Chapter 377: Keep Calm
"In the... in the Purple-Blight Swamp, Chef?" Wen Shiru asked, adjusting his glasses, a note of genuine horror creeping into his voice. "Elder Viper just stated it would liquefy our organs."
"Only if your Qi filtration is weak, Fox," Ji’an shot back smoothly. "You have consumed hundreds of pounds of high-tier Yang meat over the last two days. Your bodies are overflowing with excess vitality. I want you to strip down to your trousers, wade into that toxic muck up to your necks, and assume the lotus position."
She leaned forward, her eyes flashing with tyrannical intent.
"You will draw the poison into your pores, and you will force your core to incinerate it. It is the ultimate test of internal circulation. The first person to pass out from neurotoxin exposure has to clean the wok with a toothbrush. Now, TAKE OFF YOUR ROBES AND GET IN!"
Normally, the idea of stripping half-naked and willingly submerging oneself into a boiling pit of flesh-eating sludge would be met with absolute refusal.
But Ji’an had completely, thoroughly broken their pride.
They trusted her brand of torture.
They now knew that behind every insane, life-threatening demand was a guaranteed surge in cultivation power.
"Yes, Chef!" Gu Zhiwei yelled enthusiastically.
The Golden Retriever didn’t hesitate.
He immediately yanked the heavy golden sash of his robes open, shrugged off his ruined, sweaty tunic, tossing it onto the dry moss.
Underneath, Zhiwei was a masterpiece of physical perfection.
His chest was incredibly broad, his shoulders thick and heavily muscled from years of wielding a broadsword. His eight-pack abs were deeply defined, slick with sweat, glowing with a faint, healthy, golden vitality.
He marched directly to the edge of the purple swamp and, without a single flinch, waded waist-deep into the corrosive, bubbling muck, letting out a sharp hiss through his teeth as the poison immediately began attacking his skin.
He closed his eyes, his holy light flaring violently to combat the toxins.
"Do not let the Holy Son monopolize the pain!" Lu Jianheng shouted, his pride instantly flaring into a bizarre, masochistic rivalry.
The Sword Lord ripped his own blue tunic off. Jianheng’s physique was entirely different from Zhiwei’s, he was leaner, built like a coiled spring of high-tensile steel, his muscles corded and defined by explosive, high-speed sword forms.
His pale skin was marred by a few thin, elegant sparring scars.
Jianheng waded into the muck right beside Zhiwei, gritting his teeth, his icy-blue sword aura erupting to fight the purple sludge.
Within thirty seconds, the entire male contingent of the Vanguard Tour had stripped down to their trousers and submerged themselves into the toxic mud pit.
Hu Yanlie, who was already shirtless, simply cannonballed into the center with a feral roar. Even Wen Shiru, looking remarkably pale and slightly terrified, carefully folded his green silk robes, set his glasses on a rock, and waded stiffly into the swamp, his lean chest immediately breaking out in red hives as his Qi rushed to defend him.
The three Azure Crane maidens, having been spared the stripping mandate due to orthodox modesty laws, were ordered by Ji’an to sit on the banks and practice their toxic-filtration breathing techniques while remaining fully clothed.
Ji’an sat back down on her comfortable, dry, hovering palm-leaf yacht. She poured herself a fresh cup of jasmine tea, propped her red boots up on a small bamboo stool, and looked out over the bubbling mud pit.
It was an absurd, surreal sight.
Fourteen incredibly powerful, devastatingly handsome, half-naked guys were currently sitting neck-deep in boiling purple sludge, grunting, groaning, and sweating profusely as they fought a biological war inside their own bloodstreams.
’This is a weirdly specific demographic,’ Ji’an mused internally, taking a slow sip of her tea, entirely unfazed. ’If this were a normal otome game, this would be the premium, high-cost fan-service beach episode. Instead, it’s just a bunch of sweaty nerds trying not to have their livers melted by swamp gas. Honestly, it’s a good improvement.’
She watched them with the clinical, detached eye of a livestock farmer checking on the herd.
She noted the way Zhiwei’s golden aura was successfully burning away the purple taint, and the way Jianheng’s breathing had stabilized into a steady, rhythmic cycle.
They were adapting. They were getting stronger.
"Keep the circulation flowing!" Ji’an yelled lazily through her megaphone, taking another sip of tea. "Hu Yanlie, stop trying to drink the mud! That is disgusting!"
High above the toxic valley, hovering on his flawless, pristine canopy of transparent diamond-ice, Xie Wangchen was observing the exact same scene.
But the Ice Demon was not looking at it with satisfaction.
He was looking down through his ice platform, his ruby eyes narrowing into dangerous, incredibly jealous, calculating slits.
He saw what Ji’an was looking at.
Wangchen saw Gu Zhiwei’s broad, golden, heavily muscled chest. He saw Lu Jianheng’s lean, aristocratic, coiled physique, Hu Yanlie’s massive, scarred, feral bulk.
They were all half-naked, glistening with sweat, and grouped together in the mud, right in Ji’an’s direct line of sight.
And, worse yet, he saw Ji’an occasionally glancing at them.
She wasn’t gawking or blushing. She was just looking at them the way a coach watches their athletes.
But to Wangchen’s severely possessive, insecure yandere psyche, any second Ji’an spent looking at another man’s exposed torso was a second that rightfully belonged to him.
’He is looking at them,’ Wangchen’s internal monster hissed, a cold, dark wave of venomous jealousy spiking in his core. ’He is perceiving their physical forms and evaluating their musculature.’
His immediate, knee-jerk reaction was to simply snap his fingers, drop the absolute zero temperature of the valley to minus two hundred degrees, and flash-freeze the entire swamp, permanently encasing the half-naked men in a solid block of purple ice.
It would be efficient and remove the visual distraction.
But then, the terrifying, iron-clad rule he had established the day before reared its head.
WWJD.
What Would Ji’an Do...?
’Calm... Keep Calm. I am a green flag,’