Chapter 34

Back mountain, late at night.

Gu Yue had been summoned out alone by Lu Menge. The message contained only four words—"Back mountain, urgent matter." She had not even had time to change out of her uniform before heading up the mountain. Yet when she arrived beneath the crooked-neck tree, what she found was not urgent military intelligence, but a grill already blazing hot and Lu Menge sitting cross-legged on a rock, brushing honey onto chicken wings.

"Urgent matter?" Gu Yue stood before the rock, the flickering charcoal fire reflected in her dark eyes. Her tone was colder than the night wind.

"It is urgent. Chicken wings won't taste good once they get cold." Without even raising her head, Lu Menge flicked her wrist and turned the chicken wing over on the grill. Its skin had roasted to a golden crisp, while the heat had drawn the honey into a glistening layer of caramelized sugar. She waved the freshly grilled wing at Gu Yue like a flag of truce. "Sit down. We have serious business tonight."

Gu Yue took the chicken wing, blew on it twice, and bit down. It was hot enough to make her gasp, yet she still would not let go. Watching her eat, Lu Menge narrowed her fox-like amber eyes in satisfaction. She turned over the remaining skewers of chicken wings and placed them on a plate, then added two skewers of corn to the charcoal fire. The honey water was from the jar Gu Yue had mixed last time; there was less than half a bottle left, so Lu Menge had brought it along when she left.

Only after Gu Yue finished gnawing on her second chicken wing and began wiping her fingertips with a wet wipe did Lu Menge set the grilling tongs aside. She folded her hands over her knees, tilted her head at Gu Yue, and watched her with flecks of firelight dancing in her amber fox eyes. "Let's talk business. Tang Wulin—what exactly do you think about him?"

Gu Yue paused while wiping her fingers, then quickly returned to normal. "What do you mean, what do I think? He is a teammate."

"A teammate." Lu Menge repeated the words as if tasting something bland. "He shares the Dragon God bloodline with you. Your martial souls resonate so perfectly that you know how the other wants to fight without needing words. You never lower your guard around him, and he cannot hide any secret from you. In battle, he is the first person you protect, and you are the first person he looks for every time he turns around. Three years ago, I only managed to force the Golden Dragon King into his martial soul. Three years later, he refined it into twin spears and even showed you the Dragon God Armament. And you say you are teammates?"

Gu Yue folded the wet wipe and placed it beside her without answering.

"Do you like him?" Lu Menge asked bluntly.

Gu Yue lowered her lashes. The charcoal crackled, sparks flying up before falling back down. She remained silent for so long that Lu Menge thought she meant to brush the question aside. Then she spoke, her voice so soft that it sounded as though she were speaking to the fire rather than Lu Menge.

"...Sometimes, I can sense the Dragon God's aura from him. Not the Golden Dragon King's—the Dragon God's. When he grips his spear, the angle at which his shoulder blades exert force is exactly the same as the Dragon God's. When he calls upon the Golden Dragon Spear, the fingers of his left hand spread first. That was the Dragon God's habit when attacking with a spear. Even he does not know it."

Lu Menge did not interrupt.

"But he knows nothing." Gu Yue's voice remained soft, almost drowned out by the crackling charcoal. "He does not know who I was in my past life. He does not know that whenever his martial soul goes berserk, I use my own elements to suppress his seal. He does not know that when I see the names of those soul skills—Undying Dragon God Body, Dragon God Armament—I remember the Dragon God saying the same words. He does not know that every time he calls me 'Gu Yue,' I think to myself, When will you call me by my full name?"

She paused, then looked up at Lu Menge. The charcoal fire reflected in her dark eyes, like some long-slumbering shadow rising from the depths of an icy lake.

"Even if I like him—can he like someone so deeply connected to his past life? Would he like Gu Yue, or the 'Silver Dragon King'? Or—"

"Stop right there." Lu Menge raised the grilling tongs and lightly pointed them at Gu Yue's nose. "Just say, 'I like him.' Forget everything else. Liking him is enough. So when do you plan to let him know you like him?"

The question struck Gu Yue head-on. Her lips moved. "...Why do I have to take the initiative? He is the Golden Dragon King, and I am the Silver Dragon King. According to our bloodline—"

"According to your bloodline, you are both halves split from the Dragon God, a match made by nature." Lu Menge set the tongs aside, leaned forward slightly, and lowered her voice. "Then have you ever considered what the two of you would produce if you got together?"

A tiny crack appeared in Gu Yue's expression. She had never considered it.

"The Dragon God." Lu Menge answered for her, sounding as certain as if she were stating a prophecy already carved on a monument in the Star Dou Great Forest. "You and Tang Wulin, the Silver Dragon King and the Golden Dragon King—when your bloodlines combine, they become the complete Dragon God. If the two of you have a child, it will be the Dragon God reborn."

