Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

’He’s not expecting an attack,’ her inner demon whispered.

’I just leveled up. I have a cast-iron spatula. I could hit him in the back of the knees, grab the ember, loot his pockets, and sprint into the miasma. I could rob a god. I could be a culinary pirate!’

Yan Zhaoge, possessing the ability to read the violent, shifting intent in her aura, threw his head back and let out a booming, delighted laugh.

"Do not attempt to mug me, little Chef," the Sovereign chuckled, genuinely thrilled by her audacity. "You are fast, but you are not that fast. Take the ember. It is a gift."

Ji’an immediately snatched the glowing red core from his palm, shoving it deep into her spatial ring before he could change his mind.

"No take-backs," Ji’an declared fiercely, patting her ring. "The contract is sealed. I will make you snacks. But you are not allowed to complain if I test spicy recipes on you."

"I welcome the burn," Yan Zhaoge smirked, taking a step back, the space around him beginning to warp. "Enjoy your return flight, Ji’an. I suspect you will find the reception at the Azure Dragon Sect... highly entertaining."

With a final, lazy, two-fingered salute, the Sovereign of the Iron-Stone Monastery dissolved into a cloud of silver smoke, vanishing back into the void.

Ji’an stood alone in the cratered Ashen Wastes.

"Weirdo," Ji’an muttered to herself, shaking her head.

She didn’t waste another second.

She summoned her massive palm-leaf fan, infused it with her newly gained powerful Body Fusion Qi, and hopped aboard.

The fan rocketed into the sky, tearing through the atmosphere at Mach 4, leaving a sonic boom in its wake.

As she flew back toward the Azure Dragon Sect, the high-altitude winds whipped fiercely around her. She felt incredible.

Her muscles were light, her core was humming with perfection, and she had just scored the greatest piece of kitchen equipment in the universe.

She was blissfully unaware that her long, glowing silver hair was streaming behind her in the wind, catching the sunlight like a banner of divine, ethereal beauty.

She was about to cause an international incident of unprecedented cringe.

***

Back at the Azure Dragon Sect, the afternoon training session was in full, testosterone-fueled swing.

The massive, open-air obsidian training courtyard was packed. The initial hostility between the Celestial Sword Vanguard Retinue and the Azure Dragon elites had been replaced by a bizarre, incredibly aggressive, cross-sectarian bromance.

Gu Zhiwei, his golden aura pulsing, was currently engaged in a highly competitive, shirtless push-up contest with Senior Brother Kui.

Hu Yanlie was roaring, demonstrating how to properly suplex a petrified training dummy, while a crowd of poison-masters took furious notes on his leverage points.

Lu Jianheng and Wen Shiru were sitting on the sidelines, drinking poison-infused tea to act cool like Ji’an, calmly discussing the economic benefits of cross-sectarian martial exchange programs.

It was a beautiful, sweaty, and highly productive display of orthodox unity.

"ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY!" Zhiwei bellowed, sweat pouring down his perfectly sculpted abs as he executed another one-armed pushup in the mud. "You are keeping a good pace, Brother Kui! But your core is sagging!"

"I am... a master... of endurance!" Kui gasped out, his tribal tattoos stretching as his arms trembled violently.

And then, the heavy, imposing obsidian gates of the training courtyard slowly groaned open.

The heavy, metallic click-clack of boots echoing against the stone caused the entire courtyard to pause.

Gu Zhiwei stopped mid-pushup. Lu Jianheng lowered his teacup. Hu Yanlie almost dropped his training dummy over his feet.

They all turned to look at the entrance, expecting to see their tyrannical, red-robed Vanguard Leader returning from his botanical expedition to yell at them for taking a water break.

What they saw instead catastrophically broke their brains.

Stepping through the grand archway was not a rugged, arrogant young master.

It was a woman.

Or, at least, it appeared to be the most breathtaking, ethereal, divinely beautiful maiden any of them had ever laid eyes upon.

She was wearing a loose, somewhat white martial tunic and dark training trousers, an outfit that did absolutely nothing to hide the sharp, delicate, and flawless curve of her jawline. Her skin was as pale and smooth as polished jade, glowing with a faint, otherworldly luminescence.

But her most striking feature was her hair.

It was a cascading, shimmering waterfall of pure, liquid silver. It fell past her shoulders, catching the hazy green light of the miasma sun and turning it into a halo of celestial radiance. Her eyes were a stunning, striking silver-flecked gray, currently narrowed in a look of profound, exhausted irritation.

She didn’t walk with the demure, floating grace of an orthodox maiden. She walked with a heavy, purposeful, incredibly aggressive swagger, a heavy black cast-iron spatula strapped to her calf.

The entire courtyard of eighty highly-trained, battle-hardened, hormonally charged male cultivators instantly stopped breathing.

A pin drop could have been heard over the roaring waterfalls.

’Heavens above,’ Gu Zhiwei’s internal monologue whispered in sheer awe, his heart instantly fluttering. ’She is magnificent. She looks like a moon-spirit who has descended to the mortal realm to judge us.’

’Such beauty,’ Lu Jianheng thought, his teacup slipping from his fingers and shattering on the ground, his aristocratic composure entirely dissolving. ’Her features are so sharp... yet so delicate. And her hair... it is the exact shade of Sovereign Xie’s...’

Jianheng’s brain violently seized on the detail.

Silver hair. Ethereal beauty. Cold, irritated eyes.

The Sword Lord’s orthodox, heavily-conditioned soap-opera brain immediately constructed the most logical, utterly absurd narrative possible.

’I know! She must be Xie Wangchen’s secret sister!’ Jianheng concluded, his heart hammering against his ribs. ’The Ice Demon has a sibling! A beautiful, feral, martial maiden who favors the blade... or the spatula! She must have come to visit him!’

The silence in the courtyard stretched for exactly five seconds.

Ji’an, standing at the entrance, looked around at the eighty sweaty, half-naked boys staring at her with their jaws unhinged.

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