It was perfectly suitable as a residence now, but letting a man she had only just met live next door, inside her own home at that, did make Fu Xuan rather uncomfortable.
Had it not been for the greater good, she would never have agreed to let Lingchen move in.
Fu Xuan had already decided that once she confirmed there was nothing wrong with Lingchen, she would make him move out immediately.
All the household goods they had bought came fully assembled and only needed to be put in place.
As such, Lingchen did not take long to arrange his things.
"Though it might not be very nice to say this, please remember which house is yours. Don't deliberately walk into the wrong one."
An Emanator of [Elation] naturally would not forget which room was his, but deliberately entering the wrong one was certainly something he could do.
Fu Xuan stared at Lingchen with wide eyes, as if trying to read something in his gaze.
To her surprise, however, Lingchen also gazed "lovingly" at her without blinking. They simply stared at each other until Fu Xuan finally could not bear it anymore and turned away.
She had remembered a scene from a storybook in which a couple gazed lovingly into each other's eyes. It was almost identical to their current situation, except that the couple had been in the man's home and had loved each other for a long time, rather than having only just met.
"We've talked so much on the way here. Don't you know what kind of person I am by now? I certainly wouldn't deliberately enter the wrong house."
Only after Fu Xuan turned away did Lingchen solemnly give his assurance.
He admitted that he liked pretty girls and liked Fu Xuan, but he still had his principles. Especially after obtaining power, he had told himself that he would never force anyone except his enemies to do anything.
If he forced people, how would he be any different from a monkey or elephant in heat?
System, check in.
[Ding. Checked in before Fu Xuan, the Luofu's master diviner. Reward obtained: Otto Apocalypse character card.]
So there are both men and women.
Still, this character card really was somewhat unexpected.
Lingchen had thought that checking in before a girl would give him a female character, while checking in before a man would give him a male character. After all, his check-in before Jing Yuan had yielded Welt. But now it seemed the system really did select its characters completely at random.
Oh well. As long as it doesn't randomly give me even stranger characters.
Thankfully, he did not need to dress up as them.
Lines were just lines. He could still have some fun with them.
But if it were like those role-playing systems he had read about in his previous life, where he had to keep imitating a character or transform into their appearance, he would rather not use the character card.
Seeing Lingchen give his assurance, Fu Xuan also breathed a sigh of relief.
"I shall trust you this once."
With that, Fu Xuan led the way into the reception room.
Several dozen minutes later.
"How is this possible? I'm already so close to you, and I even absorbed a trace of your aura during the divination. Logically, this should be impossible."
Sensing the result of her divination, Fu Xuan opened her eyes in disbelief.
This time, she truly had done her utmost.
With Lingchen so close and a wisp of his energy absorbed, she could already use the Divine Eye's abilities to their fullest.
Yet when she divined Lingchen directly, she still saw only emptiness.
Refusing to accept it, she continued her divination using another method. The Divine Eye shone with pinkish-purple light, illuminating the entire reception room. Imaginary energy that an ordinary Pathstrider would consider immense surged through her body before being drawn into the Divine Eye. Clearly, she had pushed its functions to their limit.
Cold sweat kept beading on Fu Xuan's forehead, a side effect of the pain.
As a Xianzhou native, her body bore the blessing of [Abundance], giving it both powerful rejection responses and powerful self-healing abilities.
As a result, the spot on her forehead where the Divine Eye rested hurt every moment of every day.
She had already grown accustomed to the usual pain, but now that she was using the Divine Eye at full power, the pain had multiplied many times over.
Soon, even Fu Xuan's lips had lost their color.
Still, she gritted her teeth, determined to uncover even the slightest glimpse of Lingchen's future fate.
This was the Divine Eye bestowed by Nous, the Aeon of [Erudition], personally granted by one of the universe's highest-order "living celestial bodies." Its worth was immeasurable: it could survey all things, overlooking nothing. It had never been wrong, nor had anything ever eluded its gaze.
"How is this possible?"
The pinkish-purple light vanished, and Fu Xuan went limp, falling backward into her chair.
She truly could not investigate him. It was as if he were not a living being from this universe.
A lamentably thick barrier stood between them.
The result of her investigation had clearly dealt Fu Xuan a considerable shock.
Her forehead was already covered in sweat from the pain, but she could not spare a thought to wipe it away. After a moment of dazed silence, she seized Lingchen's hand and looked urgently at the man before her.
"You're not from this world, are you?"
Of course, Fu Xuan was not referring to other galaxies separated by imaginary barriers.
The multiverse theory had never been conclusively proven, but someone had proposed it.
And now, that theory seemed to be true.
Faced with Fu Xuan's expectant gaze, Lingchen slowly nodded.
"That's right. Didn't I say I came from a small place? That place isn't in this universe."
"No wonder the Divine Eye cannot observe you. No wonder [Lord of Eternal Joy] took an interest in you, even going so far as to bestow the power of an Emanator."
Everything fell into place. Lingchen was actually not from this world.
Fortunately, she was not a researcher. After learning Lingchen's origins, she was merely somewhat shocked.
Once the shock passed, she finally recovered.
"I never imagined you would tell me something so secret. Rest assured, I'm not a gossip. I certainly won't tell anyone."
Though she now knew this universe was not the only one, what difference did that make? Was she supposed to stop living?
Life would go on as usual.
"What else could I do? Seeing you covered in cold sweat with your face so pale, I naturally couldn't bear it. Telling you the truth would also stop you from being so stubborn."
