The living room was dark.
Only the faint glow of appliance standby indicator lights flickered in the corners, like a few weary fireflies.
Sirin lay on the sofa, her back turned toward the bedroom.
The cold draft from the air conditioner blew across the top of her head, making the already thin blanket ripple faintly.
She couldn't sleep.
The moment she closed her eyes, her retinas automatically began replaying the images from Su Yu's computer screen.
That woman's movements.
Those incomprehensible sounds.
And Su Yu's expression—so terrified it bordered on stupefaction.
Sirin irritably rolled over, her toes scuffing twice against the edge of the blanket.
She tried to redirect her attention toward how to take revenge on that woman called Eden, or toward devising some grand scheme to utterly destroy Schicksal, but her brain was completely out of her control.
The images kept spinning.
It was just that the blurry man on that screen slowly turned into Su Yu's face.
In that chaotic haze between sleeping and waking, Sirin's consciousness slipped into a bizarre, kaleidoscopic dream.
The setting of the dream was not this cramped rented apartment, but the far side of the Moon.
Yet the furnishing was a large bed, set upon the barren ground.
Su Yu lay upon it.
Sirin looked down and discovered she wasn't wearing that obstructive white T-shirt.
She raised her foot and stepped down.
Exactly the same motion she had seen in the office during the day.
The sensation in the dream was far hazier than in reality, but that sense of power, of controlling everything, was magnified tenfold.
Sirin watched Su Yu's face—that face that was always wearing a look of helplessness and fatigue, now contorted by her movements.
His forehead was covered in cold sweat, his Adam's apple rolling violently up and down, his hands nailed to either side of the bed by invisible chains, unable to do anything.
He could only look up at her, like an ant with its vital point pinned underfoot.
Sirin laughed out loud in the dream.
This was it.
This sense of conquest from above, watching a fellow who had always opposed her become utterly subdued—it was even more satisfying than grinding an entire Valkyrie squad to pieces with the Imaginary Space.
Was this the secret that a woman like Eden had grasped? Using the body's oppression to exchange for the soul's surrender of arms.
She increased the force in her foot.
The Su Yu in the dream let out a pained, suppressed groan.
Then, something strange happened.
Sirin felt something inside her body explode along with that groan.
The feeling was much like the swollen fullness she had felt on the Moon after absorbing the gem's energy.
But also completely different.
It was more concrete, more viscous, even carrying a scalp-tingling itch.
Sirin frowned in the dream.
She felt some kind of liquid slowly seeping outward.
It didn't hurt.
One might even say it felt... good.
As if her whole body were floating in a pool of warm water, all her defenses and ferocity melting away in that tingling, numbing tide.
What was this? What on earth was this?
Sirin looked down, bewildered.
But at that moment the dream's imagery began to collapse—Su Yu's contorted face, the barren lunar backdrop, that abrupt large bed—all shattering into specks of light.
She woke up.
The wall clock in the living room ticked softly.
Sirin lay with her eyes open, staring at the grain of the sofa's backrest.
Her breathing had not yet settled, her chest heaving violently with each breath.
Her palms were drenched in sweat, and the half of her face pressed against the sofa was alarmingly hot.
A small patch of her pajama fabric was soaked through, sticking clammily to her skin.
Sirin abruptly sat up, the blanket sliding off her shoulders.
What was going on?
Had this Paramecium body broken down?
Or could it be...
Sirin recalled the images in the dream, and the reactions her body had produced when those images appeared.
That light, floating sensation, a comfort that seeped into the very marrow of her bones—more addictive than taking a bite of warm cake on the snowfields of Siberia.
Her fingers clenched the sofa cushion.
She understood now.
This was the proof of power.
To trample a powerful enemy underfoot, strip away his ability to resist, and watch him expose his most vulnerable side.
This absolute sense of domination would not only bring pleasure to the spirit, it could even arouse a resonance in the body.
That woman called Eden must have trampled Su Yu underfoot precisely because of this feeling!
The corners of Sirin's mouth slowly curled upward into an arc.
The humans of this world had actually developed such a... special ritual in their pursuit of power.
She lowered her head and looked at her trembling hands. Although this feeling was a little strange, this body's reaction was honest. That man had reacted so strongly under her methods, which proved this approach countered him utterly.
What "things only adults can do."
What "mutual consent."
All of it was just excuses fabricated by that ant to mask his own cowardice.
A near-fanatical light flickered in Sirin's eyes.
As long as she kept using this move, tried it a few more times.
If that man had absolutely no resistance to this approach, then it proved this was the only crack deep within his soul.
As long as she practiced more before that Paramecium returned, she could definitely turn this detestable Host into a slave who could only wag his tail and beg for mercy.
Once he became a slave, let's see if he'd still dare to speak to this Queen in that lecturing tone!
Let's see if he'd still dare to bonk this Queen on the head!
Sirin sat cross-legged, plotting in the dark living room her riddled-with-holes yet absurdly self-consistent "conquest plan."
