Mutual Destruction Tactics

"What's wrong, big sister?" Rita naturally looped her arm through Liu Bai's, provoking Natasha.

People lost their reason when they were angry.

But Liu Bai, the most important person, happened to be right beside her.

She could provoke Natasha while ensuring her own safety.

"...Miss Rita, isn't this a little inappropriate?"

Although he was in close contact with a beautiful woman.

Right now, he felt like Lu Su from the Romance, whose hand Guan Yu was holding.

Of course, this was close contact with a beautiful woman.

Hmm... a beautiful girl Guan Yu did not seem entirely unacceptable either...

No, that wasn't the point!

Liu Bai felt like his thoughts were drifting.

"Mr. Liu Bai had actually used himself as bait... Jackal, this time, the stage will be handed over to Raven and Mr. Liu Bai. You are not allowed to interfere?"

Gray Serpent spoke calmly as he watched the surveillance feed.

The meaning of his Highlord was very clear: absolutely nothing could happen to Liu Bai.

Absolutely nothing.

Gray Serpent knew very well who among their own people loved causing trouble the most.

Yet after waiting for quite a while, Gray Serpent received no response from Jackal.

"Jackal?"

Gray Serpent turned his head uneasily.

Fortunately, Jackal was still there, staring intently at the screen.

"Jackal?" Gray Serpent called again.

"He..."

Jackal's throat moved.

"His name is Liu Bai, right?"

"...Yes."

Gray Serpent suddenly realized something was wrong. He subtly adjusted his position so he could see Jackal's facial expression from the front side.

"..."

Not good. Pink hearts were already appearing in her eyes.

Could the romance Jackal had mentioned before have been about Mr. Liu Bai?

"I want him..."

Bang—!

The moment Jackal spoke, a gunshot rang out. Gray Serpent calmly put away his tranquilizer gun.

Good thing he had prepared an emergency plan beforehand—after all, when working with Jackal, failing to prepare contingencies was practically asking for trouble.

But... with Jackal setting her sights on him, Mr. Liu Bai would probably have a lot of trouble in the future.

Still, how exactly had Jackal become such a love-struck fool?

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Natasha kept a straight face as she traded stale, meaningless pleasantries with Rita all the way from the first floor to the second. Of course, Rita had never let go of Liu Bai.

Finally, Natasha could not take it anymore and was the first to say something unrelated to their nonsense.

"...Then I'll trouble you."

Rita decided to take a break as well. Keeping up this kind of empty chatter with someone was indeed tiring.

She could sense the other woman's overflowing anger, but Natasha had not been blinded by rage.

Troublesome... she could not actually do anything to Liu Bai, could she?

Rita found this somewhat difficult to deal with too.

Huff... I should adjust my state for now.

As for the coffee... she only needed to be careful in case the other woman poisoned it.

Besides, Rita did not believe Natasha would poison her right in front of Liu Bai—though precautions were still necessary.

After sitting on the second floor for a while, Natasha soon returned with a tray.

"Pick one yourself."

Liu Bai silently took the cup of coffee closest to him.

Coffee of Love

Coffee mixed with Elixir of Love. Drinking it is equivalent to consuming one dose of Elixir of Love.

"...?"

Wait, wait, wait?

What was this thing?

Natasha, you...?

"Rita, aren't you choosing?"

The corner of Natasha's mouth curled into a smile that made Rita feel deeply uneasy.

Ah, this sense of danger... what exactly was it?

Poison?

Author's Note on Release

It's releasing.

After nearly half a week of extra chapters, the author really had not a single drop left and had barely made the release deadline.

On the other hand, U Bai N days said. There was going to be a small district power outage, lasting until after 4 o'clock, and then V plus five, so the author was preparing to get some sleep. The release chapters might be a little late. A power outage, a preordered game release, and a new book release all collided together—what kind of cursed luck was that?

Then, regarding the bounty: since there was only a blade bounty, 804, that was only eight chapters. Emmmm... how should I put this? If extra updates were based on four thousand words per release-day bounty chapter, no one would get to read much.

Let's stop the bounty system. Like the previous book, I'll split it into two daily eight-thousand-word chapters for everyone, until I start getting lazy. In any case, there will definitely be more than this bounty offered.

Then there's the update schedule. Old readers know that the author is adjusting their sleep schedule at every moment... What I can probably guarantee is that before six in the morning every day, you'll be able to see the previous day's update. If you can't, then the author overslept while adjusting their schedule. A cat author's day runs from six to six. It'll be made up.

