The husband tugged at his wife's sleeve, whispering a few words. The wife nodded thoughtfully.

  Moye stepped closer. Ling's spiritual sense touched the core, and immediately it was surrounded by encryption runes so complex they were nauseating, glowing with golden light.

  "The whole body's scrap metal, but this one chip is made from top-grade divine materials. There's definitely something fishy in there."

  Moye was about to start when Ling turned to Gann beside her:

  "Oh right, man—you probably can't help with the runes. My little subordinate outside is still running naked, and I'm completely in the dark. Go arm it up for me. Install a spirit-link."

  "My Pouch password is 'Ling kills kills kills.' There's junk I just stole inside—see what materials you can use."

  The moment Gann heard there was hardware to play with, his eyes lit up. He nodded without a word and was promptly booted out of the Spirit Platform by Ling.

  Only Ling and Moye remained.

  Moye circled the encrypted core twice, frowning:

  "The encryption algorithm here is the highest level—'Heaven-Earth Resonance Lock.' By conventional means, it'd take three to five hundred years to crack. However…"

  A cunning glint flashed in her eyes, like she'd thought of something devious:

  "We don't have the proper key, but… want to try the Solomon Deconstruction Probe?"

  Ling raised an eyebrow: "That 'skeleton key' you mentioned before?"

  "Hmph. East, west, north, south—everyone's too busy looking down on each other's 'tricks' to lower their noble heads and look around. Result? The East's layered barriers can't stop the West's strange variables. The West's deep swamps can't catch the South's fireflies streaking across the sky."

  Ling slapped her thigh: "Do it! I love fighting dirty."

  Moye took a deep breath, hands forming a complex hexagram seal. Her spiritual sense vibrated with obscure syllables as a dark red beam drilled into the core's protective barrier.

  Sure enough, the barrier didn't recognize it as an "attack"—didn't even trigger an alarm. The red light sliced through like cutting tofu, tearing open a gap.

  "Zzzzt—"

  At first, the golden light showed no reaction. But seconds later, black spots began appearing on the previously perfect golden membrane—signs of logic being "corroded." A tiny crack was slowly opening.

  "It's working!" Moye's face lit up. She increased output.

  But just then—

  "HUMMMM!!!"

  The core seemed to sense the intrusion. The golden light suddenly surged! A massive repelling force crashed back like a tsunami. That little crack was about to heal—even threatening to devour Moye's spiritual probe in reverse!

  "No good! The pressure's too much!"

  Moye went pale, soul trembling: "I can't hold it! It's closing!"

  This was the limit of a mortal soul. No matter how skilled the technique, if soul-strength wasn't enough, collapse was inevitable.

  "Move."

  A voice, calm to the point of coldness, sounded in her ear.

  Ling stepped forward, blocking Moye.

  Facing the surging golden divine counterattack, Ling didn't retreat. Instead, she bared a feral grin.

  "You want intensity?"

  Ling's hands plunged into the closing crack.

  "…OPEN!!!"

  Pure abyssal soul-pressure erupted, forcibly tearing a black fissure through the self-repairing firewall.

  "Moye! Insert the probe! NOW!"

  "Copy!"

  Moye's hands flew. A dark red probe shot through the gap Ling held open, stabbing deep into the core.

  The sharp probe acted like a spatial rift, forcibly bridging perceptual boundaries. The world inside the core—raw, uncompressed data—came threading out like beads on a string.

  "It's all garbled code… no wait, high-frequency interaction logs."

  Moye's forehead was beading with sweat: "This is an encrypted 'behavior log.' Let me parse it…"

  Countless fragmented pink motes of light began materializing in the nexus.

  "AAAHHH!!!"

  "MY EYES! MY EYES!!"

  Both screamed in unison, clawing at their faces and scrambling backward, as if they'd witnessed something absolutely eye-scorching.

  "FUCK! SHUT IT OFF!"

  Everything Moye had parsed was drenched in rose-pink suggestive atmosphere.

  In those data records flashing past like a slideshow, scene after scene made faces burn—【Celestial Maiden's Prayer: Dream Chamber】wasn't any legitimate devotee worship function. It was a customized "dual cultivation" hotel.

  In those images, this Maiden body was engaged in "deep exchanges" with all manner of cultivators across various settings. And the one appearing most frequently? None other than that prim and proper, smooth-as-white-jade—Wei Xu.

  "Holy shit…" Ling dry-heaved. "So this 'Celestial Maiden' was just… 'premium delivery' built to service these old perverts?!"

  "No… wait. Ling, look closer."

  Moye forced herself to endure the visual pollution and looked again, expression turning grave:

  "Those men and women… their states are all wrong."

  In slow motion, it was clear: those cultivators writhing atop the body—regardless of cultivation level—all had their souls in some eerie "haze" state at the moment of climax. Threads of pure essence were flowing through the contact points, being continuously siphoned into the body—into this core.

  Moye gasped: "This is a juicer!"

  "It's a high-level harvesting trap dressed up as erotica."

