The atmosphere in the Temple Core had completely taken an irreversible wrong turn.
The core area of the Azure Dragon Temple, once regarded by countless believers as the ultimate destination of their pilgrimage, had now degenerated into a web novel assembly line for rookie authors.
Mountains of discarded drafts lay scattered all around.
Not a trace of divine majesty could be sensed in the air, only the peculiar stench of low-grade ink and rotting fruit pits.
Lin Qingyue pulled over a wide leather lounge chair, crossed her legs, and sank deeply into the soft cushion in an extremely relaxed posture.
A runic pen was held between her fingers, the barrel spinning nimbly in her grasp.
On the nearby azure jade writing table, the ink on the newly written three pages of parchment had not yet dried.
This was the opening of Qingxuan's new book.
The handwriting on the parchment was wild and sweeping, carrying a faint scent of ink and an extremely weak ripple of divine power.
Qingxuan, the Azure Dragon revered as one of the Four Celestial Gods, showed not the slightest bit of majesty at this moment.
She propped her head up with both hands, her entire upper body sprawled across the wide writing desk.
Her eyes, originally bloodshot, were now fixed intently on the words on the parchment.
She even held her breath, afraid that a single careless puff of air would blow away the meager divine power on the paper.
After Breaking the Engagement, I Bound the Celestial God Face-Slapping System.
This was the title of her new book, which Lin Qingyue had helped her finalize step by step.
Compared to the previous cross-species fanfiction that had driven even the High Priestess mad, Lin Qingyue believed this title was a truly precise strike on the bottom-of-the-pyramid market.
"The pacing is wrong."
Lin Qingyue tapped the scroll twice with her finger, bluntly pointing out the flaw.
"You spent a whole two thousand words in this first chapter describing how magnificent the gems on the fiancée's dress were and how long the family history was."
"Who wants to read that?"
Qingxuan chewed on the barrel of her runic pen, her eyes behind black-rimmed glasses shining with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
"But... if I don't write the background clearly, how can I highlight the woman's nobility and the man's lowliness? The prayers the High Priestess submitted to me before were all written like this."
"Prayers are for following protocol; web novels are for the thrill!"
Lin Qingyue sat up straight and began to impart the core theory of industrialized reading, tempered through a thousand hardships on Earth.
"The biggest taboo at the beginning is to lay out the setting."
"You have to cut straight to the chase!"
She tapped the edge of the table with her pen, making a light "tap, tap" sound.
"As soon as the protagonist appears, the fiancée must bring a large crowd to his door to break the engagement, trampling the protagonist's dignity and grinding it into the ground repeatedly!"
"The family elders should kick him while he's down, and the geniuses of his generation should mock him coldly."
"Push all the negative emotions to the extreme in the first chapter!"
Qingxuan nodded frantically like a chicken pecking rice, her messy hair bobbing up and down.
"I get it! This is what you called 'building hate'! But... if he's so humiliated, won't the readers smash my statue?"
Lin Qingyue held up two fingers.
"First, publish under a pen name. No one will know it was written by Celestial God Azure Dragon."
"Second, if they really want to smash the statue, that only proves they've immersed themselves in the story."
"This is called 'suppression before exaltation'."
"Only with extreme suppression can the rebound be satisfying enough."
"The male lead absolutely cannot bow his head at this moment!"
Qingxuan listened, completely enthralled, her Runic Pen recording rapidly on the parchment as she nodded repeatedly.
Lin Qingyue leaned in closer, her fingertip tapping the turning point on the second page.
"The protagonist must withstand everyone's pressure and publicly divorce his wife! Then, write that most classic line."
Qingxuan instantly clenched her fists.
Due to excessive excitement, the pair of Azure Jade-like dragon horns on her head were emitting a faint glow.
She grabbed her exclusive calligraphy brush, poured surging Divine Power into its tip, and wrote that soul-shaking slogan with force that pierced the back of the final sheet of parchment.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, do not look down on a poor young man!"
