Wu Changkong's Overactive Imagination

Friday afternoon, Eastsea Academy faculty office.

Wu Changkong was organizing next week's training plans. From the training grounds outside came the rhythmic chants of students undergoing physical conditioning, neat and unified, brimming with the vigor unique to youth. His pen moved across the paper, his handwriting precise and aloof, just like the man himself.

The door was pushed open. Without a knock.

Wu Changkong did not need to look up to know who it was. In all of Eastsea Academy, only one person entered his office without knocking.

"Teacher Wu—" Lu Menge drawled lazily as she walked in, her white coat hanging open to reveal a black low-cut lace top, paired with her trademark asymmetrical white stockings and slender high heels. She flopped onto the sofa and crossed her legs with perfect justification. "Busy?"

"Mm."

"Any plans for the weekend?"

"No."

"Perfect." Lu Menge sat up from the sofa, bracing both hands on her knees as she leaned forward. A certain gleam flashed in her amber fox eyes, one that made Wu Changkong instinctively wary. "Then take me to a movie."

Wu Changkong's pen stopped.

He raised his head and looked at the woman smiling brightly before him. Her expression was as casual as if she had said, "Lovely weather today," completely unaware of how absurd her request had been.

"A movie." Wu Changkong repeated the words, sounding as though he were confirming a suspicious battle plan.

"Yeah." Lu Menge nodded as if it were only natural. "You know—the kind with a huge room, a giant screen in front, and moving people on it. The students go all the time on weekends. It seems pretty interesting."

Wu Changkong fell silent.

He was silent not because he did not want to answer. It was because Lu Menge's last sentence concealed a detail he could not ignore.

It seems pretty interesting.

That tone was not an adult expressing curiosity toward some form of entertainment. It sounded more like someone who had never had the chance to experience such a thing, cautiously testing the waters while pretending to be casual.

Wu Changkong set down his pen and looked at Lu Menge seriously for the first time.

She sat on the sofa with her legs crossed, one high heel swaying gently from her toes. Her makeup was exquisite, her figure was fiery, and her smile was languid yet confident. She looked like the sort of woman who had been adored by everyone since childhood and had never known hardship. Wu Changkong had always thought so too.

But at that moment, a tiny thought, almost imperceptible, pierced his mind like a needle.

She had just said—she had never seen a movie.

An adult in her twenties, living and working in a place like East Sea City—and she had never seen a movie? How was that possible?

Unless she had never been given the chance. Unless the environment she had grown up in had not allowed her even the ordinary entertainments everyone else could enjoy.

Images began to surface uncontrollably in Wu Changkong's mind. A thin, frail little girl in ragged clothes, living in some remote mountain village, forced to rise before dawn every day to work. Other children carried schoolbags to class while she could only sneak a few glances through the window. Other children went into town on weekends to watch movies and eat snacks, while she did not even know what a cinema looked like. She could only listen as those children came back and excitedly described it, then lower her head in silence and continue working.

Perhaps when she later awakened her martial soul, her soul power had been low—very, very low. So low that she would forever stand at the back of the soul master ranks, forever the easiest one to overlook, the one no one expected anything from. No one had been willing to teach her, no resources had been given to her, and she could only claw her way upward bit by bit on her own. Twenty-something levels.

Wu Changkong's heart sank.

He had never asked about Lu Menge's background. As colleagues, all he knew about her was that she was "an eighty-ninth-rank Advanced Teacher of the assault type"—but then again, who had said she was rank eighty-nine?

She had said it herself.

And she had never displayed her true combat ability before anyone. So why had she claimed to be rank eighty-nine? Why would an Advanced Teacher at rank eighty-nine be so practiced at ingratiating herself with others, so warmly familiar with dropping by people's homes for meals? That was clearly a skill only someone who had grown accustomed to pleasing others in order to survive would develop.

Wu Changkong's fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the desk. His gaze settled on Lu Menge's face—that face was still smiling so carefree, those fox eyes still curved into lovely crescents, as if she had no troubles at all. But now, when Wu Changkong looked at that face, he saw another version of her story.

The reason she was always smiling was because she had grown used to facing hardship with a smile since childhood. When others bullied her, she smiled. When she was wronged and had no one to tell, she smiled. Day after day passed with no one there to help her, and she still smiled. Eventually, she smiled so much that even she forgot she did not actually have to.

And when she had come to him and said she wanted to watch a movie, she did not truly just want to watch a movie.

She only wanted to experience it.

She wanted to experience an ordinary person's life. An ordinary person's weekend. An ordinary person's happiness. Because she had never had any of those things.

