146 The Talk

146 The Talk

Alice was feeding me grapes.

Not just any grapes. These were qi-soaked, high-grade spirit grapes, the kind that grew in the mist-drenched hills of the Empire’s interior. I could feel the energy dancing in my veins with every chew.

“Open,” she said softly.

I did. A grape rolled past my lips, and I chewed slowly as I leaned against her lap, the slow rise and fall of her breath brushing against the back of my neck. It was therapeutic, sure. Luxurious, even.

But it was also killing me inside.

“I should go,” I muttered between bites. “Egress can get me back to the Imperial Capital in under a minute. I can speak to the Emperor, get access to the Grand Ascension Library, research resurrection techniques… and do stuff...”

She popped another grape into my mouth before I could finish.

“Chew,” she said flatly.

I tried. Really, I tried.

But I’d barely taken a breath as I tried to stand up... when she suddenly gripped my throat, not with lethal intent, just firm enough to lock me in place. The grape got caught halfway down my windpipe, and I sputtered, eyes watering as I forced it down.

“C-careful!” I croaked.

“Then don’t move,” she replied, her voice calm and almost gentle. “Rest, David. Please.”

I sank back down, defeated more by her eyes than her hand. From my peripheral vision, I noticed the Phoenix Guards nearby. Captain Xue’s elite all-women unit had gathered near the helm, pretending to check instruments while clearly sneaking glances. One of them snorted. Another actually giggled.

I tried to look dignified. It didn’t work.

Lu Gao sat cross-legged by the ship’s bow, fully immersed in his Mana Road Cultivation. Mana particles gathered around him in swirls, and his brow was furrowed in intense concentration. He was growing. Fast.

I wished, I had the same kind of talent…

In the far corner, Hei Yuan was bickering with Jin Wen, something about the future of their clan, the morality of allegiance, and whether they should focus on consolidating influence within the Empire's heart or stay neutral.

All that political nonsense faded into background noise.

Because right now, all I could see was her.

Alice.

Her eyes were brighter than usual, less blood-red and more amethyst-violet under the ship’s golden lighting. I stared up at her, trying to piece together everything that had happened. “You do know you’re feeling like this because of a side-effect of Divine Possession, right?” I said quietly. “I figured… that has to be the reason. It's not like I really need rest.”

She looked down, not denying it.

“I know.”

Her fingers brushed against my jaw, tracing the line of my cheek. There was a softness to her touch: tentative and confused. Like she didn’t know whether to hold me tighter or let go entirely.

“It felt good,” she confessed.

She wasn’t talking about the lap pillow or the grape-feeding.

“Being understood… the way you did, back there. In my soul. In my past. No one has ever seen me like that.”

I listened. I didn’t interrupt.

“Vampires,” she continued, her voice almost clinical, “don’t feel pleasure. Not the way humans do. Our bodies can simulate lust, affection, even ecstasy, but it’s artificial. Skill-based. Blood-borne. A lie we weave to mimic what we’ve lost.”

She exhaled, and I felt her breath skim across my skin.

“We’re infertile. Emotionally truncated. We feel rage, loyalty, obsession... but joy? That’s... not something we get to have.”

My throat tightened.

“So,” she whispered, “when I say it felt good… I mean too good. I think your skill broke something in me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Divine Possession wasn’t supposed to cause this much of a shift. But maybe with Alice, someone already half on the border between sentience and sanctity, it had done more than just resonate.

It had connected.

She looked down at me, and for a moment, her expression was unreadable.

“Don’t fix it,” she said finally. “Not yet.”

“Alright,” I murmured. “I won’t.”

We stayed like that a little longer. No more grapes. No more words. Just silence, and the steady hum of the Soaring Dragon flying us back to the world that didn’t care how tired we were, at least mentally tired.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “For still not finding a cure.”

Her hand paused mid-stroke, just barely touching my hair. I didn’t dare look up.

“I know I said I’d work on it,” I continued, staring somewhere off into the cloud-washed sky above us. “But I haven’t. Not really. It’s been… easier to pretend it wasn’t urgent. Like some optional side quest with no timer. Just something I could circle back to, eventually.”

A long silence followed. Then she spoke, voice so light I barely caught it over the thrum of the Soaring Dragon’s engines.

