Chapter 430: Rejection
Madam Rouge slowly stepped forward.
The terrifying aura of the demonic matriarch made even the fearless Beast Lord, Hu Yanlie, instinctively tense his muscles.
She walked slowly down the line of men, trailing a long, sharp, crimson-painted fingernail across their chests, assessing the goods.
She stopped in front of Gu Zhiwei.
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing.
"Too bright," Madam Rouge sighed dismissively, waving a hand in front of Zhiwei’s strobing golden aura. "He looks like a walking lantern. My girls prefer the shadows. He would give them a migraine during the act. Reject."
Gu Zhiwei let out an offended, highly indignant gasp, his golden retriever pride wounded.
"I have excellent ambiance!" he whispered furiously, before Ji’an kicked him in the shin to shut him up.
Madam Rouge moved to Lu Jianheng.
She tapped her nail against his jaw.
"Too stiff," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "He has the posture of a corpse. I suspect if a maiden touched him, he would begin reciting ancient orthodox poetry to deflect the intimacy. Utterly exhausting. Reject."
Lu Jianheng’s face flushed a brilliant, furious purple.
"My poetry is impeccable, you demonic harpy!" he hissed, his sword aura flaring wildly before Wangchen subtly froze his boots to the ground.
Madam Rouge moved past Hu Yanlie, literally pinching her nose. "He smells like wet dog and roasted meat. I run a high-end establishment, not a kennel. Reject."
She finally stopped in front of Xie Wangchen.
The Ice Demon did not look away.
He stared down at the demonic matriarch with eyes so cold, so dead, and filled with malice that the temperature of the courtyard dropped by forty degrees.
Madam Rouge shivered, taking a step backward.
"Absolutely not," Madam Rouge declared, a genuine note of unease in her sultry voice. "That one is defective. He is literally freezing my courtyard. He would cause severe frostbite to any maiden foolish enough to attempt dual-cultivation with him. The liability insurance alone is unthinkable. Reject."
Ji’an stood at the front of the line, her jaw slightly open.
’She rejected all of them,’ Ji’an’s internal monologue flatlined. ’She just looked at the thirteen most canonically handsome, overpowered, universally desired male protagonists in this entire novel... and she swiped left on every single one of them.’
The master plan was completely falling apart.
"Madam," Ji’an recovered quickly, forcing her sleazy merchant smile back into place, taking a step forward. "You are looking at the raw material! They just need a little polish! The volume of their Yang energy is unparalleled! I assure you, for the right price, they are worth the investment!"
Madam Rouge did not look back at the boys.
Slowly, deliberately, the demonic matriarch turned her dark, painted eyes toward Lin Ji’an.
She looked at the loose, black inner shirt clinging to Ji’an’s torso.
She looked at the long, shimmering, ethereal silver hair blowing in the arid wind.
She looked at the flawless, sharp, devastatingly beautiful jawline, and the intense, silver-flecked eyes that burned with stubborn, untamed fire.
The glitching artifact had done its job too well.
Ji’an did not look like a sleazy merchant. She looked like a rogue, untouchable, painfully gorgeous celestial prince who needed to be thoroughly, violently conquered.
A slow, dark, incredibly predatory smile spread across Madam Rouge’s painted lips.
"You are correct, little merchant," Madam Rouge purred, her voice dropping into a husky, suffocatingly sultry register. She took a slow, deliberate step toward Ji’an. "The merchandise you brought me is flawed. They are unrefined and utterly boring."
She reached out with lightning speed.
Before Ji’an’s culinary reflexes could register the movement, Madam Rouge’s hand lashed out, gripping Ji’an firmly by the collar of her black shirt.
"But the broker?" Madam Rouge whispered, leaning down, her dark eyes entirely consumed by ravenous, unadulterated lust. "The broker is an absolute masterpiece. I do not want your crude beasts, silver-hair. I want you."
The entire canyon went dead silent.
Ji’an froze, her eyes wide, staring at the towering succubus currently gripping her shirt.
’She picked... me?’ Ji’an’s soul detached from her body, soaring directly into the sun. ’She rejected the entire reverse-harem of canonical male leads... and she picked the cross-dressing chef. My beauty buff has literally caused a system overflow error in the plot.’