And of all people, she had come to him.

Wu Changkong thought that she probably could not find anyone else in the entire academy willing to take her. The other teachers had families of their own. On weekends, they had husbands, wives, and children to spend time with. Only he had nothing, always empty. So, in her eyes, he had become the only person who might agree. That was probably what she had thought.

Wu Changkong's fingers loosened from the edge of the desk.

"Fine."

Lu Menge blinked. Wu Changkong's voice was calm as he pushed the training plan aside, rose from his chair, and picked up the coat hanging over its back.

"Saturday night at seven. I'll pick you up."

Lu Menge apparently had not expected him to agree so readily. She froze for a moment, then her smile returned. "Just as expected of Teacher Wu. You're dependable when it counts—"

"Teacher Lu."

"Mm?"

Wu Changkong stood before the desk and looked at her. Something had appeared in those usually indifferent dark-blue eyes, something Lu Menge could not make out for the moment.

"No need to thank me."

Lu Menge tilted her head, seeming to try to read the hidden meaning behind those four words from his cold face. A moment later, she laughed, stood, and stretched lazily. The curves beneath her white coat unfurled in the afternoon sunlight into a breathtaking sight. She swayed toward the door, then turned back and winked her fox eyes at Wu Changkong.

"Don't forget to pick me up."

Wu Changkong nodded. Lu Menge closed the door and left. The light, crisp echo of her heels striking the corridor floor gradually faded beneath the class bell.

The office fell quiet. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a while. Then he picked up his phone, opened the browser, and typed "best cinema in East Sea City" into the search bar.

He scrolled down. His finger stopped. A place called Starsea Cinema had reviews saying its seats were spacious, its screen was large, and its sound system was excellent. He made a reservation for two tickets.

After putting down his phone, Wu Changkong looked at the training plan on his desk, though his thoughts were elsewhere. The monthly salary of an Eastsea Academy Advanced Teacher was not low, but she probably spent most of her modest income on clothes that made her look glamorous. What remained, she probably could not bear to spend on entertainment. She spent every day in the office drinking something steeped in a thermos, tea leaves so dark they were nearly black, and she never complained that it was bitter. Probably because she was used to bitterness.

Wu Changkong suddenly remembered something.

He opened a drawer. Inside lay nearly half a drawer's worth of pale golden candy wrappers. Every one of them came from the milk candies Lu Menge had casually stuffed into his hands. He had never eaten them, but he could not bear to throw them away either, so he had saved them. By now, they filled half a drawer.

He looked at those wrappers for a while, then closed the drawer.

On Saturday night, he would pick her up on time. In a voice only the two of them could hear, he would say, "Let's go."

If she wanted something to drink after the movie—his treat.

Saturday evening. Beneath the Eastsea Academy faculty apartment building.

Gu Yue stood at the end of the corridor, holding a letter. It was a secret report Di Tian had sent through a method unique to the Star Dou Great Forest. The letter contained intelligence, as well as one of Di Tian's personal habits: every secret message ended with a special instruction.

This time, it read: Make sure to urge Senior Lu to eat on time. She often forgets to eat halfway through grading assignments.

Gu Yue put away the secret letter and walked expressionlessly toward Lu Menge's room. Halfway there, she stopped.

Below the apartment building, Wu Changkong stood beside a streetlamp. He was dressed casually in a dark-gray overcoat, and he was more neatly put together than he was for class. His expression remained cold, but there was a subtle stiffness to his posture, as though he were doing something unfamiliar.

Before Gu Yue could think through why Wu Changkong was there, Lu Menge's door opened. Lu Menge came downstairs—not wearing her white coat. She wore a deep burgundy low-cut slip dress, its color making her skin look dazzlingly fair. Strapped high heels adorned her feet, and as she walked, her waist swayed gently, her curves outlined beneath the streetlamp in a breathtakingly dangerous way. She wore light makeup, the flecks of pearlescent eyeshadow making her amber fox eyes brighter, more dangerous, and harder to look away from.

Gu Yue watched Lu Menge walk straight to Wu Changkong. They exchanged a few quiet words, then headed side by side toward the academy gates.

Gu Yue stood where she was for a while. Then she took out Di Tian's secret letter, wrote a line on the back, and sent it back.

She isn't going hungry. Someone's taking her to a movie.

The secret letter turned into a faint glimmer and vanished. Gu Yue turned around, suddenly feeling that the concern from the Star Dou Great Forest might have been pointed in the wrong direction. Compared with something as trivial as eating, that woman had only just begun wreaking havoc on human society. And Wu Changkong—he was the first victim.