Zhou Li took them to meet her shifu—her teacher. Ira turned the sound up high on the background music he’d put on, the sound cresting like waves on the shore. It was a beautiful and haunting autumn tune and it instantly made his mood better.
Recently, Ira had had a revelation. He could turn on music whenever he wanted to! It would enhance any view, make any annoying situation easier to bear. Things would be so much easier; he didn’t understand why he’d never done this before. Maybe because he’d still been trying to work? But he’d given up on that now, he was feeling more and more ready to officially retire.
Not immediately, obviously. No, he was still going to do a couple of more missions. But… he didn’t see a reason to do a job he hated, surrounded by people he hated. He was good at his job, yes. He successfully scared the psychos to smithereens and made them see reality instead of the fucked up delusion they were living in. But—that wasn’t enough.
Not anymore.
He found no joy in scaring them, no joy in kicking them off their high horse. No joy in utterly obliterating their fantasies of the world revolving around them. It had been fun once, a great way to take out his anger on them and still work. But now it was just exhausting.
He didn’t want to deal with humans. He didn’t want to deal with more shitty Hosts. He didn’t want to endure their stupidity and their arrogance and their inflated sense of superiority.
Ira was tired of them. He wanted out.
And he was so incredibly old. He’d done this job for literal eons. He’d worked and he’d worked and he’d worked. And sure, he’d taken lots of vacations but—it wasn’t the same. He didn’t want just a vacation anymore. He wanted to quit. He wanted to not do this anymore.
It was kind of funny, when he thought about it, that just a couple of centuries ago he’d found joy in screwing with his Hosts; in watching them fail. And now he couldn’t dredge up even a milliliter of emotion for them, he was just… tired. He was tired of his Hosts. He was tired of thinking about them.
Just … tired.
Ira zoned out during the entire conversation with Zhou Li’s shifu. He had no idea what was said or agreed to but apparently the meeting went well, as they weren’t immediately kicked out. Rather, Ira and Xiao Wei walked out of the meeting hand in hand, with Zhou Li leading the way.
“I’ll take you to the guest quarters,” Zhou Li said. She defrosted a little during their long walks across the sect—this sect was gigantic and they were keeping a slow pace. When they’d walked past the beautiful garden and one of the woman who were working there, Zhou Li had practically melted.
The woman had waved at them. Zhou Li had grinned back, bright and happy. They’d continued walking, but Zhou Li had been in a much better mood.
“Are you also getting married, Zhou Li?” Ira asked, after having given it some serious thought.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Zhou Li looked back at him. Her lips hooked up into a smile and she said, “I am already married. Her name is Wang Jie, we were accepted into the sect at the same time. We’ve known each other for over two decades now, and she once saved my life on a night hunt. It was absolutely glorious; I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.”
Ira blinked. He glanced at Xiao Wei, who smiled at him when he noticed Ira looking but otherwise appeared uninterested. “She’s a gardener?” Ira then asked. Would it be rude to add how can a gardener save you?
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“Vtf rffwr mbbi,” tf olcjiis rjlv.
He looked back at her, and she was now in the middle of digging in the dirt. Which did seem cool; plants that could kill were obviously the superior plants. Ira imagined that growing them would be a little like raising tigers in the zoo. Only the best caretakers would be able to handle it. Ira approved of this woman that he’d never met.
Zhou Li smiled at him, her eyes glittering at the compliment. Ira enjoyed seeing her so obviously happy; it made his chest feel lighter. It was nice, to see evidence that her life was good and she was enjoying it. Even if it meant that he now had to be on his best behavior to not make problems with her sect.
They arrived at the guest quarters not long after. Zhou Li left them alone to settle in, giving them a weird look when she saw they’d share a room. But she didn’t say anything about it so Ira wouldn’t either.
He liked sleeping with Xiao Wei. Xiao Wei had a lot of fat that made him excessively soft to cuddle with and Ira adored it. In fact, he’d even go so far as to say that Xiao Wei was the most comfortable of Silas’ incarnations to cuddle with. Ever. If there had been a contest, Xiao Wei would have gotten first place, no problem.
“I love cuddling with you,” Ira said. He even added, “You’re my favorite person to cuddle with.”
Xiao Wei turned to him. His eyes were wide, and he bit his bottom lip before he abruptly grinned. “I love cuddling with you as well,” Xiao Wei somberly said, still grinning. He took several steps forward and when he was within arm-reach, stopped. Licking his lips, he asked, “Can I hug you?”
Ira nodded. Instantly, Xiao Wei laughed and picked up Ira, spinning him around in the air. And Ira wasn’t made of stone, okay.
Ira laughed, too.
When he was put down, Ira was dizzy. He swayed on his feet and the only reason he didn’t fall over was because Xiao Wei still held him. Smiling, he pecked Xiao Wei’s cheek and grinned up at the other man.
