Chương 215: AFS 2: Strange Flame Strangeness - Part 8 - My Fire is My Cauldron

[Image Link] Chad passed out. Even with a terrible wound in his abdomen and dirt on him from his flight, he still looked like a Chad. At least he wouldn't suffer while asleep. Well, I knew from the original novel that he wasn't the type of person to try to press YaoYao into anything, not unless he was drugged out of his mind. Also, I was surprised Spring didn't attack Chad. He was the protagonist's brother. Usually that archetype for these types of novels were annoying overprotective sis-cons.

Maybe he wasn't one because he would have died by this point in the original novel? Whatever. I pointed my finger at the girl.

"And you, Miss Liu YaoYao. It's time for your lecture." Her eyes grew wide, and she took a step back.

"You realized you'd changed his poison into an aphrodisiac, didn't you?"

"No. Well, I suspected it just now."

"You were going to let him take advantage of you, right?" Her face turned bright pink.

"It wasn't like that." I rolled my eyes.

"Listen, you need to be vocal about your acceptance or denial. If you say 'wait, no,' to pretend to be a demure, good girl but then let him do things to you without fighting back because of your guilt, you do a disservice to every person who said 'no' and meant it." Goddamn Josei authors not letting their protagonists enthusiastically want a physical relationship! Women who weren't ascetic Daoists stuck in a shitty harem Xianxia world had needs too.

If they weren't going to be enthusiastic, then they should leave it out of the fucking story!

"I—""I'm not done yet." I pointed to Prince Chad.

"Even if you had taken responsibility for your mistake in that way, it wouldn't be you doing some kind favor for a friend. You would be taking advantage of him who was so out of it he couldn't give consent." She winced. I scanned Chad with my divine sense to make sure what I read in the book was what was happening here. Oh yeah, he had definitely been poisoned with something... which turned into an aphrodisiac after he consumed the detoxifying soup YaoYao made him.

This was the author trying to be unique, but ended up using the same tired trope that was in a hundred thousand other poorly conceived novels. Well, to the author's credit, in the original, they actually didn't get very far thanks to her making Chad pass out. But what they did do, still left a shadow of trauma on the main character and Chad. In the book, YaoYao almost burned the plants in her family's garden space because she was ashamed of her poor concocting ability that led to the incident.

She eventually decided against that and to instead work harder to improve, but it had been a close call. Then there was fucking Chad. He had felt guilty because he took advantage of Miss Liu, who he always wanted to protect. And it also forced him to finally realize that he liked her in that way. But he thought that he'd caused her to fear him. It took another hundred chapters for them to work through their trauma. Both were fucking ridiculous!

All this could have been avoided if they'd just admitted how they felt and gave each other consent, as long as that physical part was something they both wanted to go through with. Without consent, even a kiss could be considered assault. And assault caused trauma, which wasn't healthy for any relationship. Frankly, that entire forced kiss trope could go fuck off. Fortunately, I'd managed to stop the incident from happening. I ruined the author's stupid word-count-stretching plans! Muahahaha!

Of course, if these two didn't end up together just because there was no forced kiss, then they shouldn't be together in the first place. Making characters romantically involved when they had zero chemistry and didn't like each other romantically was always wrong. It was a sign that an author had little ability to write proper chemistry. Sadly, it seemed to happen far too often in the novels I read in my past-past life.

While I didn't have a ton of personal experience, I knew from watching my original parents and friends that love should come naturally and in a healthy way. It should be filled with joy, laughter, and comfort. At least it should have if the author wanted a true happily ever after. There were, of course, readers and writers who liked dark romances, but that was a niche genre for a reason.

Since Chad was already shirtless, I slapped a new bandage onto his nasty looking wound before taking out the acupuncture needles from my space button that I smuggled into the challenge. I used my spiritual energy to roll him onto his stomach. Next, I stuck them into the prince's back on the acupoints that would keep him asleep, though I didn't trust his SSS constitution to keep him down long. Now, how the hell was I going to cure this guy?

In my past life, I developed several cures for aphrodisiacs, but this wasn't exactly like those. He was experiencing heat due to excess yang and needed a way to expel it... that was g-rated. As the adultiest adult here, I wasn't about to allow Miss Liu to rub her body against his without his sober consent. I scowled and turned to her.

