[GL] I'm Just A Side Character... So Why Is The Heroine Chasing Me?!-Chapter 45: Golden Overflow

The breakthrough happened on a Tuesday.

Zhao Lingxi had been following Bai Xuelan’s cultivation method for two weeks. Every morning, she sat in the private courtyard and distributed golden energy through her entire body. Every evening, Bai Xuelan measured her progress with her instruments and scribbled observations in her journal.

The results were extraordinary.

Peak fourth level. Then fifth level. Then, by the end of the second week, early sixth level. A rate of advancement that would have taken an ordinary cultivator half a year, compressed into fourteen days.

"Her body is adapting to the distribution method faster than my models predicted," Bai Xuelan told Lan Yue during one of their measuring sessions. "The golden energy isn’t just filling her body. It’s restructuring it. Strengthening her bones, her muscles, her tendons. At this rate, she’ll reach Foundation Establishment within a month."

"Is that dangerous?" Lan Yue asked.

"Everything about this is dangerous." Bai Xuelan’s voice was matter of fact but her eyes were serious. "We’re in uncharted territory. The only reference we have is a woman who deleted a mountain."

Comforting.

On Tuesday morning, Zhao Lingxi sat in the courtyard as usual. Bai Xuelan stood nearby with her instruments. Lan Yue leaned against the wall, watching.

Tang Xiaoli had also come, claiming she needed "fresh air for inspiration" but really just wanting to see the golden light up close. She sat cross legged beside Lan Yue with a bag of roasted sunflower seeds.

"Is it always this quiet?" Tang Xiaoli whispered.

"Cultivation requires focus," Lan Yue whispered back.

"Boring."

"Life threatening, actually."

"Life threateningly boring."

Lan Yue shushed her.

Zhao Lingxi began the process. The familiar shimmer appeared on her skin, golden light spreading outward from her core. Her hair lifted gently. The spiritual formations on the courtyard walls hummed in response.

Everything seemed normal.

Then the light got brighter.

Bai Xuelan frowned at her instruments. "The energy output is increasing. That shouldn’t be happening in a standard session."

The golden glow intensified. The stone tiles beneath Zhao Lingxi began to vibrate. Small cracks appeared in the nearest ones, spreading outward like spiderwebs.

"Something’s wrong," Bai Xuelan said sharply. "Her energy is concentrating instead of distributing. It’s pooling in her chest."

Zhao Lingxi’s eyes snapped open. They were solid gold again, but this time there was no calm behind them. Only confusion. And fear.

"I can’t..." Her voice was strained. "I can’t control it. It won’t spread. It keeps pulling inward."

The glow became blinding. The walls trembled. One of the spiritual formations cracked with a sound like breaking glass.

Bai Xuelan backed away, her face white. "If the energy collapses inward on itself, it’ll detonate. Same as Xu Minglan."

"How big?" Lan Yue demanded.

"At this output? It would take out the entire East Pavilion."

Tang Xiaoli scrambled to her feet, seeds scattering everywhere. "We need to evacuate!"

"There’s no time!" Bai Xuelan shouted. "The collapse is already starting!"

Lan Yue didn’t think.

She didn’t weigh options or calculate risks or consider the very real possibility that she was about to die. She just moved.

Three steps across the courtyard. She dropped to her knees in front of Zhao Lingxi and grabbed both her hands.

The golden energy hit her like a freight train.

It roared through the contact point, surging from Zhao Lingxi’s body into Lan Yue’s with a force that nearly threw her backward. It was nothing like the poison gas. Nothing like the ambient energy from Tang Xiaoli’s furnace. This was raw, primal power. Hot as molten metal. Dense as compressed stone. It filled her veins and screamed.

Lan Yue screamed too.

Not out loud. She clamped her jaw shut and held on, because if she let go now, everyone in this courtyard would die. But inside her head, every alarm was blaring.

Her Spirit Devouring ability activated on instinct. The black void energy inside her rose to meet the golden flood, wrapping around it, breaking it down, consuming it piece by piece. It was like trying to drink a river. The golden energy kept coming and coming and coming.

"Lan Yue!" Zhao Lingxi’s voice was raw with panic. "Let go! It’ll kill you!"

"Shut up," Lan Yue gasped through gritted teeth. "I’m busy."

She pushed deeper. Her void energy expanded, growing to meet the demand. Black threads laced with silver spread through her body, devouring the golden overflow, converting it from destructive force into something manageable.

The light dimmed.

Slowly, painfully, the torrent of energy reduced to a flood. Then a stream. Then a trickle.

The stone tiles stopped shaking. The cracks stopped spreading. The broken spiritual formation flickered once and went still.

Silence.

Lan Yue’s hands fell away from Zhao Lingxi’s. She swayed on her knees, her vision blurring. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been wrung out and hung to dry.

"Lan Yue?"

The voice sounded far away.

"Lan Yue!"

Arms caught her before she hit the ground. Strong, warm arms that pulled her close and held her against something solid. She could hear a heartbeat. Fast and frightened.

"I’m okay," she mumbled into Zhao Lingxi’s shoulder. "Just tired. Very tired."

