"..."

Ning Xue stared at him, half terrified, half enchanted.

"And her energy beam?" she whispered.

"Same logic, don't block, don't resist... Slice."

He gestured a clean line in the air.

"A thin blade of energy with two horizontal slips. Her beam hit the knife-edge and slid around it like water around a fin."

Ning Xue felt her entire worldview tilt.

She had always assumed the way to beat an attack was simple:

Be stronger than the attack.

He made it look like:

understand the attack → understand its direction → waste least of your own energy → let the enemy beat themselves.

And the frightening part?

It scaled perfectly.

If she learned these principles on small stones and small beams, she could replicate them at continental scale.

"Energy is irrelevant if the method is flawed," Wang Xiao said.

He looked at her then, expression soft.

"The Star System was meant to teach this. Every constellation was a metaphor for motion, not a spell pattern."

She listened intently, her earlier arrogance completely gone.

"The more stars you can stabilize, the more dimensions of intent you can handle. At three points, you control linear force. At five, you control rotational trajectories. At seven, you can store energy loops like the springs I just showed. At nine or above, you begin folding flow, turning attacks into reactions."

Ning Xue's breathing hitched; the idea was overwhelming.

"And after nine?" she whispered.

Wang Xiao smiled faintly.

"After nine, you stop counting. You start feeling. The moment you realize you don't need the stars, the moment you can imagine the shape of energy directly, that's when you graduate from the system."

She stared at him as if looking at the man who had written the physics of gods.

She finally whispered:

"…No one ever taught me to think this way."

She wasn't complaining. Just… lost.

Wang Xiao didn't reply.

He didn't have to.

Because even the tennis players who'd stopped mid-game were staring through the fence now.

One of them whispered, "Holy shit… interesting…"

And behind them,

A pair of sharp, gleaming eyes watched from the shadows.

Eyes that knew exactly what she had just been gifted.

As if they had struck gold.

Back outside the tennis court, the winter night felt sharper, almost too clean after the smoke and explosions earlier.

Ning Xue stood silently beside him, fingers brushing the cold chain-link fence, her expression unusually complicated.

"…Athene never taught me any of that," she finally murmured.

Wang Xiao gave a low chuckle, as if the thought entertained him more than it should.

"She wouldn't," he said. "To her, the Star System is… beneath you."

Ning Xue blinked. "Beneath… me?"

"Mm." Wang Xiao tilted his head, watching the night traffic pass like slow-moving constellations. "Star anchors are for stabilizing chaotic Aether. Useful for warriors, masters, grandmasters. But once you reach the levels she assumed you were destined for, Quasi Sage, Sage, Demigod, Immortal, the system becomes irrelevant. Your power is too big to fit inside borrowed shapes."

Ning Xue processed the names quietly, the ones she'd heard whispered across continents, the hierarchy that governed the world's strongest:

Warrior… Master… Grandmaster…

Quasi Sage… Sage…

Demigod…

Immortal…

Quasi-Transcended…

Transcendent (Lord class)…

Her eyes flickered.

He really did teach Velkhara.

This wasn't arrogance.

This was simply his world.

She looked at him again, this man who alternated between harassing her, saving her, scolding her, confusing her, and now casually rewriting the foundations of her knowledge.

For the first time, her heartbeat wasn't from embarrassment but… something else.

"…Why don't you teach me?" she asked softly, unable to hide the quiet hunger in her gaze, hunger not for intimacy, but for understanding. For growth, for clarity Athene failed to give her.

Wang Xiao turned to her fully, eyes deep like he already knew her question before she spoke it.

"My fees are too high."

She froze, staring at him.

He was stalling.

Every second he kept her here, under his gaze, within arm's reach, was part of a plan she didn't know existed.

A plan already in motion the moment he sent Eveline out.

A hunt far bigger than Ning Xue suspected.

Keeping her near him wasn't coincidence.

It was necessity.

A shield, and a key.

She lowered her eyes, her breath fogging in the cold.

"…High fees?" she whispered. "I can pay."

Before he could retort, Ning Xue suddenly reached behind herself, into thin air, and pulled out a handbag.

Wang Xiao froze.

'...What the hell is she carrying in there?'

She fiddled with the clasp, delicate fingers working with nervous determination, and then—

She pulled out fresh dollar notes!

Crisp! New! A full stack!

Wang Xiao stared at the bills.

Ning Xue held them up hopefully.

"…Is it… not enough?" she asked in a tiny voice, unsure, her expression like a princess trying to bribe a dragon.

Wang Xiao said nothing.

His eye twitched.

He remembered Aurora, dressed like an ancient goddess yet pulling out a modern smartphone, typing with perfect netizen speed, scrolling through apps like a bored housewife.

It was offensive.

It was irritating.

It was her.

And now her daughter, same ethereal clothing, same ancient aesthetics, was producing a stack of cash with the same innocent confidence.

Same slender fingers.

Same subtle elegance.

Same oblivious disrespect toward reality.

He exhaled slowly.

"…Come here," he said.

His voice was soft but carried seriousness.

Ning Xue blinked.

A strand of hair fell across her cheek; she tucked it behind her ear and stepped closer, unsure but unwilling to back down.

She could feel his breath now.