"By the way. This is the interstellar age. If you want physical affection from someone, just politely ask for it."

"What?"

"If you want Chad to hug, you just ask him."

"But, it isn't right to… to… just say that, right?! What kind of girl would do that?" I scowled. Ah! That method might work.

"Get me this list of plants. Because I think this conversation is going to take some time." I quickly wrote a description of each plant I needed and sent it to her light brain. Since Chad and YaoYao would eventually fight the space crab queen together, something I had no interest in, I would help them out this time. I certainly didn't plan to get involved in that particular final boss fight. Being an extra had its perks. She looked over the list, and her eyes went wide. Then they darted to me and Spring.

She looked a little offended and betrayed. Spring shrugged.

"She already knew about the garden."

"And I need these to save Prince Chad." YaoYao nodded and began to pull out plant after plant from seemingly out of nowhere, while Spring distracted the bots. Ah, they recorded me punching the empire's crown prince. I probably needed to find a way to wipe their memory before we returned to HQ. Whatever. I turned to Liu, "Listen. If you have physical needs, you should just say them or your partner won't know what you want. Despite your SSS-rank spiritual energy, no one is psychic in this world." She shook her head.

"That's… I could never!" The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"It's not hard. Here, I'll give you an example." I turned to Spring.

"Hey, come over here." He walked over. I scowled at his height.

"Kiss my forehead, and tell me I did a good job. Of course, you can say no without offending me." I gestured to Spring with both hands as if to say, 'see, it's that easy.' Spring grinned.

"I thought you said, 'ask politely?'""That is polite for me." I narrowed my eyes at him, then turned back to YaoYao.

"Now, answer the question so we can give Miss Liu a good example."

"That wasn't a question, though." I sent the little shit a glare. He grinned as if he'd won, then briefly pressed his lips against my bangs.

"You did good." After that, he had the audacity to mess up my hair before walking back to his sister to help organize plants. That brat! This was incredibly embarrassing. I had assumed he'd say no! This, of course, once again proved that no matter how powerful a cultivator was, they weren't psychic. Proper communication was always necessary! I pressed my hand to my overly warm cheek. Maybe my strange flame was starting to affect me? I should take it out soon so I didn't overheat myself.

[Image Link] I cleared my throat.

"Of course I did good! I'm Fairy Lin!" I straightened my spine and clasped my hands behind my back like the master I was and focused on YaoYao.

"But, as you can see, asking for what you need is that easy. Be brave!" You're the goddamn main character, after all!

"That's… still not something I can do." Her cheeks turned pink. Right, she was like 20 or something. She was barely an adult and, considering the story's country of origin, was probably brought up in a morally conservative household. Maybe also...

"Is this an ask culture versus guess culture thing?" I sighed.

"Did you grow up with people that didn't allow you to ask for things directly because it would be rude?" Her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Listen, you can subtly hint all you want that you like someone, but they might not even realize that's what you're hinting at. There are a lot of truly dense people. Same thing with getting the raises you deserve. If you can't say something directly, you'll lose opportunities. It's weak. Are you weak?" She shook her head.

"No!"

"Then, ask directly. Get hurt or succeed directly. Implying shit can seem polite, but it's weak communication and leaves room for stupid misunderstandings and unrealized possibilities."

"But, what if I ask directly and… they end up despising me?"

"Let them. If voicing a reasonable request with respect makes someone hate you or think less of you, then you dodged a fucking bullet. Cut those assholes from your life." Her eyes grew wide, her cheeks turned pink, and she nodded.

"You… might be right. I'll try to ask for things more directly in the future. But it will take some time before I get there." This main character was starting to look adorable. She also finished pulling out the plants I requested.

"What are you going to do with these?" I grinned. Now that I had a strange flame, I could use the My Fire is My Cauldron mindset technique. It was something I developed after remembering a Manhua with a certain good looking, white-haired, ghost who happened to have mastered alchemy. Of course, in this universe, it ended up being weaker than using a cauldron with an item spirit, so I almost never used it. That said, it got the job done quickly in an emergency.

