Old Toby looked at Jingliu with a hint of doubt.
"She fell to Mara long ago, but now she seems fairly normal. What's she been through in her missing years…?"
No one could answer him.
Old Toby could only push the story forward with his questions.
In another stream, Ah Xian, not dwelling on such matters, had reached the dock segment.
Seeing Yanqing shift from his earlier polite demeanor to threatening to arrest Leon and Jingliu—
She was first surprised, then nearly burst out laughing.
When Leon spoke, she couldn't hold it in.
"I need to see General Jing Yuan. I've fought for the Alliance, shed blood for the Luofu—you can't arrest me!"
"Funny, is Leon telling the truth or joking?"
"So hard to guess."
[Man full of memes.]
[But have you considered—what if Leon's not memeing but hinting at past pain?]
[???]
[Bro, you've got issues. Drop your address, I've got some local specialties to send you.]
[…]
"Hmph, nonsense."
Yanqing raised his brows, coldly refuting and pressing further.
"You're not even from the Xianzhou, and you haven't said a single truthful word from the start, have you?"
Leon squinted, smiling cheekily: "Strictly speaking, I haven't lied."
"So you're saying you deceived me on a macro level? That's still lying!" Yanqing stood firm.
"Young man, you're stubborn as a rock. Some things are hard to explain to you."
"Then explain in The Shackling Prison. Are you coming quietly, or do I beat you up first and drag you there?"
---
"Haha, quack quack quack!"
Seeing Yanqing raise his sword at Leon, Ah Xian laughed like a goose.
"Not to power-scale or anything, but can Yanqing even beat Leon?"
[Objectively, I'd say zero chance.]
[No way he wins. Pure martial skill aside, Leon's a doctor who uses poison.]
[His poisoning methods get little story focus but feel undetectable.]
[What if: if Leon wanted to poison Yanqing, he's already poisoned?]
[Possible, bro, possible.]
No one asked if he could beat Jingliu.
The animated short Flicker released before Jing Yuan's banner showed everyone Jingliu's his master.
Great-granddisciple versus grandmaster?
Bound to get schooled!
Jingliu asked for a reason to be arrested, only to be questioned by Yanqing for pretending to be blind and acting sneaky.
But as he pressed, Jingliu's explanation shut him up.
Right… she never said she was blind.
He assumed it.
As for her actions, she'd been following him the whole time—how was that sneaky?
Getting nowhere with Jingliu, Yanqing turned his spear on Leon.
"What about the stuff you took from that crook? Let me see."
Only then did Ah Xian recall that earlier, Leon quietly found something on a Mara-Struck Yanqing had defeated—
A secret letter from an Alchemy Commission Cultivator.
Showing it to Yanqing didn't seem like a big deal.
Or would it make him suspect they're accomplices?
Thinking this, Ah Xian was curious if Leon would hand it over.
Worried about Leon?
Not at all.
He'd barely arrived on the Luofu. With his style, no way a kid could outsmart him.
"…Nothing worth seeing."
Catching Leon's intriguing expression, Yanqing perked up, as if he'd hit a sore spot.
"What, too shady to show?"
"Not exactly, but you're too young to see it. Better drop the idea."
"You think I'm a three-year-old?"
Yanqing's brows shot up, his voice tinged with anger.
Clearly, he was the one whose sore spot was hit.
"I'm an officially enlisted Cloud Knight Lieutenant. What can't I see?"
"Sigh…"
The preview's announcement from Owlbert kicked in.
Players noticed even this short story segment had a cutscene.
Leon pulled a small booklet from his coat and tossed it to Yanqing.
Yanqing caught it.
The perspective shifted to Yanqing's first-person view as he opened the book. Seeing the title page, Ah Xian froze.
Huh?
No way…
What did she see?
A picture of Lan and Yaoshi embracing?
Was she seeing things, or had MiHoYo gone wild?
Then she saw the stylized title below the image.
[As the Abundance Aeon, I Was Forced into Love by the Cold Lan at the Start.]
Yanqing: "!!!"
[66666666!]
[Oh, damn, that's a thing!]
[Hahaha, I'm dying!]
[Seriously, bro, how does Leon even have this stuff?]
[Too funny, he's trolling Yanqing like he's Japanese.]
[This is what you call a point-blank ultimate.]
[Big Brother Leon, please become a Masked Fool, we need the chaos!!]
[Played like a master, Red Center… ahem, Big Brother Leon.]
Yanqing fumbled, flustered, tucking the book away.
His flying swords, circling Leon and Jingliu, dropped one by one, his youthful face flushed red.
Ah Xian laughed without a shred of composure.
"We've never seen how Leon interacts with outsiders when acting alone, so we had some questions about him."
"What questions? His character profile."
"Now we've seen it, right? When things are calm and he doesn't need to worry about this or that, he might just pull a stunt out of nowhere."
"Either he makes you rage or laugh."
"But don't worry, when he pulls stunts for us, we just giggle."
[Really? When he pulls a knife, can you still laugh?]
[User BedsideSorrowLaughsSouthBeam has been muted for 3 minutes.]
"Sneaky little zero-zero, you're talking too much!"
[Ah Xian's not giggling—she's panicking, muting even an Admiral.]
[Truly Leon applying debuffs and boosting Break efficiency for quick Weakness Breaks, hehe.]
Yanqing glared at Leon.
The latter spread his hands like a bear, feigning innocence.
"Why look at me like that, little brother? That guy was carrying indecent stuff. I hid it for your sake and the Xianzhou's people."
"Doing a good deed, yet… sigh, I'm just a frail doctor, not like you with your great power. I'm so wronged."
His words weren't exactly brimming with tea-art charm, but they didn't seem fake either.
It was hard not to stifle a laugh.
[I'm just a scientist, not as powerful as them…]
[Frail doctor: refers to possibly the Express crew's strongest fighter.]
[Father's so naughty, teasing a kid like that.]
"Naughty?"
Ah Xian pouted.
"In my doujins, he's way naughtier to me."
"That rolling-eyes-fainting feeling—never gets old no matter how many times I experience it. So powerful~~"
[Tch, nuclear plants can't generate as much as you.]
[Can't argue. Saw Ah Xian's doujin from preview day—couldn't sleep.]
[When'd you post it? Not sharing with the bros?]
[Clearly not an OG fan. Old fans are on their nth re-read by now.]
Yanqing: "(Am I too sensitive? Maybe I really misunderstood him?)"
"What a cute kid. Look, he's even feeling guilty about Leon."