The morning sunlight streamed through the window lattice, turning the floating dust in the air a golden, translucent glow.
Joen stretched his arms with a wide, lazy motion, every joint in his body cracking and popping.
For some reason, waking up this morning felt completely different from the past two days.
All fatigue and numbness were gone, his spirit was refreshed, and he was bursting with vitality, as if he could punch through a city wall with one blow.
‘This must be Lily’s doing.’
He thought to himself, still savoring the feeling.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Joen dressed while replaying the sweet yet absurd “spring dream” from the night before.
The corners of his lips lifted uncontrollably, and even his eyes turned soft and tender.
In all eighteen years of his life, he had never felt as happy as he did last night.
Even though it was only an illusory dream aided by the potion, he still considered himself incredibly lucky.
Those caresses of skin against skin, those moments of desperate passion, those sweet, fragmented whispers that the dream “Lily” murmured into his ear—they were like chisels carving into his soul, reshaping his heart into something entirely new.
Before, when he thought of “the divergent paths of humans and demons,” his feelings were ones of lament, regret, and resignation.
Now, when he thought of “the divergent paths of humans and demons,” he actually found it strangely thrilling.
A young man tasting the forbidden fruit for the first time—how could mere words like “unforgettable” ever describe it? It was a turning point that could completely and fundamentally change a man.
Across from Joen, at that very moment, Liya was burying her face in the pillow, like an ostrich unwilling to face reality.
Her reason let out a sharp scream: Damn it!
You’re the Demon Lord!
You’re the toughest of tough guys!
The most Lia of all Lia’s!
You need to maintain your dignity!
That’s the mortal enemy who could chop you into seventeen hundred pieces at any moment!
But reason was one thing—her body was always honest.
Her mouth said no, but her petite frame involuntarily pressed closer, nestling against the warm, solid forearm of the hero.
A flood of shy thoughts, seemingly not her own, kept surging into her mind, imprinting on her brain with frilly, girlish pink speech bubbles.
But every few sentences, a male tone of voice, born of her own exasperation, would pop up and puncture those pink bubbles.
“Stupid curse is messing with me… I’ve gone crazy… How can I have thoughts like this?[I want to be forever pressed close to my beloved…]Joen is so wonderful… I love Joen… So warm… No, no, no, no, I’m really crazy!][So safe… Hmm… I don’t love shit! It’s all this curse! How can it feel so comfortable…][Want me to do it… Let me go crazy! But… being a madman in love doesn’t seem so bad? He won’t betray me. I’m willing to do everything for him…][Do everything for your sister! I—]”
This split-personality self-struggle was driving Liya insane.
Worse, her thoughts seemed hijacked by some mysterious force.
Even when she tried to force her attention elsewhere, she always ended up circling back to Joen.
For example, she tried hard to control herself and focus on the technical issue of “using the Pleasure Mark to accelerate the development of Pu Town.”
While thinking, her mind suddenly took a turn:
This consumes too much divine power, doesn’t it? What if the divine power runs out? Ah! I’ve got it!
Let’s go have another round with Joen!
Aaaah!
Round my ass!
Liya suddenly shook her little head, pulling herself out of that dangerous train of thought.
If this happens once, it will happen twice; twice, it will happen thrice.
If she kept indulging herself, she would sooner or later become a little darling who couldn’t live without the hero…!
Damn curse! She had to find a way to resolve it as soon as possible!
The only consolation for Liya was: through the “controlled variable method” experiment this morning, she confirmed that using the Pleasure Mark could indeed significantly speed up the Dumplings’ rate of producing new Pupu.
At least there was a silver lining—a “gift” from the heavens to help the Pu Group grow quickly.
Liya finally felt a trace of comfort in her heart.
Love… forget it, she wouldn’t count on that.
As long as her career didn’t cause her trouble, that would be fine.
Liya rolled back and forth on the bed, like a rope being pulled in a tug-of-war by two invisible people.
She was as taut as a tug-of-war rope, sometimes leaning left, sometimes right, with no choice of her own.
Near noon.