Gu Yue completely let go of the bamboo skewer in her hand. Her pupils widened slightly. Her lips opened and closed, while the tips of her ears began slowly and irreversibly turning red. It was not embarrassment—it was the physical response of her mind crashing after being struck by a proposition too grand for her imagination.

"Think about it." Lu Menge lifted her thermos and took a sip, her tone growing increasingly certain. "Since the Dragon God fell, the soul beast lineage has never produced another true god. You are the Silver Dragon King, and he is the Golden Dragon King. The fusion of your bloodlines is the only hope. This is not dating—it is a mission. To put it more bluntly, your marriage concerns the future of the entire soul beast lineage."

Gu Yue's lashes trembled, and her fingers unconsciously tightened around the bamboo skewer on her knee. She had only come here to eat grilled food. But Lu Menge had elevated "liking Tang Wulin" from a private matter of the heart to the level of racial revival. For the first time, Gu Yue's instinctive caution and emotional inclinations both fell silent.

"What if... the child does not inherit the Dragon God bloodline?" Her voice was uncomfortable when she spoke, as though she had forcibly dragged out the possibility she least wanted to face from the bottom of a chest.

That was exactly the question Lu Menge had been waiting for. She set the thermos on the rock and began counting on her fingers, her tone shifting from certainty to casual matter-of-factness. "If one does not work, have two. If two do not work, have three. The Dragon God bloodline is so powerful that if you try a few more times, one will surely succeed. Di Tian told me that back when the dragon clan was trying to continue the Dragon God's collateral bloodline, there was a recorded clutch of three dragon eggs. You and Tang Wulin are both direct descendants of the Dragon God—the efficiency will only be higher."

At that instant, Gu Yue's ears turned completely red. She lowered her head and pressed the back of her hand to her cheek to cool it, then spoke to the blazing charcoal fire. "Three children... what if they all inherit it?"

A smile flashed through Lu Menge's fox eyes, impossible to suppress. Looking at Gu Yue's flushed profile, she used all the experience of her life to forcibly swallow the laughter rising in her throat. "Then you will have hit the jackpot. Three Little Dragon Gods—the Star Dou Great Forest can change its name directly to Dragon God Hall. Then Di Tian can guard the gate for you two, and I can help raise the children. Little White Tiger raising little golden dragons and little silver dragons—wouldn't that be adorable?" She pushed the plate of chicken wings toward Gu Yue, lowered her voice until it was soft and coaxing, and continued tempting her. "Do you think that if you do not take the initiative, he will? Tang Wulin is a hopelessly straight man. He can analyze Xie Xie's relationship problems inside and out, yet he understands absolutely nothing about his own."

Gu Yue pressed her lips together and did not argue. She remembered the last Class Zero dinner, when Xie Xie had drunk too much soy milk and complained to Tang Wulin that a junior girl was not replying to his messages. Tang Wulin had seriously analyzed the matter for him for quite a while. Then Gu Yue had asked him, "What about your own situation?" Tang Wulin had blanked for a moment before asking, "What situation do I have?" At the time, she had nearly bitten her chopsticks in half. This person was truly infuriatingly dense when it came to romance.

"So you have to take the initiative." Lu Menge raised one finger. "Step one: let him know that you are more than teammates. As for exactly how—you know better than I do. Your eyes are cold when you look at everyone else. When you look at him, linger a few breaths longer. He will feel it."

Gu Yue's dark eyes flickered slightly in the firelight. She understood what Lu Menge meant. The way she looked at Tang Wulin in battle had always been different from the way she looked at everyone else. Lu Menge merely wanted her to bring that difference from combat into everyday life, to linger a few seconds longer and let that dense straight man gradually realize it was another kind of attention.

Lu Menge rose and stretched lazily, her white lab coat fluttering in the night wind. Looking down at Gu Yue, who was still sitting on the rock, she suddenly softened her voice to a whisper. "You like him. He will only like you too. He is just slow—you need to give him some hints. Having two children if one does not work was a joke, but the Dragon God needs both of you. My task is to bring you two together—not just as teammates, but for a lifetime. You asked when to let him know? Tonight would be good—he is in the forging room."

Gu Yue stood from the rock, pulled up the zipper of her school uniform jacket, and brushed the bits of leaf from her skirt.

"...Two children. Do not tell him yet." She stuffed the last piece of grilled corn into her mouth and turned toward the path down the mountain. After taking a few steps, she turned back and shot Lu Menge a glare. Her dark eyes shimmered brilliantly in the firelight, and her tone regained some of its convincingly frosty quality. "The chicken wings—use less cumin next time. The honey water is almost gone. Mix another bottle."

