The warm glow of the stove flickered in the tea.
That tiny yet stubborn spark of warmth was reflected in Feng Yan's dull and desolate eyes.
Her face, permanently dead-gray and unchanging through the ages, remained as numb as ever.
But Lin Qingyue caught a subtle detail.
Feng Yan's eyes, once completely unfocused as if mirroring the ultimate void of the universe, now held a trace of the faintest focus.
It was not a focal point.
It was more like a pebble thrown into a vast, endless snowfield.
Though the ripple was small, it finally introduced an observable "foreign object" into this deadly silence.
Feng Yan did not speak.
She simply stared at Lin Qingyue as if she were waiting.
It was a gaze that transcended expectation, a gaze driven by an almost primal instinct for survival.
A person who had been drowning in the river of time for billions of years, clutching at a straw from nowhere before their consciousness completely dissipated.
Lin Qingyue held the teacup, her fingertips feeling the warm, smooth texture of the porcelain.
She was also observing Feng Yan.
On that face, so perfect it seemed unearthly, she saw an ultimate weariness.
It was not physical fatigue.
It was the profound imprint left after the soul was repeatedly crushed by the most ruthless machine: time.
A single word leaped into Lin Qingyue's mind.
Erosion.
Zhongli's story had already proven that working as a god for too long could lead to severe professional burnout.
Long-lived immortals and gods were not eternally indestructible. Their minds would be gradually worn down and eroded by the excessive burden of memories and responsibilities over the vast ages.
Azhdaha had fallen into madness because he forgot his contract due to erosion.
Feng Yan, standing before her, had taken her "erosion" to a different extreme.
A quieter, more complete despair.
She had not gone mad, nor had she forgotten.
On the contrary, she remembered everything, consciously enduring it all.
It was precisely this damned clarity that had eroded her into her current state, burning away even her wrath, leaving only a total loathing for existence itself.
This was far more difficult to deal with than simple rage.
Madmen still had obsessions, but how could one touch a soul that had completely turned to ash?
Wrath was merely a symptom.
The root of the disease was a heart that had long since died.
To cure a "heart sickness" of this magnitude, ordinary logic wouldn't suffice.
One had to use strong medicine.
Use a kind of logic she had never heard before, a heretical one, to strike at her worldview that had long since solidified into a fossil.
Lin Qingyue's gaze slid past the faint ripple in Feng Yan's eyes.
Finally, it landed on the scarlet court robes that, though woven from pure energy, were still intricately ornate and impeccably tailored.
That flame-like crimson hair was smooth all over, with a slight, elegant curl at the tips.
An interesting thought surfaced.
This immortal goddess... actually cares a lot about beauty?
A god who found even death an unattainable luxury, who loathed "existence" itself, yet manifested an image so exquisitely beautiful.
This was illogical.
According to her own words, wouldn't molding herself into a simple ball of light or a blurry humanoid be more consistent with her state of a dead heart?
Why bother with being beautiful?
Unless...
Even she herself was unaware that deep within her soul, there still lingered an instinct known as "love for beauty."
A daring plan took shape in Lin Qingyue's mind.
She gently set down her teacup.
Clack.
The soft sound of the cup's base meeting the table was exceptionally clear in the dead silence.
Her gaze was calm and gentle, yet it pierced precisely into the void in Feng Yan's eyes, reaching toward that weary Soul Sea.
"Senior Feng Yan."
Her voice was soft, yet it carried a force that could not be ignored.
"Do you... have any 'desires' that belong only to you?"
This question bypassed all solid defenses, striking straight at the core of the sickness.
"Have you ever done anything solely because 'I like it,' rather than for all living beings, for duty, or for protection?"
Upon hearing this, Feng Yan's pupils, which had just begun to focus, instantly scattered.
An unprecedented, pure bewilderment surfaced on the god's face.
This was no pretense.
It was the most genuine confusion, stemming from the depths of her soul.
She seemed to be comprehending the meaning of the words "myself" and "desire" combined together.
Like a precision machine built solely to execute the "protection" program, suddenly asked about its dreams.
This transcended the cognitive framework she had established over tens of millions of years.
A complete "heresy."
Her throat moved slightly, and the sound she made was no longer dry but had a hint of clarity.
"Desire...?"
She repeated the word, and in her empty eyes, one could even see a trace of disarray caused by the logical conflict.
"I am a deity."
"My duty is to guide, educate, and protect mortals. Until my life burns out, no matter how numb or sorrowful I become, I must give my all."
Her tone was flat and direct, without any trace of a deity's arrogance.
It was a cold conviction, one that had already been integrated into the very core of her soul.
And behind that conviction lay a heart-wrenching, fated sorrow.
Just as mortals need to breathe, just as the sun must rise in the east and set in the west.
To her, "protection" was her sole purpose of existence; it did not need, nor could it be, questioned.
She paused, seemingly dissecting Lin Qingyue's question more deeply, before offering her final conclusion.
"I... have no desires that belong only to myself."
When she spoke those words, Lin Qingyue could almost hear the echo of the heavy shackles deep within her soul.
It was the sorrow of being utterly nailed down by fate, never even having entertained the thought of struggling.
It wasn't that she didn't want to.
She had simply never thought that she could possess anything that belonged only to herself.
Her existence, from its very beginning, was for "all living beings."
[ Ding! ]
[ Congratulations! Through precise questioning, you have successfully touched the core ailment of the "Remnant Soul of the Vermilion Bird." ]
[ Elation Value +5000! ]
[ Your understanding of the Authority of "Desire" has deepened. ]
The system notification chimed in her mind, but Lin Qingyue had no time to pay it any attention right now.
Feng Yan's answer had completely confirmed her judgment.
Feng Yan's problem was not some mere abnormal state.
It was a complete collapse of her fundamental logic.
Her "divinity" was too pure, so pure that it had erased her "humanity" as an independent individual.
She had taken the duty of "protection" as the entire meaning of her existence.
When this meaning became unbearably painful due to endless cycles of reincarnation, she could neither escape nor change it, and was ultimately worn down into her current state.
Conventional persuasion, to a deity who had lived for ten million years, was nothing more than a tired cliché.
A completely new logic, a "fact" she could not refute, was needed to pry open the stubborn barriers of her mind.
Lin Qingyue let out a barely perceptible sigh.
But in her heart, she already had a plan.
Since reason wouldn't work, then... she would tell a story.
She had to make her understand that while clocking in for work was a duty, retiring after work was a divine right!
"I once heard another deity tell their own story."
She lifted the teapot again, refilling Feng Yan's cup, the curling steam blurring the scene between the two of them.
"He, just like you, is a very, very ancient god."
"So ancient... that He personally carved a prosperous nation named 'Liyue' from a wild wasteland for His people."
Lin Qingyue's voice carried a peculiar magic, slowly unfurling a grand historical scroll within this Ash World.
Feng Yan didn't respond, but she didn't look away either.
Those empty eyes reflected the startlingly bright ones of Lin Qingyue as she told the story.
Perhaps she wasn't curious about the story itself.
But she was curious about what the human before her, who had brought her a trace of warmth, was trying to do.