Love, Gun, Cupid

"So you were doing this all along to..." The hatter glanced at the shriveled part of his arm, then at the cameraman beside him, "I see, it was to calculate the cost I would need to repair my wounds."

“If you insist on fighting, everyone here is your opponent, and you know the outcome very well,” Mu Mian said.

"If I slink away, what's the difference between that and failure? Your team will have thoroughly studied me by Saturday, greatly increasing your chances of winning."

The hatter pointed to his eyes: "However, I have recorded this scene. The video of Kapok going back on her word and using underhanded tactics to scheme against her opponent will probably make your investors and potential allies reconsider your value."

Hehuan walked over from a short distance away and said, "I'm sorry, our school experienced a malfunction during a magic experiment, which affected your recording equipment."

The hatter checked and, sure enough, her recorder hadn't captured anything of value. She glared at the cotton tree with humiliation, then slunk away.

"In other words, from the very beginning, the senior never intended to fight her," Lin Jiade said.

"Well, it takes time for Hehuan to activate the shielding device, so I took advantage of the situation and cooperated with the belligerent hat maker to delay until Hehuan sent me a signal... via the vibration mode of a mobile phone. Meanwhile, our photography equipment and our communication equipment had already been identified by the device and removed from the shielding list in advance."

This was one of several security measures hastily devised by the Kapok team, and the hat maker became its first test subject and sacrifice. This morning's confrontation, without further leaks of their own intelligence, resulted in the successful acquisition of key parameters regarding the opponent's core capabilities, a resounding victory.

The only one who was unhappy was Wei Ying, who really wanted to see Kapok and the hat maker fight. When He Huan saw Wei Ying's expression, she whispered to Lin Jiade, "Junior, help to coax her."

Lin Jiade shrugged: "Uh, our relationship isn't good enough for me to coax her. It's true that she doesn't like me."

"Is that right?"

Hehuan smiled, then realized she shouldn't have, so she deliberately tightened her face, glanced at Weiying, and said in a light tone, "But you're the only one she can talk to. Can you help her?"

"Okay, I'll give it a try."

Hehuan sniffed, a hint of doubt in her expression. She took two steps closer to Lin Jiade, her nose almost touching the young man's chin. Lin Jiade stepped back, afraid she might bump into him while carrying the ball, and raised his arm to indicate his innocence, asking, "Is something wrong?"

“You have less energy dissipating in your natural state than before,” said the mimosa. “Both the kapok and you have made visible progress.”

Her expression was both relieved and forlorn. Lin Jiade patted her shoulder gently, and Hehuan looked up and said, "It's nothing, I can accept this result."

Hehuan left, and Lin Jiade's gaze followed her until she was swallowed up by the crowd. Then he found Weiying, whose face practically screamed "I'm not happy."

“I’m hungry, I’m going to get something to eat, wanna come together?” he said.

"Ah."

Should I call out the cuckoo?

Wei Ying waved her hand: "No need, I don't want her to see me like this... It's too childish."

"Pfft, you knew that too?"

“But I’ve learned one thing—I shouldn’t have too high hopes for Homo sapiens; the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment,” said the reed warbler.

"You're making sweeping generalizations. In just the last two months, I've met dozens of people with superhuman abilities. People are complex. Don't generalize what you've seen to the whole world."

Wei Ying's gaze grew increasingly strange: "...How did you manage to win over your girlfriend? I'm starting to wonder if your sister possessed you and you were the one doing the beating?"

"From general attacks to personal attacks, how about that? Jasmine, Gladiolus, and I are all in love. We have your sister's guidance and our own hard work."

Reed Warbler chuckled: "You speak to them in that tone too? One's a red dragon, the other a lich, it's a miracle you've survived this long."

"Of course I'm different in front of them, but you're not my family, why should I think so much about what I say?"

“Oh, oh, that’s true, after all, I’m an outsider.” Wei Ying patted Lin Jiade’s butt. “Come on, aren’t you treating? Let me see the excellence of Homo sapiens.”

Do you mean cooking?

"Is there another interpretation?" Wei Ying glanced at Lin Jiade in the House of Commons. "What are you thinking?"

"???"

Lin Jiade looked as aggrieved as a 180-pound child; he clearly hadn't thought of anything. Meanwhile, the young man sensed a momentary dip in Wei Ying's mood, but he wasn't that close to her, so he didn't want to ask further.

Wei Ying transformed all her unhappiness into a long bill, which made Lin Jiade frown. He took a picture and sent it to He Huan, who was currently the biggest financier and in charge of managing the team's finances.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” Hehuan replied. “Even if my junior has an amazing appetite, he probably couldn’t eat that much.”

“She eats four times as much as I do… I mean, she eats more when she’s in a better mood. There’s no point in discussing her appetite.”