“It’s fine.”

I frowned. “It’s not.”

“No,” she said, brushing her thumb along my cheek again. “It really is. If you die, I’ll just turn you into my thrall. That way, you can keep going on your grand little adventures... and eventually you'll complete your quest.”

I laughed.

And then I stopped.

Because she wasn’t laughing.

“You’re… not serious.”

Her expression didn’t change. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

I blinked. “That’s not really my style.”

“It should’ve been.” Her tone was dry. “Would’ve saved you a lot of trouble.”

I sat up slowly, twisting to face her. Her eyes met mine, still that eerie mix of ancient and uncertain. But I didn’t respond with words. I just stared at her. And then… Flash Step. In a blink, I was gone from her lap and standing several paces away, arms crossed, the wind tousling my hair.

“You remember that bridge?” I asked.

Alice tilted her head.

“In that world,” I clarified. “First time we met. You ambushed me. Church Champion gone rogue, fangs bared, ready to ‘purify’ the darkness.”

She didn’t answer.

“I could’ve killed you then. Easily. But I didn’t.”

I studied her routes and spawn areas. I got guild connections and lots of… friends. I have so much data about her, enough that I could realistically nail her. Even if I died, ‘Players’ had the respawn system. Even if I failed, most players in the game at that time were nearing completion in creating a strategy to take her down.

However, because of my meddling, she was transformed into an ‘Essential’ NPC, and players started to hound her in hopes of learning Exalted Renewal.

“You might not believe me, but I saved your ass back then… and probably would continue to save your ass now and the future, I must say, you have one precious ass.”

Captain Xue coughed from the background, but I continued nonetheless.

“So why didn’t I kill you?”

I let the memory hang in the air between us like a loaded crossbow.

“Because even back then,” I said, “I saw something worth sparing.”

She stared at me, lips slightly parted.

“I’ll see you again in Riverfall.”

I gave her a small, two-finger salute, then turned.

Captain Xue caught my eye as I walked past the helm. She tried to hide her smirk behind a stoic facade and failed miserably. I gave her a respectful nod. She gave me one back.

And then…

"Egress."

The spell snapped reality around me like a taut string. Space folded. One blink. And I stood before the towering gates of the Imperial Capital. Stone arches rose high into the sky, glistening with runic carvings and barrier glyphs, a reminder that this was the heart of the Empire. A place of impossible mystery and imperial control.

And standing there, just past the threshold, arms behind his back like some kind of theatrical butler…

Was Nongmin.

Of course.

I sighed.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You foresaw I’d show up at this exact gate?”

He smiled faintly. “Of course not. That would be cheating.”

He gestured politely. “Come, Da Wei. I’ve cleared your path through the Grand Ascension Library. And you’ll be pleased to know I’ve had some progress compiled regarding resurrection techniques. Class Two restricted, but we can negotiate.”

I shook my head, chuckling softly as I followed him past the gates.

“Anyway!” I said to the Emperor as I dusted myself off in front of the city gates, “fuck you. We are not negotiating. I’ll kill you.”

Nongmin blinked, as if I’d just told him his sandals were untied.

“Figures,” he said calmly, like I’d confirmed a weather forecast.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why even ask, then? You already knew what I’d say.”

He gave a little shrug. “I was… practicing.”

“Practicing?”

“The art of conversation,” he replied with a straight face. “Small talk. Casual banter. Human warmth. That sort of thing.”

I stared at him. Hard. He didn’t even flinch.

“You’re practicing small talk,” I repeated slowly, “using precognition?”

“It seemed logical at first,” he said, folding his hands behind his back as we started walking. “But it turns out knowing all possible responses makes the exercise… sterile. Counterproductive, even.”

I kept staring at him. This time, with deep, existential concern.

“Are you a robot?”

He paused mid-step. His expression turned contemplative, like he was trying to compute that question across five parallel timelines. And just for a moment, in the haze of precognition flickering around him like invisible static, I saw it. No, it was more accurate to say I’ve imagined and intuited it… A future where Nongmin turned to me, utterly sincere, and asked: What is a robot?

“…A robot,” he said at last, eyes narrowing in thought. “Ah. It’s a quip, then.”

“Oh my god.”