Chapter 18: I wasn't praising you
Lingchen's tone carried a hint of teasing.
Of course, the bigger reason was that even if the outside world learned of his system's abilities, so what?
The stronger his enemies were, the stronger he became. When the time came, only the forces that opposed him and coveted his power would be destroyed.
Besides, few would even entertain such thoughts. After all, no one could travel between universes. Even if they learned other universes existed, what could they do? And given his current status, few would dare set their sights on him anyway.
"May all sentient beings obtain what they desire. Ah, this heart of mine, unable to bear a maiden's sorrow and devoted to healing the world~~~"
Fu Xuan's face twitched as she listened. Certain words in Lingchen's second sentence struck a nerve, and she abruptly fixed her eyes on him.
"Are you affiliated with [Abundance]?"
Though the Xianzhou called Yaoshi [The Plagues Author] and sought to eradicate the Denizens of Abundance, it bore no particular hostility toward ordinary Pathstriders who walked the path of [Abundance]. It even offered good terms to those willing to work on the Luofu. After all, people who genuinely practiced selfless altruism did exist.
But that remark from Lingchen really had put her on edge.
"...Has your Divine Eye overheated from using it too much?"
"Wh-what?"
Fu Xuan's eyes widened slightly.
Click-
The sound of a camera shutter interrupted Fu Xuan's thoughts.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking your picture."
Lingchen waved his phone, wearing an expression that said, "What's so surprising about that?"
"...Taking photographs without someone's consent is illegal. Please delete that photo."
Fu Xuan's expression instantly darkened. This man had actually taken an unflattering picture of her.
Though she was naturally beautiful, that expression absolutely did not fit the image she usually maintained before her subordinates.
"Mm-hmm, I know, but taking pictures is such a wonderful thing. Now I've got a nice lock screen for the future, too."
"Just looking at it every day will brighten my mood quite a bit."
As Lingchen spoke, he even showed Fu Xuan the picture. Who knew what that camera was made of?
Perhaps Lingchen had spoken too quickly. In the photo, Fu Xuan's eyes were wide, and her bristling reaction to his earlier words had blended perfectly with her bewilderment at his subsequent remark about "overheating." Fu Xuan felt she could even read some of the emotions in her own eyes. She looked nothing like her usual imposing self.
Flustered, Fu Xuan reached out to snatch it, but unfortunately, Lingchen was faster and pulled his hand back.
"Give it to me! We only met for the first time today, didn't we?"
The girl held out her small, fair hand, looking adorably fierce.
Sure enough, there was nothing imposing about that look.
Lingchen was already showing respect for Fu Xuan's age by not calling her a little girl.
"Exactly. That's precisely why I took your picture, Lady Fu Xuan. Our first meeting, and I'll be living here from now on, too. Doesn't that make this photo meaningful?"
"You could take a picture of Jing Yuan."
Fu Xuan had run out of ways to argue. She certainly could not snatch it from him, but if she did not take it away... she felt that even the Divine Eye on her forehead no longer hurt as much.
Damn it. At the thought of having to spend quite some time with Lingchen, Fu Xuan felt as though she might become mara-struck ahead of schedule.
"What's there to photograph about a grown man? Let's get back to serious business."
Lingchen instantly set Fu Xuan's picture as his home screen wallpaper, while his lock screen remained the picture of Kafka and the other two women.
"You... you scoundrel."
Fu Xuan huffed angrily. She wanted to say something harsh, but her mind went blank, and she could not think of anything. Yet saying nothing would leave her feeling stifled.
That shamelessness already showed some of the qualities of [Elation].
For a moment, she even forgot that Lingchen was an Emanator, someone she needed to treat with caution.
"Thank you for the compliment."
"I wasn't praising you!"
Fu Xuan was instantly speechless. Even her formal manner of referring to herself had slipped out, and some of her anger immediately dissipated.
[Elation] really had chosen the right person. This bastard was certainly enjoying himself.
"That's more like it. Why be so polite? Though doing this on the very first day might be a little inappropriate, we'll be spending plenty of time together. If we stay this polite all the time, won't it wear us out?"
He was an Emanator, after all. Even if Fu Xuan showed nothing unusual, Lingchen knew there was a considerable distance between them, whether because of their status, their affiliations, or the fact that they had only just met. If he went about things normally, who knew how long it would take to eliminate that distance? He did not want to wait that long.
They did not have to be friends before affection could develop, but at the very least, friendship had to be possible.
And given Fu Xuan's temperament, she would probably reach a conclusion about him quite quickly through observation. Then he would have to move out.
Lingchen thought the layout of this residence was rather nice.
"You... that's twisted logic."
Lingchen's words left Fu Xuan unable to respond.
With her status, who would normally dare do such a thing?
She could even ignore an ordinary Emanator outright. The Xianzhou was no pushover, after all.
But since there was a chance to secure friendship, or even a slim possibility of getting an Emanator to join them, she certainly could not let any part of the process go wrong on her end.
Besides, Lingchen was right. After that little episode, though she was still annoyed, she really did feel less restrained around him.
Just as this man had said, merely imagining having to remain scrupulously polite every time they met for the foreseeable future made Fu Xuan's scalp prickle. She even felt tempted to move straight into the Divination Commission.
"Very well. I am magnanimous. Since you like it, keep it. Just don't share it with anyone else."
Fu Xuan waved a hand, pretending not to care, and changed the subject. Out of sight, out of mind.
"Let's return to our earlier question."
Seeing Fu Xuan change the subject, Lingchen tacitly cooperated and stopped mentioning the photo.