Chapter 35

Lu Menge officially took up the position of "dog-headed strategist" one Wednesday evening. Class Zero had just finished practical combat class that day. Tang Wulin stayed behind alone at the training grounds to practice the accuracy of Golden Dragon Skybreak, while Gu Yue was summoned to the teachers' dormitory by Lu Menge under the excuse of "help me taste-test a new dish." Little White Tiger crouched on the windowsill to keep watch. Lu Menge locked the door, turned to look at Gu Yue, who sat on the sofa with a puzzled expression, slipped both hands into the pockets of her white coat, and got straight to the point.

"Winning Tang Wulin over requires strategy."

The cup of soy milk in Gu Yue's hand froze halfway to her lips, and an incredibly slight crack appeared in her expression. She did not ask, "How did you know?" Nor did she deny, "I'm not trying to win him over." She simply set the cup on the coffee table, raised her black eyes to Lu Menge, remained silent for several breaths, then said, "What strategy?"

Lu Menge's foxlike eyes narrowed into two crescent moons. This was what she liked about Gu Yue—she never wasted time stubbornly denying things in front of her. She dragged over a wicker chair and sat opposite Gu Yue, then began counting on her fingers.

"Tang Wulin's mind is compartmentalized. Combat is on the left, forging is on the right, and between them is a steel plate even I can't punch through. If you want him to notice your feelings, you have to take one of those two routes—either forge with him or fight with him."

Gu Yue considered it for a moment, running through every moment Tang Wulin had spent outside training over the past three years. When forging, he could stand in the forge room for hours without looking up. When fighting, he could trade blows with the Golden Dragon King in his sea of consciousness until his meridians overloaded. "Forging is safer than fighting—it won't get anyone hurt," she said.

Lu Menge snapped her fingers. "Then start with forging. He spends more time in the forge room than in his dormitory. The day you can make him voluntarily look up at you while he's forging, the first step will be complete."

Gu Yue's execution was first-rate. She spent an entire week in the forge room. Every evening, when Tang Wulin went in to light the furnace, she sat on the old bench beside the forging platform and read. Tang Wulin did not chase her away—she was quiet there and never disturbed his work. Aside from handing him quenching fluid, recording temperature curves, and using elemental control to help wipe down the equipment table after he finished forging. She did those things naturally and precisely, as if they had always been hers to do.

Once, Xie Xie pushed open the door to borrow a short-blade mold from Tang Wulin and saw Gu Yue sitting on the bench reading, several empty quenching fluid buckets stacked by her feet. He stood in the doorway for several breaths before ultimately not daring to say anything. He silently closed the door and backed out. That night, he whispered to Zhang Yangzi in the dormitory, "Gu Yue's been hanging around the forge room every day lately. She isn't there to forge—she just sits there reading." Zhang Yangzi did not look up, merely giving an "Mm." Wang Jinxi poked his head out from behind his bed curtains and added, "Hasn't she always followed Tang Wulin around?" Xie Xie thought about it. "This time is different. Before, she followed him during training. This time, she's following him while he forges. Sitting beside him while he forges is a lot more deliberate than watching his back at the training grounds." The three of them fell silent at the same time for a moment, tacitly agreeing not to delve any deeper into the subject.

Meanwhile, Lu Menge was carrying out the first official review of her strategist career. The location was still beneath the crooked tree on the back mountain, with Little White Tiger keeping watch from a branch. Gu Yue sat on a rock, a small notebook filled with observation notes spread across her knees.

"On Monday, he stayed at the forge for an hour and a half without looking up or speaking. I used elemental control to keep the quenching fluid temperature accurate to the degree. He did another heavy quench, but still didn't look up. The only time he looked at me on his own was when the flames leaped too high during quenching, and he used Blue Silver Grass to pull me one step back." Gu Yue turned a page in her notes, her tone as calm as if she were submitting a tactical reconnaissance report to Lu Menge.

Lu Menge bit into a grilled corn cob and asked indistinctly, "And then?"

"Then he continued forging."

Lu Menge took the corn from her mouth. "...What did he say when he pulled you?"

"He said, 'Careful.' One word."

Lu Menge fell silent for a moment and quietly lowered her assessment of Tang Wulin's emotional intelligence another notch. She turned to Gu Yue, her tone shifting from lazy to serious. "The fact that he noticed the flames had gone beyond the safety line means part of his peripheral attention was still on you while he forged. He just doesn't know how to express concern yet—but he's instinctively protecting you. Next time he pulls you, grab his sleeve directly. Don't say anything. Just grab it once, then let go."

Gu Yue's pen paused, and she wrote that down as well.

