Chapter 10
Chapter 10
The Penthouse’s salted-fish density had crept to a critical threshold—one breath away from physical collapse.
On the huge projector screen, some episode of a slice-of-life anime looped for the hundredth time: the main cast chatting under cherry blossoms, the kind of brain-dead tea party that could drown a person in peace. The air was a sticky marriage of salty crisps and strawberry candy; the combo formed a sweet-salty barrier that froze thought and atrophied limbs. I was a slice of toast that had long since surrendered to the oven—no will to flip, no wish to rise—submerged in the beanbag’s gentle swamp, every bone broadcasting the same signal: PERMANENTLY MOORED. My cherry-white hair spilled over the backrest like moonlight, a few strands swaying to the slow, heavy rhythm of my breathing.
Xing Dian’s indigo phantom had grown so bored it was running “enhanced-photosynthesis trials” on the pothos leaves, carefully mimicking solar wavelengths. Yue Fei crouched statue-still on the sofa’s summit, violet eyes shuttered, tail-tip suspended in mid-air—deep power-save mode, i.e., dead to the world.
A true salted fish doesn’t even bother to think.
Numbed—yet weirdly fulfilled—I fished the last shard of potato chip from the bag’s ruins. Crunch. Daily ration complete. I rolled a grain of salt between my fingers, tasting the void. This is the life! Sky falling? Plenty of ceiling height up here...
But salted-fish bliss is a soap bubble—someone always brings the needle.
Just as my eyelids sealed, preparing to slide into dreamless dark—
Bzzzt!
A familiar, lazy-yet-icicle-sharp thought-wave slammed into the core of my mind like a laser-guided depth charge.
“Heeey, cute little ‘me’...” Meng Yun Xi’s voice—crystal shards in iced mint—vaporised every trace of sleep. “Lying there till even your bones melt?”
“......” Ancestor! Did my sleep-monitor grow a soul?!
“This perfect vessel—refined by my own blood, sweat, Space-Time Dragon bloodline, and Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss—reduced to a petri dish for fat colonies and inertia spores?”
Fat colonies?! Inertia spores?! I pinched my side through my loungewear. Still springy... but her words were poisoned needles skewering the blubber of my complacency.
“Look at this moon-lit skin~” Her tone turned luxury-saleswoman. “These dragon-blood-forged tendons~ This Arbiter’s body with infinite potential~” Then she snapped into head-teacher mode. “A pretty girl’s physique, zero exercise, plus high-intensity static fermentation...”
Mental image: a chibi Yun Xi melted over the sofa, buried in snack wrappers. Fast-forward x100: cheeks balloon, waist accordion-stacks, limbs puff—until she’s a gigantic white rice-cake with dead fish eyes. Caption dripping red (energy drink?): [STUBBORN-FAT WARNING! BELLY & THIGHS CRITICAL!]
“But you’ll grow stubborn flab~” Devil whisper. “The entrenched, eviction-proof kind that camps in your core zones~”
I jack-knifed upright so fast Xing Dian executed a graceful parabola off my lap.
Stubborn flab?! Core disaster zone?!
In the mirror my delicate face already seemed glazed with oil. Energy conservation—this damned universal law spares no salted fish.
“Moderate exercise is essential for elegance and power control,” Yue Fei piled on, violet eyes reopening with relish.
“Exercise? Night jog?” I whimpered. “Outside... Shadowmare! Zhao Kai! Unknown dangers!”
“Shadowmare loathe sunlight and crowds; noon or busy riverfront is safe. As for those pests...” Contempt dripped. “Perfect practice dummies. Remember the Survival Guide—‘Graceful Concealment’ isn’t hiding; it’s learning to... help them exit your sight. Power control likewise needs live reps, not theory.”
Use hooligans for reps? My eyelid twitched. But the twin terrors of Stubborn Fat + Power Overload crushed my inertia.
“F-fine!” I stood like a martyr en route to execution. “I’ll run!”
......
Night draped the city in neon jewellery.
Riverside Park near the complex: amber streetlamps, swaying trees, the black ribbon of water whispering. I hovered at the border of light and shadow, a rookie agent on a suicide op, every cell screaming for the sofa.
No disaster-grade neon pink tonight; no fish-home pajamas. Old Wei had shoved a pro-sports set at me before he left—black sweat-wicking tank, grey quick-dry jacket unzipped to the collarbone, matching leggings that... outlined every sculpted line of my legs. White sneakers. Yue Fei had corralled my cherry-white hair into a high ponytail with a black sports band, revealing the faint pink “overnight badge” on my forehead.
Sleek, crisp, energetic—if you ignored the “Wind Howls at River Yi” look of doom on my face.
