"Squad Monitor, this isn't your fault."
Su Yu drew in a sharp breath, trying to keep his voice steady.
"I'm partly to blame too."
"Su Yu, there's no need to be so hard on yourself."
Fu Hua let out another helpless sigh.
"Who could have imagined that the overweening, self-proclaimed goddess—the Herrscher of the Void—would actually do something like this."
In Fenghuang's rigid, old-fashioned moral framework, Su Yu had basically been deceived by a demon with absolutely no scruples, and had even had his body and his feelings savagely "toyed with."
For a modern young man shouldering such a heavy responsibility, this was without question a humiliation of the highest order.
Su Yu stared at Sirin's profile, his expression complicated.
He felt no real pity for this overbearing Herrscher—if anything, he mostly found her to be a nuisance.
If the System allowed it, he would have rather just yanked the fuse out of this ticking time bomb directly, so he wouldn't have to live on edge every single day from now on.
But Fenghuang's words still echoed in his ears: the power of the Herrscher of the Void would be the key to breaking the deadlock in the future.
He could only grit his teeth and keep this absurd farce going.
He had to figure out what on earth was going through this crazy girl's head.
"So then, Your Majesty the Queen?"
Su Yu sat up, tugged at the torn collar of his shirt, and tried to recover that lazy, faintly oppressive tone he usually carried.
"You went to all this trouble, even stooping to imitate Eden—what exactly are you after?"
Hearing the interrogation, the somewhat dazed look in Sirin's eyes instantly sharpened.
Forcing down that weak, aching sensation, she straightened her spine, lifted her chin slightly, and tried to reclaim the dignity befitting a queen.
She had no intention whatsoever of hiding anything—there was even a kind of self-righteous arrogance in her tone.
"During the day, I saw what that woman called Eden did to you." Sirin let out a cold laugh. "Seeing that woman grind you beneath her feet displeased me greatly."
She declared it without the slightest reservation: "In this world, you may only show that expression before me. That expression… called submission—only I, the Queen, am worthy of drawing it out of you. That woman is not worthy."
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Su Yu was utterly petrified.
He looked at Sirin's self-righteous face, and an overwhelming sense of absurdity surged from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head.
So this meant Her Majesty the Queen had taken those unspeakable tussles that had happened under the desk in Eden's office during the day, and interpreted them as some kind of sovereignty-asserting ritual of submission?!
The corner of Su Yu's eye twitched madly.
What the hell kind of brain circuitry was this?!
If this misunderstanding couldn't be cleared up, did the [Tame the Queen] side quest also come bundled with a full course in human physiology and hygiene?!
Just what kind of mortal suffering was this?!
"You're serious?" Su Yu pointed at the not-yet-dried mark on the carpet. "You're calling what just happened a ritual?"
Sirin gave an unbridled smile.
"By the looks of it, my feet had you utterly intoxicated."
She even deliberately wiggled that still-damp, slender foot in front of Su Yu, her golden eyes brimming with the pleasure that came from a sense of conquest.
"How about it—so long as you kneel down and submit to me, the Queen, from the bottom of your heart, I might consider bestowing a punishment like just now upon you a few more times."
Su Yu covered his face.
This queen before his eyes, who had no idea she'd just uttered a line so heaven-defying it could ruin her completely in human society, made him want to die a little.
"Squad Monitor… is she serious?"
He ranted wildly in his mind.
Fenghuang's voice sounded, carrying an unprecedented weariness.
"I once inadvertently glimpsed the fragments of the Herrscher of the Void's memories. Her life held nothing but the cold walls of the laboratory and a hatred of Honkai. Sirin… genuinely had no avenue through which to learn anything about this subject."
"What the hell kind of queen is this? She's basically a hardcore chuunibyou who's been treating skin flicks as some secret martial arts manual to train from! My sex education is actually going to have to be deployed on the Herrscher of the Void?!"
Fenghuang did not reply.
But Su Yu could feel the deep, deep helplessness radiating from the fifty-thousand-year-old senior on the other end of the Spiritual Link.
Su Yu took a deep breath and pointed toward the bathroom.
"Listen, Your Majesty the Queen, go clean yourself up first."
Sirin blinked, a little puzzled.
Sirin frowned. She had assumed that, once exposed, this man would fly into a rage, or at least put up some indignant, flustered resistance.
But the sight of Su Yu's back right now radiated nothing but an indescribable exhaustion and weariness of heart.
But he didn't.
He just sat there, as if all his strength had been drained away, lacking even the spirit to lose his temper.
This only deepened her misunderstanding. It seemed the blow of that ritual had been utterly devastating to this man's willpower.
