Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

Lin Ji’an stood with her back pressed flat against the cool stone wall of the storage cellar, her chest heaving, her fingers lightly tracing the skin of her lower lip where the three-hundred-year-old immortal had almost kissed moments ago.

On the floor at her boots lay the pulverised, scattered remains of a high-grade porcelain tea caddy, its precious green leaves slowly soaking up the dark puddle of the spilled Dragon-Bone Vitality Broth. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"They are all nuts," Ji’an whispered to the empty stone room, her voice trembling with a mixture of profound transmigrator shock and panic. "They are completely unhinged, even when doing something wrong. How is that possible, not to have a shred of conscience left in them? The entire upper management of this sect is suffering from terminal, hormone-induced brain rot!"

She reached down, grabbed her discarded white dishcloth from the prep counter, and aggressively tied it back over her eyes, unwilling to subject her retinas to any more high-tier anatomy for the rest of the year.

She took three deep, highly regulated breaths through her mouth, entirely avoiding her nose so she wouldn’t accidentally inhale the residual, aphrodisiac-laced steam of the beast broth, lest she commit something unforgivable that she would regret later on, and marched back out into the main courtyard.

The scene that greeted her around the bubbling, radioactive-red cauldron of the Inferno Hotpot was a masterclass in debauched, capsaicin-poisoned degradation.

The heat of the Abyssal Ghost-Peppers and Demon-Horn chilis had thoroughly incapacitated the nervous systems of the three young prodigies in the Sect.

To her far right, Gu Zhiwei, the Golden Retriever, was currently slumped sideways against a petrified spirit-wood stump.

His heavy, golden outer robes had been discarded entirely into the dirt, leaving his broad, heavily muscled, perfectly sculpted torso completely bare beneath the moonlight.

His skin was flushed a deep, glossy, boiled-lobster red, slick with a heavy sheen of sweat that pooled in the deep grooves of his eight-pack.

He was openly weeping, a continuous stream of tears tracking down his handsome face as he mindlessly shovelled dry, unseasoned spirit-rice into his mouth with trembling chopsticks, letting out high-pitched, ragged hiccups.

’The heck... he was hiding this body all the while, showing that baby face and clinging to be like a chick?’ Ji’an was stupefied beyond question; she really didn’t expect this from the golden retriever, when he always saw that bright, baby face and a small, lean body always covered perfectly.

"Brother Lin," Zhiwei sobbed blindly toward the sky, his vocal cords completely fried by capsaicin. "The broth... it is a Heavenly Tribulation inside my stomach. I feel as though I have swallowed a miniature sun. Why does it hurt so much, yet demand that I continue eating? Is this the profound suffering of the Great Dao?"

"It’s called gluttony, Zhiwei. Take a digestive pill and put your shirt on!" Ji’an barked blindly, adjusting the knot of her dishcloth.

Sitting opposite the weeping hero, Wen Shiru, the Fox, had entirely abandoned his meticulously crafted, scholarly-CEO aesthetic.

His deep emerald green silk robes were torn open to the waist, exposing his pale, sweat-drenched collarbones and the sharp lines of his sternum.

His silver spectacles had slipped completely off his nose, dangling precariously from one ear by a delicate gold chain.

He was leaning heavily forward on his carved jade cane, panting through open, spice-reddened lips, his jade-colored eyes completely unfocused as he tried to perform basic mathematical calculations on his solid-gold abacus with shaking fingers.

"The... the yield," Shiru rasped, his voice sounding like dry gravel being ground beneath a millstone. "The capsaicin density... it completely disrupts the internal Qi equilibrium... creating a localised deficit in the pain receptors... Ji’an... your spices are... a hostile takeover of my sensory pathways... I require an immediate merger of our liquid assets to... neutralise the burn..."

"Shut up, Wen Shiru! There is no merger! Stop trying to turn my hotpot into a corporate monopoly!" Ji’an yelled back, her head chef’s authority snapping back.

She reached out blindly, grabbed a massive cast-iron ladle, and aggressively slammed it against the side of the brass cauldron.

CLANG!

The sharp, ringing metal sound cut through the groans and hiccups of the incapacitated prodigies.

"Alright, listen up, you capsaicin-poisoned casualties!" Ji’an roared, levelling her spatula across the courtyard. "The dinner party is officially concluded! The kitchen is closed! The arrays are cooling down! Pick up your discarded outerwear, retrieve your dignity from the dirt, and initiate your exit protocols immediately!"

Zhiwei sniffled loudly, weakly raising a trembling, heavily muscled hand.

"Brother Lin... please," the Golden Retriever whimpered, his glowing golden eyes drooping with genuine, pathetic exhaustion. "It is past midnight. The mountain crosswinds on the Outer Peaks are notoriously treacherous tonight. My core is completely overwhelmed by the fire-attribute Qi... if I attempt to mount my flying sword, I will likely crash into an ancient pine tree and shatter my collarbone. Let us stay!"

He hauled himself up onto his knees, crawling a half-step toward her prep table, offering a pout so pure and manipulative it belonged in a forbidden romance play.

"Let us have a boys’ sleepover!" Zhiwei proposed enthusiastically, his voice cracking by four octaves. "We can push the prep tables aside, arrange our silk sleeping rolls in a circle around the embers of the fire pit! We can share stories of our border conquests and fall asleep beneath the starlight like true, sworn brothers!"

Beneath her blindfold, Lin Ji’an’s silver-flecked eyes widened to the maximum circumference of horror.

’A boys’ sleepover?!’ her internal monologue shrieked, an existential panic detonating in her brain cells. ’Hell to the absolute, categorical, unmitigated NO!’

She was a transmigrated woman wearing an artifact to hide her gender, surrounded by three powerful, hyper-aroused, capsaicin-delirious male prodigies whose biology was actively reacting to her hidden Yin aura.

Hosting a "boys’ sleepover" in her secluded, heavily warded courtyard was the equivalent of a plump, well-seasoned sheep hosting a pyjama party for three starving, fixated wolves who had already brought their own mint glaze and carving forks!