"You absolute fool." Zhao Lingxi’s voice was shaking. Actually shaking. The ice queen who had faced down generals and assassins without flinching was trembling. "You could have died. Do you understand that? You could have died."

"But I didn’t."

"That is not the point!"

"It’s kind of the point."

Zhao Lingxi pulled back just enough to look at her face. Her eyes were dark again, no more gold, and they were glassy with unshed tears.

Lan Yue blinked. "Are you crying?"

"No."

"Your eyes are wet."

"It’s sweat."

"From your eyes?"

"Shut up, Lan Yue."

Lan Yue laughed weakly. It hurt, but she laughed anyway, because Zhao Lingxi was alive and she was alive and nobody had been erased from existence today.

Behind them, Tang Xiaoli sat on the ground with her hand over her heart, looking like she had aged ten years in two minutes. Bai Xuelan stood frozen near the wall, her journal clutched to her chest, her face still white as paper.

"Well," Tang Xiaoli said faintly. "That was the opposite of boring."

---

They moved to Zhao Lingxi’s room.

Bai Xuelan checked them both with her instruments while Tang Xiaoli made tea with shaking hands. Liu Ruyan and Chen Mei arrived after hearing about the commotion, their faces tight with worry.

"Her energy signature has stabilized," Bai Xuelan reported, examining her crystal instruments. "Whatever Lan Yue did, it worked. The golden energy is distributed evenly again."

"And Lan Yue?" Zhao Lingxi asked. She hadn’t left Lan Yue’s side since the courtyard. Their shoulders were touching on the bed. Her hand rested on Lan Yue’s knee, and she made no move to remove it.

"Exhausted but unharmed." Bai Xuelan looked at Lan Yue with something new in her eyes. Respect, maybe. Or awe. "Her void energy consumed and converted approximately seventy percent of the overflow before the remaining thirty percent redistributed naturally. That’s... unprecedented."

"Is that a lot?" Tang Xiaoli asked.

"That’s enough energy to level a building." Bai Xuelan’s voice was quiet. "She absorbed it through her bare hands."

The room went very still.

"What caused the overflow?" Lan Yue asked, steering the conversation away from herself. She was too tired for awe.

Bai Xuelan frowned. "I’m not entirely sure. The method was working perfectly for two weeks. Something triggered a resonance cascade, where the energy started amplifying itself instead of distributing. I need to study the data, but..." She hesitated. "It’s possible that the Shattered Heaven Roots have a threshold. A tipping point where the energy becomes self sustaining and begins to accelerate beyond control."

"Meaning it’ll happen again," Zhao Lingxi said.

"Meaning it could happen again. Yes."

Silence.

Zhao Lingxi’s hand tightened on Lan Yue’s knee.

"Then we need a safety protocol," Zhao Lingxi said. Her voice was steady again, the ice queen reassembled. But her hand stayed where it was. "From now on, Lan Yue is present at every training session. If the energy starts pooling, she intervenes before it reaches critical mass."

"I’ll need to develop better monitoring tools," Bai Xuelan said, already scribbling in her journal. "Early warning systems. Something that detects the resonance pattern before it cascades."

"I can help with that," Tang Xiaoli said. "Alchemy grade sensors. I can build them into crystals that react to specific energy frequencies."

"Good." Zhao Lingxi looked around the room at each of them. "We tell no one else about what happened today. If the Academy finds out, they’ll expel me. Or worse."

Everyone nodded.

After Bai Xuelan and Tang Xiaoli left, Liu Ruyan and Chen Mei hovered anxiously until Zhao Lingxi assured them she was fine and sent them away.

Then it was just the two of them.

Zhao Lingxi turned to Lan Yue. Her composure was back, but underneath it, something raw still lingered. She took Lan Yue’s hands and turned them over, examining the palms. The skin was reddened, faintly glowing with traces of residual golden energy that pulsed like fading embers.

"Does it hurt?" Zhao Lingxi asked.

"A little."

Zhao Lingxi lifted Lan Yue’s hand and pressed her lips against the center of her palm.

Lan Yue’s entire body went still.

The kiss was feather light. Barely there. Over in a heartbeat. But Lan Yue felt it everywhere. In her fingertips. In her chest. In the sudden absence of air from her lungs.

"Thank you," Zhao Lingxi whispered against her skin. "For saving me. Again."

She lowered Lan Yue’s hand gently and stood up.

"Rest. I’ll have Chen Mei bring dinner to your room."

She walked to the door. Paused.

"And Lan Yue?"

"Yeah?" Her voice was barely working.

"If you ever do something that reckless again..." Zhao Lingxi looked back over her shoulder. "I’ll be very angry."

"How angry?"

"Angry enough to never let you out of my sight."

She left.

Lan Yue sat on the bed, staring at her own palm.

She could still feel it. The press of lips against her skin. Warm and soft and deliberate.

That was gratitude. Clearly. A thank you gesture. Very common in ancient cultures. Totally normal. Nothing to read into.

Her hand was tingling.

Her whole body was tingling.

She pressed her palm against her chest and breathed.

Circulation issues. Definitely circulation issues.

She was going to need a much bigger excuse soon.