"Hmph."
Sirin let out a light, cheerful cold laugh, hopped off the bed, and walked barefoot toward the bathroom.
Warm water sprayed from the showerhead and streamed down the back of her fair foot.
Sirin leaned against the cold tiled wall, her toes still curling uncontrollably from some delayed physiological excitement.
She lowered her head to look at her own sole, where the heat of the trampling still lingered.
At the thought of that man just now—startled, broken, not even daring to lift his head—a secret sense of delight spread through her heart.
Looking at the face in the mirror, Sirin actually let out a soft little laugh, like a child who'd just pulled off a successful prank.
She didn't even realize it herself—this was the first time she'd made such a sound since arriving in this world.
Five minutes later, Sirin returned to the living room.
Su Yu had already gotten dressed and was sitting at the computer desk.
The cold glow of the screen lit up his somewhat haggard face, and on it were neatly arranged several media players all labeled "Study Materials."
"Come sit over here."
Su Yu didn't turn around; he patted the stool beside him.
Sirin sat down, a little suspicious.
As the play button was pressed, a man and a woman began to appear on the screen.
Sirin stared at the screen.
Her expression didn't change in the slightest.
It was just like watching an experiment report.
The woman on the screen let out a string of exaggerated sounds.
Sirin's brow furrowed—not out of embarrassment, but because it was noisy.
"What are these humans doing?"
Su Yu didn't answer.
His elbow propped on the desktop, his palm covering half his face, leaving only one eye fixed on the progress bar in the lower right corner of the screen.
The scene switched.
A new setting, a new pair.
This time the movements were even more explicit, with the camera offering plenty of close-ups.
Sirin's golden pupils tracked the images as they moved, as if following a target in motion.
"Are they attacking each other?"
"…No."
"Then what are they doing?"
Su Yu's hand slid down from his face and landed beside the keyboard.
He took a deep breath and began speaking in the tone of a kindergarten teacher explaining "why you can't stick your finger into an electrical socket."
"This is called sexual intercourse. It's how humans reproduce their offspring, and also… a way for adults to express an intimate relationship between them."
Sirin turned her head to glance at him.
"Reproduce?"
"Right."
"Like cultivating Honkai Beasts in the laboratory?"
The corner of Su Yu's mouth twitched.
"More or less."
Sirin had been indifferent at first, but when she saw the woman on the screen begin to rub a certain part of the man with the tip of her foot, her gaze froze.
She recognized this movement.
It was exactly the same as what she herself had done just now.
"So, what you're doing is teaching me… the advanced techniques for making a man submit?"
She turned her head, her golden pupils full of crystal-clear confusion.
Su Yu looked at Sirin's earnest profile and didn't even have the strength left to rant.
"Well, even so… these movements really are quite effective at making someone submit."
Sirin nodded thoughtfully.
Her understanding had been confirmed.
This was a complete technical system of submission. Eden had used the beginner's version, while what was displayed on this screen was the advanced tutorial.
Very good.
The next second, her hand suddenly came to rest on the waistband of Su Yu's pants, without any warning whatsoever.
"In that case, then let's get started quickly. Even though making physical contact with a lowly ant like you disgusts me…"
She looked up at Su Yu, a near-manic competitive drive flickering in her golden eyes.
"But I must make you understand—you're only fit to beg for mercy beneath me like a dog. Don't run, Su Yu."
"Holy shit!"
Su Yu's chair slid back half a meter, the wheels screeching harshly against the floor.
His back slammed into the wall, both hands thrown up in front of him in a stance more exaggerated than if he'd seen a ghost.
"No! No! You stop right there!" Su Yu waved his hands frantically. "You've got it completely wrong! The submission I'm talking about and the submission you're thinking of are two entirely different things! This isn't some magic move for defeating enemies!"
What the hell breed of brain circuitry is this?! One disagreement and she's going for the pants?! This is scarier than being chased by a Honkai Beast, okay?!
Seeing Su Yu looking like he was facing a mortal enemy—more terrified than if he'd seen a ghost—Sirin only smiled all the more happily.
She figured Su Yu was just desperately denying the fact that he'd been defeated by this "killer move."
Just then, the woman on the screen happened to be slowly slipping the silk nightgown off her shoulders.
Sirin followed suit. Her slender fingers came to rest on the second button of her own nightgown and peeled it open, bit by bit.
She even slightly poked out the tip of her tongue to moisten her lips, savoring Su Yu's nearly frozen expression with that half-baked, seductive look she'd learned from Eden.
"Thwack!"
