Chapter 342: Skill

Chapter 342: Skill

Qi Yi intermittently listened to the commotion on the other side. Lu Liu's end fell silent for a moment, as if he were diagnosing the situation, before the guide spoke: "Help him sit up. I’ll begin the stabilization now."

Grey Wolf hastily complied.

A few more minutes passed, and intermittent gasps of pain came through the headset, as though someone was struggling to endure it. Unable to hold back, Qi Yi stood up.

The sentry Grey Wolf had brought was someone Qi Yi recognized—a junior two years his junior, whose Spirit Sea was highly unstable, teetering on the brink of mental collapse and too fragile for even minor strain.

Qi Yi remained skeptical about the guide. Worried that Grey Wolf might have been deceived and led astray, he decided to check the situation himself. But before he could step out of the observation room, another gasp sounded.

"Ungh..."

The sentry fought his way back to awareness.

Lu Liu withdrew his hand and gestured to Grey Wolf to support his friend. "It’s done."

The sentry opened his eyes dazedly and managed to utter two hoarse words: "You are..."

"I'm a guide," Lu Liu replied, "I just stabilized your Spirit Sea. Avoid stress recently, rest and recuperate. It won’t relapse for a while."

Still groggy from waking, the sentry hesitated between gratitude and wariness when Lu Liu added, "There’s a rule for stabilization here—I have to place a mental suggestion on you."

At those words, the sentry shuddered, his entire body tensing as he stared at Lu Liu with deep suspicion.

No rogue Dark Sentinel would fail to dread a mental suggestion.

This thing was like an eraser or correction fluid, capable of arbitrarily altering memories. A sentry's Spirit Sea in the hands of a high-ranking guide became nothing more than a malleable puppet. The White Tower had once seen many guides planting suggestions in sentries' Spirit Seas, forcing them to surrender their bodies, wealth, or even worse things.

Grey Wolf patted him reassuringly. "Relax, it’s a very simple suggestion."

"Right," Lu Liu said flatly. "I’m just making sure you can’t tell Qi Yi that I stabilized your Spirit Sea."

"?"

"?"

On both ends of the surveillance feed, Qi Yi and the sentry fell into simultaneous silence.

Qi Yi thought, *Why?*

A mental suggestion could be used for many things—demanding a sentry's entire fortune, making them renounce their ideals and betray their organization, or even making them obsessively love the guide like moths to a flame, burning themselves to ashes without hesitation. But in return, the guide also paid a price—frequent use of suggestions would accelerate the backlash on their own Spirit Sea.

In short, no one would waste such a suggestion on something so petty.

Nearly as stunned as Qi Yi, the sentry beside Lu Liu finally spoke up: "Why?"

Hearing this, Qi Yi set aside everything else, focusing intently on the conversation.

The guide, however, simply said, "No reason. Just the rules here. If you don’t believe me, go kidnap a few other guides and ask them."

This was a method devised by a rogue sentry years ago. Since only guides could detect anomalies in the Spirit Sea, when sentries suspected suggestions after stabilization but couldn’t confirm it, they would leverage their superior combat strength to abduct seven or eight guides, locking each in a separate cell. Then, they’d force them to examine whether there was a suggestion and what it entailed, documenting their findings on paper. Anyone who falsified their report would be dragged out to be executed. By cross-referencing the diagnoses, they could reach a conclusion.

Without giving the sentry time to hesitate, Lu Liu raised his hand and pressed it against his forehead, implanting the suggestion.

After half a night of exertion, Lu Liu was growing weary. Once the suggestion was in place, he dismissed them.

The sentry staggered a few steps before steadying himself. Though his Spirit Sea still ached faintly, he was in much better shape than when he’d arrived.

The grey wolf steadied him and bowed to Lu Liu in thanks.

The sentinel hesitated for a moment, then also bowed.

Lu Liu sidestepped the gesture. "Just a small favor—no need."

He sent the two sentinels away and prepared to sleep.

But in the control room, someone was keeping him awake for two nights.

Qi Yi was at a complete loss, completely baffled by Lu Liu’s intentions.

He tossed and turned from the bed to the window, then to the stool by the console, before suddenly checking the surveillance feed and locating his leopard.

Ever since releasing his Spirit that day, the cheetah had acted like a stranger to its owner, never returning—either circling around Lu Liu or wandering the ship. Now it was curled up by the cell door, belly exposed, sleeping soundly. Qi Yi had nearly forgotten about it.

So, in the midst of its slumber, Caesar sensed it was being moved—and the next second, it saw its scowling master.

It shrank its neck slightly and let out a rather feeble meow.

Qi Yi: "I need to ask you something."

With that, he scribbled two notes—one saying "Yes," the other "No"—and laid them flat at the cheetah’s feet.

Ever since the White Tower cut his link to his Spirit, he and the cheetah had been unable to communicate, forced to rely on simple methods.

Qi Yi: "When I was at the White Tower, did Lu Liu come up behind me to stitch me up?"

The cheetah gave him a disdainful look, as if saying, "Took you long enough," then lifted a paw and stepped on "Yes."

Qi Yi: "He entered my Spirit Sea but didn’t do anything to harm me?"

The cheetah lifted its paw again, tapping "Yes."

Qi Yi: "He treated you well in the Spirit Sea, so you latched onto him and even brought him food in the middle of the night?"

The cheetah pressed "Yes."

"..."

After a moment of silence, Qi Yi took a deep breath. "You like him."

