Just as Lin Qingyue was digesting the utterly absurd scene before her, the woman behind the desk, [Celestial God: Azure Dragon], finally dully sensed the alien aura in the air that didn't belong here.
This waste-draft war god who had pulled an all-nighter to the extreme suddenly froze.
Her left hand, which had been clutching her hair, stopped mid-air.
The Runic Pen in her right hand also slipped from her fingers, making a soft "thud."
With a speed that could be called horrifyingly slow, she slowly and with great difficulty lifted her head, which had been buried in a mountain of books.
Behind the thick black-framed glasses, those bloodshot eyes from staying up late stared straight into Lin Qingyue's gaze.
Their eyes met.
The next second, the blood instantly drained from [Celestial God: Azure Dragon]'s exquisitely beautiful mature woman face, which was identical to that of [Spirit of Pride: Azure Dragon].
Her pupils, dimmed by long-term sleeplessness, constricted violently.
As if she had seen some unspeakable, terrifying creature.
"Yikes! A... a living person?!"
A short, terrified scream nearly tore through her hoarse throat.
Her body stiffened instantly, as if struck by lightning.
Immediately after, with an agility completely unrelated to a God's majesty, she tried to scramble under the desk using both hands and feet.
The books piled on the desk teetered precariously.
In the end, she only managed to stuff most of her body into the shadows beneath the desk.
A pair of small, azure dragon horns were left exposed, trembling uncontrollably like the ears of a frightened rabbit.
Those dragon horns were far less exquisitely sharp than those of the Spirit of Pride; instead, they appeared somewhat rounded.
Their surface even bore faint scratches left from long-term, unconscious kneading.
From her mouth, she was stammering out incoherent words:
"D-Don't come closer... I haven't washed my hair... No, This Venerable One is in seclusion!"
"D-Don't get so close! Just stand right there! This Venerable One... This Venerable One hasn't prepared the lines for receiving guests!"
Her voice even carried a heavy sob.
It was the panic of extreme shame and an acute attack of social anxiety.
Lin Qingyue maintained her aloof Grandmaster image of the Yixuan Sect, but deep inside, a reinforced battalion of grass mud horses had trampled her entire Spiritual Sea of Consciousness.
She looked at the woman before her, wrapped in pilled pajamas and so panicked she had shut herself off from the world, and a single thought connected all the clues.
The so-called "Pride," the so-called "viewing mortals as ants," did not stem from contempt at all!
The truth was, this Celestial God was a severe shut-in with social anxiety who had no idea how to interact normally with people!
The arrogant and domineering Spirit of Pride who pursued perfection outside was probably just a perfect protective shell that this Azure Dragon had sculpted for herself to cope with external pressure.
An idealized, socially masterful persona.
Lin Qingyue had shattered this idealized shell with a single kick, forcing her to face the imperfect reality.
No wonder the Spirit of Pride had a mental breakdown.
This wasn't a collapse of faith, but rather being forced to suffer a "social death" in public. The shock was simply too great.
The Azure Dragon curled under the desk seemed to have regained a trace of the self-awareness belonging to a God from her initial panic.
Even if there was to be fear, it should be the mortals fearing her!
Although she remained hiding under the desk, with only a pair of pitifully small dragon horns visible.
But her voice already squeezed out a trace of forced majesty.
"M-mortal, you dare trespass in this seat's Temple, your crime is unpardonable!"
This voice tried hard to imitate a cold and aloof tone, but because of her curled-up posture, her breath was unstable, making it sound exactly like a little girl throwing a tantrum and acting spoiled.
Lin Qingyue's eyebrows twitched slightly as she took a step forward without a sound.
"Bang!"
The Azure Dragon under the desk seemed to have stepped on an electric switch, her whole body trembling as she suddenly sprang up from behind the desk.
She hurriedly tried to pull her loose pajamas straight, striking a godlike pose.
As a result, when she raised her elbow, she precisely hit a mountain of books piled higher than a person beside her.
Crash—
The mountain of books collapsed, a landslide of documents instantly burying her completely.
Only a faint struggle and a suppressed wail could be heard from deep within the pile of books.
