Chen Luo lay completely relaxed on the sofa. Exhaustion slowly closed his eyes, and just like that, he gradually fell asleep on the couch.
Chapter 18: The Old Father and His Bratty Daughter
"Hey, wake up. Hey, A-Luo, get up and eat." In his haze, Chen Luo felt someone calling him.
When Chen Luo finally managed to wake up, he saw a girl leaning over him, her face backlit.
Chen Luo stretched lazily. Only after fully shaking off his fatigue did he realize that it was Fu Hua, the Herrscher of Knowledge.
"Oh, it's Fu Hua. Good morning," Chen Luo greeted lazily.
"Good morning my ass. It's nighttime—one in the morning." The Herrscher of Knowledge patted Chen Luo's head. A strange sensation spread through his body, instantly waking him up.
"I suddenly feel wide awake." Chen Luo realized that his previously groggy mind had instantly cleared.
"Of course. I'm the Herrscher of Knowledge. There's nothing I can't do. But what did you do? It looks like you lost quite a bit of mental energy." The Herrscher of Knowledge looked at Chen Luo in confusion.
"Well... I was practicing this." Chen Luo casually tossed the Vision to her.
"What's this?" The Herrscher of Knowledge examined the green Vision, completely baffled.
"Think of it as a special organ. Once you have it, you can control the corresponding element. Mine is a Wind Element Vision, so I can control wind." Chen Luo lightly curled the fingers of his left hand, and the Vision in the Herrscher of Knowledge's hand seemed to be pulled by an invisible hand as it flew back into Chen Luo's palm.
"Wow, that's amazing!" the Herrscher of Knowledge exclaimed.
"Not as amazing as you, Herrscher of Knowledge." Chen Luo rolled his eyes at her.
"True." The Herrscher of Knowledge nodded in agreement.
"But this thing of yours is pretty interesting. Where did you get it? Did you pick it up?" the Herrscher of Knowledge asked curiously.
"How should I explain this? It's pretty hard to explain, and it would be troublesome to get into. Can I tell you tomorrow? I should go back upstairs and sleep." Chen Luo pointed upstairs.
Although the Herrscher of Knowledge had helped restore Chen Luo's mental energy, that did not mean he no longer needed sleep.
"Going upstairs to sleep... A-Luo, don't tell me you were waiting here specifically for me to come home?" The Herrscher of Knowledge seemed to have discovered something interesting and leaned even closer to Chen Luo.
"You misunderstood. I just fell asleep while playing on my phone." Chen Luo turned his head slightly away.
"Hehe, if you say so." After chuckling twice, the Herrscher of Knowledge crossed her arms and looked down at Chen Luo with a smile.
As the Herrscher of Knowledge, no one could deceive Herrscher of Knowledge.
"Alright, enough about me. What about you? Didn't you go out to fight injustice, rob the rich, and help the poor? How much startup capital did you bring back?" Chen Luo could no longer stand her teasing gaze.
"I did successfully fight injustice, rob the rich, and help the poor, so I bought late-night snacks." At Chen Luo's words, the Herrscher of Knowledge pointed at the food on the living room coffee table, which had been giving off an enticing aroma the whole time.
"Mm, it smells great, and I'm hungry too." Chen Luo nodded, then unceremoniously opened the bags and took out a skewer to eat.
Practicing with the Vision was not merely a mental activity; it was physically demanding as well, so Chen Luo had long been hungry.
Besides, the huge pile of food the Herrscher of Knowledge had bought was probably more than she could finish alone.
"What about the remaining money?" Chen Luo asked as he ate the various delicacies she had brought back.
"Gone." The Herrscher of Knowledge took a skewer and shook her head.
"Huh? Gone? You spent all that time fighting injustice and only brought back this pile of food?" Chen Luo looked at the Herrscher of Knowledge in astonishment.
There was indeed a lot of food—enough that three or four people normally could not finish it—but it was worth four or five hundred at most, right?
She robbed the rich and helped the poor for only four or five hundred?
"Stop, stop looking at me like that. How was I supposed to know what was going on in your world? None of them carry cash; they all pay with their phones. I don't have a phone, so how was I supposed to rob the rich and help the poor?" Noticing Chen Luo's contemptuous look, the Herrscher of Knowledge became irritated.
"Oh, right, I nearly forgot about that. Here, take this phone." Chen Luo slapped his forehead as he remembered, then took out Blondie's phone and handed it to the Herrscher of Knowledge.
"This is a phone? Yours?" The Herrscher of Knowledge froze for a moment after taking it.
