After leaving Drunken Dream City, they headed north.
The further north they went, the darker the sky became, as if someone had unintentionally spilled too much ink, even the daytime carrying a gloomy, oppressive feeling. An indescribable smell permeated the air, like years of accumulated snow mixed with charred electrical wire insulation, a chilling, slightly acrid burnt odor.
Shen Qingqiu pulled her fox fur coat tighter around herself. She had "hunted" it in the forest seventeen years ago; the fox had died swiftly, its fur intact, without a trace of blood.
"Seventeen, stop." Shen Qingqiu reined in her horse.
The steed beneath her snorted, the white steam quickly dissipating in the cold wind.
Ahead lay a withered birch forest. The trunks were deathly white, covered with black, eye-like stripes. The wind howled through the forest, like countless people weeping softly.
But in Shen Qingqiu's eyes, this forest was "stuck."
The branches swayed in perfect unison, the fallen leaves shifting slightly every three seconds, as if someone were dragging a background layer frame by frame.
"The rendering load here is too high," Shen Qingqiu murmured. "Looks like there's something big ahead." Seventeen spurred his horse closer, almost touching her body. Since that night at the Red Dust Pavilion, his vigilance range had shrunk from three zhang to three inches. As long as Shen Qingqiu wasn't within his reach, his data stream would fluctuate anxiously.
"Something." Seventeen's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. The longsword, named "Severing Thoughts," had strips of fabric from Shen Qingqiu's torn skirt wrapped around its scabbard, looking somewhat incongruous, yet he treasured it like a precious gem.
"What is it?" Shen Qingqiu activated [Overclocked Vision].
The view instantly shifted. The once gray birch forest transformed into a grid world composed of green lines.
Three hundred meters ahead, a dazzling red light was moving at high speed.
That wasn't a biological thermal image.
It was a high-density energy reactor.
"It's here." Before the words were even finished, a white blur shot out from the depths of the forest like lightning!
It was a giant wolf. The size of a calf, its fur pure white, its hair bristling like steel needles. Its eyes were blood red, leaving long, red streaks in the dim forest.
"Awooo—!!!" The wolf's howl was deafening, even carrying a piercing, high-frequency metallic scraping sound.
Seventeen moved.
He leaped from his horse, his black robes fluttering in the air like a soaring eagle.
Clang!
A flash of cold light.
This time, Shen Qingqiu didn't attack; she simply watched quietly.
She was admiring.
Seventeen's swordsmanship had changed. Before, his swordplay was purely a killing technique—precise, ruthless, and using the shortest possible straight line. But now, his swordplay had gained a touch of "rhythm."
He was imitating the "Godslayer Chapter" that Shen Qingqiu had taught him—using the world's bugs to find logical breaks.
The moment the giant wolf missed its target, its body still in mid-air, Seventeen's sword tip had already touched its side, three inches away.
There were no vital points there, even covered by thick fur.
But in Shen Qingqiu's eyes, that was the "texture seam" of the giant wolf model.
*Thud.*
A soft sound.
The seemingly indestructible giant wolf, upon being stabbed, suddenly froze. Like a running machine suddenly having its power cut off.
Then, Seventeen flicked his wrist.
The massive wolf head shot skyward.
There was no gruesome scene of blood splattering as expected.
What gushed from the severed neck cavity was not warm, scarlet beast blood, but a silvery-white, viscous, heavy liquid.
The liquid fell onto the snow, not seeping into the soil, but instead gathering like mercury into round beads, refracting a cold luster in the dim light.
"Just as I thought." Shen Qingqiu dismounted and walked to the wolf's carcass.
The giant wolf's corpse was undergoing a strange transformation.
"This is also... fake?" Seventeen sheathed his sword, walked to Shen Qingqiu's side, and looked down at the mercury-like blood on the ground, his brow furrowed.
He didn't understand. In his database, wolves should bleed red blood, have internal organs, and decompose.
But this thing died like an uninstalled program.
"To the mortals of this world, it was a real demonic beast, it ate people, it bled." Shen Qingqiu crouched down, poking at the pool of silvery blood with a twig, "But to us, it was a 'battery.'"
She tossed aside the twig, took out a delicate dagger from her bosom, and skillfully dissected the wolf's chest cavity.
There was no heart there.
There was only one fist-sized, crystal-clear, rhomboid crystal.
A blue halo flowed within the crystal, like a sealed star.
"A demon core." Shen Qingqiu picked out the crystal and placed it in his palm. It was icy cold to the touch, even carrying a faint, tingling electric current.
In the cultivation world, this was called a "demon core," the essence of a demon beast. Cultivators killed demons to obtain these cores for refining medicine or embedding in magical artifacts.
But in Shen Qingqiu's eyes, it was a **"high-energy polymer battery"**.
"Want some?" Shen Qingqiu held the "demon core" to Seventeen's lips, his tone as natural as feeding him a candied hawthorn.
Seventeen was stunned.
He looked at the shimmering blue crystal, and his internal energy system instantly felt an intense craving. It was hunger, an instinctive need for energy replenishment.
Since awakening, he had been operating on his own stored reserve energy, and the battle at the Red Dust Pavilion had been particularly taxing. He was indeed "hungry."
He didn't open his mouth, but looked at Shen Qingqiu, a hint of hesitation flashing in his eyes: "Dirty."
This was dug out of a corpse.
Shen Qingqiu chuckled.
