I'll Try to Hold Back and Not Kill You

Freya didn't have a dining table in her apartment, so the dishes were laid out on her desk. Freya sat on the chair that was normally used to pile dirty laundry—the dirty clothes had been washed by Yaxiu and were currently hanging out to dry on the balcony. She pointed blankly at the Blazing Lalafell rice bowl, sorcerer lettuce salad, and mist spinach quiche before her. "You called me back just to eat together?" Today, Xiaoxian's cat food was smothered in a layer of Blazing Lalafell sauce, and the cat was eating with relish. "Yeah." Yaxiu untied his apron. "Even though I can wear a mask to avoid camera eyes, I have to uncover my face to eat. There was no way I could eat outside... so I had to buy groceries and cook at home. At noon, I just bought a flatbread to eat back here." "You could've just eaten flatbread tonight too. Why cook?" "To be honest, the meals in prison were actually pretty good. Lunch is one thing, but if I can't even have a decent dinner, that's a bit..." "Then why call me back?" "Because you can't cook just one serving. I can't finish three dishes on my own either, so I called you back to share." It sounded quite reasonable, yet Freya still found it bizarre. You're Yaxiu Heath, leader of the Four Pillar Gods cult! If you're hungry, shouldn't you pry open a passerby's skull at random and savor a bite of fresh brain? In truth, Yaxiu hadn't known how to cook before either. This came from the 'Common Recipe Mastery' he had acquired from reading the sorcerer manual. Who would have thought it would come in handy so soon? "You just broke out of prison. Where did you get the money for groceries?" Freya suddenly remembered to ask. She wasn't worried that Yaxiu had taken her money; in fact, there was no cash in her apartment at all. Since she wasn't an official sorcerer yet, she didn't need to carry silver coins on her person—everyday spending was deducted directly from the digital currency on her chip. "You can make money in prison too." Yaxiu pulled a stack of crisp, exquisite banknotes from his pouch and marveled, "I paid for the groceries directly with a silver coin, and I actually got this much change back." To be precise, the ingredients for this lavish dinner hadn't even cost a twentieth of a silver coin. One silver coin could satisfy an ordinary person's food needs for roughly twenty days, which came to eighteen coins a year. And the exchange rate between gold coins and silver coins seemed to be 1:100... After a day of shopping, Yaxiu felt he needed to revise his impression of healer 222—someone who could casually hand out a gold coin wasn't just moderately wealthy; she was fabulously rich! As they spoke, Yaxiu pulled up a video on the Curtain of Knowledge titled "Why Sorcerers Are Great." There were many informational videos like this on the Curtain, primarily aimed at ordinary people who didn't qualify for university. To an aspiring sorcerer like Freya, the knowledge inside was somewhat shallow, but paired with witty dialogue and hilarious visuals, it was actually quite entertaining. Did he just stumble onto this video? He's already an official sorcerer, so he shouldn't need to watch educational videos like this... It was worth noting that before the video started, a thirty-second advertisement played, switching during the last ten seconds into a wanted notice from the Sin Hunting Hall. "'Necrophile' Archibald Harvey, One-Wing Sorcerer, Bounty (Dead or Alive): 10 gold coins. Information Bounty: 1 silver coin." "'Carrion Crow' Ronald Wade, One-Wing Sorcerer, Bounty (Dead or Alive): 8 gold coins. Information Bounty: 8 silver coins." "'Swindler' Igola Bogin, Two-Wing Sorcerer, Bounty (Dead or Alive): 15 gold coins. Information Bounty: 2 silver coins." "'Death Eater' Langna Chios, Two-Wing Sorcerer, Bounty (Dead or Alive): 20 gold coins. Information Bounty: 2 silver coins." "'Fiend Saint' Yaxiu Heath, Strength Unknown, Bounty (Dead or Alive): 50 gold coins. Information Bounty: 5 silver coins." "You're worth a fortune." "Thanks for the compliment. Regretting your decision?" "Not really. Mind faction sorcery spirits like the sympathy sorcery spirit are hard to come by anyway, and you couldn't get one for five silver coins." At this, Freya paused and looked at Yaxiu. "If Your Esteemed Fiend Saint wishes to move back into prison, please be sure to let me turn you in." "Forget it. If I wanted to turn myself in, I'd definitely collect the bounty myself." "Stingy." As the two ate and watched the video, Yaxiu suddenly spoke up, "Freya, let me discuss something with you." "Hmm?" "Could you wear clothes to sleep at night?" Yaxiu asked tactfully. "After