"I got it while fighting injustice just now. I originally didn't plan on keeping it, but it's pretty good quality, and then I remembered you didn't have a phone, so I saved it especially for you. I deleted all the bad stuff on it, but kept some evidence on my own phone."
"You fought injustice? You mean the person you buried in the backyard?" The Herrscher of Knowledge seemed to recall something.
"You saw him?"
"Of course I did. His struggling and groaning were quiet, but for cultivators like me, they were still pretty loud, so I went to take a look. What was up with that guy?"
"He's not a good person. He likes bullying people at school. I rescued a student from him before, so that's how the grudge started. This afternoon, I found him dismantling my bicycle, so I knocked him out with a brick. Then tonight, I found that bastard sneaking around outside our house, so I knocked him out and buried him." Chen Luo explained.
"Repay grudges with grudges and wrongs with wrongs. You act decisively. I like that about you, A-Luo." The Herrscher of Knowledge looked at Chen Luo approvingly.
"But there's another problem. Phone lock screens and passwords have the highest priority, so you need to ask him for his phone password before you can change things like fingerprint verification. Until then, this phone is useless." Chen Luo said.
"That's easy. Wait here." The Herrscher of Knowledge snapped her fingers and quickly ran out of the house.
"She's really impatient." Chen Luo shook his head and continued eating his late-night snack.
Before long, the Herrscher of Knowledge returned, and the phone in her hand was already unlocked.
For the Herrscher of Knowledge, reading memories and using Consciousness Control were basic operations.
"Oh, right, Fu Hua, I've already cleaned up your room. It's next to mine. Also, don't stay up too late playing on your phone, and don't eat too much for a late-night snack. It's bad for your health." Chen Luo glanced at the living room clock and reminded the Herrscher of Knowledge.
That tone made him sound exactly like an old father lecturing his bratty daughter.
"Got it, got it."
"As long as you know. Then I'm going back to sleep." Chen Luo picked up more than half of the late-night snacks and put them into his spatial backpack.
Time was frozen inside the backpack, so they would still be hot next time he took them out. Chen Luo was certain that the Herrscher of Knowledge could not finish all this, so to avoid waste, it was better to store it in the backpack.
"Oh, and if you have time, you can search for 'Honkai Impact 3rd' on your phone." After saying one last thing to the Herrscher of Knowledge, Chen Luo went upstairs.
Sleep, sleep. It was already past one. If he did not sleep now, he would drop dead.
Come to think of it, tomorrow was Saturday, so he did not need to get up early.
Chapter 19: The Herrscher of Knowledge's Inner Knot
After waking up, Chen Luo felt something pressing on his stomach. It was not very heavy, but it was large.
Sleep paralysis?
Still half-asleep, Chen Luo struggled frantically, trying to wake himself from the sleep paralysis.
After wrestling with it for quite a while, Chen Luo finally snapped his eyes open. Then he saw someone sitting on his stomach in a thoughtful pose.
"Fu! Hua!" Seeing the Herrscher of Knowledge sitting on his stomach and deep in thought, Chen Luo immediately pulled out Hong Tailang's Frying Pan from his backpack and swung it at her.
Chen Luo had a bit of a temper when he woke up, especially when he could have slept in but was instead woken by someone sitting on him at eight in the morning.
Unfortunately, Chen Luo's furious strike did zero damage to the Herrscher of Knowledge. She could not even be bothered to use her Herrscher authority; with just one finger, she pressed against the edge of the frying pan and prevented it from moving another inch.
"Sigh, A-Luo..." The Herrscher of Knowledge turned and looked at Chen Luo with some melancholy.
"What?" Once his waking anger faded, Chen Luo calmed down and withdrew the frying pan.
He could not beat her anyway.
"Do you play Honkai Impact 3rd?" the Herrscher of Knowledge asked.
"I used to, but I quit over a year ago. But can you get off my stomach now? Isn't there a bedside table next to the bed? Sit there." Chen Luo spoke irritably.
"Then did you pull me?" The Herrscher of Knowledge looked at Chen Luo seriously.
"Funny. You hadn't even been released when I quit, so how could I pull for you? I didn't even recognize you when I first saw you. Later, I relied on all-powerful Baidu to figure out your true identity." Seeing that the Herrscher of Knowledge had no intention of moving, Chen Luo simply lay flat.
Fortunately, Chen Luo did not have the habit of sleeping naked.
"Hm? So before you saved me, you didn't know who I was?"
Whether it was Chen Luo's imagination or not, the Herrscher of Knowledge's tone inexplicably rose a little.
"Where would I have known you from?"
