He instinctively raised a hand to touch his collar. In the dim candlelit corridor, those slender, well-defined fingers gave off only a faint porcelain-like glimmer, and a bruise on his wrist surfaced along with the movement.
The scene fell into the butler’s eyes. In the shadows, the man’s ice-blue eyes had, at some point, turned deep violet. He gave a small smile and appeared soundlessly before Lu Jingxing, releasing a rich fragrance into the air without a whisper of sound.
Lu Jingxing caught the scent at once, but his reactions were far too slow. By the time he came back to himself, the butler was already standing in front of him, lifting his right hand to gently caress his cheek, asking in a soft, bewitching voice:
“What did he do to you?”
Hearing the seductive undertone in that soft, feminine voice, the scene from moments ago surfaced unbidden in Lu Jingxing’s mind. His eyes shifted faintly; he could dimly recall the temperature of that golden, damp long hair falling against his face. Neither cold nor quite warm.
The black-haired demon, as if unable to control his own thoughts, parted his lips, and the blue-eyed demon immediately leaned in, even spreading his arms in a posture that seemed to want an embrace, tilting his ear toward him and at that very moment.
Lu Jingxing abruptly shoved him away. Expressionless, he announced: “Don’t play these tricks on me. My affairs are none of your concern.”
The butler noted with some regret that his wariness was as sharp as ever. Having lost his chance, he stepped back and resumed his impeccably courteous manner: “Very well. I imagine you’re tired today. There’s a rather fine bath in the castle, would you like to try the human way of relaxing?”
Lu Jingxing looked at him, narrowed his eyes, and began recalling the original plot.
In the story, these two scoundrels were inseparable: the demon Lu dug the pits for the male lead, the butler handled shoveling in the dirt; when the demon Lu came to break bones, the butler was in charge of simmering the soup. Utterly loyal.
He glanced at the mark on his wrist. Given a demon’s self-healing ability, the injury would probably vanish soon enough, but there were more important matters.
Warning written in his lake-green starry eyes, Lu Jingxing lowered his voice coldly and made his attitude clear without courtesy: “Don’t lay a hand on my prey, Brant.”
A heavy malice rolled out like a tide, whipping up a fierce wind.
The demon butler, hearing his name spoken, stiffened. It took him a long moment to recover before he bowed his head submissively, and against the background of flowing water, his tone turned sweet to the point of servility: “As you wish.”…
Ancient statues stood in the corners of the square bath, each one a beauty of bewitching grace, one bowing her head as she cradled a jade vase, another tilting her head back to pour out a wine cup. The bathwater spouted steadily from the vessels in their hands.
The bottom of the bath was inlaid with gold and beautiful white pebbles; amid the rippling water, it created a dazzling, mesmerizing beauty.
Walking in, Lu Jingxing was caught off guard by all this opulence, and for a moment began to wonder: given that he and the butler belonged to an “all-villains” faction, the means by which they’d acquired this castle were probably not exactly honorable.
A cool sensation crept slowly up from behind, on the verge of touching his neck.
Lu Jingxing snapped back to his senses and turned to look at the man behind him, who still wore his graceful, gentlemanly smile. Perhaps after what had happened with Samuel, he was now too sensitive to physical contact, every hair on his body stood on end.
Like prey about to be skinned.
The butler seemed only emboldened by setbacks, not the least bit discouraged by his earlier failure: “Please, allow me to serve you”
“No,” Lu Jingxing refused him without hesitation. “Get out.” In the dark corridor beyond,
The man on the other side of the wall, with his excellent hearing, caught every sound with perfect clarity. He tilted his head up slightly, savoring it like a piece of music: the rustle of fabric, footsteps wading into water, the splash of water scooped up and let fall.
Eyes closed, the creature in human form let his hair fall loose against his cheek. He raised his right hand, brought the fingertips that had just touched the other’s skin to his lips one by one, kissed them, then slowly parted his mouth and drew them in.
His expression turned to rapture. Brandt thought with deep satisfaction: as expected… Master’s taste remains as exquisite as ever.
Lu Jingxing knew nothing of his obsequious butler’s other face. He simply sank his whole body into the water, letting the warmth wash away the inexplicable weariness, while drowsily pondering: what other way was there to wake the male lead’s divine consciousness? Ah, right.
The original novel mentioned that when Samuel, this avatar, came to the mortal world and the god himself fell into slumber, he had sealed a portion of his power inside an object Samuel carried, to guard against the machinations of dark forces.
“…Unfortunately, when he was abandoned, he ran into bandits. The golden rose was stolen and taken to the wealthiest noble household in Sun Town, and he himself was picked up afterward to work as a footman, passing by that glass bottle holding the rose day and night without ever knowing.”
Lu Jingxing was so sleepy he kept sliding under the water. The instant the bath bubbles covered his soft black hair, listening to the gurgling in his ears, he belatedly thought: looks like I’ll have to pay a visit to that little psycho from the beginning of the story tomorrow.
“Splash…”
By the time Lu Jingxing woke from his nap, daylight was already bright outside. He stepped out of the pool, his delicate, pale ankle bones pressing against the floor of interlaced gold and silver, water droplets sliding wetly down the lines of his calves. Squinting against the morning light streaming through the great window in the wall,
He snapped his fingers, and the water on his body instantly turned into soft fabric, clinging to him in yesterday’s loose robe style. He had only taken two steps toward the door when the butler’s voice sounded:
“You’re awake.”
