Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

He took a step closer, towering over her.

"I have smoked this specific blend of imported southern-leaf for three centuries. It is my only vice. It is the only thing that keeps the eternal boredom of immortality at bay."

He looked her dead in the eyes, his expression turning incredibly, terrifyingly serious.

"But I have spent the last forty-eight hours observing the Azure Dragon Sect. I have watched your Vanguard Retinue. I have watched them consume your cooking. I have watched that insufferable, alcoholic master of yours brag in letters about the transcendent, life-altering quality of your meals."

Yan Zhaoge raised his hand.

He didn’t put the pipe back in his mouth. He held it out, away from his body.

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned one of the tiny, condensed marbles of purple Tribulation Lightning he had just stolen from the Heavens. He casually, effortlessly crushed the marble against the bowl of the pipe.

FZZZT.

The localized, apocalyptic lightning strike instantly, violently incinerated the expensive, centuries-old smoking pipe, turning it into a handful of fine, gray ash that blew away in the wasteland wind.

Ji’an gasped, entirely taken aback by the sudden destruction of his beloved prop.

"I will quit," Yan Zhaoge announced, his dark eyes burning with absolute, uncompromising intensity.

"You’ll... you’ll quit smoking?" Ji’an asked, bewildered.

"Cold turkey. As of this second," the Sovereign declared, brushing the ash from his hands. "I will cleanse my palate. I will purge the tobacco from my meridians so that my olfactory senses are entirely uncompromised. I will never touch a pipe again."

He leaned down until his face was inches from hers. The scent of tobacco was already beginning to fade from his aura, replaced by the clean, sharp smell of raw ozone and immense, suffocating power.

"On one condition."

Ji’an swallowed hard. "What condition?"

A slow, wicked, incredibly predatory, utterly victorious smile spread across the deity’s face.

"You will feed me."

Ji’an stared at him.

"If I am to surrender my only vice," Yan Zhaoge drawled, his voice a smooth, hypnotic purr, "it must be replaced by a superior addiction. If you make me snacks, Ji’an. If you provide me with a daily, uninterrupted supply of your culinary creations... I will act as your personal, overpowered, entirely off-the-books consultant."

He tapped his temple.

"You want to refactor ancient arrays? I will provide the blueprints. You want to trigger a Heavenly Calamity without blowing up your friends? I will stand in the lightning. You want to uncover the secrets of anything?"

He paused, letting the weight of that final, plot-shattering hook sink deep into her soul.

"I know the passwords."

Ji’an’s breath stopped entirely.

He knew. He undeniably knew she was investigating the Tower. He knew she was looking into Lin Feng’s death. And he was casually offering the keys to the kingdom... in exchange for a meal plan.

It was the most absurd, ridiculous, high-stakes culinary contract in the history of the universe.

’He is basically offering to be my sugar-daddy, but instead of buying me bags, he’s offering to fight God for me if I pack his lunchbox,’ Ji’an’s transmigrator brain processed the insanity.

She looked at the ash of the pipe scattering on the wind. She looked at the man who had just casually swatted away a bunch of lightning bolts.

She needed answers about the Tower. She needed a senior who could actually keep up with her chaotic, modern-science cultivation methods.

And, quite frankly, she needed someone who wasn’t going to hyperventilate every time she did something dangerous.

Ji’an let out a long, incredibly resigned sigh. She reached out and firmly grasped the lapels of his expensive midnight-purple robes, pulling him down an inch to look him directly in his smug, dark eyes.

"No onions," Ji’an negotiated, her voice hard and professional.

Yan Zhaoge’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"If I am making you snacks," Ji’an declared, "you do not get to complain about the ingredients. You eat what I put in front of you. If I hand you a plate of fermented cabbage, you smile and chew. You don’t get to critique the plating. And you absolutely, under no circumstances, interrupt me while I am doing prep-work. Do we have a deal, Mr. Overtime?"

For a moment, the Sovereign of the Iron-Stone Monastery looked genuinely taken aback by her audacity.

And then, a brilliant, echoing roar of laughter burst from his chest. He threw his head back, absolutely delighted.

"Deal," Yan Zhaoge grinned, his dark eyes sparkling with manic anticipation. "You have yourself a consultant, little Chef. Now... what is for lunch? I am suddenly feeling incredibly famished."

Lin Ji’an rolled her eyes, turned around, and began aggressively yanking her cast-iron woks out of the bedrock.

The Vanguard had just acquired a new, invisible, yet highly demanding passenger. And Ji’an had a sinking suspicion that her grocery budget was about to exponentially skyrocket.

.

.

.

The immediate aftermath of a Body Fusion Heavenly Calamity was rarely glamorous. Normally, a cultivator who had just absorbed the raw cosmic data load of the Heavens would spend the next three months in a specialized coma, wrapped in restorative bandages, bleeding black tar from their pores as their mortal vessel acclimated to its new immortal infrastructure.

Lin Ji’an did not have three months.

She had a catering schedule to maintain.

"Alright, that’s the last of them," Ji’an grunted, violently yanking the final, scorched Black Iron Wok out of the cracked bedrock of the Ashen Wastes.

The copper wire strung between the woks was completely vaporized, reduced to a fine, conductive dust that coated her red leather boots.

She tossed the massive cast-iron bowl into her spatial ring, dusting off her hands.

Her body felt... strange.

It wasn’t the agonizing, burning pain she had expected. Instead, she felt an incredible, terrifying sense of weightlessness.

The dense, heavy Harmonious Five-Grain Qi in her core was no longer a swirling vortex of liquid energy; it had stabilized, fusing with her flesh, turning her entire musculoskeletal system into a superconducting, high-yield kinetic battery.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!