The second week of observation in the forge room brought a new breakthrough. The flames rose too high again while Tang Wulin was quenching. He reached out, gripped Gu Yue's wrist, and pulled her back a step, saying, "Careful." Then he released her and tried to continue using the tongs to lift the rough blank from the quenching trough. But Gu Yue did not retreat as she had last time. As he pulled her back, she lightly closed her fingers around his fingertips in return. She did not hold on, merely touched him very lightly and very briefly before lowering her hand and picking up the quenching fluid bucket again.

Tang Wulin's movements visibly stalled for a beat. His left hand hovered over the quenching trough, his fingers still slightly spread from where she had touched them, as if something had remained there and he had forgotten to pull it back. Then he lowered his head and continued lifting the rough blank, but it took him two tries to grasp it—because his right hand was trembling slightly. Not from exhaustion. Gu Yue saw the entire process from where she stood beside him. She made no comment, only silently confirmed something in her heart: Lu Menge was right. He needed to be touched before he realized what was happening. There was no circuit in his mind for passively receiving emotional signals. Only when he was touched would he instinctively respond.

That night, the Golden Dragon King spoke for the hundredth time in Tang Wulin's sea of consciousness. He lay sprawled atop the dais piled from sealing fragments, his tail lazily tapping against the empty ground, his voice drawling. "She touched your hand. Last time she gave you chicken wings and you said 'oh.' This time she touched your hand and you couldn't even hold the tongs steady. Next time she gets close, are you planning to pour the quenching trough all over your own feet?"

Tang Wulin lay on his dormitory bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin without opening his eyes. "...I just didn't react in time. She doesn't usually touch people."

"Someone who doesn't usually touch people suddenly touched you—and you didn't react in time? What does that even mean?"

"..."

"When I pursued the Silver Dragon King, I directly invited her to split a mountain in half. Why don't you try that? Let her see the power of your Golden Dragon Skybreak—wait, no, she's your teammate. She's already seen it plenty of times." The Golden Dragon King rested his head on his claws in thought, his tone serious as if discussing the development of a new soul skill. "How about forging her a weapon? The dragon race's courting tradition is to give weapons—the sharper, the better. Golden Dragon Spear is made from my rib, so you can't give that away. But you can forge a new one. Isn't she mainly an ice-element user? Forge her a spearhead specially for an Ice Spear. Quench it with Golden Dragon King bloodline energy, and it'll shine three times brighter than an ordinary cold-water quench. She'll definitely like it."

Tang Wulin rolled over beneath the blanket and buried his face in his pillow. His muffled voice seeped from the gap around it. "...Whose side are you even on?"

"Yours. And hers. You two were meant to be together in the first place—I've waited in this seal for so many years, waiting for the two of you to piece the Dragon God back together. You're quick to catch on in combat and even quicker in forging, but when it comes to feelings, you're denser than the Celestial Mountain I shattered back then. She touched your hand and you didn't even respond? At the very least, you should have said, 'Your hands are cold. Wear gloves next time.' That way you'd be showing concern and reminding her to keep warm—you call that emotional intelligence? What a disgrace to me."

"Shut up."

"I won't. Hurry up and forge that Ice Spear tip. Remember to quench it with my bloodline energy—a weapon given in dragon courtship has to shine." The Golden Dragon King closed his eyes, his tail tapping contentedly against the dais as though he had awarded himself full marks.

Gu Yue and Lu Menge's third tactical review was even more formal than the first two. Gu Yue sat on the rock and turned to the third page of her small notebook, where every key interaction from the past week and more was densely recorded.

"His reaction when he pulled me was zero point three seconds faster than last week. After I said 'thank you,' his attention shifted away from the quenching trough—his tongs missed the correct position twice in a row when he tried to pick up the rough blank. Also, after being touched, the little finger on his left hand did not immediately curl into a fist. That differs from his usual habit of unconsciously clenching his fist before gripping a hammer." Her tone remained that of a standard combat analysis report, but every word was fuller than usual—like a hunter confirming the moment to strike, having already predicted every step of movement before the prey even realized it had been targeted.

"Very good. He's already processing his emotions; he just doesn't know how to express them. Next, you need to give him positive feedback—let him know it's safe to respond to you. The next time he does something for you, no matter how small, don't just say thank you—say a few more words. Leave something for him to think about."

Gu Yue closed her notebook and stood. She walked to the crooked tree, stopped, and looked back. Her black eyes were clear and bright beneath the moonlight. "Strategist. Is that how you proceed step by step with Teacher Wu too?"

