They thought Ji’an was lying to the boys to protect her own reputation.
’He dismissed his entire guard,’ Fairy Xue thought, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Her pale cheeks were flushed a brilliant, feverish pink beneath her veil. ’He even sent the Ice Demon away. He requested a private, secluded garden. The bad-boy Proctor is finally making his move!’
"M-Martial Uncle Lin," Fairy Xue stammered, stepping forward, her eyes cast demurely downward, nervously twisting the fabric of her pale blue sash. "We... we are honored by your exclusive attention. The Moon-Lotus Gardens are said to be incredibly... romantic at this hour."
Ji’an stared at the blushing, trembling, starry-eyed girl.
The force of the second-hand embarrassment hit Ji’an so hard she physically recoiled. Goosebumps erupted down her arms.
Her transmigrator soul wanted to detach from her body and fly directly into the sun.
’She thinks I’m going to rizz her up,’ Ji’an panicked, fighting the urge to gag. ’She thinks this is an otome-game secret route! Wake up from your absurd dreams, girlies! I am wearing an artifact! But I am a girl! I literally just want to teach them how to punch things!’
Ji’an took a deep, steadying breath.
She had to shatter their delusions immediately, completely, and without mercy.
"You girls, don’t stand go standing there and trembling; we don’t have much time, quickly follow me," Ji’an commanded, her voice dropping into a flat, emotionless, utterly unromantic baritone.
She turned and marched out of the pavilion, her red boots clicking sharply.
The maidens followed, whispering excitedly to each other, their faces flushed, their imaginations running completely wild with visions of stolen kisses beneath glowing lotuses and forbidden, cross-sect romances.
They walked for twenty minutes through the toxic architecture of the Azure Dragon Sect, finally arriving at the Moon-Lotus Botanical Gardens.
It was, objectively, an incredibly beautiful, atmospheric location.
The garden was enclosed by towering, petrified-glass domes.
Massive, glowing blue and silver lotuses floated on tranquil, dark water pools. The air smelled of sweet night-jasmine and faint, intoxicating ozone. Bioluminescent fireflies danced in the shadows.
It was the perfect setting for a romantic confession.
Fairy Xue stepped into the garden, her breath catching.
She looked at Ji’an, who was standing in the center of a stone courtyard, bathed in the soft, romantic blue light of the lotuses.
"Martial Uncle..." Fairy Xue whispered, stepping forward, her heart racing. She slowly, dramatically reached up and unpinned her silk veil, letting it flutter to the ground, revealing her stunning, unblemished face. It was a gesture of romantic submission. "We are alone. What is it... what is it you wish to teach us?"
Ji’an looked at the beautiful, blushing, trembling maiden.
Ji’an didn’t smile or offer a compliment.
She reached into her spatial ring.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Three massive, heavy, cast-iron mixing bowls, each filled with about 40 pounds of thick, resilient, unrefined demonic-spider webbing, slammed onto the stone courtyard at the maidens’ feet.
Next to the bowls, Ji’an dropped three heavy, three-foot-long, solid iron whisks.
Fairy Xue blinked, staring at the cookware. The romantic tension instantly flatlined, replaced by confusion.
"What... what is this?" Fairy Xue asked, her blush fading.
"This," Ji’an announced, her voice cracking like a whip, shedding the bad-boy persona and adopting the mantle of a tyrannical Head Chef, "is your reality check. Pick up the whisks."
The maidens hesitantly picked up the heavy iron tools.
"You three are liabilities," Ji’an stated bluntly, pacing back and forth in front of them, her hands clasped behind her back. "You cultivate the Azure Crane technique. Soft, flowing, evasive water-silk movements. You rely entirely on dodging, misdirection, and looking graceful while you retreat. It’s pathetic to watch."
Fairy Xue bristled, her orthodox pride finally overriding her crush. "Our Dao is elegant! We do not brawl like beasts in the mud!"
"Elegance doesn’t stop a Rank 7 predator from biting your head off, Fairy Xue," Ji’an snapped, pointing her spatula at the girl. "You hide behind men and let the men take the vanguard. You think your Yin energy is too delicate for heavy impact."
Ji’an walked up to the nearest iron bowl.
"Yin energy is not actually delicate," Ji’an lectured, her eyes blazing with intense fury. "Yin is compression. Yin is density. Yin is the absolute, terrifying gravity of a collapsing star. You don’t know how to use it because your masters taught you to dance gracefully instead of fight like a warrior."
She pointed to the bowls of demonic spider webbing.
"That webbing is highly resistant to kinetic strikes. If you hit it with a sword, it bounces off. If you burn it, it hardens. It requires perfect hyper-dense, rapid-fire Yin manipulation to break its molecular structure."
Ji’an crossed her arms.
"We are learning the Dao of the Iron Whisk," Ji’an announced, a cruel, sadistic, drill-instructor smirk spreading across her face. "You are going to channel your Yin energy directly into those iron tools and whip that webbing. You will not stop until that forty pounds of spider-silk is whipped into a stiff, aerated, dense meringue."
The maidens stared at the massive bowls in absolute horror.
"That... that will take hours," one of the junior maidens whimpered. "Our arms will fall off."
"Then pick them up and keep whisking!" Ji’an roared, her voice echoing in the romantic garden. "If your posture breaks, you start over! If you use Yang energy, the webbing will explode! WHIP! WHIP LIKE YOUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT!"
The romantic delusions of the Azure Crane maidens were shattered completely and irrevocably.
The handsome, bad-boy Proctor wasn’t a secret romantic.
He wasn’t a flower thief as they said.
He was a psychopath.
He was a tyrant who had brought them to a secluded, romantic garden purely so no one could hear them scream while they performed grueling manual labor.
"START WHIPPING!" Ji’an yelled, clapping her hands.
Tears of pure agony and shattered dreams welled in Fairy Xue’s eyes as she plunged the heavy iron whisk into the webbing.