Xiao Wei scratched his own neck and beamed at him, asking, “What are you gonna do now?”
Ira hummed. He drew closer to Xiao Wei and curled his arms over the man’s. Looking around the large room they’d been given, he said, “I’ll explore.”
He wanted to see those deadly plants.
Turning back to Xiao Wei, he asked, “What about you?”
Xiao Wei leaned his shoulder against Ira’s and answered, “There are some people here that I need to have conversationswith. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll pick you up in the garden on the way back and we can eat dinner together?”
“Yeah,” Ira said and smiled softly. “That’d be nice.”
He got another quick hug in before they split up. While Xiao Wei went to do have his ominous conversations—don’t think that Ira missed the emphasis on that word—Ira retraced the path that Zhou Li had walked to find his way to the garden.
It was gigantic. Even for a sect this big, the garden was still so huge that it was honestly kind of ridiculous. It had an enclosure made of wards and talismans. Multiple people were walking in-between the plants on long, narrow roads that were really just tightly packed earth. Ira didn’t want to try to breach the wards on his own; his insides might become his outsides for all he knew. Instead, he was content to watch the view until somebody noticed him.
It wasn’t Zhou Li’s wife that finally noticed him which was honestly a little disappointing, but the disciple who did would have to do. The young man approached and asked (from the other side of the wards, so he at least wasn’t an idiot), “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to take a look at the garden,” Ira told the man.
The man scowled. “Guests aren’t allowed in here.”
Ira rolled his eyes. He wasn’t an idiot, and he had an unbeatable card. “My fiancé is Li Dawei,” he said, clearly pronouncing Xiao Wei’s name. He wasn’t going to drag Zhou Li’s name into this in case it caused problems for her, but Xiao Wei’s name had enough power anyway.
“Li— You’re Li Dawei’s fiancé?!” the disciple yelped and jumped back. Like Ira could even touch him through the wards.
Ira shrugged. “Are you gonna let me in now?”
“Yea, yes,” the disciple mumbled and did something with a talisman he’d pulled from his sleeve. “You can enter now,” the disciple said.
Ira did. He walked right through the wards and didn’t feel a thing. He couldn’t see anything either; no shimmer in the air like in the movies and tv shows. He wasn’t disappointed, okay. He was just… slightly let down. Slightly.
The garden looked even more amazing from the inside. It seemed bigger, too, every plant having an overwhelming presence. There must be something in the wards that kept it contained and minimized it, but inside, Ira could feel it clear as day. Every plant was bigger now, and rose over him menacingly.
Ira tilted his head back, following the largest plants up to the sky. He gazed at them, taking pictures to show off to his Boss. It felt like he was in a wild jungle, like the plants would come alive at any moment and eat his face.
Oh hey look, those plants had teeth. …. maybe his imagination wasn’t that far off?
“Would you like a tour?” the nameless male disciple, that’d let him in without even verifying that he was who he claimed, asked.
Ira nodded without saying anything.
The disciple guided Ira through the whole garden. They passed many a strange plants, plenty of which bent over and showed Ira their teeth. Most of them were colorful, which Ira cleverly deducted that it meant they were poisonous. His deduction was supported when he touched one and promptly passed out. But it was okay! Nameless male disciple saved him! No lasting damage!
Whew, lucky he wasn’t touring alone. It’d be a pain to get a new body—this world actually had body possessions fairly frequently just by its own denizens and wasn’t too fond of it. He didn’t know if he’d like Zhou Li’s reaction if he switched bodies.
He’d have to tell her at some point what he was really was, since he didn’t like lying about something so fundamental to his nature. It made him feel like there was something wrong about it, and there wasn’t.
And yeah, Hosts weren’t allowed to talk their missions, body possessions and Systems. But Ira wasn’t a Host, he was a highly regarded System. He could do whatever he wanted; this, he’d never lied about. His Boss would probably just be happy that he was making a new friend.
At the end of the tour, Ira got to try planting his own deadly plant. It was fun, trying to get it in the earth without losing a few fingers to those sharp, serrated teeth. Luckily, he was very agile so while he’d lost some blood, he still retained all his appendages when he left the garden. This was for the best; he wasn’t sure how to eat with chopsticks if he lost some fingers.
Spotting Xiao Wei walking toward him from the other side of the path, Ira grinned and sped up. He waved his potted plant above his head; the plant he’d gotten as an apology for the bleeding thing. “Hey,” he called when he was close enough, tucking the plant under his arm.
“Hi,” Xiao Wei shyly grinned and bent down to kiss his cheek. It was a failure; Ira’s new plant almost stole Xiao Wei’s eyes. Ira dunked it in water when they got back to their quarters, as punishment.
Not Ira almost killing a plant
🙃🙂🙃🙂
Bad plant, bad plant
Thank you for the chapter
Thank You for the chapter!! (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