Raising the Villain in Wrong Way

"Perfect," Ji’an sighed, setting her spatial bag and her spatula down on a dry rock.

She stretched, her muscles aching from carrying a literal Princess across a mountain earlier that day.

Without a second thought, she reached up and began to unfasten the sash of her dirty gray robes.

She pulled the outer robe off, tossing it aside. Then came the inner tunic.

To Ji’an, she was a woman taking off her clothes for a much-needed bath. But she was entirely forgetting the mechanics of the Yin-Yang Void Locket currently fused into her spiritual sea.

The Locket didn’t just cast a generic, hazy illusion to hide her gender. It was a Supreme Artifact crafted by ancient masters.

It physically warped reality and perception to match the masculine identity she had assumed. It generated a flawless, visual, and sensory projection of a male physique.

As the tunic dropped to the ground, the magical "GoPro" recording rune embedded in her Lifeline Token suddenly flashed with a frantic, pulsing red light.

[System Protocol: Sect Broadcast Array.]

[Error: Impropriety Detected. Nudity Filter Activated!]

In the Assembly Plaza, the massive, primary screen tracking Lin Ji’an suddenly sparked, fizzled, and went entirely, violently black.

The words [SIGNAL CENSORED FOR DECENCY] flashed in bold white letters across the dark void.

A collective wail of outrage echoed through the plaza.

"What happened?!" "Censored?! What is he doing?!" "He’s definitely committing a crime! Show us the crime!"

But the outrage lasted for exactly three seconds.

Because while Ji’an’s token had dutifully censored itself to protect its master’s modesty, Su Wan’s token had no such localized restrictions regarding other people in its field of view.

On the secondary screen, the feed from Su Wan’s token showed her carefully parting a cluster of glowing fern leaves, peering into the clearing.

And suddenly, the entire Celestial Sword Sect had a front-row, high-definition view of Lin Ji’an.

The plaza went dead silent.

Standing at the edge of the moonlit pool, illuminated by the silvery light and the blue glow of the lilies, was "Senior Brother Lin."

He was facing away from the camera, wearing only his trousers, preparing to step into the water.

The collective female population of the sect stopped breathing.

The Yin-Yang Void Locket had not skimped on the details. The back displayed on the screen was a masterpiece of masculine aesthetics.

Broad, sculpted shoulders tapered down into a lean, tightly corded waist. The muscles weren’t the bulky, grotesque lumps of a brute; they were the refined, fluid, coiled muscles of a swimmer or a dancer, or a chef who spent hours wielding heavy iron woks.

Water from the mist of the waterfall clung to his skin, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight.

As Ji’an reached up to tie her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head, the movement caused the muscles in her back to flex and ripple with devastating grace.

For a solid ten seconds, you could hear a pin drop in the Assembly Plaza.

And then, the dam broke.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

A synchronized, ear-piercing squeal erupted from the lower courtyard, so loud it threatened to shatter the protective formations.

Female disciples clutched each other, fanning their faces, some literally dropping to their knees.

"Look at those shoulder blades! They could cut diamonds!" "The waist-to-shoulder ratio! It’s unfair! It’s illegal!" "I take back everything I said about chefs! Put me in Class 9 immediately!"

On the screen, Su Wan’s hands, visible at the bottom of the frame, were trembling violently. She was frozen in the bushes, her face burning so hot it could probably start a forest fire.

She had come expecting to find a dark secret, a grand conspiracy. Instead, she had walked straight into an ambush of sheer, unadulterated visual temptation.

She couldn’t look away. She was completely, hopelessly spellbound by the sight of the "Flower Thief’s" back.

Up on the jade terrace, the reactions of the bigshots were infinitely more complex than the screaming fans below.

Xiao Yichen, the Second Prince, stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He stared at the screen, a low, cynical chuckle vibrating in his chest.

He looked at the trembling hands of Su Wan at the bottom of the feed.

"So this is the celebrated virtue of the Su family," Xiao Yichen snorted, his gentle smile twisting into something far more mocking and amused. "The ’pure’ White beauty, sneaking through the woods at midnight just to play the peeping tom on my Little Uncle. How... delightfully shameless." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He found the entire situation hilarious. The girl who pretended to be morally superior was currently drooling in the bushes.

And Ji’an, who was still oblivious, capable, and apparently possessing a physique that could cause riots, continued to prove herself to be the most entertaining variable he had ever encountered.

Next to him, Gu Zhiwei, the Holy Son, was experiencing a catastrophic system failure.

Gu Zhiwei’s face was the color of a ripe tomato. He had slapped both hands over his eyes the moment the tunic dropped, his strict, righteous upbringing screaming at him to look away.

But his fingers were splayed wide open.

He was peering through the gaps in his fingers, his golden eyes wide and completely flabbergasted.

’Brother Lin is... so... so manly,’ Gu Zhiwei’s brain short-circuited. ’I thought he was slender because he was a cook. But he is built like a... a war god. No wonder he could block the Young Sword Lord effortlessly! No wonder he could lift the Princess!’

Gu Zhiwei felt a strange, confusing heat pooling in his stomach.

He suddenly felt very inadequate about his own, softer, Sun-Root-nurtured physique. He made a mental note to start lifting heavier rocks.

In his floating armchair, Elder Qin Changxu sat perfectly still.

The ancient, emotionless master of the Heartless Dao held a cup of spirit tea halfway to his mouth. He stared at the massive screen.

He was a being who had lived for centuries, who had seen the rise and fall of empires, who considered the physical shell to be nothing more than temporary dust.