiled inwardly, relieved to find that Qiu Yan retained absolutely zero memory of her drunken breakdown. “My culinary skills are actually quite formidable. If you want to learn, just say the word.”
Leaving the offer on the table, she stepped out of the room to give Qiu Yan some space to process the idea.
In the past, Lu Yunxi would have actively avoided taking on extra burdens. But currently, no matter how desperately she wanted to escape this looped valley, she couldn’t force a spatial breakthrough overnight. Furthermore, having already trained one dense apprentice, she had accumulated plenty of teaching experience. Most importantly, she genuinely liked Qiu Yan. Driven by a mix of convenience and genuine affection, she made the proposal.
Qiu Yan spent two full days weighing the offer. Finally, with the old alchemist acting as an official witness, she performed the traditional tea ceremony and formally bound herself to Lu Yunxi.
From that day forward, Lu Yunxi officially harbored a second disciple.
Within the Interstellar grading system, professional chefs were categorized into junior, intermediate, advanced, and grandmaster tiers. As long as Qiu Yan could secure an advanced-tier license, the entire Qiu family would be forced to completely rewrite their attitude toward her.
To ensure her new student met the benchmark as fast as possible, Lu Yunxi thoroughly researched the real-world exam parameters before designing her curriculum.
“Qiu Yan, slice these winter melons into uniform pieces,” she directed, pointing to the raw produce on the counter as she stepped back to observe her form.
To her utter astonishment, Qiu Yan’s knife work was spectacular. Her speed, precision, and blade control easily outclassed everything her first apprentice had displayed during his initial trials.
Lu Yunxi offered a highly satisfied nod, a brilliant smile playing on her lips.
It looked like her second disciple was exponentially more gifted than her first.
Given her adoptive parents’ average standing within the core family, the possibility of improving their situation by securing Qiu Yan an important position was practically zero.
Thoughtful, Lu Yunxi opened the world forum, hoping to brainstorm a solution. She hadn’t browsed the community boards in ages, but she never expected to unearth a massive secret on the front page.
[A Shocking Secret Revealed!]: The knowledge and skills we learn inside this game can actually be replicated in the real world! I helped a local native NPC with a quest, and as a reward, he taught me a proprietary fish soup recipe. I tried recreating it in my kitchen back home, and it tasted absolutely legendary! I’ve officially opened a brick-and-mortar seafood bistro on my home planet specializing in this soup, and I am making an absolute fortune. Massive shoutout to the developers of “Ancient Times”…
[Unbelievable Encounter]: I didn’t realize the casual acquaintance I made in-game was actually a high-ranking corporate tycoon in real life. He just treated me to a lavish dinner at a literal five-star restaurant…
Intrigued, Lu Yunxi ran a deep search on real-world culinary metrics. She found multiple threads verifying that traditional dining establishments in the Interstellar world were astronomically expensive, with a single meal costing a small fortune. Professional chefs were a highly respected, incredibly rare class. In fact, if an Interstellar family managed to produce a certified chef, the entire lineage would boast about it for generations.
The concept sounded utterly bizarre to her.
But for Lu Yunxi, it was the perfect breakthrough. Her own culinary sub-profession had already reached the master tier. If she took Qiu Yan under her wing and systematically trained her in the culinary arts, the girl might be able to easily clear the chef certification board in the real world. If she pulled that off, her adoptive parents would instantly secure immense prestige and societal honor through her achievement, completely eliminating any leverage the Qiu family held to harass them.
“Qiu Yan, I don’t know what’s been weighing so heavily on your mind lately, but if you’re interested in mastering a trade, I can teach you.” Lu Yunxi smiled inwardly, relieved to find that Qiu Yan retained absolutely zero memory of her drunken breakdown. “My culinary skills are actually quite formidable. If you want to learn, just say the word.”
Leaving the offer on the table, she stepped out of the room to give Qiu Yan some space to process the idea.
In the past, Lu Yunxi would have actively avoided taking on extra burdens. But currently, no matter how desperately she wanted to escape this looped valley, she couldn’t force a spatial breakthrough overnight. Furthermore, having already trained one dense apprentice, she had accumulated plenty of teaching experience. Most importantly, she genuinely liked Qiu Yan. Driven by a mix of convenience and genuine affection, she made the proposal.
Qiu Yan spent two full days weighing the offer. Finally, with the old alchemist acting as an official witness, she performed the traditional tea ceremony and formally bound herself to Lu Yunxi.
From that day forward, Lu Yunxi officially harbored a second disciple.
Within the Interstellar grading system, professional chefs were categorized into junior, intermediate, advanced, and top tiers. As long as Qiu Yan could secure an advanced-tier license, the entire Qiu family would be forced to completely rewrite their attitude toward her.
To ensure her new student met the benchmark as fast as possible, Lu Yunxi thoroughly researched the real-world exam parameters before designing her curriculum.
“Qiu Yan, slice these winter melons into uniform pieces,” she directed, pointing to the raw produce on the counter as she stepped back to observe her form.
To her utter astonishment, Qiu Yan’s knife work was spectacular. Her speed, precision, and blade control easily outclassed everything her first apprentice, Shen San, had displayed during his initial trials.
Lu Yunxi offered a highly satisfied nod, a brilliant smile playing on her lips.
It looked like her second disciple was exponentially more gifted than her first.
