On the road to the Exalting Sanctum.
"Is it really that weird — being a total slacker for ages and then suddenly getting hit by this burning ambition to grind hard?"
March 7th held a can of Immortal's Happy Tea with a straw poking out, the hollow slurping echo traveling up through the plastic bottle like someone had already reached the very last drop.
"By the standards of general rational thought, no, it isn't weird."
Stelle was eyeing the milk-foam Starry Boba sloshing around in Caelus's hand. The moment his guard slipped, she switched to full predator mode — her small hand shot out like a cub's claw and latched onto his cup with surgical precision, simultaneously jamming her own nearly-empty Grass Jelly Yangyang into his now-vacant palm.
"After all — bet on it, and a rented room becomes a mansion, a Starskiff becomes a battlecruiser~!"
Stelle skipped two quick steps forward to stay out of grab range, clamped the straw between her teeth, and started drinking hard.
Two seconds later, though, she blinked. Caelus hadn't chased her at all — and the Starry Boba in her mouth tasted distinctly off, like some unholy blend of Himeko's coffee and milk tea. She nearly gagged.
"For outsiders who've come to wander the Xianzhou, adjusting your lifestyle under the pressure of survival is perfectly normal."
Caelus hooked a smirk at the corner of his mouth and made a soft, unhurried sound of amusement. He tipped the 'Grass Jelly Yangyang' back in one go, then calmly fished his original Starry Boba out of his spatial ring.
"But for most of the long-lived Xianzhou people, stability comes first."
"And especially when the person in question is Qingque — the words 'drive' and 'ambition' absolutely cannot appear in the same sentence without a negation."
"I think you're stereotyping Qingque. Sure, she slacks off sometimes, but she could totally turn over a new leaf. You can't write someone off completely!"
March 7th gave Caelus a little poke in the elbow.
"Last time I went to the Divination Commission, I saw a whole stack of books next to her. She was sitting there, lost in thought, really pondering something — I didn't even want to disturb her."
"If you told me some random person had a sudden awakening and turned their life around through sheer hard work, I'd believe you. But Little Sparrow…" Caelus gave a low, amused snort. "Ah Qi, want to bet on it?"
Stelle lunged at the nearest trash can and hurled like a rocket had gone off in her throat, producing a spectacular rainbow arc. Once she'd finished, she rolled her hoodie sleeves up to her elbows and cracked her wrists, ready for action.
"Bet on what?"
March 7th took two steps back to avoid collateral damage.
"Whether Little Sparrow's ambition is real — or whether she's just completely lost her mind."
Caelus produced a sealed new cup of milk tea and bonked it squarely on top of Stelle's head.
"What are the stakes?"
Stelle's sleeves slapped back down. She cheerfully plucked the milk tea off her own head.
Playing nice wasn't because she was craving milk tea — the bet just sounded way more fun~!
"One King's Game command."
Caelus proposed: "Same as when we split into investigation teams before — deal?"
"Works for me."
Stelle nodded happily.
"You two are up to something bad again!"
March 7th jumped back and regarded the two gray-haired troublemakers with deep suspicion.
Last time they lost, Caelus had used the command on the night everyone played Strip Celestial Jade...
"Absolutely not!"
She locked up for a few seconds, the memory of being ordered into those bizarre outfits resurfacing, and pink crept up to the tips of her ears.
"What's so 'bad' about it?"
Caelus raised an eyebrow and calmly swapped out the stakes: "Then the loser covers all of Himeko's coffee orders from here on out?"
"Bro, you can't be serious — the stakes are that high?"
Stelle sucked in a sharp breath through the straw, using the boba to rinse her palate.
"A-ba a-ba..."
The sheer brutality of that wager sent Little March into a spiral. Her mind automatically conjured the nightmare image of Himeko smiling as she handed over a special-blend coffee, and her stomach did a full somersault.
She shook her head vigorously: "No no no — let's keep it as the King's Game command!"
She'd bet her life before she'd bet Himeko-sis's coffee!
"Now that's a compromise."
Stelle marveled quietly to herself, then swung her head toward March 7th with a conspiratorial grin:
"Which side are you on, Ah Qi? I'm putting my money on Qingque being totally possessed!"
