The two were discussing their plan when suddenly Lu Qiuchen appeared before them. Zhang Cheng remained expressionless, but a flicker of nervousness flashed across Leti’s face.
Lu Qiuchen didn’t initially sense anything unusual. If Zhang Cheng was just trying to raise favorability, it would be normal for the two of them to go out for a walk at night. However, she keenly noticed Leti’s guilty look after seeing her, which immediately caught her attention.
‘Why is Leti so nervous? Are they hiding something from me?’
Suspicious, Lu Qiuchen glanced at the two across from her and cautiously asked, “It’s already so late and you’re not sleeping. What are you planning to do?”
Zhang Cheng’s expression remained calm and composed, though his gaze wasn’t focused on Lu Qiuchen as he replied, “Leti just heard from the gray dwarves that it’s snowing outside. She’s never seen snow before, so I’m going to take her to see it.”
Leti quickly nodded in agreement, adding, “Yeah, I’ve never been to the surface before, and I’ve never seen snow either.”
Hearing their explanation, Lu Qiuchen found no flaw to poke at. Yet her intuition told her they were definitely hiding something. She was about to say she wanted to come along but then thought better of it, deciding she might be meddling too much.
She wasn’t Zhang Cheng’s guardian; why should she concern herself so much? As long as Zhang Cheng didn’t have ulterior motives against her, she could let him be.
Suddenly, Lu Qiuchen noticed Zhang Cheng giving her a look. When she glanced his way, he immediately turned his head. Instantly, she heard his voice in her mind: “Go away, go away. Leti’s upset today. Don’t disturb me.”
Lu Qiuchen instantly understood Zhang Cheng’s meaning. Although the relationship between these two seemed even more distant than when she last left, it was normal for couples to have small conflicts.
Zhang Cheng wanted to take this chance to mend things with Leti. If she followed them, it would only disrupt their progress.
Nodding at the two, Lu Qiuchen brushed past them.
“How’s the progress on the Celestial Fragment? You can’t forget the mission just because you’re dating!” Lu Qiuchen transmitted to Zhang Cheng as she passed by him.
“Can’t forget. It’ll be done in a few days, maybe as soon as tomorrow.” Zhang Cheng’s voice came back to her mind.
She returned alone to her room and lay down in a sleeping bag made of animal fur. As Lu Qiuchen’s thoughts stirred, the “Loael’s Gift” transformed into a slender, pale blue ribbon wrapped around her left arm.
On the first day here, the hospitable gray dwarves had prepared brand-new beds and fur sleeping bags for them. They also explained that resting naked inside these sleeping bags was warmer and more comfortable than wearing clothes.
The three of them followed the advice and instantly fell in love with the sensation of being wrapped in soft fur.
Lu Qiuchen’s tail swished softly against the smooth fur, the gentle rustling sound coming from the sleeping bag. The slight friction at the tip of her tail made her feel very comfortable. After the exhaustion of long flight, her body relaxed, and she closed her eyes to enjoy this moment of happiness.
After a long while, her tail settled down. Relaxed, Lu Qiuchen’s thoughts drifted back to the strange behavior of Zhang Cheng and Leti earlier, and a sudden wave of inexplicable displeasure rose inside her.
‘Men with other women really have no sense of decency! Lately, Zhang Cheng’s attitude toward me has grown much colder than before!’
Although she didn’t want Zhang Cheng to keep staring at her with burning eyes, it didn’t mean he needed to avoid eye contact entirely, right?
Wait, based on what he said, maybe Zhang Cheng was only pretending to get close to Leti to obtain the Celestial Fragment?
If that were true, that would be so despicable! To deceive an innocent girl’s feelings just to get a fragment! He might as well just force her!
Lu Qiuchen suddenly realized she had fallen into a mental blind spot. But Zhang Cheng wouldn’t really do that, right? It would have been easier to just force her.
‘But come to think of it, Zhang Cheng might really like Leti… He used to say he only liked mature women, yet secretly browsed those Loli Mimamama doujinshi on some unspeakable websites. So it’s possible now he’s making a move on a younger, under-thirty, exceptional Loli.’
