I Think I Might Be Sick

As they were leaving, Snow Yuan called out to Lucy Luan.

"Divine Lady Snow, do you need something?" she asked.

"I want to talk to you alone," Snow Yuan said.

Lucy followed her and asked, "So, what's up?"

"Do you like my Brother Sean?"

Lucy said, "...That Flower Egg was just them joking around. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Let me tell you, Brother Sean is mine!" Snow Yuan said, not at all friendly. "Don't even think about coveting him!"

Lucy: "..."

"I've liked him since I was little," Snow Yuan went on. "In this life, I won't marry anyone but him!"

"If you two truly love each other, of course I'll give you my blessing," Lucy said.

"What do you mean by that?" Snow Yuan snapped. "Are you saying that if you two aren't in love, you're going to swoop in and steal him?"

Lucy laughed, "I just mean, if you two aren't mutually in love, you can't force him either. How am I supposed to give my blessing if there's nothing to bless?"

Snow Yuan gritted her teeth and asked, "So do you like him or not?"

Lucy said, "To be honest, I don't plan on thinking about any of that until I ascend to High Goddess."

Snow Yuan wanted to say more, but Lucy cut her off: "If you're hoping for some kind of promise from me, sorry, that's not happening. Who can predict the future? I won't make pointless promises to anyone."

Snow Yuan pursed her lips, clearly unwilling to give up but having no choice. In the end, she stomped her foot and walked away.

Lucy let out a sigh of relief, then pressed her hand to her forehead. "Ryan Lu! What kind of mess have you stirred up now?!"

...

A few days later, more squads returned.

Luna Lian and her group came back too.

His Majesty the Celestial Emperor saw that most people had returned, so he had Sean Shaw lead them in daily early morning reading. He said mornings are when your memory is sharpest—don’t waste it.

The Celestial Emperor gathered all the military classics from across the realm—an entire room full. Many of them had to be memorized.

Luckily, they were all Divine Race, so their memory was way better than ordinary mortals.

Except for the one person who flunked out on the very first test, nobody else got booted because of exams after that.

Even so, they still had to study hard.

Otherwise, one slip and you’d be eliminated.

On the second morning, they all showed up at the Instruction Hall for early reading.

The Celestial Emperor wasn’t there, so Sean Shaw was supervising as assistant instructor.

Suddenly, Ryan Lu let out a yelp: "Ah!"

Lucy turned around and saw him with his mouth hanging open, staring at his book like he’d been petrified.

"What's wrong with you now?" Lucy asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"I just realized I can't remember any of the military strategies I memorized before!" Ryan Lu said, dazed.

"Did you just play yourself stupid on break?" Lucy shot back, turning away, not interested.

Ryan poked her and whispered, "I did not! I think I might be sick! Can you check my pulse?"

Lucy snorted, "Should I write you another prescription too?"

"I'm serious!" Ryan said. "My memory isn't usually this bad! I must be sick! Wait—it's gotta be demonic energy messing with my brain! I heard people who get demonized lose consciousness—"

"Can you chill for a second? Stop bothering everyone." Lucy slapped his hand away.

"Yuer?"

"Little sister?"

"Lucy Luan!" He kept patting her.

Lucy turned around and glared at him.

"Check my pulse!" He stuck out his wrist, his tone suddenly all puppy-eyed.

Lucy was already annoyed with him, so she didn't bother being nice: "Scram! Your laziness is incurable!"