Time ticked by, minute by minute.
Outside the window, the sky gradually shifted from deep blue to grayish white.
In the bedroom.
Su Yu rolled over and opened his eyes.
No alarm clock.
He had been woken by his biological clock—or rather, by some kind of subconscious alertness.
He stared at the ceiling for a while, then rubbed his throbbing temples.
The chaos of the entire previous day was still buzzing in his head.
Eden's relentless pressing, Sirin's outrageous antics, the System's truths about Anchors and cognition, and Fenghuang's line: "She really doesn't understand anything."
Any single one of them was enough to give a person a hard time.
Su Yu threw off the covers and sat up, grabbing the T-shirt from the head of the bed and pulling it on.
"Squad Monitor," he called out of habit in his mind.
No response.
Fenghuang seemed to be deliberately avoiding him, or perhaps she really was, as she'd said, putting all her effort into helping Kiana gather her spiritual power.
Whatever.
Su Yu scratched his hair and pushed open the bedroom door.
The living room curtains hadn't been drawn open yet; the light was dim.
Sirin sat on the sofa.
She hadn't covered herself with the blanket; she just sat there cross-legged, her spine perfectly straight.
Hearing the door, she turned her head, her golden pupils locking fixedly onto Su Yu in the dim morning light.
The corner of her mouth carried an inexplicable... confidence.
Su Yu's footsteps halted at the doorframe.
He looked at Sirin.
Sirin looked at him too.
A strange silence permeated the air.
"You're awake," Sirin spoke first.
Her voice wasn't as shrill as last night; instead it carried a calm, certain-of-victory steadiness.
Su Yu's eyelid twitched.
He was all too familiar with this tone.
It usually meant some late-stage chuunibyou patient had once again completed a logical loop in her head and was preparing to put it into action.
"Mm." Su Yu walked over to the dining table and poured himself a cup of cold water. "You sat there all night without sleeping?"
"You think I'm a fragile human?"
Sirin watched the Adam's apple roll as he drank, her gaze slowly moving downward, stopping at a certain spot on his pajama pants.
"Besides, I've been pondering a very important question."
Su Yu's drinking motion stopped.
He set the cup on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
"What question?"
Sirin came down from the sofa, her bare feet stepping onto the floor.
She didn't head toward the bathroom; instead she walked straight toward the dining table.
She stopped less than half a meter in front of Su Yu.
"Last night, the things you said." Sirin crossed her arms over her chest. "You said that was something that could only be done with the consent of both parties."
Su Yu said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
"That was a lie."
The corner of Sirin's mouth tugged into a smug arc.
"When that woman called Eden was stepping on you, did you consent?"
Su Yu was so choked by these words he nearly couldn't catch his breath.
"That was—"
"And those people in the videos." Sirin cut him off. "That is the weak's sacrifice to the strong. It is conquest, it is power. It needs no consent at all."
She took a step forward.
Su Yu instinctively scooted his chair back.
"This Queen has understood it all."
Sirin bent down, bringing her face close to Su Yu's, her golden pupils burning with undisguised ambition.
"Your weakness—I've already found it."
Su Yu looked at this face right in front of him, filled with self-righteous cunning.
He very much wanted to sigh.
But at the same time, he found it absurd to the extreme.
This Herrscher of the Void who made the entire Honkai world tremble was, at this very moment, declaring with the most solemn expression that she would conquer him by that method.
Su Yu straightened his body.
He was much taller than this Paramecium body, and his shadow directly enveloped the whole of Sirin within it.
The edge of the dining table pressed against the front of his thighs.
Sirin's chin tilted slightly upward, her golden pupils contracting once in the dim light.
Su Yu looked at her.
"Listen, Sirin. Let's talk seriously."
Sirin's golden eyes were full of impatience. "Ant, what qualifies you to command this Queen? Wasn't last night's lesson enough?"
Su Yu's eye corner twitched. He forcibly suppressed that sinful shame, his tone calm to the point of being merciless: "On the basis that you want to return to the Honkai world. Since you can sense Kiana's movements in the Sea of Quanta, you should know that the power the System channels isn't fake. I am your and her only ticket back."
That restless toe of Sirin's halted slightly, and silence spread between the two of them like a cluster of cold mist.
"If you keep messing around with this body, causing some social-scandal news or getting the police to show up at our door, you know perfectly well what that means."
Su Yu stared into her eyes, speaking word by word.
"It means the production progress of Honkai Impact 3rd will stall, and the collection of recognition will crash. By then, you won't be able to go back to that world, and you'll only be able to crowd together for a lifetime with this Paramecium in this place so peaceful it drives you insane."
Sirin's pupils suddenly contracted. She drew a deep breath, and her original cynical haughtiness was replaced by a calm weighing of pros and cons.
In this cage devoid of Honkai energy, she truly could not bear the cost of losing her only exit.
"Fine."
She gave a cold snort, her body leaning slightly forward with an undeniable sense of pressure.