Without hesitation, the cheetah raised its paw and firmly pressed "Yes," its golden-brown eyes fixed intently on its master, pupils reflecting unwavering seriousness.

The sentinel pressed a hand to his forehead.

The cheetah was Qi Yi’s subconscious. No matter how much he refused to admit it, they were one and the same.

No wonder he’d been unconsciously paying attention to the guide lately, like some creepy stalker. No wonder he couldn’t bear to see the guide overworked and had the grey wolf assign him lighter tasks. And no wonder, after falling asleep... the guide’s figure appeared in his dreams.

So, for the rest of the night, Qi Yi lay awake again.

After two sleepless nights, he hauled himself out of bed with massive dark circles under his eyes—only to find the guide bouncing off to scrub the deck again.

Lu Liu had absolutely no sense of being a prisoner, nor did he care. With the grey wolf handling his duties, he roamed the deck, eager to help every attractive guide who asked for his assistance.

That night, the sentinel he’d treated the day before brought another sentinel, shyly asking Lu Liu for help. Lu Liu didn’t refuse, giving him a Spirit Sea tune-up as well—along with the subtle mental nudge.

This went on for several days, and Qi Yi stayed awake for just as long. Unable to resist, he began appearing frequently around the guide, lingering just out of sight in the shadows where Lu Liu couldn’t see him, watching as the guide bantered and laughed with everyone, his messy tuft of hair swaying in the wind—ridiculously cute.

However, Lu Liu was still picky and refused to eat.

The starship’s food was downright awful, and the prisoners' meals were even worse—boiled greens with mystery meat. Every mealtime, the cowlick on Lu Liu’s head would sag dejectedly.

He! Really! Didn’t! Want! To! Eat! A! Single! Bite!

The system, figuring it was living on borrowed time, figured skipping meals didn’t matter—after all, he wouldn’t starve before completing the mission. So he gave up trying, taking only a couple of bites per meal before stubbornly refusing to open his mouth again.

Working during the day, running mental calibrations at night, and refusing to eat properly, the guide visibly grew thinner.

Already lean to start with, losing more weight would truly push him to the brink of starving himself to death.

Qi Yi couldn’t take it anymore.

After two days of eavesdropping on Lu Liu’s sleep-talk, he discovered the man kept murmuring, "Chocolate cake."

The starship was docked outside the main city, no way to get fresh cake—anything delivered would spoil long before arrival. The ship only carried the most basic provisions.

After some thought, Qi Yi ordered ingredients online.

They had their own backdoor supply lines to bypass inspections and procure goods from the main city, though delivery took a while.

Three days later, frozen butter, cocoa powder, gelatin, and heavy cream arrived on the starship, along with an oven and a mini fridge.

Qi Yi stashed them in his quarters.

—He absolutely didn’t want gossip spreading like crazy about the leader of the Dark Sentinels sneaking out in the middle of the night to make cream cakes.

So that night, he bolted his door tight and sneakily pulled up a forum, searching for a tutorial on how to make cream cake.

It didn’t seem too hard.

Qi Yi had cooked as a child. He was adopted at the age of ten by a family with an older brother who had just been admitted to the Sentinel Academy. With both parents busy, he often stayed home alone, perched on a stool to cook.

But desserts were different from regular home-cooked meals. The sentinel toiled away, sweat dripping down his brow.

He never knew something so soft and sweet could be this tricky—the mixer nearly blasted cream everywhere. In the end, he had no choice but to sneak into the kitchen and grab an apron.

—To avoid laundry duty the next day and tipping off his deputy.

But when Qi Yi held up the apron, he found it laughably tiny.

The apron belonged to the logistics staff, and its size was a terrible mismatch for a sentinel’s build—especially how uncomfortably tight it was across the chest.

Qi Yi gave it a once-over before reluctantly accepting his fate.

Two hours later, covered in cream, he pulled out a Frankenstein’s monster of a cake.

The sentinel hadn’t bought a piping bag, nor did he care for fancy decorations, so he just slathered on a messy layer of cream as a "design." He also didn’t have a sieve, so the cocoa powder was sprinkled haphazardly. In short, the cake was lopsided, aesthetically questionable, and worlds apart from the exquisitely decorated, fondant-engraved cakes provided by the White Tower.

Qi Yi thought, "Take it or leave it. This is the best I can do."

He scooped the cake into a metal basin and summoned his wandering cheetah.

The cheetah blinked its clear, innocent eyes at him in confusion.

Qi Yi pushed the basin toward it. "Here. Take this to him."

The cheetah tilted its head, visibly puzzled. "Meow?"

—For Lu Liu. You wouldn’t want to poison him, would you?

Qi Yi scoffed. "Just deliver it. Quit overthinking it."

He kicked his mortifying Spirit out the door and locked it with a click, then turned on the video feed.

Three minutes later, his disgraceful Spirit, wagging its tail and clamping the bowl in its jaws, clattered up to the prison door.

Caesar lifted a paw and tapped the bars of the cell.

Lu Liu looked up and recognized him, and stood. "It's you."

Since Caesar couldn’t cook, all it could do was sneak him cucumbers and grass every day, making him so veggie-starved he was seeing green. Lu Liu was completely underwhelmed.

As usual, he scratched the cheetah behind the ears and glanced at the basin it had pushed toward him.

Hmm… Hmm?!

The cake was dusted with cocoa powder and drenched in thick chocolate, looking like a complete mess. Lu Liu picked it up and stared at it for a long while, his cowlick curling into a visible question mark.

The hell is this?

Since when could Caesar bake?

Wait—A chocolate cake, no less???