Xu Kai fainted.
Actually fainted. Right there on the floor, flat on his back, unconscious as a stunned rabbit.
It happened the mont Chen Xi said the na of the mushroom they had just eaten.
One Eyed Mushroom.
His brain had barely registered the words "one eyed" before everything went dark.
In his defense, it was a fully justified collapse. He had never seen a One Eyed Mushroom. More importantly, he had never eaten one. Had never even thought about eating sothing like that, not in his wildest, strangest dreams.
The na suggested a mushroom. With an eye. Probably, but obvious.
'What in the world of cultivators is a mushroom doing with an eye?'
He had consud an eldritch horror. Voluntarily. Chewed it, swallowed it, and complinted it taste. And now he would have to live with that mory for the rest of his life, assuming he didn't die of sheer psychic damage first.
Before Xu Kai could sink deeper into his existential spiral, sothing cold landed on his face.
Brief. Quick. It splashed and slid off his cheek cleanly.
'Cold.'
His mind slowed.
A massive weight lifted from his chest, then disappeared entirely.
'Exactly what I needed.'
The cold, whatever it was, cleared his thoughts like a wind sweeping through fog. Suddenly, he forgot about the four-legged chicken. Forgot about the one-eyed mushroom. Forgot about whatever else the heavens had cursed him to eat.
None of it felt like his problem anymore.
He felt light.
'I wish I could be like this for—'
Another drop hit his face.
Cold. Fluid. Just like the first.
Except this wasn't the sa quantity.
Not even close.
His hands flew up, but the water kept pouring. A relentless stream, indifferent to his flailing.
'Arghhh—!!'
He tried to open his mouth, to say sothing, to breathe, but the mont his lips parted, he drank a mouthful. He tried to open his eyes next and imdiately regretted it, squeezing them shut against the onslaught.
Up until now, he hadn't bothered identifying what was hitting him.
Now he was certain.
Water.
A literal ocean of water, poured directly onto his face.
He already knew who was doing it. Only one person in this world would pull sothing like this. Only one person was staying with him.
Chen Xi.
Because who else? This wasn't just crazy, it was committed crazy. The first splash had been brief, light. A cup of water, maybe. A wake-up call.
Then, as if Chen Xi had decided that wasn't enough, she'd brought out a tank. An endless, bottomless reservoir of water.
Xu Kai started to believe it would never stop.
Then it did.
He shot upright, coughing violently, hacking up the water that had forced its way down his throat while he lay defenseless on the ground. Between coughs, he gasped for air, deep, desperate breaths he hadn't been able to take while pinned beneath the deluge.
"Master, you're back!" Chen Xi bead. "I knew it would work. It always does."
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Xu Kai turned his head slowly. chanically. Fixed his gaze on her.
Then he opened his mouth and shouted.
"You brat!"
---
A man sat in a chair, his back relaxed against the fra, posture almost comfortable.
In his right hand, he held a cup of water. He drank at a normal pace, not rushed, not slow, until the cup was empty. Then he set it down on the table beside him with a soft clink.
He did all of this without once breaking his glare.
The target of that glare knelt on the floor: a girl with both hands resting on her lap, her eyes darting around like a butterfly with nowhere to land. She wasn't fascinated by her surroundings, she'd seen this place more tis than she could count. The wandering gaze was just a way to avoid looking at him.
The kneeling girl was Chen Xi.
The drenched, furious man was Xu Kai.
His glare sharpened as he replayed the last few minutes in his head.
Chen Xi, sensing the shift, finally t his eyes. She offered a strained smile.
"Uh, Master. You look good."
Xu Kai took a slow look at himself.
Drenched. Hair plastered to his scalp. Clothes soaked through, clinging to his skin like a second, wetter layer.
'Did she really think that was flattery?' His brow twitched. 'That's not flattery, it's just simply asking for a beating.'
Chen Xi scanned his appearance with growing dread.
From what she could see, he looked worse for wear. Combined with his expression and posture, the rigid shoulders, the clenched jaw, the murderous stillness, he resembled soone locked in mortal combat with the hardest challenge life had thrown at him.
That's when she realized... She had just said the worst possible thing.