That's all for the release statement. This isn't my first Honkai 3rd book either, so please give me a first subscription and keep reading to make the author a little more motivated.

Below are the reasons this book came to be and some setting-related matters.

First is this semi-detached plot.

Well, after suffering a setback, the author wanted to try honing their original-writing ability. Of course, another reason was that I'd grown tired of writing Guardian Spirits; I really did not have the confidence to surpass Guardian Spirits.

As for the world setting...

The bounty chapters already explained most of it, but for easier understanding, everyone can think of it as a world built from several stacked happy ifs.

Things like Himeko not being an alcoholic, Cecilia surviving, and so on. Some characters would be troublesome to handle under normal settings because of the time span and other factors, and I think reasonable but slightly different settings are pretty interesting too.

Also, don't ask the author about Kiana and Bianka anymore. I can't write "Kiana—who is Bianka from the original work" and "Bianka—who is Kiana from the original work" every other chapter. That would ruin everyone's reading experience.

My goal is to follow an original plot as much as possible and turn this happy party into an impart.

I'd also like to make a small complaint about the mod setting.

The inspiration mainly came from RimWorld and The Elder Scrolls. I've played quite a few games with mods, but these two gave me the freest and best modding experiences—at least within the scope of my own experience.

So I also wanted to establish something relatively free... Well, okay, it could not actually be that free. Otherwise, I would have wanted to write a chaotic-evil Liu Bai too.

At first, I genuinely wanted to write a Devil Ninja and magical-girlized Honkai in the hidden world, but after writing a bit, it felt too easy to cross the line. Both a protagonist-side opening and a villain-side opening felt somewhat off too. Though I really did want to write Demon King Liu Bai humiliating the world, Cecilia as Shiranui, Kiana as Yukikaze, and so on. Haha.

But the author knew they did not have much skill with erotic writing, while making "pure love" the main theme was too difficult. It also felt like it would become exhausting and could not be sustained for long.

By the time I wrote about the Three Buds in the previous book, I had no choice but to start considering new ideas. Though after finishing that book, I suddenly realized there were still quite a few plays left to explore. I even briefly considered diving into adult fiction to earn some extra cash.

But using the mod setting as a system was much better. It let me reasonably stuff in a bunch of unreasonable things without affecting the Main Quest, and could even extend into new main plots. Haha.

Of course, I'm also looking for things everyone can understand and adding those in.

Also, male characters whose only purpose is to annoy people, as well as male characters who might hinder plot development, will not appear. Mainly Genshin. The fewer, the better. For now, I do not plan to include male characters in the gacha for Star Rail.

Anyway, there isn't much else to say. Just sharing some thoughts.

Please give me a first subscription~

Mutual Destruction Tactics

Why had Natasha given him a cup of coffee laced with Elixir of Love?

Was she planning to trap Rita?

But this cup was already in his hands.

There was no way he could put it back down for no reason.

Would Natasha's plan... fail?

Liu Bai carefully examined Natasha's smile, which carried both suppressed anger and anticipation.

No.

Natasha's expression did not seem to change at all just because Liu Bai had taken a cup containing Elixir of Love.

Then... there was only one conclusion.

A terrifying thought suddenly came to Liu Bai.

All three cups contained Elixir of Love!

Only that would explain why Natasha was completely unmoved by his choice!

This had never been a choice of one out of three, or two out of three, from the start!

There had never been any probability involved!

This woman was planning to take Rita down with her!

Or rather, Natasha intended to endure it through sheer willpower!

No wonder she had only put one dose of Elixir of Love in each coffee.

Elixir of Love itself was gray, the test tube did not contain much, and it had no distinctive smell. Forget being unable to notice anything after pouring it into coffee—even drinking the pure elixir directly... gray-colored drinks were a little strange, but plenty of products used similar gimmicks.

Natasha had only added one dose, probably not because she was considering how to disguise the coffee, but because she was considering her own tolerance.

After all, discussing a drug's effects without considering dosage was nonsense.

Natasha was betting that after Rita drank it, she would lose her mind and become love-struck because she had no mental defenses up!

"..."

Liu Bai's hand holding the coffee cup trembled slightly... Had you considered me when you were planning to screw someone over?

Well, Rita had a good personality. She probably would not take her anger out on innocent people.

"Miss Rita, you choose first."

Natasha openly revealed a cold sneer at the corner of her mouth.

"..."

At this moment, Rita had also fallen into the same mental storm as Liu Bai.