Once the floodgates of trouble opened, her final psychological defense line completely collapsed.
The Azure Dragon suddenly sprang up from the pile of discarded drafts.
She ripped off her thick, black-rimmed glasses.
Then she grabbed the sleeve of her pajama top printed with cartoon bears and vigorously wiped the snot and tears from her face.
"Waaaaah!"
A truly tragic, loud wail echoed through the solemn Temple.
This was the ultimate mental breakdown unique to a failed author stuck on a plot.
"I want to finish writing the story properly too!"
"Writer's block is simply worse than death!"
"Every day, looking at those shriveled plotlines, I just want to blow up the Temple and bury them all with me!"
The Celestial God of the East stamped her feet and wept bitterly.
"Those priests outside are even worse!"
"They hold banners in the Temple Square every day, demanding updates!"
"They even blocked the entrance to ask me when the White Tiger and Black Tortoise are getting married!"
"Do they think a wedding can just happen?"
"The romantic subplot hasn't even been properly laid out, how can they get married!"
"The readers don't care about basic logic, but I still have the Celestial God's reputation to maintain!"
"The pressure is too much... I'm not being this damn god anymore..."
Lin Qingyue watched the Ancient God before her, who was both crying and wailing.
Her worldview had undergone a cycle of shattering, reconstructing, and shattering again today.
She stepped forward, pulled a pack of tissues from her Storage Space, and handed them over.
"Wipe your face."
"Your makeup is all smudged from crying."
The Azure Dragon took the tissues blankly, raising her head with a sob.
"Makeup? I... I'm not wearing any makeup."
"Oh."
Lin Qingyue remained unfazed.
"Then your dark circles are smudged from crying."
The crying in the Great Hall came to an abrupt halt.
After this absurd ordeal, Lin Qingyue had completely seen through the mission target before her.
This was no arrogant and rude high-dimensional god who looked down upon all living beings.
This was just a severely socially anxious, empty-nest shut-in who wrote fanfiction to relieve her loneliness, only to be driven to a nervous breakdown by her fanatical followers.
After venting her emotions, the Azure Dragon's mood stabilized considerably.
She put her black-rimmed glasses back on and shrank back into her secure pile of books.
The gaze behind the lenses revealed obvious cowardice, yet she stared fixedly at Lin Qingyue.
It was the extreme longing of a socially anxious shut-in who had been disconnected from the internet for years, finally catching a live person to talk to.
"Actually..."
The Azure Dragon spoke in a muffled voice, her fingers nervously picking at the edge of a piece of scrap paper.
"I just hope that someone could truly enjoy the stories I write."
Her voice gradually trailed off.
"Not those fanatical believers who go mad and interpret my randomly made-up fanfiction as the laws of the Heavenly Order."
"But normal readers who can understand the plot, love the characters, and discuss the story's development with me normally..."
A spark of hope flickered twice in her eyes before being instantly drowned by fear.
"But I'm afraid to go outside."
"I don't dare to promote my work, and I'm even more reluctant to let others know that this kind of messy stuff was written by the Celestial God Azure Dragon."
She buried her head in her knees again.
Such contradictory and fragile emotions even condensed into tangible fluctuations of Magic Power in the air.
Lin Qingyue stared at that messy head.
The mission description on the System Panel flickered on her retina.
[Soothe the endless void of the Celestial God: Azure Dragon.]
The mission puzzle was solved.
This wasn't some profound philosophical proposition.
Nor was it some misleadingly lewd filth.
Void.
It was just the literal meaning.
A shut-in author who had been creating content solo for a long time, lacking any feedback or interaction, and didn't even have a single person to complain to.
Her mental state was one of extreme craving for validation yet extreme fear of socializing.
Having grasped the core demand, the combativeness of a high-level player faded from Lin Qingyue's eyes.
Her "troll" genes fully awakened.
Saving a fallen god would start with reshaping her perspective on web novels.
This was called "Industrialized Poverty Alleviation for Web Novels."
She took a step forward and sat down cross-legged in front of the Azure Dragon.
The distance closed instantly.
The Azure Dragon peeked out with one eye from her arms, panicking as she scooted back half an inch.
Lin Qingyue deactivated her Yixuan Character Card, reverting to the Pink-Haired Priest, her approachability skyrocketing.
