The pink-haired maid sat in Yaxiu's lap, tracing her finger over his eyelashes as if counting them, then lightly nibbling his earlobe, squirming against him like a serpent.
It was exceedingly strange; Yaxiu felt enraptured by Vichy's intimacy, yet at the same time felt immense guilt over his own reaction, much like a student indulging in the illicit thrill of skipping homework to play freely.
He leaned in and pecked at the maid's thin lips, kissing Vichy until her cheeks flushed red before asking, "So, are we only going to falsely love each other during the transaction?"
"That's right," Vichy said with a smile. "Aside from a transaction, what reason do I have to like the bastard before me?"
She clamped her legs tight around Yaxiu's waist as though trying to press her entire self into his body. She proactively slipped out her tongue to tap against his teeth, displaying her passion with reckless abandon.
When she finally stopped and wiped her lips, Yaxiu put on an impatient, going-through-the-motions expression. "Had enough?"
"Not yet," Vichy said. "Speaking of which, how do you people manage to kiss for so long? There's no flavor, it feels boring... Do you have any more marshmallows?"
"I finished them just now."
"I still have a little. Help me get it out."
Yaxiu glanced at her lace maid outfit. "Where are your pockets?"
"I never said it was in a pocket." Vichy suddenly pulled him backward, and the two tumbled so that Yaxiu ended up pinning her to the floor.
"It's in the very first place you see where something could be hidden if you look down."
Yaxiu's gaze slowly drifted down, settling on the pillowy softness that stretched the maid bodice's elastic potential to its absolute limit, squeezed into a crevice fraught with the unknown.
"What's wrong?" Vichy's voice trembled slightly. "Hurry up and search."
"Yes, just like that. Be thorough, don't miss a spot... You can use a little force, too."
"If you can't find it with one hand, two hands would probably be more efficient..."
"Ahn!"
The maid's calves snapped taut, her toes curling as her neck arched straight. Every pore on her skin shuddered, her body shivering uncontrollably as if struck by electricity, her eyes staring blankly at the patterns on the ceiling.
*This bastard who deserves to have his soul refined a thousand times! I only told him to use his hands! Who told him to... do this...*
Vichy's high-heeled boots rubbed continuously against Yaxiu's steel-soled boots like two intertwined serpents. It had become impossible to tell who was the master and who was the slave... Yet only at this very moment could their identities be master and slave.
Because without a valid reason, they should be a supervisor and a prisoner who loathed each other—and they had to be. Vichy would rather die than admit she could ever like someone. Unless she reached the apex of sorcery and fate could never take anything from her hands again, she would never allow anyone to become her weakness.
She had to ensure she could walk away at any moment; even if Yaxiu dropped dead, she could offer a scornful sneer and continue on her journey. There was no one in this world worthy of making her stop, let alone taking to heart. Thus, she had to find reasons to rationalize her actions.
*It's just for a transaction, so it requires false affection.*
*Because of the chains, I cannot resist.*
*I don't like it one bit, I only want to drive a wedge into their relationships...* Vichy suddenly clamped a hand over her mouth and thudded two hard blows onto Yaxiu's head, wanting nothing more than to blast him with a Soul Screech shockwave. *Is this bastard this good at it?! Did he practice his technique on someone else?!*
It wasn't just Vichy; Yaxiu needed a reason just as badly.
Sword Princess, Witch, Silver Lantern—none of them allowed him to harbor any fondness toward the Spectre Prophet.
The fiercest of them, Sword Princess, had even stated outright: the moment Yaxiu's heart stirred, Vichy's head would roll... Vichy had wanted to curse out loud when she heard that. *If his heart stirs, go cut off his head! You could even chop off his weapon of crime! Why the hell chop me?!*
Yet the people around him were only secondary influences; what Yaxiu truly could not overcome was his own moral conscience. His upbringing and the life he had lived permitted him, at most, to be a boyfriend who crawled out of a trash bin, but never to truly accept trash... To make him admit he liked Vichy would shatter his moral values and repudiate the kindness he had maintained all along.
They could only be like this, and had to be like this.
What a bizarre relationship: the truth had to be spoken as lies, true feelings had to be disguised as false pretenses—just like a bird and a fish that should have repelled one another. Without this layer of self-deceiving pretense, they wouldn't even have the right to intersect.
Vichy covered her mouth tightly until she felt she could no longer hold back the gasp in her throat. Only then did she hurriedly pull out a marshmallow, her voice trembling as she said, "I found it! You don't need to look anymore, you don't need to look..."
She hastily tidied her clothes, biting her lower lip as she glared at Yaxiu. Yaxiu was a bit embarrassed as well, obediently unwrapping the marshmallow and popping it into his mouth in one bite.
"Why did you eat it?"
"Aren't they for eating?" Yaxiu stared blankly.
Vichy shot him an exasperated glare, yet her eyes brimmed with charm. She took out another marshmallow, holding it between her lips, and hooked her arms around Yaxiu's neck to kiss him.
The experience was rather peculiar. Because marshmallows were fairly large, they weren't well suited to serve as enhancers for deep kissing. Rather than intimacy, they ended up focusing more on how to keep the marshmallow from falling, until it practically turned into a marshmallow tug-of-war.
When Yaxiu accidentally swallowed the battered marshmallow, Vichy let out an "Ew," disgust written across her face. "Why did you eat it? That's so gross."
Yaxiu's eyebrow twitched frantically. "What happened to false pretenses? Put a little professionalism into your acting!"
