Chapter 323: Living Equipment

How can I satisfy you?

In the dream, Li En refused to play guessing games with the spirit and asked directly.

"Singing, and performance." Along with the vibrating strings came a melody like lyrical verse.

The answer was honest enough, but to Li En, it was hardly friendly.

"But earlier, when I performed in the square, why did you deduct 1% satisfaction?"

Li En had already thought of this answer himself.

He fully committed—he put on makeup, grabbed a lute, and hit the streets to sing for coins.

But after singing only two songs, he stopped; satisfaction and synchronization kept dropping, even falling below the dream mode's baseline requirement.

"Oh, was that performance? I thought you were performing a shamanic ritual." Even the perpetually aloof Fiestrion couldn't suppress a smile.

"Who performs a shamanic ritual at the entrance to the square!" Li En had deliberately chosen the busiest spot to perform—he wasn't afraid of humiliation, especially with professional-grade disguise assistance.

"Then you were directing traffic. Huh. Efficient."

Li En froze, then bristled.

"After you started singing, the flow on that road at least doubled. Not just pedestrians sprinting away—even carriages dared not stop." The bard shook his head; such a tone-deaf fool becoming his heir was nothing short of tragic.

Lies don't hurt; truth is the sharp blade. The first half was slightly off—lies can hurt too, but truth inflicts real wounds. The scene from earlier that day had cut Li En deeply.

Recalling how, after he opened his mouth, vehicles and pedestrians had fled in panic—even oxen broke into a trot and stray dogs didn't pause—he felt a pang of sorrow.

If he hadn't run off quickly, the constables would've caught him, and Talia/Saliman would've had to come fetch him again.

He sighed, half-speaking, while the spirit opposite silently played the lute, ignoring him completely.

"I can't learn it."

"Hopeless."

Both confirmed: the other was not the right person. Even if forced to teach, nothing could be learned.

Art is creative—it expresses the self and evokes emotional resonance. Li En might be a fine user, but he was no pioneer.

He instinctively pursued "answers," even if he couldn't or didn't believe it was the only one, striving always for the optimal solution.

But if countless creative paths before him were all valid, with no essential superiority, each capable of forging a future—he would naturally become lost, utterly unable to decide based on data.

"Just go with instinct already. Stop wasting words."

To Fiestrion, Li En was a "common mortal," utterly beyond redemption.

For such common things, Fiestrion usually ignored them entirely. And if it were another version of himself, merely witnessing this filled him with shame.

Like a scientist seeing his childhood self believing in all sorts of folk-science nonsense like "water into oil"—just witnessing it made him deeply uncomfortable.

Yet, that was himself—undeniable.

"Do one good deed a day. Save an innocent life, and I'll grant you the baseline satisfaction reward according to the mechanism."

Since emotional connection was impossible, let's talk trade. Since he couldn't truly inherit all the spirit's arts, at least spread a little of the philosophy.

Fiestrion seemed easygoing, but that was precisely the barrier—like a homeroom teacher giving you a passing grade as long as you didn't cause trouble or misbehave.

As he himself said, to truly satisfy him, Li En would need to create a new work he liked—whether painting, drama, or music, Fiestrion didn't care. But since all were Li Ensu, plagiarism was useless; Li En had nothing new to offer.

"As for my legacy—I suggest you learn how to broadcast."

What does that mean? Play recordings?

Li En thought for a moment, nodded, and accepted. What if he couldn't learn it? He'd copy the shape—imitate as much as he could.