Thinking about Zhang Cheng’s recent coldness, and how her own body curves—her pride(?)—might lose in charm to a girl just beginning to develop, Lu Qiuchen suddenly felt a faint trace of unwillingness.
Since meeting Leti, Zhang Cheng’s enthusiasm toward her had indeed cooled off compared to the beginning. She wanted this to happen, but now that it had, a bit of loss still crept into her heart.
‘Wait, what am I thinking? I don’t want Zhang Cheng to like me, yet I get upset when he goes after someone else because I feel my charm isn’t enough. Isn’t that contradictory?’
Lu Qiuchen shook her head hard, trying to throw these strange thoughts out of her mind.
‘Stop thinking about it. Better just sleep! Whether Zhang Cheng is sincere or not, as long as we get the fragment and complete the mission, that’s good enough.’
She cupped her face with both hands, found a comfortable position, and closed her eyes.
The room was very quiet, and sleep soon took her in a daze.
*****
Zhang Cheng and Leti reached the surface. Seeing Lu Qiuchen hadn’t followed, Leti turned to Zhang Cheng with worry and asked, “I think I messed up. I’m really sorry. Cecily must be suspicious of us. She came back so fast, and our setup isn’t ready yet. What should we do now?”
Zhang Cheng remained calm and reassured Leti, “It’s okay. If we don’t have time, then no preparations. We’ll act ahead of schedule. Let’s set the time for tomorrow morning.”
Zhang Cheng’s plan was very simple in concept: he and Leti would put on a show to force Lu Qiuchen into making a choice, to make her confront her true feelings.
He had initially doubted whether this innocent and exceptional girl was capable of this task. However, Leti soon proved that acting was truly an Elven racial talent.
Leti’s delivery of lines and actions was flawless, only lacking in improvisation.
That alone was enough for Zhang Cheng to feel confident about moving forward with the plan.
In fact, not long ago, Zhang Cheng’s plan hadn’t been so radical.
He knew Lu Qiuchen had undergone a dragon transformation long ago and had since developed the thinking patterns of a dragon, especially the arrogance of a great dragon.
Coupled with her formerly difficult personality, it was even harder to get her to admit her feelings. This was no easy matter.
Zhang Cheng once had a perfect plan—a slow boil like cooking a frog in warm water.
He intended to subtly influence Lu Qiuchen’s thoughts, helping her regain humanity through interaction with him. But Zhang Cheng also had a hidden goal: to make Lu Qiuchen gradually accustomed to his presence, eventually making her feel uneasy without him.
This seemingly unreliable plan relied on the partner system provided by the game.
The in-game partner system could display current information about contracted partners, including their mood, as well as other details such as behavior patterns, combat style, and even personality settings. Of course, most of these were still grayed out and unavailable. At present, Zhang Cheng could only see Lu Qiuchen’s basic and current information.
With this function, Zhang Cheng could always know Lu Qiuchen’s psychological state, while she remained completely unaware.
Lu Qiuchen knew little about many of the game’s basic features. Even though she had browsed the game forum for a while, it was mostly to check background information, let alone the knight-exclusive partner function.
So from the moment Zhang Cheng chose to enter the Eternal World dungeon, he had already resolved to win Lu Qiuchen over. Many of his subsequent actions had performance intentions behind them.
After entering the Eternal World, Zhang Cheng boldly took the initiative to get close, hoping to test Lu Qiuchen’s tolerance for physical contact when she was moved by him. Whether this was partly to ‘take advantage’ was hard to say.
The test results satisfied Zhang Cheng—Lu Qiuchen could accept some casual touches.
While searching for Leti, Zhang Cheng began testing Lu Qiuchen’s acceptance of various situations through looks, teasing words, and exposing his bare chest in somewhat suggestive ways.
The results were clear: without an emotional filter, Lu Qiuchen’s tolerance for light harassment was quite low.
Especially when Zhang Cheng lost his sense of restraint and got carried away, she even kicked him out of the carriage, the chill in her gaze making him sigh quietly at the difficulty of winning her over.
Perhaps because his earlier probing was too obvious, Lu Qiuchen became guarded toward him afterward and distanced herself. This frustrated Zhang Cheng greatly.
