In the Library Pavilion, the night wind swept through a broken window, bringing with it a hint of autumn chill.
On the bamboo chair, Su Chen didn't even lift his eyelids. He merely swept a glance at the Light Screen in his mind.
The warnings for [Qian Renxue] and [Liu Erlong] were flashing silently.
With a thought, he made the Light Screen disappear. His face remained utterly calm.
It was late.
The quiet in the pavilion held an eerie, almost peaceful quality.
In the shadows, Bibi Dong lowered her eyes and closed the Chronicles of the Continent.
"Tap."
A soft sound.
She rose, straightened the hem of her moon-white skirt, and said nothing. Without looking at Su Chen, she turned toward the broken door, which had been boarded up with planks.
Her boot heels struck the wooden floor, one step at a time, dull and even.
That rare tranquility had yet to fade.
Just as Bibi Dong's fingers touched the rough doorframe—
The cold, mechanical voice of the system exploded in her mind without warning!
[Ding! Releasing a major stage quest—"Embrace of Trust"!]
[Quest requirements: Have Lord of Creation Su Chen voluntarily embrace the host for thirty seconds.]
[Strict warning: The embrace must be entirely initiated by Su Chen! The host is forbidden from using any form of physical coercion, verbal prompting, or suggestive expression! Any violation will result in immediate failure!]
[Failure penalty: The target's favorability will be forcibly reset to zero, and four hundred hours of Soul-Devouring Pain will be inflicted immediately!]
Bibi Dong froze in place.
Her face turned deathly white in an instant.
A thirty-second embrace!
No coercion!
He had to initiate it!
Three conditions, three death warrants, pinning all her composure to the door!
"Crack..."
Her nails dug into the wood grain, wrenching out several bloodied splinters.
She couldn't force him. She couldn't even give him a look.
How was a lowly servant who was afraid to breathe wrong in her presence supposed to embrace the Pope of his own accord?
That damned system wanted her dead!
Bibi Dong shoved open the door and stumbled into the night.
The cold wind struck her face, but couldn't dispel the glaring crimson in her mind.
The wooden door shut behind her with a dull thud.
Inside, Su Chen slowly opened his eyes.
On the Eye of Omniscience's Light Screen, the quest panel Bibi Dong had just received was displayed word for word.
Leaning back against the bamboo chair, he leisurely read through those rigid restrictions.
Heh. The best hunters often enter the game in the guise of prey.
The rules had bound her hands and feet, and pulled the fangs from this venomous spider.
All he had to do now was offer her some "bait," carefully measured.
Su Chen closed his eyes again. A perfect fishing plan had already taken shape.
The next day, at noon.
The blinding sunlight was blocked by the stone walls. On the path to the Library Pavilion, Bibi Dong walked at a snail's pace.
The countdown hung over her head like a blade.
Carrying a food box, she crossed the threshold.
Under the system's prohibition, her entire body was rigid as ice, her features hard.
She set down the food box and wordlessly served the dishes.
As usual, Su Chen hunched his shoulders, lowered his head, and came forward respectfully to take the bowl.
They drew close.
At the moment they exchanged it—
But Su Chen didn't reach for the bowl. His fingertips shifted, and he reached tremblingly toward the bandaged index finger on Bibi Dong's left hand.
An inch.
Half an inch.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch that bloodstained bandage—
The next moment, Su Chen jerked as if he'd been badly burned by a red-hot iron!
His finger shook violently, and his arm snapped back like lightning, pressed tight against his side!
He bit his lower lip, sinking his teeth into the flesh. Terror surged through his eyes like collapsing mountains and flooding seas. He stumbled back two steps, his back slamming into the bamboo chair.
"Th-this subordinate... was out of line. I deserve to die." His voice was shattered beyond repair.
Bibi Dong's hand, holding the bowl, froze in midair.
She had seen it clearly: the half-inch reach, then withdrawal; the desire he had suppressed, and the fear that had sunk into his bones.
The deathly countdown in her mind seemed to pause at the sight.
A surge of confusion and shock shot straight to her head.
He wanted to touch me?
But he didn't dare!
He's worried about that wound, but the chasm between our identities has pinned his hands and feet in place!
Bibi Dong watched his thin shoulders shrink into the shadows. The agitation and anxiety she'd felt before were thrown into disarray by that half-inch of distance.
A giant stone seemed to crash into the lake of her heart, sending out ripples she couldn't understand.
She said nothing. She set the bowl down on the table with a heavy thud, then turned and left.
Her steps were twice as fast as when she'd arrived.
The following evening.
The setting sun was as red as blood.
The only sound in the Library Pavilion was the soft rustle of turning pages. Bibi Dong sat in her usual spot. Only half the system's countdown remained.
Su Chen leaned against the bamboo chair, a book in his hands. But in the dim light, his eyes weren't on the page at all.
