Kiana: Another Day of Posing Coolly!

Shu only ate three mouthfuls before putting down his chopsticks, pushing the plate towards Kiana, then rolling over and lying back down again.

However, things were slightly different from before.

Previously, he lay flat because he felt a sense of "the Han Dynasty is declining, deeply feeling powerless" [parody of historical sentiment, implying despair]. Now that "Adou" [nickname for Liu Shan, a famously incompetent emperor] had actually been propped up against the wall by him, Shu still felt a sense of unreality.

Meanwhile, Kiana looked at the plate of meat pushed back in front of her, blinked, but didn't immediately pick up her chopsticks to enjoy what could very well be her only dish for the evening.

She scooted closer to Shu, grinned at him, and said, "Heehee... Now you can teach me how to... pose coolly, right?"

You haven't forgotten?

Shu glanced speechlessly at Kiana, then sighed deeply.

"Fine..."

"Really!?" Kiana propped herself up from the ground in surprise, asking Shu excitedly.

Shu resignedly pushed himself up from the floor, then rubbed his sore neck. "Not learning?"

"Learn, learn, learn! I'll definitely learn!" Kiana nodded like a pecking chick and sprang up from the ground.

This clearly excited action surprisingly didn't send Kiana crashing into the ceiling. It was evident that Kiana hadn't just been torturing herself and Shu these past few hours.

She had truly integrated the enhancement from the Key of Evolution into every habit and movement of her body.

"What should we learn first?" Kiana bounced excitedly, hands clenched into fists before her chest, looking ready to strike at any moment.

Shu thought for a moment.

"When it comes to posing coolly... first, you need to learn to distinguish which situations support you posing, and which situations will turn you into a clown."

"Mm-hmm!" Kiana nodded seriously. "How do we distinguish?"

"First—in situations where you're completely crushed, where even going all out you can't last a single move, the only pose you can strike is mocking the opponent for only bullying newbies, only preying on the weak, mocking them for being even worse than you, a giant baby..."

"Like what you did to the Herrscher?" Kiana remembered the things Shu said when facing Vakh.

True... Shu back then really had an indescribable feeling...

It was a completely different feeling from now. You couldn't pinpoint anything cool about him, but you just felt deep down that it was a kind of strength you could absolutely never attain.

"Something like that..." Shu also recalled along with Kiana, then nodded. "In front of someone that strong, it's hard to be stronger than them. We can only demean their actions, spirit, will, thereby using our strengths to contrast their weaknesses."

"Isn't that just stabbing people in the back?!" Kiana frowned; she realized things seemed a bit off.

"Yeah..." Shu nodded seriously. "What else?"

"But..." Kiana choked, then after a long pause, asked softly, "Is doing that really okay..."

"...Do you think posing coolly is some kind of good deed?" Shu stared at Kiana for a long time before asking with a raised eyebrow.

Kiana: "…"

Right!

"Okay..." Kiana pinched her nose and accepted it. Anyway, she didn't consider herself some kind of good girl either.

She's already hit on girls, what does that have to do with being a good girl? The good girl has already been won over by her! Hehe...

"What's next?"

"If the opponent is someone you can't beat but can hold your ground against, then try to appear evenly matched," Shu smiled and continued his explanation.

"Strength has always been a difficult ladder to climb. Everyone's mindset is 'the strong remain strong, the weak can never surpass the strong'," Shu held up two fingers, placing them offset in front of Kiana.

"Eh?" Kiana was confused again. "But I don't think like that... Everyone has the ability to become stronger, right?"

"Correct," Shu nodded in agreement. "Everyone has the ability and potential to become stronger, but that's in the future, it has nothing to do with the present. Right now, our relationship is I'm strong, you're weak, you have to listen to me.

"Therefore, the strong can accept a formerly weak person who has become strong pointing fingers at them, but they absolutely cannot tolerate a weak person who hasn't become strong yet shouting in front of them.

"Even less can they accept losing face genuinely to someone clearly weaker than them, because again—'the strong remain strong, and only the weak will be suppressed'."

Shu paused, then said, "Do you remember those villains in the Shenzhou web novels you read, the ones who, after being casually refuted by the protagonist, went to great lengths trying to kill the protagonist?"

Oh, she remembered those very well!

Kiana immediately nodded, then showed a look of sudden realization. "So it's because they couldn't stand becoming the ones being suppressed? They wanted to remove the 'weakling' label from their heads?"

Isn't she quite smart?

Shu nodded with some surprise. "In their own worldview, they are the strong, so they oppress protagonists like you, who are weak. At the same time, after being face-slapped by the protagonist, it's because of this worldview that they continue targeting the protagonist..."

Kiana's expression was exceptionally colorful now.

She had always read those Shenzhou web novels as mindless entertainment... but now Shu was telling her there might actually be logic and brains in them?

You're saying those people who mindlessly suppressed the protagonist but ended up feeding them experience points had a complete worldview? And this worldview is common?!

If the books have brains, then who's the brainless one? Isn't it obvious!

"But, why do those people become like that?" Kiana's face twisted slightly. She didn't even care about how to pose coolly anymore; she just wanted to know why.

Shu chuckled.

"One group of people... they were once weak too. Precisely because they personally experienced how the weak are oppressed, they desperately try to oppress the next generation of weaklings. They don't want to go back."

"What about the other group?" Kiana's face turned somewhat bitter.

"The other group..." Shu fell silent momentarily.

What kind of people were the other group?

They grew up pampered, raised in ivory towers untouched by danger. They merely stretched lazily under the shade of generations of privilege and became taller than all the weeds.

Why did these people become like that?

...

"It's because of fear, probably... They fear everything. They fear karma, they fear losing everything they have now, they even fear 'only having meat gruel to eat' [referencing a famously out-of-touch quote by an ancient Chinese emperor, implying fear of losing luxury]... They are even more cowardly and fragile than the first group who fear returning to the past."