Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

She was preparing to ascend into the Body Fusion Realm. It was the penultimate stage of mortal cultivation, sitting directly beneath the mythical Transcendent Realm.

In software engineering terms, she wasn’t just downloading a patch; she was attempting a live, hot-swap migration of her entire backend database to a quantum server.

When a cultivator ascends to the Body Fusion Realm, the World Will initiates a hostile stress test to ensure the vessel can handle the cosmic data load.

This stress test took the form of a Heavenly Calamity.

"A Heavenly Calamity is basically just the universe launching a targeted DDoS attack of pure lightning directly at your skull," Ji’an muttered to herself, pacing back and forth in the privacy of her guest quarters, chewing nervously on her thumbnail.

Historically, whenever Ji’an had leveled up, Master Jiu Zui had been there. The Sovereign of the Drunken Peak would take her to a secluded, heavily warded cavern beneath their mountain, set up a massive defensive array, and literally act as her personal firewall.

He would drink his wine, swat away the lightning bolts with his bare hands, and complain about the noise while Ji’an peacefully compiled her core in the background. It was safe, quiet, and highly illegal by the Heavens’ standards.

But Master Jiu Zui was now three thousand miles away.

’I have to do this solo,’ Ji’an realized, a cold sweat breaking out across her forehead. ’If I trigger a Body Fusion tribulation inside the Azure Dragon Sect, the resulting lightning storm is going to vaporize the guest pavilion, melt the toxic waterfalls, and accidentally fry every disciple in a ten-mile radius.’

She couldn’t tell the boys. If Lu Jianheng or Gu Zhiwei found out she was about to undergo a life-or-death cosmic tribulation, their heroic, protagonist-complexes would trigger.

They would try to "protect" her, because even if it was unwanted, now Ji’an was a part of the protagonists’ lives.

They would try to stand in the lightning with their broadswords. They would be instantly, vaporized into orthodox ash.

She had to sneak out.

Ji’an rapidly packed her spatial ring. She bypassed the spices and ingredients, entirely focusing on the heavy artillery.

She packed her backup cast-iron woks, several massive iron spits, and three hundred feet of highly conductive copper wire she had "requisitioned" from the sect’s architectural depot.

She tightened her red leather combat corset, secured her hair, and casually strolled out into the central courtyard of the Azure Zenith Pavilion.

The courtyard was mostly empty, save for a few Azure Crane maidens practicing the Dao of the Iron Whisk in the corner.

However, as Ji’an moved toward the heavy oak exit doors, the ambient temperature of the corridor instantly, suspiciously dropped by fifteen degrees.

Standing in the doorway, blocking her exit with the casual, flawless grace of a marble statue, was Xie Wangchen.

The Ice Demon was leaning against the doorframe, his pristine white robes immaculate, his silver hair catching the sunlight. His ruby eyes scanned her from head to toe, his gaze lingering on the tight, militant set of her shoulders and the distinct lack of her usual lazy swagger.

"Going somewhere, Martial Uncle Lin?" Wangchen murmured, his melodic voice dropping into a low, inquisitive purr.

Ji’an forced her heart rate to remain steady. She summoned her most arrogant, unbothered, young-master smirk.

"Just stepping out for a bit of fieldwork, Wangchen," Ji’an lied smoothly, waving her hand dismissively. "Elder Viper mentioned a rare strain of Corrosive Blood-Orchid that blooms on the outer ridges of the western basin. The soil there is supposedly incredibly alkaline. I want to harvest a few samples to see if I can neutralize the acid into a vinegar substitute for our dumpling sauce."

It was a perfectly constructed, plausible, and aggressive excuse.

But Wangchen’s entire existence was calibrated to detect the smallest shifts in his obsession’s behavior.

His ruby eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t look at her face; he looked at the ambient Qi swirling around her body.

’His aura is... vibrating,’ Wangchen analyzed, a dark spike of protective paranoia flaring in his chest. ’It is denser than usual. He is attempting to suppress it, but the frequency is erratic. He is not going to pick some useless flowers.’

"The outer ridges are treacherous," Wangchen stated smoothly, pushing off the doorframe and taking a half-step toward her. "The miasma beasts there are unregulated by the sect’s perimeter wards. Allow me to escort you, Martial Uncle. I shall freeze the Blood-Orchids so their thorns do not prick your hands. I can also carry your basket."

’Abort! Abort!’ Ji’an’s internal alarms shrieked. If Wangchen followed her into the tribulation zone, the Heavenly Lightning would register his presence, assume he was interfering, and multiply the calamity’s lethal yield by a factor of ten to punish them both.

"No," Ji’an replied, perhaps a fraction of a second too quickly.

She cleared her throat, adjusting her posture to project tyrannical confidence.

"I need them fresh, Wangchen. If you freeze them, the cell walls of the petals will rupture, and the acid will bleed into the stem, ruining the flavor profile. Besides," Ji’an stepped closer, reaching out to lightly, condescendingly pat his broad chest. "Besides, I need you to be here. The boys are getting cocky again. If I’m not here to supervise, I need my best man keeping them in line. Make sure Yanlie doesn’t set the curtains on fire."

Wangchen froze.

The words "my best man" hit his unstable, romantically starved psyche with the force of a battering ram.

The Ice Demon’s internal monologue completely short-circuited. The dark, suspicious paranoia instantly evaporated, replaced by a blinding, euphoric wave of validated devotion.

’He relies on me,’ Wangchen’s pupils dilated slightly, his pale cheeks flushing a faint, almost invisible shade of pink. ’He considers me his most trusted enforcer, and requires my authority to govern his lesser subjects. In that case, I cannot fail his mandate.’

The internal struggle between his yandere need to follow her and his "Green Flag Partner" programming to respect her professional boundaries waged a brief, violent war.

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