With every stroke, the surrounding air hummed in low resonance.
The instant these fifteen characters took shape, the air throughout the entire Temple suffered a tangible shockwave!
Ancient Divine Power resonated eerily with this phrase of extreme emotional release.
A blinding azure light shimmered on the surface of the characters.
A visible wave of battle intent formed a circular shockwave, sending the surrounding mountains of scrap paper flying wildly into the air.
Standing behind, Lin Xiyue hastily raised [Blackstone's Protection], blocking the Divine Power shockwave with the shield.
"This is absolutely ridiculous!"
Lin Xiyue poked half her head out from behind the shield, complaining as she watched the paper scraps dance in the sky.
"The battle intent contained in just this one sentence is stronger than the ultimate move that Spirit of Pride spent so long charging up!"
"Is this God using all her Divine Power just to fuss over words?"
Su Wan, meanwhile, stared intently at the parchment radiating terrifying pressure, her brow furrowed into a tight knot.
"This level of Divine Power enchantment... according to ancient texts, it is only used to draw Forbidden Spell-level battle formation scrolls."
"And now, she's actually using it to write this kind of thing..."
"Don't talk! Don't talk! We're at the climax!" Xia Lian, for once, did not retreat. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck forward, her eyes gleaming with a strange thirst for knowledge.
As a top-tier Ranger, she was actually using all her Stealth skills just to peek at a Celestial God writing.
After finishing the final, powerful exclamation mark, Qingxuan dropped her pen and clutched the parchment, turning it over and over to read.
She rolled half a turn on the lounge chair, hugged her knees, and let out a series of strange, unintelligible laughs.
"This is so satisfying! Absolutely satisfying!"
Qingxuan's eyes shone with brilliance, her spirits soaring.
"This kind of emotion, when the protagonist is pushed to the brink and erupts with the resolve to defy the heavens and turn the tables, is even more thrilling than watching two Astral Behemoths brawl in the Void!"
"What did I ever think those mushy romantic entanglements I wrote before were worth!"
The writer's block that had plagued this Celestial God for centuries was completely purged in these fifteen characters.
Lin Qingyue leaned against the edge of the table, completely unfazed by the leaking Divine Power, simply and dutifully playing the role of an online novel mentor.
"Just shouting slogans isn't enough. The 'show-off' needs to be smooth and three-dimensional."
Lin Qingyue stroked her chin, offering more detailed guidance.
"At this moment, you need to add more psychological descriptions."
"The protagonist's inner defiance, the fiancée's shock as her arrogance turns to astonishment, and the sound of the onlookers gasping in awe."
"You have to treat the reactions of the people around as green leaves to set off the protagonist, who is the blooming red flower."
"Do you get what I mean?"
"So exciting!" Qingxuan slapped the table in admiration. "Brilliant! Using the shock of bystanders to reflect the protagonist's power! This kind of secret thrill..."
She could no longer suppress the wild joy in her heart and suddenly leaped up from her chair.
However, due to her height and somewhat plump physique, she failed to complete an elegant leap, instead tripping over her own feet and rolling straight onto the large leather chaise longue.
A dignified one of the Four Celestial Gods, she clutched those three parchment scrolls and rolled around on the chaise longue like a child who had just received a new toy.
"I get it! The supporting characters' function is to build the atmosphere!"
Qingxuan quickly connected the dots and even came up with a complementary plan herself.
"After the male lead shouts this line, he can activate the 'Celestial God Face-Slapping System'!"
"Then the System will immediately grant a cultivation reward, allowing him to stomp that damn Clan Leader directly under his feet!"
"So satisfying!"
"The explosive power of this kind of emotion is simply invincible!"
"The Broken Engagement Trope is number one in the world! This is a true dimensional strike!"
Qingxuan rolled around while holding the manuscript high in the air, laughing like a two-hundred-pound silly roe deer.