  Ling rubbed her chin, eyes cold: "No wonder… if it were just a power-sex transaction tool, it wouldn't warrant a core this advanced. Wei spent big money on this lock to keep whatever he'd 'eaten' locked inside."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "This is trouble." Moye's brow furrowed: "We barely poked it and got this much dirt. Who knows how much more is in there, how far it reaches. But with this volume of data, going through it one by one would take forever…"

  "And we're stuck in a loop: your meridians are too fragile. If we unlock the core all at once, energy and data will flood out together—your body's dead for sure. But if you want to upgrade your hardware—"

  Moye pointed at Ling's right eye:

  "—look, that premium upgrade you installed yourself? Same problem. The core can't power it, and it'll fry your brain instead."

  Ling was thoroughly frustrated, thoughts scattering: "Can't do this, can't do that…"

  "Wait. Something's off."

  Ling suddenly narrowed her eyes, pointing at an inconspicuous dark gold thread running beneath those pink data streams:

  "We haven't reached bottom yet. Why does this line's data throughput spike every time an 'interaction' ends?"

  "Pull out that dark thread!"

  Moye did as told, hooking it with her finger to strip away the "pink camouflage."

  The next second, the pink faded.

  What had been titillating dual-cultivation records instantly bared vicious fangs—this wasn't simple spiritual harvesting. These were account ledgers!

  Every cultivator who'd "visited," at the moment of climax when their souls lost guard—their purest spiritual energy and trace amounts of Merit were silently siphoned away by this body.

  Ling stared at those underlying runes and formulas, voice low: "Merit Leverage Protocol."

  Moye drew a sharp breath, voice trembling:

  "This isn't harvesting… this is Merit laundering!"

  Ling pointed at the dizzingly complex logic diagram floating in the air:

  "Looks like this algorithm takes siphoned 'retail merit' and feeds it into the underlying computation pool. Using the Court's 'inspection-exempt privileges' for this vessel, it runs a hundred-times leveraged amplification. Then it converts the output into clean 'official spiritual energy' and pipes it upstream… meaning Wei!"

  "He's stealing the Court's electricity to launder his own money!"

  "This core… is basically an automated Merit mining rig!"

  Ling's eyes lit up instantly. Terrifyingly bright.

  She'd thought she'd picked up a piece of junk. Turns out she'd found Wei 's black ledger—maybe even a money printer.

  "So that's how it is…"

  Ling stared at the "inactive zone" that occupied ninety-five percent of the core, currently grayed out and locked.

  "Of course. Behind every seemingly irrational action, there's always an extremely rational reason."

  Ling licked her lips. An unprecedented greed and ambition was spreading wildly through her heart.

  Before, she'd wanted to upgrade this body to stop getting pushed around.

  But now, the game had changed.

  If she could upgrade this body's "hardware"—swap out those fragile plastic-tube meridians for high-pressure "alloy pipes"…

  She could restart this Merit leverage system. and then the spiritual energy of the world was something for nothing.

  When that happened, would she still need to carefully ration her blue bar and fight for combat power with these people?

  She would be the capital.

  What kind of capital needs to flex its muscles in person?

  "Interesting… way too interesting. Let's see that old fossil try to lecture me about 'Merit and the Heavenly Dao' again."

  Ling gazed at that obsidian-like locked core as if looking at a mountain of gold that belonged to her.

  "Moye." Ling turned her head, tone no longer playful but carrying the gravity of a business partner. "This deal just got a lot bigger."

  "I want this core running at full power."

  "We need raw materials. The hardest, most durable stuff—materials that can carry infinite desire."

  Ling's gaze seemed to pierce through the walls, looking toward the distant south, to that bottomless dark place:

  "Looks like I've got more than one thing to take care of."

  Moye was shaking with excitement, unable to speak. She hadn't recovered from tonight's sudden revelations.

  As a former member of the Court, she understood better than anyone how massive this deal was—and how dangerous. No different from putting your head on the chopping block.

  Ling didn't ask if she wanted in. As if completely certain—Moye wanted to reclaim what was hers just as badly.

  "Ding—"

  A crisp notification chimed deep in Ling's Platform, followed by an absurdly chuunibyou announcement:

  [Spirit-Link Connected: Nine Heavens Mysterious Universe First Ghost-Eye General · Infernal Overlord Infernal · Supreme Edition (v2.0)]

  Ling and Moye exchanged glances and simultaneously facepalmed.

  "…Excuse that. That idiot is acting up again."

  Ling waved her hand, closing that eyesore of a "Prayer" backend: "Whatever. Let's go see what Gann came up with."

  Outside.

  Ghost-Eye's Anchor—the gold-rimmed glasses—had been completely transformed.

  The previously rough frame had been polished smooth and gleaming, so light it seemed weightless. That awkward core protrusion had vanished entirely, merged into the temple arms.

  The lenses shimmered with an strange blue-violet iridescence.

