【Skin contact with female protagonist (hug) +0.001】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (holding hands) +0.001】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (backs pressed together) +0.001】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (kissing collarbone) +0.003】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (sleeping in the same bed) +0.002】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (kiss on the cheek) +0.005】
【Skin contact with female protagonist (...) +0.00?】
Shen Qingci's eyelashes fluttered slightly.
She quickly flipped down a few pages and confirmed that they were all entries of this kind. Each increase was extremely miniscule, adding up by decimals of a percent, but it was hard to ignore the sheer frequency.
Especially that night at the Lingquan Annex; the dense list of entries took up nearly three pages.
So it turned out all of this Luck Value had been leeched from her Senior Sister!!!
At this thought, Shen Qingci's heart tightened, fearing that this might have some harmful effect on her Senior Sister.
Her little brain sparked with inspiration, and she instantly shifted her expression, calling out softly in her sea of consciousness: “System~ Mama~, does leeching Senior Sister's Luck Value harm her in any way?”
Zzzt— Zzzt— Zzzt—
A burst of static rang out in her sea of consciousness, only to be cut off immediately.
System: “(^～^) No.”
Shen Qingci: “???”
Shen Qingci: “!!!”
Shen Qingci: “...”
She was stunned for a moment.
【Oh wow! Is this the correct way to open a single-player system?】
【Just how many good things have I missed out on in the past?】
Squeezing her voice to sound as sweet and cute as possible, she seized the opportunity to press further: “Then, System Mama, can your child make a wish?”
After saying this, she felt that a single tone wasn't solemn enough, so she simply tried a youthful girl voice, a mature older sister voice, a cool and aloof voice... trying them all to see which kind of host-daughter the system preferred.
When it came to providing emotional value, she was the top salesperson.
Making a living wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
After trying a whole round of voices, Shen Qingci returned to her normal tone.
The system finally responded.
“No!”
“Then can I make a wish when drawing cards?” Shen Qingci was not discouraged in the slightest, her voice growing sweeter and softer. “System Mama, Dear Mother, Mummy...”
Before she could finish, several lines of glitched code flashed in her sea of consciousness.
Shen Qingci closed her mouth, knowing she had embarrassed and annoyed the system with her calling. This System Mama had probably never encountered such a bizarre host before.
But then again, why couldn't this System Mama of hers be the other kind of “Mother”?
Commonly known as: “Unconditionally showering her with gold coins.”
“System, if you don't speak, I'll assume that's a yes.” She repeated this sentence several times, but the system did not respond again.
Shen Qingci did not give up, deciding to come back and pester it every once in a while.
Sooner or later, she would wear the system down into a doting daughter-obsessed system.
Shaking off her thoughts, she stepped out of the Dining Hall and looked up at the sky.
The sky was clear for ten thousand miles, and the sun was just right.
The laughter and chatter of disciples came from behind her; everything was no different from any ordinary afternoon.
She pondered a very serious question in her mind: In the future, should she carve out dedicated time to seek out opportunities to foster her relationship with her Senior Sister?
This wasn't out of selfishness.
This was a serious matter of raising her Luck Value to counter the wretched male protagonist's halo.
After completing her mental preparation, Shen Qingci walked back toward the Dharma Academy with light steps.
“Senior Sister Shen!”
Yin Ruozhuo had just walked out of the Dining Hall. Catching sight of Shen Qingci's back, he yelled out twice at the top of his lungs.
Hearing this, the smile on Shen Qingci's face vanished at a speed visible to the naked eye. She turned around, assuming the dignified and composed demeanor of a senior sister.
“Junior brothers, I hope you are well.”
Yin Ruozhuo trotted over. Zhao Yu, Chen Zian, and Xiao Yan followed close behind. The four of them stood in a row and bowed in unison.
Shen Qingci suddenly remembered she had a batch of unused resources. Retrieving a ring from her storage space, she casually tossed it to Yin Ruozhuo.
“Divide this among yourselves according to your needs.”