Liya lay alone by the table, pretending to do accounts and read.
Not long after, Zyra, whose body was like black mist, giggled as she transformed back into human form, holding a Shadow Dumpling.
She slipped in from nearby, shot Liya a flirtatious look, casually sat down on the bed, and crossed her legs.
She said lazily and softly, “I’m back. The investigation results are exactly what you thought. You’re a genius, you deserve to make money.”
Liya didn’t look up.
“Confirmed?”
“Confirmed.”
Zyra pulled out that little “Pika” from behind, which was flailing its short legs, and snorted twice.
“I sneaked into more than a dozen tea parties and art salons. I tested over three hundred noble ladies in total, and more than two hundred of them were completely defenseless against this little guy. The noblewomen were a bit more reserved, but they were obviously paying attention… It really is cute. If it were me, I’d probably want to buy one too.”
“Naturally.”
Liya nodded.
Earlier, she had sent Zyra to investigate the pet market in the Empire Capital, and had taken “Pika” with her to test whether the noble ladies there were interested in these cute, bouncy, squishy “Pupu Beasts.”
After being backstabbed by the Succubus, Liya had been thinking about a new information system.
Pupu creatures had unique advantages.
Her initial idea was to create various types of Pupu and sell them all over the world through their long-distance “Links.”
As long as they maintained a link with her, no matter what happened, she would know immediately.
Even if her brain couldn’t handle such a huge amount of information, she could first enlighten the Dumplings, and then use the smarter Dumplings to manage their own small areas, filtering out most of the useless information.
And “pet-ification” was the first flagship product Liya thought of.
Pupu were gentle by nature, easy to raise, with low needs—they were undoubtedly very suitable as pets.
The main reasons nobles didn’t keep Pupu were three:
First, they were too common.
Raising the same thing as commoners made them seem low-class.
Second, their appearance was monotonous.
Round balls were cute, but after a while, they would definitely get boring.
Third, they were useless, with almost no additional functions.
People who didn’t care about money preferred “all-in-one, everything you need.”
So the nobles mostly kept rare magical beasts, followed by “human pets,” and then elemental spirits.
And all three of these problems could be solved by “modified” Pupu.
Rare, beautiful, and versatile Pupu could be sold to those noblewomen and noble ladies who weren’t sensitive to combat attributes or didn’t need combat power—think of the money!
Of course, the worst thing in business was being self-righteous and falling into a self-confirming information cocoon.
That’s why Liya specifically sent Zyra to do market research and test the appeal of “Pika” to noble ladies.
The results were quite gratifying.
“Now Pu Town is just starting out, dirt poor. Not even a flagship product, let alone a factory set up. We can only let our cute, weak, and helpless Pupu go busking.”
Liya sighed heavily.
“Is that so? But actually, I think being kept as a pet by a beautiful noble lady is much better than spending all day laying concrete and building houses for you.”
Zyra shrugged and couldn’t help but tease.
Liya’s face turned red, and she pouted angrily.
“That’s what you think! What do you know? Our Rock Pupu love laying concrete! Laying concrete is our Rock Pupu’s life!”
“Fine.”
Zyra playfully stuck out her tongue.
Liya closed her eyes and thought quietly for a long time.
Then she said to Zyra, “By the way, I have another task for you.”
“What?”
“Help me find two people. To be precise, two demons hiding in the Empire Capital. One is an Eye Demon named Navarro; the other is a Cocoon Demon, Yousitina. I have a bit of history with them. I need to find them for some small matters.”
Liya deliberately kept her purpose vague.
Those two demons were among the few “old timers” Liya knew.
They had once invited her to be a “dungeon consultant” to help them design dungeons.
They had very special personalities, obsessed with corrupting and making brave female warriors fall, wasting all their time on special mazes and traps that were more about entertainment than practical use.
But precisely because of that, they were super experts in underhanded magic.
Others might not understand the Pleasure Mark and the other curse on her body, but those two would definitely know.
Liya now just wanted to get rid of the curse—immediately, right now, not even able to wait a single day.
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