Bad woman, am I pretending to be bad?

She suddenly lowered her voice, "But... you really should teach me your skills in changing the subject."

"What will I teach you? How to use whatever comes your way?" The beautiful woman picked up a few pieces of paper from the scattered manuscripts, her smile radiant.

"Actually, I've read through the short stories you published, but for some reason, the female character in them, in terms of both hair color and appearance, looks exactly like that good girl from the Dikbatov family. As for the kind doctor on the other side, he seems to be referring to someone else as well?"

Upon hearing this, the tips of the person's ears instantly turned red, and the fingertips under the table kept poking each other to hide their embarrassment.

"This is the freedom of artistic creation! The worldly events that leave a lasting legacy are the best source of material!"

"So free that you can even pinpoint the exact location of the beauty mark under your eye?" When the former stubbornly refused to admit it, Charlotte always kindly offered to give him a hint.

After all, being understanding and considerate is a doctor's duty.

"When she coughed, she was like a flower swaying in the wind, as if the slightest push would break its stem. Ah, how fragile, how beautiful..."

The words on the manuscript flowed from her lips and teeth, and the living room suddenly became eerily quiet. Melina stared at the rose petals floating on the tea, her voice barely audible.

"Dr. Bella, I admit it, please, please stop reading."

Without saying a word, Charlotte simply reached out her fingertip and gently brushed the drooping feathers off the little parrot's head.

"Freedom of artistic creation... such a description is really just a cover-up." She picked up her teacup, a slight smile playing on her lips as the steam rose. "Then, would you like to hear some real medical case records?"

Melina immediately perked up her ears, her pen hovering eagerly over the blank paper. "Would you like to share with me?"

"The 15th of this month, 2:07 AM." The beautiful woman's voice faded, leaving only a precise, almost cold, report: "Temperature 38.2 degrees Celsius, pulse 112, sluggish pupillary light reflex bilaterally..."

The pen nib snapped with a 'snap,' and the little parrot's eyes widened immediately. "Wait! This isn't how a romantic story should begin!"

"Romantic?" The doctor retrieved his medical kit from under the coffee table, the metal instruments clanging crisply. "That night she almost hit her head; I had to use special methods to calm her down—"

"Stop, stop, stop!"

It was a series of denials, with ears covered.

"My readers want a beautiful woman lying on her sickbed, not just data on a medical record!"

Charlotte didn't stop there. She leaned forward slightly, the scent of disinfectant enveloping the young writer: "Want to know what true morbid beauty is?"

She pulled a roll of bandages from the bottom of her medical kit. "For example, these linen bandages made in Nantatil, soaked in a special medicine..."

"I was wrong, I was wrong!" No longer pressing for answers or curious, Melina shrank into the corner of the wicker chair, not daring to utter another word. "From now on, I will definitely consult you before writing any kissing scenes!"

The sound of church bells outside the window startled a flock of white doves. Charlotte slowly put away her bandages and took a tin box from her coat pocket. "Here."

"This is......"

“Cough syrup.” The doctor turned the small lock on the lid of the box. “Hand over the sugar cubes you’ve been hiding, and I’ll tell you what’s in the formula to make that good girl take the medicine obediently.”

Melina's eyes lit up instantly. She frantically pulled out colorful candies from her pockets, and even a mint from her hair bun. "They're all here!"

Charlotte tossed the pile of sugar in her hand and chuckled softly, “You know what? Eliza does the same thing when she takes her medicine, but she calms down as soon as you hold her hand.”

She mimicked the girl's blinking, her beautiful eyes sparkling, and though she didn't say it aloud, every word seemed to speak volumes—Dr. Bella, this is too painful.

The pen suddenly began to fly across the manuscript paper. The little parrot, while taking notes, muttered, "Wow, this is perfect! A steadfast and strong-willed noblewoman and a gentle and selfless healer... the new chapter will be called..."

"Ok?"

"No, nothing!" Just a soft hum, just a sly smile at the corner of her lips, was enough to make the former shut her mouth. "I was thinking about whether to write 'Dedicated to my dearest Dr. Bella' or 'Thank you to my roommate for providing medical materials' on the title page of the new chapter."

"It's all up to you, young lady. After all, I'm not the target audience for this kind of article. Also, thank you for your initial help."