Yin Ruozhuo caught the storage ring. Sweeping his divine sense inside, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Peiyuan Pills, Mind-Focusing Incense, low-grade spirit stones, spiritual grain, Dharma robes, soft armor, spiritual herbs... The storage bag inside was stuffed to the brim. The variety of items was so chaotic that it looked as if she had plundered the warehouse of some market.
“Senior Sister, this is way too much...” Yin Ruozhuo's tongue was slightly tied.
“Too much?” Shen Qingci glared at him. “Haven't you been constantly complaining about not having enough to eat? There are three thousand catties of spiritual grain in there. That's enough for you to munch on for months.”
Yin Ruozhuo's eyes turned red on the spot.
He knew that following Senior Sister was absolutely the right choice.
While the other inner sect senior brothers were still eating low-grade spiritual grain, he was already eating mid-grade spiritual grain.
The gap was simply massive.
Shen Qingci took half a step forward and said, “By the way, there is someone in the Dharma Academy whose eyes look very unfriendly when they look at me.”
Yin Ruozhuo's ears instantly perked up.
This was the first time Senior Sister had ever assigned them a task. Clenching the storage ring, he nodded vigorously. “Rest assured, Senior Sister. We won't let anyone find out.”
Shen Qingci glanced at him. Without saying anything more, she turned and walked back into the Dharma Academy.
Yin Ruozhuo watched her back recede into the distance before looking down to re-examine the storage ring.
Zhao Yu leaned in to take a peek and gasped. Chen Zian and Xiao Yan exchanged a glance, remaining silent.
Yin Ruozhuo tucked the storage ring into his robes and straightened his posture. “Everyone, we must not disappoint Senior Sister! If we perform poorly, it won't just be our families' faces we're losing.”
The afternoon class was unremarkable.
Fang Mingyuan lectured on the distribution of publicly known secret realms across the Four Regions. Shen Qingci listened to about seventy to eighty percent of it while resting her chin on her hand. As the sunlight outside drifted further to the west, the bell for the Shen hour finally tolled.
The disciples filed out in groups of twos and threes. Shen Qingci packed up her jade slips and followed the crowd out of the Dharma Academy's main gate.
As soon as she looked up, her footsteps froze in place.
【(* ⁰̷̴͈꒨⁰̷̴͈)=͟͟͞͞➳❤】
Her Senior Sister was waiting on the bluestone clearing outside the gates, a Foundation Establishment stage Cloud-Plume Crane standing beside her.
The crane stood as tall as five men, its feathers a brilliant, translucent white, with a few wisps of pale gold feathers accenting the tips of its wings. Its long neck curved down as it preened the downy feathers on its chest with its beak.
Hearing the commotion, the spiritual crane raised its head, its dark, bead-like eyes looking over toward Shen Qingci.
【Whoa~ It's a big spender! My crane life is taking off!!!】
Shen Qingci walked over quickly and reached out to stroke the side of the Cloud-Plume Crane's neck.
The crane narrowed its eyes in comfort.
“What made you think of riding a crane today, Senior Sister?” She looked up, mischief dancing in the corners of her eyes. “Where is your Frostchill?”
Chi Yuan did not answer directly, only saying, “A change of pace, occasionally.” With that, she leapt onto the crane's back and extended her hand to Shen Qingci.
Shen Qingci took her hand, used the leverage to leap onto the crane's back, and wrapped her arms around her Senior Sister's waist with practiced ease. The Cloud-Plume Crane spread its wings, let out a low cry, and soared into the sky.
The disciples who had not yet dispersed from the entrance of the Dharma Academy all raised their heads, their eyes following the white silhouette as it drifted toward the horizon.
A female cultivator at the seventh level of Qi Refining tugged at her companion's sleeve, unable to suppress her excitement despite trying to keep her voice down: “Look, look! Senior Sister Chi rode a crane to pick up Senior Sister Shen!”
Her companion held a jade slip in front of her mouth to block her face, her gaze glued to the crane's back, unable to look away: “Ahhh! Senior Sister Chi's hand is resting on Senior Sister Shen's waist, and her fingers are so well-defined, it's so hot~”
Rate on N.U.
