He's cheating, right?
Inside a restaurant somewhere in Changle Heaven on the Xianzhou Luofu, Wei Qing stared blankly at the card table in front of him, that thought echoing in his head.
Across from him sat a man who looked perfectly composed. His expression was as harmless as ever, yet Wei Qing could clearly feel it—the smugness and arrogance in his eyes were practically spilling over.
That man was one of Wei Qing's very few drinking-and-gambling buddies.
His name was Jing Yuan.
Yes—that Jing Yuan, the one who would one day become the next General of the Luofu.
Not long ago, the two of them had met up as usual to drink and play cards. But halfway through, Jing Yuan had casually added a new stake to the game.
Whoever lost would have to truthfully reveal a secret they'd kept buried in their heart—something they could never tell anyone.
It wasn't the first time they'd snuck off to gamble together. Sure, Wei Qing lost more often, but overall it was about a sixty-forty split. It wasn't like Jing Yuan completely dominated him.
Which was exactly why that confident look on Jing Yuan's face screamed trap.
But who was Wei Qing?
Against a mere Jing Yuan, there was no way he'd chicken out!
And yet…
Now the game was over, and this round had gone completely out of Wei Qing's control.
The reason was simple: the cards Jing Yuan flipped over were more outrageous than the last—each one more absurd, more inhumanly perfect.
He had to be running some kind of hack.
"You…" Wei Qing stared hard at Jing Yuan's hands, brows twisted tight. "Jing Yuan, did you cheat?"
Jing Yuan blinked, wearing an exaggeratedly innocent look. "How could I? You shuffled the deck. You picked the table. I didn't even touch the draw pile."
Wei Qing sneered. "You really expect me to believe that?"
"Maybe I'm just lucky today?" Jing Yuan smiled, spreading his hands.
"Bullshit!" Wei Qing slammed the table, making the deck rattle loudly. "I've never seen your luck this good. Today you're out here slaughtering gods and demons?"
Jing Yuan finally couldn't hold it in and let out a low laugh. "Fine, I admit it. I did use a little… 'trick.'"
"What trick?"
"The General's mansion has a secret, inherited card manual. I just learned it recently." Jing Yuan lied through his teeth with a straight face. "It's called 'Fate in My Hand.' All about sincerity and divine blessing."
Wei Qing: "…"
This guy was so punchable. Like, really punchable.
Taking a deep breath, Wei Qing ground his teeth. "Fine. You win. I lost."
After he said that, his gaze suddenly sharpened.
"Jing Yuan," he said in a low voice, carrying a chill that never appeared in his usual tone. "Since you won, I'll tell you that secret."
Jing Yuan lifted an eyebrow slightly. He knew Wei Qing too well—normally this guy was a carefree slacker, but once he got serious, it meant something.
"Actually, I'm an Emanator Lord of Destruction hiding on the Luofu."
"…"
Alright. Jing Yuan took back what he'd been thinking.
"Hey, if you want to wriggle out of it, at least do it properly." Jing Yuan sounded speechless. "If you said you were an Emanator of the Hunt, I'd let it slide. But Emanator Lord of Destruction? Come on."
Seeing Jing Yuan's reaction, Wei Qing could only sigh inwardly.
On his honor—he wasn't lying.
He really was an Emanator Lord of Destruction.
It was just that compared to the other "colleagues," he was… a little special.
As he'd said before, Wei Qing truly was an Emanator who followed the Path of Destruction—and he was also a transmigrator.
By now, it had been three hundred years since he'd crossed over into the world of Honkai: Star Rail.
Maybe it was a full-body transmigration?
That was something even Wei Qing couldn't confirm.
His current body looked exactly the same as before he transmigrated, but unlike the other Emanator Lords—who had been "recruited" in one way or another—Wei Qing was a lifeform personally crafted by Nanook.
An Emanator Lord born for one purpose:
To destroy Abundance.
When Wei Qing was only three years old, he forged himself a false identity.
His parents were Xianzhou merchants who traveled outside the Luofu. They died in an attack by the Abundance-touched, leaving him as the only orphan. He was then brought back to the Xianzhou Luofu and raised and educated there.
Why go to all that trouble?
The answer was simple.
If you asked which force in the cosmos hated Abundance the most, the answer was undoubtedly the Xianzhou Alliance.