Anyone could hear those words, look at their own soaked, miserable state, and translate them to "You look like trash."
Especially when the person saying it was the one who'd caused the damage.
Chen Xi waved both hands in a frantic, defensive gesture.
"No, no—that's not what I ant! I ant, uh—"
Her brain scrambled for an escape route, so string of words that might reroute her impending doom.
Then she found one.
"Ah! Is it about the mushroom?" she said brightly. "That's not a problem, really. It's completely normal. The One Eyed Mushroom is actually a beast, a rank one True Beast. It's called that because of its mushroom nature. As in, it looks like a mushroom and tastes like a mushroom. That's all."
Xu Kai felt the words land like salt rubbed into an open wound.
'An eldritch horror. I really ate an eldritch horror.'
Chen Xi saw his expression darken and realized she had made things worse. Her mind raced again.
'What to do, what to do...'
She snapped her fingers.
"I've got it! Is it about the water?"
Xu Kai raised a brow. The look on his face said, plainly: 'It took you that long?'
He didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to.
"The reason I poured water on your face," Chen Xi explained, "was to bring your consciousness back."
"Pouring water on soone's face," Xu Kai repeated slowly, "is a way to wake them from unconsciousness?"
"Yes."
"And you believed that?"
"It worked on you." She shrugged. "So yes."
"Who in the world gave you such an idea?!"
"A confird source."
"What source?"
Chen Xi paused, lips pursed in thought. After a mont, she said.
"Wait. Let show you."
She opened her Bag of Withholdings and began searching through it, humming softly under her breath. A minute passed. Then her face scrunched into a frown.
"Where are you?" she muttered.
When rummaging proved ineffective, she changed tactics. She started pulling out books. One after another, dropping them onto the floor in a growing pile. Another. Another.
Xu Kai stared in confusion as the stack multiplied. It seed endless. Curious despite himself, he picked one up from the ground.
He checked the back. Normal. Then the front.
The title made him pause. A long, long pause.
'The Villainess's Guide to Seducing the Immortal King (Book 129)'
Xu Kai held the book at arm's length, squinting, rereading the title as if it might change.
It didn't.
He rubbed his eyes. Read it again.
Still the sa. Exactly the sa.
Slowly, suspiciously, he looked at Chen Xi, who was still searching, still pulling out more books, so many that he started to wonder if her bag contained an entire library. Entire pocket dinsions.
His gaze drifted back to the book.
He didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to think.
'It's probably a how-to book...' he concluded. 'But a very suspicious one.'
Back in his past world, professional writers had been masters of bizarre clickbait titles. Designed to make people look.
Xu Kai shrugged.
'Only one way to find out.'
He opened the book.
---
[In his obsidian throne room, the immortal king didn't look up.
“Kneel,” he said.
She didn't. Instead, the villainess traced a single finger down his marble jaw. He caught her wrist, iron hard.
“I could unmake you,” he breathed.
She smiled.
“Then why is your heart racing, little god?”
For the first ti in a thousand years, he gasped.
“Because,” she whispered, tilting his chin down to et her eyes, “you've never t soone who wants to be destroyed.”
He crushed her against the throne.
“You play with fire.”
“No.” She pulled his head to her neck. “I am the ash you'll choke on after.”
Then she kissed him, soft, once, and he shuddered like a broken prayer.
“You are mine,” he rasped.
She laughed.
“No. You are. Now crawl.”
He did—]
---
Xu Kai slamd the book shut.
His eyes were wide. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
'What in the world did I just read?'
If soone asked him right now, he wouldn't know what to say. How could he explain sothing like that to anyone? And more importantly, how could he explain himself afterward? What was he was doing with a book like that?
He clutched the book, and suddenly the scene flashed through his mind again.
'So cringe.'
He nearly died from cringe by just imagining it.
He snapped upright, looked behind him, then around the room, checking for witnesses. No one. Slowly, carefully, keeping one eye on Chen Xi, who was still obliviously digging through her bag, he placed the book back exactly where he'd picked it up. Sa position. Sa angle.
He leaned back and exhaled.
Xu Kai looked exactly like a man who had just escaped being caught doing sothing illegal.
Very, very illegal.
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