Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

"You have exceeded all of my expectations. Your array manipulation was such a delight. Your wine-fermentation theory is fundamentally sound, albeit flawed in its thermal retention. And your absolute refusal to work for free?"

He laughed softly.

"It proves you possess the spine required to survive my curriculum."

"I am not your student!" Ji’an protested frantically, backing away. "I belong to the Drunken Peak! I am spoken for! You cannot poach me!"

"I am not poaching you, little Chef," Yan Zhaoge drawled, turning around and walking back toward the balcony, his purple robes billowing. "I am merely... anticipating your arrival."

He stepped up onto the obsidian railing, balancing effortlessly over the toxic waterfall.

"The Vanguard Tour is scheduled to visit the Iron-Stove Monastery in exactly three weeks," Yan Zhaoge announced, looking back over his shoulder, his dark eyes locking onto hers.

"Fix your thermal distribution array, Ji’an. If your plum-wine isn’t perfectly fermented by the time you reach my desert... I am going to make you scrub the soot out of my grand forges with a toothbrush. Unpaid labor, of course."

With a final, lazy salute with his pipe, the Sovereign of the Iron-Stove Monastery stepped backward off the balcony.

He didn’t fall.

He simply dissolved into a cloud of shimmering silver smoke, vanishing entirely into the miasma, leaving the Elders’ Pavilion completely silent.

Lin Ji’an stood alone in the jade pagoda.

She stared at the empty balcony for a long, agonizing minute.

"I hate this universe," Ji’an whispered into the void, pressing her hands over her face. "I have officially caught the attention of the ultimate, final-boss like CEO. I am going to be forced into an unpaid internship in a desert."

She turned around, marching miserably back to the table to grab her notes.

She had to fix the thermal array. She had to save the wine.

Because if there was one thing Lin Ji’an knew for absolute certain...

An overtime boss never, ever forgot a deadline.

For precisely five minutes after the Sovereign of the Iron-Stove Monastery dissolved into a cloud of shimmering silver smoke, Lin Ji’an stood in the center of the jade pagoda, completely paralyzed.

Her mind, usually a hyper-efficient, multi-threaded culinary processor, was currently caught in a rapidly oscillating boot-loop of pure shock.

Her mood was shifting every five seconds, cycling through the recognized psychological stages of processing a catastrophic workplace reassignment.

First, it was Denial.

’That didn’t happen,’ Ji’an thought, staring blankly at the empty balcony where Yan Zhaoge had just been standing. ’I inhaled too much toxic nightshade vapor from the cellar. My brain hallucinated a ridiculously handsome, overpowered, pipe-smoking CEO to manifest my deep-seated anxieties about unpaid labor. He wasn’t real. The threat of scrubbing forges with a toothbrush was just an auditory illusion.’

Then came the anger.

She looked down at her meticulous fermentation notes, where the phantom deity had rudely pointed out her thermal distribution flaw. ’He criticized my array!’ Ji’an’s inner Head Chef roared, her fists clenching. ’Who does he think he is?! So what if he’s a martial god?! I don’t walk into his monastery and tell him how to hit an anvil! The audacity of these Xianxia boomers! They think just because they’ve lived for five hundred years they can manage my yeast!’

Then she did some bargaining in her head.

’Okay, think tactically,’ Ji’an muttered, beginning to pace frantically around the petrified-wood table. ’I am the Vanguard Tour Leader. I hold the map. I control the itinerary. What if I just... reroute the tour? Who says we have to go to the western dunes? The desert is terrible for the skin anyway. I’ll forge a diplomatic missive from Sect Leader Bai. I’ll tell the boys we’re going to the Southern Archipelagos instead! We can learn to surf! Yan Zhaoge can’t force me into an internship if I’m three thousand miles away drinking out of a coconut!’

Then she was hit with the truck-kun of Depression.

She slumped back onto her wooden stool, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders drooping.

’Who am I kidding? He’s an Ascended Sovereign. If I reroute the tour, he’ll just teleport a volcano into the ocean and wait for me on the beach. I am trapped. I am bound by the plot. I am destined to be an exploited corporate drone in a fantasy universe until I die of sheer exhaustion.’