His gaze was fixed on Bibi Dong's profile, as if glued to it.
That was no longer the look of a servant at the Pope.
It was longing suppressed to the marrow, and the struggle of wanting to touch but not daring.
He looked at her as if she were a priceless treasure, and as if she were a dream that could shatter at any moment.
His gaze was too heavy, too hot.
Even Bibi Dong, a Titled Douluo, couldn't withstand it.
The hand resting on her knee curled slightly. She held out as long as she could, then finally turned her head to look at him.
Their eyes met.
Su Chen jolted as if he were a fawn startled by a hunter, and immediately lowered his head.
He held the book tightly against his chest, stared at a crack in the floor tiles, and breathed so hard his chest heaved.
In the silence, his ragged breathing was clearly audible.
Bibi Dong's breathing fell into chaos.
The back-and-forth tug of glances and evasions was like an invisible thread, winding tightly around her heart.
Her hands, clasped over her abdomen, clenched unconsciously until her knuckles turned white.
To her astonishment, she felt no anger at all over that irreverent gaze.
Not only that.
Watching Su Chen struggle, wanting to approach but afraid for his life, she felt her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
The system forbade her from hinting. Su Chen didn't dare cross the line.
A ridiculous sense of anticipation crept through her veins, spreading to every limb. She sat there with her back rigid, secretly hoping that this servant would toss aside his book, rush at her without a care, cross that damned half-inch, and hold her tight!
The thought chilled Bibi Dong to the bone. She sprang to her feet and rushed out, almost as if fleeing.
The third day, daytime.
The countdown had twelve hours left.
Pope Palace, underground chamber.
The shadow of Soul-Devouring Pain had nearly taken tangible form.
And the words "favorability reset to zero" felt like a poisonous thorn, pricking at her heart and filling her with panic.
Bound by the rigid rules, Bibi Dong paced back and forth in a fury. Her military boots pounded against the stone floor.
The purple-black Rakshasa Soul Power went out of control several times, corroding the steel torches on the walls with a sizzling hiss.
"Just a little more... Why won't he dare?"
Bibi Dong gritted her teeth until they nearly shattered.
She could sense that Su Chen's feelings had reached their peak, but the inferiority buried in his bones was like an iron gate, barring him from taking that final step.
Eleven hours remained.
She couldn't take it anymore!
The helplessness of having someone else hold her life in their hands while she couldn't even speak was driving her mad!
Bibi Dong kicked open the chamber door and strode toward the Library Pavilion, almost as if trying to escape.
She left a gust in her wake.
When she reached the Library Pavilion, she sent everyone away.
"Get three hundred paces away, all of you. Without my orders, anyone who turns back will die."
After clearing the area, Bibi Dong stood alone in the shadow of the corridor. She didn't open the door right away.
She slowed her breathing and suppressed her presence to the utmost, peering inside through a crack in the broken window.
Inside—
Su Chen wasn't cowering at the sound of her footsteps as he usually did.
He sat quietly, gazing at the empty wooden chair a short distance away. It was where she'd sat on the previous two nights.
His eyes were vacant, entirely unguarded.
The right hand that had reached out and pulled back two days ago slowly rose.
In midair, he reached toward the empty chair and grasped at it.
His fingers closed, then opened.
Like a drowning man trying to seize a light that had never belonged to him.
He grasped nothing.
His hand fell limply. Su Chen tugged at the corner of his mouth, as if laughing at his own wishful thinking.
He slowly closed his eyes. The desolation of someone abandoned by the whole world was too thick to dispel.
Outside the window—
Bibi Dong stared at the hand as it fell limply. Her heart seemed to clench in a vicious grip, and a sour ache rushed up into her nose.
Leaning against the cold wall, she took a deep breath.
Night fell completely on the third day.
All of Spirit City lay in dead silence. The Library Pavilion was unlit.
The final countdown raced through her mind like a death warrant.
[01:00:00]
She stood outside the door and took another breath, pressing down all her boiling emotions, her agitation, and even that trace of heartache she didn't dare admit to herself.
She raised a hand and pushed the door open hard.
"Creak..."
The hinges groaned, especially loud in the silence.
Normally, at the sound, Su Chen would already have scrambled down and knelt.
But not this time.
Su Chen didn't get up.
He sat alone by the window, a thin blanket fallen to the floor. The early-autumn moonlight spilled down like liquid silver, washing his thin shoulders in a pallid glow.
He didn't even look back.
His profile was sharply defined beneath the moonlight. All the humility, ingratiation, and fear had vanished from his face.
Only stillness remained.
A grief so profound it seemed to belong to someone abandoned by the entire world.
The instant Bibi Dong crossed the threshold and saw this scene, her foot was nailed to the spot.
Even her breathing stopped.
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