Lin Wei's breakthrough to Qi Gathering Stage Five took three hours and left him feeling like he'd been beaten with hammers.
But it worked.
His Lust Core had expanded, his meridians had strengthened and for the first time since his childhood accident, he could circulate Qi without constant pain. It still hurt—his pathways were still damaged, but now it was manageable discomfort instead of crippling agony.
[Congratulations, Host! Qi Gathering Stage Five achieved! Your meridian integrity jumped to 33%! That's a 10% improvement in less than a week! At this rate, you might actually survive the duel with Huo Liang!]
"Might?" Lin Wei sighed, sitting up on his sleeping mat.
[Well, 'might' is better than 'definitely won't,' which was your status four days ago! Progress! Now get cleaned up. You have a library appointment, remember?]
Right. Mei Ling.
His first subscriber, the girl he'd made things awkward with during the livestream.
Lin Wei checked his communication jade. Her message was still there:
[@MorningDewDisciple: "Library, second floor, east wing. Anytime after lunch I'll be there. -Mei"]
It was mid afternoon now. He'd spent the morning fighting Feng Zhao and the last three hours breaking through. If she was still there, she'd been waiting for hours.
"Fuck, I'm late."
[Fashionably late! Makes you seem busy and important! Now GO. And Host? Try not to make it weird again, she's genuinely interested in your cultivation method and maybe... This could be valuable.]
Lin Wei washed quickly, changed into his cleanest robes, and headed toward the library.
The Azure Cloud Sect library was one of the few places Lin Wei actually liked. It was quiet, organized and people generally left you alone. The first floor held basic cultivation manuals and sect records. The second floor was for research and advanced texts.
He climbed the stairs to the east wing, heart hammering with nervousness that had nothing to do with cultivation.
The east wing was nearly empty, just a few dedicated students bent over scrolls and jade slips. And there, at a corner table surrounded by stacks of books sat Mei Ling.
She looked exactly like he remembered from the few times they'd crossed paths: petite, maybe sixteen or seventeen with long black hair pulled back in a simple braid. She wore oversized outer sect robes that seemed to swallow her frame, and a pair of wire rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose.
She was hunched over a book, writing notes with intense concentration, completely absorbed in her research.
Lin Wei approached quietly, not wanting to startle her.
"Mei Ling?"
She jumped, nearly knocking over her ink pot. Her head snapped up, eyes wide behind her glasses.
"Oh! Lin Wei! You... you came!" She immediately started fussing with her books, trying to organize the chaos on her table. "I'm sorry, I know I said after lunch and it's much later now, you probably had important things to do, I should have been more specific..."
"It's fine," Lin Wei interrupted gently, pulling out the chair across from her. "I'm the one who's late, I had... an eventful morning."
"I saw." Her face flushed slightly. "The stream... With Feng Zhao. At least you won."
"You watched that?"
"I watch all your streams." The words came out in a rush, then she seemed to realize what she'd said and turned even redder. "Not in a weird way! I mean...your technique is fascinating and I'm researching alternative cultivation methods for my thesis, so it's academically relevant, and..."
"Mei." Lin Wei kept his voice calm. "It's okay. Thank you for watching and for being my first subscriber."
She ducked her head, hiding behind her hair. "I almost didn't subscribe, I thought it might be spam or a joke at first but then I watched your introduction video and realized you were serious. Your father's research was brilliant, even if the sect didn't appreciate it."
Something warm moved in Lin Wei's chest. "You know about my father's work?"
"Of course." Mei looked up, her nervousness momentarily forgotten in favor of academic enthusiasm. "Lin Hao's theories on Lust Qi cultivation were revolutionary. He proposed that desire based energy could be just as valid as traditional methods, maybe even more efficient for certain meridian configurations. The sect destroyed most of his research after his execution, but I found fragments in the restricted archives. I've been trying to reconstruct his theories."
Lin Wei stared at her. "You've been researching my father's work?"
"For two years now." She pushed her glasses up nervously. "My thesis is on alternative cultivation paths for disciples with non standard meridian structures, and our father's research is crucial to understanding—" She stopped abruptly. "Sorry, I'm rambling. I do that when I'm nervous."
"Don't apologize." Lin Wei leaned forward. "I want to hear this, no one's talked about my father's work like it mattered in years."
Mei's eyes brightened. She pulled one of her books closer, a journal filled with dense notes and diagrams.
"Okay, so...Traditional cultivation assumes perfect meridian structure, right? But approximately 30% of disciples have some form of meridian damage or non standard pathways. The orthodox sects just... discard them, called them talentless but your father theorized that alternative energy sources could bypass damaged meridians entirely by using different circulation patterns."
She flipped through pages covered in incredibly detailed diagrams.
"Lust Qi—or desire based energy operates on connection and attention instead of isolation and refinement. Orthodox cultivation requires you to separate from worldly desires, but your father's method embraces them, transforms them into power. It's brilliant and terrifying to the establishment, which is why they killed him."
The casual way she said that last part made Lin Wei's throat tight.
"You really understand it," he said quietly.
"I'm trying to." Mei looked down at her notes. "But theory only goes so far, I've never seen it in practice. That's why when I saw your videos, I realized you're actually doing it. You're proving his theories work."
[HOST. This girl is PERFECT. High intelligence, genuine interest in your path, researching your father's work for YEARS. The compatibility is off the charts. You need to recruit her.]
Lin Wei ignored the system. "Can I see your notes?"
Mei hesitated, then pushed the journal toward him. "They're messy and probably full of errors, I don't have anyone to check my work against."
Lin Wei scanned the pages. The notes were incredibly detailed—meridian diagrams, energy flow calculations, theories on Qi conversion rates. It was more thorough than anything he'd managed to piece together from his father's fragments.
"This is amazing," he said honestly. "You've mapped out circulation patterns I didn't even know existed."
"Really?" Mei's face lit up. "I wasn't sure if I was just making things up, traditional masters won't even look at this research. They say it's heretical."
"It's not heretical, It's just different." Lin Wei looked up at her. "How much of this have you tested?"
Her expression fell. "None of it, I don't have the ability to...I mean I have the Qi capacity, but I can't demonstrate it. I freeze up whenever people watch me. The Annual Trials are a nightmare, I fail every year because of performance anxiety."
[DING DING DING! There it is! She has TALENT but SOCIAL ANXIETY prevents her from showing it! This is a perfect parallel to your situation! Both outcasts for different reasons!]
"I understand that feeling," Lin Wei said. "Different problem but I know what it's like to fail publicly year after year."
Mei nodded, looking miserable. "Everyone thinks I'm talentless, but I'm not. I just... can't do it when people are watching. My Qi freezes up, and I panic. It's pathetic really."
"It's not pathetic, It's a real problem with a real solution." Lin Wei made a decision. "What if we worked together?"
She looked up sharply. "What?"
"You have theoretical knowledge I don't have, I have practical experience you can't get alone. What if we collaborated? Test your theories, refine the methods, document what works."
[YES! EXCELLENT! Now suggest content collaboration! Get her on camera!]