I ran a hand down my face.

“Not a quip,” I said, trying not to scream. “Closer to a metaphor. Forget it.”

He didn’t reply. I could practically hear the gears in his head churning as he logged the phrase ‘closer to a metaphor’ into his Imperial Lexicon of Mortal Vocabulary, probably next to ‘emotional support dumplings’ and ‘don't be weird about it.’

We reached the Grand Ascension Library in an instant, because, well, we could. When you’ve got an overpowered movement technique and you’re walking with a man who can kind of bend time, travel becomes less of a journey and more of an inconvenient blink.

The Library was quiet. Towering shelves arched across the dome like ribs from some ancient beast, each stuffed with scrolls, jade slips, textbooks, and some artifacts that probably shouldn’t be that close together if you liked your face un-melted.

Laid out on one of the main tables, because of course he’d already prepped this, was a neat stack of scrolls.

“Compiled everything I could find,” Nongmin said, gesturing lazily. “Soul anchor theory. Reverse karmic tracing. Three banned rituals I’m not officially allowed to show you. And a few notes from the Shenshou School on body reconstruction using temporal echoes.”

I let out a low whistle and gave the scrolls a once-over.

It was a lot. It was also better than nothing.

“Thanks,” I muttered, and stuffed the lot into my Item Box with a flick of my wrist.

Nongmin watched with a faint smile. “You’ll need time to study, I assume?”

“Yeah.”

“And after?”

“I’ll bring them back,” I said simply. “All of them.”

He didn’t nod or offer any cryptic encouragement. He just stood there, arms crossed, like he knew the weight I was carrying and respected it in his own strange way. Then, as I turned to leave, I heard him murmur behind me, his voice almost childlike.

“…Metaphor.”

I didn’t look back.

I just laughed, quietly, and walked deeper into the stacks.

After five minutes of wandering through the Grand Ascension Library, past staircases that twisted into nothing, through aisles that smelled like ink and thunderclouds, I ended up at the throne room.

Nongmin was already there, sitting sideways on the armrest of his massive jade throne, one leg over the other like he was posing for a melancholic painting. His robes pooled around him like liquid obsidian.

“So,” he said without turning. “We’re finally having the talk, then.”

I blinked. “Wow,” I said, folding my arms. “You’re getting better at small talk already.”

He nodded appreciatively, as if I’d just graded his quiz.

“I’ve observed,” he replied, “that phrasing a statement as a question, or breaking up complex ideas into brief fragments, creates the illusion of casual conversation.”

“…You’re dissecting it like a frog.”

“I dissect everything like a frog,” he replied seriously. “And no, I am not the frog in the equation.”

Bruh… you didn’t need to lower your intelligence to make small talk.

I sighed and leaned against one of the absurdly ornate pillars. “What made you want to learn small talk anyway?”

He looked up at the vaulted ceiling like he was staring into a memory… or one of his many futures.

“I have eight wives,” he said flatly. “One passed from old age some time ago. I have eight children. I am emotionally detached from all of them.”

My lips parted, but nothing came out at first.

“…Not even Ren Jin?” I asked.

“Even him,” he said without a hint of hesitation. “I have foreseen that one of my sons, possibly Ren Jin’s second, will inherit my Formation Talents. Moreover, Ren Jin himself will serve as a guiding symbol for my ideal Empire.”

I didn’t know what I expected. But something about the way he said it made me shiver. It was all so… cold. But also oddly human in its effort. Like someone trying to sculpt love out of marble.

“Alright then,” I said, half-laughing. “What’s that story I heard about you making out with a commoner woman in this throne room, in front of your officials? Sounded like tabloid crap, but…?”

“Tabloid?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Go on, tell me… Did it really happen?”

Nongmin gave me a slow, unreadable look.

“It happened.”

I blinked. “Wait, seriously? Like, full-on public deed doing?”

“It had to be done.”

“Yeah, I get that Ren Jin had to be born,” I said, waving a hand. “But come on. You mean to tell me you felt nothing? Not even a flutter?”

“There are poems about the deed,” he said flatly. “Many describe me as being as hard as a stone.”

I gaped at him. Open-mouthed.

He looked back at me. Stoic.

He was trying to make small talk again. Avoiding the point by tossing in some bizarre historical trivia wrapped in a sexual pun.