"Madam, I think there has been a misunderstanding," Ji’an choked out, her voice cracking, frantically trying to deploy her kinetic Qi to break the grip. "I am the seller! I am not on the menu! I have a very strict no-refund policy!"
"Oh, there will be no refunds, my beautiful little bird," Madam Rouge laughed, a dark, throaty, terrifying sound. "I am the matriarch of the Crimson Lotus. When I see a treasure, I claim it for my personal cultivation chambers. Your Yang energy feels incredibly strange... so pure, so tightly bound. I am going to absolutely ruin you."
Behind Ji’an, the thirteen bound male protagonists were experiencing a reality-breaking mental collapse.
"SHE CHOSE THE CHEF?!" Gu Zhiwei screamed, entirely ripping the enchanted silk ropes off his wrists through offended rage. "I AM THE HOLY SON! I HAVE AN EIGHT-PACK! HOW DARE SHE REJECT MY AMBIANCE TO DEFILE BROTHER LIN?!"
"UNHAND HIM, YOU DEMONIC HARLOT!" Lu Jianheng roared, his pride shattering into a million pieces.
The Sword Lord literally snapped his petrified-wood leg splint in half, ignoring the agony of his fractured shin as he summoned Autumn Frost. "HE IS PURE! HE BELONGS TO THE SECT! I WILL SEVER YOUR ARMS!"
"I WILL BURN YOUR BROTHEL TO THE BEDROCK!" Hu Yanlie bellowed, his crimson beast-fire igniting the canyon walls.
But the Ice demon seemed indifferent to the chaos.
The woman he worshipped, the deity he had vowed to protect, was currently being manhandled and openly sexually propositioned by a demonic succubus. The succubus was touching her collar. The succubus was promising to "ruin" her.
The temperature in the canyon should not just drop. The concept of thermal energy should be simply deleted from existence.
Compared to their world-ending threats, the reality turned out to be completely different and pathetic, as the boys were led into an underground dungeon by the guards.
The grand world-ending rescue operation plotted by the thirteen most overpowered, hormonally unstable male prodigies lasted for exactly four seconds before it collided with the humiliating wall of reality.
They did not tear down the lacquered gates.
What actually happened was that Madam Rouge, a Peak Nascent Soul matriarch who had spent three centuries managing unruly, aggressive male cultivators, simply rolled her eyes and activated the Crimson Lotus Supreme Yin-Suppression Array.
The entire canyon floor instantly lit up with a blinding pink light.
A gravity well of pure, concentrated spiritual lethargy crashed down upon the Vanguard Retinue, instantly short-circuiting their Yang energy and reducing their muscles to the consistency of overcooked noodles.
Lu Jianheng’s heroic sword-draw ended with him face-planting directly into the dirt.
Gu Zhiwei’s blinding holy light flickered out like a cheap candle.
Hu Yanlie roared, took one step forward, and fell asleep mid-stride, snoring loudly as he hit the ground.
And Xie Wangchen?
The Ice Demon, who possessed the power to shatter the array with a single thought, simply stood there.
He looked at Lin Ji’an, remembered her explicit, exasperated command to play the captive and not murder anyone until she gave the signal, and obediently allowed his aura to dim.
When three demonic guards approached him with anti-magic suppression cuffs, Wangchen didn’t resist.
He simply offered his pale wrists, his ruby eye serene, complying with chilling docility as he was dragged away into the underground dungeons.
Which was how the thirteen most devastatingly handsome, canonically terrifying young masters on the continent ended up unceremoniously dumped into a damp jail cell, completely stripped of their dignity.
The dungeon of the Crimson Lotus Pavilion was a cavernous labyrinth of iron bars, glowing purple moss, and the faint, echoing sounds of dripping water.
In Cell Block D, the atmosphere was a mixture of despair and unhinged tourist enthusiasm.
"Look at the craftsmanship of these iron bars!" Shen Zechuan cheered happily, pressing his face against the cold metal, unbothered by the suppression cuffs locked around his wrists.
"They are infused with actual blood-iron! And the floor is so wonderfully damp! I have never been in a jail before! Sect Leader Bai always said my abyssal aura was a walking prison, so he never let me visit the local dungeons. This is a phenomenal cultural experience!"