Lin Qingyue's mouth twitched uncontrollably.
The image in her mind of the majestic and domineering Four Sacred Beasts who ruled the East was now more thoroughly shattered than dumpling filling.
What kind of God of Pride was this?
This was clearly a top-tier socially anxious shut-in, plus a clumsy, cute-but-stupid type who tripped over nothing!
The information on the professional panel clearly stated: [Celestial God: Azure Dragon].
But the gap between this and the one in front of her... the difference between the buyer's show and the seller's show was just too big.
Could this be considered god-level fraud?
The Azure Dragon was still flailing in the pile of books. Lin Qingyue's sharp eyes noticed a crumpled piece of scrap paper lying at her feet.
The material of that paper was special, thicker than mortal parchment, and its edges still radiated faint ripples of Divine Power.
Lin Qingyue bent down to pick it up and unfolded it casually.
A line of elegant yet powerful divine script formed an eye-popping title:
"The Domineering Vermilion Bird Falls in Love with Me: A Burning Forbidden Love"
Lin Qingyue's mind flashed with the face of that short-tempered older sister, Vermilion Bird, and the hand holding the manuscript felt a surge of heat.
She subconsciously glanced at the scrolls scattered on the desk, only then realizing that the mountain-like pile was not entirely made up of sacred tomes.
Instead, they were cross-species fanfictions with titles alone riddled with cringe-worthy points, such as "About My Reincarnation as the Black Tortoise's Shell" and "The Runaway Little Darling Wife of Marshal White Tiger."
Some of the covers even featured illustrations with highly suggestive poses.
This caused Lin Qingyue, a veteran otaku, to feel a strong mental shock.
The Celestial God's temple... was actually a web novel workshop?!
Lin Qingyue's gaze fell on the "The Domineering Vermilion Bird Falls in Love with Me," and she casually flipped to a certain page.
Facing the divine script, she almost instinctively read it aloud with a rising and falling tone.
"...Vermilion Bird's fiery lips, hot as magma, domineeringly sealed the Black Tortoise's... ice-cold lips."
"Blazing heat and freezing cold intertwined, that was a forbidden love that crossed hundreds of millions of years, the most brilliant yet most intolerable in the God Realm..."
Reading to this point, she paused for a moment and looked at the Azure Dragon still struggling in the pile of books with an astonished expression as if she had discovered a new continent.
"So this is the God's 'Supreme Wisdom'?"
"Are you shipping your own siblings? And with smut, no less?"
"Are you really this kind of god? Writing this kind of... uh, interspecies incestuous literature? You sure know how to keep things spicy."
Lin Qingyue's tone shifted, her voice laced with a subtle, complex emotion: a mix of mockery and the knowing smile of a seasoned fujoshi.
"Is this the kind of fanfiction I'm thinking of?"
Her voice echoed through the grand hall.
Each word turned into a razor-sharp arrow, striking the struggling Azure Dragon with pinpoint accuracy.
The Azure Dragon, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, instantly bristled in a fury.
"Aaaah! Shut up! Mortal!"
She roared out of the pile of books, clutching a calligraphy brush taller than a human as her weapon.
"Put that down! This is blasphemy! This is the Celestial God's classified information! This seat will silence you all! Silence you all!"
Her stunningly beautiful face turned a liver-red with extreme shame and rage, her features twisting with a few spasms.
Her aura was indeed imposing.
But due to her long-term shut-in lifestyle and lack of exercise, her Divine Power flowed with a distinct clunkiness.
Added to the books and clutter she had scattered all over the floor.
Before she could even reach Lin Qingyue, her foot caught on an empty wine jug that had rolled into her path.
"Waaah!"
A short, shrill cry of despair echoed through the grand hall.
Then, right in front of Lin Qingyue, she took a textbook "five-point prostration" fall.
Both person and brush slid for a full three meters across the room filled with waste paper.
Finally, she landed face-first, coming to a precise stop at Lin Qingyue's feet.
Her heavy black-framed glasses flew off, tracing a graceful parabola through the air before landing nearby.
The lenses reflected the dim light of the runic lamp on the hall's ceiling.
The God's majesty was completely gone.