But combined with Lu Qiuchen’s attitude toward Leti and the feelings she revealed when Zhang Cheng concealed her past, he confirmed that human emotions and shame still affected her.
He could use his understanding of Lu Qiuchen and the system’s mood display to guess her thoughts and take actions accordingly, influencing her to preserve humanity and suppress dragon nature.
This discovery lifted Zhang Cheng’s spirits. His biggest fear was Lu Qiuchen acting according to a great dragon’s mindset.
If that happened, Zhang Cheng would only be able to control her after upgrading to Dragon Knight, relying on contract constraints and partner management commands from the system.
But that would mean his plan to save Lu Qiuchen had failed, and all he would have left was a mount who obeyed him only because of the system’s restraints—something Zhang Cheng absolutely did not want to see.
Later, Zhang Cheng met Leti. Having heard Lu Qiuchen’s introduction before, he planned to take a gentle approach to obtain the Celestial Fragment. But he never expected Leti, as a drow, to be so innocent and kind-hearted that she believed any story he made up.
This gave Zhang Cheng some guilt about deceiving such an innocent girl. But for Lu Qiuchen’s sake, that guilt vanished without a trace.
As he said before, as long as it wasn’t exposed, Leti would only think she was doing a good deed.
Then, by a stroke of fate, Leti voluntarily joined the plan. In it, Leti’s role was mainly to be deceived by Zhang Cheng and to deceive Lu Qiuchen alongside him.
However, plans always come with unexpected events. After the Leti situation, what happened next in the Delong territory caught Zhang Cheng off guard again and ruined his attempt to probe Lu Qiuchen’s past feelings through Delong.
Afterward, survivors of the Druid incident arrived in Delong’s territory. Unfortunately, both perpetrator and victim—Lu Qiuchen—were attracted by the mithril at the same time and unexpectedly met.
When the angry victim confronted Lu Qiuchen and shouted insults at her, it triggered a violent emotional upheaval inside her.
Zhang Cheng immediately sensed the anger hidden in Lu Qiuchen’s heart and feared that her dragon nature would override her humanity, causing her to act irrationally. This would only lead to greater self-blame and difficulty confronting her inner self when she sobered up.
Seeing Lu Qiuchen’s poor mental state, Zhang Cheng cursed the troublemakers silently for increasing his difficulty in winning her over. He abandoned the slow boil approach and took a direct approach to motivate her. At the same time, he added subtle hints, using her agitation to emphasize his importance, deepening his impression in her heart.
Though the motivation succeeded in preventing Lu Qiuchen from making mistakes, the situation had seriously deviated from Zhang Cheng’s original plan. He had no choice but to adjust accordingly.
Afterward, Zhang Cheng avoided facing Lu Qiuchen directly and instead grew closer to Leti. This was partly due to the modified plan and partly because he felt shy facing Lu Qiuchen.
“Even if no one else understands you, I will be by your side!” he had said to Lu Qiuchen in a moment of urgency—almost like a confession when he thought about it carefully.
But Lu Qiuchen wasn’t as shy as Zhang Cheng and treated him as always.
This was probably because she was already overwhelmed by her tangled emotions, so when she heard those words, she was just moved and didn’t register it consciously. Or maybe it was her introverted nature causing her to avoid it, pretending not to hear with her ostrich-like behavior.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Because Zhang Cheng had already decided to change the plan and launch a full-on assault.
As for Lu Qiuchen, who had long realized his intentions and tried to push him toward Leti, Zhang Cheng was fully aware of this. But to that, he had only four words: “Daydreaming.”
Zhang Cheng decided to play along, showing increasing closeness with Leti to lower Lu Qiuchen’s defenses.
The plan had been progressing well, but just now, they hadn’t expected Lu Qiuchen to return suddenly and catch them right as they were about to head out to set up the scene.
Fortunately, Zhang Cheng reacted quickly, remembering that a gray dwarf had warned them about the snow outside when they left. He used that as an excuse and managed to avoid exposing the ruse.
Since they no longer planned to prepare the setup and instead decided to advance the schedule, Zhang Cheng and Leti pretended to admire the snow outside for a while before returning to the room to rest, quietly waiting for the arrival of the next day.