"Then this young lady bets on Qingque finding her way back to the light!"
Have some faith in the goodness of human nature!
With the wager locked in, the three of them arrived at the Divination Commission. Given Stelle and Caelus's current standing on the Xianzhou, there were very few doors closed to them — one flash of their faces and they were waved straight through.
They passed through intricately carved buildings with painted eaves and embroidered walls into the inner courtyard, where Caelus led them with practiced ease toward the archive room where Qingque was supposed to be — only to run into a pink-clad Theresa halfway there.
"Master Diviner, something is very wrong here..."
"Indeed. Pass on This Seat's orders — no one is to approach her rashly..."
Before Fu Xuan could finish, she heard a familiar voice calling out behind her. She stopped and turned, genuine surprise flickering across her face: "Oh — what are you all doing here?"
The appearance of the gray-gray-pink trio caught Fu Xuan off guard. After all, the enormous commotion that had erupted on the Luofu just two nights ago — these three had been right at the center of it.
The Diviner trailing Fu Xuan clearly recognized the Luofu's famous faces as well, and offered a polite nod in greeting.
"I was invited by Qingque to come co-found a startup with her."
Caelus pulled up his chat history with Qingque and held it out for Fu Xuan to see: "Celestial Jade, go big or go home! Buy out the Divination Commission — and at that point, maybe you can be our President Qing's personal secretary, how about it?"
Those words made Fu Xuan's elegant brow crinkle involuntarily. By now she was more or less accustomed to Stelle and Caelus's brand of nonsense, though, so she didn't actually get angry.
"Please, just do me a favor — do not provoke her right now."
"Why not?"
Stelle blinked and looked Fu Xuan up and down:
"Come to think of it, Master Diviner, you look kind of exhausted. Pulling overtime lately?"
"It's all because of that unknown demon that appeared in Fyxestroll Garden's Grotto-Heaven..."
Fu Xuan let out a long sigh.
"But DanteMon was dealt with by us, wasn't it?"
March 7th tilted her head, puzzled.
"Thank you once again for pulling the Xianzhou back from the brink of disaster — but the Divination Commission's work is far from over."
The Divination Commission's core function was to divine and observe, interpret omens, provide early crisis warnings, and assist with decision-making. Yet before DanteMon appeared, not a single Diviner in the entire Commission — not even Fu Xuan herself — had divined so much as a flicker of warning.
It had simply materialized on the Xianzhou out of nowhere. From a results standpoint, DanteMon had admittedly posed no threat to the Xianzhou — but the Way of Divination didn't work on the logic of "the outcome was fine, so no warning needed."
This was no minor oversight. Without Stelle and Caelus, that demon leaving Fyxestroll Garden's Grotto-Heaven would have brought catastrophe upon the Luofu!
Fu Xuan took it extremely seriously. She'd been up all night searching for the cause, and had come up with absolutely nothing.
All recent divination reports had been pulled out for re-examination, going through them again to make sure nothing had slipped through the cracks.
"I'm pretty sure Phantylia had something to do with it!"
Caelus announced this with great conviction.
DanteMon came from another multiversal world — it had no causality within the Galaxy Universe. Of course it couldn't be divined.
"Not even a Lord Ravager could hide from the Matrix of Prescience."
Fu Xuan had complete confidence in her own array. She'd already worked overtime to run three full inspections on the Matrix of Prescience and confirmed it was functioning perfectly.
Which meant the problem lay with the demon itself.
Something like this had happened once before, just ahead of the final battle with Phantylia — the two incidents possibly shared the same origin.
"This still needs investigation. The immediate problem is Qingque..."
"She just suddenly got motivated to work hard, right?"
March 7th was baffled — was the Master Diviner really keeping tabs on something so minor?
"You're not in this department. You don't understand."
Fu Xuan shook her head.
"That's right, that's right."
The haggard Diviner nodded vigorously: "If you told me Qingque clocked out at three in the afternoon I'd a hundred percent believe it — but right now she's 'first to arrive, last to leave,' working so hard it scares me just to watch!"
Qingque slacking off was something everyone had long since made peace with. Every now and then Qingque would have a sudden burst of productivity — and everyone knew that was just setup for an even longer bout of slacking afterward.