  "I've basically reforged the whole thing from scratch." Gann wiped his hands while launching into chatterbox mode—apparently venting years of pent-up frustration:

  "I can't stand the Court's bullshit! Always playing with vague mystical jargon—'merit fulfilled,' 'all is predetermined,' 'heaven-human resonance.' It's like teaching someone to cook: afraid they'll actually learn—'heat the pan, add oil, salt to taste'—but never telling you what heat level, how many minutes, how many grams!"

  He pointed at the glasses, eyes gleaming with fervor:

  "Cultivation is just precise energy calculation. Back in the day, I could scan any cultivator with my custom magic array and see their exact 'ingredient list'—what pressure forms a golden core, which acupoint triggers nascent soul breakthrough, everything crystal clear. Too bad I'd barely gotten started when the Court nabbed me. Fucking hell…"

  "Here, try this low-spec version first—"

  Ling put on the glasses.

  The world became clearer. Not in image resolution—but the previously chaotic, unfiltered world was now organized, labeled, refined.

  Two floating frames appeared above Gann's head:

  [Instantaneous Output Peak: ×5.2 (Dangerous)]

  [Minimum Defense Value: ×3.1 (Solid)]

  [Collapse Risk: 65% (Severe Sleep Deprivation)]

  "He can't process too much information at once right now," Gann explained. "Can only parse the most critical data. The first two are comparative ratios between you and your opponent—your current real-time stats are calibrated as the 1.0 baseline, showing how much the opponent exceeds you. The last one is their 'collapse threshold'—basically their health bar. Though right now it can't tell whether they'll experience physical shutdown, soul formatting, or karmic overflow first."

  "But this is just a demo reference. Sample size is too small, the model hasn't smoothed out yet, margin of error could spike anytime. You need to take it out, let it see more, find some tough opponents to bump against. Feed it data."

  Ling ran her fingers along the cool metal texture of the frame: "Ghost-Eye's presence seems completely hidden. This craftsmanship… reminds me of those short guys from the West?"

  "Flowing Gold Seal." Gann didn't deny it, a hint of melancholy in his eyes. "Too bad I only picked up the basics back then. Now with my immortal body stripped and memories confiscated, all I have left is muscle memory… A lot of things I can envision but can't execute."

  The room fell into brief silence.

  The end of a hero's road probably felt like this.

  …

  Ling stood up and stretched.

  Finally, like a blind person opening their eyes, she could see. Still a weakling, sure, but at least she knew exactly how weak. And how much health bar the enemy had left.

  She picked a few crucial chapters from the Manual and transmitted them to Ghost-Eye via spirit-link: Hey, quit showing off that title. Finish these or I'm stripping you down.

  Before Ghost-Eye could react, three massive chapters slammed into him:

  [MODULE I: On Discrete Convolution of Karmic Signals and Spiritual Pressure Phase Reorganization]

  [MODULE II: Gradient Descent Exercises for Consciousness-Sea Bandwidth and Spiritual Energy Topological Features]

  [MODULE III: Fitting and Filtering Standards for Cross-Dimensional Fate Data Under Mysterious Ultimate Interaction Protocol]

  The temple arm trembled, and Ghost-Eye's tearful wail came through:

  "Heavens above… more online courses?? They say unfinished business always haunts you—am I just destined to be force-fed studying life after life?"

  "What kind of East Asian ghost are you if you aren't studying? You're a disgrace to the afterlife!"

  Ling ignored his sobbing, waving goodbye to the couple.

  "Alright, thanks."

  "My inbox is about to explode. If I don't get back, a certain coward's gonna piss himself."

  She turned to leave.

  Moye hesitated. "Um, the… the Manual…"

  Ling put on a "suddenly remembered" expression, secretly laughing. She casually grabbed paper and pen from their shop and signed her name. Flashed a peace sign at Moye: "Quick, take my picture."

  Moye was confused but complied.

  Ling smiled and handed over the signed paper: "Print this out later, put it on a shrine, and you'll count as my devotees. Burn three sticks of incense daily, and you can access the 'Dream Chamber' anytime to read at your leisure."

  The unspoken second half— and do free labor for me while you're at it.

  "You two—one the greatest talisman master, one the greatest forger. Just because you learned some new techniques, they stripped your immortal bodies, confiscated your skills, and dumped you in the Abyss. I don't believe you're really content with this."

  She walked to the door, waving over her shoulder, voice carrying its usual mockery:

  "If you've still got any fight in you, figure out how to start over. Don't let me come back next time and find you still printing flyers."

  With that, Ling pushed through the door and vanished into the night.

  Inside, the couple stared at the doorway for a long time without speaking. The fire in their eyes seemed rekindled by this small spark.

  After a moment, Moye suddenly remembered something. She looked at the signature on the paper. Below it was a small note:

  Enshrining this divine image automatically enables "Meditation Mode Access." No permissions required. Direct dream connection.

  Moye froze.

  She recalled how she'd just been prostrating, face pressed against that filthy floor.

  A roar tore through the pre-dawn alley:

  "YOU BITCH—!!"

  "A direct link was possible all along?! You petty, grudge-holding evil ghost! You were just trying to get back at us, weren't you?!"

  From the far end of the alley came a burst of wild, triumphant laughter.