Chapter 447: Change It

"ARE YOU UNHARMED?! DID HE FORCE YOU TO SIGN A CONTRACT WITH THE UNDERWORLD?! LOOK AT ME! HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING UP?!"

"Stand back, Holy Son!" Lu Jianheng roared, vaulting over Zhiwei, his black leather harness creaking as he leveled Autumn Shine directly at Yan Zhaoge’s throat. "Insolent Sovereign! You have detained the Vanguard Leader in an unauthorized private enclosure for precisely forty-seven minutes!"

"MATE! IS! NOT! FOR! SALE!" Hu Yanlie bellowed, charging forward like a rabid rhinoceros, his bare, scarred pecs vibrating with righteous fury.

And from the shadows, Xie Wangchen moved.

The Ice Demon did not speak. He did not even issue a challenge.

He moved with the silent, terrifying speed of shockwave, and materialized between Ji’an and Yan Zhaoge, his massive, thirty-foot black frost scythe whistling through the air, the freezing edge coming to a dead halt precisely one millimeter from the Sovereign’s throat.

The air temperature on the yacht instantly dropped to minus three hundred degrees. The bamboo mast groaned, covered in thick rime.

Wangchen looked down at Yan Zhaoge, his ruby eyes entirely consumed by a dark, bottomless, genocidal madness.

"You touched her wine," Wangchen whispered, his voice a soft, melodic, chillingly gentle promise of extinction. "You sat in her chair, breathed her air. If your pulse does not vacate her presence within the span of a single heartbeat... I will freeze your soul, shatter your physical vessel into ten thousand shards, and feed your spiritual core to the desert worms."

Yan Zhaoge didn’t flinch.

He didn’t even move his neck away from the razor-sharp frost blade.

He simply looked at Xie Wangchen’s silver-threaded belly-dancer halter top. He looked at the jagged black frost covering the fabric. He looked at the intense devotion burning in the boy’s eyes.

And then, Yan Zhaoge smirked.

"A lovely outfit, Sovereign Xie," Yan Zhaoge drawled, completely unfazed by the threat of instant death. "The silver threading truly complements your complexion. Though, if I may offer a structural critique... you are dropping your left shoulder. It leaves your carotid artery exposed to a thermal counter-offensive."

Wangchen’s eyes flared crimson, his grip on the scythe tightening, the black ice beginning to expand.

"WANGCHEN, STAND DOWN!" Ji’an’s voice boomed, sharp, loud, and echoing across the dunes.

She stood up from the floor, stepping directly between the two terrifying immortals, physically grabbing the shaft of Wangchen’s freezing scythe with one hand and shoving Yan Zhaoge’s shoulder back with the other.

"Enough! All of you! Sit your ridiculous, half-naked asses down right now!" Ji’an roared, projecting her Body Fusion Qi with enough force to push Gu Zhiwei, Lu Jianheng, and Hu Yanlie back into the rear of the yacht.

She glared at the panting, desperate, hormone-poisoned boys.

"We are entering the airspace of the Iron-Stone Monastery in ten minutes!" Ji’an yelled, pulling Xie Wangchen’s oversized white robe tighter around her shoulders, her silver hair whipping around her face.

"If any of you embarrass me in front of the Western Basin elders... if any of you start reciting poetry, flexing your pectorals, or attempting to commit sectarian genocide... I am going to confiscate your clothes, confiscate your weapons, and make you walk through the desert backwards with woks strapped to your heads! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

The boys froze.

They looked at the fierce, commanding, breathtakingly beautiful silver-haired Chef. They looked at the heavy spatula strapped to her calf.

The collective, masochistic simp-circuitry in their brains fired simultaneously.

"YES, CHEF!" they roared in perfect, terrified, utterly devoted unison.

Ji’an let out a long, exhausted groan, dragging her hands down her face.

Behind her, Shen Zechuan casually walked over, holding a half-eaten skewer of dried meat he had somehow produced from his sleeve.

"Ji’an," Zechuan whispered happily, leaning over her shoulder. "The purple man is very funny. He told me earlier that if I press a specific red button in his basement, the entire mountain will make a whistling noise. Can we press the button? I like whistling."

Ji’an looked at the abyssal airhead.

She looked at Yan Zhaoge, who was currently winking at her from the bamboo chair.

