Honkai Impact: My VR Harem is Real — Chapter 206

Chapter 206: Teaching Cheng Lingshuang

It made perfect sense why Su Mei had dragged herself out of bed at such an ungodly hour. She clearly wanted to play the role of the perfect, reliable senior sister and leave a flawless impression on the three new arrivals.

Unfortunately for her, Rovel had thoroughly dismantled that illusion the night before by casually exposing her entire embarrassing history. Whether the girl could salvage her shattered image in the eyes of her new junior sisters was entirely up to her own acting skills now.

“Come on, I’ll take you all to wash up first,” Su Mei offered, her voice dripping with practiced sweetness. “Once we’ve had breakfast, I’ll personally teach you the Sword Heart Mantra.”

Jiang Wanxi and Jiang Wanru, still groggy but obedient, nodded in unison and trailed after her. However, the youngest of the trio didn’t budge. Cheng Lingshuang remained planted firmly on the stone steps, her wide, unblinking eyes locked onto Rovel’s fluid sword practice.

Su Mei paused, noticing the missing duckling. She spun around, plastering on a warm, inviting smile. “Hello there! I’m Su Mei. What’s your name?”

Cheng Lingshuang didn’t even blink. Instead of answering, the little girl merely leaned to the side, shifting her weight just enough to ensure Su Mei’s silhouette wouldn’t obstruct her view of Rovel’s flashing blade.

Su Mei’s smile twitched, threatening to crack. She quickly adjusted her strategy, aiming straight for the bait. “Are you really interested in swords? If you come with me, I’ll teach you the Sword Heart Mantra right after we eat. Master it, and before long, you can learn the Sword Form too!”

Silence. Cheng Lingshuang remained utterly transfixed, her gaze tracking every arc and thrust of Rovel’s movements, treating Su Mei’s enticing offer like nothing more than a passing breeze.

Lacking the saintly patience of Lin Chaoyu, Su Mei felt a flush of embarrassment creep up her neck. How is this brat so impossible to deal with? she grumbled internally, crossing her arms. Conveniently, she had completely wiped from her memory the fact that she had acted the exact same way when she first arrived at Mount Taixuan—ignoring everyone and everything around her.

Rovel ended his sequence with a sharp exhale, lowering his blade. “I’ll bring Junior Sister Lingshuang over in a bit,” he called out, tossing a knowing glance at the frustrated girl. “You take the twins and get started.”

Su Mei’s eyes narrowed into half-moons. “…Then I’ll leave her in your capable hands, Second Senior Brother,” she replied, a sickly-sweet smile on her face as she heavily emphasized his title. She hadn’t forgotten his loose lips from the night before. Su Mei was nothing if not fiercely vindictive.

“Oh, by the way,” Rovel added casually, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “I heard Senior Sister Chaoyu and Master are heading down the mountain for a few days. Senior Sister specifically asked me to oversee your Sword Form practice while they’re gone…”

Before he could even finish his sentence, Su Mei had already grabbed the twins by their collars and vanished around the corner. She hadn’t anticipated that her petty jab would instantly backfire, landing her squarely under his tyrannical supervision. Her only defense was to feign sudden deafness and sprint away. She resolved to treat Rovel like a walking plague for the foreseeable future. Unlike the ever-gentle Lin Chaoyu, Rovel was a merciless taskmaster when it came to martial arts. He never allowed her an inch of slack. For someone as allergic to hard work as Su Mei, this was an absolute nightmare.

Rovel chuckled, entirely unsurprised by her hasty retreat. He smoothly transitioned into a final, flowing sequence of the Form Essence, his muscles burning pleasantly before he finally sheathed the heavy Xuanyuan Sword. He turned his attention back to the tiny, silent spectator.

“Let’s go get something to eat first,” Rovel suggested gently.

Cheng Lingshuang offered no verbal response. Her intense gaze merely shifted from his face to the ornate hilt of the Xuanyuan Sword resting over his shoulder.

Noticing her utter fascination, Rovel reached back, unclipped the heavy weapon, and carefully offered it to her. The moment the ancient metal touched her palms, Lingshuang’s dull eyes ignited with a brilliant, starry spark. Her tiny fingers traced the cold steel, reverently feeling the complex, archaic grooves etched along the flat of the blade.

“This is called a Xuanyuan Sword,” Rovel explained, crouching down to her eye level. “Once you officially begin learning the Sword Form, Master will bestow one upon you as well.”

“Xuan… yuan… Sword?” Lingshuang tilted her head, her voice a soft, raspy whisper. “Sword… Form?”

It was the very first time she had uttered a single syllable since arriving.

“Exactly,” Rovel smiled, seizing the opening. “But before you can even touch the Sword Form, you have to memorize the Sword Heart Mantra.”

“Sword… Heart… Mantra?” She blinked slowly, processing the new term.

“That’s right. However,” Rovel raised a single finger, adopting a tone of absolute authority, “before you can learn the Sword Heart Mantra, you have to eat breakfast. Only good children who finish their meals are allowed to learn the Mantra.” He was laying the trap, step by calculated step.

Lingshuang’s brow furrowed in deep thought before she decisively thrust her small hand toward him. “Eat… food. Eat food.”

“Let’s go. I’ll take you.”

Rovel gently enveloped her tiny hand in his calloused one. Instead of the dining hall, he led her straight to the washbasins, carefully scrubbing her face and helping her clean her teeth.