But this wasn't an occasional burst. This was a sustained eruption. She'd transformed into the undisputed Queen of the Grind — and in this state, even without the Master Diviner saying anything, no one dared go near her.
"Wait, is it really that extreme?"
Hearing both Fu Xuan and the Diviner say this, March 7th felt a cold sweat coming on. Whatever happened to trusting in people?
And even more unnerving — they hadn't even seen Qingque yet, and she already had the sinking feeling she was about to lose the bet.
A gust of wind swept through. Caelus caught a paper archive document that had been blown loose.
[Matrix of Prescience Divination Result: Following standard hexagram precedent for past patterns — temporarily dismissing or granting collective leave to Commission personnel may avert misfortune? Checked the records; no scheduled leave coming up for the Divination Commission recently... Strange, how did it produce a result like this.]
[Leave? Impossible! Absolutely impossible! — Head Diviner Jingzhai's official rejection note]
"Isn't that actually pretty accurate?"
Caelus delivered the line that reduced the haggard Diviner to silent tears.
Still no leave, though.
Caelus set the paper document down on the pile the Diviner was cradling, and the group followed Fu Xuan to the archive room. From a distance, they could already see a crowd gathered in a circle, with Qingque holding court in the middle.
"Can you hear the wail of your dreams dying? Can you feel the dull ache growing on the left side of your chest? You've never noticed the super-rich sneering down at you! Have you ever considered... on the other side of the universe, people with shorter lifespans than yours are using vertical-domain leverage and content-reuse strategies to build compounding long-term revenue streams — grinding every day, working so much harder than you!"
"Do you feel your blood beginning to boil? Do you feel your heart thundering out the name of your deepest desire —"
That voice — usually lazy and sticky-sweet with a doughy softness — was now alive with passion, every syllable rising and falling with electric rhythm.
"GRIND!"
"Light up the Exalting Sanctum at four in the morning!"
"Pay off your five-hundred-year mortgage! Your hundred-year car loan! Your hundred-and-fifty-year bride-price loan!"
The Diviners gathered around were completely swept up in the tide of excitement. They cheered and applauded frantically at every single word Qingque spat out.
Taking in the atmosphere at the scene, Caelus couldn't help but marvel: "That's Little Sparrow for you — whatever the outcome turns out to be, that rhetoric, that ability to whip up a crowd — truly second to none!"
"You see what I mean now? Seeing Qingque like this — even This Seat is rattled. Do any of you have any ideas for getting her back to normal?"
Fu Xuan pointed at the girl in green who was pumping her small fist in time with the chants, ready to lead her colleagues through an entrepreneurial venture.
Honestly, if Qingque were willing to put in the work, Fu Xuan could groom her within fifty years to be the next Master Diviner — and then she herself could step down with peace of mind to take over as General.
"As expected — no surprises here. Little Sparrow is clearly being ridden by a Heliobus. Ah Qi, you lose."
Caelus held up a red feather in his palm, the Fenghuang Down making it obvious at a glance.
"Nooooo~!"
March 7th deflated like a punctured balloon. She threw her head back with a drawn-out wail, her eyelids drooping like a dejected Samoyed.
She felt like someone who'd joined the wrong side on the very first day of the war — a pure, clean, textbook loss.
"Fine, this young lady accepts defeat fair and square. Now hurry up and exorcise the Heliobus from Qingque."
"Hold on — the Heliobus we've got here is an SSR!"
Using the Fenghuang Down to blast the Heliobus out was the simplest and most straightforward method — but it would severely damage the Heliobus's condition. And the Heliobus currently possessing Qingque was clearly a hardcore, grind-till-you-drop overachiever.
In card game terms, it had to be packing gold-tier traits like [Innate Workhorse Sacred Constitution], [996 Dao-Fruit], [Overtime Blessing Embryo], [Crown-rank Beast Spiritual Foundation] — an absolutely flawless Pal!
How could you be brutal to your own future star employee?
The main concern was that attacking would injure the Heliobus and affect their work performance. In order to secure the SSR at full condition, Caelus decided this time to use a rather more peaceful approach.
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