"Even if you didn't play the game, shouldn't there have occasionally been information about me online?"
"But I really didn't know you back then. Besides, isn't Genshin Impact more popular than Honkai Impact 3rd now?"
"So you didn't save me because you saw me as a fictional character?" the Herrscher of Knowledge continued asking.
"Who the hell knew who you were? All I know now is that you're interrupting my sleep! And didn't you say you didn't like getting up early?" Chen Luo grew more and more irritated.
Could this person not get off someone else's stomach?
"..." The Herrscher of Knowledge fell silent for a while longer, then her expression brightened with happiness.
"It's not that I like getting up early. I just didn't sleep at all." Chen Luo had no idea what she had figured out, but even he could tell that the Herrscher of Knowledge was happy now.
"May I ask when exactly you started sitting on me?"
"Emmm, probably sometime after three in the morning." After calculating the time, the Herrscher of Knowledge answered.
"You sat on me all night? Are you sick?"
"Oh, right, A-Luo, did you pull for that Old Fossil?" The Herrscher of Knowledge ignored Chen Luo entirely and abruptly changed the subject.
"You mean the Class President? I might not be a veteran player, but I'm a dedicated fan. I might not pull every weapon and Stigmata, but I always pulled the characters. Kiana, Bronya, Mei, Himeko, Seele, Theresa, Rita, Durandal, and so on—I pulled all of them. At least before I quit, I completed the all-character achievement." Chen Luo said weakly.
"Hah, by that logic, didn't you pull everyone except me?" While checking the release dates of official PVs on the phone, the Herrscher of Knowledge became furious.
"What nonsense are you talking about? I didn't pull Starlance either. You were released around three or four months after I gradually started quitting, so it was normal that I didn't know you, and normal that I didn't pull for you." Chen Luo explained.
Chen Luo did not know why the Herrscher of Knowledge was angry, but he knew that he needed to explain, even though he did not think he had done anything wrong.
"That won't do. Why did you pull every single one of that Old Fossil's battlesuits, but refuse to pull even one copy of me?" The Herrscher of Knowledge remained relentless.
"I told you already, you weren't even around before I quit!"
"Then couldn't you have come back because of my unique charm? Then pull the Herrscher of Knowledge!"
"Damn, you can't be this unreasonable." Chen Luo was dumbfounded.
Chen Luo knew that one could not reason with girls, but he had not known someone could be this unreasonable.
"I don't care! Give me your phone." The Herrscher of Knowledge held out her hand to Chen Luo.
"Here." Chen Luo took his phone from under his pillow and handed it to her.
"What's the unlock password?" the Herrscher of Knowledge asked after taking the phone.
"123321."
"What's the payment password?"
"The same... Wait, what are you planning to do?" Chen Luo suddenly became wary.
"I found that the anniversary event is rerunning the Herrscher of Knowledge right now, and I happened to descend here. That means you and the Herrscher of Knowledge are fated. Since that's the case, how can you not pull for her? Not only are you going to pull for her, you're going to fully pull her weapon and Stigmata too! Better yet, rank her up to SS."
The Herrscher of Knowledge spoke with boundless enthusiasm as she opened the app store and began downloading Honkai Impact 3rd.
Since Chen Luo no longer played Honkai Impact 3rd, and since it took up a massive amount of storage, he had uninstalled it long ago.
Even before quitting, Chen Luo had played it on an emulator on his computer.
"Stop! That's a huge money pit! I only have a few hundred crystals left on my account!" Chen Luo was shocked and tried to grab the Herrscher of Knowledge's arm.
Seriously, before quitting a game, what normal person did not spend every bit of pull currency they had?
Chen Luo vaguely remembered that, just before quitting, Azure Empyrean's wedding dress outfit had been released. He had spent 9,600 crystals to pull it, leaving him with barely any crystals.
Fully pulling the character, weapon, and Stigmata, on top of having hardly any crystals saved up...
Just thinking about it terrified Chen Luo.
It would make his already poor household even poorer.
But the Herrscher of Knowledge, who had been sitting on Chen Luo and refusing to leave, suddenly vanished into thin air and appeared beside his bed.
Chen Luo rolled over and was about to throw off the blanket and get up when a hand reached out in front of him and gently snapped its fingers.
Snap!
"Sleep. Wake up again in two hours."
The Herrscher authority took effect. Amid a sleep-inducing sound, Chen Luo's body, which had not even fully risen, fell straight back onto the bed.
After tucking the drowsy Chen Luo in, the Herrscher of Knowledge happily ran out with his phone in hand.
Before you continue