Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

She scanned the shadows near the periphery, searching with a focused, relentless determination.

And then, her gaze locked directly onto a specific stone pillar in the darkest corner of the room.

Even from a hundred feet away, through the crowd, Ji’an could see the exact moment the Princess spotted her.

The flawless, ethereal, untouchable mask of the Supreme Heavenly Yin Princess vanished entirely.

A massive, bratty, and familiar smile stretched across Bai Liyue’s face.

Her eyes lit up like fireworks, entirely ignoring the thousands of cultivators watching her every move.

Ji’an pressed her hands flat against the pillar, her soul leaving her body.

’No,’ Ji’an mouthed silently, shaking her head in frantic, desperate denial.

Bai Liyue hitched up the skirts of her priceless, shimmering pink silk robes, entirely abandoning all royal decorum, and took a deep breath.

"HERO!"

The shrill of utter delight, the echoing shriek of the Sect Leader’s daughter, shattered the silence of the Grand Hall like a glass bomb.

Every single head in the room, thousands of cultivators, the Sovereign Elders, the male leads, and the Sect Leader himself, whipped around, following the trajectory of the Princess’s adoring gaze, staring directly at the chef trying to melt into a pillar.

Lin Ji’an closed her eyes, letting her head thunk backward against the cold stone, accepting her inevitable demise.

.

.

.

’...HERO!’

The shrill, echoing shriek of the Sect Leader’s daughter bounced off the starlight-glass walls of the Grand Hall.

The collective gaze of thousands of apex cultivators snapped toward the stone pillar.

The male leads drew their weapons.

The Sect Leader’s eyes glowed with wrathful judgment.

The fujoshi squads gasped in unison, already drafting a ten-volume tragedy about the Martial Uncle’s secret affair with the Hidden Princess.

Lin Ji’an closed her eyes, sliding down the cold stone of the pillar, waiting for the inevitable blast of localized, high-yield spiritual energy that would end her miserable, transmigrated existence.

Poke!

A sensation of cold pressed sharply against her cheek.

Ji’an gasped, her eyes flying open as she wildly swatted at the air, fully expecting to block a lethal strike.

"Brother Ji’an. You stopped breathing," a smooth, melodic, and distinctly icy voice murmured. "If the ambient spiritual pressure of the room is overwhelming your meridians, I will erect a localized suppression barrier."

Ji’an blinked.

The terrifying, apocalyptic scene of the Grand Hall turning against her, shattered, dissolving like mist in the morning sun.

She wasn’t sliding down the pillar in disgrace.

She was still standing perfectly upright, hidden in the shadows.

The thousands of cultivators were not looking at her with murderous intent.

They were all staring in rapt, silent awe toward the center of the hall.

And standing directly beside her, his flawless face hovering mere inches away, was Xie Wangchen.

The newly ascended immortal had abandoned his place near Elder Qin Changxu entirely, having seamlessly glided through the crowd to stand by her side.

His pale index finger, the source of the cold poke, was slowly retracting from her cheek.

His ruby eyes were narrowed with intense, focused concern.

Ji’an’s brain executed a rapid, frantic reboot.

She looked back toward the starlight-glass floor.

Princess Bai Liyue was standing in the exact center of the hall, draped in her shimmering pink and silver silk.

She hadn’t hitched up her skirts.

She hadn’t sprinted across the room.

She didn’t scream "HERO!" at the top of her lungs.

It had been a daydream...

A horrific, stress-induced, catastrophic hallucination born from her own absolute, mounting paranoia.

But it wasn’t entirely a fabrication.

Because as Ji’an watched, her heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, the delicate, porcelain-faced Princess slowly turned her head.

Her massive, doe-like eyes bypassed the glittering nobles, bypassed the feral Beast Lord, and locked onto the shadows behind the stone pillar.

She looked directly at Ji’an.

The untouchable, ethereal mask of the Supreme Heavenly Yin Princess didn’t break into a bratty scream.

Instead, Bai Liyue offered a tiny, almost imperceptible tilt of her head. And then, with deliberate precision, she closed one eye in a slow, unambiguous wink.

Ji’an swayed, her knees turning to jelly.

’She knows,’ Ji’an’s internal monologue whimpered, a cold sweat breaking out across her collarbones. ’She recognizes me. She is just choosing to hold the nuclear launch codes hostage. The stray cat has evolved into a sovereign extortionist!’

"Brother Ji’an?" Wangchen prompted again, his voice dropping an octave, taking a half-step closer. His presence was a solid, freezing anchor in the swirling chaos of her panic. "Your pulse is erratic. Are you ill?"

"I am fine," Ji’an choked out, pressing a hand flat against her chest to physically slow her heartbeat. "I just... I forgot to breathe. The aesthetics of this room are overwhelming. There is too much silk and too much dramatic lighting. My senses are overstimulated."

Wangchen’s ruby eyes swept over her face, clearly unconvinced by the excuse, but he gracefully chose not to press the issue.

He stepped smoothly into the space directly in front of her, subtly angling his broad shoulders to completely block the line of sight between Ji’an and the center of the hall, effectively shielding her from the Princess’s gaze.

"Breathe, Brother Ji’an," Wangchen instructed softly, his tone a commanding, yet deeply soothing rumble.

With the immediate threat of public execution by sect association temporarily paused, Ji’an’s brain pivoted back to the other, arguably more terrifying anomaly currently standing on the dais.

She leaned slightly to the left, peering around Wangchen’s pristine white robes to stare at the Senior Apprentice.

Shen Zechuan.

He was standing beside the Sect Leader, his long, flowing black hair cascading down his back, his unblemished, tragically beautiful face serene and composed.

Ji’an brought her thumb to her mouth, nervously biting the edge of her thumbnail, a rare, deeply ingrained habit from her past life on Earth that only surfaced when she was dealing with unsolvable logic puzzles.

’It is definitely Lin Feng’s face,’ Ji’an analyzed, her silver-flecked eyes narrowing with manic, obsessive focus.