"The sofa's too small," Shadow Brake said. "Besides, being near you feels nice."
She said it with utter conviction.
Lin An stared at her for several seconds.
He tried to find any trace of pretense in those blood-red eyes.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
Only a hollow red, utterly free of stray thoughts.
He sighed.
Forget it. Why am I arguing with a robot whose memories have been wiped?
The two of them lay on the bed, with a little space between them.
Even so, he could clearly feel the warmth coming from her body.
It was a little cool, not warm like a normal human's, but not cold either.
It was a sensation somewhere in between, hard to describe.
Shadow Brake fell asleep soon after.
Or rather, she entered some kind of hibernation.
Her breathing grew steady and slow, and her blood-red pupils were hidden beneath thin eyelids.
Her normally ice-cold face softened a little in sleep.
Lin An turned his head and looked at her profile.
Moonlight slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across her nearly perfect face, coating it in a hazy silver glow.
Rakshasa God Bibi Dong.
The most powerful woman of her era.
If one day you recover your memories and discover that we mere mortals once tried to control you, manipulate your fate, and use you as a mecha's core program, what will you think of me?
He didn't let himself think any further.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep.
Just as he was starting to get drowsy, his communicator suddenly lit up.
Its screen glared in the darkness.
Lin An frowned and glanced at it.
Gu Yue.
His finger hovered over the power button.
After a moment's hesitation, he opened the message.
"Darling, are you asleep?"
He sighed and typed a reply.
"Just about to go to sleep."
The other end was silent for a few seconds.
Then the messages came flooding in.
"Is that older sister's body really soft?"
"Is her figure much better than mine?"
"Does she smell nice?"
Lin An stared at the screen, momentarily at a loss for words.
Before he could reply, another message popped up.
It was a picture.
He opened it—
The picture showed a silvery-white dragon scale, its edges smeared with spots of blood. A few tiny scraps of flesh still clung to it.
In the background, he could vaguely make out more bloodied scales scattered in a small pile.
"Waaah... I was wrong just now. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. I'm sorry, darling. These are my dragon scales. I'll pull off a few hundred more tomorrow and bring them to you. You can use them to forge a mecha or a Soul Tool or whatever you like."
"I'm useless, and I don't have any money. It's only natural that you'd leave me."
"I don't blame you."
"I'm just... a little sad."
Lin An stared at the picture of the bloodstained scale, his fingers frozen over the screen.
How pitiful.
She was apologizing while offering him a gift, and she didn't even know what she'd done wrong.
From beginning to end, he was the one who'd said all those cruel things. He was the one who'd rejected her in front of everyone. He was the one pushing her away.
And yet she was the one apologizing.
Lin An suddenly felt like a real bastard.
Though there was nothing substantial between him and Gu Yue, no matter what, she had saved him.
He was silent for a long time before he started typing.
"No need. It's not that bad. Actually, I was a little too harsh, too. Go to sleep early. Don't overthink it."
He paused, then added another sentence.
"Shadow Brake and I really have nothing going on. She's just a new type of Soul Spirit developed by our company."
The reply came almost instantly.
"Mm."
Just one character.
Then came a cute sticker.
A little white cat sat in a corner, with the words "I understand" written above it.
Gu Yue's avatar went dark.
Lin An looked at the darkened avatar, then at Shadow Brake, asleep beside him.
The scene of Gu Yue slumped on the ground that afternoon, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed her heart out, involuntarily came to mind.
"I'm such a piece of shit."
He cursed under his breath.
It wasn't her fault that she liked him.
Who could blame her when he had that damn [Wife of the Dragon God] trait?
The thing clearly stated that it had "a fatal attraction to every dragon."
It wasn't Gu Yue choosing to like him. The trait was at work.
Wait.
Lin An suddenly sat up.
Why had Gu Yue's avatar gone dark so quickly?
That wasn't like her.
With her personality, after finally getting him to soften, wouldn't she keep pestering him to chat for a while longer?
How could she just send an "Mm" and go offline?
A bad thought surfaced.
What if she did something rash?
He quickly looked over their chat history.
Gu Yue's tone had been unusually calm—too calm to be like her.
There was only one explanation: she was truly heartbroken.
Lin An put down the communicator and stared up at the ceiling, motionless for a long time.
Whatever the case, that silly dragon had saved him.
The things he'd said to her had indeed been too harsh.
Even if he couldn't accept her feelings, he shouldn't have hurt her that way.
The Spirit Pagoda.
It was very late at night.
Gu Yue sat cross-legged on her bed, her silvery-white hair falling over her shoulders.
The bedside lamp was the only source of light.
She closed her eyes, her lashes trembling faintly as her consciousness sank into the perceptual connection with the Reverse Scale.
Lin An's heartbeat had quickened.
She could feel it.
The boy tossed and turned, unable to sleep, his heartbeat just a little faster than usual.
The guilt and unease deep in his soul seeped toward her bit by bit through the connection with the scale.
Like spring snowmelt, cool and gentle, yet making her heart burn.
Her lips slowly curled upward.
Hmph, serves you right.
That's what you get for tormenting me.
But soon, her smile faded a little.
The sensations transmitted by the Reverse Scale confirmed that there had been no boundary-crossing behavior between Lin An and Shadow Brake.
Gu Yue's shoulders, tense all night, finally relaxed.
Good.
Thank goodness nothing had happened.
If something really had...
She might not have been able to control herself.
Maybe she would have charged in and torn that woman to pieces.
Maybe she would have taken Lin An straight back to the Star Dou Forest and locked him up.
Didn't humans have that kind of tradition?
Lock the person you loved but couldn't have in a secret chamber, and once a child was born, they would obediently settle down and live with you.
Gu Yue's face suddenly turned red.
She covered her cheeks with her hands, the heat seeping through her fingers.
No, no. That kind of thought was too dangerous.
Only a weak dragon resorted to force.
She was the Silver Dragon King, the Co-Lord of Soul Beasts. How could she do something like that?
But—
A scene involuntarily surfaced in her mind:
Lin An, locked away in a secret chamber that only she could enter.
Silver chains wrapped around his slender wrists.
He glared at her with red-rimmed eyes, giving her a cold look as if she were garbage.
Gu Yue's breathing quickened.
Being stared at like that by her husband...
Somehow...
What if it made her even more excited?
She shook her head hard, trying to fling all those dangerous images out of her mind.
"I'm a pure-love kind of person."
She muttered under her breath, as if trying to convince herself.
Before you continue