She pushed the gifted talisman back in front of the little parrot. Isabella was now employed by the Orthodox Church and no longer needed to hide her extraordinary identity from her predecessors.

"If any difficulties arise later, whether it's convenient or not, you can talk to me about it with a smile."

Without offering any explanation, Charlotte simply waved goodbye. She had already planned her day well; the conferment ceremony at the Steam Church was her top priority. Having assumed a position, she was obligated to fulfill her duties.

The morning chat came to an end. As the beautiful woman's tall and straight figure, like a pine tree, gradually disappeared into the distance, Melina finally stopped writing. Like a startled parrot, she looked around for a long time, and only after confirming that no one was around did she finally exhale.

It wasn't the gossip behind her back; she was simply relieved and offered her blessings.

"Dr. Bella, it is my good fortune to have met you in Florence."

"It's truly wonderful that someone as kind as you is safe and sound..."

-

Time passed, and before we knew it, the brown-haired beauty had arrived at the main diocese of the Church of Steam Supremacy.

Looking up, the Western-style window frames were inlaid with stained glass in the shape of fan gears, refracting the sunlight into spots of bronze and iron gray. Charlotte climbed the steps, the brass floor humming slightly with each step, as if the entire building were in motion.

“Ms. Isabella, please come with me. The archbishop has been waiting for a long time.”

The old man, whom they had met before, bowed and led a group of servants inside.

A corridor of steam valves recedes beneath your feet. The walls of this building are not adorned with icons, but with anatomical diagrams. The gear decoration at the third thoracic vertebra is deliberately designed to be detachable, revealing a sophisticated model of nerve conduction beneath—it's less a church and more a laboratory where science and mysticism intertwine.

"Madam, how are you feeling?"

"The mechanical aesthetics are stunning, but what deserves even more praise is the efficient allocation and planning."

Upon hearing this, Howard was surprised but nodded in approval, his pride evident in his subsequent words.

"These are the results of the archbishop's joint research with a group of scholars. It's a pity that I, with my limited knowledge, was not fortunate enough to participate."

The old man paused, then simply pushed open the heavy door, leaving Charlotte and her attendants waiting outside, reserving their private space for her—

"You arrived seventeen minutes earlier than the time stipulated in the contract."

The sound, with its metallic resonance, emanated from the dome, yet strangely blended with feminine grace.

"Precision and punctuality are qualities I appreciate."

Following the sound, she saw a suspended platform slowly descending from the center of the gear set at the top of the church, and on it sat a graceful woman.

It was a female figure cast in brass and silver, with tiny gears inlaid at its joints, producing a pleasant clicking sound with each movement. Her face was covered by a half-mechanical mask, but the exposed skin was as delicate as a real person, combining mechanical precision with artistic beauty.

Steam pipes coiled around his dark, short hair, condensing into glistening droplets at the ends—a scene straight out of a dream.

“You may call me ‘Adeline,’” the person’s voice sounded like the harmonious working of countless precision parts, “or, according to church tradition, I may be called ‘the first generation of awakened consciousness.’”

Unable to look away, Charlotte noticed that there were no religious elements on her body, but rather a sense of flawless artificiality. The only flaw was that a primitive steam piston was embedded in the center of her full chest.

Whenever she speaks, the object at the center rotates in speed according to the frequency of the sound waves.

“You are more…” Charlotte carefully chose her words, her gaze sweeping over the intricate pressure gauge pattern on the other woman’s skirt, “possessing both rationality and beauty.”

The light in Adeline's eyes suddenly froze, and the gears beneath her mask hummed merrily. "This is the most beautiful praise I've received for a mechanical life form in nearly thirty years."

"After all, rationality and romance are never opposites—just like plague and healing, madness and lucidity."

The floating platform descended to Charlotte's eye level, and with a snap of her fingers, two bone china chairs engraved with steam pipe patterns immediately rose from the church floor, and the copper pipes on the back of the chairs automatically began to brew tea.

"Sit down." She gestured invitingly, without pressuring or urging, just speaking softly.

"This is not a question. Knowledge should not be limited by flesh and blood, just as truth is not diminished by the way it is spread. The steam eye has witnessed too many unconventional existences. We care more about actions than origins—just like your good deeds in curing the plague."