Su Yu stepped right up and, without the slightest courtesy, delivered a solid, hard flick to Sirin's forehead.
"Ah! Ow!"
Sirin clutched her forehead, crying out in pain.
She widened her eyes, staring incredulously at this man who, just moments ago, had been scared half to death.
"Foolish human! How dare you raise a hand against a god?!"
"I'm stopping you from committing a crime!" Su Yu's voice cracked. "Do you have any idea what you were just doing?!"
"I'm learning what you showed me!" Sirin held the top of her head, baring her teeth. "You played it for me yourself—what's wrong with me copying it?!"
Su Yu opened his mouth.
He found, to his shock, that he couldn't refute it.
Because from Sirin's logic, what she said was completely without fault.
He was the one who played it.
He was the one who told her to watch it.
She was merely imitating.
Su Yu's hand slowly covered his face.
"Squad Monitor." He called out in his mind.
Fenghuang's response came two seconds later.
In those two seconds of silence, Su Yu could feel the deep, ineffable weariness of the fifty-thousand-year-old senior coming through the other end of the Spiritual Link.
"…I'm here."
"Is this really the right thing to do?"
Fenghuang fell silent for another three seconds.
"You're asking me—who am I supposed to ask?"
Su Yu took his hand away from his face.
Sirin was still clutching the top of her head and glaring at him, her golden eyes screaming "I dare you to hit me again."
The hem of her nightgown was twisted and bunched crookedly at her waist, exposing a strip of bare skin at her midriff.
The footage on the computer screen was still playing.
That man and woman had already shifted into a new position.
Su Yu turned off the media player.
"Listen carefully." Su Yu's voice sank low. "I showed you these not so you'd learn to do them."
"Then why did you show me these?"
"To make you understand exactly what kind of nature those things you did to me earlier really have."
Sirin's brow furrowed.
"What nature?"
Su Yu stared at her.
Moonlight fell upon Sirin's face. In those golden pupils there was no shame, no panic—only pure confusion.
She genuinely didn't understand.
Su Yu sighed inwardly.
"That wasn't submission."
"That's… something only adults can do. And it can only be done when both parties consent. What you did to me earlier, in the human world, is called—"
He paused.
"Forget it, you wouldn't get it."
"Spell it out!" Sirin's voice rose. "What is there that I, the Queen, wouldn't get?"
Su Yu looked at her.
He looked at this Herrscher of the Void sitting beside the computer desk—clutching the head he'd just flicked, bare feet planted on the floor, her whole face screaming "I'm furious but I don't know why you won't let me continue."
He suddenly felt very tired.
Not a physical tiredness.
It was that soul-deep weariness of "what on earth am I even doing."
"We'll talk tomorrow." Su Yu stood up and pushed the computer chair back under the desk. "It's too late today. Go to sleep."
"I haven't even—"
"Sleep."
Su Yu's tone left no room for negotiation.
Sirin glared at him for three seconds.
Then she let out a "Hmph," stood up from the chair, and walked barefoot toward the living room sofa.
Her footsteps made faint "pat-pat" sounds on the wooden floor—one, two, three.
When she reached the edge of the sofa, she paused.
"Su Yu."
"What?"
"That flick you gave me really hurt."
"…Noted."
"If you dare hit me again, I'll make you pay the price."
Su Yu didn't answer.
Sirin pulled the blanket over herself and lay down.
She turned her back toward the bedroom, curled up on the sofa, the blanket pulled up to her chin.
Moonlight filtered in through the gap in the curtains, falling on the ankle she'd left exposed outside the blanket.
In the bedroom, Su Yu sat on the edge of the bed, both hands braced on his knees, head lowered.
"Squad Monitor."
"Mm."
"Tomorrow I have to have a proper talk with her."
"Mm."
"About the right to use one's body, about the boundaries of behavior, about… those things."
"Mm."
"Could you please stop just going 'mm, mm, mm'?"
Fenghuang's voice came through after a two-second delay.
"Su Yu, I've lived for fifty thousand years, and I've never once encountered a situation where I had to teach a Herrscher this kind of lesson."
"So you're out of ideas too?"
"The only thing I can tell you is—" Fenghuang's voice carried a tone that couldn't quite be pinned as sympathy or gloating, "—after you flicked her just now, the way she rubbed her head was exactly the same as how Kiana does it after Theresa flicks her."
Su Yu was stunned for a moment.
"So?"
"So, perhaps your method isn't wrong." Fenghuang said. "At least she didn't try to kill you."
Su Yu flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
He let out a sigh.
This life—there was really no living it anymore.
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