And Wei Qing—an Emanator Lord whose mission was to destroy Abundance—if he "worked with" the Xianzhou, then even Nanook, his boss at the top, couldn't accuse him of slacking off, right?
But things didn't go as smoothly as he'd planned.
Originally, Wei Qing had intended to lie low on the Luofu, eat, drink, and coast through life. When he reached the age where the mara-struck condition would become an issue, he'd simply create a new identity and keep coasting.
However, when the child Wei Qing arrived at the Luofu under escort…
Lan descended.
It was a silhouette from the void—something no mortal could look directly at.
In front of everyone on the Luofu, the Aeon of the Hunt cast its gaze upon Wei Qing.
Perhaps because Wei Qing was, by nature, a being created to destroy Abundance, Lan did not eradicate him, nor drive him out—even though he was an Emanator Lord who had secretly infiltrated the Hunt's territory.
More than that—
Before countless eyes, Lan bestowed a blessing upon Wei Qing, who at the time looked like nothing more than a child.
And instantly…
The entire Luofu exploded.
After all, throughout Xianzhou history, Lan almost never cast its gaze—except when a new General took office, at which time the Aeon would bestow its blessing personally.
Yet now, an orphan who had only just returned to the Luofu was receiving such treatment.
True, Wei Qing's "blessing" seemed different from everyone else's. Rather than the kind of empowerment that other Emanators received along their Path, his felt more like Lan had stamped him with a mark.
But that didn't stop the people of the Luofu from placing immense expectations on him.
The Reignbow Arbiter must have had deep intentions!
Wei Qing still remembered the looks the Cloud Knights officers gave him that day when he was temporarily taken to the General's mansion—eyes so hot they felt like they could burn straight through him.
From that day on, he was forced to live like some "chosen one." After General Teng Xiao took him as a disciple, his schedule became packed—strategy, swordsmanship… classes stacked tighter than even the children of military families.
"Hey—what are you spacing out for?" Jing Yuan's voice dragged him back to the present. "If you can't come up with a secret, just say so. Why dodge it with a joke like that?"
Wei Qing was about to say something else when a mechanical voice suddenly rang out inside his mind.
[Detected a traitor-type host. The Super Traitor Cultivation System is about to bind.]
What?
After three hundred years of transmigrating, his late-arriving cheat finally decided to show up?!
The suddenness of it left Wei Qing stunned—but he hadn't even been happy for half a second when the system spoke again.
[The system has detected that the host's traitor identity is about to be exposed. Please follow the beginner tutorial to overcome the immediate crisis; only then can binding be completed.]
Huh?
What kind of brain-dead AI is this? He'd only said it offhand—what eye did it use to "see" his identity about to be exposed?
[To become a seasoned traitor, you must first establish a harmless persona. Only then can you conceal your identity effectively.]
[Please improvise and make Jing Yuan lower his guard, believing you are merely a 'deeply affectionate person' who loves but cannot have.]
[After completing the task, the system will bind successfully and reward the host with a beginner gift pack.]
Wei Qing's mouth twitched uncontrollably.
This "beginner tutorial" was so absurd it was borderline criminal. He was already starting to question whether this so-called system was even real.
No way… Is this Aha, the Aeon of Elation, messing with me?
"Deeply affectionate person who loves but cannot have"… wasn't that just telling him to act like a pathetic simp in front of Jing Yuan?
Still, after hesitating for a moment, Wei Qing decided to finish the tutorial first—at least to see what the "beginner gift pack" actually was before drawing conclusions.
"Jing Yuan…" Wei Qing suddenly lowered his eyes, his voice tinted with melancholy. "I really was joking just now."
"Actually… there's something I've kept in my heart for a long time. I've never had the chance to tell anyone."
He took a deep breath, gaze drifting toward the dusk outside the window. The whole of him seemed wrapped in a thin veil of sorrow.
"It's six o'clock already, isn't it?"
Jing Yuan froze, clearly not expecting the topic to swerve like that. "Uh… yeah, it's six. So?"
The next second, Wei Qing abruptly grabbed Jing Yuan's wrist. His eyes reddened, his voice trembling.
"Yeah… it's six."
"Do you think… Jingliu has eaten yet?"
Jing Yuan: "???"
When I'm typing question marks, it means either I have a problem—or you do.
Jing Yuan opened his mouth, only to find he couldn't keep up with this logic leap. What was this about his master eating or not?
