After cleaning up and resting a while longer with Yao Yao in his arms, her clothes finally dried completely.
Once she was dressed again, the two of them gathered their things and set off to explore the secret realm in search of Qiqi.
The freezing pool they had fallen into lay deep inside a cave. The air was bitterly cold, ice elemental energy thick and lively, while fire elemental energy felt almost nonexistent.
The cave had only one way in or out. Holding Yao Yao's hand, Lu Lin stepped into the narrow passage.
Though it served as a corridor, the path was rough and uneven, showing no signs of human work—it was entirely natural. That actually reassured Lu Lin a little.
A purely natural secret realm was unlikely to have complicated traps or mechanisms. Qiqi's chances of running into serious danger were low, especially since she was already an incredibly strong zombie. Ordinary threats stood no chance against her.
He and Yao Yao had simply been unlucky enough to land in the icy pool. Anywhere else and the situation would have been far less troublesome. Still, while caring for the sweet girl beside him, he had unexpectedly won her heart—an unplanned but welcome surprise.
They walked through the twisting passage for about ten minutes before the space suddenly opened wide. They stepped out of the long tunnel and saw the full scope of the secret realm for the first time.
It wasn't large. Only two towering ice peaks stood within it, and they had emerged from inside one of them.
Outside was far colder than the cave. Fierce winds howled, carrying endless snow. Yao Yao's light clothing offered little protection against the biting chill.
"No good. It's too cold out here. I'll send you back to the Dust Song Pot first."
"Huh? The Dust Song Pot?"
As Granny Ping's disciple, of course she knew what it was—though Lu Lin's version clearly worked differently from the adeptus original. There was no time to explain. He gently sent Yao Yao inside to rest safely, then returned alone to continue the search.
The realm wasn't big. The clearest view was from the summit of the ice peaks—but climbing them was brutal. The slopes were steep, coated in ice and snow, freezing and treacherously slippery, with cutting winds that never stopped.
Even with his command over ice elemental energy, strong cold resistance, and exceptional agility, Lu Lin slipped and fell several times. By the time he reached the top he was exhausted, frost clinging thickly to his hair and eyebrows.
But the effort paid off.
At the summit lay a wide, flat platform. A strange, invisible force seemed to surround it—wind and snow stopped at the edge, unable to cross.
Outside was a frozen wasteland; inside was calm and still. Not a single flake could touch the ground.
And there—walking in slow, endless circles along the platform's boundary—was Qiqi.
The tiny zombie girl wore her usual blank, distant expression. She moved with small, stiff steps, mechanical yet somehow oddly endearing.
"Qiqi? What are you doing walking in circles?"
Lu Lin stepped onto the platform. There was no barrier—he entered easily. But Qiqi didn't react at all. She simply kept circling in her daze.
What was happening?
Lu Lin quickly recalled everything he knew about Qiqi.
Zombies follow commands. Qiqi was different—one of the rare few who could give commands to herself.
Unfortunately, her memory was terrible. She often forgot the very commands she had set, causing her body to keep obeying an old instruction while her mind lost track of what came next. That led to endless loops.
Right now, she was clearly trapped in one of her own self-made loops.
Fortunately, Lu Lin knew how to break them.
He matched her pace, walked up behind her, and gently wrapped his arms around her from behind. With complete sincerity he said:
"I like you the most."
The loop shattered. Qiqi's empty gaze slowly cleared.
"You… who are you?" Seeing his face clearly, confusion returned. She had forgotten him again.
Lu Lin smiled softly and pointed to the small notebook in her hand.
"Check your notes. My name is Lu Lin."
"Oh… notes…"
She nodded absently and began flipping through the pages. After a moment she spoke with quiet certainty:
"Qiqi… is… Big Brother Lu Lin's… girlfriend."
Huh?
Lu Lin's mind blanked for a second. He was sure he had never tricked or coaxed her into saying something like that.
How had she reached this conclusion?
"Um… can I see your notebook for a moment?"
"Here."
The pages were written in ancient Liyue script, but Lu Lin pieced it together:
When a girl and a boy are together → that makes her his girlfriend.
The boy is Big Brother Lu Lin.
...
She had simply connected the two ideas directly.
Your note-taking logic needs some work, little Qiqi!
Still… Qiqi was hundreds of years old. In her own way, she was another "legal loli." This sweet misunderstanding actually felt kind of nice.
He handed the notebook back. Qiqi tucked it away carefully, then—somewhat awkwardly—slid her small hand into his.
Girlfriends can hold hands with boyfriends. That was something she and Yao Yao had figured out together on the road. It was written in the notebook too.
If Yao Yao discussed "what girlfriends do" with Qiqi now, she would probably have a whole new list of ideas…
The thought flickered through Lu Lin's mind and vanished. Holding Qiqi's hand, he guided her into the Dust Song Pot. Yao Yao had been alone inside and must have been worried.
Because it was daytime outside, no one else had entered. Yao Yao had waited patiently in Ganyu's small building. When Lu Lin and Qiqi appeared, the two little sisters reunited with obvious joy.
But when Yao Yao saw Lu Lin's battered state—covered in cuts and scrapes from the climb—her heart ached.
They were only surface wounds. He could have healed them instantly with vital energy, but he left them for his own reasons.
Still, at Yao Yao's insistence, he let her carefully clean and bandage them before heading back to the secret realm alone. He still needed to find the exit.
Naturally formed secret realms were harder to escape than man-made ones. But the strange platform at the peak was almost certainly connected to the way out.
When he had first stepped onto it earlier, Lu Lin had noticed the fire elemental energy inside was unusually strong and warm—like spring in the middle of winter. It stood in sharp contrast to the blizzard outside.
Back then he had been too worried about Qiqi to investigate properly. Now, with time, he focused.
Lu Lin could wield fire elemental energy himself and was sensitive to its flow. It didn't take long to trace the source.
Underground.
He summoned an iron shovel and followed the elemental current, digging steadily downward. After more than three meters of effort through the afternoon, he uncovered a glowing red crystal.
It pulsed with abundant, gentle fire elemental energy—a rare and valuable treasure. Beneath it, Lu Lin felt spatial ripples. A node.
He stored the crystal safely, then triggered the node below.
The world spun violently. Once again, Lu Lin lost consciousness.