She didn't dare look up too directly, being this close made her ears burn faintly, a subtle pink she couldn't hide.

"…Do you need gold?" she asked hesitantly, voice low, almost shy. "If… if money aren't acceptable… I can give gold…"

She leaned a little, trying to peek past his shoulder without meeting his eyes, like a sheltered noblewoman trying to negotiate terms with a bandit king.

Her breath brushed his chest.

Wang Xiao felt a tingle... At Aurora's cursed bloodline of "ethereal goddess who somehow uses modern human tools better than humans."

And suddenly, his faint smile grew.

Before Ning Xue could decipher it—

PAK!

"Ah!" she yelped.

Someone had smacked the back of her head.

No, not someone.

Him.

And before she could recover, her eyes widened as her lips, slightly pale from winter, soft yet pink like frost-kissed candy, were suddenly claimed.

Her breath stopped as his mouth crashed onto hers, stealing the air from her lungs. She couldn't even close her lips in protest, his tongue was already inside her sweet mouth, shameless, aggressive, claiming territory he had no right to claim but every intention to.

Her whole body leaned helplessly into him as cold hands gripped her waist.

Then lower.

Then tighter.

"Who," he murmured against her trembling body, "is giving you money?"

Ning Xue nearly burst into tears.

Why is he taking me instead of the money!?

But this time, she didn't even try to say stop.

Her strength was still recovering.

Her will was a trembling little bird.

And his hands, now cupping the underside of her soft butt, made her shift awkwardly, heartbeat thundering.

He noticed, and scolded.

"What are you squirming for? You've already slept with me once. Touching you again won't rewrite history."

"…"

Ning Xue's hands shook helplessly.

She wanted knowledge.

Not… this.

She wanted training, techniques, explanations, not being held like a misbehaving concubine in the shadows of a tennis court.

But she couldn't overpower him... Not tonight.

So she stood there like a passive little statue, letting him squeeze, taste, measure, breathe against her skin.

"…Umm. Can I learn as well?" a voice piped up suddenly.

Both of them froze.

Wang Xiao turned.

A shadow detached from the darkness, then jumped the four-meter fence like it was nothing and landed in front of them.

A young woman, in a red sleeveless sports jersey, short green hair that gleamed under the lights, bright green eyes, sweat-kissed skin, and a chest that was… distracting.

Ning Xue stared at the woman's bust.

Then at Wang Xiao.

And her heart tightened strangely.

"You want a kiss?" Wang Xiao asked with genuine confusion.

"Ah? NO!" she flailed her hands. "I mean, god particle... the Aether... your explanations... can you teach me that?"

She straightened, smiled confidently, she was the tennis player from earlier, and now she was looking at Wang Xiao like a starving disciple seeing a divine master.

Ning Xue felt something twist in her stomach.

Jealousy.

Actual jealousy.

"Seats are already full," Wang Xiao said, shrugging with fake disappointment.

But the green-haired woman wasn't discouraged, she stepped closer, handed him a sleek card in an intimate manner.

"Call me if a vacancy opens."

He glanced.

A Hunter.

An elite Aether squad member.

One of the few humans who fight monsters.

She jogged off, but something about her aura made Wang Xiao tilt his head.

Weird girl.

He pocketed the card anyway.

Then he turned... and saw Ning Xue looking at him with watery, pleading eyes.

He blinked. "…What?"

She lowered her gaze immediately, embarrassed by her own reaction.

He wasn't done with her, he still needed to know about the money.

Eventually, she told him.

She received it as "thank you gifts" from people she saved.

She used it to buy snacks!

"…"

Wang Xiao fell silent. Only a hundred dollars… for saving them?

"…They've been scamming you."

"Um?" She stared. "Really?"

"Yes."

"…"

She inhaled deeply. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"I will beat them up."

Wang Xiao had no words.

Beat them up? That's your solution? Strong bullying weak?

He grabbed her wrist when she tried to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"Hm?" She blinked, confused. "But you said-"

"I didn't say you could go."

He still needed her close, part of the plan, he could not risk her wandering off.

"What do you want then?" she asked softly.

He didn't answer.

Instead, he started teaching her.

Literally teaching.

By sparing.

Or more accurately: one-sided, soul-crushing sparring.

Ning Xue regretted her life choices ten seconds in.

Every time she swung, he countered with a flick, every time she tried to dodge, he touched a pressure point, every time she moved, he corrected her with a tap that sent her spinning.

She slammed into the ground more times than she breathed.

"Stop hitting me-!"

"You asked to learn."

"This is-!"

"This is teaching."

"No it isn-"

Tap.

A gentle smack to the back of her neck.

Ning Xue went still.

Her lashes trembled once, then her entire body loosened, collapsing forward like a puppet with its string cut.

Wang Xiao caught her easily, one arm under her waist.

"Good timing," he muttered, relieved. "Here. Take her."

A soft chime drifted through the night, clear, old, like a temple bell struck in the snow.

Mist rolled in, thin snowy white threads becoming a pale sea that swallowed the tennis court's fences, streetlamps, and even the sound of traffic. Wang Xiao shifted Ning Xue in his arms and looked toward the dense fog.

A silhouette stepped out.

Silent, and sharp.