"Spring, go point Steve and Drebot at something less interesting than me." While I knew me being a cultivator would be exposed eventually, I wanted to avoid the big reveal for as long as possible. Having weirdos lining up to learn from me sounded annoying as fuck.

"Yes, Fairy Lin!" He grabbed Steve and paused for a second. He looked around, confused. Then he held up a finger as if realizing who Drebot was and grabbed the other drone before taking them both for a walk. I examined each spiritual plant with my divine sense to make sure they were good specimens. Once I found no major issues with them, I pulled them over to me using my spiritual energy and had them hover before me. Next, I brought out my new strange flame.

"Time to earn your rent." I used several hand seals to break it up temporarily. It immediately went back into one piece. Goddamn temperamental fuck. If I couldn't separate it... then I could just use its innate wormhole ability. I put a bubble of spiritual energy around each leaf, grass, and nut. Then I ordered the fire to melt each one until they turned into liquid. From there, it created several wormholes and invaded the space of each of the ingredients.

Its yellow fire with blue and yellow lines made the whole thing feel surreal. But what strange flame wasn't? I mentally adjusted the temperature using commands, which was different from how I usually did things but, it was fun to switch things up sometimes. [Image Link] Of course, I kept count the entire time. Once the right ingredient melted, I pulled its bubble over to my hand where the main body of the strange flame was, and melded it with the next bubble of liquid energy.

After putting together 25 ingredients, I used the hand seal to form a batch of pills. The pool of liquid energy compressed into three icy-white semi-translucent pills and dropped into my hand. I put my strange flame back into my soul space. Tch. A normal cauldron would have made a dozen pills with those ingredients. Actually, the correct way to create pills usually took anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours depending on the complexity of the pill.

And in a good enough cauldron, I could make pills at their peak quality. This method took 5 minutes in total, but the maximum quality I could make pills like this would be mid. It left a ton of impurities from the quick melding process. But it was perfect for concocting in an emergency... as long as I had a strange flame. YaoYao's eyes widened.

"You… you really aren't Victoria." I grinned.

"I told you, I'm a changed person. The real Victoria abandoned this world when Chad abandoned her to save you."

"Oh… I—""So, I hope you'll consider working with me in the future. I can help you with that garden of yours and put it to actual use."

"That..." She bit her lip.

"I don't think that will be possible." I scowled.

"Rather than me helping you... I don't want to make another mistake like this again. To make that a reality, I need to become your student! Please teach me!" Ah, why did I have this weird feeling like it was my destiny to teach a protagonist? Whatever. Well, she was Spring's sister. And she did have a massive garden of spiritual plants that I might not get access to otherwise. But this would also be a-whole-nother person I would have to find a cultivation technique for. Fuck it.

I'd learned so many, there was bound to be one or two that worked for her.

"Fine, I'll take you as a student. But let's save Chad and finish this damn challenge first." She nodded.

"What can I do?" With a hand gesture, I pulled the acupuncture needles back to me and had them enter my space button.

"Turn him over." She grabbed his arm and pulled him over.

"So, what pill did you make?" I grinned.

"Oh, this? It's a pill I created on the fly for injured men who are affected by an aphrodisiac. It's called Slow Pure Yin Infusion, Circulation, and Excess Yang Expelling Healing Dan."

"That's... its name?" I shrugged.

"You can't win them all when it comes to naming things." Just look at Japanese light novel titles. I tossed her the pill.

"Go ahead and feed it to him then get him on his back." She quickly did as I asked. I reluctantly placed my hand on his back and used my spiritual energy to circulate the Yin energy. He breathed out the excess yang energy that was one of the main causes of his symptoms. Then I noticed something.

"Huh." She jerked her head toward me.

"What do you mean, 'huh'? In my experience, when someone who deals in medicine says that, it's a bad thing."

"Well, when yin and yang combine, there are two possible reactions." She nodded while biting her lip.

"One is that they cancel each other out."

"What's the other one?"

"Energy explosion." Chad's body began to light up and his veins bulged. He groaned. YaoYao's face turned white.

"Did we just kill Prince Chad?" I smiled.

"You fed him the pill, so you're an accomplice!" [Image Link]