In fact, what truly improved Wei Ying's mood happened at night. While Kapok's team offered her advice and she herself engaged in moderate exercise, outside the club, in the still of the night, Lin Jiade was practicing asceticism while holding a glowing celestial weapon.

The warbler did not derive her happiness from Lin Jiade's suffering. Her happiness came from Lin Jiade's recognition of her teaching, from his obedience to her commands, and from his respect for her as a person. Unconsciously, the faint sorrow of leaving home disappeared, and her contempt for the empire and resistance to contact with mortals were replaced by happiness.

"Listen carefully, you must make your control over energy when wielding a sword a normal, instinctive skill within half a month, and I will increase the difficulty of this task. After that, I will start correcting your most basic moves and completely get rid of your bad habit of wasting energy."

"..."

"And the answer?" Wei Ying asked somewhat impatiently.

For some reason, she suddenly felt a little scared, afraid that Lin Jiade would reject her, but fortunately, Lin Jiade's reaction was very gentle. He replied, "I have no objection, but why the rush?"

“I’m a little annoyed by what Kapok is doing. Go and defeat her, become her sword, and show her that you can win fair and square,” said Reed Warbler.

Portugal 2:4 Germany. No extra chapters. I'll pay back the debt slowly, just to give myself some motivation to keep writing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Setting an Example for Teachers

Lin Jiade neither agreed nor disagreed. He disliked Mu Mian's approach, but he still remembered that his goal was for Mu Mian to win, so he said, "We'll talk about that later. For now, let's focus on our senior's victory."

On Saturday, Kapok defeated the hat maker, who had lost the will to fight, in just five minutes. She used her weapon to fire at the hat maker from a distance the entire time, not giving him a chance to get close, and exhausted his reserve of nano-repair materials, thus achieving victory.

In terms of pure strength, the Hatter is a match for the main contestant. If it weren't for the fact that her core abilities were studied and thoroughly understood by Kapok using unethical methods, the competition would still be a good one.

But under the morbid ideology of winner-takes-all, no one speaks up for the losers; they only remember the glory of the victors—among all the players in the playoffs, Kapok had the shortest combined net time across both matches.

Having foreseen the outcome, Lin Jiade found the experience uninteresting, and then celebrated with his team members by popping champagne to mark Kapok's advancement to the main competition. He wasn't a party animal, but he was still caught up in the atmosphere and became cheerful.

He shook the bottle vigorously and fired at Jasmine and Azalea, while Azalea summoned four times the firepower. Jasmine, standing nearby, personally drenched Lin Jiade with expensive celestial wine. Lin Jiade, seeing Jasmine's disheveled state, laughed until he was breathless, clutching his back, just like Jasmine.

Amidst the champagne showers and the playful banter, two members were conspicuously absent. One was Hehuan; when Kapok made it to the main competition, some offered elegant congratulations, while others presented her with endorsement contracts.

The former came from the subordinates of some elders in the Senate. Mu Mian's level was not yet worthy of the attention of the specially selected fathers, but she was a potential stock and could be absorbed into the reserve force for cultivation.

The latter came from businessmen, and their proposal was quite simple: to exchange economic benefits for kapok trees becoming part of their commercial promotion. The specifics of the economic benefits and commercial promotion would be discussed later, but for now, they were offering a preliminary cooperation agreement.

Kapok couldn't handle these things, so her capable and loyal friend Hehuan shielded her from political and economic engagements, accepted all the offers, and selected those that aligned with the common interests of her family and Kapok, intending to ask Kapok's opinion.

Because Kapok only made it into the main competition and was ranked low among the thirty-two contestants, not many political and economic figures bet on her. When Hehuan returned, she caught up with the aftermath of the celebration. Lin Jiade, who was having a blast, was shirtless and used the last bottle of champagne to spray out at Hehuan in a trembling fit.

"ah!"

Caught off guard, Hehuan was drenched from head to toe with white foam. Looking at her down jacket, then touching her carefully styled hair and beautiful makeup, she angrily slapped Lin Jiade on the chest and said to Jasmine, "Control your boyfriend!"

Jasmine, reeking of alcohol, looked at Hehuan with an innocent and helpless expression. Hehuan saw that Jasmine was in an even worse state than her; clearly, Jasmine had already been murdered by Lin Jiade before Hehuan arrived.

When Lin Jiade returned home, another person who hadn't been there was lying on the sofa. When she saw Lin Jiade come back, she covered her head with a pillow, turned around and lay on her side, leaving Lin Jiade with only her back.

With a woman's intuition, Jasmine felt that Wei Ying was hinting to Lin Jiade to go and coax her, but why should he?