Lu Jingxing nodded, recalling the man’s proposal from yesterday, and the corner of his lips curved slightly. “It’s time to go out and find some fresh prey.”
Because the laws the God of Light had left in the world still held, demons could not easily take the lives of ordinary people, except through contracts of equivalent exchange. And cunning devils, often unwilling to serve humans, would scheme endlessly within those contracts, easily stripping away both a human’s life and soul.
After passing by several noble households in yesterday’s town, the butler couldn’t quite understand how Lu Jingxing’s tastes had come to this: “Forgive my bluntness, Master, but the nobles’ filthy hearts reek unbearably, their flesh is so fatty it turns the stomach, and their souls are utterly bland…”
He sounded like a nanny earnestly trying to talk a child out of eating street food.
Lu Jingxing gave him a faint glance while casting a searching spell for the golden rose suffused with the aura of light, brushing him off absently: “What if one of the little brats turns out to be decent?”
The butler was mollified. He was just about to say something more when Lu Jingxing had already spotted his target.
Lilith, a scumbag villain who had loved cross-dressing since childhood, most enjoyed taking his servants out in grand processions to hunt for his true doll-making materials. Today he wore a pink frilly dress, but even more dazzling than the eye-catching lace was the lifelike, brilliantly golden rose pinned to his chest.
In the original story, after he picked Samuel up and brought him home, he fed and housed him well for several months. On the very night he was about to turn the male lead into a doll, the man accidentally escaped. Stumbling through the living room, he knocked over and shattered a glass dome, and a shard cut his fingertip, letting blood fall onto the golden rose.
Divine light descended upon the earth, and Lilith was pronounced dead, his soul condemned to eternal torment.
That was the closest Samuel’s power had ever come to awakening the god.
Now, this minor pervert of a villain, the only character in the entire story to get killed off was chatting with other nobles at the entrance.
“Lilith, if you keep going out like this, all the pretty children in Sun Town will go extinct.”
“This territory belongs to my family. The commoners and slaves who live here are under my control. Being turned into my dolls and preserved forever is their honor.”
“If I recall, you said a few days ago that you saw someone in town even more beautiful than all your dolls… Where is that person?”
Being reminded of the masterpiece that got away, Lilith grew irritated. Sensing his bad mood, those around him quickly changed the subject: “Your accessories are lovely today especially that rose. It suits you perfectly.”
Lilith lifted his chin proudly, then came up with an idea: “Whoever brings a beautiful creature to my door shall be granted this golden rose.”
Lu Jingxing and the others listened to this conversation from a distance. The butler shook his head and remarked, in the tone of someone passing judgment on spoiled food:
“Filthy. Absolutely filthy.”
Lu Jingxing gestured for him to look at the rose: “That thing carries a strong power of light.”
“You want to…?”
“Take it back and let Samuel feed on it. Tonight might be more interesting that way.”
Lu Jingxing said this with a completely straight face, like Pervert 2.0 who delighted in raising the difficulty level of his own playthrough.
The butler hesitated, but Lu Jingxing paid him no mind. On his own, he conjured a wisp of black mist and quietly attached it to Lilith’s shadow.
When he obtained the rose, Lu Jingxing was in an excellent mood.
But as he held the stem and prepared to return to the castle, the golden flower began radiating an increasingly intense light, nearly impossible to conceal even with his demonic power.
Fortunately, demons didn’t rely on their own two feet for travel. Upon arriving at the castle, Lu Jingxing headed straight for Samuel’s room. After knocking the man unconscious yesterday, he’d even given him a cold bath, who knew how he’d recovered.
Through the magic barriers set up at every exit of the room, he knew Samuel hadn’t escaped. After dismissing the butler with some excuse, he entered and saw the man sitting by the bed, his clothes tidied and his complexion back to normal.
The second before he revealed the rose, he remembered something else: “Are you… hungry?”
Samuel answered gently, “A little.”
*Grrr * A sound far more emphatic than his answer came from his stomach.
Lu Jingxing produced the rose from behind his back: “How about you eat this flower, then?”
Samuel: “…”
He fell silent and hesitant, ‘gazing’ at that golden, flower-shaped mass of light.
Lu Jingxing stepped forward two paces, just about to figure out a way to trick the male lead into recovering his strength, when the golden petals, which had been glowing brilliantly, slowly began to wither from full bloom. One petal detached itself, fell into his palm, and slowly melted away.
Lu Jingxing: “??”
Wait, a golden flower imbued with the power of light, how are you melting? Was his flower-giving posture wrong? Would getting down on one knee work?
Trying to toss the flower to the male lead before it melted completely, Lu Jingxing quickened his pace, but the petals withered even faster. By the time he reached the bedside, all he held was a lonely bare stem.
Utterly shocked, Lu Jingxing figured every little bit counted. He grabbed the golden-haired beauty’s hand and passed it over… a handful of air.
Even the golden stem melted in his hand, sinking into his skin and vanishing without a trace.
At the same moment, after he had drawn that patch of golden-flecked black sludge back into his body yesterday, that uncomfortable, unpleasant sensation surged up again stronger than before.
His heart pounded wildly, and his cold body temperature suddenly spiked. Within moments, Lu Jingxing stood there with his face flushed bright red, his knees even going weak as he pitched forward.
Samuel instinctively reached out and caught him.