“Hate it… eat…” Lingshuang’s little face scrunched up into a miserable pout. The biting chill of the morning well water made her shiver, her shoulders bunching up in protest.

“This isn’t eating. This is called washing up,” Rovel corrected patiently, wiping a stray drop of water from her chin. “It’s a mandatory step before breakfast. The food comes right after this.”

Truthfully, Rovel was flying completely blind. He had zero experience raising children. Back when Su Mei was this small, Lin Chaoyu had handled all the maternal duties. He was simply mimicking his senior sister’s old routines, hoping for the best.

The real challenge was that Lingshuang still struggled to form coherent sentences, which practically guaranteed she was completely illiterate. Fortunately, mastering the Sword Heart Mantra didn’t strictly require reading comprehension. It relied on phonetic memorization. He figured he could teach her the vocal chants and basic literacy simultaneously, killing two birds with one stone.

“Wash… up…” Lingshuang mumbled, committing the concept to memory.

Once she was sufficiently scrubbed, Rovel guided her into the side hall. The wooden tables were mostly empty; Su Mei and the twins had long since finished their meals and were likely already suffering through their first lesson of the Sword Heart Mantra.

To Rovel’s immense relief, Lingshuang actually knew how to use utensils. She quietly shoveled the warm porridge into her mouth, sparing him the indignity of having to spoon-feed her like an infant.

As he watched her eat, Rovel’s thoughts drifted. After preparing the morning meal, Lin Chaoyu had hurriedly departed down the mountain alongside Red Kite. Their destination was likely the South China Sea. It was an annual pilgrimage they made around this exact time every year. On the rare occasions when Chaoyu became too swamped with sect duties and forgot the date, Red Kite would personally remind her.

If that wasn’t a deep display of quiet affection, Rovel didn’t know what was.

He let out a soft sigh, recalling how Chaoyu always shrank into herself around their Master. She never dared to voice her own desires, choosing instead to blindly, almost desperately, obey Red Kite’s every command. Chaoyu’s core personality was just too fragile, riddled with deep-seated insecurities. Red Kite’s care was practically written on the walls, yet the first disciple remained agonizingly cautious, always keeping a respectful, tragic distance between them.

It was a stark contrast to the others. Three entire years had passed, and not once had Red Kite ever offered to take Su Mei down the mountain to visit her mother. It was the classic tragedy of ‘no comparison, no harm.’ The favoritism was glaring, even if Chaoyu herself was too blind to see it.

“Finished… eating.”

A light tug on his sleeve snapped Rovel out of his musings. Lingshuang was staring up at him, her empty bowl pushed aside. She immediately demanded her promised reward. “Sword… Heart… Mantra.”

“Alright, alright. Just let me wash the dishes, and we’ll start immediately.” Seeing the rare flash of impatience in the little girl’s usually deadpan eyes, Rovel quickly choked down the last of his own breakfast and cleared the table.

When the lesson finally began in the courtyard, Lingshuang proved to be a terrifyingly intense student. Her dark eyes locked onto Rovel’s lips, absorbing every syllable without a single micro-deviation in her focus.

Across the yard, the contrast was almost comical. Jiang Wanru was trying her absolute best to listen to Su Mei’s instructions, but her scrunched-up face and trembling lip suggested she was fighting a losing battle against the complex phonetics. Her older sister, Jiang Wanxi, had already suffered a complete mental blue-screen. The poor girl was currently sprawled flat on the dirt, her brain thoroughly overloaded.

The Divine Sound text was notoriously brutal. It consisted of exactly four hundred and sixty-two distinct phonetic sounds. There was zero logical connection or grammatical flow between the syllables; mastering it relied purely on sheer, brute-force rote memorization. The twins were mentally drained from trying to learn it, and Su Mei looked like she was ready to pull her own hair out from trying to teach it.

To a prodigy like Su Mei, it was just a string of repetitive noises. She couldn’t fathom why the twins found it so impossibly difficult. The moment she finished demonstrating the second line, they would instantly forget the first. It was a vicious, agonizing cycle. Eventually, Su Mei had to resort to making up silly homophones and childish rhymes just to get the sounds to stick in their heads.

On the other side of the courtyard, Rovel’s teaching experience was a walk in the park. There was zero pressure. By the time he had slowly recited the text for the third time, Cheng Lingshuang opened her mouth and echoed the entire Sword Heart Mantra back to him. Flawlessly. Fluently. Without a single stutter.

“Good. Remember to keep reciting it,” Rovel instructed, masking his internal shock at her monstrous talent. “Reciting it silently in your heart works just as well.”

Lingshuang gave a stiff, jerky nod to indicate she understood. Then, without missing a beat, she held her hand out. “Sword… Form.”

Rovel chuckled, gently patting her head. “Your body is still far too weak right now. Once you’ve grown a bit, when you can run and jump freely without losing your breath, I promise I’ll teach you the Sword Form.”

“Oh…” Lingshuang’s shoulders slumped. She lowered her head, failing to hide the heavy disappointment pooling in her dark eyes.

“Don’t look so down,” Rovel coaxed, offering an encouraging smile. “Reciting the Sword Heart Mantra constantly will temper your internal energy. It will actually help your body grow stronger, much faster.”

“…Mm!” Lingshuang’s head snapped up. She nodded vigorously, her tender little face suddenly etched with a terrifying, unyielding seriousness.