Wen Shuangbai spread her hands and stared at the small pile of spirit stones for a long moment, blinking thoughtfully.
How could there be no reason?
Generally speaking, when a man wanted to give a woman money, there were only three possibilities.
Either he liked her, wanted to sleep with her, or had been kicked in the head by a donkey.
Wen Shuangbai wasn’t ignorant of this.
Back in the modern world, she had been attractive—well-educated, well-paid, and often the recipient of male attention.
She couldn’t quite articulate her feelings toward Xie Ziyin.
But she was satisfied with their current dynamic and hoped to maintain the status quo.
Whatever the case, they were now trusted partners in this venture, and any shift in their relationship—whether closer or more distant—would only complicate the competition.
Never mind. This wasn’t important right now.
She’d wait and see how things unfolded.
Wen Shuangbai shook her head, as if physically dislodging any romantic thoughts.
The competition came first. Making money came first.
She retrieved the two viper fangs Xie Ziyin had also given her, placed them alongside the spirit stones in a box, and sealed it away for the time being.
With that done, she tinkered for a while, crafting a large wooden frame for assembling the puzzle.
Since no one else could help much—aside from Lu Jiayao—the star fragments seemed tailored to each person’s cultivation methods. This was a task she had to complete on her own.
With that in mind, Wen Shuangbai carried the wooden frame back to her room and first checked in with her junior sister about the business operations of the Caiyuan Pavilion.
Her junior sister was too busy to meet, reporting that business was booming—their initial investment of several million spirit stones was nearly recouped.
Unable to leave, she sent the account books over with Lu Jiayao the next day.
Wen Shuangbai examined them carefully and was surprised to discover that Wen Xin had a real talent for commerce.
Her junior sister’s cultivation aptitude was poor; she had been stuck in the Spirit Initiation Realm for years. No matter how hard she worked, on the Xuantian Continent, innate talent remained an insurmountable gap between cultivators.
But the account books revealed a person’s thought process—and Wen Xin’s was exceptionally clear.
Wen Shuangbai hadn’t had time to guide her, yet the account books Wen Xin had organized bore an uncanny resemblance to modern financial statements!
Wen Shuangbai was impressed.
Then again, it made sense. Wen Xin had been managing the accounts for their impoverished sect since childhood.
The money their senior brother earned had always been entrusted to her.
Wen Shuangbai was completely at ease.
The Caiyuan Pavilion was in good hands.
With that settled, she devoted herself fully to studying the paper puzzle fragments she’d brought back from the Star Moon Valley secret realm.
All the sects had emerged by now, and the next round of competition would begin in a month.
Though the Endless House could stretch time, Wen Shuangbai still felt the pressure.
She barely rested—when exhausted, she meditated to recover, then returned to the puzzle.
Day after day passed this way. Ten days in the Endless House (one day in reality) later.
After staring at the fragments for so long, Wen Shuangbai began to sense that the seemingly chaotic black lines on the paper pieces held some inexplicable, elusive pattern.
It was a peculiar feeling, akin to inspiration.
Seizing the moment, she rushed to assemble the pieces—only to stop again after completing a quarter of the puzzle.
Wen Shuangbai frowned at the partially formed image before her, then peeled off a few oddly placed fragments.
Still not right. Where was the mistake?
As she massaged her temples, a tiny figure clad in extravagantly tailored miniature robes strutted in through the half-open window.
Wen Shuangbai: “?”
She stared at the pen with articulated wooden limbs, its robes clearly expensive, and reached out to pinch its arms and legs—hollow woodwork, connected to the pen body like a marionette.
Up close, the embroidery on Four Hundred’s robes was exquisite: a tiny pig on the left, a tiny horse on the right.
Beneath the hem, tiny characters read: "Custom-made for Four Hundred."
Damn, this had to be pricey.
Wen Shuangbai gasped. “Where’d you get new clothes?”
The little pen waved its wooden arms, struck a pose, and basked in the attention before squatting to lift its robe and write with its nib.
Four Hundred filled an entire page. Wen Shuangbai skimmed the lines quickly.
The gist: while she’d been obsessing over the puzzle, the bored pen had wandered off and somehow become fast friends with Lu Jiayao!
Wen Shuangbai was deeply confused. “Fast friends?”
Wasn’t “interspecies friendship” more accurate?
Four Hundred insisted: [Little Uncle Lu is your friend! I’m a generation younger, so he’s my uncle—hence, fast friends!]
Wen Shuangbai: “…”
She decided not to explain generational titles to a pen and kept reading.
In short, the two had hit it off.
Upon learning that Four Hundred wanted limbs, Lu Jiayao took it to the Caiyuan Pavilion’s artifact refinement division, where the staff—treating the pen as the bosses’ collective child—pulled out all the stops to craft it a premium new body.
Wen Shuangbai could only give a slow clap. “Kid, you’re something else.”
Four Hundred beamed. After showing off its fancy new form, it grabbed its written masterpiece and scampered off to Xie Ziyin’s room to brag.
—
The man’s room, aside from the large bed, had been transformed into something resembling a lab—shelves lined with vials and instruments, industrial and sterile.
Xie Ziyin, his hair meticulously tied back and dressed in white, was soaking a starstone in corrosive fluid, observing its reaction.
Over the past ten days, he’d subjected the stone to extreme heat, cold, and other conditions, trying to break it open to uncover its secrets—with little success.
The starstone was stubbornly impervious.
Pen in hand, Xie Ziyin stood before the vat of corrosive liquid, frowning slightly at the faintly glowing stone within.
Then, something poked his foot.
He looked down to find a miniature wooden doll in lavish robes—uncannily like a dressed-up puppet—holding up a large sheet of paper that nearly obscured its tiny frame.