Lu Menge's hand holding the thermos stiffened for a fraction of a second. Gu Yue did not press further. She turned and headed down the mountain. Little White Tiger rolled around on the branch, swinging by its tail around a twig, its amber eyes fixed on Lu Menge. Lu Menge looked back at it and mouthed one word—"Scram." She tightened the lid of her thermos and headed down the mountain in her high heels as well. Two strategists: one teaching someone how to flirt with a hopelessly dense straight-laced guy, the other teaching someone how to protect an old-father-level protective instinct—yet on her own side, Gu Yue was doing all the embellishing, while Wu Changkong was still imagining she had been locked in solitary confinement. The corners of her lips curved unconsciously. It was fine. As long as Gu Yue was happy.

The progress in the forge room underwent a qualitative change in the third week.

Tang Wulin was not forging that evening. He stood before the forging platform, holding a freshly finished short blade in his hand. The blade reflected an exceedingly faint golden glow in the furnace light. He had quenched it with Golden Dragon King bloodline energy—it was no ordinary forged product. From choosing the materials to quenching it, he had gone through three types of iron blanks and ruined several rough samples. When Gu Yue pushed open the door, he was holding the short blade level with his eyes, checking the symmetry of its edge. He heard her footsteps and did not turn around, but his shoulders tightened slightly for an instant—the instinctive reaction he always had when he sensed Gu Yue approaching at the training grounds.

"This is for you. An Ice Spear tip attachment. I used Golden Dragon King bloodline energy to quench it, so it shines three times brighter than an ordinary cold-water quench." He handed her the short blade, keeping his tone as even as possible, though the fingers gripping the handle were more tense than usual. "Last time, you said the counterweight ratio needed to increase by twenty percent. I recalculated the center of balance according to your Ice Spear's length—see if it feels right in your hand."

Gu Yue accepted the short blade. The blade reflected an exceedingly faint golden glow in the furnace light. Her fingertips lightly traced its surface. When she touched the spine, she found an extremely fine dragon pattern carved there—not the Golden Dragon King's totem, but two intertwined dragon forms. One gold, one silver. The silver one had been carved very shallowly and carefully, nearly impossible to notice without close inspection. Clearly, he had revised the pattern many times while carving it.

"The quenching temperature was higher than standard. The higher the temperature, the faster the cooling, but also the more brittle it becomes—how many attempts did it take before it stopped being brittle?" She turned the blade over and examined the edge pattern again.

"A few." Tang Wulin lowered his head to adjust the valve on the quenching trough—but his fingers never touched the valve. They merely picked unconsciously at the edge of the metal knob. The Golden Dragon King rolled his eyes in his sea of consciousness: He ruined four rough blanks in one furnace.

Gu Yue said nothing. She simply slid the short blade into the leather sheath at her waist where she usually kept her dagger, then took a few steps forward. Tang Wulin instinctively looked up. She stopped in front of him. The hand hanging at her side lifted slightly, and she very gently held the fingers he was using to pick at the valve—not pulling his wrist, but actively touching his hand. Then she let go and drew her hand back. The entire process was so fast that even she had no time to grow nervous.

"The quench is very bright. The balance is not a fraction too far forward—just right." Her voice remained calm, but the tips of her ears had turned red.

Tang Wulin lowered his head and looked at his fingers. Then he smiled. It was not the brilliant smile he wore after winning a battle, but something quieter, more private, as if he had finally figured out a very simple question that he had somehow kept circling around before.

"...That's good. When your Ice Spear is upgraded next time, I'll make you a spear shaft too. A whole one—not an attachment."

Gu Yue had already reached the door. She did not look back, but her hand left the doorknob for an instant. With the finger that had just held his, she lightly pressed the silver dragon pattern on the hilt. Then she pushed open the door and left.

That night, the Golden Dragon King lay in Tang Wulin's sea of consciousness, no longer tapping his tail against the dais. The entire dragon was unusually quiet. Tang Wulin lay in bed staring at the ceiling before suddenly asking in his sea of consciousness, "Why aren't you talking today?"

"Because I can finally rest." The Golden Dragon King closed his eyes, using his tail to draw the White Tiger cub curled up beside him closer. "I watched from the side when the Dragon God was with the Silver Dragon King. You two are exactly like their shadows. You're just denser than he was. Still, it's fine—you at least know how to give weapons. You used my bloodline energy to quench that blade, so I did my part too. Sleep."

Outside the dormitory window, ginkgo leaves were swept down by the night wind, and the moon hung from the treetops. Gu Yue sat before her own dormitory window and opened her small notebook. On the newest page, she wrote only one line: "He smiled. He said he'd make the spear shaft, a whole one." She closed the notebook, then opened it again after a while and drew a tiny crooked White Tiger beside the line—its resemblance was not very good, but she thought Lu Menge would laugh when she saw it.