Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

When they stepped through the final illusion, the humid, sulfurous air of the swamp vanished, replaced by the cool, dry atmosphere of a subterranean cavern.

Ji’an ignited a high-grade luminescent talisman, tossing it into the air to illuminate the space.

The light flared, washing over the cavern.

Ji’an’s jaw unhinged.

She dropped her spatula.

It hit the stone floor with a loud, echoing clang.

The cave was massive.

And it was full.

It was a literal, unadulterated dragon’s hoard, scaled for a lineage of highly lethal, immortal cats.

There were mountains, actual, literal mounds of pure imperial gold bullion.

Chests were overflowing with high-grade, translucent spirit stones that pulsed with enough ambient Qi to fund a medium-sized orthodox sect for a century.

There were antique, thousand-year-old swords, jade scrolls containing lost martial arts, and crowns encrusted with rubies the size of pomegranates.

It was the accumulated wealth of every unfortunate noble, merchant fleet, and arrogant cultivator who had wandered into the Eastern Coastal Wastes and failed to leave over the last three millennia.

"By the Heavens," Ji’an breathed, dropping to her knees in front of a pile of spirit stones.

She scooped up a handful of the glowing gems, letting them trickle through her fingers like water. "I’m rich. I’m so rich I could buy the entire Drunken Peak! I could buy Master Jiu Zui a liver transplant! I could buy that bastard Xiao Yichen a shred of conscience!"

«You mortals are so easily amused,» the Nekomata scoffed telepathically, hopping off Ji’an’s shoulder and padding gracefully over to a massive, solid gold throne that was currently serving as a scratching post. «It is all just cold rocks and heavy metal. It has absolutely no nutritional value. Are you going to clean this mess up, or are you just going to kneel there weeping?»

"I am performing a public service," Ji’an declared solemnly, standing up and pulling open the aperture of her spatial ring.

She turned to the Nekomata, taking out her expert, manipulative salesperson persona.

"You know, Your Highness," Ji’an said smoothly, addressing the kitten with respectful flattery. "It’s a good thing I came along. This gold? It tarnishes the spiritual atmosphere. It disrupts the feng shui of your napping cycle. And these spirit stones? They emit low-frequency radiation that is terrible for a feline’s coat! I am actually doing you a favor by removing these hazardous materials from your environment!"

The Nekomata blinked its large, crystalline blue eyes, looking mildly impressed by the audacity of the lie.

«Is that so?» the kitten mused, licking its paw. «Well, if it is such a burden, I suppose you may take it. But I expect premium sashimi for this ’favor’, cook.»

"You will eat like an emperor on a fist," Ji’an vowed, placing a hand over her heart.

She immediately turned into a human vacuum cleaner.

For the next forty-five minutes, Ji’an scrambled around the cavern, shoving gold, jewels, and ancient artifacts into her spatial ring with the frantic, frantic energy of a contestant on a timed game show.

She didn’t bother sorting it.

She didn’t care about the historical significance of the ancient jade scrolls.

She only cared about the profit margins.

Blue watched her from the entrance of the cavern, leaning casually against an obsidian pillar, his arms crossed over his chest.

Xie Wangchen was an immortal prodigy who possessed access to the deepest vaults of the Celestial Sword Sect’s Ice Peak.

He was the heir to an unfathomable fortune.

To him, the gold in this cave was entirely meaningless.

But watching Ji’an scramble around, giggling maniacally as she shoved a diamond-encrusted tiara into her pocket, was the most entertaining thing he had witnessed in his lifetime.

’He is so greedy,’ Wangchen’s internal monologue sighed, a dark, yet utterly smitten smile curving his lips. ’He would conquer the world not for power, but simply because the throne was made of something shiny. Looks like I must ensure the treasury on the Eternal Cloud Peak is fully stocked before he returns. I will line the floors with spirit stones just to hear him cackle a bit.’

Finally, wiping a streak of dust from her forehead, Ji’an surveyed the now-empty cavern.

Her spatial ring was practically groaning under the astronomical weight of the hoard.

She turned back to Blue, clapping her hands together, a big and satisfied grin on her face.

"Alright then, Blue," Ji’an said, marching over to him.

She pulled out a secondary, empty spatial pouch from her robes. "Time to split the loot. We fought the beasts together, we navigated the swamp together, so it’s a fifty-fifty split. Hold out your hands."

She began transferring large handfuls of high-grade spirit stones and gold bars into the secondary pouch, intending to hand them over to the rogue.

Blue froze.

Wangchen stared at the pouch of gold she was offering him.

His disguised persona was suddenly presented with a logic puzzle.

He was supposed to be a rogue cultivator.

Rogue cultivators were, by universal definition, desperate, bloodthirsty mercenaries who lived and died for status, power, and wealth.

A normal rogue would have slit her throat the moment she turned her back, taking the entire hoard for himself.

Offering a rogue a fifty-fifty split of a legendary treasure was like offering a starving wolf a side salad.

But Wangchen didn’t want the gold.

He didn’t care about the stones.

Furthermore, taking wealth from Ji’an, taking something that she had worked so hard to scam out of a magical cat, felt fundamentally, morally wrong to his deeply skewed, yandere value system.

He couldn’t take her money.

He was supposed to give her the world, not take a cut of her earnings. Besides, what was hers would automatically belong to him, no?

"I..." Blue started, his smooth, confident voice faltering for the very first time since they had met. He took a half-step back, raising his hands defensively as if she were offering him a bag of venomous spiders. "I don’t require a share, Young Master Ji’an."

Ji’an stopped transferring the gold.