Standing beneath the ancient tree, Lu Menge watched the slender figure disappear at the end of the forest path and finally could not hold back her quiet laughter. She did not actually care that much whether they produced a Dragon God—after all, the Dragon God had been dead for a long time, and she honestly had no idea whether two children could bring one back. But she cared about Gu Yue and Tang Wulin being together. Two children should not have to bear the heavy mission of reviving the soul beasts, but they deserved to have each other. She unscrewed her thermos and took a long drink, then pulled out her phone and sent Di Tian a message.

"I had a chat about life's major matters with your former boss's daughter today. She said she will come back to see you next time."

Deep within the Star Dou Great Forest, Di Tian slowly opened his golden beast eyes beneath a towering ancient tree. He stared at the cryptic message in silence for a long while. His reply contained only one line: "Senior Lu, what have you done again?"

Lu Menge did not reply. She wrapped the last few grilled chicken wings in foil and placed them in a bamboo basket, nudged the Little White Tiger dozing on a branch with her foot, and headed down the mountain in her thin high heels. The moonlight was beautiful tonight, and the wind on the back mountain carried the scent of grilled meat and ginkgo leaves. She could only push those two little brats this far. The rest of the road was theirs to walk.

At the same time, in the forging room, Tang Wulin lifted his head from the anvil and rolled his stiff shoulders. Just as he was about to place the newly formed rough short blade into the quenching tank, the door was pushed open. Gu Yue stood in the doorway without a coat over her school uniform. Her black hair had been loosened by the night wind, and a small ginkgo leaf remained stuck to her shoulder. She was looking at him—and there was something different about her gaze from usual. He could not explain it, but he could feel it.

"Why are you here?"

"Passing by. I heard you forging." Gu Yue walked in and sat on the old bench beside the forging table, offering no explanation for why she would be "passing by" the forging room at this hour.

"...It is past midnight. Are you sure you were passing by?"

"Mhm. I just went to the back mountain to eat grilled chicken wings. Want one?" She handed him a chicken wing wrapped in foil. It was still warm.

Tang Wulin took it and bit into it, only to discover that she was watching him from the side. It was different from the concentration she showed on the battlefield, though he could not tell exactly how. He felt like he ought to do something, so he picked up the short blade he had just quenched, wiped the black ash off its surface with a clean cloth, and held it out to her. "This is for Xie Xie. The dimensions are what he gave me last time. The balance requirements for the Light Dragon Dagger are trickier than I expected. I ruined several before producing this one. Take a look and see if the blade shape is right—if it is not, I will have to redo it."

Gu Yue accepted the short blade and spun it once in her hand. Half of one eye reflected in the blade's surface. She examined it carefully, then returned it to him and pointed from the guard toward the tip.

"The edge line is not quite straight enough. The blade shape is sharper than his original weapon. He will be happy."

"Then I will refine it a few more times. Do you want to tell me your elemental control requirements too? I can forge one for you later—you mainly use water, right? The Ice Spear needs twenty percent more balance weight than an ordinary short blade."

Gu Yue remembered Lu Menge's words: "You need to give him some hints." She turned the short blade halfway in her hand, lifted her eyes to him, and said, "You are not the first person to forge a weapon for me. But you are the first person who knows I need the balance weight adjusted."

Tang Wulin had just tilted the short blade toward the light. Hearing that, his movements paused. Then he gave an "Oh," set the blade back on the anvil, and the tips of his ears began to redden slightly. While he lowered his head and pretended to adjust the quenching fluid's temperature, Gu Yue noticed that his ears had turned even brighter red than the reflected glow of the forge. She stood, walked to the doorway, and looked back at him.

"Training is tomorrow morning. Do not stay up too late."

"Got it."

Tang Wulin watched her leave, then lowered his head to look at the unfinished short blade in his hand. He returned to the anvil and relit the furnace, that sentence repeating through his mind—he was the first person who knew she needed the balance weight adjusted. He lowered the temperature of the quenching fluid a few more degrees. Until lights-out, he kept refining the shape of the short blade, always feeling that he could make it a little more suitable. Outside, ginkgo leaves rustled in the night wind. As he drifted off with his head resting against the unfinished rough blade, the Golden Dragon King spoke lazily within his sea of consciousness, its voice carrying the disdain it had held back for a long time. "'Oh'? She came all the way here to bring you chicken wings, and all you said was 'oh'? When I was courting the Silver Dragon King in the God Realm, I was not as dense as you. At the very least, I took the initiative and invited her to destroy a few gods with me."

"Can you just shut up..."

"No. When she mentioned adding twenty percent to the Ice Spear's balance weight, the color of her eyes deepened several shades. I have seen that warmth in the Dragon God's eyes—when are you going to get a clue, brat? If you do not wake up soon, that half-wisp of her Origin Force in your seal is going to lose sleep with you."

Tang Wulin wrapped the blanket tightly around his head, and in the darkness, the tips of his ears burned on their own for quite some time.