That's why Jasmine dragged Lin Jiade into the bathroom, into the room, and onto the bed, giving Wei Ying no chance at all. Just then, a door opened, and Jianlan, wearing a bathrobe, walked in.

"I hope I haven't spoiled your fun. I've already rewritten the recipes for the Blood Spear and Lionheart spells. Would you like to take a look?"

Lin Jiade took it, and Jianlan then said to Jasmine, "Regarding your advancement from the Eastern Dragon Clan lineage, I've investigated it. Although there's hope for another Dragon Gate Ceremony, I don't think you have the patience for it."

"Oh."

"But don't be discouraged, there is a way. You can reverse the ritual, remove the influence of the Dragon Gate Ritual and the remaining blood of the white dragon, turn back into a pure-blooded offspring of the red dragon, and rebuild your dragon body in a normal way, accumulating strength little by little."

Jasmine's eyes lit up: "Is that okay?"

“It’s theoretically possible, but it’s not a rewriting spell, and it requires the knowledge of Korobochka that I currently have. I need to submit an application first, and you may have to wait a while.”

"Thank you," Jasmine replied.

“No, we’re family now.” Jianlan smiled and pulled Jasmine into her arms. “You’re so petite and adorable. I wish I could have a daughter like you.”

Jasmine felt a tightness in Gladiolus's chest and said in a muffled voice, "Then why are you still trying to steal my man?"

"Human desires are complex, and I respect you. Up until now, nothing has happened between Lin Jiade and me. Don't you think he's pathetic?"

Lin Jiade quickly reassured everyone, "Ah, it's nothing, it's just a few months. I've been single for almost twenty years, a few months is nothing... I'm loyal to you all."

Jasmine and Gladiolus exchanged a glance and laughed. Jasmine pulled Lin Jiade down onto the bed and poked his cheek with her finger: "Loyalty?"

Gladiolus pressed herself against him from the other side, her thighs pressing against his: "Who exactly are 'you'?"

Caught between ice and fire, Lin Jiade fell silent. Jianlan stepped past Lin Jiade and asked Jasmine, "Are things going well for you? I mean, the private stuff."

"..."

“Don’t be shy. Although I’ve never been with a man, I’m still older than you, so I want to give some advice to my family members and the people I like. Do you want to learn?” Jianlan asked.

Jasmine looked at the sword orchid for a while, then said in a deep voice, "...Learn!"

“What’s my opinion?” Lin Jiade asked.

When Jianlan used her body's natural advantages to subdue Lin Jiade with a soft, oppressive force, he had no further objections. Meanwhile, in the living room, Wei Ying's gaze pierced through the wall, watching Jianlan grab Jasmine's hand, then have Jasmine grab Lin Jiade, teaching Jasmine how to skillfully withdraw money from Lin Jiade's savings account. She herself was also secretly engaging in subtle manipulation, instructing Lin Jiade on how to satisfy himself.

The warbler couldn't stand it anymore. She went back to the cuckoo's room, took off the cuckoo's headphones, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Regarding the betting, the betting companies have already opened odds on the final winner of this professional title promotion competition. Of course, I'll bet on Kapok, but even with our support, Kapok's odds aren't the highest. It seems there are other compatriots involved in this competition... Hey, are you still sulking? Did Lin Jiade do something wrong again?"

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Cybernetics

“What does it have to do with him? I don’t care about him at all,” Wei Ying said.

“Every word and action of yours shows that you care about him a lot.”

“I just… I don’t understand why I’m so agitated,” said the reed warbler. “Because I don’t understand, I become even more agitated.”

“The little reed warbler has reached this stage of life. Perhaps it was a mistake to bring you here,” the cuckoo said.

"Why do you say that? I had a lot of fun... It's better than staying at home."

“You met the wrong person and developed feelings for him that you shouldn’t have—possessiveness,” Du Juan said.

"You mean Lin Jiade... That's impossible."

“First, because of the contract, he has my energy in him, which means that a part of me exists in him. You know this, so you were somewhat hostile to him at the beginning. Then, when I wasn’t by your side, you were attracted to the part of me in him and treated him as a substitute for me.”

“I didn’t!” said the warbler.

This rebuttal was extremely weak. Du Juan continued, "In any case, this laid a foundation: your relationship developed on the premise that you did not dislike him, even though you and Lin Jiade both believed that you disliked him somewhat."

"elder sister!"

"I am Cupid, and I can see your affection for each other. Although you haven't reached the threshold for a romantic relationship, your relationship with Lin Jiade is positive 30."

"What does 30 specifically represent?"

Du Juan replied, "The basic threshold for the appearance of the marriage line is 50, around 60 for newly dating couples, and close to 80 for couples like Lin Jiade and Jasmine who are so inseparable and eager to get married immediately."

The warbler said dryly, "But I asked about 30."