"If I message her right now and ask 'Have you eaten?' do you think she'd reply?"
"I think she probably wouldn't." Wei Qing continued talking to himself.
Jing Yuan didn't even know where to start roasting him. He stared at Wei Qing for a long time, then suddenly reached out and touched his forehead.
"You didn't drink too much, did you? Your tolerance isn't usually this bad…"
"I'm not drunk!" Wei Qing smacked his hand away and stumbled back two steps.
"I really want to invite her to watch a movie… invite her to take a walk…"
"But would she agree? If she rejects me, then maybe the last thread between us… will disappear too."
Ignoring Jing Yuan's expression—like he'd seen a ghost—Wei Qing kept muttering.
"Would I be okay with that? No… I definitely wouldn't…"
"But what can I do? That's what liking someone is like—either you bravely pursue them, or you quietly grind yourself down inside, all alone."
"I want to be the first kind. But the distance between me and her… keeps getting farther."
By now, Jing Yuan's face had shifted from shock to a more complicated kind of terror. But Wei Qing didn't notice at all.
He was completely immersed in his "performance," forgetting heaven and earth alike.
"And I still can't let it go. Tell me… should I try?"
"Try picking up my jade communicator, opening her profile, and sending that one line…"
"You there?"
Jing Yuan's expression froze. What he was witnessing was genuinely earth-shattering.
He never would've imagined his friend… had fallen for his own master.
And from the look of it, he was already hopelessly in too deep.
An eerie silence fell over the room, broken only by Wei Qing's "painful" sighs.
After a long while, Jing Yuan finally forced out a question:
"…You're serious?"
But Wei Qing didn't have the time to answer.
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for successfully completing the beginner tutorial and overcoming the crisis. The Traitor Cultivation System has bound successfully.]
[As an Emanator Lord devoted to destroying Abundance, how could you lack a weapon suited for your hand? Congratulations: beginner gift pack unlocked. You have obtained the weapon 'Bai Lei · Undying Sever.' Please check and accept.]
[Bai Lei · Undying Sever: A weapon capable of severing immortality. In this world, it is a hard counter to Abundance.]
A scarlet flash streaked through Wei Qing's mind. A long blade appeared deep within his consciousness—pitch-black throughout, its edge gleaming with a blood-red sheen.
Just sensing its existence made the power of the Hunt within Wei Qing begin to boil faintly.
Good.
Whether this was a real system or Aha messing with him, Wei Qing didn't care anymore—at least it gave real rewards!
"Jing Yuan, I think I forgot to turn off the gas at home. Let's call it here for today."
With that, without waiting to see what Jing Yuan thought, Wei Qing slipped out the door.
Right now, all he wanted was to get home, study this newly bound system, see what else it could do—and properly admire his new weapon.
Meanwhile, staring at the spot where his friend had vanished, Jing Yuan still had a mountain of questions he hadn't had time to ask.
No, seriously—how did you just leave like that?
So were you just being weird on purpose…
…or do you actually like my master?
"Ahem."
Suddenly, a deep, familiar voice cut through Jing Yuan's thoughts.
He turned immediately—and saw the current General of the Luofu: Teng Xiao.
And standing beside the General was Jing Yuan's master, the Sword Champion herself—the very person Wei Qing had just "confessed" about:
Jingliu.
"!!!"
"General Teng Xiao—Master!"
"Cough, cough… you two elders, if you were coming, you could've at least told us—"
Jing Yuan's voice trailed off, because he realized both Teng Xiao and Jingliu were wearing strangely awkward expressions.
General Teng Xiao walked up and patted Jing Yuan lightly on the shoulder.
"Jing Yuan, no need to be nervous."
"We just happened to pass by… and happened to hear something rather interesting."
After saying that, Teng Xiao gave Jing Yuan a meaningful look, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
Jingliu stood to the side, expressionless. Her cool eyes narrowed faintly, giving away nothing of what she was thinking.
But Jing Yuan felt his scalp go numb. After hesitating, he still forced himself to ask, purely out of habit:
"Um… General, Master…"
"Cough… you didn't… happen to hear what Wei Qing said just now, did you?"
At that, Jingliu seemed to recall something. On her usually unruffled face, an unmistakable blush began to surface.
She turned her head slightly, revealing ears tinged red, and said in an even, calm voice:
"…I didn't hear anything."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 74)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter20)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter30)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter30)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter30)
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