Finally, came the Acceptance of reality, with the plan to a Tactical Evasion, of course.

Ji’an took a deep, shuddering breath and slapped her cheeks with both hands to wake herself up.

’No. I am a transmigrator. I survived a commercial kitchen on Earth; I can survive a pyromaniac with a smoking habit. I just have to fix the wine array, maintain professional distance, and refuse to sign any binding blood-oaths while on his property. I will treat him like a difficult health inspector. Nod, smile, and hide all the good ingredients.’

Having successfully negotiated herself down from the ledge of a panic attack, Ji’an smoothed her Szechuan Red robes and reached for her teacup.

Before she could take a sip, the rhythmic clack, clack, clack of a wooden cane echoed across the pavilion floor.

"Martial Uncle Lin," a raspy, hissing voice called out.

Ji’an turned to see Elder Viper approaching. The ancient poison master of the Azure Dragon Sect had finished his chess game.

He looked reinvigorated, his emerald scales shimmering with health, completely oblivious to the fact that a deity had just been lounging in his VIP lounge.

"Elder Viper," Ji’an greeted smoothly, her young-master persona snapping flawlessly back into place. "Good game?"

"It was a draw," Elder Viper chuckled, taking a seat across from her. He poured himself a cup of tea, his slitted yellow eyes glancing at her heavily annotated parchment. "You have been staring at that spot on the balcony for some time. Did the miasma currents disrupt your concentration?"

"Just... admiring the architecture," Ji’an lied effortlessly. She took a sip of her tea, her mind racing. She needed intelligence. She needed a scouting report on her new soon-to-be overtime boss.

"Speaking of architecture, Elder," Ji’an steered the conversation with practiced, casual indifference. "My master, Jiu Zui, mentioned that our itinerary includes the Iron-Stone Monastery in the coming weeks. I confess, my knowledge of the western dunes is lacking. The Sovereign there... Yan Zhaoge. What is his reputation?"

Elder Viper’s hand froze mid-pour.

The casual, relaxed atmosphere around the old poison master instantly evaporated. A look of profound, deeply ingrained, historical dread flashed across his reptilian face. He set the teapot down very carefully, as if a sudden noise might summon a demon.

"Yan Zhaoge," Elder Viper whispered the name like a curse, leaning forward. "You speak of the Ashen Lord. The Sovereign of the Eternal Forge."

"He sounds delightful," Ji’an deadpanned.

"He is a catastrophe in midnight silk," Elder Viper hissed, his yellow eyes wide with genuine caution. "He is one of the few beings on this continent who operates entirely outside the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Council. The Iron-Stone Monastery is not just a sect; it is the absolute pinnacle of thermal alchemy and artifact forging. But Yan Zhaoge himself... he is erratic. He is arrogant. He views the rest of the cultivation world as a mildly amusing theater troupe assembled for his personal entertainment."

’Yep. That’s an overtime CEO alright,’ Ji’an thought miserably.

"Is he a hermit, then?" Ji’an asked, probing for weaknesses. "Does he stay in his desert?"

"Usually, yes," Elder Viper nodded, stroking the emerald serpent wrapped around his staff. "He rarely descends from his mountain of ash. He only involves himself in continental affairs when it concerns the absolute highest echelons of the Heavenly Dao. For instance, he is one of the few Sovereigns who possesses unrestricted clearance to the Stargazing Tower."

Ji’an’s teacup halted inches from her lips.

The blood in her veins turned to freezing ice.

The ambient noise of the rushing waterfalls seemed to fade away into a high-pitched, ringing static in her ears.

The Stargazing Tower...

It was a name she hadn’t heard spoken aloud since she had arrived in this world, but it was a name permanently burned into the foundational lore of her transmigration.

Before the original host of this body had died, Lin Feng, the only older brother that Ji’an had, the one whose face Shen Zechuan currently wore, had climbed the mythical, forbidden Stargazing Tower.

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