Four Hundred hopped on its wooden feet, waving the paper insistently.
Xie Ziyin was well acquainted with the pen’s nuisance potential. Ignoring it only made it persist until surrender was inevitable.
If this were anyone else’s pen, he’d have incinerated it without a second thought.
But it belonged to Wen Shuangbai.
Burning it would require her permission.
Truly, there was no dealing with this damn pen.
Expressionless, he removed his gloves, crouched, snatched the paper, scanned it in seconds, and shoved it back.
“Saw it,” he said flatly.
Xie Ziyin stood up and walked over to examine several petri dish-like containers filled with soil mixed with various medicinal liquids. Buried within were dismembered parts of a man-eating flower. He wanted to see if he could cultivate something from them.
Four Hundred stood frozen in place, dumbstruck.
After a moment, it scampered over again with a clatter, flipped the page of the paper, and continued writing before holding it up for Xie Ziyin to see: [Aren’t you going to praise me? Wen Shuangbai even called me a good baby!]
"Praise?" Xie Ziyin remained unmoved, scribbling notes on his experiment record with swift, precise strokes as he spoke matter-of-factly, "The fact that I haven’t turned you over to the authorities for embezzlement is mercy enough."
Four Hundred: "…"
After checking on the man-eating flower, Xie Ziyin returned to the starstone soaking in the corrosive liquid.
Even the man-eating flower would disintegrate instantly upon contact with the corrosive solution, yet the starstone remained completely unaffected despite being fully submerged.
Four Hundred followed him, huffing as it wrote and raised another note: [You’re so mean! I’m not playing with you anymore! And I won’t tell you that soaking the star like this is useless! The star just thinks it feels really nice!!]
Xie Ziyin: "?"
Xie Ziyin asked, "What do you mean?"
But Four Hundred ignored him.
It tossed the paper aside, waved its tiny limbs, patted its bottom, and nimbly climbed out the window.
---
Wen Shuangbai rested her chin in her hands, staring intently at the large wooden frame before her as if trying to see through the sheets of paper.
Suddenly, a note was thrust into her line of sight.
At first, she paid it little mind, but a quick glance made her freeze.
The paper was filled with several lines of writing:
[Shuangbai, Xie Ziyin is so annoying!]
[But I like his star. Shuangbai, can you go get it? Let’s raise it together.]
[Oh, Shuangbai, do you know where else the moon is, besides the one in the sky?]
[The star says it’s looking for its moon friend, but it says the moon outside isn’t the right one.]
[I want to help it look! After all, we’re newly made friends! Friends should help each other!]
Realizing something, Wen Shuangbai immediately straightened up and leaned toward Four Hundred. "Wait, the star talks to you?"
Four Hundred: [Yeah.]
Four Hundred: [You guys can’t hear it? It’s been talking since the first day, always saying it wants to find its moon friend.]
Four Hundred: [Oh, sorry Shuangbai, I forgot—you can’t hear it. The star can’t write either! It says it can’t move yet!]
Four Hundred: [Only I can write, walk, and jump around!]
Oh no, oh no.
That bastard Xie next door had been trying to pry open the starstone all this time to see what was inside.
She hadn’t thought much of it.
But they’d forgotten—the star might have a spirit, just like Four Hundred.
She remembered Xie Ziyin messaging her earlier, saying he planned to soak the starstone in corrosive liquid next.
Had the poor thing already been dissolved to death?!
Realizing the severity of the situation, Wen Shuangbai grabbed Four Hundred by the back of its collar and was about to rush out when a loud knocking came from the door.
Opening it revealed Xie Ziyin.
The man stood there holding the star in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other, looking at her. "Mind lending me a pen?"
---
Upon hearing that the starstone had a spirit, Shen Hefeng and Lu Jiayao—both notorious busybodies—immediately showed up, while Yin Xuan and Li Zhuohua, who couldn’t care less, stayed away.
As the only one who could communicate with the star, Four Hundred puffed out its chest and proudly took on the role of translator.
Wen Shuangbai asked, "Why are you looking for the moon?"
Four Hundred faithfully transcribed the response: [Because the moon left.]
Wen Shuangbai hummed in thought. No wonder the Star-Moon Valley only had stars and no moon—the moon had run away?
Leaning closer to the star on the table, she adopted a coaxing tone. "Can you describe how the moon left in more detail? That way, we can help you find your friend faster."
Four Hundred pressed close, listening intently before writing: [One day, the Star-Moon Daoist brought back several people. Not long after, they took the moon away.]
Lu Jiayao blinked. "Who’s the Star-Moon Daoist?"
Shen Hefeng, ever the tactless one, zeroed in on the sore spot: "Why’d they take the moon and not you?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the four of them felt the starlight in the room dim slightly.
Wen Shuangbai shot Shen Hefeng a glare before continuing, "Who were the people the Star-Moon Daoist brought back?"
Xie Ziyin, however, had a guess. "Is the Star-Moon Daoist the Star-Moon Divine Tree?"
Four Hundred hovered by the star for a long while before finally writing: [Oh no, the star’s crying too hard to speak now!]
At this, Wen Shuangbai, Xie Ziyin, and Lu Jiayao all turned to glare at Shen Hefeng.
Wen Shuangbai snapped, "Shen Hefeng, do you have some kind of brain damage?"
Xie Ziyin scoffed. "Just get out."
Lu Jiayao scolded, "The poor star’s already suffering, and you had to go and make it worse! How could you?!"
Four Hundred suddenly wrote again: [The star says thank you, Lu Jiayao, for caring.]
[It also wants me to tell you that it really wanted to choose you at first. It says you’re the purest, and stars love people like that!]
[But Xie Ziyin is so filthy that only its starlight can heal him, so it had no choice but to pick him. Yeah!]
Xie Ziyin: "?"