I had no words.

None.

“You know,” I said at last, rubbing my temples, “you’re really bad at this.”

He smiled faintly. “I am learning.”

“I don’t know if that makes this better or worse.”

He didn’t answer.

We stood there in silence, the gravity of the throne room bearing down like a mountain. And still, somehow, this awkward conversation about wives and thrones and emotional ineptitude made him feel more real than any of his speeches.

Maybe that was the scary part.

The tyrant emperor trying to learn how to feel.

And failing… beautifully!

There was just no way I was letting this go.

I mean, seriously… this dude had basically thrown me into a pseudo-harem situation, complete with overzealous guards that I did appreciate, thank you very much, but still. There was also that little nugget of horror: the gender-bender curse he snuck in my path without telling me the activation conditions. Like… hello? Informed consent?

And okay, yeah, sure… I got Lu Gao out of trouble and even scored a pretty neat anti-virus for the eldritch entity hitchhiking in my skull. I wasn't ungrateful. But that didn’t mean I was about to let him dodge this.

I leaned in. “So tell me,” I said, leveling a finger at him, “about that grand feat of yours. You know the one. Bedding women from all seven Imperial Houses in one night, one bed, and then capping that night off by publicly procreating with a commoner woman. Like, what the actual hell?”

Nongmin didn’t flinch. He never did. The guy could probably keep a straight face while getting stabbed in the spleen.

“I heard from Ren Xun’s mouth,” I continued, “that you were pissed about being hounded by your ministers, your court, for being a virgin. So you decided to just… break the world’s mind, I guess? That’s not normal. So don’t try to tell me you don’t feel anything. You had to have emotions, right?”

He blinked once.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “I bedded each woman from the Seven Imperial Houses in one night. In a single bed.”

I squinted at him. “You’re not even gonna sugarcoat it?”

“It had to be done that way,” he continued, as if reading a grocery list. “A singular location and shared time slot established visual and narrative equality between the Houses. If I had visited them one by one, hierarchies would have formed.”

My brain short-circuited trying to imagine what “visual and narrative equality” even meant in that context.

“To surmise,” he added, “it was more efficient.”

More? Efficient!?

I opened my mouth just a bit wider, but nothing came out except the faintest whisper of a mental scream.

“And as for the commoner woman,” he continued with that same deadpan calm, “the act had to be done publicly so that the officials and Houses would be unable to later claim the child was not mine. Visibility was the proof.”

“Publicly,” I repeated, still struggling to wrap my head around it. “You mean like in front of everyone?”

“Yes. In the throne room.”

He paused, then added, completely without shame, “I ensured she enjoyed the communion.”

My eyes widened. “You… what…?”

“The communion,” he repeated, not realizing, or maybe ignoring, how insane that sounded. “I interviewed her in multiple alternate timelines and performed rehearsals to understand her preferences. Through this, I constructed a scenario that guaranteed her safety, long-term happiness, and the opportunity for meaningful contribution to society. She went on to lead three major literacy movements and died at the age of ninety-five, surrounded by her grandchildren.”

That was it. I had to sit down.

“You’re… for real?” I said, slumping onto the nearest gilded chair like my soul had been drop-kicked. “You planned the perfect one-night stand across realities. For diplomacy.”

“Diplomatic cohesion is important,” he replied. “And legacy must be irrefutable.”

“You sound like you scheduled an orgy in Excel.”

He tilted his head. “What is Excel?”

“Forget it.” I rubbed my face. “You know, I expected cold logic from you. Tyrant emperor and all. But I didn’t think you’d break reality just to make sure your one-night partner caught feelings and a pension plan.”

“I did not break reality,” he said, slightly defensive. “I merely consulted several.”

I stared at him.

And I realized, with a terrifying sort of awe, that he meant well. That was the scariest part of all! The terrifying, alien kindness of a man who loved through flowcharts and contingency plans.

“You’re not heartless,” I muttered. “You’re just… alien.”

“I am human,” he replied.

“Sure,” I said, “and I’m a toaster.”

“Do you toast?”

“Shut up, Nongmin.”

He actually looked smug for a second.

Maybe, just maybe, he was getting the hang of small talk.

God help us all.