Suddenly, a large amount of steam shot out from the pipes on the side wall of the church, condensing in mid-air into a series of molecular structures. Charlotte recognized them as the refined image of the strains she had cultivated.

"The ancient books written by our ancestors have weathered away with the times and disappeared in the new era, but the strain you developed has just filled in the missing part of them, whether it is the internal structure or the symptoms after injection."

"Reason tells me that coincidence is one of many possibilities. Perhaps it was a flash of inspiration on your part, or perhaps it was an inevitable development of the times. But compared to these, I prefer to believe in another possibility."

Amidst the fragrant aroma of tea, she spoke again:

"Time is not a staircase of ups and downs or a circle of reincarnation. The past dates are knots on a long rope in people's hands, and the future is a sling hanging over their heads. I wonder what you think?"

Image: "Adeline", Location: "Images/1747181932-100417737-113352535.jpg"

Chapter 176 Sequence One and the Truth of the World

The rising steam carries the water vapor upwards, while the dust particles sink downwards; in this fragrant tea aroma, the distinction between light and heavy is clear and orderly.

“The metaphor of slings and knots is very poetic.” Without rushing to speak, Charlotte tilted her head slightly, sunlight streaming through the gear-shaped stained glass, casting swirling shadows on her face. “But you seem to have overlooked the fact that ropes can be woven into nets.”

"And the internet can capture both the past and the future, depicting both a minute scale and an endless line."

As she finished speaking, she realized from Adeline's words that the archbishop was subtly questioning the origin of that strain of bacteria, and thus, further questioning whether her own existence originated from the past.

It can be said that among all the living beings she sees, she is the first to trace back to the source and get close to the truth. Even without seeing through the disguise, she still pointed out the clues and pointed directly to the essence of that otherworldly butterfly.

Steam hissed softly through the copper pipes, and pale numbers danced in Adeline's eyes. As she picked up the bone china teacup, the gears at her wrist jingled with precise clicks.

"You blinked seven times while replying and glanced at my face several times out of the corner of your eye. Current statistical models cannot generalize human emotional expressions, but may I assume you are considering this further?"

"Forgive my presumption, but this is a spontaneous observation as a logical being."

“No need for apologies. On the contrary, I want to thank you for cleaning up my mess and providing protection.” Charlotte raised the corners of her lips, tucking a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear. “But, I’m curious, why are you so concerned about an ordinary doctor?”

Clearly, this was a rhetorical question she already knew the answer to.

This mechanical beauty operates on linear equations; she doesn't lie or conceal the truth. Her answers are always relevant; by grasping the key points, perhaps Charlotte can obtain the information she has been seeking—why she came to this world.

After all, this was the first time she had faced a true sage, the pinnacle of a sect.

“Ms. Isabella, you seem to be asking me this on purpose. However, I am happy to answer.”

The steam piston on Adeline's chest accelerated, emitting a sound similar to a heartbeat. She raised her mechanical arm, and countless tiny metal particles separated from her fingertips, forming a constantly changing molecular model in the air—the very structure of the bacterial strain Charlotte had cultivated.

"In 1807, in what is now Florence, with its meager medical foundation, there was no environment to cultivate stable strains of bacteria, and people did not even understand that diseases were spread by biological or airborne pathogens."

"From firewood to coal, from coal to oil, the use of primary energy sources is driven by choices of efficiency and controllability. These are the results of gradual progress and spontaneous choices made by people. Just like science, it is never, and never will be, a completed book. Every major achievement brings new problems, and every development will encounter new and serious difficulties over time."

“They progress gradually, not a sudden burst. So, Ms. Isabella, my reason has denied that the strains you cultivated can be considered a simple flash of inspiration, even if it has helped tens of thousands of innocent people.”

Upon hearing this, Charlotte's lips curled up slightly, a smile that seemed to be both an expression of appreciation and a kind of helpless compromise.

"Step by step...what a precise description."

Gazing at the reflection of light and shadow in the tea, the beautiful woman's voice was so soft it sounded like she was talking to herself.

She was overjoyed. She was surprised by the familiar yet unfamiliar tone of voice, and surprised that her assumptions seemed to have been wrong from the start.

"Ms. Adeline, why don't you use the Divine Era Calendar promoted by the Empire as the standard for dating, but instead use the unheard-of number 1807?"