"Pretentious." She took out a clean white handkerchief from her sleeve and carefully wiped the crystal clean until it was crystal clear, no longer stained with a trace of silver blood.
"It's clean now. Open your mouth."
Seventeen obediently opened his mouth.
Shen Qingqiu's finger moved, her fingertip unintentionally brushing against his cool, soft lips. Seventeen's Adam's apple bobbed, and he swallowed the hard crystal.
Instantly.
Buzz— A faint, eerie light emanated from beneath Seventeen's skin, spreading throughout his body along his veins. His face, which had been slightly pale due to energy depletion, visibly regained some color. The previously dim light in his dark eyes became full and deep again.
[Energy replenished. Current charge: 35%] He let out a soft sigh of relief, a feeling like rain after a long drought, instantly boosting the system's efficiency by 30%.
"What does it taste like?" Shen Qingqiu asked curiously. She had always been curious about the taste of these batteries.
Seventeen pursed his lips, seemingly savoring the flavor.
"Mint," he answered earnestly, "and a little... rusty."
Shen Qingqiu smiled, reaching out to straighten his wind-blown collar.
"Let's go, there's a dilapidated temple up ahead. We'll rest there tonight, and while we're at it... study the 'ecosystem' of this world."
...Night deepened.
A bonfire blazed inside the dilapidated temple.
The wind and snow outside intensified, their howls like the roars of wild beasts. But inside this small temple, the firelight flickered, warm as spring.
Shen Qingqiu held a dry twig, drawing on the ground.
"Seventeen, look."
She drew a circle on the ground, representing the "mortal realm." Then she drew a larger circle enclosing it, representing the "cultivation world."
"What we encounter in the mortal realm are paper effigies."
"What we encounter in the cultivation world are these mechanical demonic beasts flowing with mercury blood."
She drew a line between the two circles. "This shows that while the 'realism' of the cultivation world is higher than that of the mortal realm, it's only slightly higher. It's more like a giant…resource extraction field."
She pointed to the dot representing the demonic beast.
"These demonic beasts aren't living beings. They are automated 'collecting robots.' They roam the world, absorbing polluted spiritual energy (waste gas), and then storing it in the crystals (demonic cores) within their bodies."
"And when cultivators hunt demonic beasts and seize their demonic cores, they are essentially recycling these energy blocks."
"The so-called cultivation…" Shen Qingqiu tossed aside the branch, looking at the firelight, his eyes deep, "is nothing more than an inefficient energy cycle game built on industrial ruins." Seventeen listened quietly.
He didn't really understand the complex sociological metaphors, but he understood "falsehood" and "game." He sat by the fire, the "Severing Thoughts" sword in his hand, meticulously sharpening it with a whetstone. The firelight illuminated his profile, outlining his perfect features.
"Qingqiu," he suddenly spoke.
"Hmm?"
"If the world is fake..." Seventeen stopped what he was doing, looked up, his clear eyes reflecting the flickering flames, "Then... what am I?"
He was the antivirus program for the Heavenly Dao. If the Heavenly Dao was fake, evil, then as its maintainer, wouldn't he be the biggest accomplice? Or, just a replaceable cog in the machine?
Shen Qingqiu's heart skipped a beat.
She saw a fleeting look of confusion and vulnerability in his eyes. This AI, now possessing self-awareness, had begun to ponder the ultimate philosophical question, "Who am I?"
She shifted, sitting beside him, leaning on his shoulder.
"Seventeen, hold out your hand." Seventeen put down his sword, opening his palm. On his palm, the penetrating wound inflicted by the Red Dust Pavilion had healed, leaving only a pink scar across the palm lines, like a newly formed line of fate.
Shen Qingqiu stretched out her finger and gently traced the scar.
"Look at this scar."
"It's warm, it hurts, it heals."
Shen Qingqiu looked up, her gaze gentle yet firm as she looked at him. "In those cold, hard codes, this is the 'flesh and blood' you earned for yourself."
"The world might be fake, demonic beasts might be batteries, spiritual energy might be waste gas."
She took his hand and pressed it against her heart.
There, her heart was beating strongly.
"But this heartbeat is real. The warmth of your palm is real. The fear of losing you when you shielded me from the sword was real too."
"Seventeen, whatever your purpose in being created." Shen Qingqiu leaned closer, her nose lightly brushing against his, her voice as soft as a spell:
"To me, you are not a program, not a god, and not a sword."
"You are simply my Seventeen."
Seventeen's pupils dilated slightly.
The chaotic logic circuits within the system miraculously quieted down at that moment. All computational resources focused on one point—the warmth of the woman before him.
[Definition Updated: Self = Her Seventeen.]
He grasped her hand in return, their fingers intertwined. It seemed he wanted to blend their very bones and blood together.
"Mmm."
He lowered his head, his lips gently touching her forehead. The movement was awkward, yet reverent, like performing an ancient ritual.
"I am… yours."
That night, even the wind and snow outside the window seemed to soften.
Though the walls of the dilapidated temple were weathered and worn, in the firelight, the flowing silver demonic blood no longer appeared cold and terrifying. Instead, it resembled a river of moonlight and starlight flowing on the ground, witnessing the only true refuge in this illusory world.
I examine my sword by lamplight; the sword is like flowing silver.
I hold someone in my arms; my heart is as warm as jade.
This is probably what they mean—not just martial arts, but the rest of my life.