"Just pretending to like you already takes a hundred percent of my effort. Even the Spectre Prophet has limits." Vichy took out another marshmallow and warned, "You can't eat this one, got it?"
"Next time, buy smaller candies..."
"Looking forward to next time already?"
Vichy narrowed her eyes with a smug smile. Holding the marshmallow between her lips, she murmured, "Don't go turning fiction into reality..."
After the marshmallow melted on their tongues once more, Yaxiu kissed her for a moment before realizing something was off. Looking at Vichy, who was chewing, he asked, "Why did you eat it this time? Didn't you just say it was gross?"
"Yeah."
Vichy's eyes curved, and she tapped Yaxiu's lip with her finger, murmuring softly:
"So we're both gross."
When the last marshmallow was finally consumed, Yaxiu instinctively wanted to continue, but Vichy pressed a finger against his lips and chuckled. "That's enough."
"Enough?"
"Mm. I've collected all your soul fragments," the maid said, looking at him. "There's no need to continue the ritual."
Yaxiu fell silent for a moment, the arms wrapped around Vichy's waist stiffening slightly. He let out a soft breath, adjusted his mood, and said calmly, "Then let's end it."
Seeing his clumsy attempt to mask his disappointment and guilt, Vichy could barely contain her laughter, reclaiming a trace of the Spectre Prophet's joy in toying with others. She reclined lazily in Yaxiu's embrace and smiled. "However, the ritual takes a heavy toll on me, and I haven't recovered yet. Let's just rest like this for a bit."
Yaxiu naturally raised no objection. In the secret hall a hundred meters below ground, the two quietly held each other, enveloped by the faint fragrance rising with the warmth. Perhaps for a brief instant, they could temporarily forget the shackles of reason, emotionally following their heart's true will and indulging in this misguided tranquility.
"Shall we go rest at a hotel?"
When Vichy blurted those words, not only was Yaxiu stunned, but Vichy herself was taken aback. Alluring images lingered in Yaxiu's mind for merely a second before his formidable rationality and deep-seated terror crushed them. He answered earnestly, "I promised Sword Princess."
In truth, Vichy had regretted it the moment she spoke. Simple contact with Yaxiu had already brought her close to losing herself; she wasn't ready to face a higher-level challenge... If she failed to maintain her core self and ended up like Sword Princess and Silver Lantern, Vichy would rather choke to death on a marshmallow.
Yet not only had this fellow rejected her, he had actually used Sword Princess as his excuse! An unnamable fury flared in Vichy's heart. She stared at Yaxiu without a word, gripping him tightly, and began rocking her body as though swaying on a rocking chair.
Yaxiu immediately realized something was off. "What are you doing?"
"Snakes have two ways of killing: kissing and hugging," the maid said, looking at him with mockery in her eyes as she drawled, "I'm just stretching my body. Don't mind me."
"The ritual is over now. There's no longer any need to keep up the false affection, so you don't have to pretend you're interested in me."
"Could it be that even with the Spectre Prophet sitting in your lap, your heart can actually flutter?"
"No way, really? I nearly killed you and Silver Lantern in Senluo, and I almost slaughtered you in the Cage of All Stars. If not for these chains—" Vichy tugged at her illusory collar, "—I'd be looking for chances to get revenge on you from morning till night."
"We're in a life-or-death struggle, after all." She looked down at Yaxiu with arrogant contempt, covering her mouth with a giggle. "You wouldn't actually feel desire for me, would you? Even a trash-bin-constellation scumbag wouldn't be this... shameless?"
The more Vichy talked, the more arrogant she became. Yaxiu's face darkened with black lines. He felt as though his lost memories were flooding back; this insufferable Spectre Prophet was practically triggering his fight-or-flight response. Finally, unable to take any more, he held Vichy, adjusted his sitting posture, and stared gloomily at the maid. "Keep going."
When Vichy rocked again, she instantly felt as though she had been scorched by searing lightning. A shiver ran down her spine, and her entire body tensed up. She pressed her lips tight, blushing all the way to her ears. But looking up at Yaxiu's disdainful glare, Vichy gritted her teeth, resolved to fight him to the bitter end—
"Ahn..."
Yaxiu blinked, watching as the maid's body trembled for a moment before melting into his arms like ice cream. He was stunned for quite a while before an incredulous thought surfaced in his mind. "Did you—"
"Say another word and I'll kill you." Vichy's voice was more coquettish than ever, yet the murderous intent within her words was hotter than it had ever been.
Yaxiu fought back laughter. "Then shall we head back?"
Vichy let out a soft hum from her nose, burying her head against his chest, too mortified to even speak. This relationship truly was wrong; she had actually lost her head from anger and tried to humiliate Yaxiu over something so ridiculous...
"Once you've rested enough, get up."
"...Once we're back, you must take a bath immediately, understood?" Vichy said suddenly after a moment of silence.
"Oh."
"Remember to throw your trousers into the washing machine first..."
"Pfft."
Yaxiu couldn't hold it in any longer. His shoulders shook violently with laughter, feeling as though his abs were about to cramp up.
In the hall below, a wind sorcerer preparing to change shifts for lunch suddenly looked around and asked his companion, "Did you hear laughter?"
"No."
"But... listen, the laughter stopped abruptly, almost like a shriek! You really didn't hear that?"
"You've been working overtime so much you're hallucinating, aren't you?"
Chapter 1084