The steam piston on Adeline's chest suddenly stopped for a moment, making a sound similar to a human holding their breath, and her face showed an unusual, arrhythmic change.

"...When the Emperor of Hadings ascended to the throne, the Age of Gods truly began to turn a new page, and I was born at that point in time."

The stained glass windows of the church changed patterns, displaying familiar portraits—great figures whose names had appeared in textbooks, and those who had dedicated themselves to countless scientific advancements. In the lower right corner of each portrait was a date, from the Gregorian calendar to the turn of the century, finally settling on 1776.

“Lady Isabella, I did not follow the extraordinary laws, drink the potion, ascend the ranks, and reach my current position as bishop.”

The mechanical beauty's voice seemed to carry an ancient rhythm, like a phonograph playing a worn-out record.

"Reason tells me that humans are animals that evolved from apes, capable of thinking, making and using tools for labor, and communicating through language. But the annals of history and the writings of mythology define humans as creations of a goddess, born out of nothing, and an inherently noble race."

"They do not need to go through natural selection, nor do they need to struggle to survive under the law of natural selection, to develop their own brains, and to become the masters of the times through collective wisdom."

"How absurd, how unbelievable."

The gears on the church dome rotate in reverse, cutting the sunlight into tiny gold flakes, as if the hum of an organ is rising from the rhythmic brass pipes.

“I am different from you. I am not human, I have no flesh and blood, nor nerves. I am just a fragment of consciousness, a primal rhythm, which happens to be contained within an object. Therefore, unlike species that depend on a physical body, no matter how my external vessel is overturned, the consciousness I am writing can remain clear. It is this purity that allows me to stand aside and observe the actions of people in the tides of time, recording the beautiful arcs and sinister faces of humanity.”

"In 1776, the invention of the steam engine, which uses steam as a working fluid to perform mechanical work, changed the world's turning point for a shipwright's son born in Renfrewshire."

"The high-temperature reaction, the violent eruption, consumed some raw materials, and used the power to forge everything we have today. After the whistle blew, I woke up. At that moment, only a pure passion filled my rudimentary circuit—forward."

"In that ceaseless whistle, I saw you build the edifice of science and reason, and also pry open the Pandora's box of destruction and devastation. You have also been confused, and you have also hesitated. But you have never truly stopped, and the train engine has never stopped turning—yes, no matter where the destination is, we must always move forward."

A warm and bright smile appeared on that pretty metallic face.

"I have perused history, studying both ancient and modern times. Since the Neolithic Age, the rate of physical change in species has been gradually slowing down. However, at the same time, human civilization has flourished, constantly achieving brilliant accomplishments. This is not because any one of you suddenly acquired the power of a star, but the result of the continuous collaboration of the entire group. The development of civilization and the breakthroughs in technology lie in your repeated pushing beyond limits. You have broken through your own constraints, using wisdom and tools to transform your surroundings."

"—This is also what I aspire to: progress."

Her voice faltered, and a look of disappointment settled in her eyes, revealing a hint of bewilderment for the first time on the face of this mechanical beauty.

"Until 1977, the world extended an invitation to the starry sky above. Their boundless longing and romance were transformed into a greeting, sung outwards by the record carried by Voyager 1. They transformed their own existence and the progress of civilization into a small and brief letter of self-introduction, which was sent to the entire vast universe."

"Then, my consciousness was cut off, and the world seemed to have been paused at that moment."

Upon hearing the words, a torrent of rootless emotions surged through Charlotte's heart, engulfing her with each word of explanation. Charlotte felt a strange excitement, like a superior observer listening to the accusations against herself, smiling without uttering a word.

"When I awoke again, everything seemed to have returned to the beginning. The world had changed, ignorance and confusion had spread across this land, and extraordinary beings had solidified the pace of the times. Even I could no longer stand aside and use my eyes and hands to record the steps forward."

"The moment I opened my eyes again, the extraordinary matter, like a bee drawn by fragrance, materialized its existence in the hazy consciousness, giving a segment of consciousness a human-like body."

“I could not refuse. Uniqueness merged consciousness and form, making me unable to escape the laws of this world. I became the embodiment of ‘steam and machinery,’ but forever lost my position as a pure observer.”

The piston in Adeline's chest made a dull thud as it withdrew, as if mimicking the rise and fall of a human sigh.

"It's like a fun-filled amusement park."