all, there's a member of the opposite sex around now..." Last night was his first night staying under someone else's roof, and Yaxiu had held his tongue all night. Even though he slept on the floor, just knowing a naked little lamb was lying in the bed kept him awake half the night. Freya gave him a strange look. "Why should I wear clothes just because you're here?" "Don't you feel embarrassed being seen stark naked by someone else?" "Not at all. If it didn't violate public order regulations, I'd go to class without clothes too. It's been pretty hot lately." Freya tugged open her tank top, peered inside, and asked curiously, "Or am I not attractive enough and that's making you uncomfortable?" "No, you're very attractive. It's just..." Yaxiu racked his brain for an elegant way to put it. "You make my body... yearn..." "Oh!" Realization dawned on Freya. She pulled out a napkin, wiped her mouth, and grabbed the hem of her tank top with both hands to pull it up. "Then let's do it. Once we do, your body will get used to it. Don't worry, I'll be as careful with you as possible—" "Why does your brain work like that?!" Yaxiu yanked her tank top back down. "Isn't that way too casual?!" "That's a bit uncalled for. If I hadn't signed a contract with you, I'd want to report you to the Sin Hunting Hall," Freya said, slightly annoyed. "I'm not some loose person. Look, you're a cult leader, you're giving me a sorcery spirit in the future, and you don't look bad either. That's why I thought it'd be fine to do it with you. You could even call it Veela etiquette." "Or are you scared of doing it with me? Don't worry, I'll try my best to hold back and not kill you." At that moment, Yaxiu finally caught the alarming phrase. "What do you mean, 'hold back and not kill me'?" "You didn't know? Our Veela bodily fluids have a peculiar effect: they can reduce a male's refractory period to zero. Add to that how much we enjoy the pleasure of mating, and sometimes we end up killing our partners by accident," Freya explained. "But I'll be careful. As soon as you finish once, I'll stop immediately. The contract doesn't allow me to harm you, after all. Really, I'll be very, very careful." Freya was being completely serious, because she couldn't afford not to be. The mud workers at mud cafes had almost all undergone specialized modifications, allowing them to freely decide when to end and giving them limitless stamina. But normal people who hadn't undergone modification had no such ability—even races naturally blessed with robust physiques couldn't handle it. Even nowadays, Freya occasionally heard news of ogres, beastmen, and even elves being worked to death by Veelas. There were even Blood Saints drained to severe anemia and left in comas; only the austere Moon Shadows were immune to a Veela's allure. In a sense, Veelas were living in a golden age. One or two centuries ago, before biological modification technology was industrialized, out of every ten Veelas, roughly seven turned out to be murderers—and the other three were only because the desiccated corpses hadn't been discovered yet. However, thanks to the intervention of the Human Rights Association and the Racial Rights Protection Association, as long as a Veela didn't conceal their race beforehand, it wasn't considered intentional homicide—it was treated as suicide by the partner, resolved with a sentence of several dozen hours of community service for the Veela. If his earlier refusal had stemmed from some baffling virgin moral code, Yaxiu's survival instincts now took absolute precedence. He gripped the hem of Freya's tank top with iron resolve, refusing to let her pull it off. Even if dying like that was pleasurable, Yaxiu had no intention of enjoying himself to death. Freya pouted. "I don't want to wear clothes after showering, and you don't want your body to get used to me. What do you suggest we do?" "I'll endure it." Freya shrugged and went back to eating. "You really are a weird guy." "From where I'm standing, you people are the weird ones." Yaxiu sighed. "I took a walk around the university during the day and saw three casinos and five or six sugar shops. I even saw a group of female college students walk into a place called 'Mixue Tea Cafe,' change into scandalous outfits, and head outside to solicit customers..." "Freya, I'm an escaped convict." "You don't need to worry about that. You can keep your mask on the whole time and pay with silver coins. The tea cafe won't pry into your business; they'll just assume you're a customer with peculiar tastes." Freya added, "If holding it in is too uncomfortable, head over right after dinner. I'll do the dishes."