"I agree. Before that fellow comes back, I'll play your Little Junior Sister well. But I have one condition."
"What condition?" An ominous premonition rose in Su Yu's heart.
"Those things you showed me last night... those various techniques women use to make men submit."
Sirin extended the tip of her tongue, licking it across her somewhat dry lips, her tone composed.
"I want to watch more, and study them carefully."
Su Yu froze.
His brain went blank for two seconds.
He looked at Sirin.
Sirin looked at him.
The air seemed to congeal.
Watching porn.
The Herrscher of the Void, Her Majesty the Queen, the world-destroying calamity—the condition for her compromise was actually... watching porn.
Had this plot direction taken a hairpin turn and driven straight off a cliff somewhere?
Su Yu clenched his hand into a fist inside his pants pocket.
He really wanted to crack open that head and see what kind of water was actually inside it.
Study.
The word she used was "study."
She had truly treated those things as some "advanced tactical manual for subjugating humans."
Su Yu swallowed.
"You..." he stammered, "You're serious?"
"This Queen never jokes." Sirin's chin lifted slightly. "Those... techniques are very complex. I need to watch them repeatedly to grasp their essence."
Su Yu took a deep breath.
Forget it.
He said to himself in his heart.
Watch, then, whatever.
It was still better than letting her go destroy the world.
Still better than letting her go out and slaughter innocents.
Worst case, he'd plaster the computer screen all over with privacy film and put on noise-canceling headphones.
As long as this ancestor of his didn't go out and cause trouble, what was watching a few films? Just consider it giving an alien a cultural primer on human customs.
"And, you have to cooperate with me."
Sirin suddenly stood up, walked barefoot in front of Su Yu, and gave the tip of his shoe a provocative kick.
"Cooperate with what?"
"Let me step on you once a day."
Sirin said it with utter righteousness, her golden eyes even radiating a holy glow named "diligent study."
"This ritual can make my body and mind feel pleasure, which is very beneficial for maintaining this body's stability. You are not allowed to refuse."
The room fell into dead silence once again.
The first ray of morning sun finally pierced through the thick clouds, casting a patch of golden light onto the floor through the gap in the curtains.
Su Yu stared at Sirin.
"Why?"
Su Yu felt his blood pressure rising in a straight line.
Did she even know what she was saying?
Body and mind feeling pleasure.
She had attributed that physiological pleasure entirely to the spiritual pleasure brought by "conquering the weak."
Wearing Kiana's still-immature face, using the Herrscher of the Void's lofty tone, she was making this kind of request?
Had this world gone mad?
"No way!" Su Yu refused resolutely and unequivocally.
"Why?" Sirin furrowed her brow. "You clearly didn't look the least bit resistant to that woman called Eden! Why is it fine for her, but not for this Queen?!"
How the hell could that be the same?!
That was Eden!
That was flirting with an extremely strong purpose! What did you count as?
You're treating me like a stress-relief acupressure mat here?!
Su Yu was silent for a full minute.
In his mind he frantically searched for a reasonable excuse—one that neither punctured Sirin's laughable misconception nor compromised his bottom line.
"Because..." Su Yu let out a long sigh. "Because this is too draining on my energy."
Sirin tilted her head, indicating her confusion.
"Just think about it." Su Yu began to bluster with great solemnity. "Your superb technique has too much destructive power. If I had to indulge every day in that... that exhausted feeling of submission, how would I still have the energy to write code? How would I push forward the game's progress?"
Su Yu stared into Sirin's eyes and slowed his pace of speech: "You wouldn't want this kind of thing to cause the game to be delayed and make you return to the Honkai world later, would you?"
Sirin was stumped by the question.
She lowered her head, seeming to seriously consider the input-output ratio.
That heady, floating sense of pleasure was certainly tempting, but the grand plan of revenge was clearly more important.
If stepping on this man caused him to be unable to work, then that would indeed not be worth the loss.
"True." Sirin raised her head, seeming to be persuaded. "After I return, there'll be plenty of time to do it whenever."
She looked at Su Yu, the corner of her mouth curving into a cruel, smug, cold smile.
"Savor your remaining time well, human. The day I return will be the day you completely sprawl beneath my feet and beg for mercy like a dog."
Su Yu looked at this Queen in front of him spouting fierce words, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Do you know that the words you just spoke could truly cause an adult man to die completely in the social sense?
She seemed very satisfied with this outcome. She turned lightly, walked over to the computer, and on her own opened that webpage that still hadn't been closed.
She glanced back at Su Yu, who was sinking into self-loathing, her voice carrying a rhythm of pleasure she'd never had before.
"Hey, human."
"This thing called black stockings—do you have any in stock? The video said this thing provides an extra bonus to boosting the submission effect."
Su Yu sat behind her, looking at the back of that white-haired girl in the sunlight, and felt as though his entire life had turned into an absurd circus.
Wow, so there's an attack-speed-boosting ring segment too?
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