She looked toward the distant western horizon, where the colossal, glowing red peaks of the Iron-Stove Monastery were beginning to emerge from the sea of sand, surrounded by swirling clouds of volcanic ash and the terrifying, humming glow of ancient thermal arrays.

The Stargazing Tower was waiting.

The secrets of her past life were waiting.

And she was about to infiltrate the highest echelon of cosmic fate with an overtime-obsessed pyromaniac, a homicidal ice demon, and a retinue of traumatized gym-bros.

"Just don’t touch the stove, Zechuan," Ji’an sighed, bracing her boots against the woven helm of the palm-leaf yacht. "Mama’s got a long shift ahead of her."

***

The towering, volcanic peaks of the Iron-Stove Monastery loomed on the western horizon, glowing like jagged teeth silhouetted against the dark desert sky.

Plumes of thick, dark ash and brilliant orange sparks erupted from the summits, painting the clouds in violent, apocalyptic shades of crimson.

Standing at the helm of her hovering palm-leaf yacht, Lin Ji’an stared at the approaching sectarian fortress.

Her newly formed Body Fusion core easily withstood the oppressive, arid heat radiating from the mountain range, but the intimidating scale of the destination was beginning to give her a migraine.

She took a deep breath of the sulfur-tinged air, mentally preparing herself to act as a dignified, orthodox diplomat.

And then, she turned around.

The thirteen elite male prodigies of the Celestial Sword Vanguard Retinue were huddled on the back half of the giant leaf.

They were not sitting in quiet, dignified meditation.

They were currently shivering, fidgeting, and desperately trying to cover themselves with whatever spare pieces of bamboo or canvas they could find.

Ji’an’s eye twitched violently.

In the adrenaline-fueled chaos of escaping the Crimson Lotus Pavilion and getting hijacked by the Overtime Boss, Ji’an had entirely forgotten that her entire rescue team was still wearing the demonic brothel’s high-end, visual-titillation servant uniforms.

Gu Zhiwei was sitting cross-legged, his pectorals exposed by the translucent silk crop-top, his arms crossed over his chest in a futile attempt to preserve his modesty.

Lu Jianheng was rigidly maintaining his aristocratic posture, which was rendered completely absurd by the fact that he was wearing a black leather bondage harness and pants slit up to his thighs.

Wen Shiru was shivering in his off-the-shoulder mesh tunic, aggressively calculating the exact financial ruin his reputation would suffer if anyone saw him. Hu Yanlie had simply torn his vest in half and was currently wearing it as a loincloth.

"Oh, sweet merciful Heavens," Ji’an groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Sitting in the bamboo lounge chair beside her, Yan Zhaoge lazily swirled a fresh cup of plum wine, his dark eyes crinkling with amusement as he surveyed the half-naked boyband.

"They look like they are preparing to perform a scandalous, coordinated fan-dance," Yan Zhaoge drawled smoothly, a wicked smirk curling his lips. "If you march them into my monastery looking like that, little Chef, my Grand Forgemasters will likely mistake them for exotic fuel logs and throw them into the incinerators."

"Do not encourage them, Master Yan," Ji’an snapped, turning her furious, silver-flecked eyes back to her retinue.

"LISTEN UP, YOU MISERABLE EXHIBITIONISTS!" Ji’an’s voice boomed over the rushing desert wind, her commanding, young-master baritone. "We are entering the airspace of the most militaristic sect in the Azure Empire! If the Iron-Stone elders see you wearing silk and leather straps, they are going to die of aneurysm! You have exactly three minutes to strip off that lingerie and put your formal robes back on!"

The boys scrambled, a chaotic flurry of panicked dignity.

"I cannot unfasten the buckle!" Lu Jianheng panicked, his fingers fumbling blindly at the complex, interlocking leather straps across his back. "The harness is designed with a spatial-lock! It requires a safe word to disengage!"

"I don’t care if it requires a mathematical theorem, Jianheng, cut it off with your sword!" Ji’an yelled.

"But the silk is so breathable!" Gu Zhiwei whimpered, tugging reluctantly at his crop-top. "Brother Lin, it allows my aura to ventilate perfectly in the desert heat! Can I not wear it beneath my armor?!"

"IF I SEE A SINGLE INCH OF THOSE FABRIC ON YOUR BODY, ZHIWEI, I AM GOING TO DEEP-FRY YOUR BOOTS!"

"Yes, Commander!" Zhiwei shrieked, instantly ripping the silk top over his head with terrifying, terrified efficiency.