The Azure Dragon's attempt to scoot back further silently stopped.
Lin Qingyue raised her hand and pressed a piece of manuscript paper covered in nonsense onto the ground.
"Want to write a story people actually like? That's not hard."
She cut straight to the point.
Her crisp and decisive tone struck the Azure Dragon's anxious pain point directly.
"You have two fatal flaws right now."
Lin Qingyue held up two fingers.
"First, your skill doesn't match your ambition, and your output is all industrial waste."
"Second, your target audience is completely wrong."
Azure Dragon looked up blankly.
Though she didn't understand the jargon, she still nodded subconsciously.
"We need to reconstruct everything from the most basic logic."
Lin Qingyue tapped her finger on the title The Overbearing Vermilion Bird Falls in Love With Me.
"Lord Azure Dragon, what is your definition of a 'good story'?"
"Just call me Qingxuan."
Azure Dragon corrected her softly, then sank into thought.
"Ups and downs."
"Captivating."
"Thought-provoking, able to make one realize the laws of the Heavenly Order."
Lin Qingyue gave a short laugh.
"Wrong."
"For a popular novel, the sole core criterion for judgment is the 'satisfaction point'."
"Satisfaction point?"
Azure Dragon's rounded dragon horns trembled, her face written with a thirst for knowledge.
"This is the absolute iron rule of popular novels."
Lin Qingyue entered berserk mode, fully activating her memories of reading countless novels in her past life.
"It's a plot point that can precisely stimulate the reader's brain to secrete dopamine."
She shook the manuscript paper in her hand.
"Look at this part you wrote. 'Fiery heat and icy cold intertwined, that is a forbidden love that spans hundreds of millions of years'."
"Too much nonsense."
"Not straightforward enough, no emotional explosion point."
Lin Qingyue leaned in, her gaze extremely pressuring.
"You should write it like this."
"The Vermilion Bird is forced into a marriage by her family, to marry an ugly God Lord who is 30,000 years old."
"On the day of the grand wedding, the God Realm's elite gathered."
"Just as the Vermilion Bird was in despair, that Black Tortoise, who had been despised and mocked by everyone, kicked open the Temple's gates!"
"One move, only one move!"
"The Black Tortoise stomped that ugly God Lord's face into the cracks of the floor tiles."
"And announced before the entire God Realm—"
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river!"
"This woman, I am taking her away today!"
Azure Dragon's mouth fell open in an "O" shape.
"This... isn't this too straightforward?"
"Straightforward is exactly right!"
Lin Qingyue interrupted her mercilessly.
"What readers want is the ultimate emotional release!"
"This is called the face-slapping trope!"
She gave the Ancient God no chance to catch her breath, continuing her frantic output of industrial-grade theories.
"Take this one, for example, The Runaway Little Wife of Marshal White Tiger."
"The female protagonist, a mere mortal, needs to grow. She must have a Golden Finger."
"What is a Golden Finger? It's jumping off a cliff and getting a Divine Technique instead of dying, turning left upon leaving the house and picking up an ancient artifact, or carrying an Old Grandpa around who's ready to fight and impart techniques at any moment!"
"This, is the Golden Finger!"
Azure Dragon's eyes widened further.
"And there are all sorts of plot tropes!"
"Like the Trash-to-Hero trope. Write about the protagonist getting his engagement broken, then set a three-year promise. After three years, the Dragon King returns to his throne and goes back to slap the faces of everyone who looked down on him until they're all swollen!"
"The supporting characters must be arrogant, and the villains must look down on the protagonist."
"Then, let the protagonist turn the tide from a position of absolute disadvantage."
"The surrounding onlookers must say: 'This kid is actually so terrifying'!"
Lin Qingyue's speaking speed grew faster and faster.
"And twists! You think the protagonist's best friend is a good person? Wrong! He's actually an undercover agent sent by the final BOSS!"
"You think the story is about to end? No! This is just the first volume. There's still the God Realm Arc, the Immortal Realm Arc, and the Primal Chaos Universe Arc!"
"Playing a pig to eat the tiger!"
"Infinite-flow leveling!"
"Adding points to the System Panel!"
A pile of these dimension-reducing theories, unheard of in this world, smashed directly into the Ancient Celestial God's barren creative mind.
Azure Dragon's three views, at this moment, met with a destructive reshaping.