“Go, Owner! Starlight boost—run like wind!” A rice-grain-sized Xing Dian hid inside my zip-pull, vibrating.
“Breathing rhythm: three in, three out. Eyes front, thoughts as dust—brush aside. Concealment on standby, negligible drain,” Yue Fei intoned, GPS-calm.
I inhaled cool air, blocked the search-light stares, copied an uncle’s warm-up swings, then bit the bullet and joined the sparse stream of joggers.
First steps: marionette-awkward, breathing ragged. Fifty metres and I was puffing. Worse, my “sweet-soft” physique was a magnet: curious, appreciative, dissecting... and one slithery slug-trail gaze that made my spine erupt.
A middle-aged jogger locked eyes, oily grin plastered on. Scalp exploding, I nearly triggered Concealment.
“Target non-lethal; visual parasite. Ignore, crush,” Yue Fei anchored me.
I stared at the lamp-lit pavement, found a rhythm. Wind brushed sweaty skin, flicked my ponytail—strangely nice. Somewhere, the dragon blood stirred, a trickle of starlight through my veins.
Not... scary? Even... fun?
“Acceptable pace. Maintain,” Yue-Fei praised.
“Owner rocks!” Xing Dian squeaked.
Mood up-ticked. I risked a glance at neon across the river, at shadowy couples...
Salted-fish doom always waits for the first ray of hope.
Rounding a dim bend I heard wolf-whistles. Three punks in cheap neon shirts, hair like spilled paint, cigarettes drooling, leaned on the railing. Yellow-hair spotted me, eyes lighting predator-green. He elbowed Redhead.
“Fuck me, look at that! Face, legs—top-shelf!”
“Baby, running alone? Come play with us!” Yellow-hair stepped onto the path, arms wide, blocking me. The other two fanned out. Stench of cheap tobacco, sweat, stale alcohol hit like a fist.
Heart crushed by an icy claw—fear and volcanic fury. Zhao Kai’s leer overlapped theirs.
Again. This. Filth.
“SCRAM!” I snarled, voice cracking with rage. I froze half a step back, right hand flashing to my jacket (Xing Dian), left hand half-curled as if to summon.
“Initiate Con—” Yue Fei began.
Too late. The instant Yellow-hair’s nicotine claw reached for me, something primordial snapped.
A cold, star-deep terror—Dragon Might—erupted. Not the polite warning at the office; this was a sun-core flare of a Higher Being insulted. For unshielded mortals, it was glimpsing the abyss of space.
“Ghk—!!” His hand locked mid-air, smile shredded into a rictus of fear. Eyes bulged, throat squeaked, body convulsed as if hammered by an invisible piledriver.
CRASH! He slammed against the metal railing, alloy shrieking inward like a punched tin can. He slid to the ground, twitching, pupils blown, crotch darkening.
Redhead squealed, dropped his cigarette, crawled backward. The third thug dropped to his knees, banging forehead on asphalt, babbling for mercy—another wet stain.
The roar vanished as suddenly as it came, leaving only the rail’s twisted grin and the stink of terror.
“M-monster... demon...” Redhead whimpered.
“Beat it.” My voice low, glacial. The Eternal Dream: Prime Abyss bracelet flared silver-blue—cosmic eye blinking once.
They scrambled away, dragging their leader, leaving a trail of tears and urine.
Only me, the wind, and the dented railing remained.
I shook, adrenaline and aftermath colliding. Wind froze the sweat on my spine.
“Owner! You okay?!” Xing Dian sobbed, light flickering.
“Power control—lost. That blast can fry mortal minds. Without last-second retraction we’d have corpses or vegetables. And...” Yue Fei’s thought landed on the warped metal, “pure physical overflow. Too dangerous.”
I stared at my unblemished palm. I’d nearly killed them.
“Ancestor...” I whispered, voice quavering, “I... can’t leash it...”
“I felt it.” Meng Yun Xi, quiet for once. “Rage is the fuse. Power needs a channel and an unbreakable rein. Tonight was a warning; next time could be annihilation. You need more than jogging—you need to tame the beast.”
Tame it? How?
Exhaustion rolled in, erasing every scrap of runner’s high. Under the lone streetlamp the city lights looked cold, unreachable. Inside this soft shell slept a cosmic predator.
I knelt, touched the dent. Bracelet answered: silver-blue mist seeped into the metal, fibres creaking, time reversing. Seconds later the railing was pristine—only a ghost of cold lingered.
Fixed. As if nothing happened.
Yet everything had.
I drew a ragged breath, turned, and jogged home—each step a leaden slog, shadow long and lonely under the lamps.